Tag: Bechdel Test

‘Pitch Perfect’ and Third-Wave Feminism

Written by Leigh Kolb

Social movements are not without their problems. America’s second- and third-wave feminists (the mothers from the 60s and 70s and their literal and figurative daughters, who have come to age in the 80s, 90s and 2000s) have often appeared to be at odds with one another, and even within themselves. Even though the “women’s movement” is often marketed as a monolith in our culture, it is far from that.

Pitch Perfect, a new musical comedy, is about the all-female a cappella group the Barden Bellas, who are vying for respect among their peers and for the title of best college a cappella group in the nation at the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella. The core problem for them (besides the vomiting–we’ll get to that in a minute) is that they are stuck in the past. While other groups are showing off creative arrangements and flashy dance choreography, the Bellas have rigid movements, dress like stewardesses and only sing “classics” from the 80s and 90s (“The Sign,” “Eternal Flame,” and “Turn the Beat Around” is their standard set list). The Bellas are also uniform in their looks and body types–light-skinned and thin.

The original Bellas are uniform in appearance and skin tone.

As the two matriarchs of the group–Chloe (Brittany Snow) and Aubrey (Anna Camp)–recruit young women to audition at the back-to-school activities fair, Aubrey makes it clear that they are looking for women with “bikini-perfect bodies.” Chloe responds quietly with “How about we just get good singers?” Thus begins the Bellas’ journey into a new world filled with women of color, overweight women, “alternative” brunettes with lots of eyeliner and lesbians.

Aubrey remains steadfast in her traditionalism until almost the bitter end. Her insistence on the value of tradition, and how it’s always been and how they’ve always looked, could represent second-wave feminism, which was criticized for its lack of inclusion for women of color and lesbians.

The protagonist in the film, Beca (Anna Kendrick), desperately wants to be in LA to be a DJ, but is stuck at Barden University because her father is a professor there and she has a free ride (we’ll get to that in a minute, too). She represents third-wave feminism, which has been criticized for a lack of female camaraderie and a disregard for the past.

Beca as the “alternative” girl (black nail polish is a dead giveaway).


Pitch Perfect, on its surface (and even mostly below the surface), is a fun female-centered comedy with good music. It’s clearly co-produced by a woman (Hollywood feminist Elizabeth Banks) and written by a woman (30 Rock and The New Girl’s Kay Cannon). However, a feminist reading of the film suggests that far below the surface, viewers can take the plot of the film as an allegory of second- and third-wave feminism in America. 

The new members of the Bellas see early on that they have no chance of winning with their old routine. They learn it, they go through the motions, but it simply doesn’t work. Aubrey stands firm in the old choreography–she becomes more and more uncomfortable with the concept of changing their form, no matter how “tired” it is.

When the group arrives at their first competition of the season, the commentators (Gail, played by Banks, and John, played by John Michael Higgins) comment on their looks. “This does not look like the fresh-faced nubile Bellas…” John says. They are “refreshing, yet displeasing to the eye,”says Gail. (The interplay between these two judges provides some great one-liners throughout the film.)

John and Gail provide funny, and poignant, Christopher Guest-style play-by-plays.


The Bellas get on stage and perform the same, tired routine. Toward the end, however, Fat Amy (yes, we’ll get to that in a minute) shakes things up during her “Turn the Beat Around” solo, ripping off her jacket and growl-singing the once demure lines. The audiences and the judges love it, and they manage to place. At regionals, Beca sees the audience getting bored and injects some mash-up vocals toward the end of their set (“Titanium,” a bullet-proof anthem that weaves its way throughout the film). The audience enjoys it, but Aubrey is enraged and kicks her out.

The group suffers, but they have to pull it together because they need to perform at nationals after another team was disqualified. Beca comes back, and tells the fractured group, “I’ve never been one of those girls who had a lot of friends who were girls–now I do, and it’s pretty cool.” Aubrey hands Beca the reigns, and they perform Beca’s own mash-up of modern and older songs. She has been turned on, at first reluctantly, to The Breakfast Club by her love interest, Jesse, and includes “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” by Simple Minds, and also includes tween anthem “Party in the U.S.A.” Notably, Fat Amy interjects a line from “Turn the Beat Around” at the climax of their set.

The women have collaborated, and evolved. They’ve kept their individualism, and been frank about their desires and motivations. They dress differently, and they sing new music. However, they don’t leave the past in the dark, and become better and closer when they decide to move forward. At the end, they’re not dressed like one another, they don’t look the same, and they win (on stage and off).

As with the social movement, the film isn’t without its problematic aspects, which ultimately speak to the current state of feminism in our culture.

Gross-out humor: The Bellas are humiliated on the national stage at the beginning of the film when Aubrey projectile vomits on the stage and audience. Later, during the Bellas’ “let it all out” moment that brought them back together, Aubrey does it again. One member gets pushed into it, and makes a snow angel in it. Is this necessary? Was there no other way to symbolize Aubrey’s anal, yet out of control, nature? These scenes felt exactly like the gross-out scenes in Bridesmaids, which were written in by Judd Apatow to appeal to the male viewer. Women, at this point, surely have proven that they’re funny, and that women’s stories can be universally entertaining. OK, maybe we’re not there yet, but the only way into the boys’ club doesn’t have to be to play exactly like them. It’s not a matter of being prude, it’s simply a matter of these scenes–Pitch Perfect‘s vomit or Bridesmaids‘s diarrhea–feeling utterly out of place in the films. What could be more appropriate, and Pitch Perfect does enter into this territory, are jokes about gynecological visits or Gail’s college group, which was called the “Menstrual Cycles.” 

Fathers as idols: Yet again, we have multiple narratives of influential fathers and absent mothers. Beca’s father is the most prominent, as he is a literature professor at BU. Beca is surly and angsty toward him, and references her “stepmonster” and his divorce from her mother, yet doesn’t talk about her mother. Even when she goes to her father during spring break and they bond over tea, it’s all about him. He visits her in her dorm room more than once, which feels awkward, and clearly controls her future (bargaining with her that he’ll send her to LA after one year at BU). Aubrey, in the transformative scene where the Bellas bond, says that “My father always said, ‘If at first you don’t succeed, pack your bags.'” The two characters who most clearly represent the old and the new, in regard to the feminist movement allegory, are driven and inspired/controlled by their fathers. This trope is relentless with female protagonists–fathers are almost always more visible and more important than the characters’ mothers. This consistent story line makes sense if we examine opportunities for men and women in the decades leading up to these young women’s formative years. Girls are taught they can be anything, and too often it’s the man of the house who is represented as powerful, in work and at play. They are who are to be emulated in this culture.

Fat Amy is a star performer on stage and off.

Fat acceptance: Fat Amy (played by the the amazing Rebel Wilson) introduces herself as Fat Amy to Chloe and Aubrey at the activities fair so “twig bitches like you don’t do it behind my back.” Although jokes are made about her size (by her and by others), Amy has solos, sex and friends. Her body is used for comedy, as is the fat body of the male sidekick of the college’s a cappella organizer. It’s still acceptable in our culture to demonize and discriminate against people who are overweight (or use them as comic relief). Amy’s character skewered that with humor (while also reaffirming it), but audiences seem really happy to see a woman of size on screen. While these casting decisions provide great fodder for entertainment writers (and who doesn’t love clever word play: “In a sea of size-0 starlets, Wilson has the confidence of a performer twice her age and half her size”). While some coverage is obviously cringe-worthy at best and fat-shaming at worst, reviewers (and certainly feminists) are embracing this representation. Even if representation is problematic, or has “mixed messages,” it’s representing reality. Would it be believable to have a fat woman on screen and no one comment on it? Unfortunately, we’re not at that point yet.


Race issues: From early on in the film, the portrayal of Asian women is problematic. Beca’s roommate is Korean, and tinkers with a bonsai tree while quietly, solemnly glaring at Beca. She only opens up when around her Korean peers (although she does seem to warm to Beca toward the end of the film). She scowls one evening, “The white girl is back,” when Beca gets back to her room. The Bellas also have a Korean member, who is awkward, speaks in a muted whisper (and when she is audible she’s saying strange things) and only really opens up during their last number. There’s no clear defense for these character portrayals, but they do seem to line up with what’s happening in the greater world of entertainment and feminist conversations even in 2012. Visit the comments section on a feminist blog defending Girls (or simply read about the show’s problematic history). Too often the face of third-wave feminism–especially the early 20s crowd–is white and privileged. This is in lock step with second-wave feminism, which caused a rift with women of color (Alice Walker claimed the title “womanism” because of this), and even first-wave feminism, when early suffragists used racism to further their cause. It was a problem then, and it’s a problem now.


Sex and sexuality: When Beca first arrives on campus, she’s handed an “official BU rape whistle” by a perky upperclassman. She warns, “Don’t blow it unless it’s actually happening!” While many reviewers found this joke tasteless, the audience can’t help but think that it’s supposed to be startling and tasteless. We’re supposed to think, “That’s insane,” and then immediately think about how “legitimate rape” has been a talking point and male legislators have had to re-write laws to change “rape” to “forcible rape.” Instead of just being offensive, that joke has the possibility of satirizing how we are discussing rape on a wide scale.
The “original” Bellas have a rule that no Bella can be romantically involved with a Treblemaker (their all-male rival group). This strict sexual gatekeeping causes them to lose members at the beginning, but Beca speaks out against the rules and continues to fraternize with Jesse (a Treblemaker). The two don’t embrace and kiss until the end, but it’s another traditional rule broken. Women don’t want male legislators policing their bodies, but they also don’t want other women doing so either (in the name of tradition and virtue, or competition with men).
The group has one member who frequently makes jokes about her sexual exploits (“dude’s a hunter,” she says of her vagina, adapting to the double standard of being a stud) and wears revealing clothing and dances provocatively. She is not punished for this, and doesn’t have to change. Even Chloe is seen showering with a young man at the beginning of the film, with no judgment.
The Bellas’ token lesbian, a black woman, is whispered about and assumed to be gay. When they are all bonding toward the end of the film, they have a moment of honesty, when the members admit to secrets about themselves. Her secret isn’t that she’s gay, but that she has a gambling problem (that started after she and her girlfriend broke up, she says cavalierly, as it’s revealed that this ex-girlfriend is also a Bella). No big deal. Even if there were whispers at first, she didn’t find that to be part of her identity worth hiding. The joke about her sexuality was ultimately on the rest of the women.

As the Bellas wow the crowd at the finals, John says, surprised, “I would never expect it from an all-female group!” Gail responds, “Well, you are a misogynist at heart.” Even with its problems, Pitch Perfect ends on a note of women’s power. John gets put in his place, and while the all-male Treblemakers don’t win, they’re all working together at the beginning of the next school year. 

There are always tensions between generations, and when these generations are women who have essentially been at battle for rights and representation for hundreds–really thousands–of years, there are not going to be perfect transitions and easy paths.

Eight years ago, Bitch magazine co-founder Lisa Jarvis wrote a piece for Ms. entitled, “The End of Feminism’s Third Wave” (adapted from a speech she’d given to the National Women’s Studies Association). She adeptly breaks down the dichotomy of second- and third-wave, and argues that the “master narratives” are largely false, and no one can seem to focus on the similarities. She says:
The rap goes something like this: Older women drained their movement of sexuality; younger women are uncritically sexualized. Older women won’t recognize the importance of pop culture; younger women are obsessed with media representation. Older women have too narrow a definition of what makes a feminist issue; younger women are scattered and don’t know what’s important.Stodgy versus frivolous. Won’t share power versus spoiled and ignorant.

The Bellas at the end break out and win.

There are many similarities, though. And while Pitch Perfect isn’t perfect, it is not tone-deaf to feminism’s struggles, problems and potential. It passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors, and even challenges the idea of masculinity (Jesse’s roommate gushes about the Treblemakers, “That’s what being a man is all about”). The Bellas ultimately win because they blend the old with the new, and allow themselves to move past their guarded individualism and work together. At the end, the women of color get a strong voice, and Aubrey embraces the changes (and Fat Amy proudly sings, “Can you feel the passion?”).

Jarvis goes on:
We may not all agree on exactly what it looks like or how to get it. We should never expect to agree. Feminism has always thrived on and grown from internal discussions and disagreements. Our many different and often opposing perspectives are what push us forward… I want to see these internal disagreements continue. I want to see as much wrangling over them as ever. But I want them articulated accurately. And that means recognizing the generational divide for what it is — an illusion.

Jarvis’s words ring true for the larger feminist movement in 2012, and for what allows the Bellas to win the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella at Lincoln Center. 

What feminism needs now is for everyone to get on stage.



—

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

The Resident Evil Series Proves The Bechdel Test Does Not Measure Quality

Resident Evil DVD Cover
Feminist film discussion so often turns to the Bechdel Test—for the uninitiated, it asks if 1) a movie has more than one female character 2) if two female characters have a conversation 3) if that conversation is about something other than a man—that it is easy to forget the test is not meant to be a benchmark of quality. Passing the Bechdel Test does not make a movie good. It does not even make a movie particularly feminist. It’s a bare minimum requirement for movies at all interested in portraying women as part of its story.  
I’d love it if more movies passed the Bechdel test, but don’t count on The Rule as the savior of cinema.  Movies can easily pass the Bechdel test and be beyond terrible. Which is abundantly illustrated by the Resident Evil franchise; which releases its fifth installment, Resident Evil: Retribution, today.  The first four Resident Evil films pass the Bechdel Test.  They even pass the Sarkeesian Corollary—that women characters speak to each other about something other than a man for at least 60 seconds—which is fairly remarkable for action-heavy movies without much dialogue at all.  The first four Resident Evil films also pass Alaya Dawn Johnson’s adaptation of the Bechdel test to evaluate the representation of people of color in movies.
[By the way, it’s very easy to pass the third prong of these tests when there’s a gender-neutral ZOMG ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! to dominate conversation.] 

Zombies: something to talk about
Additionally, the Resident Evil films pass what I would call The Ripley Test, in that many of the female characters’ gender is not essential to their character or to the plot, and a male character could have filled that “slot” just as easily.  The series protagonist, Alice, played by Milla Jovovich, was not a character in the video game series but was invented for the films.  
The second film, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, starts bringing over characters from the game series, and notably chooses Jill Valentine, the female of the pair of main characters from the original game, over Chris Redfield, who doesn’t appear until the fourth movie (one film after his sister Claire appears as the leader of a band of surviving humans.) [Author’s note: I’ve never played the Resident Evil games and relied heavily on the Resident Evil Wiki to write this piece.] 
Jill Valentine in Resident Evil video game and film
One could cynically dismiss the choice to create the character Alice and select Jill Valentine as one of the first crossover characters as the result of Hot Action Chicks putting butts in movie seats.  They do both make incredibly impractical clothing decisions (or in the case of Alice in Resident Evil, have incredibly impractical clothing decisions made for them). But the first film also has Michelle Rodriguez as badass S.T.A.R.S (think S.W.A.T, but working for an evil corporation) officer Rain Ocampo, who could just have easily been another tough dude to leave Alice our Smurfette.  
Michelle Rodriguez as Rain in Resident Evil
Resident Evil: Extinction finds Alice, Claire Redfield, and secondary female characters Betty and K-Mart (seriously) dressing and acting much more like people whose primary concern is avoiding grisly death by zombie attack, give or take a little eyeliner. 
Spencer Locke as K-Mart and Ali Larter as Claire in Extinction
So the Resident Evil franchise does not have an inclusiveness problem.  Unfortunately, it has a problem with pretty much everything else that makes a movie enjoyable: storytelling, logic, consistent mythology, characterization, visual finesse.  Zombie genre inventor George A. Romero was fired from the first Resident Evil movie over “creative differences.”  Firing Romero from your zombie movie is like firing Zeus from your thunderstorm. His absence is profoundly felt in the Resident Evil films’ total inability to make up their mind about their internal Rules of Zombification (Resident Evil‘s zombie apocalypse is caused by the spread of a biological weapon called the T-virus, which sometimes seems airborne and other times not so much, which when exposed to living tissue either causes superpowers or horrific mutations depending on the will of the plot, and sometimes causes your traditional death and subsequent reanimation as a zombie, or maybe a gigantic Super Zombie if we’ve reached the end of a level an act).  
The Resident Evil movies would also have benefited from Romero’s transparency when it comes to social commentary: it’s one thing to have the primary antagonist be the gigantic and sinister Umbrella Corporation, but that lack of subtlety offers no help in understanding the actual meat of your message when Umbrella Corporation’s apparent corporate mission is to be as moustache-twirlingly eeeeevil as possible, rather than, you know, normal corporate goals like making money. 
Warning: this teaser trailer is infinitely better than the actual movies.
But the main problem with the Resident Evil series unfortunately is one that severely undercuts is Bechdel-busting assets, and that is that series protagonist Alice is a total cipher.  In every film she is re-set, like a video game character reverting to the start of the level.  In the beginning of Resident Evil, she awakes (naked in the shower) with no memories.  In Resident Evil: Apocalypse, she begins and ends the film waking up in Umbrella Corporation lab with new sets of superpowers as the subject of unknown experimentation.  
Alice wakes up in an Umbrella Corporation lab. Get used to it, Alice.
In Resident Evil: Extinction, she’s revealed to be one of hundreds of Alice clones.  In Resident Evil: Afterlife, all the clones are quickly killed off in a massive explosion, and the surviving Alice is somehow stripped over her superpowers, only to act more or less exactly as tough as she was when she still had them. 
Before the consequences of any of these changes to the nature of Alice’s character can be explored, the series hits the reset button yet again. Meanwhile, Alice’s personality can bizarrely and dramatically shift at any time, and we’re supposed to dismiss it because she’s always just had her memories erased or been genetically modified or remotely activated by satellite or cloned or de-powered or something wackadoo and scifi like that. 
While the Resident Evil movies make it abundantly clear that passing the Bechdel Test is not enough to make a movie any good, ultimately I must say I like this series more than I would if it were another male-dominated action franchise.  It’s not like video game adaptations are generally known for nuanced characterization anyway.  I know I’m going to keep watching these terrible flicks because I like zombie movies and action movies, and if I’m going to keep punishing myself with crap movies, it’s at least nice to see some what-passes-for-“characters” of my own gender represented some of the time.  Representing women doesn’t necessarily make a movie any good, but it at least makes it a little different.  

‘The Avengers,’ Strong Female Characters and Failing the Bechdel Test

Natasha Romanoff  / Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) in The Avengers
Cross-posted at Fem2pt0.

Smashing box office records, audiences have been swept up in The Avengers hullabaloo. Interesting and compelling, the epic superhero film based on the Marvel comics unites Black Widow, Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, the Hulk and Thor “to form a team that must stop Thor’s brother Loki from enslaving the human race.” It was good. Really good. It contained complex characters and funny, clever dialogue. In a genre that exhibits strong female characters yet often objectifies women’s bodies or reduces them to ancillary love interests…how was The Avengers’ portrayal of women?

With Joss Whedon, a proud feminist and Equality Now supporter, at the helm directing and screenwriting, I eagerly hoped for a feminist film. I absolutely adore Firefly, only watched a handful of Buffy episodes (I know, I know…I need to watch more), and I couldn’t stand Dollhouse (don’t even get me started on the predication of rape, objectification and misogyny…but I digress). Forever inspired by his radical feminist mother and his love for X-Men character Kitty Pryde, Whedon shows an adept talent for creating and writing strong female characters.
The lone female Avenger is Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), a “highly trained spy,” assassin and martial arts master. Haunted by a dark past, she’s a fearless warrior possessing a razor sharp mind and an impressive knack for interrogation. In one of the best scenes, she goes head to head with the film’s villainous nemesis Loki (and Thor’s brother) in a labyrinthine mind game. While I’m not thrilled that Black Widow uses “feminine wiles” as a method of manipulation, her opponents anticipate vulnerability in her because of her gender. Natasha deftly uses and exploits their stereotypical gender biases to her advantage.
Black Widow could have easily become a one dimensional character. Yet she embodies strength and depth. She’s decisive and forever in control of her emotions. Although I don’t like the implication that being emotional equates weakness. She’s not technically a superhero (nor is her partner archer Hawkeye) as she doesn’t have special powers. Yet she arguably had the best fighting sequences with her nimble and dexterous prowess. There’s one where she’s tied to a chair and kicks ass…it’s seriously amazing! Johansson talked about how she would be delighted to do a Black Widow film in the realm and style of The Bourne Series. That sounds freaking awesome.

Black Widow / Natasha Romanoff
In most films and TV series, the media objectifies and commodifies women’s bodies for the male gaze, reducing a woman to her sexuality. While she dons tight costumes, that doesn’t happen here. She’s not merely a sex object. Black Widow is an integral part of the team. She’s the one who thinks they should all work together when petty arguments and inflated egos threaten to divide them. SPOILER!!! -> Natasha ultimately ends the climactic epic battle as she’s the only one who realizes they need to close the portal in order to halt the influx of the alien army. <- END SPOILER Black Widow plays with gender stereotypes but doesn’t wield her sexuality as a weapon. She uses her ridiculously impressive martial arts ass-kicking skills for that.
Aside from Black Widow, The Avengers film depicts S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders, my favorite actor on HIMYM) and two brief scenes with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). Maria is one of S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson)’s Chief Lieutenants. She’s calm, collected and authoritative, even in dangerous situations. We see Maria run the deck of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. But she doesn’t approve of controlling people as we see when she criticizes Fury for manipulating The Avengers’ emotions to finagle a specific response. Pepper is the CEO of Stark Industries (Iron Man/Tony Stark’s company), as well as his girlfriend. She’s intelligent, precise, organized and charming.
When asked about Whedon’s strong female characters, Johansson called him “gender blind:”
“He wants his female characters to be dynamic and competitive and assured and confident. And it has nothing to do with anything but the fact that he just celebrates those kinds of strong female characters.”
S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders)

AlterNet’s Julianne Escobedo Shepherd thinks The Avengers possesses a “stark feminist perspective” as it differs from so many other superhero films. Even in movies with multiple female characters like X-Men, the women often orbit the male characters. Not so in The Avengers. Escobedo Shepherd goes further asserting Johansson portrays Black Widow’s “talent for manipulation as a boon for the art of spying, rather than any kind of femme fatale cliché.” 

Despite three strong female characters and Black Widow’s awesomeness, I didn’t find the movie overtly feminist. I can’t help but wonder if people are looking to find feminism where not a whole lot actually exists because of Whedon’s reputation. The Avengers contains some gender problems.
Loki hurls a misogynistic insult at Black Widow, calling her a “mewling quim.” Translation, a “whining cunt.” Lovely. He reduces her to her vagina. Now, not everyone’s going to get the inference right away. I know I didn’t. Although something about the condescending tone made me suspect a gendered insult. Whedon says he often “abuses” language, depicting different vernaculars, including Shakespearan dialogue, to reveal character traits. It’s interesting that instead of writing an overt insult, Whedon subversively portrayed Loki’s sexism.
Some people apparently accused Whedon of “not being macho enough” to direct the superhero bonanza. So let me get this straight. If a guy is a proud feminist and writes strong female characters, that makes him unmanly to direct an action movie? And what does that say about women…that female directors possess too much estrogen to direct? Ugh.
Many critics and bloggers have focused on the Hulk, thanks in large part to Mark Ruffalo’s fantastic talent and the hilarious snarky dialogue, thanks to Robert Downey Jr.’s quick wit as Iron Man. Interestingly, of the 6 Avengers, Black Widow gets the 3rd most screen time. Yet she still remains the only female Avenger in the film. And that’s a problem.
(L-R): Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chirs Evans), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) – The Avengers…and Black Widow as the one female

In the comics, The Avengers had a rotating line-up of superheroes. Couldn’t the movie portray an additional female Avenger, like Wasp or Scarlet Witch or She-Hulk? Maybe they didn’t want two green Hulks. Fair enough. Although She-Hulk, a brilliant attorney, is pretty badass. Whedon even said that when they weren’t sure if they could accommodate Scarlett Johansson’s tight schedule, an early script contained the female superhero (and founding Avenger) Wasp. He “fell in love with the character.” 
So here’s my question: why did they have to scrap the role of Wasp the minute they secured Johansson’s Black Widow? Why not have 2 female superheroes in one film?? Sadly, the movie suffers from the Smurfette Principle.
Coined by feminist writer Katha Pollitt in looking at children’s entertainment, the Smurfette Principle is when a male ensemble features one female character. Think the Smurfs (before the introduction of Sassy), the Muppets and Voltron (I’m clearly showing I’m a child of the 80s here). Pollitt asserts that the problem with this trope is that “boys define the group, its story and its code of values. Girls exist only in relation to boys.” As the articulate Anita Sarkeesian at Feminist Frequency points out, it transcends children’s entertainment as we see in films like Star Wars, Star Trek, Watchmen and even Inception as well as TV shows like early seasons of Big Bang Theoryand It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. 
Films and TV relegate women to “sidekicks or sexy decorations.” Luckily, Black Widow suffers neither of these fates. She holds her own as a fierce and capable character, neither shoved aside nor reduced to a dude’s love interest. But it’s still problematic that Black Widow is the only female team member. The male Avengers contain multiple male personalities: a sarcastic genius playboy, a lonely selfless soldier, a skilled sniper, and a tortured brilliant scientist. But as far as women’s representation, there’s just one female Avenger. Granted, she’s a badass. But it would have been nice to see more diverse personalities…which might have been rectified with another female superhero.

(L-R): Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson)

But my biggest problem? No women talked to each other. At all. What the hell is up with that??
Like Film School Rejects’ Gwenn Reyes, I too found the glaring lack of women talking to each other to be The Avengers “greatest flaw.” Maria talks to the other Avengers. As Nick Fury’s right-hand person, it makes sense she would interact with the Avengers. Plus Maria and Natasha have probably crossed paths before since Black Widow already worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. Couldn’t the two women have talked about the upcoming battle? Or strategized, commiserated…anything?? 
Just because the portrayals of the female characters were positive, doesn’t mean I think the movie smashed the Bechdel Test, a simple test that asks that two named female characters talk to each other about something other than men. With women comprising only 33% of speaking roles on-screen, The Avengers failing the Bechdel Test proves the cavernous gender gap in film and how far we still need to go.
Let me be clear. Most movies — superhero or otherwise — couldn’t care less about portraying complex, intelligent, strong, dimensional women or gender equitable roles. So The Avengersis a step in the right direction. But if you only depict your two female characters (no matter how empowered they are) talking to men, it subtly reinforces the notion that women’s lives revolve around men.
While it’s a really good action movie with strong female roles, I still expected more feminism from you, Joss Whedon.

Top 10 of 2011: Boardwalk Empire

All the way back in January 2011, guest writer Amanda ReCupido shared her take on the first season of HBO’s award-winning Boardwalk Empire. Since then, the post has been getting steady traffic, and currently stands as #8 in 2011.
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HBO’s Boardwalk Empire
With its first season complete and two Golden Globes under its belt (Best TV Drama and Best Actor in a TV Drama), Boardwalk Empire, HBO’s prohibition-era Sopranos/Mad Men hybrid, has gotten plenty of attention. And it’s something feminists should be paying attention to as well. Like Mad Men, the show doesn’t gloss over the sexist elements of the era, but instead exposes them in both stark contrast and comparison to how we view women in our society today.
The Peggy Olsen of the series is found in Margaret Schroeder (played brilliantly by Kelly Macdonald), who is wise beyond her era, yet remains limited by her gender. At the start of the series, we see her suffer physical abuse by her husband (so much so that she miscarries, and not for the first time). When she appeals to a wealthy politician (our protagonist Nucky Thompson, played by Steve Buscemi) to find work for her husband, he takes her under his wing, eliminating her abusive husband and setting her up with a job in a fancy dress shop. It is here that we encounter the division of class between the clientele and Margaret, an Irish immigrant whose boss assumes is uneducated and dirty (other ethnic and religious tensions abound in the turf wars between the Irish, Italian, and Greek mobs throughout the season). Soon Nucky takes a romantic interest in Margaret and offers to put her and her children up, though he won’t marry her. Margaret must weigh the costs/benefits of this situation (security for her and her children versus her neighbors thinking she’s a whore), but in the end she doesn’t have much of a choice, like most women in this show and of this era. But despite the boundaries around her, Margaret remains well-read, involved in local politics and with the Women’s Temperance Movement, and takes control of her sexuality (in the 1920s, birth control meant douching with Lysol). It is her struggle for both mere survival and to retain her honor in a time when the odds are against her that make her journey and triumphs so satisfying and enjoyable to watch.
See also: #10 in 2011 and #9 in 2011

From the Archive: The Bechdel Rule, aka Ripley’s Rule

As we near four years (!) since the inception of Bitch Flicks, this week will feature some reprints of early posts. I spent some time in our archive and can honestly say that nothing we’ve posted in the past is now irrelevant. In other words, the same issues with gender representation in movies, tv and other media in 2008 are issues today.
Here’s a piece, originally published on September 30, 2008, on the Bechdel Rule, or, as we like to call it, Ripley’s Rule.

* * *

It seems there should be a test to evaluate the role of women in any given movie.
A comic, from 1985, lays out a simple set of criteria for its characters to choose a movie to see:
1. There must be two female characters (some say two named female characters)
2. Who talk to each other
3. About something other than men.
Check out the original comic below and click on it to visit Alison Bechdel’s blog and learn about the original source of the comic and idea. NPR’s All Things Considered ran a story on the Bechdel Rule and posted an entry on their pop-culture blog, Monkey See, about new Bechdel-like rules.

How many movies actually pass the test?

Thanks to Unapologetically Female for cuing us in!

Ellen Ripley, a Feminist Film Icon, Battles Horrifying Aliens … and Patriarchy

 

Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley

 

Written by Megan Kearns.

When I was 10 years old, the scariest movie I ever saw was Aliens. I remember the first time I saw it like it was yesterday. Late one night, plagued with insomnia (perhaps a product of my tumultuous childhood), I heard the TV on in my mother’s bedroom. Sitting down next to her, I began watching too. My mom was watching Aliens. It was the scene where Ellen Ripley goes down the elevator, guns strapped to her, to rescue Newt. Entranced, I watched as encased in a forklift, she clashed with the Alien Queen.

But it wasn’t the gore or even the alien that mesmerized me. It was Ripley. Seeing a strong badass woman on-screen left in an indelible impression on me.

With its tense, gritty, noir atmosphere, Alien broke ground spawning numerous imitations in the horror and sci-fi genres. Set in the year 2122, crew of the freighter spaceship Nostromo answer a beacon on the planet LV-426 and encounter a terrifying and insidious creature that attempts to wipe out the crew. Eschewing some of its horror roots in favor of an action-packed bonanza, the sequel Aliens features Lt. Ellen Ripley (the superb Sigourney Weaver), the Nostromo’s sole survivor (along with Jones the cat), warning and advising a group of Marines going to LV-426 to investigate after Earth lost contact with the planet’s colonists.

For me, I can’t separate Alien and Aliens (although I pretend the 3rd and 4th don’t exist…ugh). Both amazing films possess pulse-pounding intensity, a struggle for survival, and most importantly for me, a feminist protagonist. Radiating confidence and strength, Ripley remains my favorite female film character. A resourceful survivor wielding weapons and ingenuity, she embodies empowerment. Bearing no mystical superpowers, she’s a regular woman taking charge in a crisis. Weaver, who imbued her character with intelligence and a steely drive, was inspired to “play Ripley like Henry V and women warriors of classic Chinese literature.”

Sigourney Weaver’s role as Ripley catapulted her to stardom, making her one of the first female action heroes. Preceded by Pam Grier in Coffy and Dianna Rigg as Emma Peel in The Avengers, she helped pave the way for Linda Hamilton’s badassery in T2, Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, Carrie-Anne Moss in The Matrix, Lucy Lawless as Xena, Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy, and Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider and Salt. But Ripley, a female film icon, wasn’t even initially conceived as a woman.

Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett, Alien’s screenwriters, wrote into the original script that all of the characters, while written as men (including “Ripley” who was originally written as “Roby”), were in fact unisex and could be cast as either women or men. While they never actually pictured Roby/Ripley as a woman, when producers Walter Hill and David Giler rewrote the final draft of the script, Ripley was indeed a woman…huzzah!

While the original and final scripts differ, particularly in that android Ash isn’t in the original, Roby and Ripley are surprisingly similar, sharing similar dialogue and eventually asserting their authority through decisive actions. Neither character wants to let the injured crewmember (Standard the Captain in the original script / Kane the Ex. O in the final draft) onto the ship as they might be infected. Although interestingly, Ripley stands her ground and doesn’t let him in while Roby caves. Also, both remain the sole survivors of the crew.

While both Alien and Aliens straddle the sci-fi/horror divide, one of the horror elements apparent in Alien is Carol Clover’s notion of the “final girl.” In numerous horror films (Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, The Descent), the resourceful woman remains the sole survivor, the audience intended to identify and sympathize with her. Oftentimes sexual overtones exist with the promiscuous victims and the virginal survivor. While Alien and Aliens display sexual themes (we’ll get to those in a moment), Ripley isn’t sexualized but remains the sole survivor in the first film. She’s also never masculinized as Clover suggests happens to final girls in order to survive.

So remember those sexual themes I just mentioned…well just because Ripley isn’t sexualized, doesn’t mean sexuality doesn’t play a pivotal role in Alien. Swiss artist H.R. Giger designed the alien as well as some sets for the first film with pervasive phallic and vaginal imagery (don’t believe me…take a look; you won’t be able to not see it). Alien took the horror of rape comingled with the “male fear of female reproduction” and put it in space. Rather than maniacal villains attacking women and glorifying femicide, as many horror films do, Alien showed a creature attacking men (and eventually women too). While dangerous sexual elements abound, women weren’t punished for their sexuality.

Ripley never becomes an object merely for the male gaze. In Alien, she strips down to a tank top and underwear before she enters the cryogenic chamber. But rather than objectifying, to me it seemed to symbolize her vulnerability. The alien stows away in her escape pod yet she doesn’t hesitate, immediately slipping into a spacesuit to battle the alien. The script initially intended for Ripley to sleep with Dallas the Captain. Thank god that was never filmed! We need more movies where a woman is not reduced to a sex object. Ultimately, Ripley is not defined by her relationship with a man; she defines herself.

Films rarely feature multiple women; even rarer is it to see various depictions of women. In Alien, Ripley is juxtaposed with Lambert (Veronica Cartwright). While Ripley remains calm and collected, Lambert is an emotional hot mess, unhinged by fear. Time after time, the media pits women against one another. But after initial reluctance, Ripley and Lambert in Alien and Ripley and Vasquez (fiercely played by Jeanette Goldstein) in Aliens, work cooperatively together.

Motherhood exists as a reoccurring theme in Alien and Aliens. A pivotal scene cut from Aliens reveals that Ripley had a daughter. When she returns to Earth, after being stranded in space for 57 years on the Nostromo’s escape pod, Ripley discovers her daughter recently died at the age of 66. She survives to ultimately lose her daughter. Her grief catalyses her connection with the young girl Newt (Carrie Henn). Ripley risks her life to save and protect this little girl, perhaps in an attempt to reconcile her feelings of loss. At the end of the film, Newt hugs Ripley, calling her “Mommy;” she becomes a mother again. Even in Alien, Ripley smashes the computer called “Mother” onboard the Nostromo. Interestingly in Aliens, Ripley isn’t fighting a male villain; she combats a female: the Alien Queen. While the Alien Queen doesn’t equal a human woman, it’s hard to ignore that the film portrays one mother warring against another, both protecting their children.

Of the few truly empowered female film characters, most are lioness mothers: Ripley protecting Newt, Sarah Connor fiercely protecting her son and all of humanity in Terminator and T2, The Bride/Beatrix Kiddo a vengeful mother in Kill Bill. Despite the frequent comparisons made between the two badass women warriors, there’s a crucial difference between Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor. Connor exists solely to protect her male son from assassination or humanity will be wiped out; she possesses no other identity. While Ripley becomes a surrogate mother to Newt, her identity still remains her own, not solely contingent on another.

A feminist commentary regarding female voice confronted by sexism in society emerges in both Alien and Aliens. In Alien, Ash undermines Ripley’s authority as Warrant Officer as he lets Kane onboard, disobeying Ripley’s decision to follow protocol and quarantine him. Dallas the Captain disregards Ripley’s concerns about not trusting Ash. After Ripley uncovers Ash’s treacherous plot, he stuffs a porn magazine in her mouth, “the film’s most explicit equation of male violence with the desire to annihilate the female voice.”

In Aliens, Ripley tries to warn the Weyland-Yutani Corporation about the danger of the alien and the LV-426 colonists’ impending doom. When she travels with the Marines, they initially discount her testimony. Only when the shit seriously hits the fan do they listen, looking to her as a tactical leader to survive. A futuristic Cassandra, prophesying destruction yet no one heeds Ripley’s warning. Is it because she’s a woman? That seems to be the message. Society continually devalues women, silencing their voices.

The media inundates us with images of male protagonists so it’s refreshing to see women lead…and of course kicking ass! Living in a world dominated by patriarchy, women receive societal cues telling them explicitly and implicitly how to behave, look and speak. Social norms dictate that women should be gentle, nurturing, and caring. Subtly implied lies the assertion that women should support the men in their life, that they should not be too outspoken or too unruly.

In theory, women action heroes break that mold. But in reality, most female film characters don’t shatter gender stereotypes. They rarely lead as heroes, usually serving as props to the male protagonists, and serving as love interests. Rather than showcasing empowerment, researcher Katy Gilpatric found that women in action films ultimately succumb to stereotypical gender roles.

Under the guise of empowerment, most female film characters still play out gender norms where women serve men and stay out of the limelight. That’s what makes Ripley so unique. She subverts traditional gender roles while retaining her female identity.

In an interview in Time Magazine, Weaver talked about Ripley and film roles for women:

“Usually women in films have had to carry the burden of sympathy, only coming to life when a man enters. Doesn’t everyone know that women are incredibly strong?”

Growing up, Ellen Ripley was my role model, a fierce feminist. Alien and Aliens taught me an invaluable lesson. They showed me a woman doesn’t need a man to solve a problem or fight their battles. After recently watching the documentary Miss Representation, which exposes the ways the media objectifies and attempts to strip women and girls of their power, I realize the gravity of seeing strong, confident women on-screen who aren’t valued merely for their appearance. And therein lies the power of Ripley.

While sexist studio execs might not want a 60-year-old Sigourney Weaver to reprise her iconic role, we need more Ripleys on-screen. Weaver said that all women possess “a secret action heroine” inside them. Women don’t always know their own strength. We don’t need to be rescued or saved; we can do that on our own.

We may not live in a world with chest-bursting aliens bleeding acid for blood. But anyone can aspire to be Ellen Ripley.

…

Megan Kearns is a blogger, freelance writer and activist. She blogs at The Opinioness of the World, a feminist vegan site. Her work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion, Fem2pt0, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, and A Safe World for Women. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. Megan lives in Boston with more books than she will probably ever read in her lifetime.

Megan contributed reviews of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Something Borrowed, !Women Art Revolution, The Kids Are All Right (for 2011 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), The Reader (for 2009 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), Game of Thrones and The Killing (for Emmy Week 2011), and Women, War and Peace’s I Came to Testify. She was the first writer featured as a Monthly Guest Contributor. 

Tangled: A Feminist Film Review

This guest review by Whitney Mollenhauer first appeared at Not Another Wave in December 2010.

Last Friday, I saw Disney’s Tangled with my husband.  I thought it was a pretty good feminist-y movie, especially considering that it was a Disney princess-type movie. Because I am lazy, I have written my review in bullet-point form:
  • Rapunzel’s father (the king) cries on Rapunzel’s birthday as he remembers his kidnapped daughter.  It seems like usually in these kind of movies, you see the mom crying and the dad consoling her; but here, it’s the other way around.  Win!  Men can express emotion, too!
  • Rapunzel sews and bakes, but she also reads, does astronomy, and paints like no other.
  • She is so awesome with her hair!  She ties the male protagonist up, lets herself down from the tower, and climbs everywhere.  Seriously, it’s very impressive.  She can do just about anything with that hair–it’s not just for show. 
  • Rapunzel ends up with short hair!  Okay, that’s just a little thing, but have you ever seen a Disney princess with a pixie cut before?  Even Mulan had longer hair!
  • So yeah, the mom is the bad guy because she’s vain/wants to be young forever, blah blah blah.  But I don’t know how they could have had a male villain or some other way for the mom to be the villain without straying too far from the original.  But at least she gets some jokes.
  • The frying pan proves to be a superior weapon compared to the sword!  This might be getting a little too psychoanalytic, but I saw the frying pan as symbolizing a kind of feminine/transgressive power, while the sword represents traditional masculine power.  I just thought it was neat.  You don’t have to be a swashbuckling dude to kick butt.
  • Her story and her adventure starts not because the guy “whisks her away” or something; but rather, she plans and schemes: she catches him breaking into her tower, and strategically decides to use him to reach her goal of seeing the flying lanterns on her birthday.
  • Spoiler alert: in the end, she’s not “saved” because of her compassion, but in spite of it–her compassion might actually have been her downfall.  Unlike other movies/fairy tales where a woman’s only redeeming quality is self-sacrifice, this ending suggests that self-sacrifice isn’t always such a good thing–or at least that it’s not solely the domain of women.  Men can be self-sacrificing too!  (Didn’t want to reveal too much here.  Go see the movie if you want to figure out what on earth I’m talking about.)
  • I liked the ambivalent nature of how it shows her mom’s and her relationship when Rapunzel leaves the tower for the first time.  She feels guilty, but MAN is she happy and excited and brave!
  • She doesn’t get married at age 18!!!!
  • In my opinion, the relationship was not even really a central feature of the story, but rather a sub-plot.  The main plot was getting away from her mother, figuring out her actual identity, getting to the flying lanterns she wanted to see.
  • I felt like it was good and feminist because it was a major improvement from how Disney usually is.  Also, overt sexism did NOT distract me from what was otherwise a visually appealing, witty movie (as it usually does).  And that is really saying something.
  • Even the rich, hypermasculine stereotype is challenged–the male protagonist reveals his true name/identity, as an orphan, and she says she likes him better than the fictional (hypermasculine) character that he aspires to be like.  
  • In the end, I think it makes a good case for women’s “proper place” NOT being just in the home, but out in the world/public sphere!  I’m not sure how you could get any other moral out of it.  Even in Mulan, after she saves China, she ends up returning home, and (we suspect) marrying the army captain guy, instead of taking a job with the emperor.  In Tangled, the movie’s premise is centered around the idea that it’s wrong and horrible to expect a woman to spend her whole life at home.
  • When the male protagonist breaks into her tower, she kicks his butt; she stands up for herself in the bar; and she stands up to her mother in the end (about having been kidnapped).
  • At the end of the movie, SHE dips HIM and kisses him.  (I always hated it when guys would dip me.  If I want to kiss you, I am going to kiss you, so just let me stay on my own two feet.)
  • Body image stuff:   Okay, so Disney’s not breaking down any boundaries here.  Also, infantilization much?  Rapunzel’s face is that of a two-year-old.  
  • So, I’m not very good at remembering specifics, but I DO remember not getting angry at seeing her needing rescuing again and again and again.  It seemed like mostly she was able to save herself, and the guy didn’t save her a whole lot.
  • In the bar, Rapunzel and the guy (Flynn) meet a whole bunch of rough guys.  They sing a song about how everyone’s got a dream: the one tough guy says to Flynn, “Your dream stinks,” referring to his dream of getting rich.  The other tough guys have dreams of becoming mimes, finding love, being a pianist, becoming a baker–and one made little tiny unicorns.  Even tough guys have nuance and feminine qualities!
  • Rapunzel’s animal companion is Pascal the chameleon.  Pascal is super cute, and is possibly named after Blaise Pascal the mathematician (suggesting that Rapunzel is a math nerd like me, though that could just be me reading too much into it).  Pascal can’t talk, and I felt like that was a good thing (feminist-wise), so he couldn’t show her up and become the hero (remember Mushu the dragon in Mulan?) 
My points are random and some are not very significant. But still, small wins!  And when it comes to Disney princess movies, any hint at feminist ideology is a HUGE win. And if nothing else, it at least passes the Bechdel Test:

Whitney Mollenhauer is a graduate student in California where she studies sociology. She has an awesome husband who doesn’t mind her running feminist commentary when they watch movies together. And, she loves cereal.

Guest Writer Wednesday: Boardwalk Empire

With its first season complete and two Golden Globes under its belt (Best TV Drama and Best Actor in a TV Drama), Boardwalk Empire, HBO’s prohibition-era Sopranos/Mad Men hybrid, has gotten plenty of attention. And it’s something feminists should be paying attention to as well. Like Mad Men, the show doesn’t gloss over the sexist elements of the era, but instead exposes them in both stark contrast and comparison to how we view women in our society today.
The Peggy Olsen of the series is found in Margaret Schroeder (played brilliantly by Kelly Macdonald), who is wise beyond her era, yet remains limited by her gender. At the start of the series, we see her suffer physical abuse by her husband (so much so that she miscarries, and not for the first time). When she appeals to a wealthy politician (our protagonist Nucky Thompson, played by Steve Buscemi) to find work for her husband, he takes her under his wing, eliminating her abusive husband and setting her up with a job in a fancy dress shop. It is here that we encounter the division of class between the clientele and Margaret, an Irish immigrant whose boss assumes is uneducated and dirty (other ethnic and religious tensions abound in the turf wars between the Irish, Italian, and Greek mobs throughout the season). Soon Nucky takes a romantic interest in Margaret and offers to put her and her children up, though he won’t marry her. Margaret must weigh the costs/benefits of this situation (security for her and her children versus her neighbors thinking she’s a whore), but in the end she doesn’t have much of a choice, like most women in this show and of this era. But despite the boundaries around her, Margaret remains well-read, involved in local politics and with the Women’s Temperance Movement, and takes control of her sexuality (in the 1920s, birth control meant douching with Lysol). It is her struggle for both mere survival and to retain her honor in a time when the odds are against her that make her journey and triumphs so satisfying and enjoyable to watch.
The other female characters are similarly dependent on men, and either try to escape this grip or find power within it. Angela (played by Aleska Palladino), who has a baby with Nucky’s protege Jimmy, dreams of running off to Paris with her lesbian lover, but she feels trapped by Jimmy, who overpowers her in every way. Jimmy’s mother, Gillian (Gretchen Mol), who had Jimmy young by a much older man, offers to take care of Angela’s son for her so that she can have a life of her own. Perhaps Gillian wished someone had offered her the same.
Though Gillian is a grandmother, she is still very young and works as a showgirl (this is an age where the only jobs for women seemed to be as dancers, prostitutes, or nannies – they either worked in childcare or for the pleasure of men). When Jimmy gets into trouble, Gretchen helps the only way she knows how – by seducing his enemy for information. Nucky’s old mistress similarly uses pregnancy as power against a prohibition agent she sleeps with. One could argue that all the women on the show use their sexuality as a type of currency, as there was little other option at the time.
There also remains the notion that women’s reproductive choices were not theirs to control. Nucky chides Margaret for using the Lysol like “any common whore,” the prohibition agent tells his barren wife to pray instead of considering an invasive medical procedure, and Jimmy decides without consulting Angela that they should have more children. This backwards thinking, however, is not far from the discussions happening today in which restrictive laws prohibit women from freely controlling their own bodies. 
NYMag had argued that aside from Margaret’s character, all the other women appear to be nude decoration for the HBO premium. Upon further reflection, I’ve realized that the show doesn’t quite yet pass the Bechdel test. For those unfamiliar, to pass the test a show must 1. Have two women, 2. Who talk to each other, 3. About something other than a man. All of Margaret’s conversations are about Nucky. She speaks with Nucky’s mistress about how they’re fighting over Nucky; she speaks with a fellow “concubine” about how to keep Nucky; she even speaks with her temperance leader about whether she should accept Nucky’s offer. Even in a scene with Angela and her lover the two women talk about how they couldn’t be seen together or Nucky would cut off their money. On the one hand, this proves how so very dependent women were forced to be in this time period. On the other hand, the show’s writers could do a better job developing their female characters.
As for me (and the Golden Globes), I think this show has plenty of potential, especially when it comes to its women. What do you think? Do you watch the show? Do you root for Margaret like you do for Peggy and Joan? Leave your comments below! 
Amanda ReCupido is a writer and arts publicist living in New York City. She is the author of the blog The Undomestic Goddess and can be found on Twitter at TheUndomestic.

Quote of the Day: Nina Power

Below is an excerpt from Nina Power’s One Dimensional Woman, in which she raises some interesting points and questions about the so-called Bechdel Test (or Ripley’s Rule, as we generally refer to it).

What does contemporary visual culture say about women? Here a thought experiment comes in handy: The so-called ‘Bechdel Test’, first described in Alison Bechdel’s comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, consists of the following rules, to be applied to films, but could easily be extended to literature:
  1. Does it have at least two women in it,
  2. Who [at some point] talk to each other,
  3. About something besides a man.

Writer Charles Stross adds that

“if you extend #3 only slightly, to read “About something besides men or marriage or babies, you can strike out about 50% of the small proportion of mass-entertainment movies that do otherwise seem to pass the test.”

Once you know about the test, it’s impossible not to apply it, however casually. Stross is right–huge quantities of cultural output (possibly even more than he suggests) fail. Several questions emerge from the test:

  1. What is so frightening about women talking to each other without the mediation of their supposed interest in men/marriage/babies?

  2. Does cinema/literature have a duty to representation such that it is duty bound to include such scenes, as opposed to pursuing its own set of agendas? Why should literature/cinema be ‘realistic’ when it could be whatever it wants to be?

  3. Does reality itself pass the test? How much of the time? Can we ‘blame’ films/TV for that?

Nina Power is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Roehampton University. She has published widely on topics including Iran, humanism, vintage pornography and Marxism. (taken from the jacket cover of One Dimensional Woman.)

Reader Question: Finding movies for girls

Perhaps in response to our Quote of the Day from Geena Davis, founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, a reader asks:
As the father of a nearly year-old daughter, I’d be interested in getting some informed takes on children’s movies. We’ll undoubtedly be watching many in the next few years. Can we apply this Bechdel test to some of the classics of the genre or are there more complex forces at …work? If there are other considerations, what would they be?

While the Bechdel test is certainly a great place to start–seeing whether girls talk to each other about something other than boys–it’s not the end-all of determining feminist media. Female characters with true agency represent real role models for girls. So…avoid Disney? Certainly someone can offer better advice.

Help us out: What specific movies/television programs would you recommend for young girls?