Carrie Nelson – Bitch Flicks

The Shock of ‘Sleepaway Camp’

On the surface, Sleepaway Camp isn’t much different than your average 1980s slasher movie. The comparisons to Friday the 13th can’t be ignored – Sleepaway’s Camp Arawak, much like Friday’s Camp Crystal Lake, is populated by horny teens looking for some summer lovin’, and is the site of a series of gruesome and mysterious murders that threaten to shut down the camp for the whole summer. But unlike Friday the 13th and other slasher films, the twist in Sleepaway Camp isn’t the identity of the murderer, and the final girl isn’t exactly who you’d expect.

This piece by Carrie Nelson previously appeared at Bitch Flicks on October 24, 2011 and is republished as part of our theme week on Cult Films and B Movies.

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

On the surface, Sleepaway Camp isn’t much different than your average 1980s slasher movie. The comparisons to Friday the 13th can’t be ignored – Sleepaway’s Camp Arawak, much like Friday’s Camp Crystal Lake, is populated by horny teens looking for some summer lovin’, and is the site of a series of gruesome and mysterious murders that threaten to shut down the camp for the whole summer. But unlike Friday the 13th and other slasher films, the twist in Sleepaway Camp isn’t the identity of the murderer, and the final girl isn’t exactly who you’d expect.

(Everything that follows contains significant spoilers. Read at your discretion.)

The protagonist of Sleepaway Camp is Angela, the lone survivor of a boating accident that killed her father and her brother, Peter. Years after the accident, her aunt Martha, with whom she now lives, sends her to Camp Arawak with her cousin Ricky. Angela is painfully shy and refuses to go near the water, which leads to the other campers tormenting her incessantly. Ricky’s quick to defend her, but the bullying is relentless. One by one, Angela’s tormenters are murdered in increasingly grotesque ways (the most disturbing involves a curling iron brutally entering a woman’s vagina).

So come the end of the film, when it’s revealed that Angela is the murderer, there’s no particular shock – after all, why wouldn’t she want to seek revenge on her tormentors? But the fact that Angela is the murderer isn’t the point, because when we find out she’s the murderer we see her naked, and it is revealed that she has a penis. We quickly learn through flashbacks that it was, in fact, Peter who survived the boat accident, and Aunt Martha decided to raise him as a girl. The ending is profoundly disturbing, not because Peter is a murderer or because he is a cross-dresser (because his female presentation is against his will, it isn’t accurate to call him transgender), but because he has been abused so deeply by his aunt and his peers that he can’t find a way to cope.

Unlike most slasher movies I’ve seen, I wasn’t horrified by Sleepaway Camp’s body count. Rather, I was horrified by the abuses that catalyze the murders. Peter survived the trauma of watching his father and sister die, only to be emotionally and physically abused by his aunt and forced to live as a woman. At camp, he’s terrified of the water, as it reminds him of the tragic loss of his family, and he’s unable to shower or change his clothes around his female bunkmates, as they might learn his secret. But rather than being understanding and supportive, the other campers harass Peter by forcibly throwing him into the water, verbally taunting him and ruining his chance to be romantically involved with someone who might truly care for him. Not to mention, at the start of camp, he is nearly molested by the lecherous head cook. Peter may be a murderer, but he is hardly villainous – the rest of the characters are the real villains, for allowing the bullying to transpire.

The problem, of course, is that the abuse of Peter isn’t the part that’s supposed to horrify us. The twist ending is set up to shock and disgust the audience, which is deeply transphobic. Tera at Sweet Perdition describes the problem with ending as follows:

But Angela’s not deceiving everybody because she’s a trans* person. She’s deceiving everybody because she’s a (fictional) trans* person created by cissexual filmmakers. As Drakyn points out, the trans* person who’s “fooling” us on purpose is a myth we cissexuals invented. Why? Because we are so focused on our own narrow experience of gender that we can’t imagine anything outside it. We take it for granted that everyone’s gender matches the sex they were born with. With this assumption in place, the only logical reason to change one’s gender is to lie to somebody.

The shock of Sleepaway Camp’s ending relies on the cissexist assumption that one’s biological sex and gender presentation must always match. A person with a mismatched sex and gender presentation is someone to be distrusted and feared. Though the audience has identified with Peter throughout the movie, we are meant to turn on him and fear him at the end, as he’s not only a murderer – he’s a deceiver as well. But, as Tera points out, the only deception is the one in the minds of cisgender viewers who assume that Peter’s sex and gender must align in a specific, proper way. Were this not the point that the filmmakers wanted to make, they would have revealed the twist slightly earlier in the film, allowing time for the viewer to digest the information and realize that Peter is still a human being. (This kind of twist is done effectively in The Crying Game, specifically because the twist is revealed midway through the film, and the audience watches characters cope and come to terms with the reveal in an honest, sensitive way. Such sensitivity is not displayed in Sleepaway Camp.)

And yet, despite its cissexism, Sleepaway Camp has some progressive moments. Most notably, the depiction of Angela and Peter’s parents, a gay male couple, is positive. In the opening scene, the parents appear loving and committed, and there’s even a flashback scene depicting the men engaging in romantic sexual relations. Considering how divisive gay parenting is in the 21st century, the fact that a mainstream film made nearly thirty years ago portrays gay parenting positively (if briefly) is certainly worthy of praise.

Sleepaway Camp is incredibly problematic, but beyond the surface-layer clichés and the shock value of the ending, it’s a fascinating and truly horrifying film. Particularly watching the film today, in an era where bullying is forcing young people to make terrifyingly destructive decisions, the abuses against Peter ring uncomfortably true. Peter encounters cruelty at every turn, emotionally scarring him until he can think of no other way to cope besides murder. Unlike horror movies in which teenagers are murdered as punishment for sexual activity, Sleepaway Camp murders teenagers for the torment they inflict on others. There’s a certain sweet justice in that sort of conclusion, but at the same time, it makes you wish the situations that bring on the murders hadn’t needed to happen at all.

Carrie Nelson was a Staff Writer for Gender Across Borders, an international feminist community and blog that she co-founded in 2009. She works as a grant writer for an LGBT nonprofit, and she is currently pursuing an MA in Media Studies at The New School.

It’s Our 5-Year Blogiversary!

BF co-founders Steph and Amber at the 2010 Athena Film Festival

We can’t believe it, but today marks five years since we started Bitch Flicks.

In March 2008, we started a blog with the wink-and-a-nudge name, Bitch Flicks. In that first year, we wrote a whopping seventeen posts, eight of which were actual film reviews.

In 2012 we published 557 posts–and “we” consisted of a dozen people, not to mention numerous guest writers.

We want to thank our Editor and Staff Writer Megan Kearns.

We want to thank our staff writers: Erin Fenner, Robin Hitchcock, Leigh Kolb, Carrie Nelson, Rachel Redfern, Amanda Rodriguez, Lady T, Max Thornton, and Myrna Waldron.

We want to thank everyone who has ever contributed to Bitch Flicks, whether by writing a post, designing a logo, donating, commenting, or sharing a piece you read with someone else.

Everyone mentioned here has been a part of what has made this project continue.

Finally, we want to thank every one of you reading this–and we hope you’ll stay with us in years to come.

–Steph and Amber

LGBTQI Week: Pariah

Pariah (2011)

This review by Monthly Guest Contributor Carrie Nelson previously appeared at Bitch Flicks on January 25, 2012.

I enjoyed many films in 2011. All of my favorite films of the year, however, were the ones that unnerved me with their honesty, sticking in my thoughts long after the end credits rolled. One of those films was Martha Marcy May Marlene, which I’ve already written about, and another was Pariah.

Pariah, in its simplest terms, is a lesbian coming-of-age story. Yet it is unlike any other lesbian coming-of-age story I have ever seen, largely because the film is not about a young woman’s initial discovery or self-acceptance of sexual identity. When we meet Alike (played masterfully by Adepero Oduye), she already is well aware of and comfortable with her sexual orientation. The film does not start from a place of Gay 101; there are no scenes where Alike expresses sexual confusion or the desire to be straight. It operates under the assumption that our heroine is out (at least to her friends and high school English teacher) and proud.

Alike and Laura

Instead of a traditional coming out story, Alike’s journey is about finding her place within her community. At home, her mother (Kim Wayans) encourages her to dress femininely and act ladylike. (One of the most heartbreaking scenes in the film involves Alike’s discomfort wearing a pink blouse that her mother was so excited for her to try on.) Outside of home, her friend Laura (Pernell Walker) teaches her how to convincingly present as butch and suavely seduce femmes. Alike is able to navigate both worlds, but she does not feel fully comfortable in either of them. The film follows her as she shatters the assumptions others make about her and determines what she needs to do to be truly happy.

What impressed me the most about Pariah was its ability to depict the uncomfortable awkwardness of being a teenager. Though the film is very specific in its geographic and cultural location, Alike’s need to find her place in her social circle is universal. When she accompanies Laura to clubs, she is unable to comfortably flirt with other women. She tries hard to adopt a butch identity, but it never feels right. Early on in the film, Alike experiments with packing, but she quickly determines that a phallus is not what she needs. It is not until she meets Bina (Aasha Davis, who I’ve loved since she played Waverly on Friday Night Lights), the daughter of her mother’s friend, that Alike finds herself in a situation where she can present her sexuality and gender identity in the most authentic way, without pretense or expectation. And although Alike’s relationship with Bina turns in a surprising direction, the experience is necessary for her to begin to see the variety of ways in which she can be a queer woman.

I appreciated the diversity of queer women depicted in Pariah. From women who self-identify as lesbians to women who simply enjoy being intimate with other women, from women who have masculine or feminine gender presentations to women who cannot be so easily labeled, Pariah shows that there is no single way to be queer. Mainstream depictions of gay identity tend to reinforce stereotypes, but while Pariah does feature women in traditional butch-femme pairings, such relationships are not the only ones presented, nor are they shown to be the “right” way to be gay. All of the characters and relationships in Pariah have flaws, but all are also beautiful in their own ways. I was continually struck by the film’s honesty as I watched it, and the diversity of women and relationships presented is an excellent example of that honesty.

Audrey and Alike

Audrey, Alike’s mother, is one of the most fascinating characters in the film. Rather than a one-note antagonist, as parents of gay teens are often depicted on-screen, Audrey struck me as a woman who truly wants to connect with her daughter but does not understand how. She seems to know all along that Alike is gay, but she believes that if she buys her enough feminine clothing, dictates her friendships and talks to her about boys, Alike will be straight. This behavior only distances Alike from her mother, and understandably so – it is not the behavior of a tolerant or accepting parent. But there is never a doubt that Audrey truly loves her daughter and wants what is best for her, a fact that makes the climax of the film so difficult to watch. I only wish the film had been able to flesh Audrey out more and spend more time with her character. One of my favorite scenes is one of Audrey sitting in the break room at her office, mutually ignoring the rest of her colleagues who are eating together and chatting. Audrey only breaks out of her shell when a friend approaches her and asks her about the new clothing she bought for her daughters. The implication seems to be that Audrey is materialistic and a bit of a snob, but we do not find out more about that. I wish we had – it might have provided more insight into why she adopts such a conventional view of female gender identity and sexuality.

One cannot discuss Pariah without acknowledging the fact that it is a film about queer women of color made by a queer woman of color. It’s rare that women of color are given the opportunity to tell their own stories, and in a year during which The Help is receiving enormous critical praise and attention, it is disheartening that a film like Pariah is receiving so much less notice. Pariah is a vitally important film, and its story and performances are as strong as you will find in any other film from 2011. At the time of writing this review, Academy Award nominations have yet to be announced, and I am hoping that, when they are, Pariah and its creator, Dee Rees, will receive their well-deserved recognition. Whether or not they do, I encourage you to seek the film out in theatres. It may not be the flashiest or most technically elaborate film of the past year, but it is without question one of the most honest.

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Carrie Nelson is a Bitch Flicks monthly contributor. She was a Staff Writer for Gender Across Borders, an international feminist community and blog that she co-founded in 2009. She works as a grant writer for an LGBT nonprofit, and she is currently pursuing an MA in Media Studies at The New School.

LGBTQI Week: Sleepaway Camp

This piece by Monthly Guest Contributor Carrie Nelson previously appeared at Bitch Flicks on October 24, 2011.

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

(Everything that follows contains significant spoilers. Read at your discretion.)

But Angela’s not deceiving everybody because she’s a trans* person. She’s deceiving everybody because she’s a (fictional) trans* person created by cissexual filmmakers. As Drakyn points out, the trans* person who’s “fooling” us on purpose is a myth we cissexuals invented. Why? Because we are so focused on our own narrow experience of gender that we can’t imagine anything outside it. We take it for granted that everyone’s gender matches the sex they were born with. With this assumption in place, the only logical reason to change one’s gender is to lie to somebody.

———-

LGBTQI Week: Bully

Bully (2011)

This piece by Monthly Guest Contributor Carrie Nelson previously appeared at Bitch Flicks on May 7, 2012.

Growing up, I was never one of the “cool” kids. Far from it – I had a few close friends, but I also spent a lot of time by myself, reading and writing and daydreaming about movies I wanted to make someday. I also never wore the trendiest clothes, and I was generally awkward in social interactions. As a result, I was made fun of frequently in middle school. Even though I didn’t know how to articulate it at the time, I knew I was different, and my classmates knew it, too. And like many non-conformers, I was bullied because of my differences. But nothing that I experienced is comparable to what kids today are going through. Bullying has existed since the dawn of humanity, but only in the last few years has it become a national news story. Children – some as young as 11-years-old – are now bullied to the point of taking their lives. What’s caused this dramatic change?

Bully is an important film, because it addresses this critical epidemic. It follows the stories of five young people, ranging in age between 11 and 17: Tyler, a boy who committed suicide and whose parents are suing his school district and holding the district accountable for his death; Alex, a boy who is physically assaulted daily on the school bus and doesn’t know how to talk about it with his parents; Kelby, a girl whose bullying started once she came out as a lesbian; Ja’Meya, a girl who was sent to a juvenile detention center after trying to defend herself and threatening her bullies with a gun; and Ty, a boy whose parents launched the anti-bullying organization Stand For The Silent after his suicide. Though Tyler and Ty are unable to personally share their stories during the film, their parents create vivid pictures of their sons’ experiences. Both families are now significantly active in the anti-bullying movement, and they carry on the legacy of their sons’ through this work. (Aside: It is critical to mention that the specifics of Tyler’s death are unclear, and there are some questions as to whether or not his suicide is directly connected to bullying, though these questions are not addressed in the documentary.)

Kelby in Bully

We do, however, get to hear directly from Alex, Kelby, and Ja’Meya, and their stories are incredibly moving. I found Kelby’s story particularly poignant, given the pervasiveness of LGBT bullying today. More than any other subject profiled, Kelby expresses a love for her life and a determination not to let bullying determine her future. Though she experiences immense homophobic abuse, she refuses to hide in the closet, and she forms friendships with other outsiders so that she’s never truly alone. Kelby’s story is one of perseverance, and it’s deeply inspiring. I was also awed by Ja’Meya’s story. Her experience highlights the significant disparities in punishment that exist in our justice system. Though Ja’Meya did bring a loaded gun onto a school bus, she did not hurt anyone, and she did it out of self-defense. Yet her bullies have not been penalized for hurting her, and she faces 45 felony charges. Ja’Meya’s story is by far the most complex, and to me it was also the most upsetting – it is so painful to watch her locked away just because she was bullied and didn’t know how to handle it. Ja’Meya’s experiences show the horrifying reality that even when victims do try to defend themselves, they still end up being the ones punished.

Ja’Meya in Bully

Bully is an important film, and it’s a good film. It’s very well crafted, and director Lee Hirsch did an excellent job of choosing compelling subjects and letting them speak for themselves. That said, Bully is not a great movie. It is a fiercely passionate movie, which is critical, but because it shares its passion exclusively through personal stories, it neglects to explore crucial facts about the bullying epidemic and its dangers. The film doesn’t really explore the phenomenon of cyber-bullying, a relatively new form of bullying that is just as serious a problem as “traditional” bullying. Despite the inclusion of a lesbian subject, the film also ignores the reality that a disproportionately high amount of bullying incidents and bullying-related suicides relate to the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Additionally, the only school official profiled is one who is completely incompetent and dismissive of the bullying that occurs on her watch, which renders invisible the positive and progressive actions taken by many educators and administrators to prevent bullying. Exploring these issues and including specific facts and statistics about the changes in bullying over the last decade would have made the film far more empowering.

In 2009, Sirdeaner Walker testified before Congress in support of the Safe Schools Improvement Act. Walker’s son, Carl, had committed suicide at the age of 11 after being repeatedly tormented by classmates. During the hearing, Walker stated, “I know now that bullying is not a gay issue, or a straight issue. It’s a safety issue. It’s about what kind of learning environments we want for our children and how far we’re willing to go to protect and teach them.” I thought of her words when I watched Bully, because if the film does anything right, it shows bullying as a universal experience – and one that needs to be stopped. The problem is that, ultimately, bullying probably can’t be stopped. Sexual harassment, abuse, rape, murder, bigotry – these are all things that are serious problems and that need to stopped, but because cruelty will always exist in the world, these problems will also always exist in the world. That can’t be helped. What can be helped is the way we address these situations when they do happen.

I feel the same way about bullying. Bullying may never cease to exist, but we can at least push harder for national safe school legislation, stronger enforcement of zero-tolerance policies, and better support systems for young people who are bullied. I wish Bully had taken the time to address any of these potential strategies directly. Instead, it closes with the message “Stop Bullying,” which is certainly an admirable message but not one that can realistically be fulfilled. I wish more time had been devoted to exploring the Stand For The Silent campaign, but it is mentioned almost as an afterthought toward the end of the film. And while it’s true that the filmmakers have partnered with Facing History and Ourselves to create a educational curriculum around Bully, I wish the film itself had contained the facts and guidelines included in the curriculum. Teaching guides and informational websites are only useful if they are sought out, and the sad truth is that I doubt that everyone who sees Bully will seek out these important resources. Bully sheds critical light on a universal epidemic, but its downfall is that it keeps the message universal, rather than making it tangible and realistic to achieve. There is a difference between powerful stories and empowering messages, and ultimately, Bully relies too much on the former and not enough on the latter.

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LGBTQI Week: Kissing Jessica Stein

Movie poster for Kissing Jessica Stein

This is a review by monthly guest contributor Carrie Nelson.

(Warning: Contains spoilers about Kissing Jessica Stein.)

Ten years ago, I saw Kissing Jessica Stein on a date with my first girlfriend. We liked the movie, but when we walked out of the theater, we laughed and said to each other, “Let’s not end up as dysfunctional as those two!” The irony did not escape us a few months later, when we broke up under eerily similar circumstances as Jessica and Helen, the film’s protagonists. But much like Jessica and Helen, our break-up was the start of our lifelong friendship. I’ve re-watched the film countless times throughout the last decade, and objectively, I don’t think Kissing Jessica Stein is a great movie. It’s filled with too many romantic comedy clichés, and for a film about queer women in a relationship, the film is awfully preoccupied with discussions about men. But in its best moments, it authentically depicts the awkwardness of new relationships, the confusion of unexpected sexual attraction, and the deep friendships that result from failed romances. Kissing Jessica Stein is flawed, but its sincerity and its willingness to address relationships between non-monosexual women keeps me coming back to it, over and over.

Though words like “bisexual” and “queer” are never used, Kissing Jessica Stein is about sexual fluidity. The Rilke quotation mentioned throughout the film makes this theme obvious:

“It is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new, unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope. But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical will live the relation to another as something alive.” (Emphasis added)

Much like Alyssa in Chasing Amy, Helen places a personal ad in the Women-Seeking-Women section because she “excludes nothing” sexually. When it occurs to her that, in all her sexually adventurous years, she has yet to sleep with a woman, she decides to give it a try – hence the personal ad. But she’s completely unprepared for Jessica Stein – who Helen later calls a “Jewish Sandra Dee” – to respond. As the film chronicles the rise and fall of Jessica and Helen’s romantic relationship, it tackles some big questions: Can a woman who’s only dated men have a successful sexual relationship with a woman? When, if ever, is secrecy in a relationship acceptable? Can a relationship with high emotional connection and low sexual compatibility survive?

Jessica and Helen in Kissing Jessica Stein

Kissing Jessica Stein provides no easy answers to the questions it asks, which I appreciate. The film understands that sexuality is complicated, and not everyone shares the same capacity for fluidity and sexual experimentation. The film also understands that there is no definitive recipe to a successful relationship, because people are different and have radically different priorities when choosing significant others. Jessica and Helen start out coming from similar places – both of them have identified as straight for all of their lives, and both of them want to question that assumption and explore the possibility of dating another woman. In time, they find that they truly are attracted to each other – more than that, they love each other – but that attraction manifests differently in each of them. While Helen has no insecurities about a sexual relationship with Jessica and longs to have the kind of relationship with Jessica that she’s had with men in the past, Jessica is more interested in her emotional connection with Helen than her sexual one. I don’t think this means that Jessica is straight or that she isn’t genuinely attracted to Helen – we never see her in a relationship with a man, so it’s likely that her sex drive is naturally low. Rather than judging Jessica and Helen for their differences, the film shows both women as they are, and it explores the ways in which their differences both cultivate and destroy their relationship.

The biggest problem that I have with Kissing Jessica Stein is that it simply isn’t as queer as it wants to seem. As Stephen Metcalf wrote in his review at Slate, “It’s a shame that a movie about openness regarding sexual preference recycles so many motifs from the pantheon of great hetero-dating movies.” Though Kissing Jessica Stein addresses interesting questions and themes rarely found in your average romantic comedy, it’s also fairly formulaic. The stakes never feel quite as intense as they should; even when it becomes clear that the relationship is about to come to an end, there’s never any doubt that Jessica and Helen will remain the best of friends. And then there’s the issue of men. Neither Jessica nor Helen identifies as a lesbian, and I like that choice – the film does a great job of dismantling the gay/straight, either/or binary. That said, one would think that women who are attracted to other women might want to spend some time exploring that. There’s nothing wrong with Jessica and Helen discussing which male celebrities fall into the category of “sexy-ugly” (and I completely agree with their conclusion that Harvey Keitel is among them), but I found it hard to believe that they wouldn’t spend more time finding common ground on what they find appealing about women as well. It’s as if too much overt lesbianism would make the film hard for audiences to swallow. Too much of the film makes it feel like it was made for primarily straight viewers, and that feels like a missed opportunity.

Jessica and Helen in Kissing Jessica Stein

When I watch Kissing Jessica Stein now, I’m transported back to a very specific time and place. I remember being sixteen and newly out as bisexual. I remember anxiously anticipating my first kiss from another girl. I remember starting to understand that sexual expression can be flexible and doesn’t have to conform to societal norms. It shouldn’t matter whom we love or what we call ourselves – only that we love at all, and that we express that love in the most honest way we can. Kissing Jessica Stein is not the first film to convey this message, nor does it do it as well as some other films. It’s certainly not as risky as Shortbus, or even Humpday. But it captures a feeling to which many can relate. And even when it fails, it feels far more believable than most comedies of its genre.

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Carrie Nelson is a Bitch Flicks monthly contributor. She was a Staff Writer for Gender Across Borders, an international feminist community and blog that she co-founded in 2009. She works as a grant writer for an LGBT nonprofit, and she is currently pursuing an MA in Media Studies at The New School.

LGBTQI Week: "Limit Your Exposure": Homosexuality in the Mad Men Universe

This review by Carrie Nelson previously appeared at Bitch Flicks on September 1, 2011. It contains spoilers about the first four seasons of Mad Men.

1960s America saw its share of emerging social and political movements—the civil rights movement, second wave feminism and anti-Vietnam activism, just to name a few. And in June 1969, the modern gay liberation movement was born. The Stonewall riots resulted in gay people rushing out of the closets and into the streets in the hopes of gaining equal rights. For the first time, gay men and lesbians were able to express their attractions openly, build communities and mobilize activist efforts. None of the recent advances in LGBT equality would have happened over the last four decades were it not for the bravery and chutzpah of the Stonewall Inn’s patrons on that fateful summer evening in 1969.

Unfortunately, in the world of AMC’s Mad Men, it is still the first half of the decade. There was no gay liberation movement between 1960 and 1965, the years during which the first four seasons of the series take place. On the contrary, homosexuality was still considered a deviance by mainstream society and an illness by the medical community. There was certainly no such thing as gay pride—the great majority of closet doors were locked tightly. This makes it harder for Mad Men to address the experiences of gay people than to address those of women and people of color, as it’s a challenge for such a dialogue-driven character drama to address a topic that was rarely discussed openly. But that doesn’t mean that the effort isn’t made.

Despite the complete lack of visibility of gay people in the early 1960s, there is a surprisingly high amount of explicitly queer characters on Mad Men. Only one—Salvatore Romano, Sterling Cooper’s Art Director—is substantially developed, but a half dozen gay characters have passed through the Mad Men universe over the course of four seasons. All of the characters are unique, with distinct personalities and significantly different approaches to navigating same-sex desire in a hostile climate. And while Mad Men steers clear of making profound statements about the nature of gay identity in the 1960s, the characterizations it does present do have a few interesting things to say about gender identity and the ability to out oneself.

To discuss the depiction of homosexuality on Mad Men, one first needs to look at Salvatore. To the 21st century viewer, Sal reads undeniably as gay, yet no one at Sterling Cooper seems to notice this. Certainly, he isn’t out, nor does he intend to be. In season 1, he is a bachelor; in seasons 2 and 3, he is married to Kitty, a sweet and completely naïve woman who is either unaware or in denial of her husband’s internal struggles. Though Sal is an outwardly confident, charismatic and good-looking man, one who attracts the attention of men and women alike, he constantly lives in fear of his identity and the possibility that someone might discover it.

Salvatore and the bellboy

For the most part, the only people who catch on to Sal’s secret are other gay men. He is sexually propositioned by men on three separate occasions: by Elliott, a representative from Sterling Cooper client Belle Jolie Cosmetics; by an unnamed hotel bellboy in Baltimore; and by Lee Garner Jr., the owner of Lucky Strike, Sterling Cooper’s most lucrative account. Only in the case of the unnamed bellboy does Sal decide to give in to his desires. In that instance, he is with a man who he doesn’t know in a professional context, in a city he is only visiting for one night. The stakes are minimal, and his arousal is palpable, so when the bellboy leans in for a kiss in the privacy of Sal’s hotel room, he gives in. The scene is short—Sal is only granted a steamy make-out session and a crotch grab before the hotel fire alarm goes off— but it serves an important purpose. It is the only moment in the series when the audience is able to see Sal authentically satisfied. As the bellboy removes Sal’s clothing, a leak from an exploded pen is visible on Sal’s shirt—as blatant a symbol of unabashed excitement and premature ejaculation as one is likely to get past network censors. As the bellboy kisses and caresses his body, Sal emits heavy, hiccuped breaths and repeated moans of “Oh, God” and “Oh, Jesus.” The intense degree of passion he exhibits makes it clear to the viewer that this is his first sexual experience with a man. Though we never see Sal in an intimate situation with a man again, this scene represents a clear turning point in Sal’s comfort with his own identity.

A layer of complexity is added to Sal’s tryst when Don Draper, evacuating the hotel after the alarm blasts, runs down the fire escape, makes eye contact with Sal and notices the bellboy putting his clothes back on. Sal quickly looks away, ashamed and perhaps even scared of losing his job. Don doesn’t fire Sal on the spot, nor does he even directly broach the topic with him. Instead, he proposes a new campaign for London Fog raincoats that uses the slogan, “Limit Your Exposure.” When Don says this to Sal, his message is clear. And, ultimately, it becomes his undoing.

Lee Garner, Jr. propositions Sal

Sal’s interactions with Elliott and Lee are less fruitful than his night in Baltimore. In both instances, as soon as Sal realizes that he is being propositioned, his body tenses, a look of terror and sadness crosses his face and he declines the gesture. With Elliott, there are no consequences—Sal merely excuses himself from the bar where they had been sitting together. With Lee, though, the rejection costs Sal his job at Sterling Cooper. Lee’s proposition to Sal is abrupt, almost threatening; when Sal bristles at being grabbed around his chest, Lee just smiles and says, “I know what I know.” Still, Sal rejects the overture; embarrassed by the rejection, Lee sees to it that Sal is fired. He meets with Don to try to win back his job, appealing to the fact that Don knows his secret. But it doesn’t work because, in Don’s mind, Sal has violated the only piece of wisdom he was able to give him.

After Don fires Sal, we see him talking to Kitty from a phone booth, telling her not to wait up for him. We are to infer that Sal is going to go off on a night of cruising in the park, and this ultimately reads as more troubling than liberating. We know Sal has only had one sexual experience with a man before, and he certainly doesn’t have the language for discussing his sexual desires, let alone his identity. He is taking Don’s advice to limit his exposure, but at what cost? This is the last time we see Salvatore, and it’s an unsatisfying ending for such a beloved, complex character.

Joan and Carol

Though Sal is the gay character with which the audience spends the most time, the two (briefly appearing) lesbian characters are just as nuanced as he. Those characters are Carol, Joan Holloway’s roommate in season 1, and Joyce, Peggy Olsen’s friend at Life Magazine in season 4. Unlike the gay male characters, who, with one exception [i], only voluntarily come out to other gay men, Carol and Joyce both come out to straight women. Carol confesses her love for Joan in a beautiful monologue before they go out on the town for a night to meet men. As they dress and put on jewelry and make up, Carol confides in Joan, “I did everything I could to be near you, all with the hope that one day you’d notice me…Just think of me as a boy.” Joan pretends not to understand what Carol is talking about, and she gently brushes her words off. As hurtful as that may be for Carol, it’s certainly not as negative a response as it could have been, given the era. And it’s clear by Joan’s soft, attentive facial expressions and the look of compassion in her eyes that, even if she doesn’t acknowledge it, she appreciates what Carol is telling her. It may confuse her, but it doesn’t scare her, and she won’t let it change her relationship with Carol, someone who has been her friend for years. Though sad, there is a bit of sweetness in Joan’s rejection of Carol.

Joyce and Peggy

Joyce and Peggy have a similar, if far less dramatic, exchange. After meeting in the elevator of the building where they work (Joyce works for Life Magazine), Joyce visits Peggy at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and invites her out to a party. At the party, Joyce kisses Peggy on the side of her face. Peggy giggles and backs away, leading her to tell Joyce that she has a boyfriend. Joyce responds, “He doesn’t own your vagina,” but Peggy counters, “No, but he’s renting it.” Joyce laughs—she takes this as a perfectly reasonable response, even if she did have designs on Peggy. Although Peggy rejects Joyce, it is not (or, at least, not directly) because she’s a woman. Peggy might very well be willing to reciprocate Joyce’s interest, but not while she’s in a relationship.

Both Carol and Joyce are able to say things to their straight love interests that Salvatore can’t say to his. In season 2, Sal develops a crush on Ken Cosgrove, going so far as to invite him for dinner in his home. Though he spends dinner hanging on to Ken’s every word and completely ignoring Kitty, Sal never dreams of explicitly coming out to Ken (or coming on to him). By contrast, Joyce is a blatant flirt. In addition to crushing on Peggy, she loiters by secretary Megan’s desk, chatting her up just like any of the men in the office would do. And during the season 4 finale, she visits Peggy’s office with another friend—a beautiful model named Carolyn. Though they aren’t a couple, Joyce and Carolyn have a definite butch/femme dynamic, as evidenced by the way they sit together and the way Joyce chivalrously puts her arm around her. It doesn’t matter to Joyce if it’s obvious what she’s doing— she is self-confident enough to own her sexuality, even if it isn’t socially acceptable for her to do so. Joyce hasn’t been a part of Mad Men for very long, and I certainly hope she’s back in season 5, continuing to make straight women blush wherever she goes.

It remains to be seen how far into the 1960s Mad Men will travel. Perhaps it will go all the way through 1969. Perhaps we will see a Stonewall episode, in which Peggy and Joyce are caught up in the riots, and Peggy sees Sal with another man somewhere in the crowd. Perhaps we’ll see less gay content, and homosexuality will take a backseat to other social issues, particularly as the Vietnam War heats up. But if the first four seasons are any indication, we’ll continue to see gay characters pop up every now and again, and while their full political and social histories may not be documented, we will continue to see the ways in which they limit—or, in some cases, enhance—their exposure.

[i] That character is Kurt, a member of Sterling Cooper’s art department during season 2. The scene in which he comes out in front of the likes of Ken Cosgrove and Harry Crane is rather funny, but due to space constraints I won’t get into it here.

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Motherhood in Film & Television: The Evolution of Margaret White

Piper Laurie and Sissy Spacek (1976 film)

This piece is from Monthly Contributor Carrie Nelson.

(Warning: Contains spoilers about Stephen King’s Carrie and its film and stage adaptations.)

I love Stephen King’s Carrie, and not just because we share the same name. More than anything, I love the way that Carrie honestly explores the tensions and horrors of being a teenage girl. The details of the story aren’t terribly realistic – not many teenage outcasts have telekinetic powers, and few high school send-offs involve murdering everyone at the prom. But the anxiety around getting your first period, the fear that the boy asking you on a date is only doing it as a prank, the compulsion to make fun of others even though you know it’s wrong – these are normal parts of being a teenager. King’s book taps into those experiences incredibly well, which is why the story has resulted in numerous artistic adaptations.

Carrie was first made into a film in 1976. Since then, it has become a stage musical, a made-for-TV movie, and it will soon be made into a new film, directed by Kimberly Peirce and starring Chloë Moretz in the title role. Every adaptation of Carrie contains similar elements (notably the torturous shower scene in the beginning and the fatal prom toward the end), but other aspects of the story change slightly in each incarnation. What I want to talk about today are the ways in which the character of Margaret White, Carrie’s religious fundamentalist mother, has evolved over the years. Margaret is arguably the most frightening character in Carrie, and I believe that she has only become more disturbing in each new incarnation, but for a different reason than one might suspect.

In the 1976 Brian De Palma adaptation, Piper Laurie plays Margaret. Laurie’s interpretation of the role is iconic, but something about the performance has always rung false to me. Laurie’s Margaret is loud and bombastic and evil, to a degree that’s almost campy. In particular, the scene in which Margaret dies is significantly different from King’s novel. In the book, Carrie uses her telekinetic powers to stop Margaret’s heart, but in the De Palma film, Carrie uses her powers to send knives flying at Margaret, crucifying her and mimicking the imagery of Saint Sebastian that torments Carrie throughout the film. It’s an unforgettable image, and given the visual nature of cinema, it makes sense that this particular detail would be modified from the book. (It’s important to note, however, that the De Palma adaptation is the only version with this ending – all others I’ve seen remain true to King’s original ending.) However, the excessive spectacle of the scene (and the film as a whole) lessens the emotional impact. Laurie’s Margaret is shocking and disturbing, but there’s an emotional element missing from the performance, which has always bothered me.

Marin Mazzie and Molly Ranson (2012 musical revival)

I saw the 1976 version of Carrie for the first time nearly five years ago, and it wasn’t until recently that I realized what doesn’t work for me about Laurie’s performance – it’s entirely one-dimensional. It’s cartoonish, even. It’s hard to be frightened by Laurie’s Margaret when she seems so unlike any mother who could realistically exist. But that isn’t how the character has to be. I thought about this in March, when I saw the MCC Theater’s Off-Broadway revival of the Carrie musical. Now, I did not see the original version of the musical, which opened on Broadway in 1988 and closed after only five performances, making it one of the biggest Broadway flops of all time. I cannot speak to that version, but I can speak to the heavily revised revival, in which Marin Mazzie played an unnervingly sympathetic version of Margaret. Though the story is the same, and Margaret is still deeply disturbed and abusive, there is a greater emphasis on Margaret’s inner struggle and the reality that she truly wants to help her daughter. In the second act, Margaret sings, “When There’s No One,” a moving ballad that reveals her intention to murder her daughter and the despair she feels about that decision. Rather than solely seeing Margaret’s evil and rage, in this version we see her rationalization. We see a fully developed character, a person who truly believes she is making the right decision, which makes the decision even more horrifying. There is nothing cartoonish about Mazzie’s Margaret, which made her far more terrifying than Laurie’s Margaret ever could be.

Patricia Clarkson (2002 made-for-TV movie)

I feel similarly about Patricia Clarkson’s interpretation of Margaret in the 2002 made-for-TV movie version. In a dramatic shift from Laurie’s excitable reading, Clarkson nearly whispers all of her dialogue. Clarkson’s Margaret is completely understated, so much so that you almost believe she might come around and change her mind about her daughter. Of course, she doesn’t, and the scene in which Margaret tries to kill Carrie is shocking not because of the spectacle but because it catches you off-guard. This isn’t to say that the 2002 Carrie isn’t filled with spectacle – it is, sometimes to a distracting degree. But Clarkson’s performance as Margaret remains the calm, quiet element of the film, making her ultimate act of violence against her daughter all the more frightening.

Kimberly Peirce’s highly anticipated remake of Carrie will be released in 2013. Little has been revealed about Peirce’s plans and vision, but Chloë Moretz promises the film “really looks into the relationship of Margaret and Carrie.” Julianne Moore recently signed on to play Margaret, a decision that makes me incredibly excited and anxious to see the film. I believe Moore will be able to add subtlety and nuance to the role, adding layers to Margaret’s character that have never been present before. I look forward to reading more about the film and Moore’s work on it as it enters production.

I recently spoke with a friend who said that she didn’t think Carrie should be remade. She said the original is good enough as it is, so why change it? While I agree that the 1976 version is a classic, and nothing will ever replace it in cinematic history, I do think that much more can be done with the story. Particularly, I believe Margaret has much more room to grow as a character, and if the 2002 television film and the 2012 stage adaptation tell us anything, it’s that Margaret’s horror doesn’t come from her anger and violence – it comes from the completely calm way in which she rationalizes her beliefs and her actions. I hope to see Peirce’s version take Margaret even further as a character. I don’t know what that will look like, but I am anxious to find out.

Fan-designed poster for upcoming remake

Carrie Nelson is a Bitch Flicks monthly contributor. She was a Staff Writer for Gender Across Borders, an international feminist community and blog that she co-founded in 2009. She works as a grant writer for an LGBT nonprofit, and she is currently pursuing an MA in Media Studies at The New School.

Bully: Documentary Review

Bully (2011)

This piece is from Monthly Contributor Carrie Nelson.

Kelby in Bully

Ja’Meya in Bully

Carrie Nelson is a Bitch Flicks monthly contributor. She is a Staff Writer for Gender Across Borders, an international feminist community and blog that she co-founded in 2009. She works as a grant writer for an LGBT nonprofit, and she is currently pursuing an MA in Media Studies at The New School.

Biopic and Documentary Week: Gorillas in the Mist

Gorillas in the Mist (1988)

This piece is from Monthly Contributor Carrie Nelson.

This post contains spoilers about the film Gorillas in the Mist.

For nearly 20 years, zoologist Dian Fossey lived and worked among the mountain gorillas in Africa. Her work as a researcher and animal rights activist is responsible for raising awareness about Africa’s gorilla population and the threat of their extinction. Gorillas in the Mist, a film directed by Michael Apted in 1988, follows Dian (Sigourney Weaver, in an Oscar-nominated role) as she works in the Congo and Rwanda to study the behavior of mountain gorillas and protect them from poaching. As the film was produced after Dian’s untimely death (she was murdered in 1985; to this day, the precise circumstances and perpetrators remain unknown), it is impossible to know how she would have responded to the film. However, based on what I understand about Dian’s real life, I believe she would appreciate the film. I believe she would see it as an honest portrayal of her life, and I also believe she would be happy to see that the film avoids common clichés that are typically found in mainstream films about the lives of women.

Over the course of the film, Dian experiences a radical transformation in gender presentation. At the beginning of her travels, she is incredibly conscious of her appearance. When she meets her mentor, Dr. Louis Leakey (Iain Cuthbertson) at the start of her mission, he explains that there isn’t room for all of the luggage she’s brought with her, to which she stubbornly replies, “Those cases contain my hairdryer, my makeup, my underwear and my brassieres. If they don’t go, Dr Leakey, I don’t go.” I thought this was a throwaway line, so I was surprised that there were several additional mentions of her interest in make-up, hair products and clothing soon after this exchange. I was frustrated with this focus on materialism, thinking that the writer was using these moments as shorthand to remind the audience that the protagonist is, indeed, a woman; I felt as if the filmmakers were saying, “Well, what woman wouldn’t want to bring her cosmetics to the jungle?”

But as the film goes on, the references to beauty cease, and it becomes clear that these lines are not comments on Dian’s gender identity but on the materialism that she gradually gives up as she becomes committed to living among the mountain gorillas. The lines about clothing and make-up eventually stop, and Dian lets go of the previous signifiers of her femininity. It isn’t that she becomes masculine, as Weaver’s character in the Alien series is often perceived – it’s that she no longer needs these material possessions and outward signifiers to feel comfortable in the world and convey her identity. Dian’s transformation is subtle, but it adds significant depth to her characterization as she becomes comfortable in her new surroundings.

A similar transformation occurs in Dian’s romantic life. When she moves to Africa, she leaves behind her fiancé, David. Over the course of the film, her mentions of him become fewer and fewer, until a passing remark reveals that they have ended their engagement. She does, however, meet photographer Bob Campbell (Bryan Brown). Bob is married, but his and Dian’s shared passion for studying the gorillas leads them to start a passionate love affair. His work as a photographer makes him travel frequently, but he always returns to visit Dian, until he finally reveals to her that he is divorcing his wife to marry her. Initially, Dian is thrilled with this proposal; though she is devoted to her career, she often expresses an interest in wanting a family. But ultimately, she chooses her career over Bob anyway. He is offered a job that would take her away from Africa and the mountain gorillas, and she tells him that if he accepts the job and leaves, he should never write or come back to her. It’s a tragic moment, as the film demonstrates how much Dian and Bob love each other, but it is ultimately a refreshing and honest one. Given how many films feature women sacrificing ambitions and goals in order to preserve romantic relationships, Dian’s lack of compromise is a welcome change of pace.

Fossey represented as maternal

The most fascinating and complex depiction of Dian’s gender identity, however, is her portrayal as a maternal figure. Dian never has children of her own, and her interactions with children in the film are troubling. At one point, she catches a young boy found among gorilla poachers, and in an attempt to uncover information about the poachers, she has his hands tied and dresses as a witch to scare him into talking. Dian is not above torturing children to get what she wants; it would seem, therefore, that she is not particularly maternal. However, this is not entirely accurate or fair. Rather than being maternal in a traditional sense, Dian channels that energy toward the gorillas. At one point, she saves baby Pucker from capture, and she takes care of her in her home until Pucker is healthy and taken away to a zoo. In the moments when she is seen taking care of the gorillas, particularly the young ones, it is clear that there is a certain maternal sensibility to Dian that remains constant throughout all of her other personal transformations. Though it is common to see women presented as mothers and caretakers in cinema, Dian’s role as one is untraditional. It may echo common tropes, but it remains a unique facet of her life and work.

Gorillas in the Mist does not always paint Dian Fossey in a positive light. It does, however, present her in a realistic one. She’s often portrayed as stubborn, unfriendly and even abusive; these traits, however, reflect the reality in which she lived. Dian did not have time to be feminine or nice or accommodating. She was too busy focusing on her work and dedicating her life to ensure the protection and well being of the mountain gorillas. Gorillas in the Mist constantly references the usual clichés of films about women – namely, an overwhelming focus on beauty, romance and children – but rather than reaffirming them, the film counters them. Dian’s characterization proves that there is no single way in which to be a woman and that, often times, it is women who step outside of the boxes of conventional femininity who are able to create the most radical change in the world.

Carrie Nelson is a Bitch Flicks monthly contributor. She is a Staff Writer for Gender Across Borders, an international feminist community and blog that she co-founded in 2009. She works as a grant writer for an LGBT nonprofit, and she is currently pursuing an MA in Media Studies at The New School.

Bitch Flicks Welcomes New Monthly Guest Contributor, Carrie Nelson

Greetings, Bitch Flicks readers! I’m Carrie, and I am thrilled to be Bitch Flicks’ new monthly contributor.

I’ve been passionate about media for as long as I can remember. I studied film production as an undergraduate at Emerson College, and I am currently pursuing an MA in Media Studies at The New School. My ultimate goal is to build a career as a documentary filmmaker. For the time being, I work as a grant writer for an LGBT nonprofit organization, which allows me to cultivate my passion for queer rights and feminism.

My all-time favorite movie is Annie Hall. Other films I love include Paris Is Burning, Crimes and Misdemeanors, 12 Monkeys, Trembling Before G-d, Born on the Fourth of July, The Purple Rose of Cairo, and The Sound of Music. I don’t watch a lot of television, but my favorite shows of past and present include Parks and Recreation, Mad Men, Friday Night Lights, Battlestar Galactica, and Queer As Folk.

Previously, I’ve written about Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire, The Social Network, Mad Men, Sleepaway Camp, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Pariah, and Take Shelter for Bitch Flicks. You can find my writing elsewhere on the Internet as well. I am a Staff Writer for Gender Across Borders, an international feminist community and blog that I co-founded in 2009. For GAB, I’ve written about films such as Circumstance, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Steam of Life, Kick-Ass, and Good Hair. I also had the opportunity to interview Eleanor Bergstein, the writer and producer of Dirty Dancing (another one of my favorite films). From now through the end of April, you can also find me writing a guest blog series about bisexuality and the media at Bitch Magazine. I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to write for Bitch Flicks, and I look forward to discussing films and feminism with all of you!

Indie Spirit Best Feature Nominee: Take Shelter

Take Shelter (2011)

This is a review from Monthly Guest Contributor Carrie Nelson.

Writing about Take Shelter for a website like Bitch Flicks is a challenge. Certainly, I can write endlessly about why I loved Take Shelter. There is no doubt in my mind that it was the best film I saw in 2011. I loved the story, I loved the performances, I loved the cinematography and the overall aesthetics of the film, and I loved the fact that it genuinely surprised me with its suspense. But while Take Shelter addresses a wide range of dynamic themes – family, mental illness, standing up for one’s convictions – it is not an explicitly feminist film, nor is it a film that discusses gender issues overtly. As I think about the film from a feminist perspective, however, I realize more and more that the story is actually quite feminist, even if it doesn’t advertise itself as such or appear to be at first glance.

In Take Shelter, Curtis LaForche (Michael Shannon, in a performance that should have garnered him a Best Actor Academy Award nomination) is a husband and a father, working as a construction worker in Ohio. He begins to have a series of nightmares about a storm, one that rains polluted water and causes people and animals to react manically. Fearing that his dreams are prophetic, Curtis decides to build a tornado shelter in his yard, in order to protect his family from the apocalyptic doom he senses is coming. Curtis’ actions cause stress in all of his relationships – familial, social and professional – because no one understands why the shelter construction is so important to him. Curtis does not know if his dreams represent a true impending natural disaster, or if they are actually symptomatic of mental illness, a condition he may be inheriting from his mother (Kathy Baker). Nevertheless, he is driven to build the shelter, and no one can deter him.

The heart of Take Shelter is the relationship between Curtis, his wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain, continuing her string of break-out roles in 2011) and their daughter Hannah (Tova Stewart). In many ways, the LaForche family structure is traditional. After all, the entire film is about the lengths one is willing to go in order to protect one’s family. Curtis and Samantha are good, church-going parents who put their family before anything else. But within that traditional model, the gender roles are less defined. Both Curtis and Samantha work outside the home to provide for the family, Curtis as a construction worker and Samantha as an artisan who sells crafts at local markets. Both are committed to raising Hannah, participating equally in school functions and spending time with her at home. Both are strong and determined, taking the sanctity and safety of their family incredibly carefully. The household and family may be traditional, but labor is not divided on gendered lines and neither Curtis nor Samantha is defined within the family unit by gender norms.

Samantha (Jessica Chastain) and Curtis (Michael Shannon)

The marriage of Curtis and Samantha is one of the most fascinating elements of the film. When their loving relationship is tested by Curtis’ increasingly erratic behavior, Samantha fears for his well-being, and for the well-being of herself and her daughter. But as worried as he makes her, and as little as she understands what he is experiencing, she stands by him. She doesn’t leave, and she doesn’t speak ill of him to others. She responds in a way that most loving spouses would.

Often in movies, the drama is increased by the collapse of marriages and otherwise committed relationships. I’m not going to say that marriage is easy, or that marriages always work out – it isn’t and they don’t, and it’s good for the media to reflect that reality. But it’s also true that marriages do not just fall apart over one problem. I’ve often seen films about failed marriages that give me pause, because I don’t understand how a strong commitment could fall apart so easily in real life. Part of what I loved about Take Shelter is how believable the LaForche marriage was in this respect. Curtis and Samantha have their problems, but they work through them the way committed couples in real life do. It was refreshing to see an image like that on-screen – an image that I do not think is presented often enough.

But this isn’t just a story of a woman who stands by her husband. It’s more complicated than that. In an interesting twist on traditional gender roles, it is Samantha who ultimately “saves” Curtis in Take Shelter. Without spoiling the film’s climax (a heart-wrenching, suspenseful scene which remains the best cinema I saw in all of 2011), it is important to note that Curtis only overcomes his nightmares with Samantha’s tough love. She doesn’t just support her husband through his struggles, she demands that he trust her and believe in her commitment to him, which is how he begins to rediscover his own strength. Without Samantha, Curtis may have completely lost sight of himself and his reality. It is she who grounds him and forces him, albeit kicking and screaming, to work with her, rather than against her out of fear or suspicion. Samantha and Curtis are able to protect and preserve their marriage, but it is Samantha who does the heavy lifting. She is no waif or pushover. She creates the marriage she wants to have and makes sure that nothing sabotages it, no matter what.

In an article for Ms. Magazine Blog, Janell Hobson sums up the message of Take Shelter as such:

Take Shelter asks us to put our faith back into our intuition (usually associated with women), to accept our maternal gifts (even as they veer off from patriarchal rationality), to listen to our inner voices when all others call us crazy and, most of us all, to surround ourselves with love.

I couldn’t agree with Hobson more. Take Shelter is about many things, but the theme of familial love is particularly strong. Curtis and Samantha have their struggles, but they survive together, and that sends a vital message. Storms do come. People do become ill. But as long as we have strength in our own personal convictions and love for the people who love us, we will survive those struggles. Traditional as it may be, it’s an important message, one that I wish I saw more frequently in films. Take Shelter presented it honestly and powerfully. Here’s hoping that more films can do the same.

Carrie Nelson is a Staff Writer for Gender Across Borders and a Monthly Guest Contributor for Bitch Flicks. She works as a grant writer for an LGBT nonprofit organization in NYC.