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The Grass is Not Always Greener: On Body Image and Illness

Originally published at I Will Not Diet and reprinted at The Opinioness of the World. An alternate version appears at Shakesville.

People have often told me—throughout a lifetime of being underweight—how great I look.

I confidently wear a bikini.

I’m one of those people you might love to hate: I can eat anything, and as much of it as I want, without gaining weight.

People, especially girls and women, praise my thinness, exclaiming “How do you stay so skinny?!” or “You’re so lucky.”

Other people envy me—a person whose thinness is due to cystic fibrosis, who has had regular, extended hospital stays since childhood, and whose daily medical regimen no one would ever envy. But I have this bizarre cultural privilege: I am skinny. It hasn’t generally mattered to people why; thinness is seen as an always-positive attribute in our society.

In the summer of 2004, I weighed 92 pounds. I was very sick and doing everything in my power to put on weight. My doctor went so far as to prescribe an appetite stimulant, derived from cannabis, which was supposed to give me the legal munchies.

It may have helped me put on a pound or two, but that wasn’t enough.

It wasn’t just that I was too thin; I needed a lung transplant and had to weigh a minimum of 100 pounds before I would even be considered for the surgery. I was left with one option: a feeding tube for high-calorie protein shakes every night while I slept, in addition to a high-calorie diet every day. This was scary for me, not just in the way that a feeding tube (and serious illness) would be frightening for anyone, but because, in spite of the serious illness, I liked being so thin and was afraid of gaining too much weight.

I know now that these feelings had much more to do with control (and, specifically, the lack of it in my life at that time) than the actual numbers, and that they weren’t rational or healthy attitudes to hold.

As much as I knew intellectually that I was too thin, I never felt too thin.

When I finally got beyond my fear of “fattening up” (which is how countless doctors and nurses, clearly not sensitive to issues involving body image, jokingly referred to my need to gain weight) and faced the reality of my situation, I scheduled the procedure to place the feeding tube.

I did so with reticence and anxiety.

There would be anesthesia, there would be an incision through the wall of my abdomen, there would be a tube permanently sticking out, there would be pain while my stomach healed from the surgery. I would be hooked up to a nutrition pump, much like an IV pole, every night.

On the operating table, I was prepped for the procedure by a female nurse and a male doctor. When the nurse lifted the hospital gown above my abdomen, she exclaimed, “Look at that pretty flat stomach!”

I processed this statement for a moment. A medical professional had complimented me on my thinness, which was so extreme as to prevent me from having life-saving surgery, while prepping me for a procedure intended to help me gain weight.

To his credit, the doctor quickly snapped, “That’s the problem!” but her message couldn’t have been clearer.

We live in a culture that so values thinness, that values such extreme thinness, that I received a compliment about my body when I was on an operating table, when I was so ill and weighed so little that doctors feared I might not survive major surgery.

While this might’ve been a single extreme incident, I can’t say the same about a lifetime of these compliments, the envy of women, and the gaze of men directed at my ultra-thin (so thin because it was diseased) body.

I can forgive myself for enjoying these moments; I had a difficult life that inspired little envy, and I took the compliments and positive feelings about myself where I could find them.

When I received that comment on the operating table, though, I felt a tangled mess of emotions: I was happy to hear something—anything—uplifting during such a trying time, I was scared to lose that unscarred, flat stomach, and I was angry at the nurse for her inability to read the situation.

Later that same year I had a double-lung transplant and have since gained 25 pounds. I’m still thin, but curvier than before. I threw out the old bikinis. The regular “You’re so skinny!” compliments are gone, but I’ve come to see those comments, even when they were meant in kindness, as all part of our toxic culture.

Depictions of unhealthily thin women in film, television, and advertising constantly bombard us, distorting the way we see one another and how we define a “healthy” body. Extremely thin bodies are often seen as the epitome of health and beauty, when the fact is that healthy, beautiful women come in all shapes and sizes.

If we all didn’t have such a distorted view of the female form, women might have better relationships with their bodies, instead of hating them, resorting to cosmetic surgery for self-esteem issues, and having unrealistic expectations about how they should look.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

It’s Time to Fucking Rally from Feministing:

Stand Up For Women’s Health!

Saturday, February 26th

Foley Square, Across from the Court House in Lower Manhattan

New York City

1-3pm

No Shocker–Hollywood Is Sexist and Ageist from Women and Hollywood:

“Now long-time screenwriter Tracy Jackson (The Guru and Confessions of a Shopaholic) has divulged a few dirty secrets about how hard it is for a woman of 50 to get a gig as a screenwriter in Hollywood in her memoir Between a Rock and a Hot Place – Why Fifty Is Not the New Thirty.”

Movie Review: Just Go With It from The New York Times:

“None of the women have professional ambitions or money of their own; their primary asset is ‘hotness.’ Ms. Aniston proudly shows herself off in a bikini–and looks great, it must be said–while Mr. Sandler keeps his shirt on, hanging loosely over his baggy pants. Yes, I know, the double standard is nothing new, but a wittier, less insecure movie might have at least had some fun with it.”

Kanye West’s Monster Misogyny from Feminist Frequency:

“And perhaps this would be a good time to define misogyny because there seems to be some confusion about the word in relation to Kanye’s video. First, when we talk about women, we mean full and complete human beings and all that that entails. Misogyny as defined by the Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology ‘is a cultural attitude of hatred for females simply because they are female. It is a central part of sexist prejudice and ideology and, as such, is an important basis for the oppression of females in male-dominated societies. Misogyny is manifested in many different ways from jokes to pornography to violence to the self-contempt women may be taught to feel toward their own bodies.'”

The Princess Complex from In These Times:

“As any parent who has raised both boys and girls knows, even the most strenuous efforts to keep academic, social and economic expectations equal are undermined by the outside world. Men have privileges: better pay, easier entree to every field except teaching and nursing. (And people with privileges–men and women–are as a rule loath to relinquish them.) Undergirding those privileges lies a set of gender expectations, a stereotype of femininity that can drive a fair-minded parent, like Peggy Orenstein, wild. As Orenstein recounts in her new book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter (January, HarperCollins), from the time they can walk young girls are in thrall to a consumer market intent on transforming them into sexualized princesses.”

Death By Femininity, Again from I Blame the Patriarchy:

“On one hand, this HuffPo item supports the anti-porn mores of Savage Death Island: Young Berger has died of extreme femininity. Her heart stopped during her 6th breast augmentation surgery and she never regained consciousness. The patriarchy blamer naturally recognizes a familiar narrative: desperate to appease the oppressor through rigorous adherence to deeply internalized pornographic beauty standards, Berger undertook multiple self-mutilations, and paid the ultimate price. Femininity kills.”

Somewhere? Somewhat. from Feminist Music Geek:

“I also think Coppola has something to say about growing up female. Yes, she’s addressing a particular kind of femininity. She is concerned with white, heterosexual women and girls gilded with privilege–except maybe the Lisbon girls, who are part of a single-income family supported by a school teacher’s salary. Sure, we have every reason to critique the construction of such limited representations. But I don’t necessarily have a problem with people writing and directing what they know.”

The Closing of the American Erotic from The New York Times:

“When I saw the original version of ‘Blue Valentine’ at the Sundance Film Festival last year (the film was subsequently trimmed before it was rated), I wasn’t shocked by the sex–after all, it’s about two lovely young people who can’t keep their hands off each other–but I was startled. American characters–heterosexuals!–were having sex in a movie. Even at this pre-eminent independent festival, American filmmakers shy away from sex, especially the hot, sweaty kind. The old production code might have crumbled in the 1960s and couples can now share a bed, but the demure fade to black and the prudish pan–coitus interruptus via a crackling fire and underwear strewn across the floor–endures.”

Icons, Superheroes and Fantasies a Feminist Can Love? from On the Issues:

“In contrast to the tall, muscular, brightly garbed, ray-of-sunshine vision of Wonder Woman, with her pretty American Pie expressions and sexually-objectified postures, Lisbeth Salander is a small, queerly androgynous weirdo–sullen, introverted, self-doubting, socially awkward, gloomily clad in black leather and body piercing. She is a Gothic punk outsider, a vigilante genius with a cold penetrating gaze, a mesmerizing pop culture fantasy figure acting out unspoken desires with life-affirming results.”

Misogyny and the 2011 Superbowl from The Daily Censored:

“We live in a society where misogyny is increasing to the point that the Republican Party is attempting to redefine rape, as we speak. The Super bowl is so highly touted and hyped as a grand celebration of the nation; it’s no wonder that the ugly United States culture is exposed during this athletic spectacle in which much of the world tunes in. We must reject the hatred of or aggression against women and girls in order to build a culture and society worth living in. Women hold up half the sky.”

Hollywood’s Whiteout from The New York Times:

“What happened? Is 2010 an exception to a general rule of growing diversity? Or has Hollywood, a supposed bastion of liberalism so eager in 2008 to help Mr. Obama make it to the White House, slid back into its old, timid ways? Can it be that the president’s status as the most visible and powerful African-American man in the world has inaugurated a new era of racial confusion–or perhaps a crisis of representation?”

Quote of the Day: Sirena J. Riley

From her essay “The Black Beauty Myth,” which appears in the anthology Colonize This! (published in 2002):

As a women’s studies major in college, body image was something we discussed almost ad nauseam. It was really cathartic because we embraced the personal as political and felt safe telling our stories to our sister feminists. Whenever body image was researched and discussed as a project, however, black women were barely a footnote. Again, many white feminists had failed to step out of their reality and see beyond their own experiences to understand the different ways in which women of color experience sexism and the unattainable beauty ideals that society sets for women.

Discussions of body image that bother to include black women recognize that there are different cultural aesthetics for black and white women. Black women scholars and activists have attacked the dominance of whiteness in the media and illuminated black women’s tumultuous history with hair and skin color. The ascension of black folks into the middle class has positioned them in a unique and often difficult position, trying to hold onto cultural ties while also trying to be a part of what the white bourgeois has created as the American Dream. This not only permeates into capitalist material goals, but body image as well, creating a distinctive increase in black women’s body dissatisfaction.

White women may dominate pop culture images of women, but black women aren’t completely absent. While self-deprecating racism is still a factor in the way black women view themselves, white women give themselves too much credit when they assume that black women still want to look like them. Unfortunately, black women have their own beauty ideals to perpetually fall short of. The representation of black women in Hollywood is sparse, but among the most famous loom such beauties as Halle Berry, Jada Pinkett Smith, Nia Long, Iman and Angela Bassett. In the music scene there are the young women of Destiny’s Child, Lauryn Hill and Janet Jackson. Then, of course there is model Naomi Campbell and everyone’s favorite cover girl, Tyra Banks. Granted, these women don’t necessarily represent the waif look or heroin chic that plagues the pages of predominately white fashion and entertainment magazines, but come on. They are still a hard act to follow.

Guest Post: Holy Hypocrisy: Couples Retreat

This guest post first appeared on the blog I Will Not Diet.

For years, we have lived in a society that requires the majority of its female actors to have ridiculously impeccable bodies if they want to get work while their male counterparts are allowed to age normally, adding a few pounds to their waistline every few years. In fact, it’s highly unusual to see male actors have to answer for their weight and—more often than not—only the opposite occurs.

Actor Faizon Love as Shane

There are NUMEROUS examples of this phenomenon—Jack Nicholson, Alec Baldwin, Dustin Hoffman, Vince Vaughn, Al Pacino, Robert Deniro, even the recently filled out Jimmy Smits. But you’d be hard-pressed to name five female actors who have put on the pounds and continued to work.

Yes, Meryl Streep is not as slim as she was thirty years ago, but she certainly doesn’t have a bulging stomach like these men do. Her stomach is, in fact, quite fit. And the fact that she’s as tall as she is and wears a size fourteen tells me that you probably can’t pinch more than an inch around her middle.

Not only is this phenomenon made obvious by looking at these actors, it’s also made obvious by considering the television shows and films in our cultural zeitgeist: Knocked Up, The Break-up, King of Queens, Still Standing, According to Jim, Seinfeld, Frasier, and the list goes on.

This issue has bothered me for quite some time, but it really came to a head for me when I saw Couples Retreat on video recently (a movie that is so inane, unfortunately, I can’t recommend it). And, as it turns out, there is a scene in this movie that perfectly embodies this double standard (while also failing Bechdel with a vengeance usually only reserved for movies with only one major female celebrity), and I want to talk more about that scene today—as well as illustrate it—because it is, in fact, so egregious.

If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s about four couples that decide to go on an island retreat to improve their marriages. One of the couples is considering divorce, and their troubles are the original impetus for the trip (though later we find out that other couples are struggling in some way).

The group shot

What none of them know until they get there is that the resort where they are going is one that requires all of them to participate in a bunch of feel-good hocus pocus in order to bring some life back into their relationships.

And on the morning after their arrival, the first thing they are told to do on the beach is strip down to their underwear. I can’t remember the exact thinking about this, but it probably had something to do with needing to bare themselves to each other.

I knew all along that the women were in better shape than the men, but when they took their clothes off, I was simply astonished.

Davis, Akerman, and Bell

The women—Kristin Davis, Malin Akerman, Kristen Bell, and Kali Hawk (not pictured here)—are insanely gorgeous specimens, both buff enough to kick some serious cardio butt at the gym and beautiful enough to grace the cover of any magazine.

Bateman, Vaughn, and Favreau

But when the men—Jason Bateman, Vince Vaughn, John Favreau, and Faizon Love (not pictured here)—take off their clothes, they are all man boobs and beer guts. Even the thinnest of them—Bateman—reveals a surprisingly flabby middle.

Though I couldn’t find a picture that included the fourth couple, you can see that they also demonstrate the same double standard in this photo and clip from the movie:

Love and Hawk

It was at this moment—seeing these two diametrically opposed groups standing across from each other on an idyllic beach in paradise—that I realized there was something really wrong with the expectations we have for female celebrities. Sure, I always knew we held them to unrealistic expectations but never before had I seen such a clear picture of how hypocritical this double standard really is.

Simply put, in our society we are willing to let men look real and still be considered attractive but completely unwilling to make the same allowances for women.

I mean, my God, look at this picture of Kristin Davis:

Kristin Davis in lingerie

The woman is in her mid-forties (!!!!!), and she still has a body like a twenty-year-old!

That’s just not normal.

And if we don’t allow the women in our movies and on our television shows—in their thirties, forties, and fifties—to look normal or have even an iota of body fat, then how can we ever be happy with our own very real and imperfect bodies? How can we ever see a movie and feel good about ourselves again?

The answer is that we can’t, and until we stop these images from being hurled at us time and again—in our living rooms, magazines, and movie theatres—we stand no chance of accepting ourselves the way we are.

So I say we vote with our dollars and refuse to see movies that feature couples who are so poorly matched on a physical level.

It may take a while for Hollywood notice, but eventually they’ll get the hint.

Molly McCaffrey teaches English and creative writing at Western Kentucky University. Her blog, I Will Not Diet, chronicles her effort to lose weight without unhealthy dieting and encourages readers to reject the notion that curvy women are not attractive. She has been nominated for a 2009 Pushcart Prize, and her work has appeared in numerous magazines and books. She is also co-editor of the newly released Commutability: Stories about the Journey from Here to There. She previously contributed a post about the film Whip It for Bitch Flicks.

Disembodied Women Take Two: The Headless Woman

The Headless Woman is the second installment in our Disembodied Women series, where we illustrate how production companies continue to market films through the dismemberment and objectification of women’s bodies. For more, see our first post, The Rear View.

Disembodied Women Take One: The Rear View

You see it constantly in print advertising and commercials: advertisers show close-ups of women’s legs to sell razors; they show close-ups of women’s breasts to sell bras; they show close-ups of women’s backsides to sell underwear. And they show close-ups of a combination of women’s body parts to sell beer, fast food, cigarettes, cologne, cars, shampoo, and countless other products. By dismembering women in such a way, the women being objectified, and hence, all women who live in the society where the advertised products can be consumed, ultimately become the objects of consumption themselves, and as such, cease to exist as human beings with feelings, intellect, and identities.

In a society that treats women merely as a collection of body parts, airbrushed to perfection, it caters to the pleasure of men, who then reduce women to body parts in everyday life. It’s no wonder women can barely walk down the street without being cat-called or ogled by individual men or entire groups of them, which serves as yet another patriarchal power trip, further subjugating women and their existence as actual people.

Unfortunately, movie posters also fall into the all-too-easy and uncreative trap of exploiting womens’ bodies in order to sell their films. I find it most disturbing that even films such as Bend It Like Beckham and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants also fall into the stereotypical “advertise women’s asses” approach to promoting a film. Both movies can be (and have been) read and reviewed as feminist in that they promote sisterhood and also significantly pass The Bechdel Test (which we’ve established seems embarrassingly elusive to most mainstream films).

Here’s a selection of movie posters advertising different genres that all use a woman’s backside to sell a film. Leave your thoughts about the posters, or other films that use similar imagery, in the comments.

Review in Conversation: ‘Sex and the City: The Movie’

Welcome to our second installment of the Review in Conversation: Sex and the City: The Movie. Our first RiC discussed the film Black Snake Moan.I had liked the early seasons of Sex and the City when it was on HBO, and while acknowledging its problems–unawareness of class most troubling, though in the late 90s perhaps it was permissible in our cultural imagination for a newspaper columnist to live a fabulous life –I thought it was funny and well-written. Oh, how things have changed. The fantasy of a newspaper writer being able to afford shoes with designer names I can’t pronounce has morphed into a successful book writer being so fabulous that she receives a free couture wedding gown from a designer I’ve even heard of, and her super-rich boyfriend buys a multi-million dollar penthouse apartment. The silly consumerist fantasy exploded like a vomit balloon all over this materialistic movie.Here’s a secret: I like fashion. It’s an art form, and its creators are capable of beautiful design and cultural statements. It’s also an industry, and like all major industries, has a very ugly side. I liken it to professional sports: I watch from the sidelines, aware of the way I’m being manipulated, but enjoy it nonetheless—all without expressly participating. In the TV show, Carrie Bradshaw stepped into the world of New York fashion, and we could laugh at her ridiculous ensembles and her forays into a world in which she didn’t—and probably didn’t want to—completely belong. In the movie, we’re watching The Carrie Bradshaw Brand, and she’s become very much a part of that thing called fashion. The fact that she wore a bird on her head as part of her wedding ensemble isn’t a joke, but played straight and serious. In other words, we’re no longer identifying with an outsider to fashion; she’s now part of the machine.Carrie’s friends have all been similarly transformed from dynamic characters into commodities—who are all far too rich and insincere for any comedy to ensue. There were clearly moments in the film when we were supposed to laugh (and during which I imagined a cheesy sitcom laugh track), but all felt so dated, so out of touch, and so, frankly, ADOLESCENT MALE, that they completely fell flat. I mean, come on, Charlotte shits herself? Samantha gets a pocketbook dog that humps everything in sight (standing in for her own caged libido)? A 50-year-old woman gains ten pounds and is OMG! FATTY McFAT FAT? Are you fucking kidding me? This is only the tip of the iceberg, but my question is this: In a movie we can’t possibly take seriously (in terms of reality), which claims to be nothing more than a (guilty) pleasure, did you laugh at all?

The women go through Carrie's wardrobe — The women go through Carrie’s wardrobe

Stephanie’s response:

No, I didn’t laugh. I didn’t laugh when Charlotte shit her pants. I didn’t laugh at Samantha’s dog humping its (his/her?) way through the film. I didn’t laugh at Charlotte’s screaming over-reaction to Carrie’s engagement, where she went as far as to stand up and announce it to the entire restaurant. (That’s just the kind of crazy stuff women do, isn’t it ladies?) I didn’t laugh at Miranda’s unshaved bush. I didn’t laugh at the stereotypical workaholic Mom who won’t fuck her husband (forcing him to cheat!). And I certainly didn’t laugh at Jennifer Hudson’s role as Carrie Bradshaw’s slave. Yeah, I said it. I’m not sure we weren’t meant to take this film seriously. Where’s the evidence of that? Because I’m an intelligent person, I can discern ridiculousness from reality, but I also personally know many people, men especially, who would most certainly walk away with the notion that women actually behave this way. Call me a humorless feminist, but honestly, were there actually any women in this movie?

However, when this film opened, it dethroned Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull for the number one spot at the box office. It seemed as if women (who comprised about 85% of the audience, according to sources that keep track of such things) couldn’t wait to see it, and it’s since been touted as the biggest box office opening for a women-centered film (and romantic comedy) … basically ever. When I read about these female-driven films raking in the money, like The Proposal, for instance, which made tons of money as a woman-centered romantic comedy, I never know quite how to handle it. On one hand, yes! Go women! But on the other hand … seriously? We can’t do better than characters who start off as gung-ho career women who, by the end of the film, ultimately validate the dominant ideology that women are, by their nature, relationship-obsessed?

Sex and the City also wants to claim it’s about female sisterhood, but I couldn’t take that seriously so much. I’ve heard some women in the blogosphere describe this film as nothing more than Pop-Feminism. To me, that might be a criticism of the idea of female sisterhood showing up as shoe-obsessions, clothing-obsessions, (eg “Big, please build me a gigantic closet for all my shoes and clothing,”) obsessions with thinness and fashion in general, and other materialistic obsessions that ultimately become symbols of female empowerment. And let’s not forget, this is also a film about white women. Doesn’t that seem to be the trend, especially in the most recent onslaught of romantic comedies?

Amber’s response:

While I dismiss the film itself as pure fantasy—in the way that a prince-charming fairy tale is fantasy—you may be right to question that reaction. It’s naïve to think that the Disney princess fantasy is anything but insidious, so why give the adult fantasy a free pass? Hyper-consumerism has become inseparable from female identity in the media, and I don’t think we really need yet another citation of this ideology. Purchasing the right products doesn’t equal empowerment, and while the film half-assedly nods to this fact, its product obsession completely undermines any real effort to argue that friendship is the most important thing in life.However, Pop-Feminism or not, these are women who sincerely love one another–who aren’t conniving against each other, who aren’t in direct competition with one another. Also, they are over twenty-five, have healthy sex lives, and aren’t shamed in any way for being sexual beings. This was a revolutionary element of the TV show when it premiered in 1998, and considering the cultural environment, is no less revolutionary ten years later. Yet, ten years later, we should expect something more than basic “women are human beings” arguments masquerading as feminism. And, yes, we should expect something more than thin, beautiful, wealthy, fashionable, white ladies representing female empowerment.Jennifer Hudson’s role was abominable. Not only was she Carrie Bradshaw’s servant and charity recipient, we didn’t see her character grow and mature. What she learned, apparently, while working as a PA in NYC, is that boys are really important, and that knowledge led her back to her hometown to get married. Hell, maybe working for that vortex of narcissism, I’d run too. But the only thing I see about the inclusion of her character is a cynical instance of tokenism. It’s really as if the filmmakers said, “Hey, there are a whole lot of black women out there–maybe we should try to not completely alienate them. Let’s give Carrie an assistant!” FAIL. Is it just me, or does mass media seem more segregated now than in any other time during our lives? Also, how many sequels do you predict?

Stephanie’s response:
The reason I refuse to take Sex and the City’s self-proclaimed celebration of sisterhood very seriously is because the women rarely permit one another to slack off on their duty to maintain Fabulous Fashionista status at all times. As I stated earlier, Miranda gets shit for not porn-waxing and Samantha gets shit for gaining weight (from comfort-eating due to her tanking relationship—because that’s another thing we all do, ladies!). They permit Carrie’s days of depression when Big leaves her at the altar, literally feeding her at one point, but I still couldn’t help but cringe at that simultaneous depiction of female-infantilizing coupled with creepy mommy-moment.

Yet I believe they do really love one another. You’re right to point out the refreshing portrayal of women who aren’t in direct competition or who aren’t conniving against one another. One could also point out many scenes where genuine love exists among them—my favorite scene is when Carrie sucks it up and takes the train (but not without fur coat!) to Miranda’s apartment so she won’t be alone on New Year’s. It feels … honest, in a way that so much of the rest of the film doesn’t.

I never saw the television series. From what I’ve heard and read, the women were very much unashamed sexual beings. So I had to ask myself after I saw the movie, “Where the hell is all this sex I’ve been hearing about?” Samantha has sex exactly zero times on-screen. Miranda struggles with sex and her husband’s infidelity—it’s very much implied that he cheats because she won’t sleep with him (another one of her wife-duties shirked). Charlotte claims to have a wonderful sex life, but … where’s the evidence? Perhaps the film wants to show the progression of their lives and the complications that might come with aging, but they chose to do it by regressing to traditional gender expectations regarding marriage and pregnancies and preoccupations with couple-hood.

I get the feeling that the show, while still portraying the women as rich and fashion-obsessed, actually represented their shunning of traditional, more conservative ideas regarding adult womanhood. They didn’t have to get married and have babies and buy houses. They could have sex! And live in the city! And have fulfilling careers! If that’s the case, the film-version seriously dropped the ball.

With scenes like Miranda telling her child to “follow the white person with the baby” when they’re looking for a new apartment in a less-rich neighborhood; with scenes like Carrie showing up to reclaim her metaphorical glass slipper while her metaphorical prince conveniently awaits in her giant, specially built metaphorical (closet)-castle—the film only reinforces good ol’ traditional American values about class, heterosexual relationships, and especially about womanhood.

Movie Review: Precious, Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire

*This guest post also appears on Gender Across Borders.

Last week, I saw the much-anticipated film Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire. And I haven’t stopped thinking about it all week. Not because I’m in shock, though the film does depict a number of truly horrific and violent situations. And not because I’m blinded by completely uncritical love, because the film is far from perfect, and I recognize that. The reason Precious has stuck with me is because it is, by all accounts, an extremely well-made film. The acting is tremendous and the visuals feel authentic. And, best of all, the film is filled with strong, nuanced, and interesting female characters. In a time when women are often relegated to forgettable romantic comedies and bit parts in “male-centric” films, and when plus-sized women and women of color barely star in mainstream films at all, Precious is a welcomed break from typical multiplex fare.

I want to start by addressing the criticisms of Precious, because many of them are valid. The material is bleak — at times, perhaps, too bleak. Considering the lack of decent portrayals of people of color in film today, do we really need another film that highlights all the most negative things that might happen to a young woman of color?

From Racialicious:

So when I found out Push was being adapted for the silver screen, I cringed at the prospect of revisiting Precious’s bleakly rendered world. I dreaded watching in technicolor all the awful things I’d imagined while reading. And I reeeally didn’t want to return to the hollowness that haunted the ending. What possible reason would Hollywood have for further dramatizing an existence as heinous as Precious’s?

It was certainly something to think about. Black American dramas have the tendency to pull their viewers into dark corners and assault them. The grittiest ripped-from-the-headlines realities and the woes so commonplace the news doesn’t bother covering them at all bogart their way into our fiction. Push will be no exception and I wasn’t sure if I should be pleased about that.

And, at the same time, the response to the film, though overwhelmingly positive, has tended to be superficial. As Latoya writes:

While Precious puts forth an array of issues, these are not engaged with by the reviewers. Is it because of the heaviness of the subject matter? Perhaps. But I find it interesting that I have seen more discussion of Mariah Carey appearing without make-up than any discussion of the underlying issues in the film.

Finally, there is the significant issue of colorism. Though Precious Jones has dark skin, the women of color who help her have light skin. While this is problematic all on its own, it’s even more of an issue when one considers that this casting doesn’t actually reflect the character descriptions in the book Push. Feministing has more:

In the book, the description of Blue Rain, the half-messiah, half-educator that delivers Precious from the bondage of illiteracy and abuse is as follows: “She dark, got nice face, big eyes, and…long dreadlocky hair.” (39-40) This character in the movie is played by Paula Patton, a light-skinned African American woman with straightened hair. By no means do I doubt the talent of Patton, but it means something that the directors chose to cast one of the most central characters of the film against Sapphire’s original description.

None of these issues can be ignored in discussing this film. And, sadly, these are the problems that will prevent Precious from being a great film, rather than just a very good film. In particular, I wonder why the decision to cast Paula Patton and Mariah Carey was made. While both women deliver fantastic performances, it’s hard to believe that there weren’t any actresses of equal talent who fit more closely to Sapphire’s descriptions. Though I haven’t read Push, it is my understanding that Blu Rain (the character played by Patton) is meant to be the positive embodiment of everything Precious dislikes in herself and her mother. The casting of a light-skinned woman makes this point much less clear, and it’s disappointing that Lee Daniels and the others involved in the casting of Precious didn’t do more to be true to Sapphire’s intents.

All that being said — Precious is still a very, very good film. Both Gabourey Sidibe and Mo’Nique deliver career-defining performances; this was Sidibe’s first film, and I hope we’ll be seeing much more of her in the coming years. And all of the female characters, including Precious, her mother, Blu Rain, Mrs. Weiss (a social worker, played by Carey), and the other girls in Precious’ GED class, are well developed and complicated. For instance, though Precious’ mother is characterized as a villain, I don’t think she can be seen in such polarizing terms. Though she commits horrible acts of violence and abuse against Precious throughout the film, we learn that there’s more to her than meets the eye and that her actions (as horrifying as they may be) are motivated by her own fears and insecurities. She may be a villain, to some degree, but she isn’t evil — much like Precious, she’s a victim of her own circumstances, and she is forced to make difficult choices. A similar character in another film may be depicted as completely one-dimensional, but Mo’Nique’s performance shows us that there is more to this woman — and to all of the women in the film, for that matter — than what initially appears on the surface.

Another strength is the way in which Precious handles its subject matter. Certainly, all of the issues addressed in the film — including (but not limited to) rape, incest, teen pregnancy, poverty and illiteracy — have been addressed before by other films, and when addressing such topics, it’s all too easy to come off sounding preachy or melodramatic. Precious does not fall in to this trap. Precious addresses these topics honestly and directly, never undermining the horror of it all but still making it clear that these are real aspects of life, and that they aren’t death sentences. Though the character Precious is forced to deal with a huge number of issues that no young woman should ever need to face, the audience is not supposed to pity her. Precious is too strong a character for that. Though the film ends on an ambiguous note, I left the theatre confident that she would go on and do well in life, because I had just spent the past two hours watching her face incredible odds and constantly surviving them with grace. We don’t want to see Precious experience all of the terrible situations she encounters, but we never fear or doubt her. She is clear-headed and determined, and she is a fantastic role model for all young women, from all walks of life. And we ultimately feel empathy, not pity, for her.

If you haven’t had an opportunity to see Precious, I highly recommend checking it out. It’s a flawed film, and it’s not something that will appeal to everyone. But for all its faults, Precious remains a strong film that addresses a wide variety of issues that need to be discussed candidly in film more often. And, if nothing else, it’s bound to be one of the most feminist movies you see this year.

Carrie Polansky is one of the Editors of Gender Across Borders. She graduated from Emerson College in 2008 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Visual and Media Arts (and a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies). Today, she works for an LGBT nonprofit organization in NYC and continues to be passionate about media and feminism.

The Codes of Gender: Documentary Preview

From the Media Education Foundation (MEF):

Communication scholar Sut Jhally applies the late sociologist Erving Goffman’s groundbreaking analysis of advertising to the contemporary commercial landscape in this provocative new film about gender as a ritualized cultural performance. Uncovering a remarkable pattern of gender-specific poses, Jhally explores Goffman’s central claim that the way the body is displayed in advertising communicates normative ideas about masculinity and femininity. The film looks beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that focus on biological difference or issues of surface objectification and beauty, taking us into the two-tiered terrain of identity and power relations. With its sustained focus on the fundamental importance of gender, power, and how our perceptions of what it means to be a man or a woman get reproduced and reinforced on the level of culture in our everyday lives, The Codes of Gender is certain to inspire discussion and debate across a range of disciplines.

I haven’t yet watched The Codes of Gender, but I imagine it might provide some insight for our continued frustration with movie posters.

We previously highlighted Generation M, another documentary by the MEF, which focuses on the misogyny prevalent in contemporary culture.

As the MEF is a foundation focused on education, you can watch a low-resolution preview of any of their films online (for personal viewing only).

If you’ve seen The Codes of Gender, let us know what you think!

Whip It: Ripley’s Pick

*This guest post also appears at I Will Not Diet.

I finally saw Whip It this weekend, and I have to say that the movie did not disappoint. I had low expectations because some people we trust had told us they didn’t like the film. I always think it’s better to go into the theatre with low expectations than high ones anyway because it makes it easier to enjoy yourself if you’re not sitting there thinking something like, I thought this was going to be the greatest movie ever made, but this dialogue is awful!

Maybe the movie was a little bit silly and predictable (and possibly not an accurate depiction of roller derby life), but, like I said, since I had low expectations, I didn’t even notice.

Because to me it didn’t feel predictable as much as relatable, and it didn’t seem silly as much as youthful and fresh. And the story is stand-up-and-cheer inspiring: teenage Bliss (played with loads of empathy and huge Bambi eyes by Juno‘s Ellen Page) has no agency or direction in life (and nothing that really makes her happy) until she sees two roller derby teams in nearby Austin shove it out one fateful night. After trying out for one team, she develops into a derby prodigy named Babe Ruthless who has as much drive and discipline as an Olympic athlete. In this way, it’s a wonderful girl empowerment story that will join the ranks of films like Girlfight and Bend it Like Beckham before it.

But the reason I’m writing about the film is because I couldn’t help but notice that all of the actors looked so darned real, which I absolutely loved. They were all different shapes and sizes—Ellen Page’s Bliss was an adorable little french fry of a girl while her best friend Pash was a lovely roller coaster of valleys and curves. It was a much needed reprieve from the model thin blonde archetype we normally see on the big screen, especially in movies that are supposedly marketed towards women.

And the girls on the various roller derby teams were similarly diverse—sure, Drew Barrymore was in phenomenal shape, but some of the others—Kristin Wiig and Juliette Lewis included—looked their age and sported imperfect stomachs, thighs, and arms without an ounce of shame or self-consciousness. (It’s hard to be self-conscious, I suppose, when you’re skating around a roller rink wearing a short pleated skirt, a sleeveless, stomach-baring top, and fishnet stockings.)

But it wasn’t just their bodies that looked imperfect—it was also their hair (sometimes stringy or uninspired), their makeup (often greasy and overdone), and their skin (blemished on some occasions and wrinkled on others).

Of course, I credit the female director, Drew Barrymore, with keeping these women from looking artificial and plastic while still allowing them to look attractive and even hot. It makes perfect sense to me that it was Barrymore—an actress who’s gone through a variety of looks and dress sizes over the years—who felt comfortable letting these women look so true-to-life. In that way, the direction feels both emotionally and physically honest. And the movie is clearly better for it.

For when Babe Ruthless and her cohorts take to the rink, it’s incredibly easy for those of us sitting in the audience to cheer for them because they look a lot more like us than most of the women we see staring back at us from that giant movie screen—more authentic than artificial, more lifelike than fantasy, more likeable than distasteful.

So I applaud Barrymore and her talented crew of actresses for baring not only their wonderfully diverse bodies but also their middle-aged and appealingly flawed faces.

And I encourage all of you to support Barrymore—and all female directors by extension—by taking your daughters and nieces to see this film (either now while it’s still in the theatre or later on DVD). After all, if we don’t support women who give us what we want, we have only ourselves to blame.

Molly McCaffrey teaches English and creative writing at Western Kentucky University. Her blog, I Will Not Diet, chronicles her effort to lose weight without unhealthy dieting and encourages readers to reject the notion that curvy women are not attractive. She has been nominated for a 2009 Pushcart Prize, and her work has appeared in Vestal Review, Word Salad, Cairn, Gravity Hill, Antipodes, Quirk, XX Eccentric: Stories about the Eccentricities of Women, and Gilmore Girls and the Politics of Identity.