Comedy – Page 3 – Bitch Flicks

‘A League of their Own’: The Joy and Complexity of Sisterhood on a Baseball Field

The bond between the sisters is at the heart of the wartime baseball movie, directed by Penny Marshall… Their competitive nature is a motivation to be the best… It’s obvious that Dottie always seems to have one up on Kit, which sets up the relentless struggle of the spirited Kit who wants, finally, to be better than Dottie. … Kit and Dottie are the embodiment not just of sisterhood, but of the true nature of a teammate relationship.

This guest post written by Jessica Quiroli appears as part of our theme week on Sisterhood.

It only takes a few minutes into A League of Their Own that we learn what drives the Keller sisters, Dottie and Kit, as individuals. Their competitive nature is a motivation to be the best, even in the smallest ways, like racing home to see who can run faster. It’s obvious that Dottie (Geena Davis) always seems to have one up on Kit (Lori Petty), which sets up the relentless struggle of the spirited Kit who wants, finally, to be better than Dottie. It’s immediately clear they genuinely love each other and are devoted to family, and Dottie (now Hinson) to her husband Bob. When a scout comes calling, it’s obvious that they’ve always played the game, and he considers Dottie the bigger talent. But Kit is the driven one, filled with an intense desire to play, and not just to compete, but to win.

The bond between the sisters is at the heart of the wartime baseball movie, directed by Penny Marshall, and it serves as the energetic force in many key scenes. There are many female-bonding movies, but this is a rare one that passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors. There are few sports movies focused on women, and none like this. Add to that the driving theme of sisterhood, both forged and biological, and it makes for a complex and emotional ride.

There are a lot of themes at work here. World War II created a lack of spirit in the U.S., with many of the men who once played sports serving their country overseas. Based on the real All-American Girls Professional Ball-League, the film shows the unfolding drama of the Rockford Peaches: women learning to be professional ball players and prove that they’re perfectly capable of playing the game, mixed with the fear of losing their husbands, which throbs beneath the surface every moment.

When scout Ernie Capadino (Jon Lovitz at his acerbic best) finds them on the farm, there’s something striking about the parallels to other jobs in sports; slots are few, so women must battle harder, and, hopefully, uplift each other along the way. Dottie wants to help her sister succeed and does what she can to make sure she too has a slot. Kit’s opportunity is a hard-fought chance, something any woman in any area of sports can relate to. In 2012, A League of Their Own was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”

The theme of overcoming barriers and refusing to settle is threaded throughout the stories of some of the single women, like Doris Murphy, portrayed so beautifully nuanced by Rosie O’Donnell in one of the most tender, throat-tightening moments (at least for me). She quietly tells her teammates on the team bus about her boyfriend who treats her poorly. She explains that she stays with him because, “They always made me feel I was wrong, you know? Like I was some sort of weird girl… I believed them too. Not anymore. There’s a lot of us. I think we’re all alright.” In a moment of inspired strength, surrounded by support, she tears up his photo and throws the pieces out the window.

Similarly, Megan Cavanagh, in one of the more memorable roles, has a heart-wrenching scene with her father, as he sends her off at the train station. Her character embodies the constant struggle women, particularly those in sports, endure as “tomboys” (let’s ban that word). As women we’re judged first by appearance, and judgments hold even after we’ve proven our ability. Marla plays through taunts from fans, and being openly mocked in a team introductory video. In these days of social media, women athletes are subject to that verbal abuse every day at an overwhelming level. Hooch, like any female athlete, just keeps on playing.

Everything always comes back to Dottie and Kit’s push-pull relationship. Dottie’s quiet leadership guides the team, while Kit’s frenetic nature pops in almost every moment she’s on-screen. On the field, their teammate relationship is tempered by that leadership. Dottie is asked to be honest about her sister’s limitations when Jimmy Dugan (the unbelievably perfect Tom Hanks) wants to lift Kit for another pitcher. Kit’s explosive anger is a snapshot of the experience of women in sports, today and throughout history. Women, especially in that era, were made to feel small, incapable of physically achieving what men could. In this story, however, Kit’s main adversary isn’t a man with an agenda, but a sister whom she regards as a more capable rival. Dottie’s loving and supportive (she’s the reason they’re on the team after all), but she takes the upper hand when necessary. That pivotal moment in the game embodies the rich, emotional bond of sisterhood.

There are no male heroes in the traditional sense. There’s an equal respect that grows between Dottie and Jimmy. She doesn’t stand down. He stands up. In the scene that is a turning point for Dugan, he and Dottie give competing signs to Hooch. It’s a classic moment, perfectly performed. And, more pointedly, a man and a woman, on equal ground, communicate (argue really) through the language of baseball.

Other characters emerge in their own way and aren’t lost by the central storyline. But how could Madonna ever just blend in? Not here. As Mae Mordabito, she’s the other half of the comedy duo with O’Donnell and, although opposites in a number of areas, their relationship shows what drives the soul of sisterhood. She’s flirtatious and free-spirited, while Doris struggles with self-confidence, but is also good for a scrappy on-field fight. Their loyalty and love for each other shines through, despite personality differences.

Watching A League of Their Own is a meditation of sorts for me as a baseball writer and fan. My heart swells, and my eyes fill, and I feel tremendous pride. I’m moved by the loss, the confusion, and the struggle the women face to keep going and to, eventually, let go. Kit and Dottie are the embodiment not just of sisterhood, but of the true nature of a teammate relationship.

We need these images of women physically competing, motivated by a love of a sport, winning, and the unique bonds of teammates and sisters.

Jessica Quiroli is a minor league baseball writer for Baseball Prospectus and the creator of Heels on the Field: A MiLB Blog. She’s also written extensively about domestic violence in baseball. She’s a DV survivor. You can follow her on Twitter @heelsonthefield.

‘Our Little Sister’: Making Enough Room for the Half-Sister

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s ‘Our Little Sister’ is a mature and subtle exploration of the place of the half-sister within family life; how she fits in and how she transforms what we think the family means. … The camera lingers on Suzu’s face in a moment of indecision: will she go on as before, having no feelings for what are essentially strangers anyway, or will she take a leap of faith that will mean her identity will be forever tangled with theirs?

This guest post written by Katherine Parker-Hay appears as part of our theme week on Sisterhood. | Spoilers ahead.

Ideas of the family seem to come interwoven with requirements of unconditional love. Whether we really like our siblings, whether we would have picked them out of a crowd, is beyond the point. The task is to love them as unthinkingly and uncritically as we can manage. But, with such black and white ideologies attached to what family means, the half-sister is surely always on precarious ground; her role seems like an oxymoron by nature. After all, when we think of sisters we tend to think less in halves and more in terms of too much: too much frustration, too much jealousy, too much love. From my experience at least, sisterhood is not something we do in half-measures. So when the half-sister encroaches on the space of the traditional family unit, what do we do with her? How do we make room for her? How does she transform us, if we let her?

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Our Little Sister is a mature and subtle exploration of the place of the half-sister within family life; how she fits in and how she transforms what we think the family means. The story follows three adult sisters: Sachi (Haruka Ayase), who works in a hospital and is struggling because of an affair with a married man; light-hearted Chika (Kaho), who works in a sports shop; and Yoshino (Masami Nagasawa), who works in a bank and has an insatiable appetite for beer and dating. The three live comfortably together in a house left to them by their grandmother. Though not openly discussed, it is apparent that their parents had a difficult breakup, with their father having an affair and their mother disappearing. The siblings now live harmoniously together; however, this balance is disrupted when they are called to their father’s funeral, where they meet their long-estranged half-sister.

On meeting agnate-sibling Suzu (Suzu Hirose), the close-knit trio are forced to question whether a stranger could ever approximate the bond formed through having grown up together. Could this officious girl of a different generation meaningfully be a sister to them? With her nearing proximity, the girls are forced to consider the nature of relationships that seemed entirely natural and obvious. With so few shared points of reference, it would be easy for the sisters to turn away. However, something stops them. Saying a stilted goodbye at the station, the sisters on one side of the glass and the half-sister on the other, Sachi blurts out, “Come and live with us.” The camera lingers on Suzu’s face in a moment of indecision: will she go on as before, having no feelings for what are essentially strangers anyway, or will she take a leap of faith that will mean her identity will be forever tangled with theirs? As the doors close, she calls out, “I will.” Watching this as a child of a broken home left me near to tears. Suzu’s situation, as she considers whether to take the chance, seemed to encapsulate to me the position that a breakup can so often leave a child in: suddenly having to choose over what their family will look like and where its emotional and psychic boundaries will fall. Vulnerable and confused, we witness Suzu in the moment where she has to decide on what she can find enough room for within herself.

The film ambles subtly, Suzu having thrown in her lot with Sachi, Chika, and Yoshi, as it documents the small acts of the sisters making one another feel at home. This is not a simple task when all share such uneasy structural relationships with one another. Suzu starts off feeling awkward, inauthentic – a guest at the house belonging to the “real sisters.” To a friend, she confesses the precarious place that her family history has left her in: her “existence is the reason for other people’s pain.” However, as we watch the three girls in everyday activities like cooking, bathing, and lounging on the floor, we come to see that so much of what matters about being a sister is not the structural relation, the label imposed on the relationship from the outside, but the daily routines. It is the running to the bus together, the annual traditions like making plum wine.

As Suzu gradually becomes more comfortable, they even come to realize that there might be something very special about bringing a half-sister fully into their lives. They have chosen the relationship, chosen each other in the way that one might choose a partner or a best friend. Though not quite that. It is a choice far more willful, because they choose her against the weight of family history and against all the reasons that could have made it so easy to turn away.

Of course, the adult sisters find themselves in a situation that few children of divorced parents could dream of: on fleeing, the mother leaves the family home solely in their hands, to do as they wish. This situation could not be more different than when parents, siblings, half-siblings, and step-siblings, wounds still raw, are all brought together to cohabit under one roof. In such volatile living situations, the bloodlines seem almost fluorescent and, with just the slightest friction, can so quickly demarcate who belongs to whom. In contrast, Our Little Sister hands the protagonists a blank slate in the form of this expansive house that is all their own. They have the chance to establish relationships at a remove from the identity of their mothers and fathers. The empty house, with its excess of uninhabited rooms, becomes symbolic of a new kinship model. It is an elastic space, where they can encounter each other beyond the psychic confines of the Oedipal.

For the sisters, the house becomes a means of shutting out the wider world that would delegitimize their budding yet fragile relationship. The value of the neutral, insulating space of the house is made clear with a surprise visit from the three girl’s mother. During the visit, she casually relates that she is selling the house. She had been unhappy there and does not stop to imagine that her girls could relate any differently to the space. This is a failure of imagination – a failure to allow the children of divorce to move beyond the pain that their parent’s have left them as an inheritance. Similarly, their aunt warns the girls that they should be on their guard against the half-sister, after all, she reminds them, Suzu is “the reason for the breakdown of the parents.” For the aunt, the emphasis falls almost entirely on the half in half-sister, where it is synonymous with tainted and impure. Sachi has to remind her aunt that the affair had been well underway before Suzu was even born. Sachi refuses to reject her half-sister based on a sense of loyalty to her parent’s past, and so refuses the idea that she and her sisters must spend their lives forever reproducing the narrative of their parents’ pain.

Our Little Sister is a gentle probing of how much psychic room we have to create kinships that are more flexible and generous. This is a question often forced upon children of divorced families but, tragically, tends to come at a time when they are too young and too vulnerable for generosity. On the other hand, as adults these sisters have the distance and emotional availability to make space for their half-sister. The idea of this, making enough room for the half-sister, is beautifully illustrated in one of the film’s final scenes. The girls look at their heights at different ages, penciled onto a door frame. This remains an iconic image of family, where each penciled mark seems to boast so much: “my identity is here,” “I belong here, in the family home,” “I was here all along.” How can the half-sister find a place for herself when face-to-face with this? Here is an archive of proof that she came too late and has missed out on too much. Suzu gazes at this height-chart with deference, a late observer of the years already past. But then her sister nudges her and, in a moment that seems to willfully bend time, places a pencil line that definitely marks Suzu’s presence on the frame, in tandem with the others.

Katherine Parker-Hay has a BA in English from Goldsmiths University of London and an MA in Women’s Studies from University of Oxford. She writes on queer theory, women’s cultural output, temporality, and comic serials.

“A Truth Universally Acknowledged”: The Importance of the Bennet Sisters Now

But more and more it seems you can judge the quality of modern adaptations on how the filmmakers view Lizzie in relation to her sisters. Even though the representation of women has greatly expanded since Austen’s time, a story that revolves mostly around sisterly relationships remains rare, which makes it even more vital. And while it is true that Austen’s romance has a timeless quality that makes it popular, the narrative of sisterly love remains transcendent.

This guest post written by Maddie Webb appears as part of our theme week on Sisterhood.

The Bennet sisters are some of the most enduring characters in fiction and Pride and Prejudice remains a beloved story. Can the modern incarnations of Lizzie, Jane, Lydia, Kitty, and Mary explain why people keep falling in love with their story?

Pride and Prejudice, for most people in popular culture, is seen as an early example of the “rom-com” genre. Boy meets girl, boy and girl hate each other, but despite their clashing personalities, they grow, develop and eventually, inevitably, fall in love. But Pride and Prejudice is more than just a first in its genre; it’s also one of the most adapted, readapted, spun off, and reworked pieces of fiction. I think the reason for that isn’t about how hunky Darcy and Wickham are or even the comic stylings of Mrs Bennet; I think it’s because of the Bennet sisters.

Like most of Jane Austen’s work, there is so much more going on under the surface and it’s easy to miss how her plots or characters often subvert societal norms, which is part of the reason her stories endure. In the case of Pride and Prejudice, this subversion comes in the form of the Bennet sisters, who are at once relatable and thoroughly atypical female characters in Regency fiction. Even within the confines of the 19th century, the Bennet sisters, for better and worse, have agency and personality coming out their ears. Though I didn’t watch every single adaptation of Austen’s classic (you’ll have to forgive me but my spare time is not that abundant), the most successful ones choose to make Lizzie’s happiness as dependent on her relationship with her sisters as her relationship with Darcy.

Three modern versions of Pride and Prejudice I did watch recently are Bride and Prejudice, the web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies — all of which I can recommend for different reasons, but all ground the heart of the narrative in the Bennet sisters’ bond. My personal favorite retelling of the Elizabeth Bennet story is The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, an Emmy-winning web series that reimagines Lizzie as a grad student who starts a video series while studying mass communication. Although only two of the sisters, Jane and Lydia, make the cut for this adaptation (there is a cousin Mary and a cat replaces Kitty), they are unquestionably more important to Lizzie than her love life, a good thing considering Darcy doesn’t even appear in person until episode 50. The vlogging format of the show gives the story enough room to fully flesh out both Jane and Lydia and shifts large amounts of Lizzie’s character development onto her relationships with her sisters. Lydia even gets her own spin-off series, which in her own words is “totes adorbs.”

I also enjoy Bride and Prejudice, the 2004 Bollywood film, mostly because of some killer musical numbers, but also because of the Bakshi sisters’ camaraderie. Our Elizabeth character, here called Lalita Bakshi, has three sisters, only losing Kitty in the translation (poor Kitty). Having the concept of arranged marriages still in place within the culture makes it a modernization that maintains more of the plot than The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. But again the alterations made to the story are largely to do with the sisters. The frame of the plot is largely the same, but the chemistry, affection, and bickering between the women feels honest and refreshing; it’s given more screen-time than the period adaptations. Bollywood and Regency fiction may not seem like a natural pairing, but keeping the family dynamic central is key to why this version is so charming.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies may be ridiculous but it’s both a period film and an action movie, making it my kind of ridiculous. Even though this is still technically a period piece it has much in common with the other modern spins on the story. The action in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is focused on the power of the sisters as a team and helps develop their characters. The opening fight scene — when the girls slaughter the zombie hoards — is a moment where an otherwise muddled film comes alive, while the training scenes are used to smuggle in some sister bonding time, over their love lives. Considering how easily this could have ended up as the period version of Sucker Punch, the Bennet sisters ensure that the film, while occasionally brainless, is never heartless.

Another key point of change in these versions is how the Wickham/Lydia plot is handled. I can only speak for myself, but in the book, Lydia’s behavior for me is just another annoying inconvenience in the path of Lizzie and Darcy’s happiness. In the original, the issue of Lydia running off isn’t about what will happen when Wickham abandons her, but more that it’ll ruin the family’s standing in society (read: Lizzie and Jane, the characters we actually care about). However, placed in a modern context, the Wickham/Lydia plot reads more like an abuse story. She is still young, naïve, and silly but crucially, not vilified because of it. As a result of this subtle but important distinction, Wickham is elevated from cad to full on monster. Hell, in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, he literally locks Lydia up and is unmasked as the cause of the zombie apocalypse. It’s another element of this version that is a bit ridiculous, but again, no one can accuse Pride and Prejudice and Zombies of being subtle.

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries variation on Wickham, while more restrained, is equally as menacing and monstrous. Over the course of the series, a subplot of party girl Lydia becoming isolated from her family slowly unravels. Now career women, Jane and Lizzie are too busy for their little sister, with the latter dismissing her as a “stupid whorey slut” in the second episode. This leads her to be emotionally manipulated by Wickham, which we get to see painfully play out in her own spin-off series. The episode in which Lizzie confronts her and Lydia realizes Wickham’s true nature, is devastating. Not because it messes with Lizzie’s happiness, but because we truly care about Lydia. Creators Hank Green and Bernie Su have spoken at length about the importance of their alterations to Lydia’s story, resulting in a heartbreaking and insightful portrayal of abuse, within a light comedy series.

A similar situation unfolds in Bride and Prejudice, perhaps to a more satisfying conclusion since we get to see both Bakshi girls slap Wickham before walking out hand in hand. It’s only fitting that, in each of these adaptations Lydia is (sometimes literally) saved from Wickham and her crime of being an impressionable and impulsive teenage girl is no longer worth a life sentence. This area of the story has always left a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to the otherwise completely serviceable 2005 Joe Wright film adaptation. Despite bringing a modern filmmaking sensibility to the rest of the narrative, Lydia is still just another silly, inconvenient hurdle on Lizzie’s path to happiness, a real wasted opportunity to show how crap it was being a woman in Regency England.

People love Pride and Prejudice for all sorts of reasons: for example, my mother is rather attached to Colin Firth’s Darcy. But more and more it seems you can judge the quality of modern adaptations on how the filmmakers view Lizzie in relation to her sisters. Even though the representation of women has greatly expanded since Austen’s time, a story that revolves mostly around sisterly relationships remains rare, which makes it even more vital. And while it is true that Austen’s romance has a timeless quality that makes it popular, the narrative of sisterly love remains transcendent.

Recommended Reading: Lizzie Bennett Diaries #2 by Hank Green (on the Lydia Bennet story)

Maddie Webb is a student currently studying Biology in London. If she doesn’t end up becoming a mad scientist, her goal is to write about science and the ladies kicking ass in STEM fields. In the meantime, you can find her on Twitter at @maddiefallsover.

When Will Black Women Play Leading Scientists More Often?

In movies and on television, the absence of Black women as scientists is glaringly obvious. …The response on social media to the vocation of Leslie Jones’ character in ‘Ghostbusters’ offers an opportunity to ponder: When have Black women been cast as scientists in laboratories, creating and inventing significant and outlandish developments, and leading investigations? …Where are the Black women playing scientists in films in the 21st century?

This guest post written by Tara Betts appears as part of our theme week on Women Scientists.

In movies and on television, the absence of Black women as scientists is glaringly obvious. This became more obvious when the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot caused an outcry around Leslie Jones — the only Black Ghostbuster — being cast as a municipal worker, rather than a scientist like her white women costars. Even though Jones’ occupation is identical to Ernie Hudson’s role as Winston in the 1984 original, the response on social media to the vocation of Jones’ character offers an opportunity to ponder: When have Black women been cast as scientists in laboratories, creating and inventing significant and outlandish developments, and leading investigations? Black women have been stereotypically cast as servants and sex workers in too many films to name here, but we should be asking: Where are the Black women playing scientists in films in the 21^st century?

Some of the smaller, less central scientist roles played by Black actresses include Kerry Washington as Medical Officer Marissa Brau in 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea (2007), Alfre Woodard as Lily Sloane as Zefram Cochrane’s (played by James Cromwell) assistant in Star Trek: First Contact (1996), N’Bushe Wright as hematologist Dr. Karen Jenson in Blade (1998), and Dr. Billie Worth (Rosalind Cash) seeking the cure to cirrhosis with Dr. Henry Pride (Bernie Casey) in Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde, the 1976 blaxploitation version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Most recently, Viola Davis seems to have cornered the most roles as a Black female scientist. Davis played Dr. Helen Gordon in Solaris (2002) and as Major Gwen Anderson, a psychologist in Enders Game (2013). Davis also plays Amanda Waller in the recently completed Suicide Squad movie. Angela Bassett portrayed the same role in Green Lantern (2011) but this version of the character was a scientist, rather than a government official.

The upcoming 2017 Hidden Figures (starring Taraji P. Henson, Janelle Monáe, Octavia Spencer), Sanaa Lathan in the 2004 film AVP: Alien vs. Predator, and Janet Jackson in the 2000 comedy The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps approach representations of Black women as scientists in ways that have yet to be replicated more often. But there is also room for more believable portrayals across STEM-related disciplines. These roles are some of the only leading roles where Black women scientists received top billing, rather than as supporting characters who assist other scientists.

In AVP: Alien vs. Predator, Lathan portrays Alexa Woods, an environmental technician and expedition leader for a group of archaeologists, which makes her more than a scientist. She leads her fellow scientists and eventually prevails against two nearly unstoppable adversaries. Throughout this film, Alexa is a quick-thinking, resourceful heroine in escalating crises. Her final challenge lies in preventing any aliens from rising to Earth’s surface. Otherwise, the Predators and humans know that life on the planet will be completely destroyed.

Alexa’s first scene displays her endurance as she climbs the Lho La icefall in Nepal. In the middle of ascent, her ringing cell phone startles her, but she calmly and quickly secures herself in order to answer the call via the ear piece tucked beneath her cap. She, along with a team of experts, is flown in directly from the mountaintop via helicopter to meet with Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen) to hear a description of the mission. Weyland’s satellites have discovered an unusual heat signature in Antarctica, and thermal imaging reveals a massive structure with hundreds of rooms built around a central core beneath the edifice. The pyramid itself displays characteristics from structures from Aztec, Cambodian, and Egyptian structures. Woods’ doubt about the safety of the mission leads her to turn it down. But Sebastian de Rosa (Raoul Bova) and Graeme Miller (Ewen Bremner) convince her to take the mission by asking if they have a better chance of surviving with her. The lack of experience of other scientists in her hazardous field and de Rosa’s gentle request convinces Alexa that she can work toward keeping the crew safe. Inevitably, Alexa is the only expert who can take on the mission with Weyland Industries to find what may be the earliest pyramid, 2,000 feet below Bogataya Island.

The team arrives at the abandoned whaling station on the Antarctic island. They discover that some sort of advanced thermal equipment has cut a perfectly angled tunnel straight toward the pyramid just before their arrival. As they begin to descend into the tunnel, Weyland loses his grip and starts plummeting toward a possible collision with the rocks and pyramid below. Alexa clearly notes his sliding body and lowers an ice hatchet onto the loose, unused hood of Weyland’s parka. In doing so, she saves the wealthy initiator of the project who, at times, sounds like a fatherly/great white benefactor standing in for Alexa’s late father, who died from complications related to a mountain climbing injury.

After losing Sebastian, the last member of her team who helped her figure out some of the written hieroglyphs, Alexa undergoes a significant hunting ritual of the Predators. She surrenders one of the artifacts, approaches a surviving Predator peacefully, and kills one of the aliens. This unlikely alliance places a Black woman in a role that is nearly nonexistent in U.S. cinema: a leader who survives an animal-like alien onslaught and a technologically-advanced hunter who could easily eliminate human life. Lathan could have reprised her role as Alexa Woods in the 2007 sequel Alien vs. Predator: Requiem or in other films, much like Sigourney Weaver as Ripley in the Alien franchise. But that opportunity never arose.

Before the release of the suspense-filled sci-fi action film AVP: Alien Versus Predator, Eddie Murphy starred as the lead in the 1996 remake of The Nutty Professor, which was originally a Jerry Lewis film made in 1963. Unlike the chemistry student Carla Purty (Jada Pinkett Smith) in Murphy’s first Nutty Professor, Denise Gaines (Janet Jackson) is Sherman Klump’s colleague in the sequel The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps. In her opening scene, Jackson dons wire-framed glasses and a blazer. Throughout the entire film, Jackson is covered in long sleeves and long skirts, like a modest academic who would rather downplay her physical attributes and draw attention to her intellect. Sherman wedges his way into a crowded lecture to listen to Denise explain her research as she points to an overhead projection featuring illustrations of DNA chains. Her research is related to a potential process for genomic extraction. An extraction such as this would remove risk factors from an individual’s DNA in order to prevent genetic health problems in the future.

In the next scene, Denise enters Sherman’s lab to pull him aside and talk to him one on one. As they walk under wide collegiate arches together, Denise tells him that she’s been invited to take a position at University of Maine, but she’s not sure if she wants to take it since she wants to stay because of her feelings for Sherman. In some ways, this reflects the difficulty that women faculty, including women of color STEM faculty often face, the challenge of finding a spouse. “Sherman, I’m not talking about research. Sherman, you’re very special to me. You are kind and decent. You are the most brilliant man I’ve ever known.” When Gaines says this and disregards Sherman’s size, the implication is that she loves him, not some conventionally attractive appearance he could have. Gaines’ perception of Sherman is reinforced after an outburst from Buddy Love, his bullying, overtly macho Jekyll-like, alter-ego. When Sherman proposes to Denise, he impresses her by writing/spraying “Marry Me” in the sky with a simulated hormone. It is his decency and intellectual prowess that leads to Denise accepting his proposal. They celebrate this happy moment after class in a lecture hall while they sip champagne out of beakers, and Chaka Khan’s “Tell Me Something Good” plays in the background. Their giggles and sips are followed by a major professional success when the boss of both Sherman and Denise, Dean Richmond (Larry Miller), notifies them that their research led to receiving a multi-million-dollar research grant from a fictional pharmaceutical company.

Although Denise is Sherman’s peer, not just his fiancée, her role is downplayed to emphasize the scenes where she participates in wedding festivities for her plans, including dinner with both sets of parents, trying on Sherman’s mother’s wedding dress, picking up an altered dress, and attending a bachelorette party complete with a fireman stripper dancing to Sisqo’s “Thong Song.”

Although there are some thoughtful moments that portray masculinity as a scholarly, sensitive man like Sherman Klump or his loving father Cletus, who can be tender with the wife he desperately wants to please, they are caricatures of Black people that stereotype plus-size people and older Black women by Murphy dressing in drag. When he plays Mama Klump and the hyper-sexual Granny Klump, the humor resides in creating a plus-size, undersexed mother and a representation of an older, lascivious Black woman with oversized, flapping breasts and bad dental health. This reliance on Granny Klump’s appetites as an ageist source of humor makes the sexuality of older women look absurd and completely undesirable. The women in the film (who aren’t Murphy in drag) are Denise, a couple of women that Sherman briefly greets on campus, and a few women of various ages in a club where Cletus tests out Sherman’s youth formula during a night out. In fact, Sherman’s nephew Ernie Klump, Jr. (played by Jamal Mixon) is the only person in the Klump family who is actually plus-size, and he has the least to say in the film. When he does speak, it is often to punctuate a moment of comic relief.

Aside from these shallow sizeist and stereotypical portrayals of Black people (especially Black women and Black families), one of the underlying messages is that a good woman can help save you. After convincing Dean Richmond that he can fix his declining intelligence and secure the pharmaceutical contract, Sherman takes a small amount of the youth formula and checks his computer to check the details of his rapidly progressing brain damage, which will only be reversed by ingesting some of the genetic material of Buddy Love. This isn’t necessarily consistent with science, but it offers a simple plot point.

After Dean Richmond and Sherman hurriedly leave to capture Buddy Love, Denise enters the laboratory to leave a note for Sherman. She understands the life-altering results of the file that Sherman carelessly left open. The details of the file reveal the genetic extraction that Sherman performed on himself without telling her, and she follows them to save Sherman. When she finds Sherman, he is barely able to speak, and they discover that some of Buddy Love’s genetic material has been absorbed into a water fountain. Denise forces Sherman to drink from it to restore his deteriorating intelligence. Even though she has access to the laboratory and she understands the file, Denise’s intellectual and scientific talents are primarily showcased in that first classroom scene where she is teaching, not necessarily in applied sciences, like Sherman.

Lastly, in Margot Lee Shetterly’s upcoming book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race (William Morrow, 2016), she focuses on the “women computers” of the Langley Research Center, of what would become NASA, who performed calculations that led to John Glenn’s walk on the moon. These women included Katherine G. Johnson, Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughan, Kathryn Peddrew, Sue Wilder, Eunice Smith, and Barbara Holley. In 2014, two years before the book’s publication, the book rights were sold and plans to launch the new film Hidden Figures began.

As more Black women assume the roles of scientists in major motion pictures, a better job can be done to make them instrumental, rather than ancillary, to the plots of such films.

See also at Bitch Flicks: 5 Women Scientists Who Need Their Own Movie ASAP

Tara Betts is the author of two full-length poetry collections Break the Habit and Arc & Hue. She is also the author of the chapbooks 7 x 7: kwansabas (Backbone Press, 2015), the upcoming Never Been Lois Lane (dancing girl press, 2016), and the libretto THE GREATEST!: An Homage to Muhammad Ali (Argus House/Winged City Press, 2013). Tara’s writing has appeared in The Source, XXL, Black Radio Exclusive, Essence, NYLON, and the blog for Ploughshares.

‘Ghostbusters’ Is One of the Most Important Movies of the Year

They’re moved to realize that, after everyone talked shit about them for weeks or months on end, someone actually appreciated what they did. It’s a moment of art imitating life that mirrored my experience with ‘Ghostbusters’… I also vastly underestimated how powerful it would be, and how great it would feel, to watch an action-comedy with only women in the leading roles.

Written by Katherine Murray.

There’s a scene that takes place during the final credits of Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters reboot, in which the Ghostbusters look outside and see New York skyscrapers lit up with messages thanking them for saving the city. They’re moved to realize that, after everyone talked shit about them for weeks or months on end, someone actually appreciated what they did. It’s a moment of art imitating life that mirrored my experience with Ghostbusters so perfectly that I basically just started crying as soon as it happened.

Straight up: I saw this movie out of spite. I remember watching the original films and cartoon as a kid, but I wasn’t overly excited about either of them, or the news that the franchise was getting a reboot. I thought, shooting ghosts with lasers is pretty much the same thing no matter who’s doing it, right? I was wrong.

As the release date for Ghostbusters neared, the backlash against it grew. Apparently, there are a group of men who are offended by the idea that anyone would try, on purpose, to combat sexism in popular entertainment. In this worldview, making hundreds of movies that star groups of men is just natural and good – something with no political implication at all, because it’s what every reasonable person would do by default. Making a single movie that stars four women means you’re going to hell.

After watching this build over the past six months, I decided to vote with my wallet and pay to see Ghostbusters, even though I was still pretty sure I didn’t care about shooting ghosts with lasers. What I can report is that, while it’s not the best movie I’ve ever seen, it’s a pretty good action-comedy. I also vastly underestimated how powerful it would be, and how great it would feel, to watch an action-comedy with only women in the leading roles.

The nuts and bolts of the Ghostbusters remake are very similar to the original in terms of pacing and content. It takes a while to get going but, once the four main characters have met and resolved to start fighting ghosts, the action picks up, and the story gets a lot more exciting. The special effects are more intense than the original, and they’re gorgeous to look at. You’ve already seen a lot of the funniest jokes in leaked clips on the internet, but, while it’s not laugh-out-loud hilarious, the movie stays fun and amusing. The filmmakers are extremely diligent in making sure to reference the most famous scenes and set-pieces from the original series – one might argue that they’re diligent to the point of not letting the reboot step out from the shadow of the original – and most of the original cast members return for cameo appearances in one form or another.

All the evidence suggests that this was a very carefully considered and carefully planned reboot, designed to win over fans of the original. It’s not executed as well as the 2009 Star Trek reboot, but it’s executed better than Star Trek into Darkness, and better than I expected it to be, for sure.

Ghostbusters is very careful about gender presentation – there’s no sense that this is “the girl version of Ghostbusters” in the same way The Chipettes are the girl version of The Chipmunks. This is probably due, in part, to Feig’s preferred approach of allowing actors to improvise and draw on their own personalities to create characters. My favorite example of this, and the one mentioned in the article linked above, is that Kate McKinnon’s character, Holtzmann, comes across as having an ambiguous, vaguely queer sexuality in the film – something that McKinnon, the first openly gay women to join Saturday Night Live, brought to the table herself. There’s an amazing sequence, late in the film, where Holtzmann fights a cloud of ghosts and even as I was watching it part of me thought, “This wouldn’t have existed thirty years ago. If people like me got to shoot ghosts with lasers when I was a kid, maybe I would have thought shooting ghosts with lasers was more cool.”

Other aspects of the film felt more disappointing. The first is that, just as in the original, the only Black Ghostbuster is also the only one who doesn’t know anything about science and acts as a plain-spoken audience surrogate. Leslie Jones easily delivers the funniest performance in the movie, and it’s hard to imagine that she would have been able to do that if she were playing a serious, straight-laced scientist. But it still feels awkward that a film that’s so thoughtful in challenging Hollywood stereotypes of women didn’t think at all about the stereotype that white people are book smart and Black people are street smart, when it comes to forming action teams in movies. While Jones is defending the choice on the basis that there’s no reason why she can’t play a working class character, the concern for me is less about this individual movie and more about how it fits into a pattern.

Similarly, there is some weirdness around Chris Hemsworth’s appearance as the team’s pretty-but-stupid receptionist, Kevin. Kevin is clearly intended to be an inversion of the pretty-but-stupid female stock character, but it might have been more interesting not to use that stock at all. It’s funny that Kevin took the lenses out of his glasses so he wouldn’t have to clean them and that he keeps reaching for a decorative phone that’s kept behind glass. But when that’s coupled with Kristen Wiig’s character objectifying him, asking him inappropriate questions during a job interview, and sexually harassing him in the workplace, it starts to feel uncomfortable. I’d be willing to accept that the Ghostbusters are stuck with Kevin, even though he’s dumb, because he’s the only one who applied for the job. The movie would work just as well, and maybe better, without placing so much emphasis on how he looks.

Ghostbusters isn’t a perfect movie, but it’s one that’s claiming important ground for women in popular culture. By the end, I felt a lot like the citizens of fictionalized, ghost-ridden New York – pleasantly surprised and grateful that these women made an effort to do something I didn’t even know was needed, while the haters tried to tear them down.

Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies, TV and video games on her blog.

Rethinking ‘Say Anything’ and the Film’s Actual Protagonist Diane Court

The problem isn’t that audiences misremember Lloyd Dobler; it’s that they forget about Diane Court. … Not only is Diane an equal player in the action; she’s the film’s protagonist. … While Diane has a clear narrative of growth, Lloyd is a static character.

This guest post written by Charlotte Orzel appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 80s. | Spoilers ahead.

In the fall of 2014, an early example of “peak nostalgia” saw a television adaptation of Cameron Crowe’s 1989 rom-com Say Anything announced and then canceled within twenty-four hours at NBC. According to Deadline, the series would have continued where the film left off:

“Set in present day, the Say Anything series picks up ten years later. Lloyd has long since been dumped by Diane and life hasn’t exactly turned out like he thought. But when Diane surprisingly returns home, Lloyd is inspired to ‘dare to be great’ once again, get Diane back and reboot his life.”

This pitch gets straight to the core of the troublesome way Say Anything has been remembered. People think of the film as synonymous with its iconic image of Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) holding a boombox over his head with his heart on his sleeve. Audiences remember Lloyd as the rare romantic lead who approaches the girl he loves with respect, earnestness, and unshakable optimism. They appreciate the way love let Lloyd “dare to be great.”

The problem isn’t that audiences misremember Lloyd Dobler; it’s that they forget about Diane Court.

Even though the two characters share the screen more or less equally, Diane (Ione Skye) is often treated more as a love interest than a romantic lead. Take this example from Total Film’s 50 Best Romantic Comedies:

“The sweet Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) might be an average student, but he aims high when he asks valedictorian Diane Court (Ione Skye) out on a date. Her affluent lifestyle and his humble upbringing make the two a perfect ‘opposites attract’ pair as he helps her overcome her shyness and the ability to drive a stick shift, and she… well, loves him.”

From this summary, and others like it that have been published since the film’s release, you get the picture of a romance that sees Lloyd Dobler as a sweet, earnest slacker, rise to his potential to win the heart of a beautiful, sheltered girl. He teaches her how to live, and she is eventually won by his charm, wit, and ability to raise a boombox over his head for the entire length of “In Your Eyes” (an admittedly impressive five and a half minutes).

What really happens is quite different. Not only is Diane an equal player in the action; she’s the film’s protagonist. While we spend a great deal of time with Lloyd, the movie’s story is structured around Diane’s life. In the summer after graduation, she has much more on her plate than Lloyd, who when asked about what his summer job is, replies, “I want to see you as much as possible before you leave.” Lloyd’s future is uncertain, but he’s not too worried about it, as long as it includes Diane. Diane, on the other hand, is incredibly anxious about what lies ahead — she has been offered a prestigious fellowship to England and her father is being investigated by the IRS — and her growing feelings for Lloyd complicate things considerably. We watch her navigate her fears for the future and reconcile them with Lloyd’s idealism which, despite her crushing sense of responsibility, she finds incredibly appealing. These issues are not merely set dressing for the romance, like many romantic comedies that give their heroines a wisp of a life to differentiate them from one another, like a set of Career Barbies. Her father’s investigation forms a solid B-plot that is frequently left out of retellings.

In the first few minutes we spend with Diane, she gives a valedictory speech which communicates not only the tremendous expectations on her shoulders, but her own ambivalence about life after high school. It becomes immediately apparent that Diane’s fears run far deeper than a kiss from Lloyd can soothe. In a later scene with her father, when she learns that she’s won a competitive fellowship in England, her initial response is to sink to the ground, worrying: “I’ll have to go on a plane” (we later learn that she has been afraid of flying since she was young). Diane is not only brilliant, shy, and beautiful, but desperately afraid of what the future holds.

Meeting Lloyd opens Diane up to the possibilities of life outside the rigor of constant achievement. Their first date is not a swoony, candlelit affair or a twee romp, but a bustling graduation party where they spend little time together, but keep track of each other over the heads of their classmates. Diane, initially asking if it would be “terrible if [she] wanted to go home early,” enjoys herself and talks eagerly, if awkwardly, with the other students, eventually calling her father to tell him that she’ll be home before dawn.

In the car on the way back from the party, the two finally connect in a conversation about how their classmates perceive them. Unlike her father, who constantly and almost unconsciously affirms her, Lloyd listens with a kind ear to Diane’s insecurities and doubts. Lloyd represents more than the potential for romance, which Diane has in the droves of suitors (and their droves of cars) her father fields on the phone. He offers her a chance to be afraid, imperfect, and vulnerable, to reach out and connect genuinely with other people, and, most importantly, to be known in turn.

Rather than holding Lloyd at a distance, Diane brings him into her world, introducing him to her father and showing him around the nursing home where she works. He teaches her to drive stick shift, gently letting her be bad at something for what might be the first time in her life. They share their first kiss. Inseparable after that, they soon have sex, which Diane awkwardly has to explain to her worried father when she doesn’t come home that night. Tentative but sure, she pushes at the boundaries of her old life, neglecting to call her father and unable to reason her way out of her attraction to Lloyd.

Then, with her fellowship in England looming on the horizon and the IRS investigation growing ugly, Diane breaks it off suddenly when Lloyd tells her he loves her. She shares her feelings, but begs him not to “put things on this level.” The seriousness of their relationship seems to only deepen her worries about the murky future. Both parties despair, Lloyd leaving Diane a string of voicemails that she screens anxiously, clearly longing for him. Though she is touched by his attempts to change her mind, including the iconic boombox scene, these gestures are not what eventually move her to return to him. Far from the popular idea of Lloyd as the persistent, charming guy who wins the girl through earnest passion, he doesn’t win her back at all. Instead, she turns to him when she discovers her father is guilty of tax fraud. This revelation not only shatters any hope of her returning to her sheltered life, but reminds her of the value of her relationship with Lloyd, who is as open and honest with her as she is with him.

Confronting her father, she is devastated that he lied to her and shrinks from the idea that he wants to use his illegal gains to “set [her] up so [she] doesn’t have to depend on anybody.” When she goes back to Lloyd, she tells him that she needs him. Lloyd asks, “Are you here because you need someone, or because you need me?” following it up by telling her, “Forget it. I don’t care.” But Diane does. The girl who kept everyone at arm’s length has finally found someone she truly knows and can rely on.

The final scene of the film seals this realization, as Diane embraces the uncertainty of her future in England with Lloyd by taking on her major fear: flying. Diane confronts the doubts surrounding her relationship with Lloyd and her fear of flying by accepting the potential for failure. Like Diane, the ding of the smoking light that signals the most dangerous part of the flight is over reassures us, but doesn’t eliminate our worries about the couple’s fate. We don’t know what their future holds, only that the scariest part is over. The plane could still crash. It’s just more likely that it won’t, and that’s enough.

While Diane has a clear narrative of growth, Lloyd is a static character. The film opens on him declaring his intention to win Diane’s heart, and closes on him having achieved his goal, but he remains earnest, steadfast, and optimistic throughout. Diane’s choices, not his, push the story forward. The movie flirts with remedying his lack of career ambition, having first his guidance counselor and then Diane’s father scorn his refusal to commit to a plan for the future. However, he ultimately concludes that his relationship with Diane is enough to sustain him. The movie cheekily points out his lack of development in a scene when he visits her father in prison, and tells him that he probably should start working on his own goals, but has decided to go to England with Diane instead.

This lack of ambition is what has led some to argue that Lloyd and Diane never would have made it work in the long run. In what may be the most cynical article of all time, Dustin Rowles speculates about how things turned out for the characters, concluding that Lloyd’s slacker attitude would wear on Diane and sooner rather than later, she would have cut him loose to go after a graduate student. The NBC pitch also suggests that a breakup between the two was inevitable. But assuming that Lloyd and Diane would split reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what brought them together in the first place. Lloyd doesn’t win Diane with his wit and laid-back attitude; his honesty and warmth encourage her to open up and make herself vulnerable enough to forge a real connection. Eventually, she chooses him because his unflagging optimism balances out her stymieing fear of the unknown. If we imagine that Lloyd won Diane over with his persistence, it’s easy to imagine her becoming disillusioned later on. If we remember that she chose him, and in doing so, took a step forward in becoming the kind of person she wanted to be, writing off their relationship as misguided becomes much harder.

In light of Diane’s place at the center of the story, why is Lloyd given so much more prominence when we talk about Say Anything?

In the years before and since the movie’s release, John Cusack’s star has burned brighter than Ione Skye’s. Since the two actors have almost an equal amount of screentime, that may make it slightly easier to imagine Cusack as the lead. While one could conceivably argue that Lloyd is a more unique and fully realized (or better acted) character, a close look at Diane suggests that conclusion is unfair. Not only is Diane’s shy, anxious braniac just as uncommon a sight onscreen as Lloyd’s witty, earnest slacker, but Crowe and Skye fill her in with loving detail. Diane is just as complex and interesting a character as Lloyd. However, for the audience of teen romance, imagined by marketing executives as young, female, and heterosexual, the male character is often made the object of desire and attention in both marketing and the film itself. This is particularly true in a genre that often makes its female characters bland and one-dimensional on the assumption that it will allow female viewers to more easily insert themselves into the story. And naturally, when male protagonists are more common and valued more highly than female ones, many viewers are already in the habit of bending over backwards to sympathize with the male perspective. These ways of watching are so ingrained that we may end up imposing them ourselves, even when films like Say Anything offer us a more nuanced alternative.

The NBC series pitch leans on these viewing habits by setting Lloyd up as the main character of the show. He is the one whose “life hasn’t turned out like he thought,” who must “reboot” to regain his old energy and idealism. But the movie worked in the first place by watching Diane grow out of her fear of the future. By undermining the ambiguity of the original ending, the TV pitch ignores the way that accepting both the hope of success and the possibility of failure was an essential resolution for Diane’s character arc. The pitch assumes that Diane was a catalyst for change in Lloyd once before and will be again, even though the movie works precisely the other way around. Say Anything didn’t dare Lloyd to be great. It dared Diane to embrace her greatness, and let us watch as she rose to the challenge.

Charlotte Orzel spent a few formative years scooping popcorn at an independent movie theatre, and in the process fell in love with film, television, and criticism of all kinds. She is a Master’s student in Media Studies at Concordia University in Montreal where she studies new initiatives in film exhibition. She tweets about her interests and adventures in writing and academia at @charlotteorzel.

Sheila E.’s Agency as an Artist in ‘Krush Groove’ and Beyond

But Sheila E. represents a woman’s creative musical power in an early hip hop film dominated by male artists. … As we consider hip hop’s presence in U.S. films and documentaries spanning the globe, it is also reasonable to consider that Sheila E. has one of the biggest roles for a woman that was written in the spate of films that began portraying hip hop culture.

This guest post written by Tara Betts appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s.

The film Krush Groove opens with rap group Run–D.M.C. (Joseph “Run” Simmons, Darryl “D.M.C.” McDaniels, and Jason “Jam Master Jay” Mizell) recording “King of Rock” in a makeshift studio for producers Rick Rubin (as Rick), Kurtis Blow (playing himself, as did most of the musicians in the film), and Blair Underwood (as Russell Walker), loosely based on Russell Simmons’ life. Two quiet girls listen in the studio, and the other group featured in the opening as the credits roll include The Fat Boys featuring the late Darren Robinson, also known as Human Beatbox. The Fat Boys (called The Disco Three here) portray high school students who dream of being famous rappers. Women and girls had minor roles or silent roles in the background. But one woman who received top billing and appeared on the posters in this 1985 film was none other than singer, drummer, and percussionist Sheila E., playing herself in the film. Shortly after drumming during Purple Rain with friend and collaborator Prince, the success of Sheila E.’s first single and album The Glamorous Life and the single “The Belle of St. Mark” helped her segue into her role in Krush Groove.

“The Love Bizarre” is heard before Run DMC even enters the tiny club called Disco Fever, where snippets of “King of Rock” are shot and The Disco Three dream of getting onstage. Sheila E.’s flyness come off with a singular style — asymmetrical short hair with bleached tips and gold coins dangling from her ears, her strings of pearls, a shimmery orange jacket with padded shoulders, and a black fingerless glove. She has a magnetic presence and controls the stage; she sings on her back and slides along the length of the stage, then pops back up to sing the chorus with a big-haired band member mouthing Prince’s voice on the chorus of “A Love Bizarre.” In the meantime, Russell (Blair Underwood) and Run are both watching Sheila. She ends the performance with plucking a chord or two and walks offstage to confront her manager about getting her better gigs. Sheila E. asserting herself here is one of several scenes where she speaks her mind and acts with agency on her own behalf. Of course, a snippet of the Force MDs’ song “Tender Love” foreshadows the romantic interest between Russell and Sheila E. But Sheila E. represents a woman’s creative musical power in an early hip hop film dominated by male artists.

Sheila E. practices what becomes the song “Holly Rock” later in the film. While Run and Darryl sit on the couch, Sheila stops playing to tell Run to rehearse and stop ordering shell toe Adidas. She is not one of the background vocalists on either side of Kurtis Blow when he raps “If I Ruled the World” at a scene in a club. When Sheila E. joins Blow and Run–D.M.C. onstage at The Beverly, their wardrobe takes cues from Prince’s Edwardian style suits, but the more significant element is how Sheila E. occupies the entire stage. She plays timbales, throws her drumsticks in the air and catches them, sings while prancing from one end of the stage to the other, and works the microphone while effortlessly singing and rapping.

When Run and Darryl leave Krush Groove Records, Russell looks to sign Sheila E. as part of his last ditch efforts to pay back a loan shark. Later, after Sheila and Russell fall for each other, Sheila slaps Run for cursing and bashing her for having sex with Russell. She insists on going to help Russell when the loan shark sends bodyguards to the Krush Groove office/college dorm room. Sheila E.’s reprimand convinces Run to help defend his brother. In the closing scene at Disco Fever, The Fat Boys, Run–D.M.C., Kurtis Blow, all line the stage and kick a verse. Sheila rhymes on par with any of her counterparts, and it becomes evident that her rapping becomes a recurring skill in later songs like Prince’s “Beautiful Night.”

Sheila E.’s prowess with words is only part of what makes her role distinct in this film. She stands out because she is a skillful musician who mastered various instruments and she is not necessarily a rapper in a film dominated by the then successful Run–D.M.C., a teenage LL Cool J, pop sensation New Edition, the Beastie Boys, two members of the R & B group Full Force playing bodyguards, and the future Uptown Records founder and eventual president and CEO of Motown Records Andre Harrell as half of the rap duo Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.

Sheila E. grew up surrounded by significant musicians: her percussionist father Pete Escovedo; her uncle singer and songwriter Alejandro Escovedo, her uncle The Dragons frontman Mario Escovedo, her uncle Javier Escovedo, who founded the Zeros; her uncle percussionist Coke Escovedo, who performed in Santana and started his own band; and her godfather Tito Puente, a legend of mambo and Latin jazz percussion, associated with Fania Records and movies like The Mambo Kings and Calle 54. As a child surrounded by these influential musicians, it is not surprising that she honed her talents and eventually told Prince what she was making on tours with her father and other musicians, to which he replied, “Okay, I can’t afford you.”

After starring in Krush Groove, Sheila E. recorded and released Romance 1600. In 1987, Sheila E. recorded a self-titled album on Paisley Park Records that included the U.S. singles “Hold Me” and “Koo Koo.” The video for “Koo Koo” featured dancer Cat Glover and both women later appeared in the live concert movie Sign o’ the Times as members of the band.

As we consider hip hop’s presence in U.S. films and documentaries spanning the globe, it is also reasonable to consider that Sheila E. has one of the biggest roles for a woman that was written in the spate of films that began portraying hip hop culture. In addition to this, she starred in a musical vehicle outside of Prince’s poetic universe. Sheila E. was not in Purple Rain with singers/actresses Apollonia Kotero or Jill Jones, nor did she appear in Under the Cherry Moon (1986) where Kristin Scott-Thomas plays a wealthy romantic interest. Sheila did not require a hero like martial arts actor Taimak as Leroy Green opposite Laura Charles (portrayed by singer Vanity, Prince’s partner and collaborator) in The Last Dragon (1985) either.

Earlier hip hop films included the 1983 classic Wild Style with graffiti artist Lady Pink as Lee Quiñones’ love interest and Stan Lathan’s 1984 film Beat Street, which billed Rae Dawn Chong as its most well-known star. Chong’s character Tracy Carlson offers a television opportunity to DJ Kenny Kirkland, his breakdancing brother Lee, and the graffiti writer Ramon, but she is not necessarily the main character driving the plot of the film. Lucinda Dickey, a former Solid Gold dancer who was one of the main characters in Breakin’ (1984) and she reprises her role as Kelly/Special K in Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo (1984). But her role as a classically trained dancer who went to learn from Ozone (Adolfo “Shabba-Doo” Quiñones) and Turbo (Michael “Boogaloo Shrimp” Chambers), both stigmatized as “street dancers,” offers a subtle critique against classist snobbery while still excluding women of color, even after Jennifer Beal’s stunning audition scene in the 1983 Flashdance where none other than Rock Steady Crew’s Crazy Legs acted as Beals’ breakdancing stunt double (in addition to stunt doubles dancer Marine Jahan and gymnast Sharon Shapiro).

Although Sheila E.’s notoriety skyrocketed during the 1980s, she continued in the subsequent decades to open musical doors as a musician. She was a bandleader on “The Arsenio Hall Show” and Magic Johnson’s short-lived “The Magic Show.” She released four albums after the 1987 release Sheila E. This Afro-Latinx percussionist continues to tour, perform at festivals, and share billing with notable musicians in various genres. Krush Groove was one place that showcased her talents just outside Prince’s umbrella. In 2014, she published a memoir The Beat of My Own Drum. Lately, she has been speaking with Prince’s surviving band members and coordinating events. Sheila E. also appeared in the BET tribute to Prince, along with The Roots, Bilal, Erykah Badu, Jennifer Hudson, Stevie Wonder, and Janelle Monae. Sheila E. led the electric finale with dancer and choreographer Mayte Garcia (and Prince’s ex-wife) and Jerome Benton dancing with a full crew of dancers and musicians. Sheila E. continues to captivate, entertain, and inspire audiences.

How ‘Big Business’ Made Big Business Thanks to Two Women Big in the Business

Yet what sets this 80s flick apart from most films of that era is the fact that the four protagonists are all women AND completely independent. … Ultimately, it is Midler and Tomlin who save the film from being just another forgotten comedy of the 1980s. The two stars bring a certain gravitas to the screen — a perfect combination of comedic timing and contagious chemistry…

This guest post written by Kyle Sanders appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s.

When you combine the talents of Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin, you wind up with three Academy Award nominations, four Grammy awards, three Tony awards, and ten Emmy awards — not too shabby for two women in show business. Both have shined so brightly in their respective fields, that it was only a matter of time before the two starred together in a film, which ultimately became 1988’s Big Business. Loosely based on Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper and William Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors, the film stars Midler and Tomlin as two sets of twins mismatched at birth, who eventually reunite over the fate of a small town. The film was a modest box office success at the time, but decades later, their comedic chemistry still remains intact, and stands as a testament to successful female-driven comedies.

Big Business begins with the coincidental timing of two births: one from a wealthy couple traveling through Jupiter Hollow (an Appalachian town in West Virginia) and the other from a family of impoverished locals. Both women give birth to identical twin girls. In a hilarious mishap, both sets of twins get mixed up thanks to the confused nurse. Nearly forty years later, wealthy “twins” Sadie (Midler) and Rose (Tomlin) Shelton are co-chairwomen of Moremax — the successor to their father’s business located in New York City — and ultimately want to sell Hollowmade, a furniture factory located in the very town where they were born. Naturally, there is some resistance from Jupiter Hollow’s townsfolk, led by the factory’s forewoman, Rose Ratliff (Tomlin, again), who plans to travel to New York and protest with her “twin sister” Sadie (Midler, again) to “raise some heck” and “kick some snooty New York ass.” As luck would have it, both sets of twins end up staying at the Plaza Hotel, causing much comical confusion and physical hijinks amongst the women’s suitors and hotel employees. It’s not until the end of the film that all four women become acquainted, recognizing their familial bond and end up saving the rural town from being completely strip mined.

This film came out in the summer of 1988, so of course, there are some choice fashionable references of the era — shoulder pads, stark white Reebok sneakers, polka dots — but also gnarly pop cultural references of the 80s as well. Sadie Ratliff is mesmerized by an episode of Dynasty, a Times Square marquee features Disorderlies and Monster Squad (both films from 1987), and a totally bogus movie ending features Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” playing over the credits (hey, it was the 80s!). Yet what sets this 80s flick apart from most films of that era is the fact that the four protagonists are all women AND completely independent.

Sure, it’s clear that Midler’s Sadie Shelton had once married and had a child, but has chosen business over family, maintaining heavy control over her father’s corporation instead of devoting attention on her out of control son (played by a young Seth Green). Although Tomlin’s Rose Ratliff has a boyfriend who expects her to cheer him on at his miniature golf tournament (tubular!), she chooses to save her town’s way of life over standing at her man’s side. These women are ambitious and too focused on their professional futures to be restrained by traditional standards. The film makes it clear that these women are forces to be reckoned with.

Let us not forget the other sisters either. Rose Shelton may not be as hard edged or ruthless as her sister Sadie, but she too remains independent. She feels out of place in the corporate world, struggling to maintain even a flimsy shoulder pad slipping down her sleeve (a metaphorical rejection of the big business lifestyle, perhaps?). She’d rather exchange it all for a simpler existence involving “a goat and some ducks.” Meanwhile, Sadie Ratliff feels stuck in the sticks and dreams of a totally glamorous, upscale lifestyle. As she reenacts a scene from Dynasty (involving bitchin’ iconic businesswoman Alexis Carrington, no less), it’s clear how much she’s yearned for a dazzling position in power, of which her rural upbringing has very few resources to offer.

These diverse options provide a radically different perspective of living compared to the mothers that birthed them in the 1940s: Mrs. Shelton’s pregnancy was more of a negotiation in exchange for an extended wardrobe and jewelry, while Mrs. Ratliff’s pregnancy seems to be business as usual, commenting on what’s changed in the delivery room since “the last time” she was there. In a way, the film specifically opens during that time to suggest how women have evolved in the “modern era” of the late 80s.

And who better to portray the modern woman? The four varied, fully dimensional characters in Big Business could only be compellingly and hilariously portrayed by Midler and Tomlin. Between Midler’s big-eyed glares and Tomlin’s dizzying hysterics, both actresses’ comedic physicality provide specific mannerisms to each version of Sadie and Rose that when all four do share the same screen (thanks to some bogusly dated 80s special effects), it’s easy to distinguish these characters.

As different as each woman is, they all share one thing in common: respect amongst their peers. The Shelton sisters are president and senior vice president of Moremax, surrounded by men who await their professional decisions. While Rose is the “wispy” sister, Sadie holds court at Moremax. Sadie’s grand introduction (in a setup that clearly inspired Miranda Priestly’s entrance in The Devil Wears Prada) has her entire staff racing around the office to prepare for her appearance, and within seconds upon arriving she’s already ripping into her employees, be it with their choice of attire or failure of completing tasks. Her cold composure and piercing stare are intimidating; she is never intimidated or buckles to corporate pressure. It’s surprising then that not once throughout the entire film is she ever referred to as the proverbial “bitch.” Sadie is one bodacious businesswoman, and no man ever undermines her decisions.

The Ratliff sisters also are shown a great amount of respect. The entire community calls upon them to save their town from getting strip mined, which is surprising considering how rural culture is often depicted as placing women either in the kitchen or in the nursery — like their mother 40 years prior. Once Rose and Sadie Ratliff arrive in New York, completely out of their comfort zone, they quickly adapt to their surroundings. Through a string of cheesy 80s montages, Rose infiltrates the ins and outs of the Plaza Hotel, spreading word of Moremax’s devious intentions with Jupiter Hollow through various disguises (“Guten morgan!”), while Sadie explores the city, learning how to (aggressively) hail a taxi cab. The Ratliff women might be from a small town but they are not small minded.

For a film centered on strong-willed women, the weakest part of the plot comes from their interactions with men. Sadie Shelton’s ex-husband is judgmental of his wife’s monetary bribes to their spoiled son, yet instantly falls back in love with her once (unbeknownst to him) Sadie Ratliff does some quick-thinking discipline inside the toy store FAO Schwarz (??). Rose Shelton’s spineless boyfriend won’t propose marriage because he’s scared of her sister, but Rose Ratliff rebuffs his advances later on and somehow inspires him to buy a ring (??). I don’t buy it. As palpable as Sadie Shelton’s sexual power plays with Fabio Alberici (the man who plans to buy out Jupiter Hollow from Moremax) are, the deal ultimately falls through, and seems to have no consequences on their romantic chemistry. The only relationship that seems to have enough substance to continue on occurs between Rose Shelton and Roone, Rose Ratliff’s boyfriend. He sets out to New York in a quest to rescue Rose Ratliff, but instead ends up saving Rose Shelton from a life she’d rather not live. He senses the insufferableness of her situation, which in turn helps her discover her true nature, allowing her to focus and feel comfortable about herself for the first time in her life. Sure, it plays out like a grody Damsel in Distress scenario, but it ultimately makes Rose a fully realized individual by the end of the film, and it’s because of her solid plea to the stockholders to not sell out Jupiter Hollow that eventually saves the day.

Ultimately, it is Midler and Tomlin who save the film from being just another forgotten comedy of the 1980s. The two stars bring a certain gravitas to the screen — a perfect combination of comedic timing and contagious chemistry in scenes that might otherwise fall flat in the hands of other capable actresses. The material provided from the script (co-written by Dori Pierson, who unfortunately never penned another screenplay after this one), isn’t entirely fresh, yet Midler’s and Tomlin’s performances keep the comedy from going stale.

These women are no strangers to the medium, as Midler got her start gaining a following in a gay bathhouse, thanks to her vibrant showmanship and bawdy humor. Tomlin, on the other hand, is considered a female pioneer of standup, who in the 1960s presented cerebral character sketches instead of self-deprecating jokes about marriage and motherhood. Both women proved their star power throughout the 1980s, in previous female-driven comedies such as 9 to 5 (1980) and Outrageous Fortune (1987). Thanks to them, Big Business earned a solid box office return, ranking in the top 30 highest-grossing films of 1988. Their solid comedic teamwork — much like the combined efforts of all four Shelton and Ratliff sisters — saves the film from being a run-of-the-mill, haphazard case of switched identities, into a film that shows how the ladies of the 1980s are able to run businesses and conserve communities at the same time — even if it means kicking some snooty New York ass!

Kyle Sanders lives in Chicago, where he studies improv at iO whenever he can afford it. He has previously written for Bitch Flicks, as well as NewsCastic: Chicago and GIGA: Geek Magazine.

‘Pretty in Pink’: The Only Team to Be on Is Team Andie

I fixated on the Team Duckie vs. Team Blane aspect of the film so much that I entirely missed the point. I was so Team Duckie that I blamed Andie for not choosing him. …I realized I had fallen into a trap that society has conditioned us to fall into: the dreaded sexist “friend zone.”

This guest post written by Isabella Garcia appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s.

I first saw Pretty in Pink in middle school. Seated next to my mother, who was working through her list of favorite 80s films to show me, I fell in love with it almost immediately. I saw in Andie (Molly Ringwald) what I wanted for myself. She was confident and outspoken in the ways I wasn’t; she didn’t care what people thought about her clothing and she rocked it. I wanted to be her so badly that I scoured swap meets for “vintage” clothing (and am still on the lookout for some of Duckie’s scuffed, white duck shoes). My closet consisted of blazers with large shoulder pads, lacy shirts, flower earrings, and one t-shirt that has a picture of Duckie (Jon Cryer) and reads, “I would have picked Duckie.” Oh yes, I was one of those.

I was Team Duckie through and through. I couldn’t even hide my disdain when my mom told me that her and her friends were Team Blane. Not only did I try to channel Andie in my everyday style, I also longed for a Duckie: a best friend who was hopelessly devoted to me, who would pine for me while listening to The Smiths’ “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want,” who would only want what’s best for me. And in the end, I would open my eyes and realize what I had been missing out on all along. When Andie saw Duckie at the prom and asked to admire him, in the same way he asks to do that with her, I would’ve chosen him right then and there. Blane who? I would’ve righted what I thought was Andie’s wrong when she chose Blane. I fixated on the Team Duckie vs. Team Blane aspect of the film so much that I entirely missed the point. I was so Team Duckie that I blamed Andie for not choosing him. I thought she was foolish for not loving him romantically. How could she be so clueless?!

It wasn’t until I grew up some more, graduated high school, and went through several re-watches that I realized I had fallen into a trap that society has conditioned us to fall into: the dreaded sexist “friend zone.” The general definition is when one of two friends seeks to turn their friendship with the other person into a romantic and/or sexual relationship, but the other person doesn’t want to. That person just wants to remain friends. And so, the first person is “stuck” in a friendship when they really want it to be a romantic relationship. The “friend zone” comes with very common side-effects that usually disparage women. If a man, in this case Duckie, falls in love with his friend, it’s up to her to return the favor and love him back. If she doesn’t or, heaven forbid, she likes someone else, she’s seen as being in the wrong and at fault. I, unfortunately, had this mentality as a young girl, which a lot of people still have: if your best friend likes you, you owe it to them to choose them over the person you actually have a crush on. It’s harmful for girls to grow up with this outlook because it further discourages them to act on their actual feelings. It makes girls scared of being accused of leading their friend on so they feel they have to reciprocate. Women and girls don’t owe anyone a relationship.

On one of my re-watches after I graduated high school, I noticed that my reaction to Andie not loving Duckie the way he loved her paralleled Steff’s (James Spader) reaction after he asked her out towards the beginning of the film. When he starts to notice the animosity Andie holds for him, he retaliates in anger. Not only is he leaning against her car door, forbidding her from escaping, but he begins to put her down. He doesn’t see what makes her so special from all the other girls that won’t go out with him, he calls her a “bitch,” and tells her to go to a doctor to get that condition checked out. Sure, I didn’t do all these things, but I definitely thought that Andie was wrong to not get with Duckie. I wanted her to open her eyes and just see him there. Steff and I shared the same disbelief when she didn’t show interest. If Duckie loved her so much then she should love him too, right?

It was wild to me that Andie didn’t like Duckie back, but after recently re-watching the film I don’t know why I ever blamed her. She stuck true to what she wanted. She didn’t feel guilted into pursuing a romantic relationship that she didn’t want with Duckie. She acted the way she did with him because they’re friends and that’s it. The way that Andie platonically acts with Duckie can be — which I did — misconstrued to be romantic. They’re touchy, they talk “20 times” a day, they care about the other’s feelings. All of these are friendly behaviors; Andie didn’t lead him on in any way.

If you still like Duckie and Andie together and you’re now feeling bad about it, don’t. There’s nothing inherently wrong with liking the idea of Duckie and Andie together. They are cute. He really cares about her and she for him. But what is wrong is to belittle Andie and her emotions and blame her for not loving him. You can’t help the happiness you feel when Duckie shows up at the prom for Andie. You can’t help but feel a sense of hope when they run to each other, hug, and reconcile by walking into prom together. But what you can help is how you react to her not “choosing” him.

Andie’s father, Jack (Harry Dean Stanton), puts it perfectly when Duckie first tells him that he loves her: “You can love Andie, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to love you back. I mean, it doesn’t mean that she won’t, but what I’m trying to say is you can’t make it happen, you know? It either will or it won’t. It’s all in the heart.” Andie stayed true to her heart. Although she could’ve gotten with Duckie, she defied expectations and didn’t. She didn’t waver. She was strong. Now that I watch it, I can see the appeal of both Blane and Duckie, but I can’t choose a side anymore. The only team I’m on is Team Andie.

Isabella Garcia is a California-based aspiring TV writer who can be found crying over movies, books, and TV on her Twitter @isabellagrca, PopInsomniacs and It’s Just About Write.

‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High’: The Confidence and Wisdom of Linda Barrett

Phoebe Cates brings life to the energetic, worldly, confident-yet-vulnerable Linda. Her character is the heart and soul of the movie, as she gives Stacy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) advice on sex, relationships, and navigating her way through high school. … The film never takes a judgmental attitude towards these young women, their sexual activities, and their frank discussions of sex.

This guest post written by Angela Morrison appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s.

The only thing people seem to remember about Amy Heckerling’s 1982 film, Fast Times at Ridgemont High is Phoebe Cates emerging from a swimming pool in her red bikini, removing her top as she tells Brad (Judge Reinhold) how cute she always thought he was, The Cars’ “Moving in Stereo” playing on the soundtrack. First of all, this is ridiculous because the entire movie is memorable, and there are much better scenes than Brad’s masturbation fantasy. Secondly, it is completely unfair to reduce Phoebe Cates’ character to a mere sex object, existing only for male viewers’ pleasure.

Phoebe Cates brings life to the energetic, worldly, confident-yet-vulnerable Linda. Her character is the heart and soul of the movie, as she gives Stacy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) advice on sex, relationships, and navigating her way through high school. Linda is a few years older than Stacy, so she takes on the role of mentor, passing on her knowledge about the world to her younger friend. She is also Stacy’s number one supporter when her heart gets broken by both Ron Johnson (D.W. Brown) and Mike Damone (Robert Romanus).

One of the most striking things about this film is the casual way that Linda and Stacy discuss sex. Linda often expresses surprise at 14-year-old Stacy’s sexual inexperience, and she quickly reassures Stacy that “it’s just sex.” Linda’s attitude toward sex – which she passes on to Stacy – is that it needn’t be a big deal, but rather, should be seen as a fun and pleasurable activity for young women such as themselves. Part of the fun for Linda is deciding who she wants to have sex with – she assures Stacy that if she was not in a relationship with an older boy named Doug, she would go after Ron Johnson herself. She urges Stacy to make her own decisions, letting her know that she has the power to decide who she wants to have sex with, and when. The film never takes a judgmental attitude towards these young women, their sexual activities, and their frank discussions of sex.

Stacy takes Linda’s advice and has sex (for the first time ever!) with Ron Johnson. For some people, having sex for the first time is a big deal, an important event in their lives. However, Linda lets Stacy know that it is okay for it to not be a big deal, for it to just be a pleasurable part of going on a date – it does not mean she has to get married, and she does need to be in love with her sexual partner. Having sex with Ron Johnson is a positive experience for Stacy, although she ends up feeling rejected when he does not call her for another date. Linda is right by Stacy’s side as always, supporting her and telling her that she can do better than a 26-year-old stereo salesman. Linda lets Stacy know she is loved and supported, and that she need not worry about Ron Johnson disappearing from her life. This film portrays women supporting women, and the power of female friendship.

Most 1980s teen movies feature female characters who are insecure for any number of reasons – films such as Pretty in Pink and The Breakfast Club portray characters who are unsure of themselves and the world they are growing up in. While these films are realistic in their portrayals of the pain that comes with being a teenage girl, Fast Times at Ridgemont High gives us a character such as Linda, who exudes confidence in everything she does. She gives Stacy expert advice on how to give a blowjob, she lounges by the swimming pool and tells Stacy she and Doug always climax simultaneously, and she moves through the school hallways and her job at Perry’s Pizza as though she always knows what she is doing. When Damone does not show up to drive Stacy to the abortion clinic, Linda does not hesitate to call him out publicly, and humiliate him by telling the school he is – and has – a “little prick.”

Of course, Linda is a more complex character than simply being “confident.” She has a vulnerable side, which is evident at many points during the film. Stacy points out discrepancies between Linda’s claims about Doug – that he lasts 30-40 minutes in bed, rather than 20-30, as she previously said. After she tells Stacy that she and Doug always climax at the same time, she follows up with “I think…” And at the end of the movie, when Doug does not show up to her graduation, she is seen crying in the bathroom, reading an angry letter to Doug out loud. She confesses that she wrote two versions of the letter, one in which she calls Doug an “asshole.” Stacy assures Linda that the first version is more “mature” – Stacy knows that Linda only wants to portray herself as mature and self-assured, and she is there for her friend in her time of need, as Linda was for her. Just like everyone else, there are times when Linda is also unsure of herself – but she does not let that stop her from dancing elatedly at the prom, and going on to have a relationship with her abnormal psych professor in college, as the epilogue informs us.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High remains one of the most honest, smart, and funny teen comedies of the 1980s. The frank portrayal of female sexuality sets this film apart from many of the other “classics” of the teen movie genre. The film ends with Stacy deciding that she’d rather have romance than sex – she decides that anyone can have sex, but she wants to find someone she can connect with on every level. Linda of course has one final gem of wisdom to impart on Stacy: “You want romance? In Ridgemont? We can’t even get cable TV here, Stacy, and you want romance!”

If only we all had a Linda to guide us through our lives.

Angela Morrison is a recent graduate of the University of Toronto Cinema Studies program. She loves classical Hollywood, French cinema, John Waters, and feminist film theory. She hopes to one day be a Cinema Studies professor, one who will not teach movies made solely by boring straight white males. She writes about cinema on her blog Les Demoiselles du Cinema.

‘Crossing Delancey’: Isabelle Needs a New Perspective on Life and Love

This romantic comedy has always been more of a cult classic. But it was unusual in its female writer and director, along with its distinctly Jewish cultural setting, its generational custom-clash regarding matchmaking, and its conflicted independent protagonist, Isabelle, who could be read as a late 1980s precursor to ‘Sex and the City’s protagonist Carrie Bradshaw.

This guest post written by Susan Cosby Ronnenberg appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s. | Spoilers ahead.

Crossing Delancey (1988) is a romantic comedy featuring Amy Irving, directed by Joan Micklin Silver and written by Susan Sandler, based on her original play of the same title. The tagline was, “A funny movie about getting serious.” This rom-com has always been more of a cult classic. But it was unusual in its female writer and director, along with its distinctly Jewish cultural setting, its generational custom-clash regarding matchmaking, and its conflicted independent protagonist, Isabelle, who could be read as a late 1980s precursor to Sex and the City’s protagonist Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker). An independent, straight single woman with a successful career, Isabelle has professional and romantic options, ambitions, and flawed preconceptions about the incompatibility of those options and ambitions as she tries to decide between an internationally acclaimed poet or a neighborhood. Yes, you read that correctly: poet or pickleman.

Isabelle “Izzy” Grossman (Amy Irving) is irritating and relatable at the same time. She’s an ambitious and successful publisher in Manhattan, where, as she insists to her grandmother, she organizes “the most prestigious reading series in New York City.” She sees herself as modern, forward-looking, cultured, and sophisticated. But she’s also self-centered, snobbish, dismissive, and deceitful. While she possesses many fine attributes, she’s flawed; I like both of those aspects of her that make her fully human. At 33, with one of her peers becoming a new mother, Izzy looks around at her life, wondering about advancing her personal life as she has her professional one. This is a common theme among 1980s romantic comedies, such as Baby Boom (1987) with Diane Keaton and Working Girl (1988) with Melanie Griffith. One of her romantic prospects, a novelist, quotes Confucius to her at dinner one night, “Ripe plums are falling. Now there are only three. May a fine lover come for me”, adding reassuringly, “Lots of ripe plums left on your tree, Izzy.” He seems to recognize her distraction over the passage of time and still being single, which has become an issue with her grandmother.

Izzy has three men in her life: Nick (John Bedford Lloyd), an old boyfriend/friend with benefits, now married, but who crashes at her place on a regular basis when he and his wife fight; Anton Maes (Jeroen Krabbe), a NYC-based Dutch critically acclaimed novelist, also married but separated, famous, creative, cosmopolitan, and intellectual; and Sam Posner (Peter Riegert), who lives and works on the Lower East Side near her grandmother’s home, the owner and operator of his father’s pickle shop on Delancey Street. Sam and Izzy meet through the pressure of her grandmother, “Bubbie” Kantor (Reizl Bozyk), and Mrs. Mandlebaum (Sylvia Miles), a traditional professional Jewish matchmaker.

To Izzy, to cross Delancey is to return to the past, “100 years” and “a million miles away” from her own life, to her grandmother’s world. She does so often and willingly, providing company and care for her beloved grandmother. But she has no interest in a man who has chosen to remain in that neighborhood, doing the same food sales work that his father did, and, she assumes, contracting a matchmaker to find a bride. It clearly seems archaic and a little desperate to her.

The setting takes place half in Manhattan — in Izzy’s apartment, her place of employment, and out socializing with friends — and half on the Lower East Side — in Bubbie’s vibrant and diverse neighborhood, historically a predominantly Jewish community. It’s clear that, in trying to leave the old world and its ways behind as she makes her way in the new, modern world, Izzy has made some arrogant and faulty assumptions that will require Bubbie’s willingness to interfere.

Passing the Bechdel test, Crossing Delancey features conversations between Isabelle and Bubbie about Bubbie’s health, the neighborhood, Izzy’s dreams and what they might mean, and Izzy’s parents. Izzy actively seeks to support her friend Rickie’s new role as a single parent with a sometimes supportive boyfriend. She also supports her publishing colleague Chinchilla Monk’s new public access show on the local performance art scene, which features a feminist performer.

Izzy attends a bris for the baby of a high school friend of hers, where the film shows us a group of four women in their thirties sustaining a friendship from their teenage years. Two are single, one is married, and one is a new mother with a boyfriend. One of the women refers to the bris as, “Our first baby!” We see the women friends together in varying pairs throughout the film. This group resembles Sex & the City’s foursome of Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda, minus the multi-thousand dollar stylish and sexy wardrobe. Marilyn, in particular, reminds me of Elaine Benes from Seinfeld, which debuted a year after this film came out.

The film’s costuming is refreshing given the frequent sexualization of women in film through wardrobe today in most mainstream movies. The late 1980s is the era of the three-quarter or tea-length casual dress, with both dresses and shirts buttoned to the top, but without appearing constricting. Izzy’s clothes are appropriate for her varied activities: jogging, working at the bookstore, spending time with her grandmother, going on a date. What struck me most was that she looked nice and comfortable and her shoes were practical; she was dressed as many women in real life dress. There were no extra tight outfits, short-short skirts, stiletto heels, or plunging cleavage — at her place of employment or anywhere else. She was obviously meant to be doing things, not just to be the object of the Male Gaze: on display but not functional.

Crossing Delancey and Sex and the City share parallels as both Izzy and Carrie Bradshaw are thirty-something straight white women with successful careers and a support network of female friends. Both long for romance, question the idea of meeting someone who meets their requirements for a boyfriend, much less a husband, and both make selfish and deceitful decisions.

Izzy decides she doesn’t have chemistry with Sam but she likes him, so she attempts to set him up with her high school friend Marilyn, who recently complained that on a given first date she has “forty-five minutes to make this guy think I’m great, when I’d rather be home in my pajamas watching baseball.” But Izzy doesn’t tell Sam that she’s setting him up. Instead, she offers an apology for some of the things she said to him earlier and invites him to have dinner. She plans with Marilyn to “run into her” at the end of dinner, then leave her with Sam. Only the more Izzy talks to Sam, the more she likes him, and the longer she delays the introduction until Marilyn calls her on it and introduces herself. Sam feels used, but blames Izzy, not Marilyn, demanding “What’s there to be sorry about? She’s funny, direct, honest,” with the clear implication that Izzy is lacking in the latter two areas in particular. Afterward, Izzy pines after Sam with her other friends and her grandmother, until Bubbie brings Sam back into contact with Izzy.

Despite things finally seeming to click with Sam, Izzy allows Anton to persuade her to stay late after work to read part of his new novel. He flatters her and, knowing she has a date with Sam, encourages her to make him wait. Foolishly, she does, despite having spent time and money purchasing a new dress for the date and being eager to see Sam. Izzy realizes belatedly her error, in thinking that the mysterious and suave Anton wants a romantic and professional relationship with her when he’s looking for a part-time assistant and a convenient casual sex partner. Astonishingly, Sam has waited for her. He’s a man with the patience of a saint, but he’s not a doormat. In some ways this is a gender-reversed romantic comedy. It’s Izzy who races frantically across town, having come to the belated conclusion that she has been grossly overlooking, underestimating, and underappreciating who Sam is and what he has to offer.

The film presents us with three vivid visual images of groups of women in the city: at the senior center the women’s defense workshop that Bubbie participates in as Izzy watches in amusement; the after-work crowd in the deli/grocery, which includes Izzy, selecting dinner for one to-go from the salad bar; and the long line of pregnant women who file past Izzy and Sam in the entrance to her apartment building. These seem to suggest possible futures for Izzy: older, alone, and in need of self-defense; a solo continuation of her life as it is, focused mostly on work, eating deli take-out at the end of a long day; or preparing to become a mother when paired with Sam.

To choose one is to leave one unknown. Izzy doesn’t want to choose wrongly, or perhaps Izzy simply doesn’t want to choose at all. She’s mistaken in her arrogant and condescending assumptions about Sam, though, when she believes him to be not well read, inarticulate, and not cultured. When she mentions feeling ambivalent and then offers a definition, he interrupts to say that he knows what the word means. He adds, angrily, “You think my world is so small, so provincial? You think it defines me?” His defense of himself moves her as much as learning that he was interested in her because he had seen her around the neighborhood with her grandmother long before Mrs. Mandlebaum showed up with a picture of her (given by Bubbie) to peddle to him. He’s not trapped in the past as Izzy believed.

Although Sam suggests that Izzy needs a new perspective (i.e. a new hat), the Harry Shipman story doesn’t make that point clearly. In the story, Shipman’s new hat allowed the girl he had his heart set on to see his eyes for the first time. She couldn’t see his face for his original hat. But it isn’t Izzy who needs a new hat to be viewed differently. Instead, she needs a more realistic view of him, rather than her preconceived and uncompromising one as she’s frustratingly obtuse when it comes to Sam. She’s selfish in her decisions to keep juggling all three of men and she’s ultimately dismissive of her friend Marilyn after setting her up with Sam.

In some ways this is a film about narrative, including the stories we tell ourselves. We’re given multiple smaller narratives within the main narrative. The excerpt from his novel that Anton reads to the bookstore audience; Sam tells Izzy the Harry Shipman-hat story; Mrs. Mandlebaum peddles other peoples’ stories, poet Pauline Swift’s only referenced story of her, the four men, and a cabbage; Sam’s story of how Izzy came to his attention; the story of Sam’s father, who did a Milton Berle impression in drag, recalled by Nick to Sam and Izzy; and Bubbie’s story of meeting her husband, which she tells Sam. Izzy’s description of Anton’s fiction also describes her story in this film: “Deceptive accessibility. Reads like pulp fiction, but then you hear music.” Some lines are so lyrical they sound like poetry. Some are poetry. And they don’t all belong to the novelist.

The film ends refreshingly only with the promise of a continued dating relationship between Izzy and Sam, no grand declarations, promises, sex, or vows. Sam’s question to himself, to her, “How do I talk to Isabelle?” is an invitation, an openness to collaborate, to teach one another how to better communicate. Although Bubbie seems assured that a wedding will be taking place for them in the future, neither of them takes it that far. They like each other, they’ve admitted that, kissed, and agreed to see one another again. And for this charming romantic comedy, that’s more than enough.

Susan Cosby Ronnenberg is a transplanted Southerner in the upper Midwest, where she has been an English professor for 16 years, specializing in the English Renaissance and Early Modern Women Writers. Currently working on a book through McFarland on Shakespeare and the HBO western series Deadwood. Email: sgcosronn@gmail.com Twitter: @Ouachita9 Blog: Caustic Ginger.

‘She’s Gotta Have It’: The Audacity of Sex and the Black Women Who Have It

I appreciate this film now because it centers on a Black woman who unabashedly is exploring and thoroughly enjoying her sexuality. By doing this, Spike Lee took long held beliefs and perceptions of Black women and pushed back on the constrictions and perceptions of society.

This guest re-post written by Reginée Ceaser appears as part of our theme week on Ladies of the 1980s.

When I was not quite a teenager, I watched Spike Lee’s movie entitled She’s Gotta Have It. I watched and enjoyed the characters’ monologues and the way Spike Lee’s character, Mars, repeated questions during conversation. I knew it was about a young woman who had three boyfriends but did not understand much else, let alone its importance in the framing of the sexuality of Black women. Released in 1986, She’s Gotta Have It chronicled Nola Darling balancing a relationship with three different men at the same. The three men know about each other and constantly vie for Nola’s attention and affections in hopes of being the one she chooses to have a monogamous relationship with.

An issue brought up in the film between the men is maybe Nola is being a “freak” because she’s lacking something emotionally (like daddy issues). The remedy to attempt this “freak” behavior is make Nola go to therapy to work out her issues. Her therapist, a Black woman, feels that Nola does not have the deep emotional issues originally perceived, and is enjoying her healthy sex drive. Satisfied that she’s had enough therapy, Nola continues her relationships with her suitors. Looking back on the film today, I appreciate this film now because it centers on a Black woman who unabashedly is exploring and thoroughly enjoying her sexuality. By doing this, Spike Lee took long held beliefs and perceptions of Black women and pushed back on the constrictions and perceptions of society. Films like She’s Gotta Have It come out few and far between due to the “sensitive” context.

Preconceived notions of Black women in society have permeated into the fabrics of the stories of Black women in film and television creating flat, one-dimensional characters that are forced to speak to the humanity and womanhood of all Black women. Black women characters have been defined for decades by barely developed characters to serve their “larger than life” trope. For instance, there is the angry Black woman, the sassy Black woman, the fat and sassy Black woman, as well as the fat Black woman with low self-esteem, and the fat Black woman that desperately wants the love of a man but in the end is humiliated by him. There is also the frigid Black woman or the hypersexual Black woman. Lastly, and an all-time favorite, the Black woman that must choose between having a career or having a man (read: a dependable, steady sex life) to be fulfilled.

Many stories regarding Black womanhood are deeply rooted in sex and the respectability of sexual behavior projected upon them. Black women are often forced to live in a very tiny box with huge expectations of them and anything less than is being a renegade and a menace to society. We are supposed to be high achievers, while wearing our skirts to our ankles and necklines to our chins. Sex before marriage is frowned upon, having sex outside of a serious relationship can garner side-eyes and distance from friends, and having the audacity to freely explore sexuality outside of the norms of committed relationships and marriage is a disownable offense. There is no gray area allowed, no progression of full womanhood to be pursued and any open, honest conversation about sex and sexuality of Black women is relegated to girls’ night with friends.

Fast forward to 2013, and Mara Brock Akil debuts a new scripted drama, Being Mary Jane, centering on a Black journalist named Mary Jane, portrayed by Gabrielle Union. I fell in love with Being Mary Jane when Mary Jane sat her in office and masturbated with the help of a mini vibrator before going on a date. Another aspect that I loved about the scene is that Mary Jane didn’t immediately turn to porn to aid in her arousal; she had a computer and a smartphone and yet depended on herself and the vibrator. It is a choice that audaciously and efficiently wrestled down and shattered the myth that only way Black women achieve sexual pleasure is through men. It was gratifying to watch a long-held belief of Black women being scared, frigid and afraid to touch themselves and love themselves sexually evaporate on prime-time television.

Mara also crafted a nuanced woman that balanced a progressing career, taking care of family, evaluating and redefining friendships and of course, navigating an intricate and messy personal life. With Mary Jane’s intricate and messy personal life, Mara takes another bold opportunity to rebuff sexual respectability and cement agency and consent by introducing Mary Jane’s friend with benefits.

Friends with benefits is a subject that is frequently discussed but is tap danced around to avoid being labeled as promiscuous and “loose.” Also hinging on that fear is the thought of losing control of the ability to just have sex with no other emotional attachment. Mary Jane’s friend with benefits, or Cutty Buddy as he is affectionately known by fans, is paramount because he represents more than just surface level sex. He’s a beautiful, muscular, handsome man with a voice that sounds like hot butter on a fresh oven biscuit. He respects her and even cares for her but is fully aware of their agreement, makes no illusions about it, and is committed to upholding it. There is a mutual understanding and reciprocation of attraction that is delightful to see play out. That reciprocation is exciting to see, because too often we see or read about men who have casual sex or play the role of friend with benefits and then immediately degrade and shun them for engaging in sex outside of societal norms of a relationship. For example, in She’s Gotta Have It, Nola Darling did choose a man to have a monogamous relationship with and he in turn verbally attacks her and sexually assaults her for making him feel used. It is the ultimate act of “punishment” that is unfortunately used when sex isn’t played by the rules.

Navigating womanhood is not a straight shot; it’s not perfect but the chance to develop and nurture it on one’s own terms is a perfect realization in the feminist school of thought. Being Mary Jane provides the dialogue and the safety net in saying out loud ,”I see you, I’ve been there too and you are not alone.” The embracing of positive sexuality of Black women on television is not progressive feminism. It is the hope that future depictions of such will not be labeled progressive, but just as common as the stereotypes that have lingered for too long.

Reginée Ceaser is a New Orleans native who is a rockstar in her daydreams, retired daytime soap opera viewer, and proud television binger. Reginée can also be found giving dazzling commentary on Twitter @Skiperella and on her blog, Skiperella.com