Advertising – Bitch Flicks

Why Skittles’ ‘Bite-Size Horror’ Is the Perfect Metaphor for American Society

This guest post written by Lisette Voytko appears as part of our theme week on Women in Horror.

If you’re anything like me and millions of Americans, you tuned into the Yankees v. Indians ALDS game on Wednesday evening, October 11th. Despite the Yankees’ incredible comeback win, one commercial break might have left you fraught with tension.

Skittles, a brand that’s no stranger to oddball advertising, chose that night to debut the latest in Mars’ #BiteSizeHorror campaign, called “Floor 9.5.”

Skittles TV Commercial, ‘FOX: Bite Size Horror’

Running a full two minutes, instead of the usual 30-second slot reserved for commercials, viewers follow an unnamed female office worker on her way home from the office. Did you watch it? Good.

Because, broken down, frame by frame, the two-minute spot is a microcosm of what it’s like to live in the U.S. today. Here’s how it works: We open on our protagonist (Georgina Campbell, “the first Black actress to win a BAFTA“), a 20-something Black woman. It’s nighttime; she’s on her way home from a long day at the office. The clock strikes midnight.

We get a full-body glimpse of our protagonist, getting into the elevator. She’s carrying a heavy tote bag, and an office-appropriate trench coat. Notable here are her shoes: athletic trainers indicative of commuters everywhere. Judging by her lack of blazer, high heels, or other “power” attire, it’s safe to assume she’s a lower-level corporate denizen. She’s probably ambitious, given that she put in a ridiculously long day, and her exhaustion clearly shows.

Our protagonist steps into the elevator, and we get a good look at her haircut and blouse. Her hair is the kind of bob made popular by Taylor Swift. Her blouse is buttoned to the top button, a common styling choice for young urbanites. You could easily picture her hanging out at Coachella, or having after-work drinks at a hip bar. You can imagine she’s still paying off her student loans, having obtained a degree at a pricey private university in order to land her current job.

The elevator goes haywire, stranding our protagonist onto a Being John Malkovich-ish floor existing between levels 9 and 10. The doors open. A bald white man, dressed in a black suit, faces away from the camera.

“I need your help,” he says in a low voice. “I need your help.”
“What?” asks the protagonist, stepping out of the elevator.

This exchange, although quite basic, is reminiscent of the existing power dynamic between American men and women at work. But let’s go back to what the man is wearing. His suit is considered power attire, and by its formal nature, indicates he’s higher up on the corporate ladder than the protagonist. His baldness indicates that he’s probably older, which typically means he’s higher-ranking. And men are more likely to be promoted at work, and to sit in the C-suite. 30% more likely, in fact.

Keeping all of this in mind, the protagonist gets out of the elevator to help. Because it’s in her nature to do so. And the man directly asks for her help, because it’s in his nature do so, too. Although there are always exceptions to the rule, of course. And these gendered behaviors may be a result of socialization, or socialization in conjunction with nature. Here, she’s trying to help him. She wants to see his face, and understand why he’s here, and why he’s acting so strangely. He asks her to turn around, and she complies. Because, again, she wants to help (and get the hell out of there, too.) But the difference between these two people never becomes more apparent than this frame of their legs, turning in tandem. Her commuter shoes and cropped slacks are in contrast with the man’s suit trousers and highly-polished loafers. Those loafers look expensive, don’t you think?

A study conducted by the University of Zürich found “women were more likely to get a dopamine rush when doing something for others, while men are more likely to do so when they are acting in their own self-interest.” We cut to a wide shot of the man, having successfully convinced the protagonist to turn around, dashing towards the elevator – towards his presumed freedom. “I’m sorry!” he shouts, before the elevator doors close in the protagonist’s face. She’s stranded. And she looks terrified.

Women tend to apologize more than men, although the impetus behind each gender’s mea culpas are quite different. Women say sorry in an attempt to appear more likable, while men will do so in recognition of inconveniencing another. The man, by stranding our protagonist, has certainly inconvenienced her by acting in his own self-interest. That’s an apology well-warranted. And, you have to wonder: why didn’t he grab her hand on his run back to the elevator? Perhaps, even in dire circumstances, white male privilege still reigns.

Our final frame leaves our protagonist where the bald man started. “I need your help,” she says to the next victim: a bespectacled white man in shirt sleeves and a tie. Due to the gender wage gap, which especially impedes Black women and Latina women, he probably earns more money than our protagonist and he may have a higher position, too. And we know that she’s about to have her revenge, perpetuating the cycle on floor 9.5. Or maybe she won’t? Who’s to say the bespectacled man won’t just leave her there, standing still, frozen in perpetuity?

And why is this happening, in this specific office building? What is the purpose? Where is this sort of demonic possession coming from? And what happens to each victim after they screw over their successor?

There are many circumstances, specific to American culture in 2017’s place and time, that allegorize this story. For example:

Why this office building? Well, Americans are working longer hours than ever. Perhaps this is the price you pay for giving your life away to a corporation.
What’s the purpose of this? Americans are scientifically proven to be selfish.
Because of the gender wage gap in the U.S., women are paid 80% of what men make. Black women are paid 63% and Latina women are paid 54% of what white men make.
What happens to each victim? Assuming the elevator returns victims to their normal, 9-to-5 life, it’s not hard to believe they would go about their days with a higher degree of distrust and isolation than before. It’s symptomatic of the divisive political atmosphere permeating the U.S. since the 2016 election.

Director Toby Meakins told AdWeek that the concept of the “loop/hell,” that he and writer Simon Allen collaborated on, is “intended to be a metaphor for modern working life.” Meakins said that they wanted the ad to evoke Black Mirror as well as a “short Kafkaesque nightmare.”

But the “Kakfaesque nightmare” is the reality of social, political, and economic issues affecting society, imprinted on Americans’ collective unconscious. This commercial illustrates how deep the nightmare goes; that inequalities exist in the most dire, uncertain circumstances. And women are suffering the most for it. If our protagonist can’t be saved by her colleagues from an everlasting loop of hell, how can our entire gender at large expect fair, equitable treatment? Like it or not, #BiteSizeHorror is a bite-size slice of the current turbulence in American society.

Lisette Voytko is a freelance journalist living in Brooklyn, New York. Her work has appeared in Thrillist, The Video Game History Foundation, xoJane, Femsplain, and Task & Purpose. Find her on Twitter @lisettevoytko.

Women in a Man’s World: ‘Mad Men’ and the Female Gaze

In fact, many of the clients grow to appreciate the benefit of the female gaze, making their products truly (for the most part) appealing to women. This makes more profit than the false patriarchal ideas of a woman’s wants and needs. With the character of Peggy, Weiner is able to let us see the advertising world from the female gaze to criticize the falsehood that lies in selling female products with a male gaze.

This guest post by Caroline Madden appears as part of our theme week on The Female Gaze.

Mad Men is a remarkable portrayal of the 1960s that explores the office and home lives of workers in the New York City advertising industry over the course of a decade. The 60s was a particularly patriarchal and sexist period of history, as was the profession that Mad Men depicts. Advertising, even for women’s products, was driven by the male gaze. Mad Men aims to portray the decade and the world of Madison Avenue advertising as accurately as possible, but does not view it from the patriarchal standpoint of the time.

In the Establishing Mad Men documentary, creator Matthew Weiner states that Mad Men “is about conflicting desires in the American male, and the people who pay the price for that are women.” The leading women in the series who pay that price are Peggy Olson, Joan Harris, and Betty Draper. The struggles of Mad Men’s male characters have ramifications on them. Weiner uses the female gaze of these women to criticize the sexism of the era and profession they inhabit, while rendering fully realized and dynamic female characters. Peggy, Joan, and Betty are depicted as sexual, complicated, and diverse human beings.

In the first season of Mad Men especially, much of the dialogue shows the vast amount of overt sexism in the workplace. The Sterling Cooper secretaries are a smorgasbord available for men’s consumption, objects they can use for their amusement or lust. For most audience members of the 2000s, this blatant sexism is baffling, and some may find it oddly humorous just how much was acceptable or tolerated back then.

We experience this sexism through the eyes and gaze of Peggy Olson, who, much like the audience, is being introduced to the world of Sterling Cooper in the first episode. Peggy ends up being the female character most tied with the nature of advertising- making her way from Don Draper’s secretary to copywriter and then copy chief. But at first she is just another secretary, a new piece of fresh meat for the men. Peggy has never worked in an office before; she is straight out of secretarial school. Raised in a strict Catholic family, Peggy has likely never experienced male ogling at quite this level. By Episode 2, “Ladies’ Room,” Peggy is already fed up: “Honestly, why is it that every time a man takes you out to lunch around here, you’re…you’re the dessert!” she bemoans to Joan. Matthew Weiner uses the female gaze purposefully in the following scene where the camera allows the audience to identify with Peggy as the men’s prey. As Peggy sits at her desk on the typewriter, the camera cuts to many different men in slow-motion gazing at her, with reverse low angle-shots of Peggy. The multiple and unrelenting gazes of men echoes Peggy’s dialogue from minutes before: “It’s constant from every corner.” The low-angle on Peggy heightens her overwhelming feeling of their gaze.

Peggy’s role puts her in the position of seeing not only the advertising world firsthand, but also the male point of view that it so actively employs, and from her first account, she begins to challenge that point of view. Peggy’s rise in advertising begins with a Belle Jolie lipstick campaign. The Sterling Cooper secretaries are treated to a testing session (viewed by the men behind a two-way mirror) where they can try on as many Belle Jolie lipsticks as they please. The gaggle of secretaries are thrilled, but Peggy sits there unhappily. The camera shows Peggy watching the girls try on lipsticks in slow motion, the seeds of her first copy pitch planting in her brain. Freddy Rumsen asks Peggy why she didn’t try on any lipsticks. Peggy tells him that they didn’t have her color, that she is very particular: “I don’t think anyone wants to be one of a hundred colors in a box.” The men are failing to see the individuality in women, and instead choosing to see them as a limited whole. Peggy’s observations leads her to be promoted to copywriter for that campaign.

In Season 3, Peggy continues to challenge the male gaze in advertising. In a campaign for Patio, the clients want a shot-for-shot reenactment Bye Bye Birdie’s opening: “She’s throwing herself at the camera. No one seems to care that it speaks to men. Not the people that drink diet drinks.” Peggy asks Don about the faux Ann-Margaret. “It’s not about making women feel fat. It’s ‘look how happy I am drinking Patio. I’m young and excited and desperate for a man,’” Don replies. “I don’t mind fantasies, but shouldn’t it be a female one?” Peggy asks. “Peggy, you understand how this works: men want her, women want to be her.” Don is subtly insisting to Peggy that advertising, even for women’s products, is aimed for men. Don is also hinting to Peggy that if she keeps up the criticisms about the male gaze in advertising, she will lose her job.

Another example is the Playtex ad from Season 2 Episode 6’s “Maidenform.” Kinsey comes up with an idea that every woman is either a Jackie or Marilyn. He points to various women in the office pinpointing which one they are. “I don’t know if all women are a Jackie or a Marilyn. Maybe men seem them that way,” Peggy counters. “Bras are for men. Women want to see themselves the way men see them,” Kinsey insists.

As the series progresses into the mid-60s, we see the gradual shift into (slightly) more open-minded ideals about the roles of women in the workplace. Peggy is promoted and works on many campaigns. In fact, many of the clients grow to appreciate the benefit of the female gaze, making their products truly (for the most part) appealing to women. This makes more profit than the false patriarchal ideas of a woman’s wants and needs. With the character of Peggy, Weiner is able to let us see the advertising world from the female gaze to criticize the falsehood that lies in selling female products with a male gaze.

Peggy makes the biggest change as the series goes on, from a meek, mousy girl to a headstrong woman, though her evolution is no surprise upon reflection. Outside of the office, Peggy is seen many times exerting control over her own sexuality and choice of sexual partners. Peggy’s struggles of putting career over having a family are honestly and sensitively executed by Weiner.

Another female character tied to Sterling Cooper is Joan Holloway (later Harris). No other character experiences the male gaze as much as Joan. In the beginning seasons, the camera flatters and accentuates every curve of Hendricks’s voluptuous body. We see her as the men in the office see her. But one scene turns this on its head, in Season 1’s “Babylon,” at the Belle Jolie lipstick testing. Joan oversees the secretaries wearing a gorgeous skin-tight red dress. The camera views Joan (as the men view her) as she walks across the table, slyly looking at the two-way mirror. The camera then glides over to and fixes on Joan’s bottom as she bends over. Cut to Joan smirking, turning around and looking squarely at the mirror, almost straight into the camera. Joan knows the men are gazing at her, and she takes possession of that gaze by giving them what they want to see. The men think they have the power in being able to gaze at her unknowingly, but the power lies in Joan’s hands as she presents herself to be looked at. When Joan looks into the camera, it is almost as if she is also challenging the audience as well.

The character of Joan is frequently seen as a sexual object by all those around her. Many of her storylines revolve around the harmful ramifications you experience when you are only viewed by how you look and your body. The men around her, and even Joan herself, tend to use that sexuality as a pawn. Joan knows she exactly how she is viewed and objectified by the men in the office, and she yields that power for better or for worse. Two significant plot points happen to Joan–the rape by her fiancé and the act of prostitution to obtain the Jaguar account and a higher position in the office. As she lies on the office floor with Greg on top of her, or as awful, the awful car salesman kisses her and takes off her fur coat, the camera fixes on only Joan in a close-up. By doing that we are able to empathize with only her instead of focusing on the act. Weiner visually does not reduce these scenes to moments of exploitation. We are not centered on the event itself, but on what Joan is going through.

The show itself does not reduce Joan to just a sexual object as much as the men around her would like her to be so. Joan is a very smart, capable woman that is excellent at her job, more so than some of the men are. She often goes unappreciated until she does obtain her higher-up position. The show’s finale shows Joan running a production company in her home while raising her son.

Outside of Sterling Cooper, but connected to leading man Don Draper, is Betty Draper (later Francis). Betty’s image is one of passive, docile sexuality and complete perfection. Throughout the series, we quickly learn that there is more beneath Betty’s Barbie Doll-esque façade, for Weiner delves deeper than the false image she presents. Betty’s character seems ripped straight out the pages of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, a visual personification of “the problem that has no name” that she studied in housewives. Betty’s character allows viewers of modern day to see the nature of those housewives’ lives; there are multiple scenes of the dull drudgery and loneliness Betty deals with day to day alone in the house.

We first get a glimpse at her underlying sexuality when she tells Don, “I want you so much. I thought about it all day. No I mean it. It’s all I think about…every day. Your car coming down the driveway. I put the kids to bed early. I make a grocery list. I cook butterscotch pudding. I never let my hands idle. Brushing my hair, drinking my milk…and it’s all in kind of a fog because I can’t stop thinking about this. I want you so badly.” From this we learn that Betty is very much at the whim of Don’s actions. One episode delves further into Betty’s brimming sexuality, when we see her pleasuring herself against a washing machine while fantasizing about making love to the air conditioner salesman. In Season 3, after seeing Don sleep with so many other women, there is a scene of Betty controlling her sexuality when she sleeps with a stranger from a bar. Matthew Weiner takes great care in telling her side of the story in the marriage and relation to Don. Betty is not shown to be the demure or child-like woman that Don or others may view her as.

Mad Men is one of the few shows that depicts a successful representation of the female gaze, despite taking place in an era and profession where female’s experiences were often devalued. Weiner does not reduce the women to just mere symbols of the decade’s movements but crafts them as complicated and dynamic human beings living in an equally complicated time. And this is not limited to just Peggy, Joan, and Betty. Mad Men has many women, good qualities and bad, older women, mothers, grandmothers, young girls, teenagers, within the show that Weiner manages–even through small parts–to finely craft. Weiner uses the female gaze as one of many ways to examine the fascinating decade.

Caroline Madden has a BFA in Acting from Shenandoah Conservatory and is working on an MA in Cinema Studies at Savannah College of Art and Design. She writes about film at Geek Juice, Screenqueens, and her blog. You can usually find her watching movies or listening to Bruce Springsteen.

‘Mad Men’: Masculinity and the Don Draper Image

Upon viewing the series after knowing the show’s finale, we see that the Don Draper arc reflects a small change in gender perspectives during that era. The Don of Season 1 would never act as the Don in the Season 7 finale. We see that Mad Men was all about shattering the hyper-masculine Don Draper mythos that he built and trapped himself within.

This guest post by Caroline Madden appears as part of our theme week on Masculinity.

Mad Men’s leading ad man, Don Draper, started out as an enigmatic and virile figure–a creative genius on the top of his career who has a beautiful wife and family and an insatiable sexual appetite fulfilled by many other mistresses. Don Draper, for audiences and the characters that surrounded him alike, was the ultimate male figure. Characters around him constantly likened him to matinee idols such as James Garner and Gregory Peck, or an astronaut, and even Batman. Don is constantly seen by others as handsome yet inscrutable, as he swaggers around the office winning pitches and charming clients, yet remaining distant and unwilling to share anything personal. No one, whether it be the clients at work or the beautiful women he seduced, could resist the Don Draper charm. But the seemingly infallible wall and perfect image that surrounds Don slowly diminishes as the series goes on. And we learn that it is just that: an image.

We discover early on in the show that Don Draper is really Dick Whitman- a poor farm boy from Pennsylvania. His mother was a prostitute who died in childbirth, his father a cruel drunk who died in front of him after being kicked by a horse. Dick moved with his stepmother and grew up in a whorehouse. Dick then volunteered for the Korean War to get out of his home. He accidentally killed his C.O., the real Don Draper, and switched dog tags with him in order to start a new life under his name. Ever since then, Dick has been constantly trying to escape his past by reinventing himself as a new man–a man who has, as Peggy Olson notes in the episode “The Fog,” “everything, and so much of it.” The farm boy now has more money than he knows what to do with and a beautiful home and family. Don tries to live the picturesque life that he conjures up in advertisements. But like most of advertising itself, it is false. Despite his new start, Don cannot escape his past and issues, it is constantly bubbling over and seeping into his life. Don’s seemingly perfect family life and ways of self-medication is, how Pete Campbell reflects on in his own monologue, a “temporary bandage on a permanent wound.”

Mad Men has seven seasons, and is set across an entire decade from 1960 to 1970. The show is rampant with the gender stereotypes of the era, and they are especially visible in the first seasons. The sexist attitudes of the era are shown in the dialogue and depiction of office and family life; there are far too many examples to name. We see these gender stereotypes reflected again and again in the brainstorming and final fruition of advertisements that Sterling Cooper creates. However, not only does Mad Men tell the stories of people who live in that time period, but the characters and story also end up symbolizing the turmoil and transformations of the decade itself. Upon viewing the series after knowing the show’s finale, we see that the Don Draper arc reflects a small change in gender perspectives during that era. The Don of Season 1 would never act as the Don in the Season 7 finale. We see that Mad Men was all about shattering the hyper-masculine Don Draper mythos that he built and trapped himself within.

Throughout the series, we have seen Don reach several small epiphanies and seemingly making some progress, only to circle around and revert back in the end. Much like the Springsteen song, Don was constantly moving “one step up, and two steps back.” In Season 4, Don loses control of himself after his divorce from Betty. Most notably in the episode “Waldorf Stories,” Don gets blackout drunk and ends up sleeping with two women in one night. He also shows up at a meeting where he drunkenly and sloppily pitches to Life Cereal. He even references the notion of “nostalgia,” which pathetically evokes the most poignant pitch of his career for Kodak. This is not the cool, calm, and collected Don of Season 1. Don remarries Megan to get himself back on track, and for a while it works. In Season 5, he was able to remain faithful and cut back on drinking. He was open with her about his past as Dick Whitman, his relationship with Anna Draper, everything. But by Season 6 he is having an affair with his neighbor and drinking heavily again.

The culmination of Season 6 is a major collapse of Don’s masculine, perfected, and guarded image. The charm and swagger that used to work so well for his business is losing its power. During a pitch for Hershey, we see Don his most vulnerable in front of other men. At first, Don tells a fake story of how he would mow the lawn for his father and be rewarded with a Hershey bar. The executives are pleased; it’s the exactly what they want to hear. But it’s a lie. Then, Don decides to sell the truth for once. He confesses,

“I was an orphan. I grew up in Pennsylvania in a whorehouse. I read about Milton Hershey and his school in Coronet magazine or some other crap the girls left by the toilet. And I read that some orphans had a different life there. I could picture it. I dreamt of it. Of being wanted. Because the woman who was forced to raise me would look at me every day like she hoped I would disappear. Closest I got to feeling wanted was from a girl who made me go through her john’s pockets while they screwed. If I collected more than a dollar, she’d buy me a Hershey bar. And I would eat it alone in my room with great ceremony, feeling like a normal kid. It said ‘sweet’ on the package. It was the only sweet thing in my life.”

Don continues this reveal of his true self to the ones he owes it the most, his children. He takes his children to see the decrepit house he grew up in. He attempts to break the circle of this false identity he has built for so long.

Upon reflection, the breakdown of Don’s persona seems a clear journey for this character, but to many audience members it is hard to see Don in weaker moments. Many prefer seeing Don as the alpha male of Season 1. In Matthew Weiner’s interview with Hanna Rosin at The Atlantic they remark that the audience has trouble when Don loses his confidence. Rosin comments that the audience “Could tolerate his wickedness if he was alpha. But if he cried, or lost his bearings-” To which Weiner replies that there have been other ‘weak’ moments for Don on the show: “He’s cried before. He lost his bearings in the Carousel scene at the end of the first season. That’s the most famous moment in the show. He was filled with regret and weeping over something very, very un-masculine. He ran to Rachel Menken and said, ‘Let’s run away,’ and could not have been weaker.” But the Hershey moment was remarkably different than these moments.

In the Season 7 finale, for Don has to finally hit rock bottom in order to truly shed his false persona. Don has ended up in California at the Esalen Institute, a therapeutic treatment center. He did not go willingly, but was brought by his acquaintance, Anna Draper’s niece Stephanie. During a class in one exercise, you are told to face another person and physically communicate with them how they feel. Don remains guarded with his arms crossed and brow furrowed, a gesture certainly fitting. Don has long felt psychology was false and a waste of time, and this is no different. Sharing your feelings was seen as weak, and Don was always telling others to stop crying or grieving.

However, eventually Don has a nervous breakdown. The culmination of Stephanie leaving him, telling him he is not her family, and news of Betty dying leaves him paralyzed with emotion. He calls Peggy on the phone, who fears that he is near suicidal. “I messed everything up. I’m not the man you think I am. I broke all my vows. I scandalized my child. I took another man’s name and made nothing of it.” He confesses. A kind woman takes him to a group therapy session, but he can only sit in a trance. Then, a nebbish man Leonard sits a chair and begins opening up: “It’s like no one cares that I’m gone. They should love me. I mean, maybe they do, but I don’t even know what it is. You spend your whole life thinking you’re not getting it, people aren’t giving it to you. Then you realize they’re trying and you don’t even know what it is.” The beginning of his speech gets Don’s attention, and by the end Don is standing up and walking over to embrace the sobbing Leonard. This scene is incredibly important for Don Draper’s character arc.

Matthew Weiner remarked in his interview with the New York Public Library that they studied videos from Esalen: “These guys have had it. Even if they’re not veterans, they are just—the alienation that was created by success, political, racial tension, the technology, which is I think what’s happening right now, the isolation, these guys were like they’re going to crack, and it’s not like they haven’t always done that, but it was really something that I felt that was part of the story of the era of the sixties.” The era of the ’60s is ending, as well as Don’s journey. Don has had it; he has cracked and cannot take it any longer. The story of the characters end up reflecting the era they’re living in.

Don Draper is from The Silent Generation, where children were taught to be seen and not heard, especially male children. And especially Don, whose stepmother hated him. Boys were (and still are today) taught never to cry, or express their feelings. Being emotional is seen as being feminine, which men of that era would never want to be been seen as. It is a harmful stereotype for all men, leaving them stunted and suppressing their emotions. This expectation for men to remain these silent heroes, doubled by the false perfect persona that Dick Whitman puts on as Don Draper, is what leads him to make so many of his mistakes and fuels his turbulent emotional problems.

The Mad Men finale, as well as Don’s entire journey, demonstrates how destructive the rules of “being a man” can be. Especially during a time when sexism was so open, when the lines were so clearly drawn between what made a man and what made a woman. We had seen Don cry or open up emotionally a handful of times, but for the most part Don remained so closed off from everyone, folding his arms to the world. The finale shows the first time he finally opens them and embraces, both literally and figuratively, not only himself, but another man suffering the same problems as well. It is an incredibly important moment for Don. Don begins as a man unable to express himself and forced to uphold unwavering masculinity due to his upbringing, the era he lived in, and the persona he crafted for himself. He ends by rejecting those notions, which allows him to fully connect with others around him and make peace with his inner conflicts and past.

‘The Moon Inside You’: A Bloody Good Documentary

Menstrual studies is a discipline very close to my heart. While earning my master’s degree, I temporarily became obsessed with texts like ‘Periods in Pop Culture’ (Lauren Rosewarne, 2012) and ‘Flow’ (Elissa Stein and Susan Kim, 2010) as I composed my thesis. I was blessed with a supportive advisor who made me realize that those who shot me disgusted looks in the past were in fact the weird, misinformed ones. I find it perplexing that so many have capitalized on menstruation, yet many are still terrified of discussing it in any form or on any platform. Menstruation is uniquely female and yet suggestive of violence, sacrifice, and trauma: that’s compelling. The menstrual cycle reminds us all of our own mortality, the devastating truth that our bodies will eventually decompose or burn into ashes, and that’s terrifying for many people. Why has the “fairer sex” been assigned this burden?

Written by Jenny Lapekas.

Menstrual studies is a discipline very close to my heart. While earning my master’s degree, I temporarily became obsessed with texts like Periods in Pop Culture (Lauren Rosewarne, 2012) and Flow (Elissa Stein and Susan Kim, 2010) as I composed my thesis. I was blessed with a supportive advisor who made me realize that those who shot me disgusted looks in the past were in fact the weird, misinformed ones. I find it perplexing that so many have capitalized on menstruation, yet many are still terrified of discussing it in any form or on any platform. Menstruation is uniquely female and yet suggestive of violence, sacrifice, and trauma: that’s compelling. The menstrual cycle reminds us all of our own mortality, the devastating truth that our bodies will eventually decompose or burn into ashes, and that’s terrifying for many people. Why has the “fairer sex” been assigned this burden?

The Moon Inside You (2009) is a documentary film written and directed by Diana Fabiánová. I bought this film last summer at a conference organized by the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research, and I’ve waited far too long to watch it and offer my two cents. The film contains English subtitles and also features interviews in French, Slovak, Portuguese, and Spanish. When I briefly met Diana, I noted that she was very tall, very beautiful, and very accommodating to my questions about her film.

Diana opens her film by interviewing random men on the street so that we can witness their immediate discomfort at the mere mention of the word “menstruation.” Some men actually walk away; clearly, for many men, menstruation simply isn’t real. We are in Bratislava where we watch Diana visit the gynecologist, as she tells us that her menstrual cycle has caused her nothing but pain and annoyance for years. “Being a woman was like punishment for a crime I didn’t commit,” she tells us. She also explains that she doesn’t prefer to medicate herself, but rather to discover the source of her painful symptoms and put an end to them. This introduction helps viewers to sympathize with those who experience painful periods that prevent them from attending school and work, and even cause some women to resent everyday life with a uterus.

Diana gives us a nice view at the doctor's office. — Diana gives us a nice view at the doctor’s office.

Diana speaks to a group of girls at her old school, who explain that boys “have it easier.” This is a useful place to begin, given that our attitudes toward menstruation are shaped from girlhood, and are typically negative. Diana gives one girl a camera to record her “pre-menstrual” experiences. Dominika tells us that a few girls in her class have already hit menarche, but there may be more who “haven’t confessed,” as if it truly is a crime to be a woman, as our narrator tells us. Diana explains that she wants Dominika’s transition into menstruation to be more pleasant than her own was, and I find myself wishing the very same for this lovely young girl. Toward the end of the film, via her video diary, we’re glad to hear that Dominika has in fact made a relatively painless transition into the world of menstruation.

Even the most "anti-menstrual" women will find themselves rooting for the adorable Dominika to get her first period. — Even the most “anti-menstrual” women will find themselves rooting for the adorable Dominika to get her first period.

After tackling some myths surrounding menstruation (such as the idea that menstruating women are capable of killing infants by merely holding them), Diana heads west to speak to academics and other knowledgeable Americans at prestigious universities such as Harvard. Well-known menstrual scholar and author of The Curse (2000), Karen Houppert is interviewed. Houppert touches on the terrifying impact menstruation as a taboo has on young girls and also summarizes how and why menstruation played a role in shaping America’s workforce and women’s placement in both the workplace and at home. Martha McClintock, Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago even explains that if we observe and study the moods of men, their moods are just as erratic as women’s; however, women are at an advantage since we can actually predict how we will likely feel at a given time of the month. While this can and should be read as a sophisticated or evolved trait, women are still stigmatized as hormonal and irrational, especially when experiencing PMS. The fact is that our bodies are wiser than us, and we must listen to our own. If we feel that our stress is unbearable, it may be an indication that we must retreat and care for ourselves until we are prepared to tend to the needs of others.

Diana interviews a group of boys as well, who tell us that women can’t have sex while menstruating because “it gets in the man’s way.”

I found it moving to watch a group of women that Diana gathers to participate in an experimental belly-dancing class. These strangers sit together to share their personal stories of pain and distress related to their cycles and then dance as a group before a large mirror. The preconception that only young girls on the verge of menarche or new to its inconveniences gather in such a setting is misguided; fully developed women with children and years of experience menstruating can offer one another comfort and solidarity in a safe environment such as this one.

Chris Knight, another well-known scholar to academics and menstrual enthusiasts, author of Blood Relations (1995), tells us, “The most ancient thing is to keep women from knowing about their own power.” If menstrual blood is a source of power–and I believe it is–then why has our culture gone to such great lengths to conceal this source of power to make us believe that the menstrual cycle is shameful? In The Vagina Monologues (2007), Eve Ensler shares that she is worried about vaginas, and I think several more of us are worried not about menstruation but how women define themselves by its aura of culpability and self-condemnation.

Interspersed throughout the documentary, between Diana’s commentary and interviews, are fun animations of eggs making their way through the fallopian tubes. These brief clips offer a whimsical retreat from the tension felt within much of the film. — Interspersed throughout the documentary are fun animations of eggs making their way through the fallopian tubes, brief clips that offer a whimsical retreat from the tension felt within much of the film.

Reminiscent of Gloria Steinem’s famous essay “If Men Could Menstruate,” Diana asks men on the street if they would try menstruating if they could. While most men say no (and one even suggests that it’s not “cool” to bleed from your vagina), one man claims that he’d like to menstruate so he can finally understand what women experience.

We seem to have a social contract that our menstrual blood remains secret and concealed when in public...or anywhere, really. — We seem to have a social contract that our menstrual blood remain secret and concealed when in public…or anywhere, really.

Diana touches on the commodification of our cycles with the help of the birth control pill, acknowledging companies like Tampax that capitalize on the shame that pervades our media messages, and the onslaught of rhetoric that suggests women are somehow biologically flawed by this internal feminine clock that is ever-ticking.

We meet the inventor of the contraceptive implant, who tells Diana that menstruation is not “normal” or “natural,” that the scent of blood is “the scent of death,” and that menstruation is essentially a type of abortion or miscarriage. He believes that once young girls reach menarche, they should experience menstruation once and then immediately prevent ovulation using an implant, since an ovulation that doesn’t result in conception is “useless.” The dangerous and dogmatic recommendations we hear from the “good doctor” should remind us that he’s nothing more than a mechanic who has never owned a car.

A taboo image, the depiction of shit would likely be deemed more acceptable by most people.

Penelope Shuttle, co-author of The Wise Wound (2005), counters this by gracefully explaining, “The thing that’s being given birth to is a new you. You’re giving birth to yourself.” Contrary to what our male doctor claims, the uterus is a place of origins, not death; this doesn’t mean we should all feel inclined to belly-dance like Diana or participate in a drum circle, but it is certainly beneficial to recognize our own sacredness in our blood and to recognize this same light in the women around us.

Women are pressured to be kind and patient during times of hormonal imbalance, although some women experience debilitating pain that prevents them from being productive.

The Moon Inside You is an honest glimpse into how we frame menstruation around the world and how we situate ourselves within its contradictory rhetoric. The destigmatization of menstruation should address the contradictory assessments we make of its appearance as girls and women work to untangle the prescriptive web woven by one-dimensional media, good old patriarchal conventions, and the people we may know who oppress women by regurgitating these haphazard messages of shame and body horror. Young girls can be proud and delighted to reach menarche, just like I was, yet we’re told to bite our tongues as we grow into young women. As Inga Muscio, author of Cunt (2002) explains, “How many bloody mysteries and future generations are hiding up there, somewhere?”

Recommended reading: seeing red project, Adventures in Menstruating

________________________________

Jenny has a Master of Arts degree in English, and she is a part-time instructor at Alvernia University. Her areas of scholarship include women’s literature, menstrual literacy, and rape-revenge cinema. You can find her on WordPress and Pinterest.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

This week we’ve been reading about how an actress prepares for violence in a film, women directors, the common flaw of TV’s strong women, and more. Tell us what you’ve been reading and writing this week in the comments!

The Good News and Bad News for Women in Film This Oscar Season by Esther Zuckerman at The Atlantic Wire

Actress Lupita Nyong’o Talks Preparing for Violence in Film ’12 Years a Slave’ by Jamilah King at Colorlines

Is This the Grossest Advertising Strategy of All Time? by Rebecca J. Rosen at The Atlantic

Frozen’s Head of Animation Says Animating Female Characters is Hard, Because Ladies are Really Emotional and Stuff by Rebecca Pahle at The Mary Sue

Will ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ Jump-Start a New Era of Erotic Filmmaking? by Tom Blunt at Word & Film

Weekly Update for October 11: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You by Kerensa Cadenas at Women and Hollywood

TV’s Strongest Female Characters Share One Stupid Flaw by Eliana Dockterman at TIME

Jamie Foxx Will Play Martin Luther King Jr In Oliver Stone-Directed Biopic for Dreamworks/WB by Tambay A. Obenson at Shadow and Act

‘American Horror Story: Coven’ Rape Scene Cheered On By Emma Roberts Haters at Oh No They Didn’t!

Just Spend the Rest of Your Day Perusing These Biographies of Women in Early Film by Maggie Lange at The Cut

Alice Munro, ‘Master’ Of The Short Story, Wins Literature Nobel by Camila Domonoske and Annalisa Quinn at NPR

The Notorious Life of a Nineteenth-Century Abortionist by Katha Pollitt at The Nation

How a ‘Flatliners’ Ad During a Movie Showing Made This Woman Walk Out

Myrna Waldron, my oldest daughter (a regular contributor to Bitch Flicks), baby Rhiannon Roxane Waldron, and the author, their mother, Pandora Diane MacMillan.

This is a guest post by Pandora Diane MacMillan and appears as part of our theme week on Infertility, Miscarriage, and Infant Loss.

It was March 1997. I was at a movie theatre revival showing of the Star Wars sequel, The Empire Strikes Back. This is, admittedly, a very dark film in the first place, the darkest of the Star Wars trilogy. It is the film where Luke finds out his true parentage, in a scene that has become notorious. I’m not going to get into that in any depth because I’m assuming you’re all more or less familiar with the plot of the original Star Wars trilogy.

I think this was one of the very first film showings that included a special, movie-only commercial meant to promote a new line of Levi’s jeans. The new line was apparently to be called “Flatliners,” yes, a promotional tie-in with that film, with the association that Flatliner Jeans would make the wearer look slim and “flat.” They also apparently thought it would be cute, hip, and hilarious to display the young male wearer of said jeans as DEAD and FLATLINED and to have someone jumpstart the person’s heart with defibrillators(!)

So I am part of a captive audience in the theatre at the time when this commercial comes on, in the intermission of The Empire Strikes Back showing. When I heard the flatline sound and saw the picture of the hospital monitor with the flatline showing on its screen, I stood right up and started swearing loudly. I didn’t even know where I was, I was so shattered. The tears were streaming down my face, and I didn’t even feel it. Once I finished swearing, my husband and daughter escorted me out to the lobby. They were equally upset and horrified by the commercial. They didn’t need to ask why I erupted like that.

Only the week before, I had buried my beloved one-month-old baby daughter Rhiannon Roxane, my second daughter. She stopped breathing in my arms when I was burping her, about 3:00 AM on March 4, 1997. It was diagnosed as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome – SIDS. Because my husband and I were awake and aware when little Rhiannon stopped breathing, we called 911, the paramedics came, and they resuscitated our baby. Then they rushed her to the hospital emergency.

I was in despair at the time but nursed a desperate hope. I knew she had probably stopped breathing for at least 5 minutes before I became aware she hadn’t fallen asleep against my shoulder. I had just taken the St John’s Ambulance course at my office so I could give first aid to my co-workers if needed. The course had taught me one important thing: if the brain is deprived of oxygen for more than 5 minutes, that person is likely brain dead. So I was crying and not hoping for very much as we joined the paramedics at the emergency ward.

They spent a long time at the hospital trying to revive my baby girl. I was sitting in a dazed, surreal state, looking down the hallway at the room where baby Rhiannon Roxane lay, our little Rhi-Rox. Then I saw the green line going level across the hospital monitor, no twitches in its movement, straight along, over and over. And I heard that long loud beeeeeeeeeeeep. The flatline sound. The sound of no hope at all when it’s someone you love who is hooked up to it. There will be no defibrillators hooked up to this baby. She is brain dead.

Soon we are called one by one to the telephone in the emergency department. It is the consultant pediatrician on the hotline from Sick Kids Hospital downtown. She has a request for each of us, my husband and me. “Do I have your permission to disconnect life support?” Her voice is cold, clipped, and empty of emotion. I say yes, with a heavy heart. She asks it again. This time she adds, “You do realize she will be a VEGETABLE if I leave her connected to life support?” Oh God, did she have to say that? Feeling punched in the stomach, I say yes again. She asks the question yet a third time. Yes.

I say to my husband, you talk to her. What I hoped for, I don’t know. Anything, but that merciless clinically cold voice. Does she make this call every day? I wondered. Is she dead to all feeling now? Then I hear my husband saying Yes, Yes, Yes three times, and I realize she has asked him the same terrible question.

Now they have official permission to pull the plug. There is nothing for the hospital staff to discuss anymore, except do we want an autopsy. We do. Then we follow the rest of the routine in these circumstances, of which I will spare you the details.

Back to the movie theatre. I am standing in the lobby next to the snack bar. I ask for the theatre manager, to complain about that heartless, insensitive jeans commercial we have just endured. The one where they think the sound and the appearance of a hospital monitor going flatline is terribly funny, and a great way to market a new line of jeans. Why bother with sex as a motivation for buying clothing when you can promise virtual resurrection from the dead if you just put on these “Flatliner” jeans!

But no manager is on duty right now. I’m reduced to talking to the only theatre staff member there, a young man who is sweeping the floor in the lobby. No one else is there, not even the snack bar staff. He is the target audience for this commercial, because he’s barely out of his teens. I talk to him about the commercial. In a sad, resigned voice, he replies, “I didn’t like it either.” His head is down and he looks nearly as bereft of hope that things will ever get better as I feel at that point. Nobody cares anymore. Not that pediatrician on the emergency department hotline. Certainly not the marketing department at Levi’s jeans, I could only conclude.

I give it some thought and realize I need to phone the head office of the jeans company and make a complaint there. I did so the next day. I couldn’t get hold of any top management there, but I was asked by their public relations guy to leave a voice mail for the CEO. I don’t remember everything I said, except that we had just lost our infant daughter the week before. “No one,” I said in my voice mail, “who had lost someone they loved while in hospital and heard again that awful flatline sound, would think that was funny.” But the Flatliners movie, replied the PR guy. Didn’t you see it? Didn’t you get the joke? No, I said. I was 100% certain that at this point I didn’t want to see that movie, ever. Finally, I said with a voice of rage that the commercial had offended me so deeply, that I felt the company had spat on my baby daughter’s grave!

All I wanted was for the commercial to stop, to stop right away, before some other bereaved family had to hear it, had to watch it. But apparently, when they played the voice mail for the Levi’s CEO, and he heard my remarks, he said, “That’s it. We pull the whole campaign. The Flatliners jeans line is cancelled as of now.” I wouldn’t have known about this, except the PR guy phoned me back and told me that this happened. Incidentally, Levi’s sent us two T-shirts by way of apology. I hadn’t expected they would decide to actually stop production of the jeans with that offensive name. I just hoped they would pull the commercial. Obviously, I am relieved that once I brought the issue to their attention, Levi’s immediately did the right thing.

So here’s a case study in how death as a concept was initially handled insensitively by the ad men (who may not even have been employed by Levi’s), and the outcome of that – with an outraged, bereaved mother: me. I can never bring my baby girl back. But I wanted to spare other families who’d lost someone they loved some small portion of the heartache that my family and I had gone through.

———-

Pandora Diane MacMillan holds a BA in English from York University in Toronto Canada. She retired in 2008 after more than 30 years working for the Ontario government in driver and vehicle licensing administration. Pandora has known she wanted to be a writer since Grade 2. She was fortunate enough to have writing as part of her job although it was writing related to licensing questions. She has also written some popular poetry and fan fiction for the Internet and continues to pursue writing as a hobby.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Rosario Dawson Gives Some Real Talk on the Reality for Actresses by Kerensa Cadenas via Women and Hollywood

Why I Wrote a ‘Mad Men’ Episode with Negroes by Erika Alexander via Racialicious

Spotlight on Women Directors at Tribeca Film Festival by Paula Schwartz via Reel Life with Jane

Women in Film Talk Why There Are So Few Women in Film by Jill Pantozzi via The Mary Sue

Tribeca Film Festival Will Honor Nora Ephron with an Annual Award to a Woman Filmmaker by Alyssa Rosenberg via Double X

The 6 Best Women Filmmaker Quotes from Chapman University: ‘There’s No Guy’s Name Up There” by Tim Appelo via The Hollywood Reporter

Some Depressing Stats about Female Comedy Directors by Diana Wright via Women and Hollywood

The Heteronormativity of How the Media Talks about Sexual Identity by Jessica Luther via Power Forward

An Amusing ‘Game of Thrones’ Derails with Visceral Sexual Assaults by Alex Cranz via FemPop

‘Game of Thrones’ is an Excellent Lesson in Patriarchy, Sex, and Power by Erica Aisha Charves via Bitch Media

From ‘Nashville’ to ‘Call the Midwife,’ What Can We Tell TV Stories About Other Than Rape and Murder by Alyssa Rosenberg via ThinkProgress

Top of the Lake: A Non-Watered Down Depiction of Rape Culture by Natalie Wilson via Ms. Magazine’s Blog

‘The Good Wife’ Gives a Crash Course on Radical Justice in “Rape: A Modern Perspective” by Alex Cranz via FemPop

On Self-Esteem and the Struggle, Or Why I’m Not Into that Dove Ad by Kaye Toal via Big Fat Feminist

‘Bridesmaids’ Director Paul Feig on Feminism, Rebel Wilson & More by Anna Klassen via The Daily Beast

And the Final Tally for the ‘Veronica Mars’ Movie Kickstarter Is… by Jill Pantozzi via The Mary Sue

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

‘Carousel’: A Fairytale Screen Adaptation of the 2012 Republican Anti-Woman Agenda

Movie poster for Carousel

I loved this film. When I was 13 or so.

Re-watching it this week—for the purpose of writing about how much I admired the way it handled domestic violence issues (in 1956, no less)—I realized my 13-year-old self understood jack shit about misogyny in film, and she certainly didn’t understand what constitutes successfully raising awareness about violence against women.

The only thing I can think to say about Carousel now, as a 34-year-old woman who’s been both a witness to and a victim of physical abuse at the hands of men, isn’t just that I’m appalled by its sexism or the blasé nature in which it deals with physical abuse (I am), but that I’m seriously freaked out by how a movie musical from sixty years ago manages to feel like a fairytale screen adaptation of the 2012 Republican anti-woman agenda.

A film written, directed, and produced in 1956 will obviously echo the cultural climate of the 1950s, and during that time, rigid gender roles permeated; primarily, men were the breadwinners, and women were the homemakers. And advertisements like this existed:

Women can work outside the home now without the universe exploding (thanks, bros!), but that doesn’t mean we don’t still regularly deal with nonsense I mean gang rape fantasy advertisements like this:

We’ve come a long way, baby? I don’t fucking think so. But I’ll get back to that.

First of all, the plot: Billy Bigelow is a barker (a person who tries to attract patrons) at a carousel, and all the ladies love him, including Mrs. Mullin, the carousel owner. Billy catches the eye of the young, pretty Julie Jordan and helps her onto the carousel like she’s a child, and then stands next to her the whole time, staring at her like a fucking serial killer. The jealous Mrs. Mullin kicks out Julie and her friend Carrie, and when Julie argues about being treated unfairly, Mrs. Mullin slut-shames her for a supposed indiscretion with Billy. The indiscretion? Julie let Billy put his arm around her waist. Floozy!

Billy and Julie in Carousel

Billy appears out of nowhere to defend Julie, and as a result, Mrs. Mullin fires him. In one of the most offensive moments in the film, Billy smacks Mrs. Mullin on the ass and says, “Go on, then, git,” as if she were an animal.

Carrie decides to go home (they have a curfew because apparently being a woman and being a child are the same thing in 1956), but Julie refuses—even though she knows it’ll mean getting fired from her job as a mill worker—because she wants to spend time with this older man whom she knows nothing about, except that he wants to bum money from her; that he’s a womanizer; and that he keeps asking “aren’t you scared of me?” like he’s offended that she isn’t. (Man up, Bigelow!)

This is a movie musical, though, so within the next five seconds Julie and Billy sing a song about love. I’m not going to pretend I don’t love this song.

They get married. Billy can’t (or won’t) find work, so they live off Julie’s aunt. Billy—because he’s so distraught and self-loathing about his inability to find employment—physically abuses Julie (off-screen), but he admits he did it because “we would argue, and she’d be right.” Well then!

Billy basically ignores her for the entire rest of the film in favor of hanging out with his criminal friend Jigger (WTF) until Julie tells Billy she’s pregnant, at which point he caresses her arms and stomach as he helps her walk up like five steps because oh my god delicate flower carrying his spawn.

I laughed in horror at the spawn-song soliloquy that follows; it perfectly encapsulates the creepy gender constraints of 2012 I mean 1956:

“His mother can teach him the way to behave, but she won’t make a sissy out of him. Not him! Not my boy! Not Bill! Bill … my boy Bill; I will see that he’s named after me, I will. My boy, Bill! He’ll be tall and tough as a tree, will Bill!”

The song continues in the same ridiculous fashion, with Billy listing off all the shit His Boy Bill might do when he gets older (e.g. hammering spikes, ferrying a boat, hauling a scow along a canal, becoming a heavyweight champ, or, if that doesn’t work out, maybe becoming the President of the United States, duh). But then, Billy’s all—“Wait a minute! Could it be? What the hell! What if he is a girl?” Actual lyrics.

Let the horror get more horrifying.

Listen. “You can have fun with a son, but you gotta be a father to a girl.” Got it? And this girl, she’ll have ribbons in her hair, and she’ll be pink and white as peaches and cream! We don’t experience the pleasure of hearing about what Peaches and Cream Girl will do with her life, but we definitely get an earful about 1) her looks and 2) all the things Daddy needs to do before her arrival. Suddenly—at the mere prospect of raising a girl child instead of a boy child—Daddy goes all Male Provider on our asses.

Let me not forget to mention this end of the song creep-out moment: “Dozens of boys pursue her. Many a likely lad does what he can to woo her from her faithful dad. She has a few pink and white young fellers of two or three, but my little girl gets hungry every night, and she comes home to me!” What is this—a song from one of those 100% unacceptable for obvious reasons father-daughter purity balls? (That lovely little tradition started as recently as 1998, by the way.)

In the end, Billy dies by falling on his own knife (seriously, fail) when he and Jigger try to steal money from a rich dude. After his death, he passes on to some makeshift Heaven-type situation where he polishes fake plastic stars for all of eternity, and for some reason, the owners of Heaven allow him to return to Earth for a day in order to help Julie and his daughter feel less horrible about him having been an overall shitty husband and criminal. Yay.

By this point, his daughter Louise is fifteen years old. Upon his return to Earth, Billy finds Louise dancing on the beach and, after he realizes everyone keeps making fun of her because of his robbery attempt, he tries to cheer her up—by giving her one of the fake plastic stars he stole (ha ha ha theft again) from Heaven.

But Louise refuses to take it! Because who the fuck is this dude!

And what does she get for refusing a gift from a random man who showed up out of nowhere? A slap on the hand. Literally. The same man who physically abused his wife when he was alive somehow walks out of Heaven and slaps the shit out of his daughter within the first ten minutes of meeting her for the first time. That isn’t even the worst of it.

The worst of it?

She runs inside to tell her mother that a strange man on the beach slapped her—but—but—it didn’t feel like a slap, she says; it felt like a kiss.

Awwwww, that’s sweet, right? Nope! Not for a fucking second. Let me tell you why.

I started this piece by talking about how my thirteen-year-old girl self remembered Carousel as a happy musical that shed light on a bad man who hit his wife. I remembered, too, that he died, but I remembered it as a punishment of sorts, a repercussion caused by living life as an abusive dickface who treated women like absolute shit. I didn’t care about his death. His death felt like a consequence of bad behavior to me, and in a way, it is—stealing money from someone at knifepoint is probably wrong, for the most part, heh. But the ultimate message of Carousel (that I somehow glommed onto as a teenager) isn’t saying to men: “Don’t abuse women, or else.” It’s saying something closer to: “SEE WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU DON’T MAN UP AND SUPPORT YOUR WOMEN, YOU LAZY BUMS?”

It’s a cautionary tale about the dangers of “failing” as a man. It’s oh-so-1956. It’s oh-so-2012.

We’re living in an age in which women’s basic rights—specifically the right to bodily autonomy, including safe and legal access to abortion—keep coming under fire by conservative Republicans and unfortunately aren’t more than half-assedly defended by supposed “progressive” Democrats, either. Further, the arguments against abortion and reproductive rights center around this lie that it’s all about Stopping the Murder of Innocent, Yet-To-Be Born Infants.

Bullshit.

The abortion debate (and now the access to birth control debate—for fuck’s sake!) exists because we live in a culture that time warped to, or possibly never actually left, 1956. Women are still fighting for basic human rights—in 2012—because power-hungry, neo-conservative bullies can’t stop jerking off to the fantasy of living out the rest of their lives in Carousel-Land.

That’s why re-watching this harmless little musical made me absolutely cringe.

It’s a film with dizzying dance sequences and well-known musical numbers to be sure, but it’s also a film in which women are valued and treated with respect only while pregnant, and who are otherwise disregarded, objectified, slut-shamed, abused, or infantilized, and who are expected to accept the actions of the men around them without judgment, regardless of the harm those actions may cause. And there you have it, readers: the 2012 G.O.P. Platform.

Now let’s all cry together:

Sunday Recap

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks: pieces from Racialicious, The Crunk Feminist Collective, About-Face, Pandagon, etc.

‘Pray the Devil Back to Hell’ Portrays How the Women of Liberia, United in Peace, Changed a Nation: As the war progressed, the women wanted to take more drastic measures. Inspired by their faith, the women donned white garb to declare to people they stood for peace. Thousands of women protested at the fish market each and every day, a strategic location visible to Taylor. Carrying a huge banner stating, “The women of Liberia want peace now.” It was the first time in Liberia’s history where Christian & Muslim women came together.

Why Should Men Care? An Interview with Matt Damon: “Why I wanted to do Women, War & Peace was because I thought it said something really important about the nature of war and the nature of the experience of women. And—as a guy who’s raising four girls—that matters to me. It matters to me anyway, but that makes it matter to me more.” — Matt Damon

Guest Writer Wednesday: A Review in Conversation of Twin Peaks: We have both admitted to fondness for the more fringe female characters like the Log Lady, Nadine, and Lucy, but they, and all the other women, really only exist according to their relationships with men.

Guest Writer Wednesday: Why Watch Romantic Comedies?: The romantic comedy genre gets a lot of flak. It’s considered a genre that’s more “shallow” than drama, but not funny enough to be a “real” comedy. Is it any coincidence that the romantic comedy is one of the few film genres, and possibly the only film genre, that regularly features women?

Why Facebook’s “Occupy a Vagina” Event Is Not Okay [TW for discussions of rape and sexual assault]: It’s important to note that even the language–occupy a vagina–divorces women from their own bodies. It’s a form of dismemberment, and I’ll say it again: we live in a rape culture, a culture that reduces women to body parts, whether it’s to sell a product, to promote a film, or for nothing more than reinforcing (and getting off on) patriarchal power. When we use language that prevents us from seeing a person as a whole human being, language that encourages us to view women in particular as a collection of body parts designed for male pleasure (e.g. occupy a vagina), then she exists as nothing more than an object, a fuck-toy, sexually available by default. It might not have been the intent of the event creator to participate in women’s subjugation, but it’s certainly the fucking reality.

Swiffer Reminds Us That Women Are Dirt: It’s remarkable how different the portrayals of the dirt people are: the men-as-dirt ads show a Crocodile Dundee-esque character (also stereotypical) and two buddies lamenting the state of their romantic lives, while the women-as-dirt ads always show a lonely, solitary woman desperate for the kind of attention provided by this wonder mop.

Some Scattered Thoughts on Detective Shows and Geniuses: I’m at a bit of a disadvantage in discussing Medium because I’m only familiar with the first season. Perhaps things get better for Allison in later seasons. Perhaps the men in her life stop expressing so much condescension and distrust toward her and endow her with some Lightman- and/or Monk-esque respect. Perhaps she no longer feels compelled to apologize for her own idiosyncratic crime-solving abilities and develops Lightman’s uber-masculine arrogance about it. (But don’t take that confidence too far, Allison—no one wants to work with a bitch.) At the very least, in the first season of Medium, I sort of love her husband. I mean when is a male rocket scientist ever the sidekick, hmmm?

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Athena Film Festival Trailer Contest

“Web Shows Trek Past Sci-Fi’s Color Line” by Aymar Jean Christian for Racialicious

“Leave Kim Alone!” by crunkista for The Crunk Feminist Collective

“Sugar in the Raw Delivers a Sweet Insult” by Larkin for About-Face

“BEV talks to Andrea Arnold about her latest triumph: Wuthering Heights” by Rachel Millward for Birds Eye View

“Pop Culture Really Does Tell You a Lot About How Screwed Up Americans Are” by Amanda Marcotte for Pandagon

“Fanboys, Feminism, and Frank Talk About Wonder Woman” by Tricia Barr for Fangirl, the Blog

“Ricki Lake Delivers Maternal Health Awareness” by Eleanor Goldberg for Huffington Post

14th Annual African American Women in Cinema Film Festival — New York City, Nov. 17-19

“Mom & Pop Culture: McGender: Unpacking the Happy Meal” by Avital Norman Nathman for Bitch Media

Leave your links in the comments!

Swiffer Reminds Us that Women Are Dirt

We’ve all been here before: watching a television show, cut to commercial break, and on comes that particular ad that you absolutely loathe. You switch the channel, mute the TV, or just rant through the entire thing…again (I’m not the only one, right?).

Not too long ago, I wrote about the spate of “man up and drink a manly beverage” ads (Dr. Pepper Ten specifically), which certainly qualify as loathe-worthy. But there’s another ad campaign that just annoys me to no end: the Swiffer Wet Jet ads that feature women as dirt and show these different varieties of “dirt” falling in love with the cleaning product that gets rid of them so well.

Here’s the one I’ve seen most often — “The Film Star:”

Here, we have a dramatic actress portraying the “film” left behind after mopping, and when the Swiffer mop comes after her, she throws herself at it, clearly lusting after the mop pad that will sweep her away. The ad pulls back and shows a woman satisfied with her freshly-cleaned floor.

Taken alone, the ad is silly and obnoxious, and just about as regressive as your typical gendered ad for cleaning products. The fact that dirt is personified as a woman is disturbing, the fact that she lusts after a mop to essentially destroy her is bizarre (and suggests some deeply fucked-up sexual politics), and the fact that a woman’s enemy (a filmy floor–oh no!) is another woman plays into the typical trope that says women are naturally enemies.

If you look at the other ads in the campaign, however, it gets worse. Here’s “The Mud Lady” (note: this is embedded from YouTube, so if it gets removed, you can likely find the ad somewhere else with a simple search):

Again, we have a woman personifying something you mop up–mud, in this case–and here the woman even claims she’s “not easy” before (literally) throwing herself at the mop pad. Again, the camera pans out to a woman happily mopping her floor. Just as the dramatic actress behaves stereotypically, this woman has a “Valley Girl” (is that term still in use?) accent and quickly contradicts what she says with her actions.

There’s another one featuring an elderly woman as yet another variety of dirt, which I can’t find online (if you know of a link, please let me know and I’ll update!) and she’s unhappy that no one’s given her any romantic attention in a while. Once again, enter that irresistible mop and the woman throws herself at it. And yet another woman mopping is pleased that her floors are now so clean.

These three ads are the only ones in the campaign that I’ve seen on TV here in the U.S. When I went to the official product website, there were some ads I’d never seen that feature men in lust with the mop pad. As a matter of fact, there are two ads there featuring women, and two featuring men (perhaps they’re attempting to thwart accusations of sexism there, but I doubt the ones featuring men are in rotation as heavily as the others)–although all of them show women doing the actual cleaning.

It’s remarkable how different the portrayals of the dirt people are: the men-as-dirt ads show a Crocodile Dundee-esque character (also stereotypical) and two buddies lamenting the state of their romantic lives, while the women-as-dirt ads always show a lonely, solitary woman desperate for the kind of attention provided by this wonder mop.

I’m less interested in equal-opportunity offense here: men as dirt is disturbing, too. But for me, there’s something particularly insidious about these women-as-dirt ads. This isn’t the first time Swiffer has been accused of sexism in their ads, either. In 2008, The Hathor Legacy called out the bizarre ad campaign featuring women in relationships with their cleaning tools:

Swiffer has a whole line of commercials featuring women breaking up with their old mops and brooms to hook up with Swiffer, or the rejected cleaning tools sending flowers in an attempt to woo back their former owners. All the commercials frame women’s relationships with cleaning tools like relationships with boyfriends who are/aren’t meeting their needs. Some of them have involved the woman and the mop in couples therapy, too.

I mentioned in my Dr. Pepper Ten post that I actually like that company’s product, and I feel the same way about Swiffer. And although my husband usually cleans the floors in our home, I’m still the one who buys a majority of the products we use. Swiffer has succeeded in pissing me off and alienating me with this ad campaign to the point that I’m basically finished with their products. It’s yet another example of a company’s humor gone wrong, outdated gender roles, and the assumption that customers will just accept sexism as the norm. Nope. Not here. It doesn’t take much effort to replace a company’s product that has no respect for its customers (and that just makes horrible ads).