Adventure – Bitch Flicks

‘Fanny Pack’: An Indian American Woman Pursues Her Dreams in Woman-Directed Short Film

Directed by Uttera Singh, “traditional values and modern dreams collide in this comedy about a young Indian-American woman who attempts to elude her fanny pack-clad father and board a plane in pursuit of a less conventional future. The film was inspired by the filmmaker’s own experiences of traveling in the U.S. as a recent citizen.”

Fanny Pack is a short film directed by Uttera Singh, which she made at USC. It’s also one of the premiere short films for the fifth season of Film School Shorts. The principal cast includes Dorothy Blue, Jerilyn Clayton, and Brian George.

ABOUT FANNY PACK:
“Traditional values and modern dreams collide in this comedy about a young Indian-American woman who attempts to elude her fanny pack-clad father and board a plane in pursuit of a less conventional future. The film was inspired by the filmmaker’s own experiences of traveling in the U.S. as a recent citizen.”

“When you’re brown, airports are a fun family activity,” says Singh, “My family has been stopped at airports more frequently than I can remember.”

ABOUT UTTERA SINGH:
“Drama has always been a part of Uttera Singh’s life. On the day she was born, her mother, who was nine months pregnant, was hit by a firecracker, and her father rescued her and rushed her to the hospital to deliver the baby. That’s how Uttera — a real life firecracker — was born and that same fiery spirit is still very much alive in her. Uttera is a 2016 MFA graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts. She is a recipient of one of the first ever Ryan Murphy Diversity Fellowships and just finished directing her thesis film, Fanny Pack starring Brian George (Big Bang Theory, Seinfeld), a proof of concept for a half-hour TV show. Her one-woman show “Indian Lady Shakespeare wears Underwear” is set to premiere in Los Angeles in the fall of 2016. While still attending USC, Uttera was chosen as one of the directors on the USC/James Franco feature film Mad Whale starring Camilla Belle, Dominic Rains, Summer Phoenix, and James Franco. Uttera lives in Los Angeles. She spends her time going on adventures and then writing about them.”

You can follow Uttera Singh on Twitter @uttera. Filmmaker bio and film description courtesy of Film School Shorts.

ABOUT FILM SCHOOL SHORTS AND KQED:

“Film School Shorts is a national half-hour weekly series that showcases short student films from across the country. Each week, viewers can watch well-crafted films with high production values, strong dialogue and riveting drama. Grouped together around a central theme or topic, and featuring production values that rival their indie film counterparts, KQED is proud to present award winning entertainment to a national audience. Featured are the best short films from major institutions like NYU, Columbia University, UCLA, USC, and University of Texas that have wowed audiences at Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, Telluride, and SXSW.”

“KQED serves the people of Northern California with a public-supported alternative to commercial media. An NPR and PBS affiliate based in San Francisco, KQED is home to one of the most listened-to public radio stations in the nation, one of the highest-rated public television services and an award-winning education program helping students and educators thrive in 21st-century classrooms. A trusted news source and leader and innovator in interactive technology, KQED takes people of all ages on journeys of exploration — exposing them to new people, places and ideas.”

Caitlin Snow: It’s Time to Give ‘The Flash’s Overlooked Heroine Her Due

The decision to continually depict Caitlin as afraid of herself and her abilities is unsettling. Women are almost always taught to fear their own power, instead of embracing it or attempting to understand it. It’s sad to see that pattern repeating on a show that has so few leading women in the first place. … Caitlin’s journey shouldn’t be about whether she might turn into a monster, it should be about her becoming whole.

This guest post is written by Lacy Baugher.

There’s so much that The Flash does right. It’s probably the best example of a superhero series on TV right now, featuring fun stories, surprising twists, and strong, compelling relationships between its lead characters. It’s a joy to watch, most of the time. It has a ton of heart, and it generally remembers the most important thing about superhero stories: They’re supposed to be about hope. But for all the great things about it, The Flash has never particularly handled women well.

The show’s issues with how the writers have written superhero Barry Allen’s (Grant Gustin) girlfriend Iris West (Candice Patton) are already well documented elsewhere. She’s been frequently ignored in major stories, lied to by everyone she knows, and was the absolute last person to find out Barry’s secret identity. As a character, Iris has definitely had it pretty rough. But the way that The Flash often chooses to portray its other female lead is just as frustrating, and discussed far less frequently. Caitlin Snow has never gotten the storyline or attention she deserves, and it is well past time for that to change.

Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) is a brilliant doctor, a loyal friend and an integral part of Team Flash. She is brave, resourceful, and much more capable than she gets credit for; she’s been working to keep Central City safe since the show started, often at great personal sacrifice. Despite all this, she’s still the main character we know the least about, both on a personal and emotional level. The Flash is primarily about Barry Allen’s journey, so it makes sense that the show often prioritizes exploring his various levels of man pain. But we also get plenty of Joe’s man pain. And Cisco’s. And Wally’s. It’s possible this show has actually fleshed out more of recurring sometime-villain Leonard Snart’s inner life than they have Caitlin’s. And she’s one of the show’s female leads!

Instead, The Flash has struggled to give Caitlin any kind of storyline that isn’t somehow focused on the man in her life. She spent the better part of two seasons stuck in stories that almost solely revolved around her romantic relationship. Since the men in her life keep dying or disappearing, Caitlin has been trapped in a constant Greek tragedy of grief, as she’s buried or mourned two different love interests. When we first meet her, Caitlin is coping with the death of her fiancé Ronnie Raymond (Robbie Amell), killed during the particle accelerator explosion that kicked off the TV series. So, as viewers, we’ve actually never known Caitlin when she wasn’t shadowed by some terrible loss.

Of course, it turns out that Ronnie isn’t actually dead, and Caitlin’s season one storyline is focused on finding him, helping him, and then marrying him at the end of it. All of her actions and motivations are tied to him. When Ronnie dies again after their wedding, Caitlin is plunged back into her default state: grief. In season two, she was given another love interest, a Flash from an alternate version of Earth named Jay Garrick (Teddy Sears). Caitlin’s entire season two storyline revolved around Jay — helping him adjust to our Earth, searching for a cure for his mysterious speed illness, and falling in love with him. Sound familiar? It was. At least until Jay was revealed to be evil metahuman Zoom (voiced by Tony Todd), who then kidnapped Caitlin and held her hostage for multiple episodes, trying to force her to romantically accept him. Seriously, this girl cannot catch a break.

For a real sense of how Caitlin has been underused in virtually every way, compare her development to Cisco’s. Introduced at the same time as Caitlin, Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) was also a brilliant S.T.A.R. Labs employee. In the two and a half seasons since The Flash began, we have learned plenty about him beyond that, however. Cisco is a fully developed character with dreams, quirks, and fears. We learned about his childhood and met some of his family. He went on a season-long journey to discover and accept his powers as a metahuman. And while he has had a couple of romantic interests along the way, Cisco’s story has never been defined by them in nearly the same ways that Caitlin’s romantic relationships have defined her. We have learned little about her family, her past, or her personal desires, beyond how they connected to the man she was involved with at the time. On the rare occasions Caitlin got to be involved in a story that wasn’t about Ronnie or Jay, she was usually stuck taking care of one of the other Team Flash members who injured themselves in some way.

Until now.

Thanks to Barry’s creation of the alternate reality “Flashpoint,” Caitlin Snow has been transformed into a version of her comic book alter ego, the villainous Killer Frost. A metahuman with the power to manipulate frozen air, we have already seen one version of this character on The Flash, in the same alternate version of Earth that brought us Jay Garrick. In our reality, Caitlin’s powers slowly manifested themselves over time and she kept them hidden from her teammates out of fear that “Killer Frost” would take over against her will. Caitlin very clearly does not want to be like her evil self from Earth-2; she’s quite worried that she might hurt others with her abilities. In fact, Caitlin seems pretty determined to contain or, if possible, get rid of her powers, and is actively working toward both of those goals.

Theoretically, the Killer Frost twist should be a great development for Caitlin’s character, and in many ways it is. For the first time on The Flash, she has a story arc that is solely about her. Even though the writers have shoved yet another boyfriend in her plotline, Julian (Tom Felton) is very clearly a secondary feature in her story. (In fact, you could argue she’s only involved with him because she thinks he might be able to “cure” her.) Which is fantastic. Because it means that Caitlin finally gets the chance to be a real, three-dimensional person. Her behavior is wonderfully human; she’s selfish and aggravating and makes a lot of poor decisions. Her actions – bringing Julian on to the team, stealing a piece of the Philospher’s Stone – are incredibly self-serving. She’s lied and she’s manipulated people and she’s kept secrets. In short, Caitlin’s kind of a mess right now. And it’s awesome. We’ve never really gotten the chance to see her character like this before.

Unfortunately, The Flash has yet to really embrace the full potential of a metahuman Caitlin. While there were initial hints that she might learn to control her abilities and still maintain her sense of self, the show has recently doubled down on the idea that Caitlin deeply fears her powers. And she kind of has good reason to – because if she uses them, she basically becomes evil; not just a darker version of herself, which would be kind of interesting in its own right. No, instead, Caitlin basically just turns into Earth-2’s Killer Frost. It’s like she’s getting body snatched by someone from another universe. It appears as though she loses her real self completely.

This is problematic on multiple levels. For starters, no one else on The Flash is affected by their powers in a way that alters their core character in this way and there’s been no clear explanation as to why. (After all, Cisco’s Earth-2 doppelganger was also pretty evil. And he’s still fine whenever he “vibes” something.) Plus, the decision to continually depict Caitlin as afraid of herself and her abilities is unsettling. Women are almost always taught to fear their own power, instead of embracing it or attempting to understand it. It’s sad to see that pattern repeating on a show that has so few leading women in the first place.

Caitlin’s journey – whether she ultimately keeps her powers or not – should be about figuring where she fits within Team Flash, within her family, and within her own idea of herself. We have seen Caitlin unnerved by the darkness inside her. She has issues with her mother and even occasionally with members of her own team. She’s certainly lost enough to want to burn the world down twice over. But she’s never really gotten the chance to deal with any of those issues on-screen in a significant way. This Killer Frost arc offers a perfect opportunity for her to finally do so. Caitlin’s journey shouldn’t be about whether she might turn into a monster, it should be about her becoming whole.

While Caitlin has currently become her evil alter ego – a near-death experience necessitated using her ice powers to save her life – it seems unlikely that The Flash will turn her into a full-fledged villain for keeps. (Especially since we’ve already seen evidence that Caitlin is capable of controlling her abilities herself.) Whether this means she will ultimately lose her powers or come to accept them remains unclear. Maybe Julian will find a metahuman “cure.” Maybe Caitlin will end up fighting beside Barry, after she comes back to herself. Maybe Killer Frost really is here to stay. This story could go a lot of ways. But, no matter what happens, it should be about the person that Caitlin herself chooses to be. And The Flash needs to be brave enough to tell the kind of story that gives her that choice.

Lacy Baugher is a digital media strategist by day, and a lover of all things geeky all of the time. Her major interests include British period dramas, complex ladies in superhero stories, and the righteousness of Sansa Stark’s destiny as Queen of the North. Stop by and say hello on Twitter at @LacyMB.

‘The Revenant’ Should Be Left in the River to Drown

Don’t believe the hype. You have been conned. ‘The Revenant’ is a terrible film. … The second galling part of the film is its abhorrent treatment of Native peoples. It is at best mediocre, at worst condescending, and at all times unremarkable lazy recycled fodder. Almost every time Hugh has an interaction with a Native American person, they meet with disaster. … Can we see this whole movie from the Arikara tribe’s perspective? From Powaqa’s perspective? That would be an actual game changer.

This guest post written by Celey Schumer appears as part of our theme week on Unpopular Opinions.

[Trigger warning: discussion of rape and sexual assault]

Don’t believe the hype. You have been conned. The Revenant is a terrible film. And what’s more insulting is that it’s not even a new version of terrible; it’s been-there-done-that tale-as-old-as-time terrible. It’s Dances with Wolves meets Kill Bill in the White Walker woods without the badass female protagonist. You know why EVERYONE who worked on The Revenant (directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu) kept saying how HARD it was to make? How the harsh conditions were frigid, demanding, and grueling? This was to distract you from the fact that there was nothing else to talk about.

This white-man-against-all-odds tale of revenge has been told so many times, even Michael Bay is probably like, “Eh, can’t we find something more original?” The whole team wanted you to think the film was groundbreaking. They wanted you entering the theatre knowing all of these outlandish background stories of wading in freezing rivers and Leonardo DiCaprio the vegetarian eating a real bison liver because those stories swirling in your mind would prevent you from thinking, “Wait, why the fuck do I even care about this guy?” And on an elitist actor note, putting yourself in danger, and disgusting your body to the brink of repulsion is not, exactly, acting. Yes, bending your circumstances and “real world” experiences and research are essential to the craft. But the craft is, at its core, living truthfully under imagined circumstances. You don’t really have sex and you don’t really murder people, but actors pretend those characters and situations all the time. I’m not sitting here and awarding you gold stars for eating real liver and then jaw-clench screaming for 2 hours.

You know why people like The Revenant? Because the cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki is gorgeous. Really. When the film focuses on the glorious and unforgiving landscape, it is a beautiful sight. Its highest calling is probably being a screensaver for a graphic designer named Theil in Portland. And I know, claiming the critic darling that finally won Leo his Oscar is terrible (who robbed an un-nominated Idris Elba, but I digress) and is certainly a thrown gauntlet. But I stand behind that gauntlet, and this is the most boring zombie movie of all time.

Why is it a zombie movie? Because Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio), aka the Land Lover, SHOULD BE DEAD. Yes, I know it’s based on real events, and to that I say, PSHAW. “Based on real events” covers a thousand half-truths. For a movie ostensibly obsessed with authenticity, the simple fact that Hugh Glass survives past minute 28 is utterly ridiculous. Here is a (not exhaustive) list of things Glass’ character has absolutely no business surviving: a full on bear attack; woodland “surgery”; being buried alive (Really? No dirt infection?); swimming in a BEAR SKIN (that MUST weigh upwards of 50lbs when wet) in a FREEZING turbulent river with a gaping neck wound; cauterizing said neck wound with gunpowder; swimming in the freezing river again (Really? No hypothermia? A tiny 3-log fire warms him and dries his bearskin? His body fights off all the infections? No blood poisoning? No missing toes?); falling with a horse into a pine-tree and then to the bottom of the pine-tree ravine; spending a sub-zero night inside the horse Tauntaun style… I could go on.

“But it’s a MOVIE!” you cry. “It’s supposed to be sensational.” Shove it. Fast and the Furious is supposed to be sensational. This sold me a bill of goods claiming realism and grit and the power of nature and honesty, and gave me instead a revenge-driven snow-zombie.

The second galling part of the film is its abhorrent treatment of Native peoples. It is at best mediocre, at worst condescending, and at all times unremarkable lazy recycled fodder. Almost every time Hugh has an interaction with a Native American person, they meet with disaster. Honestly, Chief Elk Dog (Duane Howard) and his men are the only ones operating with their own agency and justice in their quest to rescue his kidnapped daughter, Powaqa (Melaw Nakehk’o). But we hardly see them and are left to infer all of this information, until of course Hugh the White Man comes to Powaqa’s rescue. The only two even partially developed Native characters are Hugh’s son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), and the wandering gent Hikuc (Arthur Redcloud) — whose name you never learn, I had to IMDb it — with whom Hugh shares the bloody snack carcass and a rollicking night of tongue-snowflake catching.

Hawk is killed early in the film (after Hugh is not killed by the bear) because he sees the half-scalped John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) trying to smother his father. Glass sees Fitzgerald murder his son but he’s so injured that he can’t do anything (maybe he’s tied to the stretcher, hard to tell) even though he has the strength to literally drag himself from a grave a few hours later. So, revenge for his son’s death inspires Hugh’s entire life from that point forward; it’s problematic to see Native characters fridged to propel the narrative of a white man. Hikuc offers Hugh shelter, food, and a dollop of friendship before he is later found hanging from a tree. Really? The film had to kill Hikuc? Why? To prove this land is brutal? Hugh was buried alive, his son was killed by a man who escaped his own scalping, and he’s performing self-surgery with gunpowder. We get that it’s brutal.

Even lazier than the film’s treatment of Native peoples — and even less surprising, as this is supposedly a “guy’s movie” made by guys being cool guys — is its treatment of women. There are 3 women on-screen in the entire 156-minute film. Not 3 female characters. 3 women. Ever. I scanned the entire IMDb page and included the extras. Powaqa is probably the most significant female character, as Hugh rescues her after being raped by French trappers. Unfortunately, this is historically accurate as many Native women were raped by white men, yet the film still perpetuates the same old white savior shit. Powaqa does get to exact her own revenge, and then we see her later reunited with her people. Can we see this whole movie from the Arikara tribe’s perspective? From Powaqa’s perspective? That would be an actual game changer.

The second woman on-screen is Hugh’s wife (Grace Dove), credited only as “Wife of Hugh Glass” who is brutally murdered along with most of the rest of her village and people (minus Leo and Hawk), and is seen only in dream flashbacks. He never speaks of her, neither does her son, and her entire narrative purpose is pretty much to make you think Hugh is a good guy and also, in case you weren’t sure yet, the West was really fucking brutal. The last woman is simply “Crying Arikara Woman.” I’ve seen the film twice and don’t even remember her.

In the smallest of silver linings, at least the actors playing Hawk, Hikuc, Powaqa, Chief Elk Dog, Hugh’s wife, and the rest of the Arikara are actual Indigenous actors and not whitewashed roles. Really though, the only true achievement of The Revenant (besides its gorgeous cinematography) has been the awareness and activism it helped bolster. DiCaprio’s Oscar acceptance speech, and subsequent environmental activism (which he has advocated for years now but has gained more pop-culture traction because of the buzz surrounding the film) have been hugely beneficial for many causes important to Native peoples as well as our teetering climate. Stars like DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, and Shailene Woodley have protested alongside Native people and raised awareness for the Standing Rock water crisis. For my money, you can have an Oscar for that. It’s a far greater accomplishment than most things we put on-screen.

Yet, wonderful as this activism may be, it does not make a good film. Nor does it justify the problematic depiction of Native peoples on-screen. In fact, the noble aspirations of the filmmakers — which they screamed about constantly, every chance they got — make the lazy and decidedly NOT groundbreaking treatment of Native peoples even more disappointing. Why NOT develop those characters? Why not allow them their own independent storylines? Hell, why not make a movie honestly and genuinely from a Native person’s perspective? “Because this was Leo’s passion project, a vehicle to finally win his Oscar,” you’ll say. And I will respond, “Of course it was. It also sucked.”

Celey Schumer is an actress, comedian, and writer. She is embarrassingly good at Harry Potter and Friends trivia. Her degrees in physics (Middlebury College) and structural engineering (University of Washington) look very impressive while they collect dust. She was definitely not eating chocolate as she wrote this. You can follow her on Twitter @CeleySchumer.

How ‘Captain America: Civil War’ Crystallizes the Problems with Marvel Movies

I realized that while I had ultimately enjoyed ‘Captain America: Civil War,’ it exemplified the worst tendency of the Marvel Cinematic Universe — namely, the avoidance of dramatic risk and legitimate emotional stakes in order to create and maintain a sense of delight and entertaining status quo.

This guest post written by Deborah Krieger appears as part of our theme week on Unpopular Opinions. | Spoilers ahead.

Recently I was discussing Captain America: Civil War with a friend, when he brought up the treatment of the character of T’Challa in the narrative of the film. Namely, he pointed out that the three Black male characters in the film — James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), and T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) — all serve comic relief purposes, fulfilling the stereotype of the wisecracking Black best friend. While I acknowledged that Rhodey and Sam — especially Sam — bore traces of this characterization, I was surprised that he viewed T’Challa in the same vein. After seeing the film, one of the aspects that stood out for me was Chadwick Boseman’s performance as the Black Panther, and how it brought an unexpected gravity to the proceedings of the film, and in a sense, he had the most complete character arc and greatest sense of closure in the film. Yet the more I thought about what my friend had pointed out, the more I realized that he was ultimately right: while some characters treated T’Challa with the respect his role as the King of Wakanda required (namely, Natasha), for the most part, he was a bit of a sore thumb in the way he interacted with the other characters, and tonally did not fit within the overall atmosphere of Captain America: Civil War.

Continuing this line of thought, I realized that while I had ultimately enjoyed Captain America: Civil War, it exemplified the worst tendency of the Marvel Cinematic Universe — namely, the avoidance of dramatic risk and legitimate emotional stakes in order to create and maintain a sense of delight and entertaining status quo. Upon seeing the highly-overrated Doctor Strange earlier this fall, this assessment was ultimately cemented, but I want to focus specifically on the faults of Captain America: Civil War in terms of how the Marvel Cinematic Universe plays it safe to a fault, and how the film suffers as a result.

Insufficient Stakes

When I was developing my argument for this piece, I kept coming back to the incredible commentary by my favorite film writer, Film Crit Hulk (I’m totally serious) about Star Wars: The Force Awakens. In particular, Film Crit Hulk says of The Force Awakens (de-capitalized for easier reading):

“When discussing the film J.J. openly admitted that there was a popular mantra they used while crafting The Force Awakens, where they would stop frequently and ask themselves:

‘Is this delightful?’

“Which Hulk can certainly understand, for there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to be delightful, nor with an audience wanting to consume something delightful… But boy howdy did the filmmakers go full-tilt in that aim and that aim alone. To the point that it seems they looked at every moment and worked backwards from the intended result.

“… And they never, ever cared if it was earned.”

When thinking about Captain America: Civil War, Film Crit Hulk’s point kept coming back to me as something that made a lot of sense about certain sequences in the movie; in particular, the much-vaunted (and extremely well-paced and choreographed) tarmac fight, when Team Cap and Team Iron Man are assembled and deliver the big fight every trailer and poster for this film promised. And it certainly is “delightful” to watch how smaller clusters within each team branch off to fight one another at varying points, how the action cuts deftly and swiftly from moment to moment: Bucky (Sebastian Stan) and Sam tackling the excitable, downright naive Peter Parker (Tom Holland) inside the terminal; Clint (Jeremy Renner) fighting both T’Challa and Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) at various points with both quips and arrows; Scott (Paul Rudd) flitting around inside Tony’s (Robert Downey Jr.) suit in his ant-size form, et cetera. Yet what should be an actual dramatic and tense sequence is undermined by the need for nearly every character to make jokes and self-referential comments, and as a result, we really don’t care what happens in this fight until Rhodes ends up its only true victim (more on that aspect later). Clint and Natasha’s exchange during the fight perfectly exemplifies the total lack of stakes:

NATASHA: “We’re still friends, rights?”

CLINT: “Depends how hard you hit me.”

Where is the danger for these two clearly-established fast friends who find themselves on opposite sides of an incredibly important and divisive conflict? Why isn’t there any risk or sense of worry that this issue might tear them apart? Even the immediate lead-up to this ultimate showdown is lacking in actual drama, opting instead to pander to the audience expectations that this scene is going to be cool and fun, which it really, really shouldn’t be. The half-hearted delivery of Steve’s (Chris Evans) attempt to convince Tony that Bucky was framed actually demonstrates a poor acting choice by Evans, and fails to match Robert Downey Jr.’s evident pain and desperation in trying to convince Steve to back down one last time.

Over the course of the fight, I kept finding myself “delighted,” to use J.J. Abrams’ word, but I wasn’t actually concerned that any of the characters were going to become a casualty of this conflict. Indeed, this entire sequence logically doesn’t even need to exist: Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen), who has telekinetic powers, could have used her gift to freeze Team Iron Man in place, allowing Steve and Bucky to get to the jet while the rest of Team Cap handled Vision (Paul Bettany), whose powers (and personality) still don’t really have much definition. In order to satisfy the studio and fan demands for this ultimate Avenger versus Avenger fight, it seems, internal continuity and danger had to exit the equation.

Character (or Lack Thereof) Issues

In Marvel’s infinite quest to match and best DC films, what once was going to be a proper sequel to Captain America: The Winter Soldier (still the best MCU film) was turned into a superhero-vs-superhero film, likely to compete with the then-upcoming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The film added more and more characters and gave them each important little moments of characterization and interaction, but managed to, as many have pointed out, turn Civil War into an Avengers story rather than a Captain America one. So while Civil War has been rightfully praised for introducing T’Challa and the third iteration of Peter Parker, it ultimately gave Steve’s and Bucky’s story short shrift, as well as Peggy Carter’s (Haley Atwell) passing and really anything to do with Sam Wilson — and let’s not forget Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp), sadly reduced to a love interest, replete with a kiss absolutely no one in the theater was rooting for when I saw it. According to Emily VanCamp, the characters would spend Civil War “getting to know each other” — but what we got was a kiss that was totally unearned and completely lacking in chemistry, simply because we didn’t get much of Sharon and Steve getting to know one another. Additionally, the comics have turned Steve into a deep-cover Hydra agent and Steve has had more chemistry over the films with Bucky, Sam, or Tony, and it ultimately leaves a bad taste in my mouth: Marvel is more okay with having a Nazi Cap than a potentially bisexual Cap (who makes out with his old love interest’s niece for good measure).

Furthermore, Civil War does its titular hero a disservice by focusing so much on Tony Stark and his emotional journey at the cost of Steve’s own development. Take the crucial scene in which Tony learns that Bucky killed his parents. Somehow in Steve’s journey chasing down Bucky, he learned, off-screen, that Bucky killed his old friend Howard and Tony’s mother Maria. But we are robbed of Steve’s reaction to this news, as the film completely shifts its focus to how this secret affects Tony. When, exactly, did Steve learn this terrible truth, and when did he decide to keep it from Tony? It is, frankly, a lazy writing solution to what could have been a much more affecting climax of the film: say, for instance, that Tony and Steve both see the video of Bucky killing the Starks at the same time. Then not only would we get a glimpse at how Steve, the title character of this movie, must choose between defending Bucky or standing with Tony; additionally, if Steve and Tony find out at the same time, but Steve still chooses Bucky, that would have actually been more much more dramatic and affecting, because it would have allowed Steve to have to make this choice — this choice that defines the whole conflict of the film. Tony would still have been completely heartbroken and upset beyond all reason, but at Steve’s failure to choose his side rather than some off-screen moment where Steve decided not to tell Tony this truth we never saw Steve actually learn properly. But it seems that after the tarmac fight, Captain America: Civil War becomes, essentially, Iron Man 4, and forgets who its actual protagonist is.

The friend with whom I discussed T’Challa, and who ultimately prompted this essay, made this salient point about the way Captain America: Civil War: “His behavior played out tropes of this exotic figure doing strange/elusive things in a way that makes audiences entertained.” He also had this further general critique of the Black characters in Civil War as a whole: “The three Black characters are heavily reduced to comic functions.” These critiques are important: T’Challa’s seriousness and lack of witty quips at times makes him out to be from a different film entirely, occasionally framing him and his determined attitude as humorous, and the shroud of mystery around the whole character could be seen as an exoticizing touch. But the larger problem with the Black characters in this movie can be seen in the storylines (or lack thereof) of Sam Wilson and James Rhodes.

At least T’Challa has his own narrative and character arc; Sam, introduced in The Winter Soldier as a thoughtful ex-soldier who shares the pain of loss and the uselessness of civilian life with Steve, is in this movie to support Steve and make funny jokes the entire time, playing into the trope of the wisecracking Black sidekick friend (see: Frozone in The Incredibles). In a world in which the third Captain America movie didn’t have the Civil War plotline, we might have actually learned a little more about Sam Wilson, and his admittedly-entertaining antagonistic buddy relationship with Bucky would have had more prominence. But Sam is one of the characters from the Cap side of things, as are Bucky and Steve himself, who loses out by following this plotline.

Rhodey also performs the wisecracking friend role for Tony Stark, but also is the sole casualty of the tarmac battle — he is partially paralyzed — which is used not to develop Rhodey’s character or even give him something to do, but to create pain for Tony and incentive for him to stop Steve. Indeed, Sam’s involvement in Rhodey’s injury might have given both of these characters something more to chew on, as Sam lost his best friend to a similar kind of accident, but instead of focusing on this kind of aftermath, Rhodey’s suffering functions as motivation for Tony, who already has three-plus movies full of development and action. Where was the thematic parallel between Rhodey and Bucky, who both have military experience, similar ride-or-die relationships with their marquee-name best friends, and are both named “James”? (Where was the “Martha” moment in the final battle?!)

Lastly, the lack of an existing friendship between Steve and Tony for Civil War to destroy, makes the fact that these two square off not exactly emotionally fraught. After all, Tony and Steve, in the context of the MCU, have never actually been good friends, spending most of their interactions in the Avengers movies bickering and clashing with one another. While many fans read into these moments in shippy ways, textually, there’s no weight to Tony’s “so was I” comment: they never actually seemed to like each other, which is largely due to mischaracterization in both Avengers films, courtesy of Joss Whedon. But somehow X-Men: First Class managed to create an incredibly significant and loving friendship between Erik and Charles in just one film, only to exhaust audiences’ tear ducts at the end of the movie. But the lack of care taken with developing the rapport between Tony and Steve means that their falling-out just repeats earlier conflicts between these two, rather than actually creating something meaningful and sad.

Also, there are three women in this film with any significant screen time and they are all white. Although Florence Kasumba, as a member of the Dora Milaje, is a scene-stealer delivering the line, “Move or you will be moved.” Does Captain America: Civil War even pass the Bechdel test? Does Wanda’s and Natasha’s brief exchange about undercover work on the Lagos mission even count? Why doesn’t Natasha get more to do as Steve’s other new close friend??

Tone Problems, and What They Mean for the Future of the MCU

After a string of uniformly successful films, Marvel now has a massive problem as it plans to (hopefully) retire Steve and Tony and introduce new heroes like Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and Doctor Strange. Namely, there’s so little tone variation among characters and films that when serious characters like Black Panther are introduced, they stick out like sore thumbs. With the exception of Black Panther and Tony, Steve, and maybe Natasha, pretty much every character in Civil War is the comic relief, particularly Peter and Scott, but also Clint and Vision. Nearly every single character in these movies has the same habit of throwing out one-liners in the middle of fight scenes, mingled with references to popular culture that will probably get dated in ten years. (Doctor Strange, which relies on Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) referencing Adele and Beyoncé, is a particularly bad offender). There isn’t any sense of trying to create a story that will stand on its own merits. Instead, people come out remembering the jokes and how cool the battles were; a trend that is generally true for all MCU films (especially Avengers, Ant-Man, and Thor). In contrast, Fox Studios’ X-Men movies, X-Men and X2: X-Men United, focus on characterization and the place of mutants within society and still hold up over a decade later. The scene in X2 where Bobby’s mutant “coming-out” scene poignantly resembles a painful coming out of the closet for LGBTQ people, and so it actually matters. Who is going to remember Ant-Man in ten years, despite Paul Rudd being a national treasure worthy of protection by Nic Cage?

In short, while Captain America: Civil War, is a competent, largely well-acted film, it’s far enough in the studio mold of the MCU that it is a major example of where the cracks are beginning to show. It presents the MCU with a major decision to make: will the next phase take T’Challa as its cue and focus on narratives with a more dramatic, serious tone, or will they all be light, pseudo-intellectual Doctor Strange clones (who is in turn a knockoff of Tony Stark in these movies)? “With great power comes great responsibility,” and with the cultural cachet and economic influence of the MCU, they arguably have the responsibility to do better.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Scarlet Witch and Kitty Pryde: Erased Jewish Superheroines

Why Black Widow Is the “Realest” Superheroine of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Yes, Even After All Those Tropes)

Why Scarlet Witch May Be the Future of Women in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Deborah Krieger is a senior at Swarthmore College, studying art history, film and media studies, and German. She has written for Hyperallergic, Hooligan Magazine, the Northwestern Art Review, The Stake, and Title Magazine. She also runs her own art blog, I On the Arts, and curates her life in pictures @Debonthearts on Instagram.

Privilege Undermines Disney’s ‘Gargoyles’ Attempts to Explore Oppression

Yet ‘Gargoyles’ is also a fantastic showcase of what can happen when creators possessing privilege write stories about the oppressed without their input. … ‘Gargoyles,’ with its “protecting a world that hates and fears them and has been fairly successful in enacting their global genocide” premise, seeks to be about marginalized peoples. At the same time, it consistently centers and prioritizes the lives of the privileged over those of the oppressed, and places the burden of obtaining justice on the latter.

This guest post written by Ian Pérez appears as part of our theme week on Unpopular Opinions.

[Trigger Warning: Discussion of allegorical rape]

The Disney animated series Gargoyles, created by Greg Weisman (The Spectacular Spider-Man, Young Justice) is often noted for being progressive in an industry that often was even less so than it is now. Debuting in 1994, it expressed this primarily via its co-protagonist Elisa Maza (Salli Richardson-Whitfield), the Black, Native detective for the NYPD who served as the secret-keeper, partner, best friend, and love interest to gargoyle-out-of-time Goliath (Keith David) decades before Sleepy Hollow raised our hopes and shattered our hearts with Abbie Mills.

Elisa wasn’t just a fantastic character in her own right, although she certainly was that. A large part of what made her special was that she was not dropped into the world of Gargoyles alone and contextless to be an accent in a white narrative. She has a family, whose members all take part in the story — her father, Peter (Michael Horse), who belongs to the Hopi nation and like Elisa works for the NYPD; Diane (Nichelle Nichols), her mother, an academic who we eventually see in Nigeria, connecting with her roots; and siblings Derek (Rocky Carroll), who flies helicopters for the NYPD (being a cop is in the Maza blood) and Beth, off in college. In short, thought was placed into this. While Elisa was not conceptualized with her canonical heritage in mind, once established, the writers did not shy away from it, and it seems on its own like solid evidence that Weisman, to some degree, gets the importance of diversity and inclusivity.

Yet Gargoyles is also a fantastic showcase of what can happen when creators possessing privilege write stories about the oppressed without their input. Weisman and his staff had good intentions, and yet that didn’t stop them from writing “Heritage,” a perennial contender for the award of Most Racist Story That Tried Not to Be Racist (Television). In the episode, Elisa essentially tells the chief of a failing First Nation village, whom she’s only just met, that he’s performing his identity wrong, and is proven correct by the narrative. While that episode is an outlier, it is not alone — despite the show’s attempts to be about oppression and about being the Other, it falls down in multiple and consistent ways featuring more than one episode where the message they wish to send is not the message they are actually sending.

The first of these episodes is “Revelations,” an episode focusing on Matt Bluestone (Tom Wilson), who is Elisa’s partner on the force and a white man. A conspiracy theorist, his private investigation into the Illuminati society leads him to discover that Elisa has been lying to him as part of her attempts to keep the gargoyles’ existence from him. Incensed, he one night insists on driving Elisa’s car (something she normally never allows) and then threatens to send it careening over a cliff with them in it unless she tells him the truth. The gambit works and Elisa not only spills, but actually apologizes for keeping the secret. Matt apologizes for threatening her and the episode acts as if the two offenses were somehow equivalent, and as if both characters are equally worthy of sympathy.

It’s entirely possible Matt’s threat was just a bluff, that Elisa was never really in danger; she takes control before tragedy can strike, so we can’t know. It doesn’t really matter; he threatened her. The way the episode shoves it under the rug indicates that his concerns, priorities, and feelings are more important than Elisa’s. Matt doesn’t need to accept Elisa’s secret-keeping, despite the fact that she has every right to keep secrets from him; Elisa will have to accept that she’s partners with a man who feels entitled to threaten her, and the show won’t even allow her to be uncomfortable or fearful about it. She just has to be the better person and forgive him.

This sort of false equivalency is part of a pattern for Gargoyles. Elisa is just as bad as Matt because she kept a secret. As seen in the episode “Shadows of the Past,” the would-be ally and actual traitor responsible for the death of Goliath’s clan gets to move on to the afterlife because he saved Goliath that one time, minutes after abandoning his own attempts to kill the gargoyle.

In another storyline, a rapist gets to get back together with his ex because he feels really, really bad about raping her. Okay, so it’s not technically rape, although there are certainly enough parallels in “Mark of the Panther” to make the comparison inevitable. The episode focuses on Tea (Roxanne Beckford), a Nigerian villager who breaks up with her boyfriend Fara Maku (Don Reed) because she wishes to start a new life in the capital. Consequently, Fara Maku seeks and finds Anansi (LeVar Burton), the trickster spider god, and implores it to turn him into a were-panther, so that he may then turn her into a were-panther, forcing her to remain and binding her to him. Granted this boon, Fara Maku attacks Tea and marks her, causing her to uncontrollably take feline form during moments of great emotional stress. Furious, frustrated, and ashamed, she becomes a poacher and returns to her village to hunt down panthers, and it is then that she discovers the truth. Upon doing so, Tea lays the blame for everything not on Fara Maku, but on Anansi, and after defeating the trickster god (with the help of the gargoyles and Elisa, who are also in this episode) both were-panthers decide that, as penance for what they’ve done, they should get back together and use their powers to protect the jungle. Note that for Tea, “what they’ve done” is “illegally hunt animals” and “attempt to kill the man who ruined her life in a situation where justice by legal means is impossible” (and all but impossible, had it been an actual rape) while for Fara Maku, it’s “violate his ex in a way that prevents her from having the life she wanted so that she would stay with him.” The show insists that these are equivalent. The show is wrong.

One could, if one wanted to, surmise that Gargoyles — in presenting Matt Bluestone and Fara Maku’s actions as the result of frustration and ignorance rather than malice and entitlement — is attempting to express that things are not always simple and that good people can do harm. If that is the case, it misses the mark entirely. What it does instead is normalize the male characters’ entitlement, obfuscate the misogyny behind it, and then reward the characters with what they wanted in the first place. In the face of injustice, women’s — Black women’s, at that — only recourse is to forgive and be okay with things because, hey, at least the men feel bad about what they’ve done. Their lives, safety, and comfort are secondary.

Gargoyles, with its “protecting a world that hates and fears them and has been fairly successful in enacting their global genocide” premise, seeks to be about marginalized peoples. At the same time, it consistently centers and prioritizes the lives of the privileged over those of the oppressed, and places the burden of obtaining justice on the latter. It is on Elisa to de-escalate the situation by giving Matt what he wants. It is on Tea to get used to circumstances which she never asked for, and to be okay with living the life Fara Maku wanted for her. More generally, it is on the gargoyles to continuously be the better species, until humanity decides that it is willing to treat them like people.

Perhaps no one exemplifies how the writers reward privilege better than David Xanatos (Jonathan Frakes). An Unscrupulous Billionaire™, he purchases the castle the gargoyles lived on and protected and breaks the spell that has kept them frozen in stone for a thousand years. He acts as their benefactor, but soon enough it becomes clear that his motives are not altruistic. What he actually wants is to have superhuman servants, and he’s willing to lie and manipulate the gargoyles in order to keep them under his thumb, or kill them if he cannot. Thanks to Elisa, Goliath and clan see the truth about who Xanatos is and leave him behind, although the plutocrat will remain one of their two core enemies, enacting multiple plots against them and Elisa — even hiring her brother Derek as his bodyguard so that he can then “accidentally” and permanently mutate him into a winged cat creature. (Derek, too, is forced to accept this turn of events.)

Eventually, though, Xanatos’ attitude towards the gargoyles softens, most notably after they help him save Manhattan from a spell that turned every person in it to stone — a spell whose execution he facilitated, if accidentally — and then even more so after the gargoyles prevent his son from being taken by the Faerie King Oberon, after which Xanatos considers himself to be in the gargoyles’ debt. Not long after, after the gargoyles’ second home is destroyed by gargoyle hunters, Xanatos invites his former enemies to return to their first one, in the process getting the super-human guardians he always wanted. He’s still the same bastard he always was; he’s just now the gargoyles’ bastard. (He is a fan favorite. He used to be one of mine.)

With the proper context, this wouldn’t necessarily be a problem: a world in which the people with the most privilege are the ones who win most often, and where the underprivileged must often make moral compromises in order to survive is, disappointingly, an accurate representation of the one we actually live in. However, the show’s worldview is incomplete and one-sided. It delegitimizes anger as a response to injustice — the only gargoyle who is consistently angry at human’s genocidal instincts and consistently questions gargoyles’ protective instincts is the villain, Demona (Marina Sirtis), and initially the series’ only female gargoyle. The series argues that marginalized peoples will always be alright, in the end, eliminating the need for reparations or actual change: Matt is the perfect partner after learning the secret; Derek will eventually find a measure of contentedness, as will the gargoyles; we have no idea what happens to Tea, but she is presumably not again being abused by her former attacker. This is not actually the case in real life: being the better people and turning the other cheek has not, traditionally, been a recipe for large-scale social change. The show might have understood this, with more women and people of color behind the scenes.

I first began watching Gargoyles during college, long after the series had ended and I’d stopped being its target audience. It is in many ways my Buffy the Vampire Slayer, catching my attention with its character relationships and cleverness and what was then an attractive version of social consciousness. Like with Buffy, it took time for its limits to become apparent. My love for the series has survived a thorough examination of its flaws, although now it becomes impossible to praise it as I may have once done. Elisa is still fantastic, sure, and I love her to pieces; but the series is now also largely a reminder of how little things have changed since 1994 and how good intentions aren’t enough.

Years after its cancellation, Gargoyles got resurrected in comic book form in 2006, continuing Goliath and his clan’s adventures under the hand of their creator. It is in some ways an improvement, reflecting an increased understanding of the importance of diversity in world-building. In other ways, however, it is still problematic in the same places. Its first original story has Xanatos invite the gargoyles to a Halloween party at his castle, ostensibly as a way for the gargoyles to befriend the New York City elite in a safe environment at a time when anti-gargoyle sentiment has spiked. The gargoyles, still acclimatizing to their new situation, are nothing less than over the moon about this. Elisa, who has been invited to the party independently from the gargoyles, also attends, in costume and with a date. If she has reservations about attending a party hosted by the person who destroyed his brother’s life, and who has neither apologized or attempted to mitigate the harm he has caused, they remain unsaid. It, too, shall pass.

Ian Pérez is a Puerto Rico-based translator, editor, and writer currently working on doing at least one of those professionally. He thinks a lot about Gargoyles and writes about it at Monsters of New York and about other things, which he writes about at Chasing Sheep. He is also @DoKnowButchie on Twitter.

The Ironically Iconic ‘Wonder Woman’

With D.C. superheroine Wonder Woman recently named UN honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls and her forthcoming feature film building hype, her profile could hardly be higher as a feminist symbol. Yet Wonder Woman, who the U.N. hopes will focus attention on women’s “participation and leadership,” is an image entirely created by men. She represents, ironically enough, male domination of the struggle against male domination. … Far from a step forward, ‘Wonder Woman’ is worse than more simply offensive chauvinism, because it insidiously exploits the female audience’s desire to identify with Wonder Woman’s empowerment.

Written by staff writer Brigit McCone, this post appears as part of our theme week on Unpopular Opinions.

William Moulton Marston, who created the ironically iconic Wonder Woman, was an outspoken male feminist who seduced his own student, Olive Byrne, and used her as unpaid domestic labor while living off his feminist wife’s (Elizabeth Holloway Marston) wages. Though feminist cartoonist Lou Rogers has been identified as an inspiration for Wonder Woman’s imagery, it was the male cartoonist Harry G. Peter that Marston selected to draw her adventures. Marston’s disconnect, between the theory and practice of female autonomy, seems reflected in his comic strip’s disconnect between its ideal woman of “Paradise Island” and the real world; it was left to Alice Marble to write a “Wonder Women of History” feature that linked Wonder Woman to the historical achievements of women.

After Marston’s death, a takeover bid by his widow Elizabeth Holloway Marston was snubbed by D.C. Comics, and the strip was handed instead to the sexist stewardship of writer Robert Kanigher, who demoted Wonder Woman from warrior and presidential candidate to babysitter and love advice columnist. Following journalist/activist Gloria Steinem’s promotion of the “Original Wonder Woman” as a feminist icon, a television series — The New Original Wonder Woman (later shortened to Wonder Woman) — was developed by writer Stanley Ralph Ross and producer Douglas S. Cramer (Dynasty).

On his DVD commentary to the pilot, Cramer seems defensively aware of the disconnect between Wonder Woman’s fictional autonomy and her lack of actual female authorship:

“There were very, very few women on the set. The hair, the make-up and the clothes were all done by men… we never had a woman director. There weren’t many women directors out there in those days.”

Yet, back in 1916, Grace Cunard wrote, directed, and starred in the popular adventure serial The Purple Mask, as the swashbuckling Purple Mask who “robbed from the greedy to give to the needy.” Though producer Cramer presents Wonder Woman as progress, claiming, “There really were not a lot of women that were carrying their own shows, and after Bionic Woman and Wonder Woman, that’s when Charlie’s Angels was cast,” it is important to recognize that it is a step backward from a time when Grace Cunard and Alice Guy wrote and directed female action heroes. Are the subtly undermining distortions of a pacifying male-authored feminism not more harmful than an open chauvinism that provokes resistance? Though D.C. courted women directors for their Wonder Woman movie and hired Patty Jenkins, the departure of Michelle MacLaren over “creative differences” suggests that the female director has only limited control. Certainly, she is working within an established legacy that women have not created. Should such semi-liberated sex symbols really be celebrated as ambassadors and stepping-stones to female authorship?

“All Our Hopes Are Pinned Upon You” — Symbolism of the Super-Smurfette

The opening season of Wonder Woman — starring Lynda Carter in the superhero role — is set during World War II, an era of immense importance for women’s rights. While men fought on the frontlines, the women exemplified by Rosie the Riveter proved that they were capable of excelling even in heavy industry, and that factories could accommodate their childcare needs if motivated to do so, with women also serving in military units such as WAVES and WACS. World War II, then, offers Wonder Woman an unparalleled opportunity to ally her efforts with the ongoing triumphs of women across America. Instead, the show is at pains to reduce all other female characters to idiots (the ableist slur “idiot” here describes characters who are themselves stereotypical, ableist caricatures) or deviousness.

In the pilot episode, the on-screen representative of WACS is Marcia (Stella Stevens), depicted as a stereotypically vacant blonde and openly sexual flirt, who reacts to the news that Nazis are planning to bomb the continental U.S. with: “Will that be all, Steve? I have a chiropodist’s appointment this afternoon.” The revelation that Marcia is a Nazi double-agent seems calculated to authorize the beating of this stereotype of brainless blonde sluttishness (again, “slut” here refers to characters negatively depicted as caricatures of devious promiscuity). Cramer hails the pilot’s extended catfight as “a historic moment on television, ’cause I can’t remember any other moments with women fighting women,” citing it as inspiration for equally popular catfights on Dynasty. Other antagonists in the pilot include an older lady with a machine gun and a female taxi driver, while there are no female allies. In later episodes, WACS will be represented by Etta Candy (a feisty ally in the source comics), now a rolling-eyed fool whose incompetence and eating habits are presented as comic relief. Meanwhile, Steve Trevor’s continuous sexist quips are endorsed by Diana’s sighing that he is a “perfect gentleman.”

Wonder Woman constantly struggles to “balance” their positive portrayal of Wonder Woman by viciously misogynistic portraits of all remaining women. The result implies that women have failed to achieve equality only because of their own deviousness or foolishness. Wonder Woman’s heroism is also marked by unattainably extreme perfection, which Lynda Carter admits in her commentary to being concerned by: “People want to be her and they want to be able to identify, and if she’s too perfect…” All women who fail to meet Wonder Woman’s punishing standards are reduced to the level of the catty and unlikable chorus of girls dismissed as “a herd of sheep” in “Miss G.I. Dreamgirl.” Wonder Woman is therefore the ultimate Super-Smurfette, a living embodiment of the Smurfette Principle‘s urge to isolate female achievement. The fact that a television show which encourages girls to feel mocking contempt for all of its female characters, apart from a literal Amazonian goddess, should be hailed as a feminist milestone is as ludicrous as it is tragic.

Margaret Armen, the only woman credited with writing an episode in the first season, introduced the coolly intelligent, highly competent, and villainous Baroness von Gunther as Nazi antagonist. Though she too has a climactic catfight with Wonder Woman, she is notable for not embodying a stereotype of female incompetence or sexual promiscuity. Compare the male-authored episode “Fausta: the Nazi Wonder Woman,” who is yet another evil blonde without detectable personality. Fausta (Lynda Day George) is finally converted to Wonder Woman’s cause, which arguably shows superficial sisterhood but also implies that Fausta has been serving the Third Reich simply because the concept of female bonding had never, ever occurred to her, until she was exposed to the revolutionary banalities of Wonder Woman. The only other female authorship on the show’s first season is that of Barbara Avedon and Barbara Corday, credited with devising the story for Jimmy Sangster’s script of “The Feminum Mystique,” the two-part episode which introduces Wonder Girl (played by a young Debra Winger) to showcase genuine female mentorship. Comparing its female and male authors thus reveals that the male-authored feminism of Wonder Woman is consistently, farcically compromised by its compulsion to isolate its heroine and undermine her female allies.

“In Your Satin Tights, Fighting for Your Rights” — Suffering Sexualized Suffragettes!

Wonder Woman is not only a Super-Smurfette, she is the original Fighting Fuck Toy (FFT). The essence of the Fighting Fuck Toy is her superficial empowerment through “kicking ass,” while being deprived of deeper agency and continually serving as a sexual object for the Male Gaze. Nowhere is this tendency more clearly shown than with Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman (Diana Prince), a character defined by her hypersexualization from bullet breasts to hot-pants, yet rendered unthreatening to male viewers by her total absence of sexual agency.

The titillation begins with Diana’s introduction, running along the beach with a female friend, giggling in extremely short and gauzy negligees. As Diana later declares to her mother, the Amazon Queen Hippolyta (Cloris Leachman), “There’s something missing, mother. When I look at Steve Trevor, I feel things. Things I’ve never known before,” it is made clear that lesbianism is an unknown pleasure on Paradise Island. It’s wonderful that a Latina woman played the role of a superhero, yet this is an unfortunate missed opportunity for LGBTQ representation, especially with the recent confirmation of Wonder Woman as a queer character in the comics. This means that these women and girls are running around in a state of hypersexualization, not as an expression of any personal sexuality, but in permanent readiness for the arrival of a male viewer. For whom, then, is Paradise Island a paradise? Certainly, male viewers are amply served by the Amazons’ tournament to determine who will accompany Steve to America, an alleged athletic spectacle filmed almost entirely through upskirt shots.

Producer Cramer makes clear not only that Wonder Woman’s sexy appearance was integral to her role, but that the Fighting Fuck Toy’s “ass-kicking” should not be convincing: “If they were a wonderful actress, they approached the job like a lady truck driver.” By “lady truck driver,” he surely refers to the actresses’ ability to appear credibly violent, ruining their titillation by making their empowerment uncomfortably real. The Queen Hippolyta rants against the “barbaric, masculine behavior” of men with comical lust. Yet, Diana’s own lust for Steve will remain demurely unvoiced, as she waits entirely passively for him to take the sexual initiative. This suggests that women’s traditionally presumed passive sexuality is natural and not socially enforced, if even a super-powered and invulnerable woman would never openly express her desires. Furthermore, Diana actively corrects Drusilla (Wonder Girl) when Drusilla comments on a man’s attractiveness. That is, Diana is pointedly shown schooling a younger, sexually outspoken girl into proper passivity and self-suppression, which is enforced by the show as hallmarks of the “good” femininity that distinguishes Wonder Woman from blonde Nazi “sluts.” Lynda Carter expresses regret over Wonder Woman’s lack of sexual fulfillment in the DVD extras: “She didn’t have love in her life and she didn’t have children. I would hope that that story would be told. That’s such a huge part of womanhood.”

“Make a Hawk a Dove, Stop a War with Love” — Make Love, Not Legislation

At the heart of Wonder Woman is the concept that women are essentially different from men, and that female power resides in their essential qualities of love and pacifism. William Moulton Marston went further, and posited submission itself as an integral feminine virtue. In the words of Diana: “On Paradise Island there are only women. Because of this pure environment, we are able to develop our minds and our physical skills, unhampered by masculine destructiveness.” That is, the superpowers of the women of Paradise Island are suggested to be the direct result of their total absence of heteronormative sexuality, and to be incompatible with the presence of men, rooted as they are in a traditional concept of femininity that has historically facilitated male domination. After centuries of disenfranchisement, segregation into the domestic sphere, and being traded as property, male-authored feminism suggests that women can empower themselves by being traditionally feminine harder.

Actual women’s liberation, however, involved riots, incarceration, hunger strikes, occupation movements, clenched fists and even, on occasion, an unattractive shrillness resembling that of a lady truck-driver. Actual liberation involved the collective organization that the Super-Smurfette pointedly avoids. Far from a step forward, Wonder Woman is worse than more simply offensive chauvinism, because it insidiously exploits the female audience’s desire to identify with Wonder Woman’s empowerment. As Lynda Carter puts it: “There’s something about the goddess within, that secret part that resides in every woman, that is a Wonder Woman, that yearns for that independence and strength.” That “secret part” is harnessed by Wonder Woman to push female viewers into aspiring to a failed model of womanhood, one characterized by its hostility to other women, its punishing perfectionism, its sexual passivity and its self-sacrificing submission. Our goddesses within deserve so much better.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_blOQEu9ws”]

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Wonder Woman Short Fan Film Reminds Us to Want This Blockbuster

Wonder Women and Why We Need Superheroines

Top 10 Superheroines Who Deserve Their Own Movies

Brigit McCone‘s campy superheroine of choice remains Xena until further notice. She writes short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and defending her unpopular opinion that Bloodhound Gang are a witty pastiche of masculinity.

‘Lilo & Stitch,’ ‘Moana,’ and Disney’s Representation of Indigenous Peoples

Looking at ‘Lilo & Stitch’ can provide a valuable lens in which to analyze the upcoming ‘Moana,’ as well as other mainstream films attempting to represent Indigenous cultures. … Regardless of its individual merits, ‘Lilo & Stitch’ is a moneymaking endeavor to benefit the Disney Company, which has not always had the best relationship (to say the least) with representing Indigenous cultures or respecting Indigenous peoples.

This guest post written by Emma Casley appears as part of our theme week on Indigenous Women.

This November, Disney plans to release the much-anticipated Moana, advertised and hailed as the first Polynesian Disney princess. While it is the company’s first princess of Polynesian descent, it is not the first time Disney has ventured to represent Polynesian culture on-screen: the 2002 film Lilo & Stitch features sisters Lilo and Nani, who are of Indigenous Hawaiian descent as two of the central characters. Looking at Lilo & Stitch can provide a valuable lens in which to analyze the upcoming Moana, as well as other mainstream films attempting to represent Indigenous cultures.

Lilo & Stitch has been heralded as a film that avoids many of the harmful stereotypes of Polynesian culture that so many other white-produced works perpetuate. However, it is also worth considering how Lilo & Stitch as a film exists in the world, beyond the content of its storyline. As a mainstream blockbuster film made by Disney, Lilo & Stitch has an imperative to make money and to therefore appease ticket and merchandise buying audiences. Regardless of its individual merits, the film is a money-making endeavor to benefit the Disney Company, which has not always had the best relationship (to say the least) with representing Indigenous cultures or respecting Indigenous peoples.

The situation is a double-edged sword: mainstream films have the potential to challenge stereotypes and showcase Indigenous peoples’ voices on a large scale; but at the same time such widespread distribution and visibility almost always requires the heft of a multi-billion dollar company behind it — one which may or may not have the same interests in adhering to treating Indigenous peoples with respect. I’m not interested in looking at Lilo & Stitch and simply adding up the racist vs. un-racist points it scores to see which label holds up. Rather, I think that the film provides a helpful example of the complicated cultural space a film can occupy. Lilo & Stitch has racist elements; it also has moments where it challenges racial stereotypes in powerful ways for a broad audience to see. One fact does not negate the other, they coexist within the same text.

Many films set in Hawai’i do so from a colonialist white perspective, which Joy T. Taylor calls the “tourist gaze.” In these stories, Hawai’i is shown from an outsider’s perspective: often the islands are used to represent some kind of beautiful, lush, post-racial utopia that white people can visit and enjoy with no harmful repercussions — completely forgetting the Islands’ painful colonial history. The post-racial fantasy of Hawai’i can be seen in instances like the now infamous whitewashing casting of Emma Stone to play the role of half-Asian Hawaiian character of Allison Ng in Aloha. Under the “tourist gaze,” Hawai’i becomes a melting pot of different peoples in a way that explicitly favors white culture. Rather than addressing the ways in which white culture was very much forced upon Indigenous Hawaiians, films like Aloha center white actors with mainstream (read: white) sensibilities who then wear a couple of leis and hula skirts to showcase some vague form of “cultural mixing,” while still assuming whiteness as the dominant and default perspective.

On the other hand, Lilo & Stitch primarily adopts the point of view of the young, native Hawaiian Lilo, rather than the outside white visitors who come to the islands. Lilo’s hobby of taking pictures of the tourists she meets can be read as an inversion of the “tourist gaze.” Instead of Lilo becoming the subject of scrutiny and outside observation, she literally turns the camera onto the people doing the observing. Rather than being a side character in a white person’s journey, Lilo has the agency to not only be the protagonist of her story, but to turn the tables on the typical white narrative of Hawai’i by taking pictures of the white tourists that surround her: they’re the ones out of place on her island, they’re the ones that should be gawked at.

Nani similarly bucks stereotypes of Indigenous women on-screen, though in a different way. A related facet of the “tourist gaze” is the Dusky Maiden trope: where Indigenous women are cast as exotic, sexually available objects for the (generally) white male characters to consume, just another aspect of the beautiful Hawaiian scenery at their disposal. A clip from the 1962 film Mutiny on the Bounty (which the uploader has charmingly captioned as the “hottest scene in the history of cinema”) provides a pretty clear example of this trope in action:

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDpD2757jrc”]

In the video, Tahitian women perform for the white sailors, and the film cuts between their dancing and Marlon Brando watching them. It is a spectacle of Tahitian culture and bodies designed to entertain and appease white observers, both within the context of the story as well as the film itself. It’s just as much about the audience being able to watch these women performing and smiling and implying sexual availability as it is about the characters watching the same thing. Indigenous women are there to be looked at, not just by anyone, but by outsiders, by white men.

Unlike Mutiny on the Bounty, Lilo & Stitch adopts a very different gaze towards its female characters. Nani has a small romantic subplot, but it is not a crucial aspect of her character. The film frequently shows Nani in action and with agency. Her primary role in Lilo & Stitch is as the older sister and guardian of Lilo, rather than as a sexual object of desire. She turns down co-worker David’s romantic advances in favor of spending more time caring for her sister. Though the circumstances of Nani’s legal guardianship of Lilo were outside of her control, the film still lets Nani have agency to prioritize what matters most to her — the preservation and happiness of her family — over her dating life, thus giving a substantial alternative to the Dusky Maiden trope so prevalent in other films featuring Indigenous women.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking challenge to colonialist sensibilities in Lilo & Stitch is the scene where Nani must tell Lilo she is going to be taken away by Child Protective Services. Nani takes Lilo onto the hammock and signs her “Aloha ‘Oe” as a way of explaining what is about to happen to their family.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WraKfeFtOPs”]

“Aloha ‘Oe,” in addition to being one of the most iconic Indigenous Hawaiian songs, also has ties to the U.S.’ illegal annexation of Hawai’i and the fall of the Hawaiian kingdom. It was written by Queen Liliuokalani, the last ruler of Hawai’i, and has come to symbolize the loss of the Kingdom to Western rule. Using this particular song ties the experiences of Lilo and Nani to the history of the Hawaiian people. Much like Queen Liliuokalani lost her kingdom to a specter of Western civilization (the U.S. government), Nani faces losing her family to another Western force: Child Protective Services.

Despite Lilo & Stitch’s relative willingness to engage with colonialist issues faced by Indigenous Hawaiians, at least as compared to other Hollywood films, the animated feature does shy away from a more direct confrontation of modern day Indigenous issues. One such example of this hesitation comes from a deleted scene that more explicitly points criticism at the behavior of modern white tourists in Hawai’i.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taPoeIQaOiQ

The deleted scene shows Lilo having to answer frequent questions by tourists butchering the Hawaiian language, as well as someone exclaiming, “Oh look a real native!” as she passes by. Unlike the “Aloha ‘Oe” scene, and Lilo’s hobby of taking pictures of tourists, this scene offers a more direct commentary on the lasting effects of colonialism and the media’s use of the “tourist gaze” when depicting Hawai’i. I am not discrediting the power of the two examples which remain in the final cut of the film, but it is worth noting that there were moments such as these that never made it on-screen.

And here lies the central tension in the production of Lilo & Stitch: even as a relatively low budget Disney film, ($80 million), it’s still a film being produced by a major studio for a mainstream audience with an imperative to make money. Anything that might threaten its profitability, such as direct critiques of modern white tourists in Hawai’i, often gets thrown out for being too big of a risk for financial success. On the other hand, the global reach of Disney films also provides a very large platform for issues of racism and colonialism faced by Native Hawaiians to be seen by millions of people.

A very similar tension can already be traced out in the upcoming Moana: a film that has been praised for its use of Polynesian voice actors but has also been criticized in its depiction of demigod Maui and its merchandise and marketing — in particular, the release of a racist Halloween costume of the Moana character Maui featuring brown skin and tribal tattoos, an example of brownface and cultural appropriation. A tweet by @LivingOffTheGrid perfectly encapsulates the conflicted emotions associated with the situation. Along with many others, this Twitter user expresses the simultaneous desire to support Indigenous voices on a large scale, while also frustration at the fiscal endeavors of the corporation which funds these films; endeavors which more often than not do not take into consideration the voices or concerns of Indigenous peoples. With the advent of cheaper filmmaking and distribution technologies, it is technically possible for smaller companies to provide a large platform for typically underrepresented voices, but it is undoubtedly harder and much rarer for such films to gain the amount of widespread attention Disney blockbusters get on a daily basis. Though for what it’s worth, Disney did pull the costumes after the large amounts of criticism it garnered through social media and other means — a conversation largely lead by Polynesian people, so there is undoubtedly always room for shifts, however small, in this dynamic.

Moana has also faced criticisms from Indigenous Hawaiians for white people telling the stories of Indigenous peoples. While Taika Waititi wrote the film’s initial draft, the credited directors and writers are all white people. As Tina Ngata writes at Civil Beat, Disney is participating in “colonial subversion of storytelling as a statement of diversity”:

“While they are celebrated for presenting a protagonist who will ‘not put up with mansplaining,’ Disney is patently ignoring the fact that this entire film is an act of whitesplaining.”

Anne Keala Kelly at Indian Country Today Media Network also criticizes Disney and Moana for “mining” Indigenous Hawaiian culture for profit:

“Most Indigenous peoples under U.S. control, certainly Hawaiians, have yet to carve out a meaningful space to represent ourselves, what we value, and our reality in mass media and film largely because America’s master narrative relies on our subjugation. […] The cultural imperialism of Disney mirrors the military imperialism of the United States and the other industries it uses to erase our Indigenous belonging…”

The controversies Moana has faced, even before the film has even been released for wide audiences, demonstrates how Lilo & Stitch is by no means an anomaly in terms of its complex relationship with race and representing Indigenous peoples. There are moments where Lilo & Stitch offers a profound counterpoint to mainstream narratives about Hawai’i and Indigenous Hawaiian people. There are also ways in which the desire to make money keeps the film away from making more direct or explicit statements about these issues. While it’s imperative to critique racist, colonialist, and white supremacist narratives, tropes, and representations, simply trying to look at Lilo & Stitch (or any film), and trying to determine if it’s good or bad in terms of its representations of race and Indigenous peoples overlooks the complicated cultural space these films occupy.

Unilaterally praising a film like Lilo & Stitch as being a pinnacle of “good” Indigenous representation ignores its significant flaws, and the flaws of the Disney company as a whole; just as completely dismissing the film overlooks the ways in which it can be used as a vehicle for positive change. As with most films, Lilo & Stitch occupies a more tenuous middle ground — a space of conflict and tension that must be acknowledged and explored, not overlooked in favor of either/or categorizations. Upcoming films like Moana deserve similar treatment.

Emma Casley is a Brooklyn-based film writer. She recently participated in the New York Film Festival’s Critics Academy and currently interns at the Metrograph. She can be found wandering the streets for good coffee and also on Twitter @EmmaLCasley.

The Problems with Disney’s ‘Pocahontas’

In ‘Pocahontas,’ Disney missed an important opportunity to represent Indigenous women in a relatable, empowering way, and instead focused on commodifying their culture for mass-market appeal. … Pocahontas’ life only became a story worth telling when a white man became involved. She only became a princess when a white man recognized her as royalty. She only became the center of a Disney movie because white men realized they could profit off of her myth.

This guest post written by Shannon Rose appears as part of our theme week on Indigenous Women.

For as long as I can remember, my brother who has autism and I have loved Disney movies, and they have given us a real way to connect and bond with each other over the years. Disney has had such a positive impact on my life and my relationship with my brother that it is difficult to look back and see how problematic the films are, especially with regards to Indigenous women. However, I have realized that it’s important to step back from our own attachments and examine the harm Disney has done by perpetuating damaging stereotypes. This, in turn, will help us fight for better representation in future animated films that will positively impact the next generation of Disney movie fans. In Pocahontas, Disney missed an important opportunity to represent Indigenous women in a relatable, empowering way, and instead focused on commodifying their culture for mass-market appeal.

Pocahontas is an animated romantic musical drama about a young Native American woman in the 17th century who falls in love with a colonizing European, John Smith, and saves his life, bringing temporary peace between the colonizers and the Indigenous people. I always assumed it was an overly embellished rendition of history, but it is actually a heavily romanticized version of John Smith’s account of the events. This is problematic because there is a long, fraught history of European storytelling that involves a colonizing white man being saved by an Indigenous woman, who then falls in love with him and becomes a Christian, which is suspiciously similar to Pocahontas’ tale. The Powhatan Nation criticized Pocahontas for perpetuating the trope of “the ‘good Indian,’ one who saved the life of a white man.” White men have been fascinated with “civilizing” gorgeous Indigenous women, and John Smith’s story is only one of the many that have been perpetuated. Knowing this changes the context of the film. It’s no longer a story of a woman who falls in love with a seemingly unattainable man, but rather the delusions of a white colonizer who dreams of a beautiful Indigenous woman wanting to give up her life among “savages” to become a proper “civilized” European, aiding him in his desire to spread white civilization and power across the world.

Disney sells the film as having a female protagonist, but since the source material originated from a white man’s point of view, she lacks the agency to guide the story. Pocahontas is immediately “othered” as a mystical creature deeply in touch with nature, and not a complex human being. She communicates with animals, she can leap from great heights, she asks advice from a tree, and the wind leads her along her journey. All of these magical touches create distance between her and the audience. More importantly, it creates distance between Native Americans and how they are represented on-screen. When Disney made Pocahontas and her culture otherworldly, they erased the humanity of Indigenous people.

The audience is introduced to John Smith as an English man who has traveled all over the world, and has proudly killed many Indigenous people in order to spread his idea of “civilization.” “You can’t fight Indians without John Smith!” a fellow shipmate says. “That’s right, I’m not about to let you guys have all the fun!” Smith elatedly responds. Here is a man who has never hesitated to kill Indigenous people before, but when he finds Pocahontas at the end of the barrel of his gun, he suddenly has a change of heart. He doesn’t stop because she’s a woman; he stops because she is stunning. Her body is worth more to him alive than dead.

Another magical element that does more harm than good is the way Pocahontas immediately learns how to speak English, to the shock and delight of both her animal friends and Smith. Off the hook, Smith now has no need to learn her language because Pocahontas adjusts herself to accommodate his needs. The language barrier that exists between cultures has always required give and take from both sides; it makes us better communicators and strengthens our ability to understand each other in a deeper, more meaningful way. By forgoing that struggle, the white colonizer is accommodated and their white supremacist beliefs are sustained.

Part of the problem with Pocahontas is how it teaches young Indigenous girls that their worth is dependent on the men in their lives. To be seen as a princess, as royalty, they must be willing to risk their lives to defend white men and turn away from their own culture. While Pocahontas is portrayed as a heroine, did she ever have a choice? Would her story ever have been told if she had let Smith die, if she had chosen her family over him? She would have been erased from history, as far too many Indigenous women have been. Pocahontas’ life only became a story worth telling when a white man became involved. She only became a princess when a white man recognized her as royalty. She only became the center of a Disney movie because white men realized they could profit off of her myth.

Disney exacerbated the erroneous long-held belief that Indigenous women welcomed Europeans and their culture to America, erasing the history of racism, colonialism, and genocide against Indigenous peoples. Disney went one step further, however, and commodified Native Americans and their culture in ways we have not been able to recover from. In early 1995, months before the movie was released, Disney spent millions marketing the film. Pocahontas Barbie dolls, Payless Shoes moccasins, and Halloween costumes can still be found today, twenty years later, giving white girls permission to appropriate Native American culture and treat race and culture as costumes. Because Disney made Pocahontas an American “Princess,” many non-Native people assumed her as one of their own. Thus, we now can claim a shared American heritage, and not have to think twice before appropriating her culture. Many of us have long struggled with our place in the U.S.’s violent and troubled history but Disney single-handedly made cultural appropriation “okay” for an entire generation of children in order to sell merchandise.

It is hard to accept that something we love is deeply flawed because their flaws reflect back on us. It’s much easier to brush those criticisms off and push it to the back of your mind. It’s important to know, though, that you can love something that is flawed (I’ve been singing “Just Around the River Bend” for a week now) and still push Disney and other filmmakers to not make the same mistakes again.

We need to amplify stories of Indigenous women, and give them the support they need to tell those stories and make them be heard to a larger audience. Indigenous women need to be writers and directors, not props in white people’s stories to make us feel better about colonizing their home. The true story of Pocahontas, where she was kidnapped and used as propaganda by the Virginia Company and whose real name was Matoaka, is tragic and should embarrass us non-Native people. It was never Disney material, but there are stories about Indigenous women out there that are. Disney just needs to look beyond source material created by white men.

Shannon Rose is a writer and director living in Los Angeles. She has her MFA in Film & Television from USC School of Cinematic Arts, and she is passionate about creating opportunities in film for diverse voices. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram @femmefocale.

From Racist Stereotype to Fully Whitewashed: Tiger Lily Since 1904

Whatever the other problems might be with this film (and they are many), my focus for this review is the character Tiger Lily, who was originally conceived as a racist stereotype by J.M. Barrie and who has had her Native identity completely erased in this latest iteration. Is this progress? I think not.

This post written by staff writer Amanda Morris originally appeared at Bitch Flicks and is re-posted here as part of our theme week on Indigenous Women.

Pan has a 26 percent rating based on 152 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and having just come from a matinee viewing, I must say I agree with these critics. The Peter Pan narrative that we all know has been reconstructed as a sort of prequel, and not very imaginatively, while still retaining its racist roots. The Native people are called “natives” and “savages” multiple times and retain their feathers, facepaint, fringe, dancing, and primitive clothing to emulate a stereotypical idea of Native peoples, and even the map that Peter finds guides him to “Tribal Territory.” The actor playing Hook thinks he is Clint Eastwood in a Spaghetti Western, the Neverbirds are just bigger, more threatening versions of Kevin in Up, and the main actors who appear throughout the entire film are all white.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1wRv8vTpxo”]

When J.M. Barrie’s original stage play, “Peter Pan; Or, The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up,” first appeared on the cultural scene, Miriam Skancke (stage name Nesbitt) played Tiger Lily. Nevermind the problem of reducing actual, living people to imaginary creatures in a fantasy land. According to Miriam’s father’s birth record, she appears to have been of Norwegian heritage. Certainly not Native American. So the fantasy creature, the “Indian princess,” Tiger Lily, started off in global imaginations as a beautiful white woman.

In 1911, Barrie published the novel version, Peter Pan, and soon more stage productions and the film industry came calling, clamoring for this children’s fantasy tale. From 1955-60, Broadway and the American TV industry brought the story to stage and TV with Sondra Lee playing Tiger Lily. Another white woman playing an offensive racist Native stereotype, with the music and dancing to match:

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVPc4SuoJWE”]

The 1979 Broadway production featured Maria Pogee, an Argentine-American dancer and choreographer, in the Tiger Lily role, and the 1990 version featured Holly Irwin in the role. The characterization on-stage remained “Native American,” but still, the actors playing Tiger Lily were non-Native. No self-respecting Native woman actor would WANT to play a racist fantasy stereotype of her own culture, and that is where Pan‘s studio, director, and writer made a costly miscalculation.

Here is where we need to be more critical of Warner Brothers, director Joe Wright, writer Jason Fuchs, and the casting staff responsible for adamantly refusing to re-conceive this problematic character into something more culturally appropriate and honorable. They DID take the time, energy, and money to construct a new narrative that explains how Peter Pan came to be; they reconstructed this narrative in myriad ways so as to make it clearly different from Barrie’s original, except where it concerns the “Natives.” Instead, they took the cowardly way out and completely whitewashed the character (while still retaining feathers, costuming, and even an Aboriginal actor as Tiger Lily’s father).

Bottom line here, Hollywood is lazy and greedy. They saw an opportunity to re-envision this narrative from stem to stern, possibly giving us a truly creative and compelling new story, but instead of also eliminating the racist stereotypes from the original, they chose to whitewash because that is the easier choice. From their perspective, it would have been too hard to reconstruct this “Indian princess” into a strong, brave, Native woman. Especially one who seems to be developing feelings for the future Captain Hook, who is white. Instead, they chose white actor Rooney Mara to portray a strong, brave, Native woman who wears beaded and feathered attire, long and dark braided hair, and colorful tribal makeup.

Who exactly do they think is fooled by this? Certainly none of us trying to encourage more respectful representations of Indigenous peoples. Plenty of reviewers, including one at Bitch Flicks, has pointed out the immense problems with the company and crew’s voluntary obtuseness to their heinous choices. In fact, director Joe Wright defended his choice.

So, Joe, you understand our criticisms, but were unable to find a Native woman to play a “badass” Native woman character?

Are you fucking kidding me?!

Here are some of the amazing Native actors you should have considered casting: Devery Jacobs, Cara Gee, Tanaya Beatty, Jamie Loy, Amber Midthunder, Taysha Fuller, or Crystle Lightning. That list is by no means complete, but the reason none of these women were chosen is because they are not considered bankable money makers by the Hollywood machine.

Warner Brothers would rather hire a known white woman (as usual) and to completely whitewash the character than to spend a few minutes asking the writer to re-conceive this character to be more respectful of real, living, Native peoples, and then hiring a talented Native woman to play her. Because with all of the white racist fear out there in the viewing audience, they knew this whitewashed version of J.M. Barrie’s original would make them money. They know their audience.

Thankfully, at 26 percent approval rating, Pan will not be in theatres very long. I predict that Warner Brothers could have made a lot more money doing what I and others have suggested — re-writing Tiger Lily to be a more relevant and vibrant representation of a Native American woman with a family that doesn’t look like the ridiculous, primitive stereotypes of Barrie’s imagination, and then casting a terrific Native actor into that role. The amount of positive publicity and curiosity alone would have driven people to want to see this film. Critics and viewers would be introduced in a big way to a talented Native actor, and all of the negative (and well-deserved) criticism that follows this film might have been reduced. Talk about a missed opportunity and a bad business decision.

Pan is just another in a long line of disappointing versions of this childhood tale. Barrie wrote in a time (1904) when the general populace had accepted the disappearance and death of Native peoples. Everything they read told them that these peoples no longer existed.

That we are still in that same headspace, imagining Native peoples as either racist stereotypes or as long-gone peoples of the past, is pathetic. Shame on you, Warner Brothers, Joe Wright, Jason Fuchs, Rooney Mara, and all of us who accept Hollywood’s standard practice of erasing Native peoples, cultures, and identities.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

On Racism, Erasure, and Pan
Violence Against Indigenous Women: Fun, Sexy, and No Big Deal on the Big Screen

Dr. Amanda Morris is an Associate Professor of Multiethnic Rhetorics at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania with a specialty in Indigenous Rhetorics.

10 Women-Directed Films for Halloween

Are spine-chilling films always in demand because they help us dialogue with and about death? … In the past year, I’ve been focused on seeing films directed by women because I participated in the “52 Films by Women” initiative.

This guest post written by Laura Shamas originally appeared at Venus in Orange. It is cross-posted with permission.

I’m not a horror film fan per se, but I’ve seen some scary, eerie stuff through the years, and Halloween is always a good time to view them. Are spine-chilling films always in demand because they help us dialogue with and about death? C.G. Jung once wrote: “Death is the hardest thing from the outside and as long as we are outside of it. But once inside you taste of such a completeness and peace and fulfillment that you don’t want to return.”

In the past year, I’ve been focused on seeing films directed by women because I participated in the “52 Films by Women” initiative. The 10 films detailed below (for adults, not kids!) have strong psychological components, too. I’ve divided them into well-known Halloween-ish folklore categories: monsters, strange illness, haunted house (ghosts), killer, losing one’s head (lost), witches, and vampires.

MONSTER

1. The Babadook (2014)
Written and directed by Jennifer Kent

This film is about a lonely widow, her young son, and their journey through grief. A mysterious book suddenly appears in their home, and launches a trajectory of events related to a home-invading monster. What a fascinating portrayal of aspects of motherhood in this film. The tone and cinematography are original; the key performances are strong. The conclusion is truly inventive, and, for me, unexpected. I can’t wait to see Kent’s next film. (Note: female protagonist. Available through streaming services, like Amazon and Netflix).

STRANGE ILLNESS

2. The Fits (2015)
Written and directed by Anna Rose Holmer

This film took my breath away. It centers on the extraordinary performance of Royalty Hightower as Toni, an eleven-year-old tomboy who hangs out with her older brother in the gym. When an all-girl dance troupe rehearses in the same community center, Toni becomes fascinated by the aspiring performers, and joins them. Then a strange sort of “illness” descends on the girls. As I watched the film, Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible came to mind; I’ve examined the film version of it before. I don’t want to give anything away, but the ending of The Fits was revelatory and mesmerizing. It involves a different sort of fear of the unknown and a transformation, but with tremendous female resonance. I eagerly await more of Holmer’s work as well. (Female protagonist, available on streaming platforms.)

HAUNTED HOUSE (GHOSTS)

3. A Cry from Within (2014)
Written by Deborah Twiss, co-directed by Twiss and Zach Miller

This is a ghost story with a particular feminine twist. Twiss stars as a married mother with two young kids. The film examines what happens when a city family moves into a drafty old mansion in a small town. This is a familiar set-up, and some tropes from the “haunted house” genre are used here predictably. Yet, as the film gradually turns towards its true theme, it held my interest: a spirited quest to heal a gruesome family history. Perhaps some of it is melodramatic, but I appreciated the different sort of twist in the third act; it concludes with a strong depiction of the “shadow” side of motherhood and ensuing generational repercussions. (Female protagonist, available on streaming platforms.)

4. The Invitation (2015)
Directed by Karyn Kusama

The film is about Will (Logan Marshall-Green), a grief-stricken man haunted by a past tragedy that occurred in his former house in the Hollywood Hills. As it begins, Will and his girlfriend hit a coyote in the rain on the way to a dinner party, hosted by his ex-wife and her new husband — a foreshadowing of what’s to come. At first it seems as if it’s going to be like The Big Chill: a gathering of old friends reminiscing, catching up, talking about what’s new. But then Will’s ex-wife and her new husband show a movie clip before dinner that sets the eerie tone of what’s to come. Let’s just say that if you’re invited to a dinner party in the Hills, this film will make you reconsider showing up. The house becomes a character of sorts, and old memories emerge like ghosts in flashbacks as terror reigns. (Male protagonist, available on streaming platforms.)

5. The Silent House (2011)
Co-directed by Chris Kentis and Laura Lau, written by Lau

This 2011 film, an American version of a 2010 Uruguayan film titled La Casa Muda, is another “Haunted House” type of film with a twist at the end. Based on a “true story” from its Uruguayan origins, the movie is seemingly filmed in a single continuous shot, which gives it a lot of tension. The Silent House follows Elizabeth Olson as Sarah, a young woman who, along with her father and uncle, are moving out of a dark old family home near a shore, and encounter strange noises, specters, old photos that no one should see, and more. Of course, the power is not on. When Sarah’s father is knocked out on a staircase, Sarah knows there’s someone else in the house. The revenge component in the film’s conclusion will resonate with many. (Female protagonist, available to stream on Amazon.)

KILLER

6. The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
Directed by Ida Lupino, written by Lupino, Robert L. Joseph, and Collier Young

As part of this initiative, I’ve tried to catch up on many of Lupino’s films. The Hitch-Hiker is considered the first mainstream film noir feature to be directed by a woman. It varies from standard film noir fare because of its desert locales (as opposed to urban settings). A tale of two American men who are ambushed by a terrifying killer in Mexico, and their attempts to escape danger, the film’s original tagline was: “When was the last time you invited death into your car?” (Male protagonists. You can watch it for free on YouTube here. A version with higher resolution also streams on Amazon.)

LOSING ONE’S HEAD (or LOST)

7. The Headless Woman (La mujer sin cabeza) (2008)
Written and directed by Lucrecia Martel

Made in Argentina, it’s perfectly titled. The film’s ominous psychological atmosphere produces a slow burn sort of scare and a dawning realization as you watch it; it’s not a conventional horror “scream” viewing experience. A strange auto accident on a deserted country road is at the center of a mystery; the protagonist is the driver Veronica or “Vero” to her friends (Maria Onetto), a middle-aged married dentist. We wonder: who or what has been hit? Is the victim okay? As the movie continues, we come to understand the true identity of the Headless Woman. (Female protagonist, available on streaming platforms, including Hulu.)

WITCHES

8. The Countess (2009)
Written and directed by Julie Delpy

Starring Julie Delpy, the film is a bloody biographical account of Hungarian Countess Erzsébet Báthory, who lived from 1560 to 1614. The film depicts the Countess’ fascination with death; even as a young girl, Báthory declared: “…I would have to raise an army to conquer death.” Thematically, this period piece examines the possibility that unrequited love could lead to madness, and that an obsession with youthful appearance could launch serial killings, as the Countess searches for virginal blood as a magical skin elixir. Because of the focus on bloodletting and torture in her story, Báthory became connected to vampirism through legend. But witches figure prominently in the film in several ways: Erzsébet’s estate is successfully run by a witch named Anna Darvulia (played by Anamaria Marinca), who’s also one of the Countess’ lovers; the Countess is cursed by a witch in a key roadside scene that changes her life: “Soon you will look like me”; and later, when she is on trial, Báthory is notably not tried for witchcraft, although she might have been. The ending brings information that forces a reconsideration of all we’ve just seen. (Female protagonist, available to stream on Amazon).

VAMPIRES

9. Near Dark (1987)
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, co-written by Bigelow and Eric Red

I’ve long wanted to catch up on Bigelow’s earlier films, and have watched two so far as part of this initiative. But no Halloween film list is complete without a vampire movie, let alone a vampire Western like this one.

A lesson you learn quickly in Near Dark: never pick up hitchhikers at night in Kansas, Oklahoma or Texas. The movie is campy, bloody and violent; it debuted in October 1987, a part of the 1980’s vampire movie trend. The story revolves around Caleb (Adrian Pasdar), a young cowboy in a small mid-western town who inadvertently becomes part of a car-stealing gang of southern vampires. The frequent tasting of death in the film, and its repeated reverence for nighttime, reminded me again of Jung’s quote about death: “But once inside you taste of such a completeness and peace and fulfillment that you don’t want to return.” The ending of this one also pleasantly surprised me. (Male protagonist, available on DVD.)

10. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014)
Written and directed by Ana Lily Amirpour

This is a highly stylized, fascinating film. It’s a unique Persian-language film that follows a mysterious vampire figure named The Girl (Sheila Vand) who haunts the rough streets of “Bad City” at night in a chador, and encounters a young gardener named Arash (Arash Mirandi). Arash’s father is a heroin addict and his mother is dead; Arash is under threat from a tough character who keys his car as the film starts, and after that initial sequence, Arash befriends a beautiful stray cat who becomes part of the action. Amirpour’s film is so atmospheric, beautifully shot in black and white. The plot is untraditional; the ending was also unexpected. Some of the images are unforgettable, and the acting is strong. (Male and female lead characters, available via streaming.)

These ten “scary” films richly explore a range of psychological and social issues: grief; the arrival of puberty; abuse and repressed memories; the aging brain; unrequited love and growing old; justice; and becoming an adult. Most have plot surprises at the end, which makes the viewing all the more worthwhile.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Why The Babadook Is the Feminist Horror Film of the Year
The Babadook: Jennifer Kent on Her Savage Domestic Fairy Tale
Patterns in Poor Parenting: The Babadook and Mommy
“The More You Deny Me, the Stronger I’ll Get”: The Babadook, Mothers, and Mental Illness
The Babadook and the Horrors of Motherhood
The Fits: A Coming-of-Age Story about Belonging and Identity
Male Mask, Female Voice: The Noir of Ida Lupino
9 Pretty Great Lesbian Vampire Movies
Kathyrn Bigelow’s Near Dark: Busting Stereotypes and Drawing Blood
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and Scares Us
Feminist Fangs: The Activist Symbolism of Violent Vampire Women

Laura Shamas is a writer, myth lover, and a film consultant. For more of her writing on the topic of female trios: We Three: The Mythology of Shakespeare’s Weird Sisters. Her website is LauraShamas.com.

‘Firefly’: Mixed Messages on Inara’s Sexuality

In ‘Firefly,’ women can be strong, they can be independent, they can be respected, but they are still fetishized for their sexual choices. Inara’s queerness is less a way to incorporate diverse sexuality into the show and more to stoke a fantasy of women for the consumption of heterosexual men.

This guest post written by A Little Tiefling appears as part of our theme week on Bisexual Representation.

Previous articles have discussed the less-than-egalitarian portrayal of Inara Serra on Joss Whedon’s cult television series, Firefly, in her role as respected sex worker. But the framing of her sexuality is also far more traditionally heteronormative than it first appears.

Inara Serra (Morena Baccarin) is a Companion: more than a high-class escort, she has been trained in Tantric mysticism, the arts, etiquette etc. Companions are so respected that they can select their clients and command huge sums. They can also afford to reject clients, unlike their lower class counterparts who have far less freedom to turn down income. All this suggests Companions choose clients based on personal preferences, including sexual ones.

Inara selects patrons with whom she shares chemistry. In the episode “Shindig,” she rejects a timid male suitor and selects Atherton Wing (Edward Atterton), a confident and attractive man. Thus the show establishes Inara exercising control over her partners. It should be noted that in the same episode, two women can be seen among Inara’s potential clients, but she has no further interactions with them and even rejects one before speaking to her.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKVqNcRj_sY”]

Inara’s clients are overwhelmingly male. She says it herself to her one on-screen female client. This can only partly be chalked up to the seediness of Serenity’s crew and shipping routes. Inara has a large measure of freedom, being able to pilot her shuttle to more cosmopolitan ports than what her traveling companions can access. And yet, the female client with whom Inara seems to have a strong affection is never seen again. She’s never mentioned again. Their brief sexual encounter lasts a short time, but there are many lingering moments of heterosexual sex. Inara never interacts with another woman in the same intimate and sexual manner, though in theory she has the complete freedom to. She’s even portrayed to have a close platonic friendship with engineer Kaylee (Jewel Staite).

The show could have evolved their friendship into something more romantic or at least give the women time to discuss their closeness. There is some subtextual support that Kaylee has romantic feelings for Inara. They spend at least one scene grooming each other’s hair and discussing love and sex. However, Kaylee, who is just as openly sexual as Inara, pines for a man, while Inara has conflicted feelings for Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion). This is where the show undercuts Inara’s sexual freedom further. Inara’s interactions with other women, whether openly sexual or hinted, are used primarily to antagonize Mal into more open declarations of his own feelings.

In the episode “War Stories,” there’s a scene of Inara engaging with a female client whom she clearly deeply likes. She spends time worrying about the state of Serenity and discusses the woman in intimate terms, as “a very private person.” The scene suggests friendship as well as desire, based on the women’s body language and interactions. They hold a lingering smile and walk side by side, rather than The Councilor (Katherine Kendall) leading Inara. This isn’t a client Inara considers a one-off, but someone she’s met before and enjoys the company of.

A later intimate scene shows Inara giving the woman a massage, helping her to relax and in turn relaxing herself. Inara’s sexuality is clear from the way she is at ease around the councilor. She sought out a female client, alone, not as part of an MFF threesome or because she needed the money. This should have demonstrated Inara acting on her sexual preferences. However, the scene is undercut by the heteronormative tone of the bulk of the show.

Upon learning that Inara has been engaged by a female client, Jayne (Adam Baldwin), Mal, and Kaylee all express some form of arousal, and in Book (Ron Glass)’s case, shock. This grossly inappropriate behavior serves to fetishize Inara’s relationship with a woman. To rub salt in the wound, rather than behave as the flashy Atherton, who flaunts his assignations with Inara, the female client is “private” and desires to meet Inara in secret; as though she is ashamed.

Inara is not a queer woman with the autonomy to choose her clients, as the show tells us. Inara’s requests for respect and privacy with the female councillor go ignored. Instead, the show fetishizes her relationship, mirroring the in-universe delight demonstrated by the observers. Inara’s behavior isn’t her private choice, but meant to be publicly consumed for the titillation of both Mal and Jayne and the audience of the show.

In the episode “Our Mrs. Reynolds,” Mal is both fascinated and smug about Inara’s supposed kiss with Saffron (Christina Hendricks). Inara herself recognizes Saffron’s strategy of seduction and tries to turn it back on her, unsuccessfully. It’s Saffron’s open seduction that makes Inara suspect the con-artist had Companion training. This suggests less that Companions are allowed and encouraged to pursue same-sex relationships and more that they are trained for same-sex flirtation, that all Companions are “gay for pay” and not queer because they follow the human spectrum of sexualities. “War Stories” demonstrates that “gay for pay” attitude extends to the crew. The music of the scene, the over-the-top shock and delight expressed by the observers, all suggest that Inara’s taking a female client is new, faintly ridiculous, or something to be fantasized about but not pursued in depth.

This fetishization of Inara’s (and Kaylee’s, and Saffron’s) queerness further undermines the supposed egalitarian nature of Whedon’s universe. Women can be strong, they can be independent, they can be respected, but they are still fetishized for their sexual choices. Inara’s queerness is less a way to incorporate diverse sexuality into the show and more to stoke a fantasy of women for the consumption of heterosexual men. This is not a progressive view, especially of bisexuality, which is one of the least-portrayed of human sexualities in film and television, while one of the most misrepresented and fetishized. Firefly did not have the time to develop human relationships as fully as it could have, had it not been cancelled after one season. But the relationships that are developed are overwhelmingly heterosexual or heteronormative. Inara may be bisexual, but her queerness is fleeting and fetishized. Her primary role on the show is of teasing love interest. Even her queerness is less about her own autonomy and more about her objectification and sexualized image.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Inara Serra and the Future of Sex Work
The Strong, Intelligent and Diverse Women of Firefly and Serenity

A Little Tiefling is a mild-mannered library worker by day and tarantula-loving guinea pig herder by night. Like all tieflings, this one is interested in writing on matters of sex, desire and the odder things in life.

Bisexuality and Masculinity in ‘Y Tu Mamá También’

‘Y Tu Mamá También’ points out the elastic, freeing nature of femininity compared to the toxic, fragile nature of masculinity. Over the course of the film, Luisa only becomes a month or so older and finds truth, or at the very least solace for herself, while Julio and Tenoch go from brash young adults to estranged, closed-off adult men, refusing to come to terms with their bisexuality.

This guest post written by Andy Herrera appears as part of our theme week on Bisexual Representation. | Spoilers ahead.

At first glance, Y Tu Mamá También looks and feels like a classic American sex comedy. You have two ostensibly straight young men desperate for sex who, when suddenly faced with the horrible predicament of not being able to have sex with their girlfriends while they are out of the country, befriend an attractive older women, lie to her about a beautiful beach destination, and both have sex with her. Even from this facile reading of the film, Y Tu Mamá También still invigorates that sometimes tired genre. Unlike American sex comedies, the sexual antics that our main characters, Tenoch (Diego Luna) and Julio (Gael García Bernal), get into are funny by virtue of how oversexed they themselves are and not the sex acts themselves, and the sexual humor is often at the expense of the men, not the women they have sex with.

The camerawork during the sex scenes often feels as lively as the people having sex on-screen as it moves in and out, creating a kinetic feel to each scene. When the movie is not explicitly about sex and sexuality, it’s a lovely travelogue of Mexico, shot beautifully by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and interspersed with small visual reminders of political unrest juxtaposed with the natural beauty of the country. Director Alfonso Cuarón not only created a visually stunning sex comedy, however, he also created a complex character study that often points towards a bisexual subtext between our two leads.

Cuarón specifically cast Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal as the leads, as they have been friends since childhood, and this shows in their natural chemistry on-screen. It’s clear why these two characters are friends and how they compliment each other. Going along with the film’s visual political commentary, there is also classism prevalent in the relationship between Tenoch and Julio. Tenoch’s father works for the Mexican government and Julio’s family is leftist and middle class, already setting up clear political and class conflict between the two boys that they nonetheless have managed to ignore in their friendship. As with other issues laid dormant in their relationship, Tenoch’s classism only comes out during a shouting match late in the film, as he calls Julio “a hillbilly.” The woman they go on a road trip with, Luisa (Maribel Verdú), proves to be the catalyst in unearthing the many repressed issues within their relationship, whether political or sexual.

The trope of an older woman teaching young men about life and love became ridiculous pretty much after Weird Science and it’s strange here too, yet is justified in retrospect at the end of the film, when Tenoch informs Julio that Luisa died a month after the trip and that she knew she had cancer the entire time. While Julio and Tenoch go on that journey with her, just for the virtue of being around an attractive woman that may have sex with them, Luisa went on that journey to find peace and truth within her life and impart wisdom on to someone, anyone, as her entire family is deceased and her husband repeatedly cheated on her. Luisa ultimately succeeds in finding truth for herself and for Julio and Tenoch, but for them the truth permanently fractures their relationship.

At the beginning of their journey, as Julio and Tenoch get to know Luisa, Julio states that “truth is cool but unattainable… the truth is totally amazing but you can never reach it.” Their trip to the beach allows Julio and Tenoch to come close to unearthing deep sexual truths about themselves, but his words become a self-fulfilling prophecy as they never reach the truth. At the beginning of the film, Julio and Tenoch start out as brash and sexually pompous (despite both of them admitting they’ve only had sex with their current girlfriends) young men. Out of a need for sexual intimacy with men she trusts more than her cheating husband, Luisa has sex with both of them and sexual dysfunctions are revealed: Julio reaches climax too quickly; Tenoch has a habit of saying “Mama” when he reaches his own climax. These idiosyncrasies are pointed out to them by Luisa, exemplifying their sexual immaturity and inexperience. It’s soon revealed that both Julio and Tenoch have slept with each other’s girlfriends in a scenario that’s first presented as dramatic and potentially friendship ending, but then is reframed as comedic as more of their sexual dalliances are revealed in farcical fashion. Their friendship remains intact.

As Julio and Tenoch come to a head in their argument over who had sex with whose girlfriend, Luisa becomes angry and leaves, exclaiming, “What [they] really want to do is fuck each other!” This statement, while humorous within the scene, gains weight when read in context with scenes before and after this one. Earlier in the film, Julio and Tenoch play around naked while showering, masturbate together, and even note a picture of a penis together. They remark that they never see a friend anymore since he came out of the closet, but are nonetheless accepting of him, despite their heavy usage of homophobic slurs throughout the film.

After they reconcile, Julio, Tenoch, and Luisa all have sex while intoxicated, which leads to Julio and Tenoch passionately kissing. The revelatory aspect of this threesome scene is that Tenoch and Julio’s kiss isn’t played for gay panic humor as it typically would be in other sex comedies, but rather as tender, loving, and a natural growth of their sexualities. There’s never a doubt that they’re attracted to women, but this scene confirms they are also definitely attracted to each other as more than friends (even Diego Luna can’t stop thinking about it). Luisa, once again, is the catalyst that leads them to this truth, it’s up to them whether or not they accept it.

Due to society’s (and their own ingrained) heteronormativity, Julio and Tenoch do not accept this truth, however. The morning after their tryst, they choose to go home immediately, with Luisa staying behind voluntarily. The narrator states that their girlfriends later broke up with them, they found new women to date, and they eventually stopped seeing each other. Julio and Tenoch only meet once again a year later, to discuss Luisa’s fate, before never meeting again. Luisa finds peace in nature and with her true self, and while she pushed Julio and Tenoch towards some harsh truths, they ultimately rejected them.

Y Tu Mamá También points out the elastic, freeing nature of femininity compared to the toxic, fragile nature of masculinity. Over the course of the film, Luisa only becomes a month or so older and finds truth, or at the very least solace for herself, while Julio and Tenoch go from brash young adults to estranged, closed-off adult men, refusing to come to terms with their bisexuality. The children are Mexico’s (and every country’s) future but even they cannot survive in an oppressive society without obscuring some fundamental truth about who they are.

Andy Herrera was born in New York, raised in Florida, and is now back in New York again. He was raised on TV shows and movies and now all he does is write about them.