Coen Brothers – Bitch Flicks

‘Fargo’: Female Fail or Female Fabulous?

Without revealing too many spoilers, the philosophy of the main characters was overwhelmingly skewed toward the idea of the “hen-pecked” “downtrodden” American male, completely emasculated by a society that demands respect and a lack of violence. At first then it appeared we were viewing a hyper-masculine awakening of the main character, Lyster Nygaard (Martin Freeman) and cheering him on as he committed his first acts of violence.

Written by Rachel Redfern.

Fargo, the 1996 black comedy from the Coen brothers, featured a beloved, innocuous female lead–a demonstrably unique, pregnant chief of police, seemingly full of Minnesotan goodwill and rural sensibilities, yet surprisingly quick and courageous. FX decided to do a remake, and personally, when I first heard this, I felt there was no way a network spin-off could ever mimic the ingenuity of the original: it seemed like nothing but a bad idea.

But after viewing, Fargo is the rare kind of remake that manages to hold true to the aesthetic sensibilities of the original while expanding the world/characters.

Within the pilot however, I had a few concerns. Without revealing too many spoilers, the philosophy of the main characters was overwhelmingly skewed toward the idea of the “hen-pecked” “downtrodden” American male, completely emasculated by a society that demands respect and a lack of violence. At first then it appeared we were viewing a hyper-masculine awakening of the main character, Lyster Nygaard (Martin Freeman) and cheering him on as he committed his first acts of violence.

FARGO - Pictured: Martin Freeman as Lester Nygaard . CR: Chris Large/FX — Martin Freeman is Lester NyGaard: The Emasculated Modern Man

Similarly, the fantastic character of a less-young female chief of police, so outside of a tough and rumble portrayal normally shown, was no longer present, it seemed. Instead, there was a traditional male police chief–steady, measured, respected, with a pregnant wife and a cohort of bumbling deputies. In fact, in general, Fargo is overwhelmingly a male show, playing host to a lot of casual, intense violence.

The themes of savagery and aggressiveness sort of manage to double-back on themselves, however, where male characters are often referred to as predators and wolves, yet the two most savage characters are also the smallest and the most sensitive to bullying. There’s an underdog quality to the violence as those who are humiliated and emasculated, suddenly turn on their oppressors. Breaking Bad subtly led us down the dark side over five seasons, blurring lines between right and wrong all the time. Fargo though goes straight for the jugular and within the first few minutes we see a main character fundamentally change as he commits his first act of violence. Fargo is less about exploring the grey areas and developing an anti-hero in the vein of Walter White and Don Draper; rather it takes a more literal battle between good and evil, echoing its own biblical themes and references.

So, there are obviously several straightforward evil men running around Fargo, but where are the women, I asked?

Allison Tolmun in 'Fargo' — Allison Tolmun in *Fargo*

But then, up came Molly Solverson and her ridiculous last name. Fargo DOES have a delightful female protagonist in the vein of the great Marge Gunderson. She’s smart, unassuming, and tenacious. In reworking the original, Noah Hawley has given us a new character to enjoy, but definitely evocative of Gunderson. Newcomer Allison Tolmon (Molly Solverson) brilliantly acts the part and has even been careful of viewing the original Fargo so as not to confuse her character and that of Gunderson: “I think the series lives and breathes as its own entity. I felt that I’d given myself enough time to work with Molly that I could go back and watch Margie and that I would’ve created enough distance between the two of them that she wouldn’t bleed over into Molly, which was my concern.”

Molly is the moral center of the show; there are no grey areas here either–Molly is the good guy, dedicated to peace and justice and an eye roll towards the overwhelming incompetence she encounters from the men in her office. And to give Noah Nawley credit he’s accomplished something very difficult in a female TV show character: he’s made her relatable. She’s competent, confident, silly and quirky, the very-real embodiment of a girl you’d probably watch a movie with on a Friday night.

So while the show still lacks a lot in the female character department, do we consider it a failure or success that there’s at least one, dynamic and unique female character? Even one as delightful as Molly Solverson.

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Rachel is a traveler and teacher who spent the last few years living in Asia. Now back in her native California, she focuses on writing about media, culture, and feminism. While a big fan of campy 80s movies and eccentric sci-fi, she’s become a cable acolyte, spending most of her time watching HBO, AMC, and Showtime. For good stories about lions and bungee jumping, as well as rants about sexism and slow drivers, follow her on Twitter at @RachelRedfern2

Why Do We Care So Much That Marge Gunderson Is Pregnant?

Rewatching Fargo the other day, it struck me that Marge Gunderson’s pregnancy barely figures into the film.But I challenge you to find a review of the film that doesn’t note that the character is pregnant. And If you can, I’ll find you ten more that describe her as “very pregnant” or “heavily pregnant” so as to underline this seemingly crucial detail.

Clearly, we find Marge Gunderson’s pregnancy striking and notable. But can we sit back for a moment and examine why?

Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson in Fargo. — Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson in *Fargo*.

Rewatching Fargo the other day, it struck me that Marge Gunderson’s pregnancy barely figures into the film. She gets a wave of morning sickness at a crime scene, it comes up in her small talk with Mike Yanagita, and in pillow talk with her husband. But Marge and Norm talk more (a lot more) about stamp art than their impending parenthood.

But I challenge you to find a review of the film that doesn’t note that the character is pregnant. And If you can, I’ll find you ten more that describe her as “very pregnant” or “heavily pregnant” so as to underline this seemingly crucial detail.

Clearly, we find Marge Gunderson’s pregnancy striking and notable. But can we sit back for a moment and examine why?

Marge was (and sadly, 18 years later, remains) a refreshing female character largely because she’s not defined by her gender. She solves the case through good police work, not some kind of “intuition.” She’s incredibly sweet, but so is nearly everyone around her: Fargo gets a lot of thematic and comedic mileage out of “Minnesota Nice.” In this setting, kindness is not a feminized trait.

I suspect the Coen brothers decided to make the character pregnant, and then to make that fact so peripheral, was a way of doubling down on the irrelevance of Marge’s womanhood. And I have mixed feelings about that. Even though it is effectively refreshing to see a pregnant woman represented in film as something more than an active baby-factory, I don’t like the implication that pregnant women are somehow “extra female.”

Marge Gunderson aiming her firearm — Marge Gunderson aiming her gun

And I worry that viewers’ tendency to spotlight Marge Gunderson’s pregnancy is rooted in that concept, in direct contrast to her characterization. She’s one of the most recognizably human characters in film, and I worry we all find that so remarkable because she’s not only—gasp—a woman, but a seven-months-pregnant woman to boot. How can she be so competent and likable and human when she’s not only a woman, but a woman at seven-ninths of her peak womanliness!? It’s dehumanizing to women and pregnant women, cissexist, and (to use any feminist critic’s favorite word) all-around problematic.

To slightly-misquote Marge Gunderson herself, I think I’m gonna barf.

So maybe let’s all pause before we append Marge’s name or job title with “pregnant” in our discussions of the rightfully revered character. Let’s focus on her appeal, her goodness, and Frances McDormand’s wonderful performance. Let’s make her pregnancy as much of a non-issue as it is in the film.

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Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town, South Africa, don’tcha know.

‘Inside Llewyn Davis’: A Moving Tribute to Music While Transcending Gender Tropes

At first, Jean appears like a stereotypical shrew, a misogynistic trope. The shrew often serves the purpose to show us that the male lead is a put-upon nice guy. The intention is for her nastiness to reinforce our sympathy for him. But ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ differs in that we inevitably sympathize with Jean, or at the very least, we understand where she’s coming from. We understand her vitriol and frustration towards Llewyn. Jean’s role isn’t hollow. Beyond her rage and meanness, there’s a melancholic sadness behind her eyes. She embodies far more complexity than a mere trope.

Music can wordlessly stir emotions and move us. A song can provide a glimpse into a moment in someone’s life. Music can mark the borders of a cultural era. A lyrical love letter to folk music, Inside Llewyn Davis brilliantly captures all of these.

I didn’t know what to expect. While I love folk music — the acoustic guitar, the harmonies, the raw emotion, the social justice messages simmering under the surface — I’m not the biggest Cohen Brothers fan. So it surprised me that the deceptively simple yet complex Inside Llewyn Davis is one of my favorite films of the year.

Set in 1961, the film chronicles a few days in the life of a folk musician. It takes place at a time on the cusp of Bob Dylan’s breakout, right before folk when from an intimate circle of musicians to exploding on a national and global scale.

Oscar Isaac captivates and mesmerizes as protagonist Llewyn Davis, a fictitious character but an amalgam of folk musicians Dave Van Ronk, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, and other performers who played in NYC’s Greenwich Village. Sure, Llewyn isn’t exactly a great guy. In fact, he’s kind of an asshole. He’s self-involved. He’s obnoxious. But he instills curiosity. I wanted to see what he would do next.

The musical performances were all performed by the actors and performed live. It lends an authenticity and electricity to the film. The emotive music feels like another character in the film. Llewyn (and Oscar Isaac) comes alive when he performs. He’s a soulful and raw musician, which encompasses the evocative feeling of folk music in the 1960s.

Epitomizing many folk musicians of that era, Llewyn doesn’t want to sell out. He wants to remain a solo artist after the suicide of his musical partner. Yet he struggles to make a living out of his art. Both music manager Bud Grossman (F. Murry Abraham) and jazz musician Roland Turner (John Goodman) don’t take folk music seriously, as a viable commercial endeavor or as an art form respectively. Roland even tells Llewyn, “What’d you say you played? Folk songs? I thought you said you were a musician.” But Llewyn is determined to stay true to his art.

For many young musicians in the Village, the emerging pop-folk trend “represented the bland conformity and commercial culture they hated and were trying to escape.” Beyond music, American culture was shifting to greater commercialism. The striking yet bleak cinematography, desaturated of color, echo this theme.

Ulysses the cat, Llewyn’s frequent companion, was my favorite part of the film. But not only because I’m a sucker for a cat (which I am). The cat’s name, a form of Odysseus, who tries to find his way home in the Greek mythological epic The Odyssey, is a fitting allusion. Llewyn is a wayward traveler physically, as he flits from couch to couch crashing at various friends’ houses, artistically, as he doesn’t feel appreciated, and emotionally, as he doesn’t really connect with anyone and doesn’t belong anywhere.

Which brings us to the women in Llewyn’s life. We see the women in the film through Llewyn’s eyes, just as we do everything else. And as Llewyn is cynical, viewing everyone and everything as a nuisance or obstacle obstructing his path, we see the women skewed in the same light.

Jean (Carey Mulligan), the most prominent female character, is a folk musician too. We see her sing on-stage with Jim (Justin Timberlake), her husband and Llewyn’s friend. Of course we’re treated to a lovely objectifying commentary by the bar owner Pappi about how he wants to fuck Jean. Nice.

Full of wrath and fury, everything Llewyn does enrages her. Immediately hostile, she spouts venomous lines at him such as, “Everything you touch turns to shit,” and he “should wear two condoms” when he has sex. “I loved her spiteful, vitriolic rants,” said Carey Mulligan, who found the role “liberating” and “great fun.” While the entire film is told from Llewyn’s perspective – not really a surprise as the film title alludes – we do eventually understand why Jean feels the way she does towards Llewyn.

“His own worst enemy,” Llewyn is a selfish jerk. He’s unreliable and lashes out at people, sabotaging his relationships. It’s interesting because a musician is supposed to entertain people, not alienate them. Yet that’s precisely what Llewyn does to nearly everyone in his life.

When Jean discovers she’s pregnant, she fears that Llewyn might be the father of her unborn baby, catalyzing her to want an abortion. Needing the money to fund Jean’s abortion spurs Llewyn taking a job recording with Jim — an interesting scene in and of itself as it seems to encapsulate the disconnect between the folk music Llewyn wants to create and the commercial pop music Jim that’s making him money. Jean says she would keep the baby if she knew for certain Jim was the father. Despite being about Llewyn, I appreciate that the film affords Jean the opportunity to express her wishes.

As a reproductive justice advocate, I always appreciate abortion in a film as a choice people make. 1 in 3 women will have an abortion in her lifetime, not to mention the trans* men, genderqueer and non-binary individuals who have abortions too. It’s a common, routine medical procedure. Yet it’s still rare for a film or TV series to depict a character choosing and having an abortion.

At first, Jean appears like the stereotypical angry shrew, a misogynistic trope, reminding me of Rachel McAdams’ trope character in Midnight in Paris. The shrew often serves the purpose to show us that the male lead is a put-upon nice guy. The intention is for her nastiness to reinforce our sympathy for him. But Inside Llewyn Davis differs in that we inevitably sympathize with Jean, or at the very least, we understand where she’s coming from. We understand her vitriol and frustration towards Llewyn. Talking about her role, Carey Mulligan said Jean started off optimistic and hopeful, till “the world came along and hit her in the face.” Jean’s role isn’t hollow. Beyond her rage and meanness, there’s a melancholic sadness behind her eyes. She embodies far more complexity than a mere trope.

The other female characters we see in the film are Llewyn’s sister Joy and Lillian, the mild-mannered wife of his professor friend. Llewyn argues with his sister about their father and tells him to quit music, admonishing him for not having his life together. When Lillian asks him to sing at a dinner party and then (horror of horrors!) she sings along with him, Llewyn rages at her, making her cry. Llewyn is angry as Lillian is singing the harmony that his deceased partner sang. But he doesn’t want another filling his shoes. He wants to perform solo. It’s an interesting juxtaposition to Jean and Jim who encourage people to sing along with them when they perform onstage. But Llewyn must be the center of attention.

After hearing club owner Pappi say that he slept with Jean because that’s the price women pay to be able to perform onstage in his establishment (wow, swell guy), Llewyn proceeds to heckle a female folk singer. So he makes two women cry in the film but doesn’t stand up to the men in his life. Is his male posturing an attempt to assert his masculinity? Is he lashing out at women because he feel he can’t change the course of his life? Is he depressed that he’s disconnected from others? Does he feel Jean belongs to him like a possession? Is he just a misogynistic douchebag? All of the above?

Tinged with sadness and yearning, the crux of the film rests on Llewyn struggling to maintain balance, trying to do the right thing but then getting frustrated and saying fuck it. He strives to be a “true” artist rather than a commercial commodity. He tries to get Ulysses the cat back to his human family. He tries to take responsibility and pay for the abortion of not only Jean but a previous girlfriend too. He tries to be a good son and visit his father in a retirement community. He tries to reach out to people and forge relationships. But he inevitably annihilates his best intentions.

Llewyn is a filter for not only the women but everyone in the film. It’s all about him. And normally that would bother me. I can’t stand when movies don’t pass the Bechdel Test or the Mako Mori Test, when everything revolves around men. The women in the film don’t interact with one another. Okay, that is annoying. But Inside LLewyn Davis is such a captivating character study, a beautiful testament to the power of music, a brilliant exploration of art and what deems an artist a failure or success, an intriguing commentary on how we connect and disconnect with those around us, and it includes an abortion storyline and a female character transcending gender tropes — that I almost don’t care. Almost.

Megan Kearns is Bitch Flicks‘ Social Media Director and a feminist vegan blogger. She blogs at The Opinioness of the World and Fem2pt0 and she’s a member of the Boston Online Film Critics Association (BOFCA). She tweets at @OpinionessWorld.

‘True Grit’: The Formidable Fortitude of Tweens

Not since Megan Follows played Anne of Green Gables in the 1985 adaptation of the novel with the same title have girls had a young protagonist on screen who fights against social conventions that are designed to limit her because of her age and gender. Mattie’s similarity to Anne doesn’t end at their indignation and fearlessness, they both also share a love of long braids, both can be found wearing ill-fitting clothes, both of their stories are set in a similar time period, and finally, both girls are orphans.

This cross-post by Vicky Moufawad-Paul appears as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.

Every once in a while a role comes along for a young woman who is at that tough age–that age that makes her adult-like, but before she’s realized the limiting effects of the male gaze. She is smart enough to know what is right and young enough to not know that the world doesn’t work according to right and wrong. She speaks truth to power, and expects power to accede to what would be justice. She sees what is incongruous and expects that if she shows it to others, they will correct their ways. If they don’t correct their ways, she is old enough, and in her own power enough to be able to resist their attempts to make her follow their ways. She is interested in freedom and is often called willful, clever, argumentative. It is a window that, for most women, opens as puberty hits and then shuts as puberty ends. For many women, the social relations of feudalism and capitalism make us bend and transform under patriarchal control.

Mattie Ross in True Grit, played by a 14 year old Hailee Steinfeld, looks unimpressed and determined — Mattie Ross in *True Grit*, played by a 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld, looks unimpressed and determined.

Independence, Over-Sized Clothes, and Olden Times

I recently saw True Grit, and although I don’t usually enjoy Coen brothers films, I did enjoy this film. Let me get it out of the way: I don’t connect with most of the Coen brothers’ films and I was flabbergast when a few men in my Film Studies classes during my master’s programme listed Barton Fink as one of their top ten films of all time. At the risk of sounding essentialist, in my mind the Coen brothers make “guy” films–films that guys love, but women rarely rave about. Enter: True Grit. Or, more accurately, enter the star of the film, Mattie Ross, a 14-year-old girl played by a feisty 14-year-old mixed-race Hailee Steinfeld.

Not since Megan Follows played Anne of Green Gables in the 1985 adaptation of the novel with the same title have girls had a young protagonist on screen who fights against social conventions that are designed to limit her because of her age and gender. Mattie’s similarity to Anne doesn’t end at their indignation and fearlessness, they both also share a love of long braids, both can be found wearing ill-fitting clothes, both of their stories are set in a similar time period, and finally, both girls are orphans.

Orphans used to wear over sized clothes, braid and hats — Orphans were shown wearing over-sized clothes, braid, and hats.

Orphans also liked to carry things. This is why we find similarities in adaptations of novels set at the turn of the 20th century — Orphans also were shown as liking to carry things. This is why we find similarities in adaptations of novels set at the turn of the 20th century.

Although Mattie’s mom is still around, her father has recently been murdered, and thus she has to fend for herself in situations that her father ordinarily would. Instead she is settling her father’s business affairs and searching for his killer. A whip-smart character scene shows Mattie negotiating the selling and buying of her father’s property with an adult male horse dealer. She uses fast-talking, stubbornness, sharp instincts, and the occasional appeal to getting a lawyer involved to keep her from getting taken advantage of, and in fact, gets what she wants.

Mattie shows that she can cross a river on horseback, climb trees, cut a dead hanging man down, and most importantly, keep her mouth shut when appropriate. She’s the sidekick who runs the show. Even when her interests don’t dovetail with those she has hired, she re-convinces them that their interests do coincide.

The Braid Connection: Intersecting Race, Gender, and Age

Cowboy films, as a genre, are not only male-dominated, but they also have troubling relationships to Aboriginal peoples. Critiques of the implicit and explicit issues with representation of First Peoples by Hollywood has been amply put forward elsewhere, notably by film critic Jesse Wente. I wonder what the Coen brothers were thinking when they included two scenes with Aboriginal people in them. The first seems to be a critique of racism: an Aboriginal man is hanged without being allowed to say his last words, unlike the white men being hanged beside him. I applaud this implicit critique of the differential treatment of criminals of different racial backgrounds.

The second depiction of frontier relations with Aboriginal people is a scene about halfway into the film, when the character Rooster, played by Jeff Bridges, kicks two First Nations youth. This unmotivated violence could have been another critique of racial violence (simply by making it visible), if it were not for unfortunate editing choices. Rooster is climbing the porch stairs of a house he wants to enter. There are two First Nations boys sitting on the edge of the porch of the house. Out of nowhere, Rooster kicks one of the boys and he falls off the porch onto the ground. The camera focuses on the facial reaction of the other boy who is still sitting. He laughs. Seconds later the boy who laughed meets the same fate. In the theater when I watched the film, the first reaction shot established the tone for the audience reaction to the action when it was repeated. The senseless abuse of native children by an old white man got the biggest laugh of the film. And it’s worth noting that this is one of the only laughs in a film that is mostly stern and quick.

I also have to express disappointment in the choices made around the casting and direction of the adult Mattie. I would have hoped that the young fearless girl would grow up to be someone who could have been played by Michelle Rodriguez.

It's like looking in a mirror: Michelle Rodriguez and Hailee Steinfeld looking quite similar at the end of a gun — It’s like looking in a mirror: Michelle Rodriguez and Hailee Steinfeld looking quite similar at the end of a gun.

Elizabeth Marvel, who was cast to play the adult Mattie, embodies a conventionally strong womanliness, that is more like the unhappy stern and uptight spinster, Marilla Cuthbert, who adopts Anne in Anne of Green Gables.

Unmarried women get stern in a male dominated genre. Characters Marilla Cuthbert and the adult Mattie Ross — Unmarried women get stern in a male-dominated genre. Characters Marilla Cuthbert and the adult Mattie Ross.

As I’ve mentioned, I usually have a “ho-hum” attitude toward Coen brothers films and toward cowboy genre films. But True Grit is saved by a fierce tween. Maybe the Coen brothers should cast Willow Smith in their next film? Based on how a tween rocked their script, I’d love to see them give ten-year-old Willow a chance to whip her hair on the silver screen.

10 year old Willow Smith in the "Whip My Hair" video. Eat your heart out Jackson Pollack — Ten-year-old Willow Smith in the “Whip My Hair” video. Eat your heart out Jackson Pollack.

Willow already wears braids, so she’s half way there. I’d ask the Coen brothers to give Anne of Green Gables a watch first, though. Come on, even in 1985 they let a girl have a little roll in the hay with her bosom friend.

Young women enjoying each other's company. Are Anne and Diana just bosoms? Or is the roll in the hay a vital part of their youthful strength? — Young women enjoying each other’s company.
Are Anne and Diana just bosoms? Or is the roll in the hay a vital part of their youthful strength?

Vicky Moufawad-Paul is a curator, artist, film programmer, and the artistic director at A Space Gallery in Toronto. She earned a Masters of Fine Arts from York University, where she conducted research on the visual culture of Palestine. She was previously the founding executive director of the Toronto Arab Film Festival, and has worked at the Toronto International Film Festival Group. She was a member of the Visual and Media Arts Committee at the Toronto Arts Council, a founding member of the Advisory Board of the Palestine Film Festival, and a member of the Board of Directors at Trinity Square Video. Her writing has been published by Fuse Magazine, E-Fagia, the Arab American National Museum, and the Journal of Peace Research. She was also a contributor to the anthology Decentre: concerning artist-run culture/a propos de centres d’artistes (YYZ Books, 2008). Moufawad-Paul’s video art has been exhibited nationally and internationally.

‘True Grit’: Ambiguous Feminism

Mattie wears dark, loose, practical clothing. She climbs trees and carries weapons. She shows utter disdain for male privilege or La Boeuf’s pervy allusions to sexual contact. She has no interest in the older men for romance or protection. She is only concerned with their usefulness to her task, and she uses her will and her reasoning rather than seduction to convince them. Steinfeld’s Mattie emanates competence and confidence.

This cross-post by Andé Morgan previously appeared at her blog No Accommodation and appears as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.

Enter the Wayback Machine in your mind and go back to 2011. This was an era with only one Smurfs and only two Hangovers. More original fare like Rango and Super 8 was somewhat overshadowed by superhero movies, which were HUGE, and the sequelmatic masterpieces that were Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. That’s OK, originality is overrated. For example, my favorite wide release of late 2010-early 2011 was True Grit. Based on the 1968 serial novel by Charles Portis, True Grit the movie had been done by The Duke in 1969. And by done I mean it did well; it was a financial and critical success and gave John Wayne his only Oscar. Nevermind that the script was less than faithful to the source material, or that Mammon possessed Paramount to spawn a horrific sequel, Rooster Cogburn.

Let me get my bias out front: I am a fan of the Coen Brothers, but I don’t always drink the Kool-Aid (am I the only person who thought Fargo and No Country for Old Men were just OK?). However, I loved True Grit. I don’t think it is hyperbole to call it a masterpiece. It represents an increasingly rare combination of excellent screenwriting, gripping cinematography, high production value, and masterful acting in a wide release film. Its story of vengeance is timeless, but the setting is as uniquely American as apple pie, Duck Dynasty, and gun violence.

To summarize: in the American Old West (Oklahoma and Arkansas were part of the Old West in 1877), Mattie Ross (played by Hailee Steinfeld in the 2010 film) loses her father when he is murdered by his hired hand Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). She enlists the help of U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) and Texas Ranger La Boeuf (Matt Damon) to bring the fugitive Chaney to justice. Because she is an adolescent female, no one takes her seriously until the strength of her persistence wins out. Vengeance is hers in the end, but not without cost.

All of the incarnations of True Grit are popular fodder for analysis from a feminist perspective not only because it is well-known and well-respected as an “American” story, but also because it is an unusual story. It features a young, female protagonist with a single-minded focus on violent vengeance. Any analysis would be remiss to ignore that a) the serial was written in 1968, and Portis would undoubtedly be aware of the second-wave feminist movement and b) the 2010 film was written, directed, and produced by the Coen Brothers, who know how to do subtle development of nuanced characters and big-picture themes. The original 1969 film is less profitable for analysis. In their hurry to cash in on the popularity of the novel and John Wayne, the studio focused on the Rooster character. Mattie (referred to as a “tomboy” by promotional materials of the time) exists as a novelty and a variation on the damsel in distress.

While the 2010 film does pass the Bechdel Test on the slightest of technicalities, no one is going to confuse it with Melancholia. The plot of True Grit is an interesting variation of the Women in Fridges meme because the roles are a reversal of the usual young female victim and older male protagonist structure. In this way Mattie is much more of a Dark Knight than a Marvelous fighting fuck toy. The overarching patriarchal heterosexist concern is obvious: neither children nor women are allowed to crave bloody vengeance. Vengeance is a privilege reserved for good-but-violent men whose women-property are raped or destroyed.

Mattie wears dark, loose, practical clothing. She climbs trees and carries weapons. She shows utter disdain for male privilege or La Boeuf’s pervy allusions to sexual contact. She has no interest in the older men for romance or protection. She is only concerned with their usefulness to her task, and she uses her will and her reasoning rather than seduction to convince them. Steinfeld’s Mattie emanates competence and confidence.

While many in the blogosphere were quick to use Mattie’s stoicism, blood lust, and independence as examples of why True Grit should be considered a feminist movie, others, such as Anita Sarkeesian at Feminist Frequency, have remarked that those same attributes argue against that designation. Rather, the adoption of these characteristics by a female protagonist constitutes an enshrinement of male privilege and traditional action-movie-masculine vales rather than an assertion of feminist values. By contrast, a feminist True Grit would emphasize cooperation, empathy, and non-violent conflict resolution. Without delving into the deeper arguments raised by this argument (e.g., what exactly are feminist values and are they necessarily exclusive of all traditionally masculine values), I can say that my initial reaction was to agree with Sarkeesian. Too often we see action movies that “counterbalance” a “masculine” (and usually secondary) female character by either putting her in a skin-tight suit, giving her a fatal personality flaw, or by implying that she is worthy of death for her perceived masculinity (I’m looking at you, Kick-Ass 2).

However, after some reflection I tend to agree more with Amanda Marcotte’s argument that True Grit should not be analyzed in the same way as more typical westerns or action movies. The subtleties in the source material and in the Coen Brothers’ delivery lend themselves to deeper interpretation. True Grit comments on many things: the unfair treatment of Native Americans (the hanging scene); the corruption of justice in our legal system (the courtroom scene); and the fact that there is often very little space between the “bad” and the “good” in this world (Chaney’s dialogue with Mattie at the creek and mine; Ned’s dialogue with Rooster).

As Marcotte points out, to understand the commentary on the development of Mattie as a young woman, we must look to the ending. Marcotte notes the shared symbology of Rooster’s missing eye and (adult) Mattie’s missing arm. By engaging in violence and by accepting the traditionally masculine values of vengeance, both Mattie and Rooster literally and figuratively lost part of themselves. As viewers, we are left to wonder: did Mattie’s consumption by vengeance as a young woman rob her of spiritual wholeness in adulthood? Does the adult Mattie feel that she was wrong to pursue vengeance? I do disagree with Marcotte’s assertion that True Grit is a feminist movie because the bleakness of the ending serves as an ultimate repudiation of traditional action-movie-masculine values. Instead, I see the ending as commentary on the infectious, long-lasting, and ultimately detrimental nature of violence as a human trait. Consequently, I conclude that while Mattie Ross may be considered a feminist character (loosely) True Grit is neither a feminist movie nor a movie that reinforces the patriarchal heterosexist narrative. It is a human condition movie, and one worth watching.

As for Hallie Steinfeld, she’s been getting work, and recently played Petra Arkanin in the film adaption of Ender’s Game. I’d like to see it, but damn you Orson Scott Card!

Andé Morgan’s perspective stems from a life spent always on the boundary: white and black, rich and poor, masculine and feminine. She takes shelter under the transgender umbrella.

Movie Review: A Serious Man

*This is a guest post from writer Lesley Jenike.

“It sounds like you don’t know anything! Why even tell me the story,” math professor Larry Gopnik asks Rabbi #2 on his Job-like quest for spiritual understanding. Why even tell the story, indeed?

Critics’ consternation over A Serious Man as an odd change of pace is intriguing to say the least. Is this the kind of movie an Oscar winner makes? Is this Coen Brothers’ most autobiographical film? Have the mysterious Coens finally revealed themselves by creating, finally, an autobiographical film? And to top it all off, why did they make a movie without a single big-name actor?

It’s true. There’s something defiantly perplexing about the film, something rather intense about its silences, weird compositions, odd humor and cringe-worthy dialogue that’s frankly off-putting. Maybe that’s why I loved it.

The Coens are, in my book, among the most consistently innovative filmmakers working today. And I don’t mean “innovative” in the sense that, as directors, they splice and dice filmic conventions the way Baz Luhrmann or Danny Boyle do, for example. Rather, they’re consummate storytellers, fancy jump cuts be damned, and their stories, no matter how dark, how disconcerting, become somehow universal, funny, and true. What’s ultimately so disconcerting about this movie, however, is its skeptical take on the Judeo-Christian tradition of parable and storytelling as illustration and explanation. The Coen brothers are undermining their own profession here, their own modus operandi, and call into question narrative’s effectiveness in light of a chaotic universe and incomprehensible suffering. It’s a dangerous move but ultimately a rewarding one.

The film is loosely organized around a series of “fables,” dramatized and told second-hand, none of which reveal anything beyond the pointlessness.

The movie opens with a fable from a nineteenth century Jewish shtetl (all dialogue in Yiddish, no less) in which a husband invites what a wife believes to be a dybbuk into the house. The wife, in her ignorance, stabs the man to prove he’s a ghost. The man staggers out, bleeding, into the snow. So begins a cycle of misread signs and empty ritual not even a “serious man” can overcome. It’s no accident, Bitch Flicks readers, that trouble begins with a woman. This is probably the Coens’ most specifically Jewish movie and the Jewish narrative’s patriarchal power structure is immediately evident.

Cut to the late sixties. Larry Gopnik’s son is listening to Jefferson Airplane in Hebrew school. Faith seems strikingly empty. Dybbuks still appear but as sublimations. Women still ruin lives but by slowly emasculating their husbands.

Now, I don’t pretend to know the particulars of Jewish culture and the Jewish religion, but I do know that the struggle to maintain faith and tradition in an ever-increasingly secular, often hostile world is a recurring theme in Jewish film and literature, and A Serious Man is no different. Its long shots and odd angles emphasize otherness, strangeness and estrangement, even within the context of the familiar, i.e. Larry Gopnik’s middle class, suburban home. Larry’s “goy” neighbors, for example, radiate, from Larry’s point of view, a weirdness he finds fascinating and potentially dangerous. His son smokes pot and simultaneously studies the Torah for his upcoming bar mitzvah while watching some crappy late Sixties TV show. His daughter is flagrantly disrespectful; his wife tells him she’s leaving him for “a serious man,” a neighbor “tempts” him with her breasts and a joint, and a South Korean student bribes him for a passing grade: a series of events that undermines his sense of moral order and integrity. Larry’s world, in other words, is crumbling, and no illustrative story is going to help this time.

A Serious Man’s lack—lack of answers and its uncompromising lack of real narrative sense—is its brilliance. The Coens manage here to dissemble meaning without resorting to empty, surface-level tricks or rhetorical flourishes. In other words, this is a sophisticated film by a pair of filmmakers who’ve cut the crap and gotten down to the heart of the matter: God is not listening.

Lesley Jenike received her PhD from the University of Cincinnati in 2008. She currently teaches poetry writing, screenwriting, and literature classes at the Columbus College of Art and Design. Her book of poems is Ghost of Fashion (CustomWords, 2009).