Crime and Criminals – Bitch Flicks

‘The Bling Ring’: American Emptiness

Cast of The Bling Ring

This is a guest review by Marcia Herring.

In discussions of Sofia Coppola, nepotism is a long-covered topic. Regardless of early exposure in her acting career, I have no doubt that Coppola has ultimately benefited from the privilege of being surrounded by famous company. Without Francis Ford or Roman or Jason Schwartzman or Kirsten Dunst or Nicolas Cage would we be discussing a film written and directed by Sofia Coppola? Possibly–she is quite talented–however, while discussing that talent, we cannot ignore the methods by which that talent is displayed to us.

The Bling Ring, Coppola’s fifth film, follows the story of a group of Hollywood teens, spoiled and bored, who commit a series of celebrity robberies. The piece credited for inspiring the film is “The Suspects Wore Louboutins” by Nancy Jo Sales (now expanded into a full truth-based novel bearing the same title as the film. We dive into the brightly-lit suburbs on the tails of Marc (Israel Brussard, Flipped), the awkward new kid in town. Of course, his dad is in “the biz,” so he’s no stranger to the celebrity-saturated culture in which he now finds himself. Marc attends the area’s remedial school–he’s been held back because of missing classes–and while the students may be having difficulty succeeding at traditional subjects like math, they appear to do really well in subjects like underage drinking, parties, fashion, and clueless parents.

Katie Chang as Rebecca in The Bling Ring

Marc soon befriends aloof Rebecca (newcomer Katie Chang), and while the initial basis for their alliance seems to be rooted in traditionally queer-eye-for-the-straight-girl territory, the bond that develops goes deeper. At one point, Marc explains that his love for Rebecca is like a sister. One day, seemingly bored with their usual activities, Rebecca suggests that she and Marc commit a bit of robbery. The film lacks any but the barest suggestion of motive. Characters suggest that Rebecca is “obsessed” with these celebrities, that she wants to be them. What causes her to cross the line from coveting to claiming? Is it the hint of an unhappy home life, the incongruous image of the self compared to glossy magazines, the culture where becoming a celebrity is the highest honor (and a fully achievable one, given enough money, timing, and good clothes)?

Once the initial success wears off, and despite Marc’s jitters and (fully appropriate!) wariness at committing crimes, Rebecca is eager to try again, and to expand their crew. The rest of the “Bling Ring” is rounded out with Chloe (Claire Julien, another newcomer to film), Nicki (Emma Watson), and her adopted sister Sam (Taissa Farmiga, American Horror Story). Again, we don’t get much in the way of personality aside from Sam really liking leopard print, for example. The action quickly escalates, but in the slow, pondering way that only an indie film can truly manage. The group robs more celebs (Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Orlando Bloom); they party in stolen clothes, spend stolen money, and snort stolen coke. They brag to friends. They post on Facebook. They get cocky, and not even security camera footage and a news story can deter them.

Emma Watson as Nicki in The Bling Ring

Of course, things come to an end. What had been an entertaining thrill ride dwindles out in courtroom sessions and talking heads. Whatever message Coppola seemed to strive for gets lost by the ending credits. After the film ended, I heard the girl seated in front of me ask her friend if the group was still in jail (sorry, is that a spoiler?). “I’m going to google Nicki,” she added, whipping out her phone. Perhaps that is the real question–how do we critique celebrity without adding to it; how do we ask questions in a way that might promote actual changes in attitude and behavior? These are questions, I think, that Coppola doesn’t have the answer to. There lies the conundrum: by telling this story, Coppola plays into the fame of the original “Bling Ring,” plays into our culture of voyeurism–not only do we want to watch celebrities, but we want to watch them get robbed. We want to sneak inside of their houses, watch their trials, and google them after watching fictionalized accounts of their lives. Of course, by telling this story, we also witness the factors that led to it.

Is it great to see a film written and directed by a woman, marketed as starring a woman, and led by a mostly-female cast do well in theaters? Abso-fucking-lutely. But no matter the highlights of The Bling Ring–the critique of excessive wealth, “sad white girl” culture, and the nature of celebrity–I cannot forget that Coppola is thriving off the very things she critiques.

Ladies of The Bling Ring

Other than the name changes, the major difference between the cast of The Bling Ring and the original gang is whiteness. Katie Chang does a stand-up job as Rebecca, but it is now-grown Emma Watson (Harry Potter, The Perks of Being a Wallflower) who fills advertisements and trailers for the film. She is playing the kind of girl who many fantasize about: sexual, liberated, rich. Nearly the polar opposite of Hermione Granger. She’ll flash cleavage and take a turn on the stripper pole. She’ll sell tickets.

And sure, we’ll laugh at dim-witted Nicki when she declares that she wants to be famous and run a charity organization, or that this “situation” was given to her as an opportunity. We’ll laugh, and then we’ll hit google. Maybe we’ll even try to find out when Watson will be out of town so we can take an unauthorized tour of her place.

Marcia Herring is a writer from Missouri. She is still working on her graduate degree, has a day job in retail, and writes freelance for the Lesbrary. She spends most of her free time watching television and movies. She wrote an analysis of Degrassi, Teens and Rape Apologism, contributed a review of X-Men First Class, V/H/S, and reviewed Atonement, Imagine Me & You and The Yellow Wallpaper for Bitch Flicks.

"Would You Have Treated Her Differently If She Was a Man?": A Review of ‘Side Effects’

Movie poster for Side Effects

Written by Stephanie Rogers. Includes massive spoilers. Massive.

When I saw Side Effects about a month ago, I found myself eye-rolling my way through the entire second half of the film. I liked the first half, mostly because I like looking at Channing Tatum, but when he left the film, so did my desire to stay. As is almost always the case with me, if I spend too much time thinking about a movie, I usually decide that I 50% loved it and 50% hated it and could really go either way in my review of it. Since (I think) I mostly hated this one, allow me to illustrate those reasons first.

First, am I really supposed to take seriously an indictment of Big Pharma when Rolling Rock product placement shows up every five seconds? Honestly, if Jude Law had turned out to be a scheming Big Alcohol Lobbyist instead of a super likeable psychiatrist, I would’ve thought, “What a not-that-surprising twist!” I was just waiting for Jude Law to smile his Jude Law smile into the camera and say, “Why take Ablixa when you can numb your psychological pain with Rolling Rock!”

In addition to undercutting its attempt to take down the American Corporation Shitshow, the film manages to also undercut its initial critique of Rich White Dudes Ruining the Universe. How? The old-fashioned way: by throwing a couple of manipulative bitches in there to make Rich White Dudes sympathetic.

Oh no, Martin, what have you done?!

If you hate spoilers, for real stop reading now; I’m about to ruin EVERYTHING.

So, Rooney Mara plays Emily Taylor and fakes her suicidal depression so convincingly that I felt horrified when I realized the scam. I spent a significant part of that first half of the film identifying with Emily—her search for the right medications and dealing with their inevitable shitty side effects; her public crying jags, her complete lack of self-care, the desire to set up shop under the fucking covers forever—I mean, major depressive episodes are serious business. And her depression makes sense. Side Effects shows in flashbacks how her once Rich White Dude husband, Martin (Channing Tatum), ended up in prison for five years because of an insider trading scandal. The juxtaposition of their old life together—a giant mansion-esque home, expensive cars, 2000-dollar bottles of wine poured into diamond-coated glasses while Emily and Martin play doubles tennis in slow motion (not really)—makes their new tiny apartment and that whole scraping-by-for-cash thing that happens in the rest of Amurica look absolutely mortifying by comparison. I felt pretty bad for her.

SINGLE TEAR

But then Jude Law (Dr. Banks) rolls in to save the day! I seriously couldn’t get over the niceness of this dude. He first meets Emily when he’s the on-call doctor in the ER after she deliberately drives her car into a fucking parking garage wall. They talk for a minute, and he eventually agrees to see her again on an outpatient basis instead of sending her to a mental hospital for her suicide attempt. He then prescribes a few medications that unsuccessfully treat her “depression” before settling on a newly developed drug, Ablixa, which comes with an unmentioned sleepwalking side effect. (Hi, Ambien lawsuits!) Of course murder ensues because SIDE EFFECTS, and shit gets real.

I hated pretty much everything after this.

Rich White Dude being all sympathetic and nice

In general, I enjoy watching the (albeit rare) punishment of Rich White Dudes onscreen, especially given that this film takes place during one of the worst economic downturns in Amurican History, and I hope we can all agree that Rich White Dudes caused it and never suffered any actual real-life consequences. Unfortunately, Side Effects wants us to feel bad for these Rich White Dudes and successfully accomplishes that. Because these are the NICEST RICH WHITE DUDES EVAR. Like, Channing Tatum paid his dues. He went to prison and got out and spent the rest of his five minutes in the film apologizing incessantly for ruining his wife’s life. He took her to the doctor and tried to understand her depression and how best to care for her. By the time Emily pretended to sleepwalk a knife through his kidneys, I FUCKING LIKED HIM.

And poor Jude Law! Seriously, this bro made about zero questionable decisions in the first half of the film—other than being reasonably shitfaced on Rolling Rock during all his interactions—so he deserves about zero of the bad things that happen to him at the hands of Emily and her partner in crime (and previous psychiatrist) Dr. Victoria Siebert (Catherine Zeta-Jones). I mean, look at him:

Why are they doing this to Jude Law?!

SERIOUSLY WHY ARE THEY DOING THIS TO JUDE LAW?! Turns out, Dr. Siebert and Emily wanted to get White-Dude Rich themselves! And in order to make that happen, they bought a shitload of stock in the Ablixa competitor, then tanked the Ablixa stock by blaming it for causing murder and mayhem. SIDE EFFECTS. Or something along those lines—my stock situation consists of a 401K from a job I lost in 1999, and I just keep letting it sit there because I’m not an adult yet. They did somethin’ real bad with stocks & stuff, is what I’m sayin’.

So, to recap my recap, in the process of Getting Rich or Dying Trying, these two ladies—in addition to, you know, committing murder, doing some questionable stock market shit, perjuring themselves in court, making a mockery of actual mental illness, and mind-fucking every person they come in contact with—ruin poor Jude Law’s life for no reason. He prescribed the Ablixa, after all. Does it matter that when Emily first “complained” of sleepwalking side effects he immediately said STOP TAKING IT? Nope. Does it matter that he dropped everything to console Emily every time she needed his help, even when she showed up looking like a stalker during his lunch date with his girlfriend-wife? Nope. Does it matter that he remained a staunch ally on her behalf throughout her entire murder trial? Nope. His medical practice crumbles; he loses patients; and his girlfriend-wife leaves him. Now all we’ve got is Jude in his apartment with the Rolling Rock, you know? I’ve never seen a more sympathetic character onscreen.

Dr. Banks in the process of unraveling the tricky scheme

Luckily he’s a Nice Guy™ so he eventually unravels the tricky scheme and of course manages to outsmart the ladies, who, in addition to being total assholes also happen to be—wait for it—LOVERS. So much duh right now, right? Like, could this film have worked at all if Catherine Zeta-Jones and Rooney Mara didn’t have a hot make out scene for no reason? FUCK NO IT COULDN’T HAVE.

Emily seducing Dr. Seibert because … ?

Now, let me take a step back and talk about the one part I managed to not hate.

Once the Dr. Banks/Jude Law medical practice begins its downward spiral, one of his colleagues asks to speak with him. It’s a Rich White Dude, too! He and Dr. Banks and the audience have yet to figure out that this entire situation is a hilarious-suicidal-depression-not-really scheme. His colleague, concerned for how this Ablixa sleepwalking murder incident will impact him, looks at Dr. Banks and says, “Would you have treated her differently if she was a man?” Dr. Banks, appalled, refutes this and maintains his stance that he prescribed Ablixa only when other medications failed to effectively treat Emily’s depression. It’s convincing enough, but it got me wondering.

Catherine Zeta-Jones as The Evil Dr. Siebert

Is there any way in hell a man could’ve pulled this off the way Emily did? The success of this scheme relies mainly on one thing: believability. Dr. Banks needs to believe her. He needs to believe she’s suicidal. He needs to believe the medications he initially prescribed for her didn’t work. He needs to believe her depression is severe enough to warrant prescribing an experimental drug. Most importantly, he needs to believe Emily doesn’t require hospitalization while somehow also believing she isn’t a danger to others. Essentially, the success of this scheme relies on what is commonly referred to in feminism and in other intelligent –ism groups as Medical Sexism.

Dr. Banks knows what’s up. Finally.

BOOM—I guess I don’t entirely hate you, Side Effects.

Medical Sexism exists because doctors and other members of the medical community often dismiss women’s very real physical symptoms as psychological. For instance, a woman experiencing shortness of breath is more likely to receive an anxiety diagnosis than a man with similar symptoms, who might be referred for more tests to rule out stuff like, oh I don’t know, SERIOUS HEART PROBLEMS. This is some documented shit—with statistics to back it up and everything—and it has a lot to do with that whole HYSTERIA and Bitches Be Crazy thing still hanging around from the 19th century.

So, when Rich White Dude colleague asks Dr. Banks, “Would you have treated her differently if she was a man?” the correct answer, Dr. Banks, is “FUCK YUS I WOULD HAVE.” The reality is that Emily looked like a drugged, mopey, fragile, broken little girl, and Dr. Banks wanted to swoop in and touch her tiny hand and look into her watery eyes and say, “I can help you.” I dare a dude to throw his Honda Civic in drive and smash into a fucking cement wall. How long do you think it would take for Dr. Banks to personally roll Ol’ Dude’s ass up to the Bellevue Psychiatric Ward strapped to a fucking gurney?

Dr. Banks didn’t do that with Emily because, in his eyes, she looked like a sopping, hysterical lady-mess that The Lord Our God placed on this earth for him to fix all by hisself! And as a result, he accidentally glossed over Emily’s I’mma Murder My Husband situation. And you just know if it had been Ol’ Dude in the Honda Civic instead of Emily, he’d be failing the fuck out of The Dr. Banks “Is This Bro a Homicidal Maniac?” Test.

Okay, maybe THIS was a questionable decision, Dr. Banks

So should I call this a cautionary tale? Like, maybe Soderbergh’s all, “Listen. You should never let a woman’s supposed suicidal depression mask that bitch’s killing instinct.” Or maybe he’s all, “Listen. Stop Medical Sexism Now! Or Else!” I don’t know. But the simple fact that the Rich White Dude colleague spoke up about Emily’s gender, and how it might’ve impacted Dr. Banks’ treatment decisions, gives Side Effects a touch of complexity that it most certainly lacks otherwise.

Of course, thinking so much about the correct answer to “Would you have treated her differently if she was a man?” got me thinking about the correct answer to “Would you have hated this movie if it were about two men?” And then I laughed for ten minutes and choked from not breathing because this ludicrous shit became the plot of my new movie:

A man named Tommy Bronson reunites with his wife after her five-year stint in prison for insider trading. He becomes depressed and attempts suicide; after all, his wife lost their life savings and forced him to move into a small apartment where he struggled to make ends meet. He begins seeing a psychiatrist—Dr. Sheila Nori—after his first suicide attempt, and Dr. Nori agrees to see him as an outpatient, even though he’s clearly a danger to himself and possibly others. She puts him on an experimental new drug that causes Tommy to sleepwalk. He mentions it to Dr. Nori who immediately says, “You should stop taking the drug.” When he refuses—because his sex life is so much better now!—Dr. Nori drops the subject. Little does Dr. Nori know that Tommy is planning to revenge-murder his wife in a Sleepwalking While Stabbing Event.

Dr. Nori stands by Tommy after the murder, but soon, Dr. Nori’s life starts to crumble. Her medical practice loses business; her colleagues question her ethics; her boyfriend-husband leaves her and takes the kid, too. She sits in her apartment alone, drinking Rolling Rock in the dark. Eventually, she puts some clues together and discovers that Tommy and his past psychiatrist, Dr. John Lerner, had planned the whole thing! And also, they’re lovers! She finds a way to ruin both their lives by having Tommy seduce John in the hopes that John will spill the beans because—get this—Tommy is wearing a wire! They get jail time and/or life in an asylum. Tommy and John fucked with the wrong shrink. (That’s the tagline.)

The end.

Guest Writer Wednesday: Two Documentaries about Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer and Life and Death of a Serial Killer

Serial killer Aileen Wuornos, immortalized in an Oscar-winning film and two documentaries

This is a guest post from Gabriella Apicella.

Aileen Wuornos was executed for killing six men. She is as infamous a serial killer as Ed Gein, Ted Bundy, and Charles Manson. Her notoriety was secured with the Oscar-winning film Monster: brave and complex, it achieved a sense of authenticity, portraying both her aggression and vulnerability, ensuring no easy condemnation for the woman made infamous as “America’s First Female Serial Killer.”

Before being immortalised by Hollywood, Wuornos’s story was told in two documentaries by British filmmaker Nick Broomfield. The first of these, The Selling of a Serial Killer, sees Broomfield examine the commercialisation of the Wuornos case, and he spends much of the time communicating with the two people “closest” to her. One of these is her lawyer Steve Glazer, and the other, her adoptive mother Arlene Pralle. While Glazer appears preoccupied with the excitement of having a film crew around and uses the experience to play guitar and sing on camera in what he presumably thought was something of an audition opportunity, Wuornos’s adoptive “mother” is a more problematic and even sinister proposition. Pralle tells Broomfield that after seeing Aileen on television after her arrest she felt compelled to protect her and made steps to become her legal “mother.” Her protection seems to disappear, however, when Aileen maintains that she killed in self-defence, and does not believe that she is ready for the “Kingdom of Heaven.” It is clear that both Glazer and Pralle are two people looking to exploit Wuornos like so many before them. When their manipulation eventually becomes clear to Aileen, she is understandably furious and upset. Yet she remains heartbreakingly naïve and very quickly puts her trust in Broomfield – for once at least this is not misplaced.

In the second documentary, Life and Death of a Serial Killer, Broomfield meets with Wuornos as another proposed date for her execution nears. After being on death row for 12 years, Wuornos is no longer appealing against her conviction, but has begun to plead total guilt for her crimes, asserting in court that she killed in cold blood with no provocation from the victims. She discounts evidence that had been used to defend her as lies, dismissing testimonies that detailed her devastating childhood and young adulthood, and swears that the horrifying testimony she gave at her trial detailing the brutal rape she suffered at the hands of the first victim was a complete fabrication. She calls herself a dangerous criminal who should be killed immediately or she will kill again.

Aileen Wuornos’s story is the antithesis of the American Dream and highlights the causality of crime: abused, abandoned, neglected, poverty-stricken, violated, exploited, shunned, condemned, tormented and eventually killed. It seems understandable that after being repeatedly raped by a family member as a child, living homeless in woods until teenage years, turning to prostitution to make enough money for food and shelter, and then being beaten and raped brutally, that she would, in desperation, reach for a gun and kill. The mythology around serial killers demonstrates that there is a perversion and obsession that perpetrators feed with their crimes, yet in Wuornos’s case that does not appear to have been true, as the killings she committed were apparently borne from fury and, in at least one case, from self-defence. If she had not experienced so much abuse and neglect, would she have gone on to kill? This can never be known, and her crimes can never be excused. Indeed, it is not possible to know what really happened on the nights of the killings.

However, Broomfield’s documentaries enable the viewer to look beyond the label of “serial killer,” and provide an understanding of what brought the terrible situations about. Watching Wuornos’s response to Broomfield’s gentle questioning and assurance that he will support her and tell her story results in extraordinary insights into her true nature. To counter tales of abuse and incest provided as testimony to assist her appeal, Wuornos describes to Broomfield a childhood that was proper, within a morally strong family who gave her a good upbringing: yet at the mention of her mother, she is plunged into a vicious fury that leaves her virtually inarticulate with rage. She is adamant at this stage that she should be executed as soon as possible, and is eager to dismiss any evidence that might hinder the process. Although found to be of sound mind the day before her execution by three psychiatric professionals, she asserts to Broomfield that prison officers are using radio waves to control her mind: it is unlawful to execute someone who is not sane. Most compelling of all is Aileen’s admission to Broomfield, when she believes he is not recording, that the only reason she has stopped appealing her conviction is because, after spending so long on death row, all she now wants is to die, and yes, she did kill in self-defence.

The films illustrate that Aileen Wuornos did not live in a vacuum, and neither did her victims. By labelling her, or any criminals, as “evil,” society absolves itself of responsibility for their behaviour and Aileen Wuornos’s fate can be seen as the result of that. Documentaries such as these, filmed with humanity and compassion remind us that film can capture insights into our world that we may not like, and may wish to look away from, but are endangering ourselves if we ignore.

Gabriella Apicella is a feminist writer and tutor living in London, England. She has a degree in Film and Media from Birkbeck College, University of London, is on the board of Script Development organisation Euroscript, and in 2010 co-founded the UnderWire Festival that aims to recognise the raw filmmaking talent of women. Her writing features women in the central roles, and she has been commissioned to write short films, experimental theatre and prose for independent directors and artists.