Drama – Page 22 – Bitch Flicks

‘True Grit’: Ambiguous Feminism

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘The Book Thief’: Stealing Hearts and Minds

Liesel, unlike so many young heroines, resists romance—from her friend Rudy’s early problematic insistence and then throughout the remainder of the movie. Instead of being positioned in relationship to romantic partners, she has three male best friends—Rudy, Max and Hans (Papa)—as well as two females of great importance to her life, Rosa (Mama) and Ilsa Hermann (the mayor’s wife who, transgressively, supplyies Liesel with books). As for Liesel, like her futuristic counterpart, Katniss Everdeen, she is a life-saving heroine and inspirational rebel.

This cross-post by Natalie Wilson previously appeared at the Ms. Magazine Blog and appears as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.

Though the film The Book Thief is narrated by Death (as is the book) and takes place during World War II—an era particularly riddled with death—the movie brims with life. A large part of this is due to the amazing young actress Sophie Nélisse who plays the protagonist, Liesel Meminger. It is not often that we get complex, brave female characters, especially ones who are not interested first and foremost either in romance or motherhood.

caption — Sophie Nelisse as Liesel in *The Book Thief*

While I disagree with the The New York Times review, which likened the book to “Harry Potter and the Holocaust,” I have to concur with some of the suggestions the comparison implies, such as the importance of friendship, the love of whimsy and the existence of villainous persons that threaten all of humanity. The Book Thief has no wizards though; instead, its narrative rests on the shoulders of young Liesel, orphaned at the outset and taken in by a seemingly shrewish foster mother of the Disney wicked-stepmother-as witch variety. While Rosa is somewhat softened into a more likeable character by the end of the book, the film takes her character transformation in a more feminist direction, suggesting she was merely playing the part of shrew in order to protect the family during the tyrannical times in which they live.

Similarly, Hans, who at first comes off as too quick with the wives-are-such-a-nuisance type of comments, is revealed in the film to also be playing the role of a husband who bemoans his nagging wife, mocking her whenever the chance arises. As such, the two characters play out the role of a bickering married couple so as not to draw attention to their family or house. Here, the film hints at the social roles we are forced to occupy in order to not be singled out, to not be “other.” In so doing, it nods to the fluidity of identity and the ability to resist even the most tyrannical regimes via daily acts of transgression.

Rudy also commits rebellious acts. On the one hand, as the book notes, he is “not the junior misogynistic type of boy at all,” something that has for too long been a norm of boyhood. On the other, his hero is the African American Olympic runner Jesse Owens—the man who refused to shake Hitler’s hand, though this direct political detail in the book is unfortunately not included in the film. The movie, does, however insist that racism is learned, and that Rudy has not learned it, as when his father tells him exasperatedly, “You can’t go around painting yourself black” when he does so in order to feel like Jessie Owens as he runs a race.

Similarly, though Death narrates the book, many of the characters refuse to give in to the death and destruction around them. Instead, they turn the toughest of times into opportunities for empathy and kindness—or, figuratively, to take the graveness out of death. Indeed, two of the book’s at the center of the narrative are very grave indeed, one being The Grave Digger’s Handbook and the other Hitler’s Mein Kampf. With one, Liesel learns to read; with the other, she learns to write. Thus books infused with death are used to give life to Liesel’s story and, more broadly, books, literacy and storytelling offer vital opportunities for transgression in an age of book burning.

That Liesel’s story is made possible by Max painstakingly painting the pages of Mein Kampf white, so as to create a “blank” journal in which Liesel can write is also key. Firstly, it visually negates Hitler’s heinous manifesto of hate, erasing his words with thick paint. Secondly, as the paint is white, it nods to the white Aryan supremacy promoted by Hitler and others in a way that suggests whiteness need not be the privileged, oppressive category it has been for so long. It can be, as indicated by Rudy—the white boy who paints himself black—covered over to tell a different story. Thirdly, the fact that Liesel uses the now-blank pages to write The Book Thief over the hidden words of Hitler suggests not that we “whitewash” history, but that we use what is at our disposal to make this often all-too-ugly world more bearable.

Reviews of the film thus far have been very mixed, with the most common criticism being that it’s too slow and long. For contemporary audiences, this critique has some merit. However, the critique could just as well be directed at audiences, and the film industry at large, for its penchant towards action-packed, special-effects focused, razzle-dazzle types of films. Not everything need be in 3D or filled with explosions to be entertaining. I fear for the slow death of classic films that unfold via complex characters, quiet moments and the multifaceted feelings they bring forth in the viewer. On this count, The Book Thief gives me hope.

Directed by Brian Percival (who directed several episodes of the similarly classy Downton Abbey), the film holds a special appeal for book lovers, centering as it does on the power of a good book and how literacy changes lives and words shape our existence.

It also gives me hope that perhaps we are undergoing what Melissa Silverstein of Women and Hollywood calls “A Female Revolution at the Box Office.” Says Silverstein,

It is so rare to see a full-on, beautiful shot of a young woman to open a film. And from that first moment, this young woman just commands the screen and leads this film in every way.

Though Silverstein is referring to Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the same can be said of Nélisse: She is the heart of the film, bringing the character of Liesel to life in a haunting and mesmerizing way.

If you can steal two hours and five minutes from holiday shopping and parties to see this film, I urge you to do so. Though different from Catching Fire, its talented lead actress and its emotional message might very well burn their way into your heart.

Natalie Wilson, PhD is a literature and women’s studies scholar, blogger, and author. She teaches at Cal State San Marcos and specializes in areas of gender studies, feminism, feminist theory, girl studies, militarism, body studies, boy culture and masculinity, contemporary literature, and popular culture. She is author of the blogs Professor, what if …? and Seduced by Twilight. She is a proud feminist mom of two feminist kids (one daughter, one son) and is an admitted pop-culture junkie. Her favorite food is chocolate.

The Relationships of ‘Veronica Mars’

It’s common wisdom that maintaining relationships requires constant work, but there’s often an assumption (in TV, movies, and real life) that this only applies to romantic relationships. Platonic relationships are rarely the focus of a story, and when a storyline deals with issues in these relationships, they’re often easily dealt with, and the friendship goes back to being simple. Exceptions to this are problems that are caused by romantic relationships. Veronica Mars is an exception to this; for its first two seasons, it depicts many platonic relationships, and explores the many issues involved in navigating them (some of these problems are related to romance, but many are not, showing platonic relationships have their own complexities, separate from romance).

This guest post by Sarah Stringer appears as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.

The opening monologue of Veronica Mars makes it sound like this show is going to stick very closely to the trope of the jaded heroine, whose job has shown her so much lying and cheating that she’s closed off to the possibility of relationships. This idea is reinforced throughout the show, as various characters make jokes about Veronica’s cold cynicism. She’s snarky and sarcastic, and does have trouble getting close to people, largely because of all the trauma she went through before the beginning of the show.

Veronica with her trusted camera and jaded attitude

However, Veronica Mars ends up subverting our expectations. Far from being a show about an aloof hero who can’t work with others, it ends up being largely about Veronica’s various relationships. It’s a running joke throughout the show that she’s constantly asking her friends for favours, but it’s also a running joke that people are constantly asking Veronica for favours, and the favours she asks for are usually to help her help others.

Her friends complain about constantly having to come to her aid, but they never refuse her requests, because they know the favours will be returned when they’re in need. This creates complications, as Veronica finds the line between relationships based on mutual usefulness and reciprocity, and relationships built on genuine caring and respect. As the first couple of seasons progress, she gets better at navigating the second kind of relationship, and mixing it with the first kind.

It’s common wisdom that maintaining relationships requires constant work, but there’s often an assumption (in TV, movies, and real life) that this only applies to romantic relationships. Platonic relationships are rarely the focus of a story, and when a storyline deals with issues in these relationships, they’re often easily dealt with, and the friendship goes back to being simple. Exceptions to this are problems that are caused by romantic relationships. Veronica Mars is an exception to this; for its first two seasons, it depicts many platonic relationships, and explores the many issues involved in navigating them (some of these problems are related to romance, but many are not, showing platonic relationships have their own complexities, separate from romance).

Veronica starts season one with no friends, but in the pilot episode, she befriends the new kid at school, Wallace Fennel. Her very first meeting with him involves her helping him out, by cutting him down from the flagpole where some bullies had duct taped him. She immediately lets him know that sitting with her won’t help his social standing, and he doesn’t need to be her friend just to reciprocate her gesture. He sits with her anyway, not because he feels like he owes her for the help, but because he likes her as a person.

Wallace and Veronica become best friends, and they’re a rare example of a show seriously dealing with the complexities of platonic relationships. As Wallace spends more time at the school, he starts to befriend other students, and get quite popular as a result of being a star on the basketball team. This creates problems in his relationship with Veronica, as they both try to navigate the jealousy, resentment, and time conflicts that come from vastly different social statures.

Another issue in Veronica’s relationship with Wallace is the same issue that exists in all her relationships: the balance between genuine friendship and trading of favours. She often uses his job in the school’s office to get information for her cases, and he’s put himself at risk in that way and other ways to help her. He grants all her requests, sometimes with no knowledge of why he’s doing it (and no questions asked), but he knows her resources will be put to his use anytime he’s in trouble.

Sometimes the balance starts to tip too far, and Wallace feels like she’s taking him for granted. This comes to a head several times, especially when his mother gets in trouble at her job because of something Veronica had him do, without telling him how dangerous it could be. He calls her out several times when she starts neglecting her friendship with him, blowing him off to work on her cases and just using him for the assistance he offers. Veronica tries to make up for this by doing things like baking spirit cookies for his locker, telling him she may have no school spirit but he does, and what’s important to him is important to her.

Veronica and Wallace, figuring things out together

The issue of one partner taking the other partner for granted is one that often comes up in relationships, and little gestures to show affection is a common (partial) solution to it. The depiction of this as a constant issue between two platonic partners is quite refreshing.

This dynamic is seen in several of Veronica’s other relationships, particular with Weevil, a local biker, and Mac, a computer nerd. She gets Weevil and Mac out of trouble when they need it, and they both help her out whenever they can. Working around the inherent potential for taking advantage of each other, as well as Veronica’s own cynicism, they forge genuine friendships that grow as much as any romantic relationship.

The show also devotes a lot of time to Veronica’s relationship with her father, Keith. She works for him at his private investigator practice, and there are times when it’s difficult for them to navigate the dual dynamics of father-daughter and detective-receptionist/junior detective. He wants to protect her, but also teach her, and he often needs her help. He wants to trust her, but there are times when she breaks that trust, and he has to decide how to deal with that as a father and as a boss.

Familial relationships aren’t rare in television or movies (though complex portrayals of them are still rarer than in-depth looks at romance), but they’re rarely dived into as deeply as with Veronica and her father. They joke together, work together, go through extremely difficult circumstances together, and work together to come back from the problems created when they both inevitably screw up.

Veronica Mars portrays all these relationships, and their various issues, without touching romance. That’s not even getting into the relationships Veronica forms with whatever classmate she’s trying to help that week, or with other characters like Meg (her romantic rival, but also far more than that) and her dead best friend, Lily. In a subversion of a heroine who’s closed off and can’t get close to people, Veronica Mars is essentially a show about relationships of all types, and it’s at its best when it’s focusing on those.

The show deteriorated for many reasons in season three, but in my opinion, the major reason was the increased focus on romantic drama, at the expense of the many platonic relationships it built up previously. Weevil and Wallace have significantly smaller roles. Keith and Mac are still important, but mostly because of their own storylines, and they do a lot less interacting with Veronica. When Mac does talk to Veronica, it’s mostly so they can discuss their romantic lives, rather than develop their relationship with each other.

Season three's Weevil, aka "Who the Hell Is This Guy, Again?" — Season three’s Weevil, aka “Who the Hell Is This Guy, Again?”

Romance certainly existed in the show before season three. Veronica had three boyfriends in two seasons, and those relationships were in no way simple or small parts of the story. But they were portrayed quite similarly to the platonic relationships: the focus was on human interactions, and two people figuring out how to fit their personalities together. They even shared the issues about genuine caring versus using each other; Veronica’s first boyfriend was a cop who she met because she was trying to sneak past him to steal evidence, and she spent the better part of the second season trying to get her next boyfriend off for murder.

However, in the third season, most of Veronica’s romantic issues were more superficial. Her and her on-and-off boyfriend Logan spent more moping about each other than actually figuring out how to be together (or not be together). There’s drama about who’s sleeping with who that leads to more fights than resolutions. The show seems to lose its focus, particularly since so many of Veronica’s platonic relationships are neglected.

There were things I liked about the third season of Veronica Mars, and I await the upcoming movie with as much bated breath as the next fan. But I hope the movie put the focus back where I think it belongs: on complex relationships of all kinds, rather than romantic drama.

See also at Bitch Flicks: “Why Veronica Mars is Still Awesome,” by Amanda Rodriguez

Sarah Stringer is a psychology student in Ontario, with an interest in the political aspects of pop culture.

America: The Great Hustle (and Jennifer Lawrence)

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

Written by Rachel Redfern

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.

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.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhqP09uPR8c”]

Maternal Grief in ‘The Truth About Emanuel’

I have a thing for creepy/taboo relationships in fiction. All I had to hear was “baby obsession” and I was sold on The Truth About Emanuel. I’m also familiar with Kaya Scodelario from her Skins years and I was curious to find out if she had range beyond troubled teen queen. On that front I was a bit underwhelmed. Thankfully, the true focus of the story extended far beyond her.

Written by Erin Tatum.

I have a thing for creepy/taboo relationships in fiction. All I had to hear was “baby obsession” and I was sold on The Truth About Emanuel. I’m also familiar with Kaya Scodelario from her Skins years and I was curious to find out if she had range beyond troubled teen queen. On that front I was a bit underwhelmed. Thankfully, the true focus of the story extended far beyond her.

emreflects — Emanuel reflects on her tragic origins.

Scodelario plays 17-year-old Emmanuel, a jaded teen disillusioned by the death of her mother during her birth, resulting in perennial survivor’s guilt that always seems to crop up around her birthday. Guess what time of year it is! In her opening internal monologue, she describes how the doctor brought her back to life with “the same rhythmic motions he had used to jerk himself off that morning.” This is a nit picky thing, but I’m so sick of sexual omniscience and perversity being a marker of worldliness or psychopathic tendencies in teens. Psychology and sexuality do tend to go hand in hand (no pun intended), but did we really need such an irrelevant detail? Also, since when can you evoke suspected obscure third-party masturbation as a metaphor for your own sadness? She literally says “he came and I came… back to life.” That just sounds unsanitary. Was he masturbating and performing CPR on an infant at the same time?

Anyway, Emmanuel’s life is turned upside down by the arrival of her new neighbor Linda (Jessica Biel) and her baby daughter Chloe. Before that, we get a nice preview of the forthcoming dysfunction as Emanuel bizarrely accuses her stepmother Janice (Frances O’Connor) of thinking she’s a lesbian and passively aggressively insinuates that she has had sexual dreams about Janice. As someone who relishes queer undertones, even I have to say I was baffled by the repeated references to Emanuel’s supposed sexual ambiguity. Same-sex desire seems to exist to fan the flames of anxiety around the unfulfilled Oedipal complex. More on that later.

Linda is simultaneously evasive about Chloe, trusting Emanuel to be in the house alone with her despite never introducing the two. Linda and Emanuel bond one-on-one and it’s intentionally left unclear whether Emanuel is substituting her as a mother figure or developing romantic interest. The plot synopsis also piles on by pointing out the physical similarities between Linda and Emanuel’s late mother. Yes, because if I were mourning my dead mother and feeling responsible for her death, obviously the only logical way to cope with things would be to lust after her doppleganger. I’m fascinated by the thematic exploration of incest as arguably one of the deepest social taboos, but I’m really not feeling this compulsive equation of parental grief in itself to depraved Freudian sexual confusion.

To take some of the heat off the lesbian pseudo-incest, Emanuel has a boyfriend Claude (Aneurin Barnard) that she meets commuting on the train. It’s kind of a random place to have a romance and it screams try hard indie. The love interest aspect of this film in terms of Claude feels disjointed and doesn’t really add anything to the narrative, except to shore up Emanuel’s otherwise shaky heterosexuality. Clyde and Linda both spend a lot of time babbling reverent nonsense at Emanuel about her introverted mysteriousness to insist that the audience should continue to find her intriguing with very little character development. 21-year-old Scodelario has been stirring the rapidly cooling embers of stock manic pixie dream girl tropes (with the particularly offputting caveat of emotional unavailability) since she was 14, so the aloof informed attractiveness shtick is boring on a film-specific level and in the scope of her entire opus.

Something isn’t right about the baby from day one. Linda is initially reluctant to allow Emanuel to see Chloe and Emanuel frequently hallucinates ocean sounds or even rising water when near the nursery. We later learn this is an allusion to the peaceful swimming dream her mother had before starting fatal labor. It’s like a psychosis roulette! Emanuel soon discovers that “Chloe” is actually a lifelike doll, strangely contradicting a photograph she found earlier of Linda and her estranged husband holding a real baby. This is where a lot of critics checked out. The doll revelation is made 30 minutes in and the pacing of the remaining hour is admittedly clunky. If you can’t get past the LOL reflex of “I can’t believe they’re treating the doll like a real person,” this probably isn’t the film for you because everything after that becomes unbearably campy. And frankly, I think the impulse to treat things deemed inauthentic as laughable or not human exemplifies the callous ideology that the film is warning against. When viewed as a commentary on loss and mental illness, the story becomes poignant and heartbreaking.

Emanuel becomes increasingly occupied with caring for Chloe. — Emanuel becomes increasingly preoccupied with tending to Chloe.

Emanuel reacts to the doll with horror and disgust. Curiously, she stops short of questioning Linda, although she is mortified by and actively tries to thwart Linda’s attempts to introduce Chloe to the neighbors. Emanuel shrouds herself in secrecy as she and Linda develop a routine, caring for Chloe as if she were a normal infant. Her willingness to indulge Linda’s fantasy, perhaps a signal of her own dwindling sanity, increases as her infatuation with Linda intensifies. The parallel grieving metaphor here isn’t subtle. Emanuel always wondered what life would be like if her mom lived instead of her and she finds an unsettling possibility in Linda, surprisingly augmenting her guilt. By the same token, Linda states several times that she wants Chloe to grow up to be like Emanuel and sees Emanuel and Chloe as sisters, indicating that she perceives Emanuel as her child in a roundabout way. Emanuel appears to start independently believing in the realness of Chloe as she becomes more determined for her and Linda to rebuild their fractured families together, a shift cemented by her choosing to feed Chloe an actual bottle of milk when they are home alone.

Still, the lesbian element always remains forced back onto the periphery, for reasons I don’t understand. Emanuel’s stepmom even privately warns Linda that Emanuel might make a move because she didn’t have a mom and is therefore confused. Way to play on every gay stereotype ever. She awkwardly tries to confirm that Linda is straight and Linda hesitates for a second before we cut to the next scene. We get all of these cat-and-mouse subtextual moments throughout, but the weirdest thing is that none of it goes anywhere. Emanuel and Linda never act on their sexual tension, but it’s never denied or put to rest either. I question why that dynamic was included in the first place. Queer desire is demonized as facilitating incest and nothing more, which is extremely and almost needlessly unfortunate given the lack of narrative relevance.

Oh, and Janice (the stepmom) confides to Linda that she’s infertile and that’s part of the reason for her uneasiness with Emanuel. No one in this movie can have a positive relationship to childbirth.

Linda becomes distraught upon realizing that the doll isn't the real Chloe. — Linda becomes distraught upon realizing that the doll isn’t actually Chloe.

Things take an abrupt nosedive when Linda agrees to go on a date with Emanuel’s coworker, Arthur. Afterwards, she ignores Emanuel’s protests and excitedly suggests Arthur take a peek at the sleeping baby. He quickly points out that it’s a doll, shattering Linda’s carefully constructed bubble. She recognizes the baby as fake for the first time and immediately flies into a panic, demanding that Emanuel tell her Chloe’s true location and accusing her of stealing Chloe. I find it hard to believe that someone as delusional as Linda would snap back to reality the second someone brought up the tiniest shred of rational doubt, but Biel’s acting is phenomenal in this scene. Most intriguingly of all, Emanuel protectively cradles Chloe as both Arthur and Linda berate the doll as a lie, suggesting that she’s just as far gone if not more so than Linda.

Arthur drags Linda away and Emanuel curls up on the floor with the doll, suddenly finding herself swimming underwater. Emanuel’s mom appears in the distance and Chloe comes to life. The two of them swim away together, leaving Emanuel alone. After Emmanuel passes out and wakes up in the hospital, Linda’s husband explains that the doll was the culmination of Linda’s mental breakdown following the death of their infant daughter. Motherhood is just so healthy. Linda is sent to a mental institution.

Linda and Emanuel lay together calmly in the graveyard.

Undeterred, Emanuel enlists the help of her boyfriend to break Linda out. She tells Linda that Chloe isn’t okay, but she shouldn’t worry because Chloe is with her mom now. Together, they bury the doll on top of Emanuel’s mom’s grave and gaze at the stars together, their broken pasts now finally at peace.

‘Philomena’: A Feminist Gender and Religion Critique

Philomena is based on the true story of Philomena Lee, an Irish woman who got pregnant as a teenager and was relegated to a convent where she was forced to perform grueling manual labor before her young son was sold to an adoptive US family. Fifty years later, Philomena works with a washed-up ex-journalist to find her son while he uncovers the dark truth behind her son’s adoption and the church’s betrayal. Overall, I’d say this is a feminist film that tries to expose oppressive gender roles that linger on today and allows its heroine, played by the exquisite Dame Judi Dench, to be her own person: a woman who makes her own decisions and mistakes while remaining irrepressibly full of humor and love.

I wouldn’t exactly characterize Stephen Frears much-praised film Philomena as a comedy. I’d describe it as more of a dramatized exposé of the corruption of the Irish Catholic church with moments of levity that give a desolate story warmth and humanity. Philomena is based on the true story of Philomena Lee, an Irish woman who got pregnant as a teenager and was relegated to a convent where she was forced to perform grueling manual labor before her young son was sold to an adoptive US family. Fifty years later, Philomena works with a washed-up ex-journalist to find her son while he uncovers the dark truth behind her son’s adoption and the church’s betrayal. Overall, I’d say this is a feminist film that tries to expose oppressive gender roles that linger on today and allows its heroine, played by the exquisite Dame Judi Dench, to be her own person: a woman who makes her own decisions and mistakes while remaining irrepressibly full of humor and love.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DBPqcp6Hc4″]

Philomena is in the business of critiquing institutions; specifically: religion, gender, class, and media. The interactions between ex-journalist Martin and Philomena highlight class disparity. Sometimes the exposure is subtle. Martin flies to the convent while Philomena drives with her daughter. Philomena is giddy at the prospect of free champagne on the flight to America as well as the complimentary grand breakfast buffet and the posh hotel room. She doesn’t “get” Martin’s sense of humor or cultural references, and she reads romance formula fiction, never guessing at the “formula” obvious in all her books. These moments are designed to make the audience chuckle at the sweetness of Philomena’s naivete while underscoring her lack of privilege, education, and wealth.

Philomena feels "like the Pope" for being allowed to ride on the airport transport service. — Philomena feels like royalty for riding on the airport transport service.

Other times, the class disparity is stark and painful. Philomena realizes she could never have given her son the opportunities and lifestyle he enjoyed as a result of his adoption. Martin is, on occasion, cruel to her because the things that excite her are old hat for him; he’s jaded and has come to expect a life of comfort and privilege. He also mocks Philomena for her faith, insinuating that her class status is why she believes in a higher power (because he is too learned and intellectual to believe in anything). The movie shows that though Martin is more worldly, wealthier, and better educated than Philomena, he doesn’t enjoy life the way that she does. She refuses to be bitter or angry like he is. He begins to understand and accept the fact that Philomena needs him, with his connections and his status as an upper-crusty white man, to find out the truth about her son.

Martin rebuffs Philomena for her excitement about the hotel's omelet station — Martin rebuffs Philomena & her excitement about an omelet station

Philomena‘s religion and gender critique go hand-in-hand. Religion judges and punishes young women (some as young as 14) for giving in to “carnal” desires that they haven’t been educated about to even understand the potential consequences. The film also highlights forced labor along with constant recriminations to show how religious forces incite fear, shame, and blame that Philomena and countless others carry for over 50 years. Philomena experiences a particular guilt because she enjoyed the sexual encounter that led to her pregnancy. The church teaches that female bodies and female pleasure are sinful, and many of the nuns are revealed to be bitter and vengeful, a perfect example of patriarchy-complicit female figures of authority. There is no discussion of the culpability of the male cohorts whose sperm was a necessary part of the baby-making equation. Sound familiar? The religious right continues this mentality with its abstinence-only education while heaping stigma galore onto young women who become trapped in pregnancy, insisting that the female body is a breeding ground for impurity and that all the fault lies within the woman, who is, in many cases, forced to suffer all the consequences.

Young, inexperienced Philomena at the fair.

The kicker is that “female sin” is big business for the church in Philomena. The convent forces young women to “pay off” their debt/sin by working ungodly hours (pun intended) in the convent, and then they illegally sell the babies to the US for a great deal of money. The church destroys evidence and refuses to help families reunite even after 50 years of separation. The film claims that this was in part due to a continued resentment and desire to punish the sins of the young mothers, but it’s perhaps more true that the church is covering its tracks. Here, the church, a religious institution, takes advantage of the weak, the helpless, the poor, and the disenfranchised. Here, the church, targets women in particular using the notion of female sin to solidify their dogma and to reinforce their power (financial in this case). The exploitation of women by religious institutions is not new and continues today, as female reproductive rights are leveraged to cause divisiveness and to reinforce the power of political groups, religious groups, and the patriarchy.

The real-life Anthony with a nun before he was sold.

Despite it all, Philomena remains a good-hearted person. She stands up to Martin when necessary, insisting that this is her story. She asserts that she’ll be the one who makes the decisions and that her reaction is her own, not his or a media that seeks only to capitalize on her tale of woe and exploit her for its own gain. She continues to love and accept her son regardless of the many things she learns about him that an old-fashioned religious person like herself could have found alienating. In the end, she forgives the convent, proving that she is the bigger person and more Christian than the nuns and religious institution that tormented her. While the circumstances of the film are tragic and devastating, Philomena’s doggedness, her bravery, and her journey have exposed wide-spread corruption and opened the door for other mothers to reunite with their long-lost children. Though she’s an ordinary woman without means, a fancy education, or influence, she stood up to a powerful institution steeped in centuries of history, and she said, “No more.” Philomena’s quest shows us that the personal is political and that one woman can make a difference in the the world.

Judi Dench sits with the real Philomena Lee.

——————
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.

The Many Faces of Catwoman

Who doesn’t love Catwoman? She’s smart, sassy, independent, has her own moral code, and often outfoxes (or maybe outcats) Batman, one of the greatest superheroes of all time. Though I’d be hard-pressed to label her skin-tight, uber-revealing outfit as feminist, Catwoman is a famous sex symbol who uses her sexuality to her own advantage. The figure of Catwoman has gone through dozens of iterations over the years, which goes to show that this iconic figure is a potent anti-heroine or villainess who continues to appeal to audiences throughout the generations. Now I’m answering the question: which of is the most feminist representation?

Spoiler Alert

Who doesn’t love Catwoman? She’s smart, sassy, independent, has her own moral code, and often outfoxes (or maybe outcats) Batman, one of the greatest superheroes of all time. Though I’d be hard-pressed to label her skin-tight, uber-revealing outfit as feminist, Catwoman is a famous sex symbol who uses her sexuality to her own advantage. The figure of Catwoman has gone through dozens of iterations over the years, which goes to show that this iconic figure is a potent anti-heroine or villainess who continues to appeal to audiences throughout the generations. I’ve done a bit of meditating on these incarnations and questioned which of them is the most feminist representation.

Illustrated

First, we’ve got her comic book origin as The Cat in 1940’s Batman #1.

That’s right. Catwoman was birthed alongside the legend of Batman himself. Unfortunately, her creator Bob Kane was a misogynist and sought to portray traits that he coded as feminine:

“I felt that women were more feline creatures and…cats are cool, detached, and unreliable…You always need to keep women at arm’s length. We don’t want anyone taking over our souls, and women have a habit of doing that. So there’s a love-resentment thing with women. I guess women will feel that I’m being chauvinistic to speak this way…”

All I have to say is, “You’re right, Bob: you are a chauvenist,” and, “ew.” That said, Catwoman was designed as an unattainable love interest that personified the aloof and perhaps vindictive qualities her creators saw within female sexuality. Her depiction is more about drumming up some sexual interest and excitement for Batman than creating a nuanced character.

"Honey, if I went straight, you'd never pay any more attention to me." - Catwoman — In her earliest incarnations, Catwoman is an attention-seeking naughty girl type.

Though I’m a bit of a comic book nerd who’s absolutely drawn to strong female characters, I’ve never been interested in reading any graphic novel Catwoman series. Her later depictions always struck me as a lot of tits and ass without substance, which I’m primarily basing on the cover art. Her sexuality is showcased to the extreme where it’s hard to imagine anything else beneath it. (If you’re a reader of Catwoman comics and feel differently, please set me straight in the comments!)

Those are some ridiculously large boobies.

I am, however, intrigued by her more recent, vicious comic book portrayals. Those have grit and make me curious about her.

There are also multiple cartoon renderings of Catwoman that are more or less underwhelming. In Batman: The Animated Series, Catwoman does get to have layers in that she’s a jewel thief, an animal rights activist, and has her alter-ego as Selina Kyle, but her main role continues to be an elusive love interest for Batman as opposed to a compelling character.

Television

Catwoman made her television debut on the Batman series in 1966. Julie Newmar performed perhaps the most memorable version of Catwoman. I was certainly smitten with her. She was lovely, imposing, and “diabolical” (as Batman would say). She was a lone woman who commanded a group of male thugs. Among the great supervillains of the TV Batman mythology, she was the only woman, and she certainly held her own.

Julie Newmar Catwoman alt — The (in)famous Julie Newmar Catwoman

Lee Meriwether was chosen for the film version of the Batman TV show. She, too, was stunning and very similar in appearance to Julie Newmar. Meriwether’s Catwoman also had a faux-alter ego as Miss Kitka, Russian journalist designed to seduce and lure “Comrade Wayne” into supervillain coalition custody to elicit Batman’s rescue attempts. This may have been the first sustained disguise Catwoman ever put on. She was never Selina Kyle in the TV show, which left her somewhat one-dimensional, but none of the other supervillains really had alter egos either.

The last Batman TV show Catwoman is the late, great Eartha Kitt. A magnetic personality who brought more flare to the role than any before, Kitt was the first Black woman to play Catwoman…and, I believe, the first Black woman to prominently feature on the show. Race and inclusivity were and continue to be issues that most media fail to properly address. Eartha Kitt’s Catwoman was much like Nichelle Nichols‘ Uhura on Star Trek: a pioneer, a weather vane showing that times were changing, and a kickass character to boot. If it had been gratifying in Season 1 & 2 to see a solitary woman ordering around a gang of male minions, then it was even more so in Season 3 to see a Black woman calling the shots.

No other Catwoman purred quite like Eartha Kitt

Film

We got to see another talented Black woman, Halle Berry, reprise the role in 2004’s Catwoman. Unfortunately, the flick was universally considered a turd that was really a vehicle to showcase/exploit an Academy Award winning actress’s body with the most revealing catsuit of all time (and that’s saying something). I could really push the envelope to suggest a feminist reading of the film’s beauty industry critique, as Berry’s Patience Phillips struggles to destroy the anti-aging cosmetic corporation that employs her because it is selling a faulty and harmful product, but the fact that her boss (the one who kills her thus turning her into Catwoman) is a woman (Sharon Stone, no less) takes a lot of the steam out of that argument.

Halle Berry's uber-revealing Catwoman costume — Halle Berry’s uber-revealing Catwoman costume

We also have the most recent depiction of Catwoman in Christopher Nolan‘s third installment of his Batman trilogy: The Dark Knight Rises in 2012. Though I’ve never been a fan of Anne Hathaway, I was nonetheless generally impressed with her Catwoman performance. Hathaway’s Selina Kyle was strong, independent, clever, and had a righteous sense of class justice, and in spite of the catsuit, she wasn’t quite as sexualized as earlier film incarnations.

Anne Hathaway's tech-heavy Catwoman — Anne Hathaway’s tech-heavy Catwoman

That said, Hathaway technically isn’t Catwoman. She doesn’t give herself that name nor is she dubbed with it by an opponent or ally. Contrary to the opinion of fellow reviewer Kelsea Stahler, I think taking the title away from her divests her of some of the power, prestige, and legacy that is inherent in her name. Though I did admire Anne Hathaway’s smart-and-ruthless-with-a-smattering-of-conscience characterization, this version of Catwoman ultimately fails my feminist expectations because she ends up with Bruce Wayne in the end. She runs away to France and allows him to domesticate her. Stripping Catwoman of her counter-culture independence and settling her down with a man is tantamount to de-clawing her.

I bet Bruce Wayne will have a hard time housebreaking her

No, in this reviewer’s humble-ish opinion, the most feminist depiction of Catwoman is Michelle Pfeiffer from Tim Burton’s 1992 Batman Returns. Though this Catwoman is oozing sex, she always has her own agenda and is crafty enough to DIY-style make her own iconic cat costume. Pfeiffer’s Selina Kyle is mentally unstable and has periodic breaks with reality, which is a realistic rendering of a woman suffering post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after being attacked and murdered by her boss.

Catwoman mounts Batman and licks his face

The end of Batman Returns has Batman stripping off his mask and asking Catwoman not to kill her boss, but to leave town and come away with him instead. This is the inverse of what happens in The Dark Knight Rises as Hathaway’s Kyle begs Batman to abandon Gotham and run away with her. Pfeiffer’s response as Catwoman is, “Bruce, I would love to live with you in your castle forever just like in a fairy tale. I just couldn’t live with myself, so don’t pretend this is a happy ending!” She then claws Batman’s face and kills her boss, using up all but one of her nine lives to do so. Now, I’m not all about killing or anything, but the point is that Selina Kyle rejects Batman’s idea of who she should be, what her moral code should be, and how she should heal. She acknowledges the appeal of the traditional “fairy tale” conclusion that ends her story with a man and love, but her need for independence and for self-actualization becomes too important for her to sacrifice by relying on romantic love to save her as she once would have before her transformation into Catwoman. Instead, her story continues on, and we can imagine all the possible paths she may have chosen for her life.

All the Catwomen are hyper-sexualized and mysterious. All of them wield power over Batman and Gotham’s underworld. Though Pfeiffer’s Catwoman is my pick as the most feminist of all the iterations I’ve seen, she’s still problematic as are all her Cat sisters. I see the feminist strength and independence in her, but I also see the way sex is her weapon and that she mostly exists as a foil for Batman, a temptation and a lesson on what rampant desires can lead to. Maybe I’m more like Batman than I’d care to admit in that I, too, recognize the appeal of Catwoman as a mixed bag, and I, too, am drawn to her against my better judgement.

See ‘Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom’ for Naomie Harris’s Winnie Mandela

Where Long Walk to Freedom is able to offer something new and compelling is in its depiction of Winnie Mandela, played by Naomie Harris in a stunning, ferocious performance. Winnie’s story isn’t as well-known, and she’s not as saintly a figure, so the film is able to actually take a point of view in its portrayal of her.

Idris Elba and Naomie Harris as Nelson and Winnie Mandela

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom is such an old-fashioned, pro-forma biopic that it’s almost hard to believe it was made in 2013. We begin with a quick, symbolically loaded note from Madiba’s youth as he completes his Xhosa coming-of-age ritual, swiftly move to his entrance into anti-Apartheid activism, neatly transition into the second act with his arrest and 27 years as a political prisoner, and end with his release from prison and subsequent election as President.

I may have a slightly skewed perspective because I have lived in South Africa for the past year and a half, but I think most of the audience for this film comes in with this basic knowledge. Nelson Mandela’s life story is already a profoundly moving inspiration to people worldwide, without a dramatized cinematic portrayal. So seeing it played out note-by-note like this doesn’t have much value. It’s emotionally moving, but intellectually hollow. I’d much rather have seen a film like Spielberg’s Lincoln, focused on Mandela’s vital role in the reorganization South Africa as a free country.

Poster for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom with tagline "The Leader You Knew, The Woman You Didn't" — Poster for *Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom* with tagline “The Leader You Knew, The Woman You Didn’t”

Where Long Walk to Freedom is able to offer something new and compelling is in its depiction of Winnie Mandela, played by Naomie Harris in a stunning, ferocious performance. Winnie’s story isn’t as well-known, and she’s not as saintly a figure, so the film is able to actually take a point of view in its portrayal of her. The film could have demonized Winnie for her radicalism to further beatify Mandela for his post-imprisonment commitment to peace. Instead, it presents her politics as an understandable reaction to the brutal oppression of Apartheid; and moreover, her particular persecution by the government, including her own imprisonment and a year and a half in solitary confinement. But Long Walk to Freedom does not gloss over Winnie’s endorsement of violence, including “necklacing,” brutal murders of suspected informants by setting tires around their necks on fire.

Naomi Harris as Winnie Mandela shortly after she is released from prison

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom’s nuanced depiction of Winnie Mandela owes a lot to Naomie Harris’s incredible performance. She should be a front-runner in this year’s Oscar race, although I am not sure if she’ll be put forward for the Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress category (the choice will probably depend on the rest of the field; although her role is certainly as substantive as what last year’s Best Actress Jennifer Lawrence had in Silver Linings Playbook).

Harris also benefits from playing a woman whose face isn’t as iconic as Nelson Mandela’s, even though she doesn’t much look like Winnie Mandela. One of the film’s significant problems is how Idris Elba can never quite disappear into his role because he looks nothing like Mandela, particularly in his later years, where Elba is saddled with extremely awkward age makeup.

Naomie Harris is barely aged when playing Winnie Mandela in the 1990s, but Idris Elba is buried under makeup.

Strangely, Harris is barely aged through the course of the film, despite her role spanning 40-odd years of history. While this decision smacks of sexism, suggesting the filmmakers’ unwillingness to depict an older woman on screen, Harris’s performance ultimately benefits from the absence of distractingly bad age makeup.

So while Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom is far from a perfect movie, Naomie Harris’s near-perfect performance saves it from total mediocrity. The power of her acting and the complex depiction of Winnie Mandela are almost entirely what makes the film worth seeing, unless you know nothing of Nelson Mandela’s story.

The Film Version of ‘Blue is the Warmest Color’ Left Me Cold

It’s fantastic that there is a “Blue is the Warmest Color” comic book French film adaptation that is receiving such praise. Not only that, but the graphic novel was written and drawn by a woman, Julie Maroh. However, because I really admire the graphic novel source material (…even though it is a bit overwrought…I mean, hey, what love story isn’t?), I feel compelled to critique the film for the myriad changes that were actively made from comic to screenplay, which remove much of the drama and complexity from the storyline.

'Blue is the Warmest Color' comic vs film — *Blue is the Warmest Color:* comic vs. film.

Spoiler Alert

Though Bitch Flicks had a recent guest post by Ren Jender on the French lesbian film Blue is the Warmest Color called “The Sex Scenes are Shit, The Director’s an Asshole, but You Should Still See ‘Blue is the Warmest Color,'” I couldn’t help but weigh in on this graphic novel-turned-movie. Jender made a lot of really great points, namely that despite the director’s obvious prurience when it comes to lesbian sexuality, it’s still so important that we’re seeing a critically acclaimed three-hour film depicting the love affair between two women. I also think it’s fantastic that a comic book adaptation is receiving such praise. Not only that, but the graphic novel was written and drawn by a woman, Julie Maroh. However, because I really admire the graphic novel source material (…even though it is a bit overwrought…I mean, hey, what love story isn’t?), I feel compelled to critique the film for the myriad changes that were actively made from comic to screenplay, which remove much of the drama and complexity from the storyline.

Because they’re everyone’s pet topic, let’s go ahead and start with the sex scenes. Few will argue that the film’s sex scenes weren’t overly long and graphic. There were something like three repetitive sex scenes where nothing is happening to further the plotline or our understanding of the characters’ relationships, which makes the additional scenes seem gratuitous.

Check out this video of lesbians watching Blue is the Warmest Color sex scenes and evaluating them:

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIjJ_VtU9PA”]

Though I personally thought the scenes were kind of icky and prurient and shot from an exploitative male gaze, they were also impersonal. There was a lack of intimacy between the two women that was obvious in that they rarely kiss, they don’t make eye contact, and they’re usually not facing one another. This dramatically contrasts from the sex scenes depicted in the graphic novel. Maroh’s sex scenes, like in the movie, are also quite graphic. The difference is that they’re not just about pleasure; they’re about connection, intimacy, and love.

Blue Graphic Novel Sex resize — Emma performs oral sex on Clementine (aka Adele).

In case you’re not familiar with French, Clementine (Adele in the film) is saying, “I love you,” to Emma during sex. There’s also a bit of insecurity and talking/checking-in to alleviate those lingering fears. Not only that, but there’s a whole lot of kissing. As a queer woman, I found the graphic novel’s sex scenes to be far more sensual and sexy than the sort of rutting that the film depicts.

Clementine/Adele performs oral sex on Emma.

The sex of the film version of Blue is the Warmest Color translates into our understanding of their relationship, which didn’t strike me as particularly loving either. We see Adele doing a lot of work to prepare for a party, and Emma being ungrateful for that by critiquing Adele for her lack of creativity. The two of them also share a mutual fear of the other’s infidelity. The break-up scene with Emma hurling slurs at Adele like “little slut” and “little whore” after slapping her is not in the graphic novel either. That hatred and that domestic violence coupled with their loveless sex left me to believe that the director could not fathom two women’s love for one another. He could understand their lust, but not their love. Their reunion scene in the cafe (another movie write-in) cements my theory because it indicates that sex was the primary tether holding them together. Though Emma confesses she doesn’t love Adele anymore, their near public-sex-act shows that their sexual desire is still intact.

The romance of their film relationship dies as soon as they have sex.

Very little of the complexity of Clementine/Adele’s sexuality along with its struggles remain in the film. We see the brutality of her homophobic friends ostracizing her on suspicion of her gayness, but we don’t see her parents finding out she’s gay and kicking her out of her house and disowning her. We don’t see how Emma never really believed that Adele was queer and initially refused to break up with her girlfriend, Sabine, fearing that Adele would wake up one day and suddenly want to be with a man, which made Adele’s infidelity that much more painful. We don’t see how Adele repeatedly freezes Emma out early on in their relationship, asserting her immaturity, individuality, and ability to make choices. We don’t see how Adele feels she must constantly prove her sexuality to Emma. We don’t see that Adele actually hated gay pride events and refused to go to them. We don’t see that she hid her sexuality from her friends/colleagues and became something of a reclusive introvert, which caused strife with her extroverted partner. We don’t see the way Adele battles crushing anxiety and depression due to her slippery identity and relationship troubles. We don’t see how it drives her to drug use. We don’t see how this kills her.

Why did the film cut these moments of tension? Why did it de-complicate its heroine’s sexuality and her personality, for that matter? These details, these events are what make these cardboard characters into people. These questions, struggles, and anxieties are hallmarks of queer sexuality, of queer life. To remove them is to dismiss the difficulties endemic to coming out and being gay in our world. If you also take away the joy and love inherent in those relationships, as the film Blue is the Warmest Color does, what are you left with?

This kiss is full of pain, passion, and love.

I’m not saying all lesbian sex is romantic or that all lesbian relationships are loving, but I’m left wondering what I was watching for three hours? It mostly seemed like a lot of mouth-breathing, sleeping, eating, and fucking. Is that what the film wants us to believe lesbian relationships are all about? The party scene even mouths the director’s inability to understand queer female sexuality with its ignorant conversations about what women do in bed and why women are drawn to each other. I can’t help but feel that there was so much beauty, depth, and complexity to the relationship in the comic that is inexplicably missing from the film. I can’t help but feel the movie gives us scraps and that the queer community is so desperate for a reflection of itself, that we hungrily accept those scraps.

I understand people liking this film, especially queer women. I might’ve liked it, too, if I hadn’t read the graphic novel first. If you liked this movie, do yourself a favor and go to your local comic book store. Pick up a copy of Julie Maroh’s beautifully illustrated graphic novel Blue is the Warmest Color. If you don’t have a comic book shop, I beg you to buy it online. See what you’re missing. See what the film is missing.

“I Wasn’t Finished”: Divine Masculinity in ‘Untamed Heart’

Caroline somehow knows that Adam is not a typical young man simply working for minimum wage at a local diner in Minnesota; he is a heavenly catalyst sent not to offer completeness in Caroline’s life, but to remind her that she is worth loving, even in his absence.

This guest post by Jenny Lapekas appears as part of our theme week on Male Feminists and Allies.

In Tony Bill’s romance Untamed Heart (1993) Adam (Christian Slater) is very much a Christ-like figure throughout the film–he carries an aura of secrecy, we see him consistently bathed in light in many scenes, and he saves Caroline (Marisa Tomei) from her would-be rapists in a dark park in Minneapolis. In fact, Adam–whose name echoes the biblical Adam of the Garden of Eden–saves Caroline throughout the film, and it only makes sense, after proving his sacrificial love for the waitress, that he dies at the film’s conclusion. The film immediately focuses on Adam as it opens with his upbringing as an orphan raised by nuns. When the juvenile Adam has medical issues with his heart, one of the concerned nuns pleads, “Don’t you break our hearts,” a clear indication of his divine links as a person and a child of the church.

When Caroline questions Adam about fighting off the pair of drunken men, she is almost accusatory: “You follow me home?” After her attack, the last thing she wants to believe is that Adam’s sweet gaze is actually predatory. Adam interrupts her charming babbling with a sobering, “I wasn’t finished,” which becomes his mantra throughout the film; Caroline tends to talk herself in circles, but Tomei has a way of winning over viewers with her cyclical monologue when interacting with the dreamy Christian Slater.

The street lamp looks almost like a halo above Adam’s head as he carries home an unconscious Caroline, post-attack.

To further emphasize Adam’s goodness, all other male characters found in Untamed Heart are in some way flawed: Two men who show interest in Caroline end up as her assailants, Caroline’s father is uptight and largely absent, and her immature little brother fails to pick her up from work, causing her to walk home alone. After her attack, we see a defeated-looking Caroline at the mall amidst the holiday bustle. As she rises on an escalator, we see Adam pass by on the descending side–we’re almost surprised to see such a saintly man traveling downward rather than ascending upward, albeit in the space of a mall. Caroline is taken by surprise when he lovingly places his hand over hers.

Most noticeable is that Adam is bathed in light as he floats downward and gazes at Caroline.

“If you look up long enough, you’ll see a shooting star,” Adam tells Caroline when he begins walking her home from work: not only evidence of his virtue but also a pleasant reminder that Caroline can take a break from suspiciously looking around her long enough to look above her. The couple’s nonverbal agreement to walk home together after their shifts secures Adam’s placement as Caroline’s guardian, protector, and confidante. While the men Caroline typically encounters are quick to dismiss, forget, or victimize her, Adam is fixated and irrevocably in love with her.

Even as the two first become intimate, Adam appears “too good” to engage in earthly pleasures. Because Caroline is studying to be a beautician, she invites Adam over to cut his hair, but it’s delayed when Adam begins touching Caroline’s breasts as he sits before her; rather than sexual attraction, this scene highlights the awe Adam feels for Caroline. Although she leads him to the bedroom, it is Caroline that is being led to understand what true love looks like. After Caroline undresses and sits with Adam on her bed, he begins to cry, and she tells him, “I’m gonna fall in love with you,” which halts any possibility of sex or foreplay we anticipate in this scene; rather, this vow is their foreplay. As he continues to cry, she explains that he doesn’t have to return her love; this scene can be read as the couple merging as one, giving themselves to each other, in a landscape of celibacy.

When Caroline explains to Adam that his heart is diseased, visibly agitated, he exclaims, “No one is taking away my heart!”

When Adam dies, he does so peacefully, and not so unexpectedly. After he is stabbed by Caroline’s attackers while taking out the garbage, he leaves the hospital early and finds Caroline. He believes that he has the heart of a baboon and that he will survive, despite what doctors tell him. Because Adam knows that his love is innocent, he equates this to the state of his heart, and ultimately, how he feels about Caroline. Because Adam seems to exist on a different plane than those around him, it only makes narrative sense that he passes away after he and Caroline have fallen in love. We don’t expect any violent or traumatic death; rather, Adam sort of burns out, like the sun. At his funeral service, Caroline describes him as an angel and attributes agency to herself within the romance: “I was good at loving him.” Adam enters Caroline’s life not only to care for her but also to prove that she is not as flaky as she may have thought.

Caroline spots Adam’s massive scar as he changes at work.

The pair find one another amidst rude customers, raucous holiday gatherings, and those who fail to understand their young relationship. Caroline tells her best friend Cindy, “I don’t make sense, he doesn’t make sense, together we make sense!” Slater brings instant mystery to this role as the quiet busboy who secretly admires his waitress co-worker, and ensures that she arrives home safely every night after making the walk from work. We also fall in love with Tomei’s vulnerability and her willingness to trust the newness of a young romance after so many failed relationships. Caroline somehow knows that Adam is not a typical young man simply working for minimum wage at a local diner in Minnesota; he is a heavenly catalyst sent not to offer completeness in Caroline’s life, but to remind her that she is worth loving, even in his absence.

We love Adam because he comes to Caroline quietly, modestly, seeming to have always existed in the shadows, behind the scenes, loving her selflessly from afar, making his presence known only out of necessity. In a busy city that seems to challenge our mousy heroine at every corner, Adam is an ally, a soul mate, and a reason to watch the not so tired plot of “boy meets girl.”

Jenny Lapekas has a Master of Arts degree in English, and she teaches Composition at Alvernia University in Pennsylvania. Her areas of scholarship include women’s literature, menstrual literacy, and rape-revenge cinema.

Was ‘Jem & the Holograms’ a Good Show for Little Girls?

As a little girl growing up in the 80s, I loved the show Jem & the Holograms. I confess that I still have a bunch of the songs from the show that I listen to from time to time (occasionally subjecting my spin class attendees to a Jem track on my workout playlists). Looking back now as an adult feminist, I’ve wondered how the show influenced me and whether or not that influence was a positive thing. *I did a similar assessment of another of my much-loved 80’s cartoons called: She-Ra Kinda Sorta Accidentally Feministy.*

There are a few potential not-necessarily-empowering aspects of Jem. Firstly, the show is fashion-obsessed and revolves around the characters’ fashionability. Unlike most cartoons where the characters mostly wear the same outfit in every episode, the thin female bodies of Jem‘s characters are adorned in multiple wardrobe changes often within a single 20-minute episode. Fashion and modeling, we know, are traditionally coded as female. The fashion world is extremely hard on women, placing undue emphasis on their bodies, especially on the thinness of those bodies. The drummer (and Black bandmate) Shana, however, designs clothing, so there is an aspect of fun creative expression at play here. Not only that, but the band Jem & the Holograms gets into the world of fashion and music in order to maintain the foster home for young girls that they run.

In this light, being on the cutting-edge of fashion, making money, being famous, and maintaining their record label (Starlight Music) is all a means to a philanthropic ends. The band often performs benefit concerts, singing many songs that deliver a positive message about fair play, hard work, creativity, education, and friendship to its young, predominately female audience. Jerrica Benton (Jem’s alter ego) must become a savvy business woman in the advent of her father’s death in order to run her inherited huge record label while living with her beloved foster girls, trying to give them good, happy lives. Jerrica and her friends are capable, ambitious women who thrive in the business world and do so for noble reasons. That type of female representation is all too rare in any pop culture medium, and it definitely had a positive effect on my impressionable younger self.

Another aspect of the show that could be a negative for little girls was all the female rivalry. The primary focus of the show was the often high-stakes band rivalry between Jem & the Holograms and their nemeses (another all-female band), The Misfits.

Misfits Close-up — The Misfits: Roxy, Pizzazz, & Stormer

The Misfits were mean, reckless, and ruthless in their pursuit to beat Jem at everything. They’d lie, cheat, commit crimes and sabotage, and endanger the lives of Jem and her bandmates in order to win at any cost. They even had a song called “Winning is Everything.” True story.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMlneySmI3g”]

Though Jem passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors, this dangerous female rivalry is troubling, reinforcing mainstream media’s insistence that women can’t be friends; they must, instead, compete for resources, men, and general approval. Instead of the bands being able to cooperate and collaborate, they are mostly at each other’s throats (with The Misfits, of course, being the instigators). The upside of this rivalry is that the major players are all women. The characters with all the talent, power, and agency are women. The epitome of this is the all-powerful matriarchal figure of Synergy. She’s a basically sentient hologram generating computer system. She gets Jem and her crew out of countless jams, operates as home base for their operations, and acts as a concerned, maternal mentor for them. Though Synergy is a computer system, she has awesome power and Jerrica/Jem often goes to her for counsel.

Synergy to Jem — “Synergy, create a hologram of Jem.”

Not only that, but even the cruel Misfits are given depth over time. My favorite character (on whom I had a serious girl-crush) was Stormer, the blue-haired Misfit who was a bad girl with a heart of gold. When her bandmates crossed the line, she would always undermine their machinations in order to do the right thing, often saving the day. We also learn that Pizazz, the ringleader and front woman for the band, struggles with her former identity as: Phyllis, a rich girl with a neglectful father whose approval and attentiveness she could never garner. Despite the contentiousness of the rival bands’ relations, the fact that women are the primary actors and reactors gives the show a variety of female perspectives and permutations, which is what’s so often lacking in current female representations in film and on TV.

In fact, there are hardly any male characters in the show at all. There are only two to speak of: Jem/Jerrica’s love interest and road manager, Rio Pacheco, and The Misfits’ slimy band manager, Eric Raymond. Later the lead singer of The Stingers, Riot, enters the scene with his ridiculous hair and obsession with Jem. These male characters’ relevance and even usefulness was often in question. Eric was incompetent at all of his scheming in a distinctly Road Runner style. Jem/Jerrica couldn’t even confide her secrets in Rio, and he was often left waiting in the dark for situational resolutions. I often questioned how healthy for young girls the representation of the love triangle involving Rio, Jem, and Jerrica was. It was bizarre that Jem was Jerrica, so Rio was essentially cheating on his girlfriend…with his girlfriend. There was even an episode where Jerrica gets tired of being herself and her Jem personae, so she dons a hologram of a completely new appearance. Rio falls in love with her, too, and they share a kiss. Though the inherent deception on all sides of the relationship is not good role modeling, maybe it’s important that Rio loves Jerrica no matter what physical form she takes on.

I am in love with this Rio & Jem cosplay duo.

The band itself, Jem & the Holograms, was also surprisingly racially diverse. The drummer, Shana, was Black, and the lead guitarist, Aja, was Asian. They later added a new drummer, Raya, who was Latina, when Shana took up bass guitar. Though the front woman for the band (who couldn’t actually play an instrument) remained a white woman, with the addition of Raya, there were actually more women of color in the band than white women. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that kind of ratio on a TV show that wasn’t specifically targeted at people of color.

Jem and all the Holograms — Jem, Kimber, Aja, Raya, & Shana

Though the show’s focus on romantic love, fashion, and female rivalry are of dubious value, there are definitely a lot of good things going on with Jem & the Holograms: the notion that fame and fortune should be used for philanthropic means, that female friendships can be strong and form an important network of support, that a sense of community is crucial, especially that of an older generation of women actively participating in that of teenage girls, that the arts should be respected and fostered, and that the virtues women should value in themselves should include honesty, compassion, fairness, determination, and kindness. Maybe I’m biased because I always thought the show was “truly outrageous,” but the good seems to outweigh the bad, giving us a series about women that tried to teach little girls how to grow up to be strong, ethical, and believe in themselves.

‘The Killing’s Bullet: The Quintessential Lionhearted Heroine

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.

This is a guest post by Natalia Lauren Fiore.

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 — “You know why I got ‘Faith’ on here? Because no one’s got it in me but me.” – Bullet, *The Killing*

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.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDYHyZ5RUtY”]

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.

the-killing-Scared-and-Running-3-1024x681 — Holder (Joel Kinnaman) embraces Bullet.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5Nx3E1ELd8″]

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.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-khchRvOJuk”]

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:

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3xUI7sRINA”]

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:

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNUqL8RWmLA”]

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 many other talented 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.”

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“

A version of this post first appeared at Outside Windows.

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.