Tag: Children

‘Friends with Kids’ Preview: Leading a Stellar Cast, Writer/Director Jennifer Westfeldt Depicts an Unconventional Path to Parenthood

I’ve been excited to see Friends with Kids since last year when I heard it would reunite Bridesmaids castmates Kristen Wiig (omg do I love, love, LOVE her in Bridesmaids and on SNL!), Maya Rudolph (adore her in Away We Go and Up All Night), Chris O’Dowd (adorbs in Bridesmaids) and Jon Hamm (of course I swoon for Don Draper). When I discovered a woman wrote AND directed it, Jennifer Westfeldt in her directorial debut, my elation skyrocketed! No joke.

Written, directed, produced and starring actor Jennifer Westfeldt, Friends with Kids tells the story of two best friends Julie (Westfeldt) and Jason (Adam Scott), who decide to have a baby together while remaining platonic friends “so they can avoid the toll kids can take on romantic relationships.” It looks like a hilarious, awkward yet sweet ensemble comedy about friends navigating friendships, relationships and parenting.

A Tony and Indie Spirit Award nominated actor, Westfeldt is probably best known for her role as actor, co-writer and co-producer of the critically-acclaimed lesbian romantic comedy Kissing Jessica Stein. She also wrote and starred in Ira and Abby, a story of two strangers who get married. In an interview with Marie Claire, Westfeldt shared her inspiration for Friends with Kids, which stemmed from being out of sync with where your friends are in life:

“Four years ago, Jon’s and my friends started having babies, and everything became so kid-centric. You miss one-on-one time with your friend. When you’re childless and close friends become new parents, you suddenly feel left out, and that’s where the kernel of this idea came from.”

Adam Scott (who I crush on hardcore in his role as Ben Wyatt on Parks & Rec) and his wife Naomi Sablan have been friends for years with Westfeldt and her long-time partner Hamm. After reading the script, Scott realized he and his wife were those friends who pull away after they have a baby. As someone with friends who have kids, yep, this definitely happens but understandably so. Now, I don’t have babies and I don’t want them. Seeing my friends have babies doesn’t trigger any biological clock in me. But I really like Westfeldt’s idea of looking at parenthood in a non-traditional way from the perspective of two single people.

Being single doesn’t sound a death knell. Yet Hollywood would have you believe otherwise, especially if you’re a woman. The media also often shows only the glamorous, fairy-tale side of weddings, babies and relationships. I’m hoping Friends with Kids will tell a more authentic story. Too many people wait for their life to start, thinking events must progress in a certain order: college, career, marriage, home, baby. But why can’t you do things differently? Who’s to say you can’t have a baby without a relationship?  Each of the 3 films Westfeldt has written share a theme of taking relationships and life choices and “turning the norm on its head,” choosing a different path than what convention dictates.

Earlier today, Melissa Silverstein wrote about the “depressing reality of women directed film in 2012” and how we need to generate more anticipation and buzz for upcoming films directed by women. With female writers comprising 24% of all writers in Hollywood, 17% in film and only 5% of women as directors, down from 7% in 2010 and 2009 (god that’s horrifying depressing and makes me cringe), it’s exciting to see a film written and directed by a woman that could potentially do well with both female and male audiences.

Now, I’m not saying films written, directed or starring women are automatically good. Some suck (although I always hate saying that since there aren’t nearly enough movies created by women). And I don’t know if Friends with Kids will be amazeballs, a feminist extravaganza! But I’m optimistically hopeful considering it co-stars two talented and hilarious female comedians (Rudolph and Wiig) and Westfeldt, the woman behind and in front of the camera, not only writes interesting female characters but also speaks openly that “there aren’t that many interesting roles for women in TV and film.”

We need to support women filmmakers if we ever hope for Hollywood to become more gender equitable. When Bridesmaids came out, Salon writer Rebecca Traister argued it was people’s “social responsibility” to go see it:

“Yes we can … buy tickets to a Kristen Wiig movie in an effort to persuade Hollywood that multidimensional women exist, spend money and deserve to be represented on film…we now inhabit an entertainment universe in which everything male-centered is standard, and everything female-centered is female…What that means in practical terms is that women will plonk down dollars to see a male-dominated action movie, a girl-gobbling horror flick, or a dude-centric comedy just as easily as they’ll pay for the kind of female-fueled movie that is literally made for them. Men, meanwhile, have apparently been so conditioned to find anything female emasculating (notwithstanding the expectation that their girlfriends find anything male, including “Thor,” scintillating) that they cannot be moved to sit through any movie with a fully developed woman at its center.”

With a film written and directed by a woman, with a stellar cast of talent, the same applies here: we need to vote with our dollars.

Westfeldt wasn’t initially going to direct but she stepped into the role of director in order to remain on the tight filming schedule. But that doesn’t mean Westfeldt doesn’t recognize the importance and power of female filmmakers:

“It’s really been a year of sisters doing it for themselves. At Sundance there were, like, five movies where women were writing roles for themselves. And the success of women like Lena Dunham and Miranda July and Tina Fey and now Kristen [Wiig], among others; it’s a pretty cool time to see how much has evolved in that regard…I’m happy to be part of that wave, and I’m inspired by how much of that is going on. It feels like there’s a wave happening of women taking a little more control of their own creative fates.”

Amen, sister! So in honor of all the “sisters doing it for themselves,” I will be seeing Friends with Kids this Friday (March 9th)…and I hope you all will too.

‘The Muppets’ Treads a Fine Line on Women’s Roles

the muppets

This guest review by Jarrah Hodge previously appeared at her blog Gender Focus.

Can I just say I’ve been ridiculously excited about the new Muppet movie for months? The fact that Flight of the Conchords‘ Bret McKenzie would be writing songs, and all the parody trailers only psyched me even more:
Luckily, the film was just as awesome as I had hoped. The Muppets tells the story of Walter, a Muppet with a human brother Gary (Jason Segel). As they grow older, obsessed Walter, who’s become a big fan of The Muppet Show starts to realize he doesn’t fit in in their small town. When Gary decides to take his girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) on a trip to Los Angeles, he brings Walter along knowing he’d like to see Muppet Studios.
When they arrive in LA, Walter overhears a plot by the evil oil tycoon Tex Richman (Chris Cooper), who wants to raze the studio and drill for oil. Walter’s only hope to save the studio is to re-unite the estranged Muppet Show cast members for one final fundraising performance.
The Muppets was hilarious with just the right amount of Muppet cheese, and the way its storyline evoked nostalgia for The Muppet Show struck a chord with those of us who grew up watching it and the early Muppet movies.
(Besides, if the Fox Business Network thinks the movie is communist propaganda, that only makes me respect it even more.)
Unfortunately, the movie seemed to struggle a bit with how much independence to give its women characters. While Miss Piggy continues to use both karate chops and more traditionally feminine wiles to get her way, and Mary repairs cars and electrical circuits without breaking a sweat, the two have the same ultimate goal: marriage.
As J. Lee Milliren says in her review at Bitch Flicks:

One of my biggest issues with these two having the same motivation is that they both only have One motivation and goal. All the other (male) characters have more than one goal and motivation throughout the movie. Walter wants to save the theater, reunite the Muppets, and find his place. Gary wants to be with Mary, and he wants his brother to be happy but struggles with maybe having to let go of him. Kermit wants to save the theater, be with the family that is the Muppets and re-kindle his relationship with Miss Piggy. Even Animal has two goals: wanting to save the theater AND to control his wild side.

Avital at Bitch Magazine Blogs took a slightly more positive view, saying:

Fight it all you want, but Miss Piggy is a feminist. While she does play into some poor stereotypes (being a little boy-focused…or rather frog-focused), the thing most folks remember her for is her fierce, take-no-shit, strong personality.
Overall I think the movie didn’t stray too much into gender-regressive territory. At one point Mary and Piggy even sing a girl-power independence song: “Me Party/Party for One”:
Even though Piggy/Mary’s goals are centered around marriage, the movie does show that they’re independent and unwilling to put up with bad treatment from boyfriends. With all of the movie’s other awesomeness, that makes it a big success in my books.

—–

Jarrah Hodge blogs from New Westminster, BC. Jarrah graduated from the University of British Columbia with a B.A. in Women’s Studies and Sociology. In addition to running Gender Focus, Jarrah is currently a guest blogger on feminism and nerd culture for Bitch Magazine Blogs. She writes a column on gender issues for theVancouver Observer and is a regular blog contributor to About-Face. She’s a fan of politics, crafts, boardgames, musical theatre, and brunch.

Animated Children’s Films: The Two Leading Women of the Muppets Movie

 

This is a guest review by J. Lee Milliren.
I, like many other Americans, grew up with the Muppets. My personal favorite Muppet was always the zany Gonzo; I loved his ridiculous antics. Although what I really wanted from the Muppets was for there to be more female characters because I could never relate to Miss Piggy. I know that must sound so shocking to hear that a little girl could have a completely different personality than the one female cast member of a group.
But that was then and this is now.
For the Muppets Movie I’m going to try to give a brief summary of the plot, and I’ll try to avoid as many spoilers as possible. The movie begins with a new muppet, named Walter, growing up with his human brother, Gary, in a small town. As he grows, up he realizes he’s different from Gary and discovers the Muppet Show. Walter becomes the biggest fan of the Muppet Show while his brother is just happy to spend time with Walter.
Years later, Walter is still a big fan of the Muppets while Gary has been in a relationship with Mary for ten years. To celebrate their ten years together, Gary takes Mary to see California for the first time. He also invites Walter to come along, just so he can visit the Muppet Theater. When Walter tours the Theater he sees that it is falling apart, and he accidentally overhears the evil scheming of our villian, Tex Richman. Richman’s plan is to tear down the theater and drill the land for oil. This makes Walter run out of the theater, screaming in panic for several hours.
With the help of Gary and Mary, Walter is able to meet up with Kermit the Frog and tell him what he overheard. Kermit says that they might be able to save their theater if he could get the whole gang back together, but they haven’t seen each other in years. But through the power of hilarious montages he’s able to gather the whole gang back together except for Miss Piggy. Miss Piggy is now working with Vogue in Paris and doesn’t want to return to the old gang because of her breakup with Kermit.
Now right off the bat, I have to say this movie was amazing. I laughed nonstop throughout it; I loved almost every second of it, and I recommend that everyone get into your cars and go and see it right now.

But.
My issue with this movie comes down to our two leading ladies: Miss Piggy and Mary, who I feel are almost the same character.
Now when I say this, I don’t mean that they act the same, but they do have the same goals and motivations throughout the movie. Which is–marry the man…….or the frog.
Miss Piggy originally refuses to leave Paris because she has a new successful life there. And (spoiler!) when she does return to save the theater, she says she’s not doing it for Kermit but for the theater itself. She also sais that she WILL go back to Paris, the moment their last show is done.
Throughout this movie, it is pretty clear that Miss Piggy still has feelings for Kermit and vice versa. And that Miss Piggy does want to be with Kermit. Which isn’t a really bad motivation for the character, except it seems to be her only motivation. The Miss Piggy I knew would have come back completely for herself and not for anyone else. The Miss Piggy I knew would have come back just so she could “hog” the center stage once more. But that original goal and motivation for who she was doesn’t seem to be there anymore.
Mary is our other leading lady who has been in a relationship with Gary for ten years, and she really wants to marry him. She even goes into a song and dance about it. Of course, I’m sitting there wondering, “Why don’t you ask him to marry you, Mary?”
This is taking place in modern time after all, where you know, it isn’t weird for the chick to ask the dude. ( I swear, I won’t think you’re weird if you do pop the question to him, Mary.)
But Noooo. If she wants a ring, he needs to give her one.
One of my biggest issues with these two having the same motivation is that they both only have One motivation and goal. All the other (male) characters have more than one goal and motivation throughout the movie. Walter wants to save the theater, reunite the Muppets, and find his place. Gary wants to be with Mary, and he wants his brother to be happy but struggles with maybe having to let go of him. Kermit wants to save the theater, be with the family that is the Muppets and re-kindle his relationship with Miss Piggy. Even Animal has two goals: wanting to save the theater AND to control his wild side.

I never felt like Miss Piggy truly wanted to save the theater like all the other characters, so I really do think she had only one goal in the movie, and that is to be with Kermit. And our one other leading lady wants only to be married to Gary. I also want to point out that these two ladies never conversed; there is a song where they’re both singing about being alone, but they’re doing it in separate rooms. So this movie does fail the Bechdel test.
Again, this movie was amazing. I personally loved it. But, I’m also very sad that there still isn’t more to the female characters. When a movie is this good and this amazing to watch, I’m personally disheartened when a little bit more effort wasn’t given to flesh out the leading women. What kind of message is this sending to a whole new batch of little girls who are meeting the Muppets for the first time, when there are only two leading ladies in a BIG cast … who both want to be married?

—–

J. Lee Milliren is an active feminist currently in her last year at the Art Institutes International Minnesota where she will earn her bachelor degree in Media Arts and Animation. She takes a critical eye to how characters are portrayed in films.

Animated Children’s Films: The Secret of N.I.M.H.

This is a guest post by Katie Roussos. 

A rose bush inhabited by genetically modified rats who become murderous sounds more like a horror movie than a children’s story, but that is just one of the ways The Secret of N.I.H.M. breaks the mold.

The plow has come early to the Fitzgibbons farm, a frightening thought for all the animals that live in the fields. Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgibbons also happen to have a band of rats living on their farm who were part of an experiment from the National Institute of Mental Health that made them “intelligent.” As Nicodemus, head intelligent rat (who is also a little magic?) tells the audience eerily: “We found out, we could reeead.”

Besides the super rats, there are many animals, from mice, to crows, to wise old owls, and the family cat. As in most children’s films the animals can talk, can communicate across species, and have traits, clothes, and social institutions that mimic humans. It is the classic story of mouse meets mouse, mouse falls in love, gets married, builds tiny house with tiny beds and tiny tables, has children that wear gender appropriate clothing, has local shrew babysit. Yes, there is a character called Aunty Shrew, an actual shrew, and yes, she is portrayed as “shrewish”–annoying, controlling, and, mysteriously, British.

So no, the The Secret of N.I.M.H. is not free from gender stereotypes or tired portrayals of women. But The Secret of N.I.M.H. has one thing that many children’s films don’t have, a female protagonist. A main character who is a hero because of her strong will, intelligence, and heart (not accidentally a hero because of her knowledge of beauty products a la Elle Woods).

Mrs. Brisby is a single mother known only by her husband’s name in the film. And time and again that name gets her help from the other characters in the movie who remember her husband, Jonathan, fondly. However, it is not just the name that gets Mrs. Brisby’s tiny house moved out of the way of the plow and keeps her children from impeding doom. She shows fear and dread, she takes risks and shakes and cries. Yet she presses on. She is not a female hero full of bravado and stereotypically male characteristics. She is a mother who will face even a large owl (owls eat mice) to find out how to save her family.

She humbly says to the great owl, “I don’t understand what you mean, but I will do as you say.” This is not subservience–it is smarts. When a large owl who could eat you and has lived longer than your mouse body is capable of gives you advice about the farm you live on, you take it. Especially when there is no other option. Points for Mrs. Brisby for being able to take a leap of faith and admit it when she doesn’t know what to do!

Brisby also has to face an almost completely male world. Aside from the shrew and her daughters, there are no other prominent female characters. There are however many males, who do their best to either help or hurt her.

Justin is the handsome rat who, at one mention of Brisby’s dead hubby, is committed to helping her move her house to avoid the plow. Jenner is the power hungry rat who wants to take over for the aging Nicodemus, by killing him. The crow Jeremy is love sick and bumbling but tries to help her after she saves him from the family cat. (If there is any meaning behind all the “J” names I haven’t figured it out.) And then there is Mr. Ages, the only surviving mouse who has had the shot that turns animals into reading machines. He’s not the grandfatherly type, but the old cynic, who’s it-can’t-be-done attitude is a good juxtaposition for Mrs. Brisby’s heart. The movie manages to balance cute camp and is genuinely scary. (See the theatrical release poster, which is mostly just scary…) While their mother is getting chased by a large and silent rat with a steel spear, the Brisby kids are tying up Jeremy, who was sent to babysit them, and accusing him of being a spy. A spy for what is unclear. The film ends with a love song and Jeremy finding his perfect female counterpart (blah). Even though Nicodemus is actually murdered and two other rats die in a fight after moving the Brisby home, there is a happy ending. Not too happy though. Brisby does not end up with Justin, despite the rather nauseating flirting that goes on at their first meeting.

Through it all Brisby avoids being the type of female character that make me cringe. A few more points that make her awesome:
  • No fur boobs: the tendency to sexualize animals’ bodies to make them look more human might have its place in comic books (or not), but luckily the 1980s illustrators of Secret did little to feminize Mrs. Brisby. She has long lashes and a small red cape, but no busting chest, long legs, or human-shaped butt.
  • She can read too!: She didn’t get experimented on and yet she can read. She was taught. Amazingly, all those male rats have used their smarts to steal electricity. Jonathan Brisby taught his wife to read. And guess what, it worked and did not require a big painful shot.
  • Her ultimate goal has nothing to do with finding a husband: At no point in the film is her lack of a husband an actual hurdle. Sure, Mrs. Brisby misses Jonathan, but the film takes for granted that she is making it alone in this crazy rat-filled world. And, as I already pointed out, she doesn’t marry Justin!
I can’t deny that parts of this movie are problematic. We never even learn the main character’s name. Brisby asks Jeremy, a decided clutz to babysit because “she needs a big strong male to watch the children,” and he jumps at the chance to play “domestic.” And yet The Secret of N.I.M.H. doesn’t belong with the worst offenders in children’s movies that teach little girls early how to be less than little boys. Maybe it is because I have been watching this movie since I was four, but Mrs. Brisby inspires me. If raising a cement block out of the mud with only the power of love and a ruby necklace to save your four kids is not worthy of respect, then I don’t know what is.

—–

Katie Roussos is a labor organizer living in New York City. She graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a degree in Comparative Literature and has not stopped writing, despite the fact that she is not working in the literary field. This is her first submission to Bitch Flicks, but she is a lover of feminist blogs and hopes to submit to others in the future.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Between the Personal and the Political: The Lawyer, Her Boss and Their Investigator from in media res

For Your Consideration: 13 Underdog Actresses that Deserve Oscar’s Attention this Year from indieWire

Feminist Ryan Gosling (even though you’ve all seen it, right?)

Lifetime to Remake ‘Steel Magnolias’ with All-Black Cast from Deadline Hollywood

Bringing Up Baby: Childbirth as Male Bonding Experience from Bitch

Report: Reality TV Encourages “Mean Girl” Behavior in Teens from Deadline

You Are Not Alone: Black Male Feminists in Action from Clutch

Young Girls’ T-Shirt Inventory Isn’t Looking Good from Jezebel

Leave your links in the comments!

Movie Preview: Life, Above All

 

I saw a preview for Life, Above All when I went to see Woody Allen’s latest misogyny-fest, Midnight in Paris. For the record, I mostly hated Midnight in Paris–and should review it as the sexist piece of crap it is–but I’m trying to find examples of positivity in the film industry these days. The only truly great thing about attending Midnight in Paris was discovering the upcoming Life, Above All (now playing in New York and L.A.) and the upcoming Take Shelter–holy crap that’s a freaky trailer.

Michael Shannon scares me.
Anyway, the official Web site synopsizes Life, Above All as follows:
Just after the death of her newly-born sister, Chanda, 12 years old, learns of a rumor that spreads like wildfire through her small, dust-ridden village near Johannesburg. It destroys her family and forces her mother to flee. Sensing that the gossip stems from prejudice and superstition, Chanda leaves home and school in search of her mother and the truth. Life, Above All is an emotional and universal drama about a young girl (stunningly performed by first-time-actress Khomotso Manyaka) who fights the fear and shame that have poisoned her community … Directed by South African filmmaker Oliver Schmitz (Mapantsula), it is based on the international award winning novel Chanda’s Secrets by Allan Stratton.

The trailer itself gets me teary-eyed. I watched it and realized how rarely mother-daughter relationships grace the screen in a way that doesn’t portray the mother as smothering and ridiculous and usually insane, and at the very least, just … shitty. (See: Black Swan, Carrie, Mommie Dearest, Phoebe in Wonderland, Gone Baby Gone, Fish Tank, and the upcoming Ansiedad. Add screen portrayals of the Mother-in-Law to the list, and it’s a disturbing clusterfuck of epic proportions.) 

While a few reviewers argue that Life, Above All ignores the government’s responsibilities in the HIV/AIDS crisis in South Africa (like the film failing to mention former president Thabo Mbeki’s sympathies with AIDS denialists in the 00’s), I’m excerpting from several positive reviews that focus on the interpersonal relationships in the film:

By Liz Braun:

Life, Above All is an historical snapshot of the AIDS crisis in Africa and an indictment of sorts of the government bungling that allowed the epidemic to overwhelm South Africa. The culprits (ignorance, poverty, big pharma, religious and political leaders, etc.) are not so much the focus; the point of this quiet, heartbreaking drama is all those children left to cope, especially the orphans.

By Nora Lee Mandel:

Rather than focusing on the usual corrective lessons on the transmission and treatment of HIV/AIDS, the family’s struggles play out within systems of traditional care and limited modern medical facilities that are strained to the breaking point. Chanda rails against the stoic comforts of religion and receives only discouraging advice at an overcrowded clinic. Her illiterate and exhausted mother falls prey to the greed of a charlatan doctor, a demon exorcism, and horrific neglect by her revengeful sister, who has not forgiven Lillian for her flouting of tribal marriage traditions for the sake of love.

By Manohla Dargis:

Chanda’s silence is unnerving, as is the absence of tears, and while her calm conveys a preternatural strength of character it also suggests a lifetime of pain. No child, you think, should have to pick out her baby sister’s coffin. But she does, taking in the horror of the funeral home and its metal table without flinching and then pushing forward, still dry eyed, still determined, taking on life with an appealing (and enviable) toughness and grace that make this difficult story not just bearable but also absorbing. As the weight of the world bears down on her slender frame, she becomes the movie’s moral compass and its authentic wonder: the child who is forced to be an adult yet remains childlike enough to feel real.

By Mary Corliss:

Two years ago, a drama with a seemingly forbidding subject — an illiterate teenage girl, pregnant with her father’s child and hellishly abused by her drug-addicted mother — won over critics, audiences and the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The film was Precious. Now comes Life, Above All, which deals with the tragedy of AIDS in South Africa, as seen by a 12-year-old girl named Chanda. At the end of its world premiere at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, critics cheered like schoolkids, giving it a 10-minute standing ovation.

By Alison Willmore: 

… when its focus narrows onto Manyaka and her mother (Lerato Mvelase), their deep mutual affection and the terrifying sacrifices they’re ready to make because of it, the film sings, becoming a moving tribute to love holding fast against suffering. The ending, which offers a hint of relief, is unfiltered, frankly unbelievable melodrama, but something grimmer and more measured would be intolerable after everything that comes before.

In Appreciation of Fathers Who Have Daughters

Joel and Heather, New Year’s
Releasing Balloons for Joel
On Wednesday, May 25th, my brother-in-law committed suicide. (Yes, I know the obituary says he died on March 25th, and if Joel were here, we’d be laughing our asses off at that completely unacceptable typo. He’d be like, “Did the funeral home seriously screw up my date of death?”)
The real tragedy, though, is that he left behind his wife—my younger sister, Heather—and three amazing daughters: Sophia, age 6; Chloe, age 4; and Penelope, age 2.
Joel and Penelope
I’ve wondered if Bitch Flicks is really the right place to talk about something like this. And I’ve decided it is—because Joel was a huge fan of Bitch Flicks. He constantly encouraged me to keep writing, even when our site was in its baby stages with no real traffic to speak of, and some of my favorite conversations with Joel surrounded how films, particularly the animated crap Disney and Pixar churn out, impact his daughters.
Joel and Heather and I (and my whole family) grew up in Middletown, Ohio (which recently made the Forbes top ten list of fastest dying towns). To say it’s a conservative town is like saying George Bush was a shitty president—I mean, duh. Joel was a self-proclaimed jock-type who went to a conservative, Christian high school (he and my sister were high school sweethearts), and who never really thought much about women’s lack of equality—until he became the father of three girls.
Heather and Joel
He called me often with stories about his language slip-ups. Once, he said he and Sophia were discussing the origin of mankind. (Because she’s 6 and a genius and wants to know about these things.) So Joel talked to her for a while about evolution, and summed it all up with, “Basically, man has been around for a long time.” Sophia looked at him and said, “Daddy, how long has woman been around?”
I love that. Because when he told me that story, he felt actual shame and became even more conscious of how those little things were a huge deal in the way his girls thought about themselves and their place in the world. As a result of his awareness, the girls and I often have conversations about the movies they watch—with Sophia saying things like, “Why are there so many boys in this movie?” and Chloe asking, “Why does a boy save Coraline at the end?”
Joel and Chloe
Chloe and Sophia Sleeping Last Night
They think critically about gender and representations of girls and women in the media (at ages 6 and 4), and that’s because of Joel, who was such a wonderful dad to those girls, and because of their mom, Heather.
In fact, Heather just told me about an adorable interaction. Chloe was riding in the car with her and said, “I have a girlfriend at school. And I want to marry Kelly Clarkson when I grow up. She’s a girl too, though.” Heather said, “Honey, by the time you’re old enough to get married, you’ll be able to marry a girl if you want to.”
Then, when I was in Ohio for Joel’s memorial service, Chloe told me she had a boyfriend (but that “it’s a secret to him”—omgcuteness). I said, “That’s awesome, but what about your girlfriend?” And she said, all exasperated, “I have a boyfriend and a girlfriend.” I can’t tell you how happy it made me that she spoke to me like I was a complete dumbass for asking her that.
Joel and Sophia
Penelope, who’s 2, just runs around like a rambunctious toddler and is inevitably dirty and messy and muddy and scraped and fearless, and that, too, is a credit to her parents, who have never encouraged their girls to sit up straight and keep their legs closed and say please and thank you and smile and all that other crap girls are supposed to learn when they’re little. Sure, Penelope likes to sleep with her baby doll, but she also likes to sleep with her shoes (seriously) and her books and the occasional pair of 3D glasses (WTF).
In one of the last email correspondences Joel and I had, he wrote:
Sophie and Chloe Meeting Penny

“I have learned so much from you; you have completely changed my worldview, and that has helped me be a better father to my three daughters and recognize the hurdles they will face as they grow into their adult selves. I want to say thank you for that.”

One of the things that upsets me most is that I’m not sure I ever really expressed to Joel how much I respected and appreciated him, especially as a father to three daughters. He didn’t treat them like “girls” … he treated them like kids. If Chloe wanted to watch Handy Manny all morning, he bought her a Handy Manny toolkit and pretended things were broken in the house so that she could “fix” them with Squeeze (the name of Manny’s wrench) and Turner (the name of Manny’s screw driver).
Penelope’s Collage
Heather and The Girls on Halloween
Joel had a ton of experience in that realm because he was a stay-at-home dad for two years (and believe me, the two of us had many conversations about the bullshit, outdated ideas surrounding gender roles, particularly those pertaining to the domestic sphere). Sophia, Chloe, and Penelope worshipped their dad, and I know when they get older, they’ll struggle to understand his suicide. But right now, they’re at home with their mom, making picture collages of Joel, and celebrating Father’s Day.
Girls, I want to tell you how much Daddy loved you. And Heather, I want you to remember, always—you were the love of Joel’s life.
So, Happy Father’s Day, to all the dads out there who teach their daughters that they’re important, and who learn from their daughters, too.

An account has been set up in Joel’s name, for his three daughters, if anyone would like to donate.

Guest Writer Wednesday: Resisting Motherhood in Grey’s Anatomy

This guest post by Marina DelVecchio also appears at Marinagraphy.

Lately, it seems that every single television show takes any kind of woman and turns her into a mother. She can be a Playboy vamp, a stripper, an affected teenager, or a surgeon, but at some point in her fictitious or reality TV role as a woman leading a happily single existence while having a lot of sex, she gets the urge to have a baby. Becoming a mother has become vogue—the “in thing.”

Kendra, former Playboy bunny who had sex with Hugh Heffner voluntarily (gagging here), is now settled down and pregnant. Pink (who I adore because she’s such a rebellious punk), is pregnant. The Kardashian sisters are each filing away their sexual escapades and viral sex tapes and preparing for babies.

On a more fictitious level, Kate Walsh’s character in Private Practice just gave up a relationship because she wants a baby and he doesn’t, since he’s already been there and done that. In House, Lisa Edelstein’s character, after years of service as head of the hospital—a powerhouse of a woman who has to dress sexy in every episode, adopted a baby because she could no longer wait for House or any other man to give her one.

And then there are three mothers presently blossoming at Grey’s Anatomy. Callie, (Sara Ramirez) is the eternal Madonna—a straight woman turned gay, who has been wanting her own baby for a long time and almost lost Arizona (Jessica Capshaw) because of it, since the pediatric surgeon never wanted kids for herself. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) is a new adoptive mom after many failed attempts at having her own baby—and the most realistic one to me, since she’s not sure how good she will be as a mom. And then of course, we have Christina Yang, played by the ever brilliant Sandra Oh, who finds herself pregnant for the second time. And for the second time, she wants to get an abortion.

And there’s nothing wrong with this—except that aside from Christina Yang’s character, there are few other representations of women. What about the women who don’t want to be mothers? Where are their voices? And why are the voices of mother-want-to-be’s so much louder? It seems that they are everywhere, telling all young women that eventually, they all need to settle down and have babies, especially before their biological clocks start humming, followed by the incessant whine of “what if you’re never a mother?”

I have been thinking about Christina Yang since a few weeks ago. I love her character. Aside from the fact that her writers fell off the track by making her have a nervous breakdown and dance on a bar drunk as a skunk, Sandra Oh’s character is brilliant and so different. She is a surgeon—a die hard, unrelenting, and un-self-sacrificing woman, who hates more than anything to lose herself in a man she loves. She even gave up her lover so that she could have a chance to operate and learn from the best in her field. She is single-minded, obtuse, and unapologetic—and I know she’s not just a figment of some writer’s imagination. There are women like her out there. Women who don’t want to have children or be mothers. Women who have no problems saying that they don’t even like kids. And it’s not because the child will interfere with her work or domesticate her. She is just not interested in having kids. Motherhood is not in her nature.

And there is nothing wrong with this. But the world makes us all feel like there is. There is something wrong with you if you’re a woman and don’t want to have any kids. You’re a cold bitch if you choose a career over family. You’re unnatural. Feminism of the seventies told us that we had choices, but the choices always included kids—women had to learn to have children, careers, and dinner at the table by five.

But what if you don’t want to have any? Hugh Heffner has sex with a lot of babies (they may as well be), but you don’t see the world crushing him with self-righteous diatribes because his Playboy mansion is not full of his children running around in their undies—and I am sure he has fathered many. But men are different, right? Rules don’t box them in. They get away with everything—including being in their 80′s and having sex with girls of 18. No gross factor there.

Women are controlled—subtly and and not so subtly. We have been conditioned to define ourselves via our biology. We have the children, therefore, we must have children. Commercials tell us our roles— our defining roles as women: mothers, care givers, cooks, cleaners, carpoolers, wives, volunteers, educators, and self-sacrificing do-gooders. Our neighborhoods define our place in society: mothers, care givers, cooks, cleaners, carpoolers, wives, volunteers, educators, and self-sacrificing do-gooders. Let’s add some negative ones here also, like nags, overweight hags, gossips and trophy wives. Now television shows—reality and non-reality—overwhelm us with maternal figures—no matter where they got their start from. Sex bunnies gone mom. Pop stars gone mom. Infertile women gone mom. High school drop-outs gone mom. And out of all of these, we only have one woman who resists motherhood: Christina Yang.

Where are all the others? Where are their voices? I want to see more representations of Yang’s character everywhere, because these women do exist. Although I got married and have two kids, I am the daughter of a woman who resisted conventional roles of women. I watched my mother growing up, keenly, as if I were observing a rare stone that never belonged to our region. She was as unique as they come. And even though she chose motherhood by adopting me—it was more for companionship than it was for a desire to show maternal affection—she had none—or at least she withheld it out of self-preservation. But I am reminded of her when I come face to screen with Christina Yang—and I wish young girls had more of her uniqueness with which to identify. I have learned so much from my mom—I learned that all women are different, and we can choose different paths in life than the ones we are told are especially pink-lined for us.

Just because women can have babies doesn’t always mean they should have them. We are not all made of the same cloth—we are not all designed to mother—even if biologically, we can.

Marina DelVecchio is a writer and a College Instructor. She has a BA in English Literature, an MS in English and Secondary Education and has completed thirty credits towards a Doctorate in Feminist Theory, Rhetoric and Composititon and 19th century Women Writers. Originally from New York, she began teaching on the High School level and then moved up to the College level in 2005. She presently teaches English Composition, Research, and Literature at a local Community College in North Carolina. 

Tangled: A Feminist Film Review

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

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

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

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

The Jury Awards – International Women’s Film Festival 2011 from Women and Hollywood

A Black Woman’s Plea for Justified – The Red-State Western You Should Be Watching from Racialicious

Redefining Dora: From Explorer to Princess from Marinagraphy

Meek’s Cutoff: Professor Kelly Reichardt’s Filmmaking 101 Primer from Thompson on Hollywood

Tropes vs. Women #3: The Smurfette Principle from Feminist Frequency

Arianna Huffington is a sex symbol from Feministe

Slutwalks and the New Political Incorrectness from Slate XX Factor

Leave your links in the comments!



Reader Question: Finding movies for girls

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

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

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

Movie Review: Let the Right One In

Let the Right One In. Starring Kare Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl, Karin Bergquist, Peter Carlberg, and Ika Nord. Written by John Ajvide Lindqvist. Directed by Tomas Alfredson.

I want to describe Let the Right One In as a vampire love story, but that wouldn’t nearly do it justice. That description wouldn’t, however, be entirely inaccurate either. The movie’s protagonist is a twelve-year-old boy named Oskar who lives in the Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg in 1982. We first encounter him pretending to defend himself against the school bullies who constantly berate him, but the reality is he doesn’t yet know how to stand up to them. Instead, he collects newspaper clippings of violent crimes and secretly files them away in a notebook, almost as revenge-fantasies. He sleeps with a knife and carries it with him everywhere, and the night he stands outside in the freezing cold, stabbing a tree while calling it “piggy” (the school bullies’ nickname for him), he encounters Eli.

Eli appears out of nowhere behind their shared apartment building, watching Oskar. She’s got wide, creepy eyes, and Oskar tells her she smells funny. He also wonders why she isn’t cold, since she’s wearing only a t-shirt and standing in the snow barefoot. These questions hardly get resolved; when he asks her why she isn’t cold, she says, “I guess I’ve forgotten how.” They both leave their first meeting declaring that they don’t want to be friends, and that declaration more or less showcases just how “other” each of the characters feels—it’s easier to remain alone than to risk yet another person’s contempt.

It isn’t clear whether Hakan, the man who lives with Eli, is her father or her familiar. (In vampire myth, a familiar is a human who wishes to become a vampire by signing with the vampires through a blood oath.) Regardless, Hakan acts as Eli’s caretaker by slinking through the streets of Blackeberg in the middle of the night in search of a human to drain for blood. In each of his attempts, he screws up, and it provides several instances of black comedy in the film. But when Hakan can’t get the blood Eli needs to survive, she’s forced to go find it herself.

Watching such a small girl ravenously and violently latch onto a man who attempts to help her (she calls out to him, pretending she’s hurt, then buries her face and teeth into his neck), well, I jumped in my seat. It’s scary. And just as the audience begins to understand that, omg, she really is a vampire! she breaks her victim’s neck and leans over him sadly, almost apologetically, creating one of the many beautiful scene juxtapositions in the film, first exposing Eli as animal, then immediately highlighting her humanity. She kills because she needs to kill, not because she wants to.

From this moment on, the movie tackles several themes, one of which is violence, specifically the kid-on-kid violence Oskar experiences at the hands of his classmates, and how that plays against the vampire-on-human violence Eli’s responsible for. What does it say, for instance, that Eli, a killer by definition, experiences remorse for a necessary act of violence, while a group of young boys, most notably the leader of the pack, gets off on torturing and humiliating Oskar? As Eli and Oskar’s friendship develops, Eli ultimately convinces Oskar to stand up to the school bullies, and the consequences of his actions set the stage for the film’s finale.

At times, while watching the wonderful chemistry between the two young actors onscreen, it almost seemed as if the vampirism were a subplot rather than the main focus. The movie wants, after all, to tell us something about childhood, how lonely and alienated a child can feel, and how important it is to feel connected to someone. They toy with the idea of a romantic relationship somewhat—Oskar asks Eli “to go steady”—and she agrees, if it means keeping everything the same. This pretend-romance illustrates two things. One, that Oskar’s tale is a coming-of-age story, and two, that while Eli lives in the body of a twelve-year-old, she has in fact been “twelve” for quite a long time.

Without giving too much away, it’s important to mention both characters’ androgyny. When Eli says at the beginning of the film, “I’m not a girl,” we naturally assume she means she’s a vampire. Is it possible she means something else? And if so, how does that change the dynamic of their interactions? A brief screen shot of Eli’s scarred genitalia forces us to ask these questions. Ultimately, the shot reminds us that Eli will forever remain as she is, an outcast in a child’s body, while Oskar will grow up, perhaps even grow out of his current status as “other.”

Let the Right One In takes a story about a vampire and makes it sweet, and in the end, takes that sweetness and turns it right on its head. Many people won’t read the ending as so dark, and I can see how one might even interpret it as a happy ending. But everything that comes before: Eli’s incessant quest for blood, Oskar’s increasing reliance on her strength and approval, their shared loneliness, and each character’s saving of the other’s life (both literally and metaphorically), frames the final scene (and possibly the entire film) as much more sinister than sweet.

One has to wonder if Oskar has any real idea about what’s in store for him by running away with Eli. In the end, Eli needs a new familiar, a human who will actively kill for her. While I believe Eli consciously manipulates Oskar by playing on his vulnerability, I don’t necessarily think Oskar, as naïve as he may come across to Eli, is unaware of Eli’s plan for him. It’s an exchange of sorts, and it’s about need—Oskar’s need to feel unconditionally accepted by someone, and Eli’s very practical need for blood. But it’s the film’s interrogation of “the monster within the human,” that works so well, ultimately positioning the weak, fear-based (and sympathetic) hero as the monster, a transformation that Oskar, unlike Eli, accepts willingly.