Rewatching Fargo the other day, it struck me that Marge Gunderson’s pregnancy barely figures into the film.But I challenge you to find a review of the film that doesn’t note that the character is pregnant. And If you can, I’ll find you ten more that describe her as “very pregnant” or “heavily pregnant” so as to underline this seemingly crucial detail.
Clearly, we find Marge Gunderson’s pregnancy striking and notable. But can we sit back for a moment and examine why?
Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson in Fargo.
Rewatching Fargo the other day, it struck me that Marge Gunderson’s pregnancy barely figures into the film. She gets a wave of morning sickness at a crime scene, it comes up in her small talk with Mike Yanagita, and in pillow talk with her husband. But Marge and Norm talk more (a lot more) about stamp art than their impending parenthood.
But I challenge you to find a review of the film that doesn’t note that the character is pregnant. And If you can, I’ll find you ten more that describe her as “very pregnant” or “heavily pregnant” so as to underline this seemingly crucial detail.
Clearly, we find Marge Gunderson’s pregnancy striking and notable. But can we sit back for a moment and examine why?
Marge Gunderson is curious as well
Marge was (and sadly, 18 years later, remains) a refreshing female character largely because she’s not defined by her gender. She solves the case through good police work, not some kind of “intuition.” She’s incredibly sweet, but so is nearly everyone around her: Fargo gets a lot of thematic and comedic mileage out of “Minnesota Nice.” In this setting, kindness is not a feminized trait.
Almost everyone is nice in Fargo
I suspect the Coen brothers decided to make the character pregnant, and then to make that fact so peripheral, was a way of doubling down on the irrelevance of Marge’s womanhood. And I have mixed feelings about that. Even though it is effectively refreshing to see a pregnant woman represented in film as something more than an active baby-factory, I don’t like the implication that pregnant women are somehow “extra female.”
Marge Gunderson aiming her gun
And I worry that viewers’ tendency to spotlight Marge Gunderson’s pregnancy is rooted in that concept, in direct contrast to her characterization. She’s one of the most recognizably human characters in film, and I worry we all find that so remarkable because she’s not only—gasp—a woman, but a seven-months-pregnant woman to boot. How can she be so competent and likable and human when she’s not only a woman, but a woman at seven-ninths of her peak womanliness!? It’s dehumanizing to women and pregnant women, cissexist, and (to use any feminist critic’s favorite word) all-around problematic.
Nauseated Marge Gunderson
To slightly-misquote Marge Gunderson herself, I think I’m gonna barf.
So maybe let’s all pause before we append Marge’s name or job title with “pregnant” in our discussions of the rightfully revered character. Let’s focus on her appeal, her goodness, and Frances McDormand’s wonderful performance. Let’s make her pregnancy as much of a non-issue as it is in the film.
———————————– Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town, South Africa, don’tcha know.
The most important thing The Fall is doing, though, is calling out misogyny. Yes, Gibson gets to hand it to Spector, the serial killer, labeling him a “weak, impotent” misogynist, but we already knew that. What I find more intriguing is the way the show implicates the police force and the audience itself for the casual misogyny, assumptions, and stereotypes that perpetuate victim-blaming.
Spoiler Alert
The Fallis a BBC2 crime series starring Gillian Anderson of X-Files fame as Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson in charge of a serial killer case in Belfast. In a lot of ways, The Fall reminds me of the show The Killing because both feature female leads who are strong, capable, and dogged. The way in which The Fall differs, though, is that it impressively wears its feminist agenda on its sleeve.
Before I get into all the amazing things that The Fall is doing right, I want to get out of the way the biggie that I think it’s doing wrong. While this series is taking huge strides to turn a particularly sexist genre on its head, The Fall, like many crime shows, exploits the bodies of the women who are victimized. The camera lovingly caresses and lingers upon these women’s terror, their struggles, their bound limbs, their exposed flesh, and finally their corpses. The excuse can be given that it’s all in the name of “getting into the killer’s head”, but the camera’s gaze goes too far into the realm of prurience, ultimately becoming gratuitous and indulging in fantasies of rendering women helpless and objectified. This is a dangerous trope that threatens to dehumanize its female characters (and women in general), which is the OPPOSITE of what The Fall is trying to do.
Soon Annie Brawley is bound & prone weeping for her life, her vulnerability sexualized.
Granted the objectification and sexualization of victimized women is disturbing (to say the least), but conversely The Fall provides its lead heroine a strong, unapologetic sexuality. Stella Gibson picks out a sexual partner at a glimpse (fellow officer James Olson who seems to be working the Irish equivalent of Vice), openly propositions him for a one night stand, has sex with him, and then refuses to engage with him afterwards because he can’t keep it casual. Gibson takes on the traditionally ascribed male role as sexual pursuer as well as the one who dictates the terms on which the encounter occurs.
Superintendent Stella Gibson is a woman who knows what she wants.
Due to an unexpected turn of events, Gibson is repeatedly questioned by her police force colleagues about her relationship with Olson, each interrogator is male, and each is accusatory and incredulous at Gibson’s behavior, judgmental of her unapologetic sexuality, her unwitting role in Olson’s infidelity to his wife, and her lack of remorse for her actions as well as her lack of attachment to a man with whom she spent a single night. In a way, these men even go so far as to heap some measure of blame on Gibson for Olson’s death. With a self-satisfied smile, one of her questioners asks, “When did you first meet Sergeant Olson?” Gibson replies,
That’s what really bothers you, isn’t it? The one night stand. Man fucks woman. Subject: man. Verb: fucks. Object: woman. That’s ok. Woman fucks man. Woman: subject. Man: object. That’s not so comfortable for you, is it?
DSI Gibson has to hold her ground when it comes to her male colleagues.
My jaw dropped when Gibson delivered this speech. She simply and elegantly exposes all the sexism inherent in everyone’s attitude toward her private sexual relationships. She unearths the wider cultural misogynistic discomfort with female sexual agency. I wanted to clap or call someone and say, “It’s happening! Feminism is hitting mainstream TV with a brutal right hook!” Yes. Yes. YES.
Inherent in Gibson’s self-assurance about her sexuality is an even greater independence and self-possession. Gibson is the shining star of a cast full of strong, capable women who take charge when necessary and are very professionally accomplished. In fact, the serial killer solely targets women he finds threatening and emasculating due to their career success (we may or may not learn more about this in the as-yet unproduced Season Two). Not only are many of the female cast members strong, but they’re well-developed AND friends with one another. First, we’ve got the up-and-coming Constable Dani Ferrington played by Niamh McGrady.
Ferrington regrets not taking seriously the break-in at Sarah Kay’s home.
Ferrington very casually comes out as gay to Gibson, her commanding officer. Gibson takes the information just as casually, which is refreshing. Ferrington also strives to protect Gibson by cleaning up her hotel room of its evidence of “male company”. Gibson doesn’t hide her encounter with Olson, but Ferrington’s effort to shield her friend and superior’s private life is admirable. Not only that, but Ferrington comes clean about having responded to a break-in call from one of the serial killer victims and admits that she may have been knocking on the victim’s door while the murder was occurring. Though this admission means Ferrington may face potential charges of incompetence and blame, she behaves with integrity, putting the case above her personal stake in the matter. Ferrington is ambitious, honest, and loyal, and Gibson recognizes and appreciates those qualities and promotes her onto the serial killer case.
Another example of powerful women not only liking each other but working together (and not competing) is the relationship between Gibson and the case’s pathologist, Dr. Tanya Reed Smith, depicted by the talented Archie Panjabi (Panjabi also adds a bit of much needed diversity to the cast).
Pathologist Tanya Reed Smith & DSI Stella Gibson
Reed Smith is a highly respected police medical professional…who arrives at a crime scene on her motorcycle (badass).
The doctor arrives in style.
Together, Reed Smith and Gibson examine crime scenes, review the details of the case, and talk about their personal lives. We find out Reed Smith has two daughters and is deeply troubled when she has to perform exams on live victims. With Reed Smith, Gibson lets down her guard and is far more open and honest than she can be with her male co-workers about her transient lifestyle and the duality she finds necessary to separate her professional and private lives. The women bond, sharing coffee and alcohol in friendship and as an important release from the stress of the case.
Strong female characters: Reed Smith & Stella Gibson.
In an unexpected turn of events, Reed Smith shares with Stella a bit of information gleaned from a college friend about an old abusive boyfriend who may match the killer’s M.O. Gibson interviews the victim, and we see this as a potential break in the case. This plot development is crucial because it illustrates the power in the unity of women. Though the old abuses went unreported, this network of women remembers the crimes. Gibson is then able to use her new-found knowledge against the serial killer (Paul Spector played by Jamie Dornan).
The most important thing The Fall is doing, though, is calling out misogyny. Yes, Gibson gets to hand it to Spector, the serial killer, labeling him a “weak, impotent” misogynist, but we already knew that. Even other misogynists can probably recognize that murdering women for sexual pleasure is over-the-top. What I find more intriguing is the way the show implicates the police force and the audience itself for the casual misogyny, assumptions, and stereotypes that perpetuate victim-blaming.
Gibson geared up at a crime scene.
Gibson must insist that the victims not be identified as “innocent” because it implies some women, especially ones coded as sexual, might then be more deserving of brutal murder. Gibson refuses to indulge the media in the virgin/whore dichotomy, and she also declares that no judgements against the victims or their life choices are allowed. With the early blunder in which Ferrington and her partner didn’t take the break-in at victim Sarah Kay’s house seriously, we begin to see that this kind of stereotyping and victim-blaming can be deadly. It takes the emphasis off the perpetrator, and it increases the likelihood of repeat occurrences of crimes against women while also making those crimes less likely to be solved. The Fall is then exposing institutional sexism and misogyny in a radical and important way.
Gibson stalks her prey: a woman killer
I’m excited to see what Season Two of The Fall will have in store. I trust it will continue to depict its female characters with integrity while ferreting out corruption within the police force and illuminating the nuances of institutional misogyny. It’s wonderful to have a well-produced, well-written, and excellently performed TV show that really strives to advance a feminist agenda. Though this approach seems revolutionary, it’s bizarre that we have so many crime shows that focus on the victimization of women that somehow do NOT employ a feminist lens. I hope The Fall is the first of many crime shows that don’t use the abuse and murder of women as a punchline or an empty premise, but as a means to expose a great inequity in our world that must be corrected or else women will continue to be beaten, abused, raped, and murdered at an alarming rate.
—————— Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.
So if I knew all that, why did I even bother? Shame on me, right? Well, I try to keep an open mind when it comes to Scorsese. He’s a brilliant director capable of surprising his audience and expanding our sense of what a cinematic experience can be. He’s so good that I can even forgive him for making films that consistently fail the Bechdel test. The Wolf of Wall Street, though, is not Scorsese at his best. It might even be at his worst. And that’s because we all know how great he can be.
If you’re thinking about going to see The Wolf of Wall Street, you might just consider staying home and watching Goodfellas, which you’re sure to catch on TV (because it’s never not on TV). Or get The Departed on Netflix. Or Raging Bull. Or Taxi Driver. Even better, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. There are numerous other fixes to sate a Scorsese appetite without forking over your holiday cash to this three and a half hour slog through wealth, uppers, downers, hookers, orgies, scumbags, and more scumbags. Let me first say that I went into the film expecting to be disgusted. About all I knew was that the story was based on the memoir The Wolf of Wall Street, written by Jordan Belfort, a former stockbroker convicted of securities fraud and money laundering. Throughout most of the 1990s, Belfort ripped off stock buyers to the tune of $110.4 million dollars. He trafficked in penny stocks, and founded a brokerage house called Stratton Oakmont, and as a result of his scams many people suffered—and continue suffering. So if I knew all that, why did I even bother? Shame on me, right? Well, I try to keep an open mind when it comes to Scorsese. He’s a brilliant director capable of surprising his audience and expanding our sense of what a cinematic experience can be. He’s so good that I can even forgive him for making films that consistently fail the Bechdel test. The Wolf of Wall Street, though, is not Scorsese at his best. It might even be at his worst. And that’s because we all know how great he can be.
Let’s set aside that there are many, many, more beautiful naked women than men in this film, and that they are often acting out porn fantasies for the delight of devastatingly unattractive males (sorry Jonah Hill and Henry Zebrowski!). There’s also much casual misogyny expressed in small talk about women’s shaving habits and a lengthy explanation of the three types of hookers, “classified like publically traded stocks,” which Scorsese couldn’t seem to help but dramatize in particularly cringe-worthy scenes. Worse than all that, though, are the thinly drawn relationships between Jordan (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the women in his life. First, there’s his first wife Teresa, played by Cristin Milioti. When we first meet the couple, Jordan is nowhere near as addicted to drugs, sex, and money as he’ll soon become, and we see them both as young upstarts trying to make their way. Once Jordan gets his penny stock racket under way, so follows the debauchery. Surely, we think, Teresa must know at least some of what the audience knows: that Jordan’s “working late” is not motivated by the pure drive to provide superior service to his customers. Surely there are more than a few popular culture instances of wives being fully aware of the compromises they’re making with their high-powered husbands (Mellie Grant, anyone?). If Teresa knows the score, Scorsese never tells us. It’s not until Naomi, played by Margot Robbie, enters the picture that Teresa finds out Jordan is a dog. Then she disappears from his life and the narrative.
If there was a ever a woman who should know the deal she’s making with a man like Jordan it’s Naomi. She’s every bit as materialistic and entranced by wealth as her husband, yet Scorsese give us nothing like the fire or toughness that Sharon Stone’s Ginger had in Casino or that Lorraine Bracco’s Karen had in Goodfellas. And it’s not Robbie’s fault—she’s tremendous and does the best she could with the role—it’s Scorsese’s for missing the opportunity to go beyond the trope of the trophy wife to a create a character with just a touch a more depth.
The real kicker for me comes in the film’s final act. During the Jordan’s last speech to his staff—and there are more than a few speeches—he turns his attention to a woman named Kimmie, a character we have never met before this scene. He tells the staff Kimmie’s story: she came to him as a desperate single mother in need of a job and a $5,000 cash advance to pay her son’s tuition. She tells everyone that Jordan gave her $25,000, changed her life, made her rich, and tearfully says, “I fucking love you, Jordan!” Is this just another moment of dark comedy, or are we supposed to be manipulated into believing our main character has a generous soul, especially when it comes to women?
I will say there are two good things about this film: 1) Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings are on the soundtrack and make a cameo at Jordan and Naomi’s wedding, and 2) Fran Lebowitz makes an appearance to set Jordan’s $10 million bail. But make no mistake: that’s not a reason to see this film. Just stay home and watch Scorsese’s documentary about her, Public Speaking, a couple of times. That’s just enough to cleanse the palette.
Heather Brown lives in Chicago, Ill., and works as a freelance instructional designer and online writing instructor. She lives for feminism, movies, live music, road trips, and cheese.
Added on is the fact that American Hustle is less about the hustle and more about the American dream; each character portrays ambition and insecurities in the quest for more: a better community, more money, security, power, fame, recognition, leading to that great American end, excess.
The Fabulous Five: Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Christian Bale, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner
Go and see American Hustle, the latest from director David O. Russell. Go and see it not just for the fantastically eclectic seventies soundtrack, but for the amazing acting by Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams, Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Renner, and for surprise roles from Louis C.K. and Robert De Niro. Go especially for Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams in brilliantly funny and evocative character studies.
I didn’t grow up in the 70s, but perhaps that’s why Russell’s larger than life film about the FBI ABSCAM sting is infinitely more interesting and more colorful than your average con film. Added on is the fact that American Hustle is less about the hustle and more about the American dream; each character portrays ambition and insecurities in the quest for more: a better community, more money, security, power, fame, recognition, leading to that great American end, excess.
In a film where everyone is ridiculous and almost a caricature, there is no true hero or protagonist, and the women of American Hustle are no exception; their big hair and red nails reveal a character just as selfish and flawed as any male counterpart. And the fact that the film exposes the deep insecurities and physical vanities of its male cast is an amazing reversal; in fact, they hold perhaps a larger role than female vanities–the opening sequence of the film featured three minutes of Bale’s morning hair routine, with his combover as the star, ending in one of the most amazing introductions to a character I’ve ever seen.
Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams gave brilliant performances; while the film doesn’t pass the Bechdel test, within the context of the plot, the female interactions cover material relevant to the characters, so it makes sense. And in their few interactions, the two women were volatile and terse, and captivatingly emotional.
Two women, amazing and emotional.
Jennifer Lawrence was especially fantastic, at turns both hilarious and sad, a vain, silly woman on the surface, depressed and angry and confused at the core. It’s especially impressive since Lawrence just emerged from a very different role for The Hunger Games, and here showcases her skills as the best kind of actress and comedienne: sad hiding behind funny. Some are calling Adams and Lawrence’s performances Oscar-winning, and I’m inclined to agree; in fact, the entire cast was fantastic. While I find Christian Bale in some serious need of anger management, the man is a chameleon, becoming startlingly physically different for each role. And I’ve been a fan of Bradley Cooper since his Alias days, but this is his first film role that I found especially powerful, even more so than Silver Linings Playbook. Obviously Lawrence and Bradley have found a fantastic director in David O. Russell, and hopefully this collaborative pairing will continue.
In American Hustle, Cooper, more than anyone, embodies the prime theme of the film, the need for more, and in that endeavor, becomes erratic, sexy, lustful, arrogant, angry.
Adams and Cooper’s interactions are built on a sickening chemistry that becomes more and more messed up as the film progresses; in the spirit of not spoiling the film, I’ll stop there,; but in one scene, Cooper loses control in front of Adams, and becomes terrifying and dangerous in just a few moments, with Adams attempting to calm him and keep herself safe.
While the film is a little heavy handed in its use of the “something rotten is necessary to make something even more beautiful” metaphor, the focus on re-invention, survival, power, ambition, vanity and mostly, wanting a better life, are what take this con movie to the next level: an expose of the black comedy that is the American life.
Go see the film, and listen for the amazing soundtrack and its fabulous augmentation of the characters and watch for all that was bad and good of 70s fashion.
What is so remarkable about Bullet in the aftermath of this attack is that she bravely continues her quest to recover Kallie, never once giving into fear or despair, nor losing the “faith” she wears on her wrist and professes to Sarah Linden. Instead, her scars make her all the more willing and determined to connect with others–chiefly Detective Linden and her streetwise partner, Detective Stephen Holder–in a deep and profound way. Her great humanity in the face of overwhelming evil and her sacrificial actions towards those she cares about, including a prostitute named Lyric who coldly spurns her, transcends perceptions about her sexuality and render her a universal character that people from all walks of life, backgrounds, faiths, religions, ethnicities, etc. can strongly relate to and identify with.
Bullet (Bex Taylor-Klaus) from AMC’s The Killing, Season 3 (2013)
Part 1 in a two-part series about “Lionhearted Heroines”
Bullet is the tough yet faithful boarding school dropout turned scrappy Seattle street-kid who unexpectedly resurrected the third season of AMC’s The Killing. She shows her “faith” wrist tattoo to lead homicide detective Sarah Linden, whom she calls “the north star” for fighting the crime brutally visited upon the wayward youths that inhabit her “block.” As a lesbian tomboy on her own in a big city, Bullet learns to rely on her inner strength to survive even when her overriding empathy and selflessness make her vulnerable to the horrific dangers that her desire to protect others prevents her from foreseeing. When her best friend, Kallie, a teenage prostitute neglected and discarded by her mother, disappears, Bullet tirelessly searches the streets and, without flinching, confronts a rough pimp named Goldie, who threatens her with a firearm. Later that evening, Goldie apprehends Bullet in his apartment and, at knife point, rapes her in retaliation for the confrontation.
“You know why I got ‘Faith’ on here? Because no one’s got it in me but me.” – Bullet, The Killing
What is so remarkable about Bullet in the aftermath of this attack is that she bravely continues her quest to recover Kallie, never once giving into fear or despair, nor losing the “faith” she wears on her wrist and professes to Sarah Linden. Instead, her scars make her all the more willing and determined to connect with others–chiefly Detective Linden and her streetwise partner, Detective Stephen Holder–in a deep and profound way. Her great humanity in the face of overwhelming evil and her sacrificial actions towards those she cares about, including a prostitute named Lyric who coldly spurns her, transcends perceptions about her sexuality and render her a universal character that people from all walks of life, backgrounds, faiths, religions, ethnicities, etc. can strongly relate to and identify with.
Bex Taylor-Klaus, the 19-year-old actress who won the role, was herself so moved by her character that she was inspired to reflect in writing about Bullet’s strength and beauty which carries a universal truth for us all:
Yes, I am a straight girl who plays a gay character on TV. No, I am not ashamed. The point of Bullet is not that she is gay. There is so much to her and I look up to the strength and determination this girl has. I get the beautiful opportunity to play a character I can admire and learn from on a daily basis. Bullet knows who she is and can accept herself for it all, even if others can’t or won’t….Not everybody is that strong. My biggest worry is that people will look at her and just see a gay kid, when that’s truly only a tiny piece of Bullet’s puzzle. Look at the big picture. People are a medley of different things and that is what makes us so interesting. Don’t lose sight of the beauty just because you see one thing you may find ugly.
To adapt Bex’s opening line: yes, I am a straight girl who has been besotted with Bullet (and the brilliant girl who plays her) from the moment she pulls her best friend, Kallie, from the ledge of a Seattle Bridge following the opening credits of the first episode.
Like Bex herself, I am not ashamed to adore Bullet. As Detective Stephen Holder (played by the endearing Joel Kinnaman) remarks when he first meets her, she’s “pretty unforgettable”–a description that captures her lasting impact on him and on all those she seeks to protect. Indeed, Holder and Bullet get past their initial mistrust of each other–aided by Bullet’s mistrust of men in general–to form one of the most beautiful friendships, fraught with angst and tenderness, ever portrayed onscreen. The two are, in many ways, twin souls who struggle to appear tough even when they are broken. Together, they embody Aristotle’s quote about true friendship: “A friend is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.” Their unlikely affection and mutual admiration, although tested many times, is steadfast and powerful, so much so that when Holder loses Bullet, he is more devastated than we have ever seen him–as if he has lost part of himself. In his moment of intense grief over her death, Holder becomes the conduit for the audience’s overwhelming sadness as we share in his mourning of her.
In the end, with identical stubbornness, the two betray each other–Bullet, desperate, telling a lie that inadvertently compromises the investigation and Holder, enraged, turning an icy cold shoulder to the girl he once sought to help–obstinately refusing to answer the phone when she urgently calls him later that night. This, of course, turns out to be a fatal mistake, which ensures Holder’s imminent down spiral once he discovers Bullet’s body butchered in the trunk of the killer’s car.
But Bullet would not have been as “unforgettable” had it not been for the incomparable Bex Taylor-Klaus, who blazes in each scene–truthfully portraying Bullet’s fierce yet compassionate courage and faith. We’ll be hard-pressed to find another TV performance by a young breakout actress that quite matches what Bex accomplishes as Bullet. Bex so completely embodies Bullet that when she is found dead, it is as though a real-life person–a best friend, a sister, a daughter–has been lost. Through her performance, Bex makes the audience, even those who initially find her bravado somewhat off-putting, come to care deeply and passionately about a lesbian street girl (she suffers a heartbreaking unrequited love for a young prostitute named Lyric) whose apparent impenetrable toughness hides a selfless, vulnerable spirit.
In a recently published ARTS-ATL article entitled “30 Under 30: Bex Taylor-Klaus bites the bullet and lands dream role on AMC’s ‘The Killing,’” Bex articulates her profound understanding of Bullet: “As an actor, you’re given a character as a kind of shell and it’s your job to breathe life into it. Bullet’s the one who breathed life into me…I knew everything she wanted to do when she grew up. I knew who she was, who she wanted to be, and then I watched it all get taken away.”
[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UQkOn7nEu4″]
One of the greatest demonstrations of Bex’s astounding ability to translate her understanding of Bullet for the audience occurs in Episode 3 during a beautifully shot two-scene sequence that captures the aftermath of Bullet’s rape. In a heart-wrenching moment, Bullet’s full inner beauty emerges even as she is at her lowest point, when she stares at her reflection in a bathroom mirror, examining the fresh, bloody wounds the rape has inflicted. Bex brilliantly captures Bullet’s fractured self in that moment, revealing fear, devastation, disgust, humiliation, and rage through her eyes and facial expressions. These emotions that she has never before felt so acutely ignite her burning resolve to save her best friend, so when Holder chases after her on the bridge later that day, she buries her fear and mistrust and tells him about that “nobody, nothing pimp” named Goldie. Later on in the episode, when Holder fails to apprehend Goldie, Bullet bravely and forcefully tells him off, and when he confronts her about whether Goldie has “done something to” her, she answers only with an instruction to “do your job” and “find her (Kallie).” Once again, Bex is superb–naturally conveying Bullet’s selfless devotion to her friend, even in the midst of the biggest crisis she has ever experienced.
Bullet never does get the chance to tell Holder, or anyone else, about what Goldie did to her–nor does she get the chance to tell Holder what she found out from the girl at the train station about the identity of the killer. Her life is ended so suddenly and cruelly that she leaves behind her a bitter trail of unanswered questions that could never be resolved satisfactorily in the wake of her death. It is these answered questions, combined with the magnitude of Bullet’s–and by extension Bex’s–potential epitomized by her intelligence, her kindness and compassion, her acceptance, her longing, and her grace–that we mourn mightily as the case stalls toward a resolution. For a fleeting period, it seems these virtues which she demonstrates so freely even towards those who don’t deserve them, are blissfully rewarded when Lyric, the previously unattainable object of her affection, appears to “see” Bullet’s heart for the first time and reciprocates its longing with a tender kiss:
For a day, Bullet experiences what it is like to be loved in return and we are afforded a rare and precious glimpse into the blissful life she should have been granted:
But the next day, Lyric is reunited with Twitch, the hustler she thought had abandoned her, and in a heartbeat, she turns her back on Bullet, cruelly claiming, “I don’t belong to you…I’m not gay, you know” (Season 2, Episode 8 “Try”). Already reeling from the mercilessly unjust suffering she endures during her brief life of which Lyric’s cutting rejection is the tipping point, the viewers’ reaction to Bullet’s death, and the absence of Bex in the role, was swift, heartfelt, and defined by a large volume of online fan art that was created to pay tribute to the murdered “Lionhearted Heroine,” as they began calling her:
The lionhearted heroine with a thousand faces. (Bullet image created by Maren Usken.)
Even though I do not possess the artistic talent or ability to paint a portrait, as manyothertalented fans did to remember and honor Bullet, I shed more tears for Bullet than I have since my father’s death when I was 8 years old. She became like a sister to me, as Bex did in the role. I loved her. I miss her. Like Holder, I will never forget her. And, by her own eloquent admission, neither will Bex, who encapsulates our collective sorrow, but pays tribute to Bullet’s faith:
“I saw a woman with a similar haircut—an older woman with the haircut and similar style and it made me smile at first like ‘Oh look – Bullet when she grows up.’ And then all of a sudden I was standing in the street and it hit me…the realization that that’s not ever going to be what Bullet gets to do. Some people are saying how much she’s meant to them, they’re sad she’s gone and I’m saying she’s not. If she really meant that much to you, keep her alive inside of you. She’ll always be there. Keep her in your heart, whatever poeticness you’d like to put on it, whatever poetic words you want to put to it—keep her alive inside of you. She’s always be there. She always has. She’s a really strong character and strong, strong person. Even though she’s dead on the show or in the ‘real world,’ she doesn’t have to be dead inside. If she did really have an effect on you, she will always be with you.”
Bullet takes a drag.
Still…In Season 4, Episode 5 of PBS’s beloved series Downton Abbey, a male valet says to his wife, a maid who is attacked in the same way that Bullet is attacked by Goldie in Episode 3 of The Killing: ”You are not spoiled. You are made higher to me and holier because of the suffering you have been put through.” If she had to die, brave Bullet deserved a death worthy of the “higher, holier” human being she was–a girl who did not dwell in her suffering nor let it define her, but rose above it and used her pain to compassionately protect her street-family from suffering what she did. Ideally, though, with all she silently suffered through, she deserved to live and to fulfill, as Bex articulated, “all she wanted to be.” By extension, Bex, who, to use a phrase from Miley Cyrus’s song, “came in like a wrecking ball” and all but stole the entire season with her nuanced and engaging portrayal, deserved the opportunity to develop her performance of Bullet’s character beyond Season 3, as affirmed by AMC’s recent decision to cancel the series for a second time which many attribute to the irrevocable loss of Bex’s Lionhearted Heroine.
Check back for Part 2: “18 Lionhearted Heroines From Film and Television“
Natalia Lauren Fiore received a B.A. in Honors English and Creative Writing from Bryn Mawr College and an M.F.A in Creative and Professional Writing from Western Connecticut State University, where she wrote a feature-length screenplay entitled Sonata under the direction of novelist and screenwriter, Don J. Snyder, and playwright, Jack Dennis. Currently, she holds a full-time tenure track teaching post at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida, where she teaches English and Writing. Her writing interests include film criticism, screenwriting, literary journalism, fiction, the novel, and memoir. Her literature interests include the English novel, American Literature, and Drama – particularly Shakespeare. She blogs at Outside Windows and tweets @NataliaLaurenFi.
“Why,” you ask, “are you writing about Veronica Mars, a TV show that’s been off the air for years?” A few reasons. Mainly because the show is, was, and ever shall be kickassly awesome. The premise always sounds silly: teenage girl detective solves cases and fights crime, but it’s so much more than that. Veronica (embodied perfectly by Kristen Bell) is wicked smart and a wicked smart-ass. She’s an independent, dogged, talented, funny, intelligent, perpetual underdog with an enviable fashion sense (I always wanted to dress like her) and a knack for getting into and out of trouble. My other reason for writing this review is because creator/writer/director Rob Thomas is fulfilling every V Mars fan’s fantasy and making a movie that follows up on the canceled show.
Veronica Mars movie poster
It’s hard to say whether or not the movie will be any good. It takes place at Veronica’s 10-year high school reunion where she’ll be, once again, solving a murder. I think it’s worth checking out because the show itself was smart, funny, and engaged in important social issues with its strong female protagonist. Now, you might be asking, “If I’ve never seen the show, why should I care?” Answer: Because the show Veronica Mars is simply put great television. I admit, I’m something of a hater. Even the shows I like, I usually find a lot to critique. While Veronica Mars isn’t perfect, it tackled big issues with wit, compassion, and ovaries, such as class, race, the intersectionality of class and race, homosexuality, trans parenting, adoption, suicide, abuse, abandonment, addiction, animal cruelty, the stigma surrounding female teen sexuality, and on and on. In Season One, the two major mysteries that Veronica is trying to solve are:
Who murdered her best friend?
Who raped her?
Veronica taking seedy pictures for a surveillance job.
How many shows have you seen where the heroine is a struggling rape survivor? How many shows have you seen where the heroine is hunting down her rapist to make him pay (because Veronica doesn’t just believe in justice…she believes in revenge)? The theme of Veronica’s rape is on-going, continuing into Season Two when she finally solves the crime, and painful feelings and memories are dredged up in Season Three when she sets out to catch a serial rapist on her college campus, truthfully representing the fact that sexual assault survival isn’t something people just “get over”; it’s something they must deal with in multiple ways throughout their entire lives. I love the way Veronica refuses to be silent. Despite being humiliated at the sheriff’s office when she reports the crime, despite the fact that she can’t remember who her assailant is because she was drugged, Veronica’s doggedness allows many of us who were cowed into silence to vicariously live through her strength and perseverance. In Season Three, Veronica shares her power with the survivors of the serial rapist (who shaves his victims’ heads to further humiliate them). She shares her story with them and repeatedly declares herself to be their advocate and champion when no one else seems to care whether or not justice is served. For that alone, I love this show.
I also admire the relationship she has with her father.
Keith giving Veronica a directive that he knows she’ll ignore.
Keith Mars (another case of perfect casting with Enrico Colantoni) is raising his very smart, independent (read: defiant) teenage daughter on his own. Together, they joke and laugh and communicate. Keith may give Veronica too much freedom and may trust her a bit too much, but, in the end, we always know he’s doing the best he can, making all of his choices with her best interest at heart. What really gets me is that they unabashedly love each other. Veronica chooses her father over her unsupportive so-called “friends” and peers. Keith doesn’t stifle his daughter, while teaching her that hard work and tenacity is what sets her apart from her wealthy classmates. It’s rare to see a single father scenario on TV, and it’s even rarer to see it done half as well as Veronica Mars does it.
I also adore Veronica’s friends. Her best friend Wallace Fennel (portrayed by Percy Daggs III) is so sweet and so genuine. He proves time and time again that he’s a much better friend to Veronica that she can ever be to him. Veronica is humanized as we see her flaws when she takes advantage of Wallace’s friendship, but Wallace is so good-natured that he that he usually just goes along for the ride (though he does call her on her selfishness from time to time). I think it’s great that there’s NEVER any sexual tension between them. They are friends and neither of them wants or seeks more EVER. This is a good example of realistic friendships and Rob Thomas knowing there’s a line between drama and melodrama.
Veronica and Wallace plot and scheme.
Then there’s Mac, played by the adorable Tina Majorino. Cindy Mackenzie is known as “Mac,” in part, because of her last name, but mostly because of her badass computer skills. When Veronica and Mac team up, it’s like fireworks of awesome gooey brains just flying all over the place. I love that these two smart gals find each other, and they talk about waaaaay more than just boys (another instance of the show passing the Bechdel Test), for starters: hacking databases and email accounts, setting up remote surveillance, and dealing with Mac’s discovery that she was adopted. Their relationship is pretty great because they’re encouraging of each other, supportive, and they have complementary skills, all of which make them an awesome sleuthing team.
Veronica and Mac aren’t afraid to get goofy.
There’s a lot to love about this show. Its plethora of cameos, quick wit, and hilarious pop cultural references are part of the amazing package deal. If you’re a V Mars fan, you’re probably wondering why I haven’t mentioned the Duncan and Veronica vs. Logan and Veronica vs. Piz and Veronica deal. I guess it’s because most shows geared towards women and young girls have a love triangle scenario. Though I got sucked into the love triangle like everyone else did, I think what’s so special about Veronica Mars is that its heroine isn’t defined by her romantic relationships. She is so much more. She’s a daughter, a friend, a spy, a scholar, an excellent snickerdoodle baker, a photographer, a dog lover, and, above all, a confident, sassy young woman who lives by her own rules and has an amazing, unlimited future ahead of her. Do I even need to say it? We need more role models like Veronica Mars in film and on television, and we need them STAT.
Anglophilia also contributed to BBC Sherlock fans rejecting Elementary, but Anglophilia all too often functions as a flimsy cover for flat-out racism. … Because they can hide it behind hipster “I liked this centuries-old character first” and the “Keep Calm and Fetishize Your Former Colonial Oppressors” vogue. And because racist people are often not particularly concerned with how racist they are. Especially with sexism along for a kyriarchical yhatzee!
Having recently written about my new TV crush Abbie Mills, I feel compelled to sing the praises of another woman of color making television a better place: Lucy Liu as Joan Watson on Elementary.
I, like a lot of television viewers, felt predisposed to dismiss the CBS series as a too-soon, too-similar knockoff of the BBC’s Sherlock. I thought setting it in New York City and casting Lucy Liu as Joan Watson were superficial moves made to solely differentiate the Modern Sherlock TV Adaptations beyond “one came second.”
So when it debuted last year, I wrongly dismissed Elementary. But indifference was not enough for a lot of television fans. The cool kids who are 100 percent fine with 79,481 adaptations featuring the public domain characters Sherlock and Watson, but HOW DARE THOSE SELLOUT HOLLYWOOD BASTARDS MAKE A 79,482nd?
Anglophilia also contributed to BBC Sherlock fans rejecting Elementary, but Anglophilia all too often functions as a flimsy cover for flat-out racism. My Bitch Flicks colleague Janyce Denise Glasper mentioned viewers “boycotting Elementary due to Liu’s Asian background” in a great piece on the actress’s versatility last spring, and I balked, “how can they be so unapologetically racist?”
Racist reaction on BuzzFeed to Liu’s casting
Because they can hide it behind hipster “I liked this centuries-old character first” and the “Keep Calm and Fetishize Your Former Colonial Oppressors” vogue. And because racist people are often not particularly concerned with how racist they are. Especially with sexism along for a kyriarchical yhatzee!
Top: Pinterest pin Bottom: The Great Mouse Detective‘s Dr. Dawson
With that sooooo-2012 background established for behind-the-times people like myself, let’s move on to the important issue: Joan Watson is THE BEST.
I almost wrote, THE BEST WATSON EVER, but I would have to watch and read several thousand more adaptations before I could state that with any statistical confidence. So I’ll just hyperbolically say, as my brain does when I am watching Elementary, that she is The Best.
Joan started off on different footing than many other versions of Watson not only because of her sex and race. One of the most compelling particularities of Elementary as an adaptation is that is centers Holmes’s drug addiction; with Jonny Lee Miller’s Sherlock fresh out of a sixth-month rehab stint at the start of the series, and Liu’s Watson having just signed on as his sober living companion, a career she transitioned into after accidentally causing the death of one of her surgical patients. This initial role gave Watson a real reason for being there, and for putting up with Sherlock’s nonsense, as their relationship formed. Which not only put some slack back into the audience’s suspension of disbelief, but presented an entirely different status balance between this Holmes and Watson, one that is frankly less creepy to watch (particularly with a woman in the role). It also fits perfectly with the compassionate nature essential to Watson’s character, regardless of sex.
Lucy Liu and Jonny Lee Miller
But even with a plausible justification for her patience, Watson must still be a master of exasperation, given Sherlock Holmes is one of the all-time annoying weirdos of the literary canon. Good thing Lucy Liu can write a sonnet of frustration with an eye roll and create a symphony of had-enough with the angry clomps of her chic boots storming up the stairs to her room.
After Joan’s tenure as Sherlock’s sober companion ends, she chooses to continue doing detective work with him instead of moving on to her next client. The plot required Watson to stick around for more than a few months, but instead of accomplishing that with some glossed-over contrivance, Joan’s personal satisfaction with her shifting career paths became a major story arc in the first season. We even see her friends and family weigh in out of concern while ultimately respecting her decisions about her own life! I literally got misty-eyed when Joan changed her television-equivalent-of-Facebook work status to “consulting detective.”
Joan’s career change
While watching Joan’s relationship with Sherlock transition from guardianship to partnership has been a pleasure, it was only through the depiction of Joan herself changing. She got to be a real character instead of a sidekick. That’s more than you can hope for for a lot of female co-leads of a TV series, much less a woman of color cast in a traditionally white male role.
On any dark and stormy night in the fall, it is a wonderful thing to curl up with a mug of mulled cider and watch Clue. The murder mystery based on the eponymous board game may have been a huge flop when it was released in 1985, but it has gained a passionate cult following in the last 28 years, probably due to its infinitely quotable dialogue and gleeful disregard for the pile of bodies amassed as the movie progresses – as well as being shown on cable about once every two hours.
Movie poster for Clue
This guest post by Erin K. O’Neill appears as part of our theme week on Cult Films and B Movies.
Six strangers gather in a New England mansion for a mysterious dinner party. It is revealed that their host is blackmailing them all, but then the tale darkens. First the host is murdered, and then the cook and the maid – and to make a long story short…
Too late!
On any dark and stormy night in the fall, it is a wonderful thing to curl up with a mug of mulled cider and watch Clue. The murder mystery based on the eponymous board game may have been a huge flop when it was released in 1985, but it has gained a passionate cult following in the last 28 years, probably due to its infinitely quotable dialogue and gleeful disregard for the pile of bodies amassed as the movie progresses – as well as being shown on cable about once every two hours.
Mrs. Peacock
I seriously love Clue. It’s my favorite board game and one of my favorite movies, and has been since one of my friends sat me down and made me watch it one Halloween a long time ago. It’s bawdy and brash and downright hilarious, especially if you have a taste for farcical whodunits.
In order to help you understand whether or not Clue passes the Bechdel Test, I shall need to take you through the criteria of the test, step by step.
1. Does the movie have two named women in it?
There are five women characters who have names in Clue.
Mrs. Peacock, the hysterical senator’s wife.
Mrs. White, the widow of a nuclear physicist.
Miss Scarlett, Madam of a Washington D.C. brothel.
Yvette, the maid and Miss Scarlett’s former employee.
Mrs. Ho, the cook. While being listed in the credits as “The Cook,” in one of the first scenes in the movie Wadsworth calls her by her name.
In fact, in the entire movie only one female character doesn’t have a name, and that’s the Singing Telegram Girl.
And so, Clue passes the first step in the Bechdel Test.
2. Do these women talk to each other?
Absolutely. Clue is an ensemble movie with a mile-a-minute dialogue – and more one-liners than I care to count. So, here are a few of my favorite exchanges:
Miss Scarlet: Maybe there is life after death.
Mrs. White: Life after death is as improbable as sex after marriage!
Mrs. White: Maybe he wasn’t dead.
Professor Plum: He was!
Mrs. White: We should’ve made sure.
Mrs. Peacock: How? By cutting his head off, I suppose.
Mrs. White: That was uncalled for!
Miss Scarlet: What was he like?
Mrs. White: He was always a rather stupidly optimistic man. I mean, I’m afraid it came as a great shock to him when he died, but, he was found dead at home. His head had been cut off, and so had his, uh… you *know.*
[Colonel Mustard, Professor Plum, and Mr. Green cross legs]
Mrs. White: I had been out all evening at the movies.
Miss Scarlet: Do you miss him?
Mrs. White: Well, it’s a matter of life after death. Now that he’s dead, I have a life.
And so, Clue passes the second step in the Bechdel Test.
Miss Scarlett
3. Do the women talk to each other about something besides a man?
The third leg of the Bechdel Test is often the one movies fail – while there are often women characters, how often do they not speak of men? And Clue has some integral issues with the plot and structure that would make it difficult to pass this leg of the test.
For one, the movie is an ensemble with a male butler at the center. Wadsworth, throughout the film, controls the action and guides the other players through the plot – he holds all the cards and asks all the questions. Furthermore, it’s a murder mystery where the first and most crucial victim, Mr. Boddy, is a man. Much of the dialogue, even if it’s about murder, is about a man.
And finally, Mrs. Peacock, Mrs. White and Miss Scarlett are all being blackmailed for actions that entirely have to do with men: Mrs. Peacock for accepting bribes for her husband’s senate vote; Mrs. White for allegedly killing her husband (and possibly at least one of her previous husbands too); and Miss Scarlett for running a house of ill repute that caters to men. This means that even when the women are discussing their histories and their motivations, the topic of conversation is men.
In the dinner scene, Mrs. Peacock tries to start conversation by asking the other women about their husbands and asking the men about their careers. It’s a telling moment, which could perhaps be forgiven by the film’s setting in 1954, which reveals how narrow topics of conversation for women can be. Even in 1954, they could have discussed Abstract Expressionism, or thematically, the McCarthy hearings on the House Committee of Un-American Activities. After all, communism is just a red herring.
I’ve seen Clue, well, let’s just say a lot. And, I had to rewatch the film three times but also scour a copy of the shooting script to find any dialogue where two women talk about something besides a man. As far as I can tell, it happened twice:
Miss Scarlett: Would you like to see these Yvette? They might shock you.
Yvette: No, thank you. I am a lady.
Miss Scarlett: And how do you know what sort of pictures they are if you’re such a lady?
Mrs. Peacock: Uh, is there a little girl’s room in the hall?
Yvette: Oui oui, Madame.
[points]
Mrs. Peacock: No, I just want to powder my nose.
Yep. The second instance is a pun on peeing.
Yvette
Are these two, three-line exchanges enough to pass the Bechdel Test? There appears to be much debate about this leg of the test. Some critics claim that in order to pass, the women must speak to each other for more than 60 seconds, or that there must be some depth to the conversations. Since the original comic makes no such distinction and states that the two women must simply talk to each other about non-men related topics, I would argue that their two bits of dialogue meet the criteria.
And so, Clue passes the third step in the Bechdel Test, by the skin of its teeth.
Erin K. O’Neill is an award-winning writer, photographer, and visual editor currently located in her hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan. A devotee of literature, photography, existentialism, and all things Australian, Erin also watches too much television on DVD and Netflix. Follow her on Twitter, @ekoneill.
The ethics of the film are one thing, but it says a lot about the world of the movie that it’s able to go nearly two hours without a single important female character showing up on screen. There are no women cops, there are no women in the mob, there are only a couple of wives or passers-by or maybe a drug-addled girlfriend or two. But no one who matters. The acting characters in the film are all overwhelmingly and vocally male.
Even the ethos of the characters, that they will destroy that which is evil, but leave alone the pure and blameless, is inherently sexist. Because when they say pure and blameless, what they mean is the women and children. In this universe, women are not even people enough to do things wrong. We do not have enough agency even to commit evil.
This guest review by Deborah Pless appears as part of our theme week on Cult Films and B Movies.
I fell in love with Boondock Saints the summer that I turned sixteen, about four days before I went off to live and work at a Christian summer camp for eight weeks – a torturously long time when you’ve just fallen in love with the most profane and violent movie possible. I was told that I shouldn’t watch it, that I couldn’t watch it, because it was too violent, too swear-y, too much for my faint little heart to take. I told them to eff themselves and watched it anyway. And I fell in love instantly.
It was a long lasting love affair too. I had the poster hanging above my bed, I still own a copy on DVD, and I saw that film so many times that I could recite it in real time as my college roommate watched in horror. I even went to see the sequel. In theaters. On purpose.
But it wasn’t until last year, when I started to write out a list of my all-time favorite movies that I realized something important: I might love Boondock Saints, but it doesn’t love me back. Or, specifically, it doesn’t love my gender. That was when the romance started to fade.
To back up a little, Boondock Saints is a cult shoot-em-up film released in 1999 and written and directed by Troy Duffy. It stars Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus as the McManus twins, two good old Irish boys living in South Boston who receive a message from God to go kill gangsters. Which they then proceed to do with alarming vigor and good humor. They’re pursued by Agent Smecker, played by Willem DeFoe, and helped by good friend Rocco, played by David Della Rocco.
Also, Billy Connolly turns up as a terrifying hit man known only as “Il Duce,” and Dot-Marie Jones makes a brief cameo as Rosengurtle Baumgartner, who kicks one of the boys in the crotch. But I digress.
The film is weird and violent and profane, like I said. The basic premise, that Connor (Flanery) and Murphy (Reedus) are on a holy mission to rid the world of evil is both strange and deeply non-Biblical, but there is a thrill to it that makes you want to believe. The plot kicks off when the boys are involved in a bar fight with two enforcers for the Russian mob. After the fight, the mobsters go track down our heroes and try to finish the job, but Connor and Murphy get the drop on them (literally), and kill the two men.
Agent Smecker is then called out to figure out what the hell happened. Smecker, who is inarguably DeFoe’s best and most interesting character to date, deduces the exact events effortlessly and is proven right when the two boys show up at the police station, turn themselves in, and claim self-defense.
The story would end right there if during the night spent in jail, the two men didn’t receive a vision from God. A mission, you might say, that calls them to “Destroy that which is evil, so that which is good may flourish.” This all tracks in with a sermon shown in the beginning of the film that cites the murder of Kitty Genovese as a sign that good men must do something to stop evil from spreading. All well and good, but I’m not sure the priest was calling for mass murder.
Which is precisely what happens. Connor and Murphy start picking off members of the Russian and Italian mobs, with a little help from their friend Rocco, a low-level numbers runner. They get so good at it, in fact, that Smecker is at a complete loss and the mob is running scared. It all comes to a climax when they try to take out the Don of the Italian mob in Boston, get captured, and come face to face with the man hired to kill them – Il Duce. Except Il Duce is actually their father, and the men happily reunite to go off and kill another day.
Like I said, it’s a weird, violent movie.
There are, in all honestly, a lot of things worth discussing with Boondock Saints, from the way it is one hundred and ten percent a white, male fantasy of justice and badassery, to the fact that it’s so Biblically inaccurate as to be kind of painful, to Agent Smecker as one of the most interesting gay characters to grace the silver screen, to the fact that it’s honestly just a very strange story, chock full of coincidences and arguably terrible writing that somehow becomes awesome instead of cliché. But let’s focus in for a minute on what turned me off of it. Let’s talk about the ladies.
Or, rather, let’s talk about the lack of them. In point of fact, the women of Boondock Saints are most notable by their absence. I can count the number of named female characters on one hand, and none of those characters appear in more than two scenes. That’s actually a false representation as well, because only one of them appears in more than one scene at all. Of all of the female characters in the film, not a single one receives more screentime than the scenes of Agent Smecker in drag toward the end of the film.
That is bad enough in and of itself, but there is also the actual characters to consider. Of the female characters shown or mentioned, one is an unnamed stripper (who, ironically, is the most visible woman in the film, appearing in two whole scenes), two are junkies and sluts (according to Rocco), and one is Rosengurtle Baumgartner, an avowed lesbian who we are supposed to laugh at for taking offense to one of Connor’s jokes. She kicks him in the nuts. He deserves it.
There are two more women of note in the story, but both had their stories cut down in the final version of the film and appear mostly in the deleted scenes on the DVD. One is Connor and Murphy’s mother, who calls them to wish them a happy birthday, and the other is a nice girl outside the courtroom who gives the news cameras a completely convincing and not at all ridiculous explanation of why she is perfectly fine having seen someone shot to death right in front of her moments before.
Like I said, that’s pretty much it. There’s a waitress, a nun in a hospital, an Italian grandmother, and a female news reporter, but I genuinely struggle to think of any more female characters. At all. In the entire movie. It would seem that in the world of Boondock Saints, women are not just irrelevant to the narrative, but also virtually invisible. They just don’t seem to exist.
I suppose it makes sense, given that the film is a white, male power fantasy. Connor and Murphy are the ultimate slacker heroes, the guys we’re supposed to want to be. They have no formal education, but somehow happen to know about six languages fluently. They seem perfectly content living on the fringes of society, because tough guys don’t need furniture or shower curtains or functioning plumbing, I guess. They’re religious, but in the cool way. They don’t have to learn how to use guns, or find out where to buy weaponry, or even struggle as they assume their mission. They just effortlessly seem to know what they need to do and then do it. No fuss, no muss. Without a second of training they are the two most proficient hit men ever to grace the streets of Boston.
It’s a fantasy, and you can see why it would be intoxicating. They’re good at what they do. They’re cool. What they do is unassailably (within the context of the movie universe) right. They get to shoot people and have fun and laugh with their friends, and it’s fine because it’s all justified by God. They don’t kill women or children, so it must be okay, right?
Well, no.
The ethics of the film are one thing, but it says a lot about the world of the movie that it’s able to go nearly two hours without a single important female character showing up on screen. There are no women cops, there are no women in the mob, there are only a couple of wives or passers-by or maybe a drug-addled girlfriend or two. But no one who matters. The acting characters in the film are all overwhelmingly and vocally male.
Even the ethos of the characters, that they will destroy that which is evil, but leave alone the pure and blameless, is inherently sexist. Because when they say pure and blameless, what they mean is the women and children. In this universe, women are not even people enough to do things wrong. We do not have enough agency even to commit evil.
But here’s the problem. I know all of this, and yet I still like the movie. I mean, I’m not in love with it anymore. The scales have lifted off my eyes, and I can see it for what it is – a bloated, self-aggrandizing, violent ode to vigilantism – but I still enjoy it.
How?
I think ultimately it comes down to something deeper. Something about how it took me eight years to realize that the movie was toxic for women. I genuinely did not expect this story, or really any story like it, to include women. I naturally didn’t even think to look for a female character to relate to, because it inherently assumed there wouldn’t be one.
Troy Duffy, aware of the criticism he received for this first film, included a major female character in the execrable sequel, Boondock Saints: All Saints Day. In it, Agent Smecker is gone and in his stead we have Agent Bloom (Julie Benz). But this is just another stunt meant to show how “progressive” and “totally not sexist” Duffy is. Bloom is relegated to a backseat role, and shown to be yet another innocent in the world. She’s a badass lady cop, but actually just a scared little girl who needs to be protected. And if she happens to fulfill a couple of fantasies about women in power suits and heels while she’s at it, then so much the better.
I wish I could tell sixteen-year-old me not to bother with this movie, that I should, for once, listen to my friends and back away slowly, but I don’t think I would, even if I were given the chance. Because as much as I now can see this movie for the sexist doggerel it is, it still has a place in my heart. It was the movie that taught me how much fun schlock flicks could be, the one that showed me that a movie doesn’t have to be good to be fun, and the movie that introduced me to one of my all time best friends. I wouldn’t take it back.
But I still wish it didn’t make me feel so gross inside.
Deborah Pless runs Kiss My Wonder Woman and works as a youth advocate in Western Washington. You can follow her on twitter, just as long as you like feminist rants and an obsession with superheroes.
For the uninitiated, Nikita was the often too realistic story of a drug-addicted young woman who finds herself in jail after a robbery gone horribly wrong. Most filmmakers would have ended there, a cautionary tale of the woman led down the wrong path who ends up punished for her sins. But Besson took the story further; this broken young woman gets turned into an assassin that is used by her government to kill. The killing takes its toll on her, but she values her life and freedom over the other option provided her: death. She meets a guy, falls in love, and at the end of the day Nikita turned out to not be the same story I was used to.
Luc Besson
This guest post by Shay Revolver appears as part of our theme week on Cult Films and B Movies.
From moment I laid eyes on the first frame of ET I have loved movies. I will watch anything on celluloid , breathe it in , just so that I can examine and explore every bit of awesomeness exuding from the screen. Good or bad, every film has something to offer. It’s kind of guaranteed, unless of course you’re a woman; then it sometimes can become a crap shoot. Having been born a woman, a minority woman at that, the chance of watching a film and identifying with the main character is slim to none. Sometimes that can be off putting, and I have learned to manage as best I could without taking myself out of the experience. Being a true lover of the art, I’ve learned to be forgiving and try to find the spot of light in the midst of the gender polarizing mess. I tend to go for complexity in art and for a very long time, I watched a parade of less than complex women be carted out in front of me on screen with a sole purpose of filling a very specific and stereotypical role. As a woman, most filmmakers will portray us as a prize to be won, an undeveloped side character, the quirky friend of the queen bee or the bitch. Growing up it was a jarring contrast to my real life where the women I was surrounded by were some of the strongest women I knew. I was raised a feminist. I was taught that my frilly dresses and love of pink were just as valid as my love of playing pool, video games, and climbing trees. I was raised to believe that everything was gender neutral, but that was never what I saw on screen. By the time I was close to hitting puberty, I had all but given up on the fantasy of seeing a strong, complex, multifaceted woman (of any race) on screen.
Most of the time when I get into this debate or lament the lack of strong female characters in media, fellow feminists speak of Joss Whedon. Despite my love-hate relationship with his work, I can see valid points in hailing him as the male champion of the strong female in the gender wars of visual media. But, what if the reigning white knight of strong female characters Joss Whedon isn’t femme powered enough for you? Where does a film loving gal like me go to find true complexity? Enter the often forgotten genius of Luc Besson. I have loved his work since a twelve year old Shay got her first glimpse of video that her big sister showed her. I fell in love with La Femme Nikita, the visuals, the style, the story and the lead. Besson doesn’t get as much credit as he should for his work. Not only does he create some of the easiest to relate to yet stunningly complex female anti-heroes to grace the silver screen, but he creates a world where women almost always end up happier and okay just being alone. Sure, there is a love interest, but he’s always a subplot or distraction on the female hero’s way to her end goal. Besson always has his female lead start from a place of weakness; they’ve had a hard, almost violent life experience, and after having gone through all manner of–often male inflicted–hell, they prevail. They soldier through the trauma. They don’t stay victims or acquiesce to the men in their life trying to save them. They do something that rarely happens on film; they think for and save themselves.
Anne Parillaud as Nikita in La Femme Nikita
For the uninitiated, Nikita was the often too realistic story of a drug-addicted young woman who finds herself in jail after a robbery gone horribly wrong. Most filmmakers would have ended there, a cautionary tale of the woman led down the wrong path who ends up punished for her sins. But Besson took the story further; this broken young woman gets turned into an assassin that is used by her government to kill. The killing takes its toll on her, but she values her life and freedom over the other option provided her: death. She meets a guy, falls in love, and at the end of the day Nikita turned out to not be the same story I was used to. Besson takes the character from a scared, isolated, broken young woman and turns her into a slave to her own freedom. And then he does something that I hadn’t ever seen before. He lets her be her own hero. After an assassination gone wrong she sees her way out, a way to control her own destiny, and she does the unthinkable, she saves herself and escapes alone. She doesn’t end up with the guy, or stay as a puppet. She takes her evolution and goes off on her own to continue becoming the person that she wants to be. Watching her evolution and seeing all of the complexity that she possessed was an eye-opening journey, not just for the character, but for me as an artist.
Besson has spent his career showcasing strong women making their way through difficult situations, breaking down and then coming out the other end a little dirty, both literally and figuratively, with a delicate light shining on their sweat smeared faces. His world was filled with a range of all the complexities of human emotions and the evolution of women from girl to woman, finding a sweet spot of strength in between. His women were tough and strong because they needed to be. He showcased their beauty and didn’t feel the typical male filmmaker desire to make them man-hating, or imply that if only they had a man, their life would be so much better. In fact, most white knighting was turned on its head. There was no breaking of these women as punishment for their strength. Their strength and independence was shown as beautiful; it was a celebrated quality. It was what made them who they were and what got them out of the often dire end sequence that almost always had them being brutalized at the hands of one of their male antagonists. There was no cowering or apologies; in fact these women fought just as hard and just as strong as any man would. They were resilient and strong and, through Besson’s lens, these women were equals. True equals.
Natalie Portman as Mathilda in Leon: The Professional
In his American follow up to Nikita, he gave us a young Natalie Portman as an actual broken little girl bent on revenge who joins forces with an older assassin who she wants to learn from. There seemed to be a step back in Leon: The Professional because despite all the brilliant acting from Portman, Oldman & Reno, the female character in this film was an actual child, and she needed to be protected. But, in true Besson form, he gave her a voice. She wasn’t just vocal; she was strong and defiant, and even in the face of being overrun, shouted at, and abused by men, she held her own. She stood her ground and didn’t get the usual punishment that any other filmmaker would have doled out. Even in the end when Danny Aiello’s character forces her to go to school, it doesn’t seem like patriarchy at all. Her revenge had been accomplished; she was all alone, and it seemed fitting to know at the end of it all, she was going to be alright. She was going to have a chance to become whatever she wanted to become.
I found myself excited again when Besson showed up with Colombiana, and I could tell from the trailer that he was back to his wonderful old tricks. This was a return to the Besson style that I could so easily relate to, and he even threw in a woman of color as the lead. Like all of his other female characters, he didn’t make her a stereotype or a caricature or a piece of scenery whose sole purpose was to provide visual entertainment as a prize for the male characters. In a way, Colombiana was what you imagine might have happened to Mathilde if Leon had made her wait longer to go after her family’s killers. She was complete and whole onto herself. Colombiana showed an actual evolution of its lead from a little girl who fearlessly escaped to a grown woman with her own agenda of vengeance as a means to find peace. Her passion and emotion, much like all of his female leads, gets her into trouble but, in true Besson form, she fights her way out. In the end, when her mission is complete and her journey is over, she lets go of her rage and moves on to a new life. She wasn’t a soulless killer and worthy of pain, she was human, a little girl who fed the beast inside of her until it had had its fill. She was real, complex and human and we could relate to her pain and growth.
Zoe Saldana as Cataleya in Colombiana
A lot happened in between Nikita and Colombiana, but the messages stay the same. When Besson is directing you’re assured that there will be a woman in the lead and she will be complex, independent, strong and, with the exception of The Fifth Element, the love story would be a side story and not the main attraction. His resistance to making a romantic love story the core of the female antihero’s journey is one of the things I love about his work. When he does show us our lead’s romantic entanglements, he does show only a side story, a throwaway to the real star of the show, the woman and her journey. He makes the men part of her scenery, her manic pixie dream boys who show her how to lighten up and let go. An extra in the movie of her life whose sole purpose is to give her a glimpse at a life she could have when her journey is complete. He lets his female leads do exactly what any male director would allow their male lead to do without batting an eye. He doesn’t try to sugar coat the reality of the situation by showing them as permanent victims. He allows them to grow, evolve and be who they are, be it good, bad, or a work in progress. His camera loves strong women. Their strength is what makes them beautiful. It does not sexualize them or treat them as less than the men on screen. Through his lens we are all human and we are all equal. And, I can’t think of anything more feminist than that.
Shay Revolver is a vegan, feminist, cinephile, insomniac, recovering NYU student and former roller derby player currently working as a NY based microcinema filmmaker, web series creator and writer. She’s obsessed with most books , especially the Pop Culture and Philosophy series and loves movies & TV shows from low brow to high class. As long as the image is moving she’s all in and believes that everything is worth a watch. She still believes that movies make the best bedtime stories because books are a daytime activity to rev up your engine and once you flip that first page, you have to keep going until you finish it, and that is beautiful in its own right. She enjoys talking about the feminist perspective in comic book and gaming culture and the lack of gender equality in mainstream cinema and television productions. Twitter @socialslumber13.
Angel, a 1984 cult film, attempts to be both a melodrama about a teen hooker forced to face her life choices (as the trailer proclaims it “A Very Special Motion Picture”) and a very 80s crime thriller where a tough-talking street kid teams up with a cop to catch a killer, but the resulting film is a mess of clashing tones that seems more campy than hard-hitting.
Film poster
This guest post by Elizabeth Kiy appears as part of our theme week on Cult Films and B Movies.
The prostitute is a common figure in the landscape of crime film–she’s a scared witness, a disposable victim or a condemned woman whose character is rarely fleshed out enough to reveal her as a person. In genres like melodrama and after-school specials, where she is a protagonist, the real-life horrors and anxiety of her work are made explicit and over shadow any possible upside.
Angel, a 1984 cult film, attempts to be both a melodrama about a teen hooker forced to face her life choices (as the trailer proclaims it “A Very Special Motion Picture”) and a very 80s crime thriller where a tough-talking street kid teams up with a cop to catch a killer, but the resulting film is a mess of clashing tones that seems more campy than hard-hitting.
This conflict is clear in the music video for the film’s theme song, “You’ve Got Something Sweet” by the Allies, which hilariously juxtaposes bright, sitcom-ready music with images of men slipping money down a teenage girl’s shirt, the main character, Molly (Donna Wilkes) discovering her friend’s beaten and bloody body, the serial killer ominously shaving his head, and Molly running terrified. And then, in the midst of the lead up to a crime story, there are images of Molly fixing her make-up and walking down the street laughing and smiling.
What’s even more surprising is how much fun Molly’s life looks.
A typical image evoking street prostitution, similar to those used in news reports
In a real world context, the story of the movie is tragic: Abandoned by her parents, Molly has been working as a teenage prostitute since she was twelve, and the adults in her life who make up her surrogate family fail to provide her with other options or suggest they disapprove. While there are characters like the detective and Molly’s guidance counselor who want to help her and a moral message about the desperation and abandonment that give young women no choice but to turn to prostitution seems intended, the film is unwilling to commit to an entirely negative portrayal of Molly’s life.
Instead, viewers are presented with an extended teenage fantasy of complete independence and sexual exploration with bits about murder thrown in. Molly has all the things teenage girls want; there is no one who can tell her what to do, she feels beautiful and in control of her life, and her only moments of awkwardness stem from feeling more mature than her classmates. She lives comfortably in her own apartment, goes to a private school and, at the film’s start, seems to have no worries about the really awful things that could happen in the course of her work. Rather than portraying the detective story of typical violence on the streets or hooker murders that get swept under the rug, this murder case seems instead to be a momentary intrusion into Angel’s fairytale life.
The sequence of Molly getting ready gives her a “glamor moment” familiar to most women
In one scene, soft music plays as Molly sits in front of the mirror, having a “glamor moment.” In a series of close-ups, she carefully puts on her make-up and fixes her hair, smiling excitedly at her reflection, transforming from school girl to sex worker.
While the viewer knows the film’s protagonist is a prostitute going in because of its promotional material, the opening scenes of Molly at school function as if the viewer doesn’t know.
In doing so, the film drives the viewer to compare the two distinct images and attempts to make the contrast between them jarring.
Molly is introduced to viewers as an ordinary girl, as the film intends to contrast her two lives
A Madonna/Whore dichotomy is further suggested in the film’s posters, which read “High School Honor Student by Day, Hollywood Hooker by Night,” suggesting viewers will be shocked to discover they can be one and the same. (Streetwalkin’, a 1985 film has a similar tagline, “She dropped out of high school this morning. Tonight she’s a Times Square hooker.”)
Instead, Molly could be a girl getting ready for a date or a dance. In the end result, she does not appear transformed, just a more polished version of her everyday self. Because this glamor moment is so familiar to many women from their own lives, it instead draws viewer identification and brings positive associations.
Though on one hand, the sequence suggests teenage Molly’s transformation to adulthood, it could also be interpreted as a subtle indication that she is not as grown up as she feels she is. For me, this scene brings to mind young girls dressing up in their mothers’ clothes, projecting a grown-up image over a child body. As it is followed by scenes on city streets at night, it is also reminiscent of a girl going clubbing.
Dressed for work in lace socks and club-ready separates, Molly’s transformation from schoolgirl to prostitute is far from extreme
In these scenes, Molly strolls confidently down the street, greeting people as she passes and sharing inside jokes and nicknames. When someone she passes condemns her for prostitution, she continues smiling, as if these outsiders will never understand her free and adventurous world. These scenes are portrayed as if she is going home, and to me, they recall walking though high school hallways and greeting friends.
On the street, Molly has put together a surrogate family for herself, populated by the types of characters teenage girls growing up in the suburbs dream of finding in the city, Diane Arbus photos shot through the lens of Lisa Frank.
Molly enjoys quality time with Mae (Dick Shawn) and Kit (Rory Calhoun), members of her street family
Her friends, a transvestite who acts as her surrogate mother, a cowboy movie actor/stuntman, and a butch landlady are presented as outsiders who banded together to support each other in a world that had rejected them. This is mostly implied, but is shown literally through the cowboy, once a star but now a has-been doing stunts for money on the street. Because of this, in parts the film has a certain heartwarming tone, constantly reminding the viewer Molly has a “family” who loves her, even as it descends deeper into a crime thriller. Though she has the independence to be in charge of her life, she does not have to shoulder the burden alone.
The films seem to suggest that by working and supporting herself, she has matured past her peers and doesn’t belong in their world. As such, one of Angel’s trailers repeats the line, “Angel, it’s her choice, her chance, her life,” glamorizing Molly’s independence and avoiding mention of the factors that made prostitution not a choice but a necessity for her.
By emphasizing Molly’s youth and innocence with the title Angel, the schoolgirl, already a figure of sexual fantasy for some, is cast here as an attainable object. The viewer is told that Molly is a hooker, but never sees her nude or actually having sex. Strangely, the high school cheerleaders she notices in the locker room, who are shown showering fully nude, are more sexualized than she is.
As such, the scene where Molly casually informs the detective that she’s slept with hundreds of men is difficult to believe based on how chastely she has been portrayed. To this end, the film portrays her as a child, joking with her friends and taking breaks from work to go get ice creams and do her homework in hotel lobbies.
Molly takes a break from work to finish her homework and keep up her honor student status
In school, Molly dresses childishly, with pigtails and matching pastels, perhaps to emphasize the contrast. While other prostitutes are dressed in skimpy lingerie or are topless, Molly’s hooker wear is not dissimilar from what a teenage girl would wear to a club.
Conversely, Molly’s independence could be seen as coming from the sacrifice of her innocence or virginity. She is allowed to inhabit dark, dangerous places her classmates will never see as she has entered into an illegal activity and with it, a criminal underworld. As a criminal in this respect, she is given qualities usually reserved for male characters, such as toughness, inclusion in masculine spaces and the ability to use a gun. She also displays enviable bravery as in calling the police, she risks arrest, exposure, or a foster home.
Lieutenant Andrews warns Molly about the killer and her high-risk lifestyle
Homicide detective Lieutenant Andrews, who would be the lead in any other crime drama, functions in relation to Molly and is presented as a secondary character. Viewers don’t see his life outside the case, and the film follows Molly’s story rather than his investigation. Though he is the adult and authority figure, she has power over him, both in his inability to actively save her and his reliance on her to find the killer. The film’s tonal clashes are also apparent in the image of Molly, a young girl in a dress and heels wielding a gun that nearly knocks her over when she fires it, which is presented for comedic effect. Rather than giving Molly the power to cooly seek vengeance for her friends, the suggested unnaturalness of this image through her girlish dress, small size and her friends’ attempts to stop her, further compounds her innocent image instead of tarnishing it.
It is interesting to note that the film does not suggest prostitution on a whole is safe and wonderful, but that for Molly it usually is. She’s the exception, who is able to maintain her status as an “Angel” and with it the suggestion of purity, while other women around her are scantily clad and brutalized. In this fashion, the film suggests, she is young enough to be redeemed and live a different life, but older women in more desperate circumstances are long past helping and thus, must be concerned with things like violence, rape, STDs and unwanted pregnancy that are outside of Molly’s orbit. As mentioned before, the crime story of the movie, an (albeit exaggerated) norm for these other women, is presented as an unusual episode in her otherwise happy life. Still, Molly is always able to protect herself and in incidences where she is threatened by the killer and when two of her classmates try to rape her, she takes control of the situation and forces them to leave her alone.
Molly has a rare moment of anxiety and fear late at night
This viewpoint, that the bad things could happen to anyone else, but would never happen to oneself, appears to me to be a very immature, adolescent idea. Likewise, there are many teenage girls who glamorize prostitution as being wanted, or getting paid to be beautiful and enjoy expensive dinners, presents and sex, ignoring the circumstances that drive desperate women to prostitution or the danger and discomfort that even women who choose to be sex workers must take measures against.
However, the film ends abruptly and without any real closure, giving the viewer no sense of what will happen to Molly now with all the changes in her life. It is unknown whether she will go back to her life of fairytale prostitution, go into foster care or find some other solution (in the sequel, Avenging Angel, Molly is off the streets and attending college). Ultimately, I believe this abrupt ending contributes to the film’s fantasy image of prostitution. The viewers don’t have to see Molly live with the consequences, both of picking up the gun intending to kill the villain and of prostitution itself, so it can remain an escapist fantasy. Not a trauma, but another adventure she has bravely overcome.
Elizabeth Kiy has a degree in journalism with a minor in film from Carleton University. She lives in Toronto, Ontario and is currently working on a novel.
The honesty of a man saying, “What the hell was that?” when a woman is trying to do what society expects her to do to be sexy is a pretty clear indication of how our raunch culture makes fools out of women who try to fit into it.
If Reiner had loved it, I think I would have found that scene incredibly Problematic From a Feminist Perspective™. But he didn’t. This otherwise misogynistic character was baffled and troubled by this kind of display.
I did not expect that scene to be brilliant. But it kind of was.
The Counselor is by no means the “worst movie ever made.” The writing–Cormac McCarthy’s first screenplay venture–was lovely, if at times a bit much (as one might imagine a script by a novelist would be). The acting was incredible. Ridley Scott’s direction is poignant. This also isn’t the best film ever made, but it has enough strong points.
The two prominent women characters did fit into the problematic virgin/whore dichotomy, but overall I was surprisingly pleased at the depictions of female sexuality on screen, and the larger meaning of those scenes.
The opening scene (which The New York Times describes in loving detail) finds the audience in bed with our protagonist, the Counselor (Michael Fassbender) and his soon-to-be fiancée, Laura (Penélope Cruz). Their exchange is intimate, and he wants her to tell him what to do to her. While she’s slightly shy and hesitant, they are comfortable together. He retreats downward to perform oral sex on her, and she orgasms. Enthusiastically.
In the opening scene, we see a focus on female pleasure that is often foreign in heavily masculine films like this. They have just woken up, but he doesn’t want her to “tidy up.” Their white-sheet-wrapped love seems meaningful and real.
The bulk of the film, of course, follows the Counselor (he is nameless; other characters refer to him only in relation to his identity as a lawyer) and his decision to enter into a drug deal to make some fast money. This descent into a different world happens toward the beginning of the film, and what follows is a classic morality play, in which our prince falls, bringing those around him down with him. The dialogue, like the morality play itself, is Shakespearean, which is a bit much for most modern audiences. (There is a lot of talking…)
Hero, moral dilemma, advice from dubious sources, downfall, pile of dead bodies. Yeah, sounds pretty Shakespearean.
The two women characters are also quite Shakespearean with their subtle complexities and clear contrasts, which push us to consider what feminine power is and how we are supposed to judge the characters who surround them by their relationship with women. The Counselor deeply loves Laura and acts baffled when Reiner (Javier Bardem) speaks with disrespect/bawdiness about women. The Counselor loves giving women pleasure. Reiner sees women as dangerous liabilities.
Malkina, left, and Laura reveal their characters as they discuss diamonds and sex.
Reiner’s girlfriend–who we meet as she’s riding a horse across the desert with a cheetah by their side–is Malkina (Cameron Diaz). She is certainly a cheetah herself–gorgeous, fast, sleek, frightening, and threatening. Her role is impressive and important.
But about that Ferrari scene.
We see the scene as a flashback while Reiner is talking to the Counselor about something he’d “like to forget.” That something is the time that Malkina fucked his yellow Ferrari.
Malkina is trying really hard. Really hard. She slips off her panties and tells him she’s going to fuck his car. She climbs up on the windshield, descends into the splits, and goes to town right above Reiner’s face.
This scene–in which a gorgeous woman has sex with a luxury automobile to try to be really sexy and get off (on the luxury itself?)–is telling in how absolutely ludicrous it is. Reiner is “stunned”–and it doesn’t seem like he’s stunned in a good way. It’s just ridiculous.
(And OK, Reiner’s “catfish” description from his vantage point was funny–when he talks about the “gynecological” display upon the glass in terms of one of those “bottom feeders you see going up the way of the aquarium sucking its way up the glass,” that just intensifies how stupid the whole thing is.) Variety has the dialogue from that scene.
In its stupidity lies its feminist commentary.
Malkina’s immorality is essential in this morality story. The power she wields is significant–she’s certainly more malicious and skillful than our leading men. However, we are not supposed to be rooting for Malkina (even though we can find her wiles pretty amazing).
The symbolism of her fucking a Ferrari, and getting off in the process (the Counselor is very interested in whether or not she was able to orgasm), shows us just how materialistic she is. It’s not about human pleasure, it’s about object pleasure.
It’s not about genuine, self-aware female sexuality. It is ridiculous. And Reiner’s description of the fish on the aquarium? That’s exactly what it would look like. So dammit, I think it’s hilarious. The honesty of a man saying, “What the hell was that?” when a woman is trying to do what society expects her to do to be sexy is a pretty clear indication of how our raunch culture makes fools out of women who try to fit into it.
If Reiner had loved it, I think I would have found that scene incredibly Problematic From a Feminist Perspective™. But he didn’t. This otherwise misogynistic character was baffled and troubled by this kind of display.
Laura and Malkina aren’t as fully developed as they probably could have been (early on it’s clear that Laura=good and Malkina=bad when the two are having a conversation and Malkina can give Laura all of the details about Laura’s engagement diamond–and Laura doesn’t even want to know how much it’s worth–and their conversations about sexuality make Malkina seem the whore and Laura seem virginal).
In the promo stills, the men were allowed to have wrinkles, the women were not.
I did appreciate, though, how the women were their age. As disturbing as the marketing for the film was, these women are presented as neither younger than they actually are nor trying to be younger. While they are beautiful, they have wrinkles. While they are sexy, they are not 20. This is refreshing.
The Counselor isn’t the best–or the worst–film ever made. However, its artistic merit as a modern-day morality play and its representation of and commentary about femininity and female sexuality make it stand out.
