Tag: Drama

Saying Goodbye to ‘Prime Suspect’ and One of My Fave Badass Female Characters

Maria Bello as Detective Jane Timoney on NBC’s “Prime Suspect”
Some argue women fare better on television than in films. The roles are more complex, with more feminist issues explored. One of the most interesting female protagonists I’ve watched in a long time? Detective Jane Timoney on Prime Suspect. A show I love that sadly comes to an end this Sunday night (1/22.)
Prime Suspect centers around NYC Homicide Detective Jane Timoney, played spectacularly by Maria Bello. I’ve been a long-time fan of Bello’s work from ER and A History of Violence to Payback and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee. Bello gives a tour-de-force performance as Detective Timoney, a role she personally identifies with since she envisions herself as Jane, only “nicer.”
It’s a gritty, raw and surprisingly funny show. Detective Exuding strength and keen intelligence, Jane Timoney is tough and self-reliant. She’s fearless and complicated with a big mouth and a bitingly sarcastic sense of humor. She drinks a lot and shoots perfectly at the firing range. She possesses a sharp mind that thinks of scenarios others might overlook when solving a homicide. Timoney doesn’t give a fuck what other people think about her and she’s not afraid to be herself. And that might be the most refreshing aspect of all.
Having a show revolve around a female detective isn’t a groundbreaking concept. Following in the footsteps of the original British series with Helen Mirren playing the lead, it echoes The Killing, The Closer, Saving Grace, Cold Case, Rizzoli & Isles, and Cagney & Lacey. But a show created and written by women, with a strong female lead who’s willing to say fuck you to anyone and everyone? You don’t see that every day.
Female protagonists aren’t often allowed to be unlikeable or do despicable things. Even rarer are the characters who don’t give a shit what anyone thinks of them. The female roles on TV I can think of include Roseanne Conner (Roseanne), Captain Kara Thrace (Battlestar Galactica), Maude Findlay (Maude), Elaine Benes (Seinfeld), Christine (New Adventures of Old Christine), Xena (Xena Warrior Princess) Jackie Peyton RN (Nurse Jackie), Dorothy Zbornak (Golden Girls) and Patty Hewes (Damages). Although, I happen to like almost all of these female characters.
Detective Jane Timoney (Maria Bello) “Prime Suspect”

In the premiere, the sexism Timoney faces jars and appalls. As a woman, she’s entered a perceived male domain. Her male colleagues insinuate and (some outright say) that she doesn’t deserve to be in homicide as she only got transferred to the department after sleeping with a chief. She faces the wrath of her co-worker, Detective Duffy, who accuses her of leading a homicide case only because another detective died of a heart attack.  To their chauvinistic paradigm, she’s transcended boundaries and they’re going to make sure she knows it. When Timoney finds another angle to the case and gets information out of a witness that the previous detectives hadn’t. Calling her a bitch (by implying she’s a witch), Detective Carter snarkily asks her:

Carter: You ever worry that someone’s gonna drop a house on you?
Timoney: Car’s not going to drive itself, is it?
Carter: I guess you don’t.
The original British series premiered in 1991, evolving out of sexism in Scotland Yard. When writer Lynda La Plante discovered only 4 women were Detective Chief Inspectors (DCIs), she created the show. The first season (or “series” in the UK) contends with sexism in the workplace and the hostility that Detective Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren) faced due to her gender.
While the premiere focused heavily on workplace sexism, the rest of the series shied away. Matt Zoller Seitz at Salon reports that Alexandra Cunningham and Peter Berg made a conscious decision to “tone down” the sexism in subsequent episodes. Before the show premiered, Cunningham said:

“Obviously, it’s 2011. There’s no institutionalized sexism. There’s human resources. Women have recourse at work when things happen. “Prime Suspect” [will] try to make it more realistic, because sexism isn’t gone. It’s kind of more subtle and insidious in a modern world, and that’s what we’re going to try to do.”

What? No institutionalized sexism?? I’m not sure what world Cunningham lives in but sexism, both blatant and subtle, still very much exists.

As the show progresses, we see Detective Timoney collaborate with her colleagues. We see the hilarious friendship and banter between Detectives Blando and Calderon. We also see Timoney clash with her co-workers, boss, her loving boyfriend, her protective father and her vegan sister (yay a vegan!). Detective Timoney might be a hard-ass. But she’s also funny as hell. Here are some of Jane Timoney’s quips throughout the season:

Timoney: I love to know where the crime scene isn’t.
­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­
Timoney: Ever seen a duck? Yeah, they don’t chew either. You just ate that hot dog like a duck.
Hypnotherapist: You don’t seem to be in the right head space to quit smoking right now.
Timoney: I don’t just want to smoke right now. I want to shove a pack of cigarettes in my mouth and light it with a blowtorch.
Timoney: You look tired means you look old. You look short. How’s that feel?
Duffy: Do you know what your problem is?
Timoney: Oh, why limit it to just one?

Detective Jane Timoney (Maria Bello) in “Prime Suspect”

In addition to sexism, the show also broached racism. In one of the episodes, 10 of Detective Timoney’s colleagues get pulled from a case of a murdered Latina to work on the murder of a pretty white female who’s an NYU student. Timoney tells the Chief:

“You’re making their point for them. You couldn’t have done it better…When it’s a missing brown girl, from a nobody family, it’s an afterthought.”

While I wish the show had delved deeper, I was thrilled this line appeared at all. Rarely does a TV show with a white protagonist tackle the intersection of racism and sexism.

Prime Suspect also makes interesting gender commentaries when Detective Timoney interacts with other women. There’s another female detective, Detective Carolina Rivera, who all the men flirt with. She’s coquettish and friendly in return. It’s a stark contrast to Detective Timoney’s no-nonsense, straight-forward style. She doesn’t care if the men like her. She’s there to do her job. Timoney also differs from her boyfriend’s ex-wife, Trish, who she often has to communicate with since her boyfriend and Trish share a young son. Trish often makes snide remarks about her carrying a gun or her line of work, especially when it co. Timoney isn’t a girlie girl. And she’s no pushover. In a great scene, after Trish asks Timoney what happened to her face (which is cut and bruised from fighting with an arrested suspect):


“Listen to me: I work terrible hours, often have to leave things early, I arrive to things late. I get phone calls in the middle of the night and all day long. I’ve never been shot, but I’ve been stabbed. I’ve had lye thrown in my face once, and I’m a homicide detective, Trish. Not a policeman or a policewoman. I’m also not a divorce lawyer, but I know about going to court.”

In “Underwater,” my fave episode so far, Timoney and Duffy go on a road trip to protect a little girl. Timoney grows fond of her, telling her she doesn’t like many people but that she likes her. While she’s close with her father and boyfriend, she has seemingly chosen not to have children of her own. In an episode where a man has beaten his wife and murdered her, he asks Detective Timoney why she doesn’t have children. She replies:

“I don’t know. Lucky.”

It’s rare for a female protagonist not to want children. Films, TV series and ads perpetually tell us all women want to have babies. If they don’t, they must be damaged, deluding themselves or they just haven’t found the right man yet. Because you know silly ladies, our lives revolve around men.

One of my favorite moments occurs in the premiere. In a heart-breaking scene, Timoney comes home to her boyfriend, after a grueling day. The two of them fought earlier. She asks him to hold her even though he’s mad because she had a rough day. In a rare moment of exasperation and tenderness, Timoney quietly cries in his arms. She’s not a caricature. She’s a fully developed, complex character who knows she can’t let down her guard and weep at work.

Detective Jane Timoney (Maria Bello) in “Prime Suspect”

In “The Sad Death of Prime Suspect,” Melissa Silverstein laments Prime Suspect’s cancellation. She also talks about the difficulties of centering a show around a female protagonist:


“One thing this show made me notice is how it is easy to write a TV show starring a man and have female and male supporting characters surround that lead, but that it is way harder to write a show about a female lead and to create a realistic ensemble around her.

“One of the issues with this show is that there were no other female credible characters on the show. It’s too much baggage for the female lead. She has to respond to the pretty cop who comes in and flirts, she has to deal with the crazy demands of her boyfriend’s ex, she has a crazy sister (where did that come from?). None of those women was a peer or someone she could have a decent conversation with to get her away from all the testosterone.”

That’s my one complaint of the show too: the lack of strong and interesting female characters for Timoney to interact with. No female camaraderie. No best friend to vent to. I wish the show contained a multitude of female characters or sexism in the workplace remained a central theme. But who knows where the show might have taken us.
Prime Suspect is a compelling show with a memorable female character. I’ll be sad as I watch the last 2 episodes Sunday night. I’m going to miss Detective Jane Timoney. We need more badass women like her.

Trailers for ‘Snow White & the Huntsman’ and ‘Mirror, Mirror’ Perpetuate Stereotypes of Women, Beauty & Aging and Pit Women Against Each Other

Charlize Theron as Queen Ravenna and Kristen Stewart as Snow White in ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’
Woman obsessed with aging fights her fading beauty. Older woman jealous of  younger woman. Younger woman rescued by a prince. Yep, it’s a tale as old as time that Hollywood keeps churning out. With fairy tales ingrained in our collective psyche, it’s no surprise we now have two Snow White films looming on the horizon.

In the hyped Snow White and the Huntsman, the infamous fairy tale transforms into a macabre Lord of the Rings-esqe action-adventure epic. Charlize Theron (love her!), a phenomenal actor who imbues her nuanced characters with depth, based her performance of the obsessive queen on Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Sounds interesting so far, right?

The intriguing trailer focuses heavily on Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron), who narrates or speaks almost exclusively. Okay, I kinda like that. But why doesn’t Snow White (Kristen Stewart) say anything? Why does it seem in every trailer for one of her films (ahem, Twilight series) Stewart’s character mute?? And why the fuck did they have to add “The Huntsman” in the title?! Why couldn’t it have just been “Snow White?” Or “Snow White and the Queen?” Heaven forbid a film focuses on multiple women…without a dude.

In the Snow White fairy tale, the Queen rules the kingdom she stole from heiress Snow White. But as Rebecca Cohen points out, in film versions like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, we never see the Queen actually do anything regarding political machinations other than obsess over maintaining her fading beauty and plot to kill her stepdaughter. She possesses no ambitions beyond eternal beauty. Sadly, this film seems no different.

Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron); ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’
We see the powerful sorceress engage in beauty treatments, like bathing in milk and sucking out the souls of young maidens to rejuvenate her striking appearance. Wait, she’s got all this power and she’s wasting it on looking young?? Oh you know us women; all we care about is our looks! In the trailer, Queen Ravenna says:
“Do you hear that? It’s the sound of battles fought and lives lost. It once pained me to know I am the cause of such despair. But now, their cries give me strength. Beauty is my power.”

Sigh. The defense for every person who thinks feminism is unnecessary. Women aren’t oppressed; they derive power from their beauty and sexuality! Too many films try to prop up this tired myth. Yes, when you feel good about your outer appearance, it can bolster your inner self-confidence. But I’m here to tell you ladies, there is NO power in beauty. It’s a ruse, a sham. No power exists in the objectification of women’s bodies.
 
Not to be outdone, the family-friendly comedy Mirror, Mirror is also tackling Snow White. While Snow White at least speaks in this trailer, Mirror, Mirror again puts the spotlight on the Queen, this time played by Julia Roberts. In this version, the Queen isn’t envisioned as evil, just insecure. All throughout the trailer, Queen Clementianna (Julia Roberts) makes snide comments about Snow White (Lily Collins)’s beauty and how she herself isn’t getting wrinkles but “crinkles.” We see her girdle getting cinched. She uses a love potion on the rich prince, whom she wants to marry to cure her “financial troubles.” So Roberts’ Queen doesn’t even seem faux empowered like Theron. Instead she’s reduced to a shallow, insecure, bitter woman. How funny!

Now, the original Snow White isn’t an enlightened, gender equitable, female empowerment tale. Young woman plays housekeeper, cooking and cleaning for a bunch of dudes after her stepmother banishes her to the woods, who then falls into a coma after eating a poisoned apple by said stepmother, awakened with a kiss by a prince with whom she rides off into the sunset – not exactly screaming feminism. If Hollywood wanted to retell this story, why not put a twist on it?

And that’s what Snow White and the Huntsman attempts to do. In this version, Snow White (Kristen Stewart) is an armor-wearing, sword-wielding badass. Screenwriter Evan Daugherty wanted to update the fairy tale:

“What if, instead of saving Snow White, the Huntsman teaches Snow White to save herself?”

Oooh a warrior Snow White! Potentially promising. And I like the idea of her saving herself. Except that Snow White (Kristen Stewart) is trained by…you guessed it, a dude. The Huntsman, initially ordered by Queen Ravenna to  kill Snow White and cut out her heart so the Queen can consume it and live forever, decides to protect Snow White and train her for combat.

Even Lily Collins plays a perky, fencing Snow White in Mirror, Mirror. In the trailer, she says:
“I’ve read so many stories where the prince saves the princess. It’s time we changed that.”

I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. And I love a badass female warrior as much as the next cinephile. But in both Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror, Mirror, Snow White has no female friends, no maternal figure for guidance, nurturance and support. Women are pitted against each other. It’s all men, men, men.

Snow White may be more of a badass in these retellings. But that doesn’t mean she’s feminist. The trailers for upcoming Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror, Mirror spread a message of women, beauty and aging. They pit women against each other, particularly older women against younger women. They tell us that older women obsess over their looks, forever jealous of innocent younger women’s youth and vitality. They reinforce cattiness and competition, tossing aside the importance of female friendship and camaraderie. Oh silly ladies, you don’t need to rely on other women or even yourself. You just need a strong man to rescue you.

Really, Hollywood, haven’t we seen enough of these tired tropes? How about a truly empowered woman. Or better yet, a film with several strong female characters, who are friends, not foes. Now that, not a woman swinging a sword, would be truly radical.

—–

Trailers for Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror, Mirror:

 
 

In ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ Remake, Rooney Mara’s Captivating Portrayal Proves Lisbeth Salander Still a Feminist Icon

Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) in “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”
Cross-posted from The Opinioness of the World.

Lisbeth Salander consumes my thoughts. I’ve spent the last year and a half reading, writing, analyzing, debating and discussing the punk hacker. As a huge fan of the books and the original Swedish films, I was NOT excited to see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Hollywood remake.

Plagued by sexist marketing that seemed to focus solely on Mikael and depict Lisbeth as a sexpot damsel in distress, I feared Hollywood would wreck one of the most unique female protagonists in pop culture. With trepidation, I watched David Fincher’s take on Stieg Larsson’s epic. While some gender problems arose, I’ve got to admit I was pleasantly surprised. And it all hinges on Rooney Mara’s performance.

For those who don’t know, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the first part in the global phenomenon of The Millennium Trilogy, features disgraced crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) and brilliant researcher Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) who unite to solve the mystery of a woman who disappeared 40 years ago. The gritty, tense plot fuses with social commentary on violence against women, sexuality and gender roles.

Do we really need an American remake? Fincher, a notoriously obsessive and detailed filmmaker, creates a gorgeous film evoking a macabre ambiance. Trent Reznor’s eerie and haunting score punctuates each slickly stylized scene perfectly. Phenomenal actors fill the screen: Craig, Robin Wright (who I will watch in absolutely anything), Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgaard, Vanessa Redgrave. While everyone does their best, the remake isn’t quite as compelling as the original. I never really felt invested in any of the characters. Except for Lisbeth. The sole reason to see the film is Mara’s stellar portrayal.

Lisbeth Salander is a role of a lifetime. Both Noomi Rapace (in the original film) and Mara underwent grueling auditions and year-long transformations including haircuts, body piercings (ears, eyebrow, lip, nose, nipple), nudity, kickboxing workouts, and learning skateboarding and motorcycle riding. A sullen introvert, Lisbeth is strong, fiercely independent and self-sufficient. She possesses a razor-sharp intellect and relentless survivor instincts. She’s endured horrific trauma and betrayal yet refuses to be a victim.

Fincher obstinately fought for Mara as Sony Studios didn’t want her for the part. After watching the film, I can see why Fincher refused to concede. It’s hard to dissect Mara’s Golden Globe-nominated performance and pinpoint precisely what she does that makes her so compelling. And that’s because as Melissa Silverstein writes, she “disappears into the role.” When Lisbeth greets the people she cares about, her guardian Holger Palmgren and Mikael, she frenetically says, “Hey, hey,” a small detail adding depth and nuance to the character. It’s in the clipped cadence of her voice, her slumped shoulders, her wounded eyes. Mara doesn’t merely play Lisbeth. She becomes her.

Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) and Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig)
People have asked my thoughts on Hollywood’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, wondering if I loved or hated it. More importantly, they want to know if I prefer Noomi Rapace’s subtle yet fiercely badass warrior (which is how I envisioned Lisbeth) or Rooney Mara’s vulnerable yet quietly powerful portrayal. I was prepared to hate Mara. How could anyone surpass or even equal Rapace’s critically acclaimed performance?

But I loved them both. For me, neither one is better. Both bring something unique conveying different facets of Lisbeth’s personality. They belong to two sides of the same coin. Mara, who had ginormous shoes to fill with Rapace’s ferocious portrayal in the original, gave a captivating performance. I’m glad the shitty marketing didn’t keep me away or I would have missed one of the best performances of the year.

People have simultaneously praised and condemned The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo for its graphic depiction of rape. The American version doesn’t shy away from the brutal scene. We live in a rape culture often glorifying or dismissing rape and violence against women. Author Larsson tried to show the epidemic of misogyny. The book (originally entitled Män Som Hatar Kvinnor, which translates to “Men Who Hate Women”), original Swedish film and Hollywood remake confront the stigma of sexual assault. Yet it never feels exploitative. Lisbeth refuses to be victimized. She follows her own moral compass exacting vigilante justice. She doesn’t possess traditional power. So she works within the confines of patriarchy to assert herself and take control of her life.

A huge part of the book (and the entire trilogy) is Lisbeth and Mikael’s friendship. Despite his social nature and her private behavior, they both stubbornly follow their own moral code. He’s continually surprised and amused by her unconventional comments and reactions. Mikael’s openness, humor and honesty allow Lisbeth to trust him, something she does so rarely. The movie doesn’t shirk their sexual relationship yet never captures their emotional bond. Lisbeth and Mikael also exhibit overt sexualities. Lisbeth possesses a sexual fluidity, sleeping with both women and men. Yet society views Mikael’s philandering as socially acceptable and perceives Lisbeth as an outcast. It’s a crucial gender commentary absent from the film.

But my biggest problem with Hollywood’s The Girl With Dragon Tattoo lies in one sentence. One teeny tiny sentence that threatens to unravel all of the painstaking work Mara put into her performance. SPOILER!! -> In the scene where Mikael has been cut from the noose, Lisbeth intends to run after his murderous perpetrator. She asks him, “May I kill him?”

Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara)
In an interview with Charlie Rose, Fincher shared what he found so compelling about Lisbeth. Oh, but it’s not her feminist persona as he insists this is NOT a feminist story:

“I think that she is many things to many different people…I was fascinated by the fact that 60-year-old men, you know 58-year-old women, 17-year-old girls were all finding something about her that was you know freeing or empowering in some kind of way. And it had been kind of sold to me as this you know misogynist avenger. But what I felt about it was ultimately that there wasn’t any kind of real feminist tract to it all.

“To me, it was very human. It’s a story of being oppressed, a story of being marginalized, a story of being made to feel less than, it’s a character that’s been made to feel less than who she thinks she is…”

I don’t think Fincher has any clue what a feminist actually is. Newsflash, a feminist story is a “human” story. Neither Fincher nor Mara perceives Lisbeth as a badass feminist (even though she is) because she doesn’t do “anything in the name of any group or cause or belief.” But they’re fucking wrong.

Lisbeth combats misogyny and sexism. She abhors violence against women and avenges injustice. She refuses to be taken advantage of, always asserting her control. She surrenders to no one. She strives for empowerment, living life on her own terms. I agree Lisbeth wouldn’t call herself a feminist, just as she doesn’t identify as bisexual, since she doesn’t want labels confining her identity. Neither her gender, her appearance, nor her sexuality define her. Lisbeth defines herself. Every single one of these components reinforce a feminist message.

Despite Fincher and Mara’s insistent refusal, both The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and its heroine are feminist. Saying otherwise completely misses the point of what makes Lisbeth Salander such an exhilarating icon.

Why We All Need to See Young Adult, a.k.a. How Diablo Cody Shines a Light on the Cost of Beauty

This guest review by Molly McCaffrey previously appeared at her blog I Will Not Diet. 

I’m thrilled that it’s finally Oscar season, and I get to see DOZENS of outstanding movies between now and Sunday, February 26th when I’ll walk the red carpet with The Help‘s Viola Davis and The Ides of March‘s Ryan Gosling (also of Feminist Ryan Gosling fame).

Okay, so I won’t really be walking the red carpet, but a girl can dream, right? And who knows? Maybe I’ll spring for a long roll of red tissue paper and unroll it in front of my flat-screen.

I’ve already seen The Descendants (loved it) and Hugo (bleh—too slow for me), and last night I also got to see Young Adult from the Juno writing-directing team of Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman.

First, let me say that Young Adult is an outstanding piece of filmmaking—it’s dark and funny and intelligent and honest in a way that not many films are anymore when they’re this entertaining.

But the reason I want you all to see Young Adult is not only because it’s such a good film, but also because it’s an important film for woman—a film that explores issues central to our identity such as beauty, gender, marriage, motherhood, and family among others.

Of course, the issue most relevant to this blog is beauty, which is one of the main themes of the film. Without giving anything away in terms of plot, I can tell you that the main character, Mavis—played with heartbreaking gravity by Oscar winner Charlize Theron—is obsessed with the way she looks and seems to gather a good deal of her self-worth from her looks.

At one point in the film—and the preview—Mavis tells a Macy’s clerk that she wants an outfit to help her seduce her ex. The clerk says, “You want to remind him of what he’s missing,” and Mavis responds by saying something like, “Oh, he knows what he’s missing. He’s seen me.” The implication is that Mavis’ value is completely derived from her looks: her gorgeous, heart-shaped face and her fit, flawless body.

But though other characters see only the physical manifestation of Mavis’ beauty, the viewer is treated to the lengths Mavis must go to to achieve that beauty.

In fact, Mavis spends a good deal of her time (probably a third of most days) primping in some fashion or another—she spends hours styling her hair, applying her makeup, shopping for expensive clothes, shaving her legs, and visiting a salon where she gets manicures, pedicures, facials, waxing, and various other treatments on a daily basis.

Yes, I said daily.

After all this is done, Mavis looks fabulous—almost as good as the real-life Charlize Theron. But when she doesn’t devote that much time to her looks, she is a disheveled mess—she walks the streets in sweats and a t-shirt, gulping from a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke and pulling at her matted tangle of hair.

The implicit message is frighteningly clear: a woman doesn’t look this good—at least not at the age of 37 like Mavis—without a hell of a lot of help. And money.

I especially love that these two versions of Mavis—the Mavis who takes hours of time and piles of cash to put together and the Mavis who rolls out of bed in the morning—are shown in such stark contrast to each other.

She is both the former Homecoming queen who has held on to her looks as she approaches forty…

and the lonely, depressed divorcee who can’t be bothered to change out of her pajamas…
I greatly appreciate this depiction of the two sides of Mavis because I think it’s incredibly real.

We all know what it’s like to want to spend the day in our pajama pants and favorite t-shirt, and we all know that some days we want to go to the trouble of getting dressed and made up for a night out on the town. Yes, we know the value of both of these extremes, but most of us—unlike Mavis—also understand that our worth isn’t wrapped up in our ability to do the latter. But Mavis, sadly, is obsessed with this aspect of herself.

It’s equally sad—and interesting—that Mavis is also depicted as a fast food junkie who hits what she calls the local “Ken-Tac-Hut” (a combo Kentucky Fried Chicken/Taco Bell/Pizza Hut) whenever she needs an emotional pick-me-up. I’ve known for a long time that many thin women eat as much as anyone else (even those who are overweight), so it was incredibly refreshing to see a thin and beautiful woman depicted this way—well, refreshing and painful.

But it is Mavis’ slavish devotion to her looks that is one of the more alarming part of this film.

In one particularly gruesome scene, Mavis is shown applying her makeup. I like to wear makeup as much as the next girl, but watching Mavis Gary put on what can only be described as a face-altering mask frightened me so much that I still haven’t gotten the image out of my head. Like a particularly poignant episode of The Twilight Zone, her beauty regime is scary enough to make us rethink our own. Her physical machinations are, in fact, so arduous that only a masochist would embrace them.

Clearly that’s what Mavis is—a masochist, a person who tortures herself regularly and doesn’t know how to be happy. She is like this in more ways than one, but I don’t want to give away the whole film.

In this way, she is a perfect role model for the kind of person we should all not want to be—beautiful, successful, and miserable, reminding us yet again that there is more to life than physical perfection.

—–

Molly McCaffrey is the author of the short story collection How to Survive Graduate School & Other Disasters, the co-editor of Commutability: Stories about the Journey from Here to There, and the founder of I Will Not Diet, a blog devoted to healthy living and body acceptance. She teaches English and creative writing classes and advises writing majors at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Guest Writer Wednesday: A Fine Frenzy: With an Outspoken Anti-Heroine and a Feminist Lens, ‘Young Adult’ Is My Favorite Film of the Year

 
This guest review by Megan Kearns previously appeared at her blog The Opinioness of the World.

We so often see men as wayward fuck-ups. Ben Stiller in Greenberg, Zach Braff in Garden State, Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets all fill this role. Selfish asshats who do the wrong thing, lack ambition, or screw someone over for their own selfish needs. And yet they’re somehow loveable and charming. You champion them, hoping they’ll succeed and grow…just a little.

Audiences want female leads nice, amiable and likeable. Not messy, complicated, complex and certainly not unlikeable. Heaven forbid! But that’s precisely the role Charlize Theron steps into in Young Adult.

In this witty, hilarious and bittersweet dramedy, Theron plays Mavis Gary, an author of young adult books living in Minneapolis. Mavis’ life is a hot mess. She’s divorced, drinks her life away and the book series she writes is coming to an end. She was the popular mean girl in high school who escaped to the big city. Mavis returns to her small hometown in Minnesota full of Taco Bells and KFCs intending to reclaim her old glory days and her ex-boyfriend, who’s happily married with a new baby. As she fucks up, she eventually questions what she wants out of life.

Young Adult is a fantastic film, the best I’ve seen all year. I seriously can’t say enough good things about it. Diablo Cody’s feminist lens and sharply funny dialogue fuse with Jason Reitman’s knack for bittersweet direction, buoyed by stellar portrayals.

A force of nature, Theron gives both a subtly nuanced and bravura performance. In her Golden Globe-nominated role, she makes a flawed, cranky, bitchy, selfish, alcoholic charismatic and likeable. When she’s doing something despicable (which happens all too often), I found myself cringing yet simultaneously rooting for her. That’s not easy to do. Theron, who’s been called a transformational chameleon, particularly for her award-winning role in Monster, melts into this role. She imbues Mavis with depth, caustic wit, raw anger and vulnerability. It’s hard to see the boundaries where Theron begins and Mavis ends.

Suffering from depression, Mavis tries to drown her sorrows, unleashing a destructive tornado of chaos. Even though Mavis fled her small town, she’s haunted by the prime of her youth. Most of us have moved on from high school. But Mavis hasn’t grown up yet. With unwavering determination and delusion, she thinks if she can recapture the past, all her problems will be solved.

With her popular girl swagger, you can picture how she sashayed down the halls in high school (and probably shoved people into lockers or hurled insults). That same bravado fools her into thinking she can bend the world to her will.

She finds an unlikely ally and confidante in nerdy, sarcastic yet tender Matt (Patton Oswalt), a former bullied classmate in an achingly touching performance. Some of the best scenes contain Mavis and Matt volleying their biting banter.

What made the film brutally funny is Mavis tosses retorts people think but would never dream of actually saying. She says hilariously wrong things. Matt asks her if she moved back to town, she replies, “Ewww, gross.” She shamelessly throws herself at a married man. When Matt reminds her Buddy has a baby, she retorts, “Babies are boring!” And trust me. I’m not doing Theron’s comic abilities justice.

Uncomfortably funny, hilariously heartbreaking, Young Adult passes the Bechdel Test several times. In one scene, the bandmates in the all-female group Nipple Confusion (love that name!), who also happen to be Mavis’ former high school classmates, briefly debate Mavis and her dubious intentions. Mavis confronts compassionate Beth (Elizabeth Reaser), her ex-boyfriend Buddy (Patrick Wilson)’s wife and the object of Mavis’s vitriolic hatred. Also, Mavis confides in Matt’s sister Sandra (Collette Wolfe), who desperately wants to escape small-town life, about the course her life has taken.

I felt a sigh of relief while watching this film. It felt fantastic to have a woman quip snarky comments that maybe she shouldn’t say but she does anyway. Because Mavis doesn’t give a shit what people think. She doesn’t conform to other people’s standards of who she should be. Most movies suppress women’s rage. Not this one. As the awesome Melissa Silverstein at Women and Hollywood wrote:

This film is a fucking bitchy breath of fresh air.

Hollywood purports a double standard that only men can play unsympathetic roles. If a female actor portrays a complex character, she’s too often labeled a bitch. People don’t usually want to see complicated or unsympathetic women on-screen.

Besides the fabulous Kristen Wiig in the hilarious Bridesmaids, Lena Dunham in Tiny Furniture and Julia Roberts in the god-awful My Best Friend’s Wedding (which Young Adult strangely parallels – both contain selfish female protagonists struggling to recapture the past, hoping to break up a wedding/marriage), there really aren’t many examples of women in this kind of unlikeable or flawed role.

In an interview with Silverstein, outspoken feminist (woo hoo!) Diablo Cody shares her inspiration for creating an unlikeable character:

The idea of a cold, unlikeable woman or a woman who is not in control of herself is genuinely frightening to people because it threatens civilization itself or threatens the American family. But I don’t know why people are always willing to accept and even like flawed male characters. We’ve seen so many loveable anti-heroes who are curmudgeons or addicts or bad fathers and a lot of those characters have become beloved icons and I don’t see women allowed to play the same parts. So it was really important to me to try and turn that around.

With female writers comprising 24% of ALL writers in Hollywood and women in only 33% of speaking roles in films (god that makes me cringe), it’s vital to have more women writing scripts to yield women’s diverse perspectives and stories.

Young Adult is entirely told from Mavis’ perspective. As Mavis scribes the last book in Waverly Prep, a Young Adult series, her writing mirrors events and feelings in her own life. It could have easily veered off course to examine how Mavis’ inappropriate flirting (or rather throwing herself at him) affected Buddy. But the film astutely anchors itself to Mavis, a unique female voice.

I often lament the lack of female-centric films as most either feature men in the spotlight or have women as merely secondary characters. If we want more diverse films, including those where women are front and center, we need to support those films by voting with our dollars and going to the box office.

At first, it seems Young Adult might succumb to the same fate as so many other films and end up revolving around Mavis finding love. Men go on quests and emotional journeys. They learn. They grow. Women often stagnate. Or more common, their lives revolve around men. They wait around for love, seek love, find love, and turn themselves inside out for love…and ultimately a man. We don’t often see them doing things for themselves.

That’s the rare beauty of Young Adult. It’s not really about Mavis finding love. It’s about confronting your mistakes, letting go of the past and growing up. Too many movies reinforce the notion careers and friends don’t count. It’s only your love life that matters. Only love can save you. But sometimes, you can save yourself.

Life is messy, complicated and difficult. Women can be too. It’s about time we see more roles reflecting that on-screen.

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Megan Kearns is a blogger, freelance writer and activist. She blogs at The Opinioness of the World, a feminist vegan site. Her work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion, Fem2pt0, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, and A Safe World for Women. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. Megan lives in Boston with more books than she will probably ever read in her lifetime.

Megan contributed reviews of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Something Borrowed, !Women Art Revolution, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Kids Are All Right (for our 2011 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), The Reader (for our 2009 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), Man Men (for our Mad Men Week), Game of Thrones and The Killing (for our Emmy Week 2011), Alien/Aliens (for our Women in Horror Week 2011), and I Came to Testify, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, Peace Unveiled, and The War We Are Living in the Women, War & Peace series. She was the first writer featured as a Monthly Guest Contributor.

Animated Children’s Films: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

This is a guest review by Caitlin Moran. 

Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris is not the sort of book I would even remotely consider turning into a children’s movie, so I give the Disney studios credit for trying. Whoever read that dark, unsentimental tale of attempted rape, torture, lust, revenge, kidnapping and execution, and decided, “Yes, this would make a swell children’s movie” has a greater imagination than I do. Much of the book’s R-rated material has been watered down or removed, but the grim core remains in Hunchback of Notre Dame, making this the darkest film of the 1990s Disney Renaissance.

Hunchback follows the lonely life of the titular hunchback, Quasimodo, who was forcibly taken from his mother and ensconced in Notre Dame by Frollo, a sanctimonious, scheming, positively vile judge (he adds “lecherous” to that litany by the end of the movie) whose sole purpose in life is to wipe the gypsy population of Paris out of existence. Quasi is tender and kind despite his exterior (which, while it is decried as hideous multiple times, is at worst a little disproportional and at best kind of cute), and longs for a life outside the cathedral. He gets his wish, of course, and ends up teaming up with Esmeralda, a gypsy, and Phoebus, a pretty-boy soldier hunk to save the gypsies from Frollo and Notre Dame from destruction.

Like most Disney movies, Hunchback only gives us one female character with anything to do: Esmeralda, the smokin’ hot gypsy dancer who seduces every man who so much as looks at her. (Full disclosure: I had not one but two full Esmeralda costumes as a child, an Esmeralda action figure and an Esmeralda Barbie doll). Esmeralda may be the only hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold to ever appear in a Disney movie. She gives a rousing Medieval pole-dance at the Festival of Fools, but is the only onlooker moved by Quasimodo’s brutal humiliation after he is turned on by the crowd (she also follows up a stirring call for social justice by beating the crap out of Frollo’s soldiers). She dances in the street for money, but gives the most humble, heartfelt prayer for her people out of all the worshipers in Notre Dame, who only pray for money or fame, during the lovely “God Help the Outcast.”

And unlike Ariel in The Little Mermaid, whose tribulations are almost exclusively caused by her own narrow-minded pursuit of a dreamboat she’s never spoken to, Esmeralda is street-smart and clever; her eventual capture is facilitated accidentally by Phoebus and Quasimodo, who both see themselves as her male protector and likewise rush to save her, though she was doing perfectly well on her own, thank you very much.

So did Disney finally break away from the flimsy, strong-but-need-a-man-to-save-me heroines so ensconced in their tradition? Not quite. Because never before has a Disney heroine been so objectified as a symbol of lust. In fact, Disney gives Frollo an entire song, “Hellfire,” to explore how much he wants to bang her, complete with a giant blazing fireplace and hooded harbingers of damnation. I remember sitting in the theater as a seven-year-old with my mom, a Sour Patch Kid frozen halfway to my mouth. At the time my only thought was “They’re saying Hell in a Disney movie! Cool!” but upon rewatching the movie in high school I could only marvel at how much “Hellfire” serves as the most perfect rape apologia in all of animated film. “It’s not my fault,” Frollo sings, “I’m not to blame. It is the gypsy girl, the witch who set this flame.”

Dear God.

This is the fundamental problem with the movie, which purports to leave us with the message that what is on the inside is more important than what’s on the outside, but can’t resist having a sexpot heroine whose fundamental awesomeness (she crowd surfs! she wears a knife in her garter! she vanishes in puffs of smoke!) is overshadowed by fact that she’s a 15th century pin-up who ultimately needs to be saved (twice) by the men in her life.

Esmeralda, girl, you deserved better.

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Caitlin Moran is a recent graduate of Boston College. She lives in New York with her cat and a mini-donut maker. Oh, and a human roommate. She’s pretty cool too. 

Animated Children’s Films: The Land Before Time

This is a guest review by Juniper Russo.

My three-year-old daughter is a short-haired, bluejean-wearing feminist who will eschews the princess genre as “impractical and silly” and views “dinosaur movies” as the zenith of modern cinematography. “We’re Back” and “Fantasia” get honorable mentions in her book, but her favorite film by far is “The Land Before Time.”

And why wouldn’t it be? As much as I look for some reason to find my daughter’s favorite film objectionable, it’s one of the few kids’ movies that gets this feminist mama’s stamp of approval. The film’s subtle-but-present feminist message is evident from the animation alone. The protaganist Littlefoot, who is a male apatosaurus, is purple with long eyelashes, while his friend Cera the triceratops dons masculine features, a proud gait, and (both literally and physically) thick skin.

Although Cera is unfriendly something of a bully, I find myself viewing her as strong female character for this very reason. She has her flaws, but weakness and vanity are not among them. Nowhere in the film does this tough, fiercely indepentent reptile worry about her appearance or the pursuit of romance. Cera’s excessive independence and hubris do land her in trouble– just as the same features have harmed Lightning McQueen, Simba, and other male protagonists. Yet, while she eventually understands the importance of accepting others and working together, she never loses her admirable and independent spunk.

Parasaurolophus Ducky, the other female child-character, does bring a touch of toddler-like giddiness to the prehistoric table, but it seems to be reflective of character development and irrelevant to her gender. Similar traits are seen in male characters, including Petrie.

Although, like many films, this 1988 classic has a male protaganist, Littlefoot defies stereotypes of masculinity. He is sensitive, crying at several points in the film, and plays an almost maternal-role to the younger, less experienced members of the gang. Petrie the pteranodon and Spike the stegosaurus also defy all stereotypes associated with male heroes– Petrie is awkward and not particularly bright; Spike is cumbersome and strangely mute.

The anti-racist tones of this film are fairly subtle, but clear enough for children to pick up on. My daughter was quick to observe that “Sometimes grown-ups are wrong,” and that Cera’s domineering father is wrong for teaching his child to only socialize with other “three-horns.” Tolerance for diversity– in appearance, personality, philosophy and ability– are positively central to the story’s message. 

Of course, there’s no way to discuss the feminist implications of “Land Before Time” without bringing up the heartbreaking scene in which Littlefoot’s mother dies. In that classic scene of parental martyrdom, preceded by “Bambi” and later echoed by the “Lion King,” Littlefoot’s mother fights a tyrannosaurus rex to defend her son and Cera. The battle is intense and the death scene is heartbreaking– and, if you don’t choke up just a little while watching it, you’re probably either a robot or Glenn Beck.

Although I feel hesitant to give my feminist stamp of approval to a film that characteristically employs martyrdom, I didn’t find anything about Littlefoot’s mother’s character sexist. Littlefoot is born to a dwindling herd comprised of his mother, grandfather and grandmother. No ado is made about the fact that he has no father, and his mother is clearly a competent caregiver. Unlike Bambi’s mother, who dies running, Littlefoot’s mom puts up a brave and ferocious fight, hurling the predator into a chasm. She dies not of weakness, but of bravery– in a display of “Don’t mess with my kid!” that is universally parental– and not grounded in patriarchal stereotypes.

Littlefoot’s mother comes back, as a ghost or a grief-induced hallucination, at two other points in the film to guide Littlefoot to the Great Valley, a promised-land free of predators and overflowing with food and water. It is here that the next several films of the series are set. Interestingly, the happily-ever-after doesn’t involve a descent into a patriarchal nuclear family structure. Within the almost-socialist structure of the Great Valley, Cera goes on to be raised by her single dad, Spike is adopted into a biologically unrelated parasaurolophus family, Petrie returns to his single mom, and Littlefoot is raised by his grandparents. No family is presented as any more or less ideal than any other.

That’s why this movie, which was such a staple to me in my own childhood, remains on my A-OK list of feminist-friendly kids’ movies. And, just as importantly, my dinosaur-loving, patriarchy-smashing kiddo finds the film both entertaining and educational.

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Juniper Russo is a freelance writer, activist, and dedicated mama. When she’s not busy raising her fantastically independent feminist daughter, she’s writing about topics including parenting, gender, queer rights, animal welfare, holistic health and green living. Juniper writes regularly for Yahoo! Shine, Cracked.com, Livestrong.com, Associated Content and Animal Wellness magazine.

Animated Children’s Films: The Secret of N.I.M.H.

This is a guest post by Katie Roussos. 

A rose bush inhabited by genetically modified rats who become murderous sounds more like a horror movie than a children’s story, but that is just one of the ways The Secret of N.I.H.M. breaks the mold.

The plow has come early to the Fitzgibbons farm, a frightening thought for all the animals that live in the fields. Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgibbons also happen to have a band of rats living on their farm who were part of an experiment from the National Institute of Mental Health that made them “intelligent.” As Nicodemus, head intelligent rat (who is also a little magic?) tells the audience eerily: “We found out, we could reeead.”

Besides the super rats, there are many animals, from mice, to crows, to wise old owls, and the family cat. As in most children’s films the animals can talk, can communicate across species, and have traits, clothes, and social institutions that mimic humans. It is the classic story of mouse meets mouse, mouse falls in love, gets married, builds tiny house with tiny beds and tiny tables, has children that wear gender appropriate clothing, has local shrew babysit. Yes, there is a character called Aunty Shrew, an actual shrew, and yes, she is portrayed as “shrewish”–annoying, controlling, and, mysteriously, British.

So no, the The Secret of N.I.M.H. is not free from gender stereotypes or tired portrayals of women. But The Secret of N.I.M.H. has one thing that many children’s films don’t have, a female protagonist. A main character who is a hero because of her strong will, intelligence, and heart (not accidentally a hero because of her knowledge of beauty products a la Elle Woods).

Mrs. Brisby is a single mother known only by her husband’s name in the film. And time and again that name gets her help from the other characters in the movie who remember her husband, Jonathan, fondly. However, it is not just the name that gets Mrs. Brisby’s tiny house moved out of the way of the plow and keeps her children from impeding doom. She shows fear and dread, she takes risks and shakes and cries. Yet she presses on. She is not a female hero full of bravado and stereotypically male characteristics. She is a mother who will face even a large owl (owls eat mice) to find out how to save her family.

She humbly says to the great owl, “I don’t understand what you mean, but I will do as you say.” This is not subservience–it is smarts. When a large owl who could eat you and has lived longer than your mouse body is capable of gives you advice about the farm you live on, you take it. Especially when there is no other option. Points for Mrs. Brisby for being able to take a leap of faith and admit it when she doesn’t know what to do!

Brisby also has to face an almost completely male world. Aside from the shrew and her daughters, there are no other prominent female characters. There are however many males, who do their best to either help or hurt her.

Justin is the handsome rat who, at one mention of Brisby’s dead hubby, is committed to helping her move her house to avoid the plow. Jenner is the power hungry rat who wants to take over for the aging Nicodemus, by killing him. The crow Jeremy is love sick and bumbling but tries to help her after she saves him from the family cat. (If there is any meaning behind all the “J” names I haven’t figured it out.) And then there is Mr. Ages, the only surviving mouse who has had the shot that turns animals into reading machines. He’s not the grandfatherly type, but the old cynic, who’s it-can’t-be-done attitude is a good juxtaposition for Mrs. Brisby’s heart. The movie manages to balance cute camp and is genuinely scary. (See the theatrical release poster, which is mostly just scary…) While their mother is getting chased by a large and silent rat with a steel spear, the Brisby kids are tying up Jeremy, who was sent to babysit them, and accusing him of being a spy. A spy for what is unclear. The film ends with a love song and Jeremy finding his perfect female counterpart (blah). Even though Nicodemus is actually murdered and two other rats die in a fight after moving the Brisby home, there is a happy ending. Not too happy though. Brisby does not end up with Justin, despite the rather nauseating flirting that goes on at their first meeting.

Through it all Brisby avoids being the type of female character that make me cringe. A few more points that make her awesome:
  • No fur boobs: the tendency to sexualize animals’ bodies to make them look more human might have its place in comic books (or not), but luckily the 1980s illustrators of Secret did little to feminize Mrs. Brisby. She has long lashes and a small red cape, but no busting chest, long legs, or human-shaped butt.
  • She can read too!: She didn’t get experimented on and yet she can read. She was taught. Amazingly, all those male rats have used their smarts to steal electricity. Jonathan Brisby taught his wife to read. And guess what, it worked and did not require a big painful shot.
  • Her ultimate goal has nothing to do with finding a husband: At no point in the film is her lack of a husband an actual hurdle. Sure, Mrs. Brisby misses Jonathan, but the film takes for granted that she is making it alone in this crazy rat-filled world. And, as I already pointed out, she doesn’t marry Justin!
I can’t deny that parts of this movie are problematic. We never even learn the main character’s name. Brisby asks Jeremy, a decided clutz to babysit because “she needs a big strong male to watch the children,” and he jumps at the chance to play “domestic.” And yet The Secret of N.I.M.H. doesn’t belong with the worst offenders in children’s movies that teach little girls early how to be less than little boys. Maybe it is because I have been watching this movie since I was four, but Mrs. Brisby inspires me. If raising a cement block out of the mud with only the power of love and a ruby necklace to save your four kids is not worthy of respect, then I don’t know what is.

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Katie Roussos is a labor organizer living in New York City. She graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a degree in Comparative Literature and has not stopped writing, despite the fact that she is not working in the literary field. This is her first submission to Bitch Flicks, but she is a lover of feminist blogs and hopes to submit to others in the future.

Animated Children’s Films: The Lion King: Just Good, or Feminist Good?

Nala to Simba: “Pinned you again.”

This is a cross-post from Feminist Disney.
Overall FeministDisney Rating: **, 2/4 stars  (see below for specific categories that feed into this)
The Lion King is an interesting movie to pick apart. I think when it comes to anthropomorphized casts, it’s almost more difficult, at first, to examine it critically in terms of how it portrays humans. After all, when you think “Feminism” + “Disney,” who thinks to critique The Lion King? I didn’t, at first.
But truth be told: there is much to critique here.

I should say first, let’s throw the whole “But this is how lions act” argument out the window. Lions are not actually “kings” of all animals; they do not actually get along with prey when they’re feeling like singing a song, or learn to eat bugs from them; when (male) lions become subadults, they have to leave their pride, and no, they can never come back. Etc., etc., etc.

So none of this “Disney just portrayed it that way because it’s that way in real life” ish.  This isn’t the National Geographic Channel.

One big, happy family?
So anyhow. It’s very noticeable in this movie that male characters take the center stage, and female characters take a backseat to the action. Simba, Mufasa, Scar, Rafiki, Zazu, Timon, Pumbaa (these are all characters that take up a significant amount of screen time) versus … Nala. Sarabi was there but existed as little more than a supportive nurturing background character who took a backsteat to Simba’s relationship with his father. The male story and the male perspective clearly dominate. As a simple Bechdel test or more in-depth examination will tell us, this is not a single occurrence but rather a troubling reflection of movie character diversity in general.

When it comes to Nala, her role has always frustrated me a lot. Ignoring that it might not work with the plot already in place, it was quite disappointing that Nala did not take over partially or fully in Simba’s absence. She is always shown, especially early on in the film, to be Simba’s equal, and she is perhaps even more intelligent, or at least a more naturally sound leader throughout the film, while Simba tends to be comparatively a bit more immature and in need of multiple characters propelling him into responsible/rightful action. This isn’t a critique of Simba’s likeability or abilities, but merely to say that in all aspects, Nala would have made at least a decent fill-in.  

Simba and the more cunning Nala

Another feminist critique of this movie (on Nala):
She comes up with better ideas then he does. She is the one who starts Simba thinking about his past and his future. Yet, despite the fact that she left the pride lands to find help, she also does not challenge Scar’s right to rule. She does little more than Sarabi to work toward getting a better life for herself and the other lionesses, only leaving the pride lands to seek help (read: a different male lion). Only when Simba returns to the lionesses stand up to Scar. This is because a new male has been found to lead them. The lionesses are very much kept in the shadow of the male lions.
Neither Sarabi nor Nala challenge the male lion’s leadership even though there is no clear reason for why they should allow him to run and ruin their entire kingdom, other than that he is male. Not even when they are starving do they speak up and act for themselves and for their people. Simba has to do it for them.

I think this is really one of the main and most problematic aspects of the film: it basically boils down to the fact that an entire group of strong female characters are unable to confront a single male oppressor; to do so, they need to be led by a dominant male. It almost sucks more that Nala is such a strong, independent, intelligent, savvy female character and still ends up constrained by this plot device. It doesn’t say a lot of positive things about the role of women or about the importance of female characters in this film.

Scar: Simba’s evil gay uncle?

When it comes to androgyny and non-binary characters in this film, it is worth noting that they all “happen” to be the evil characters: the 3 hyenas and Scar. Scar is clearly a male lion, but as has been noted previously and in many blog posts apart from mine, he is portrayed as basically the “gay evil uncle” owing to his effeminate gestures/speech/appearance that are stereotypically known to be gay markers. Shenzi is presumably female but is never actually referred to as one in the movie–it is something we can only assume from the general tone of the voice. All the hyenas look very similar/are difficult to distinguish other than by voice inflection (it isn’t bad to have androgynous characters: it’s bad that they’re always cast as villains in childrens’ movies).
The characters are animals, but their voices show racist stereotypes. Even though The Lion King takes place in Africa, two white American actors are used for the voice of Simba, the hero. However, the hyenas who are bad characters in the film, speak non-standard English and are played by actors like Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marin. The villain, Scar, suggests homosexuality.

While I do agree with some of the observations, many readers have pointed out that the cast is pretty diverse and both good and evil characters have “black” and “white” voices so neither one is necessarily villainized. I don’t think it’s accidental though that Simba/Mufasa/everyone are very bright and light colored, while the Hyenas and Scar are a lot darker. While this has been a traditional coding for good/evil in film, I think it’s pretty obvious for children watching who the good and bad guy is, rendering this device unnecessary. But since it’s still there in the movie it could, rather than being a helpful cue, actually helping to instill subconscious notions of morality relating to the color of your skin.   
Many critics saw a racial subtext to the villainous outsiders, noting that the racialized voices of the hyenas hewed to hackneyed stereotypes of African American and Hispanic threats to nice kids from the suburbs who stray too far from home.

Racialized hyenas?
Don’t get me wrong here: I loved The Lion King when it came out in 1994. I was 5 years old and I wanted that movie on VHS sooo badly that I created this “moving train” of paper characters to show my mom in hopes that she would realize that we had to have it since I loved it enough to create a paper train (so started my life of unnecessarily complicated scheming!). We got it as a gift when my brother was born, and I had a Zazu stuffed toy that I carried everywhere like a doll for a year or two.
So yeah, it’s a great film, but that doesn’t make it a great feminist film.
______________________________________________________________________
 
Promotion/Equal Voice given to women: *
Representation of Women present (are they more than typecasts of female stereotypes etc): ***
Racism/Classism: **
LGBTQ representation: *~ (1.5)
Gender Binary adherence: *~

FeministDisney runs a tumblr blog of the same name that seeks to deconstruct and examine Disney through a feminist lens.  FD is a Disney fan, which is why she finds it necessary to discuss how Disney narratives can be both groundbreaking and problematic.  She identifies as a feminist, an artist and a cat lover.

‘Fire’: Part One of Deepa Mehta’s ‘Elements Trilogy’

Fire (1996)
Fire is the first film in Deepa Mehta’s Elements Trilogy (Earth and Water follow). Made in 1996, it focuses on a middle-class family in present-day (funny how I still think of the 1990s as “present day,” despite the global changes of the past fifteen years) India.
The film centers around two married couples–Ashok (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and his wife Radha (Shabana Azmi), and Ashok’s brother Jatin (Javed Jaffrey) and his wife Sita (Nandita Das)–who run a carryout restaurant and video store, and who share a home with the brothers’ mother, Biji (Kushal Rekhi), and their employee, Mundu (Ranjit Chowdhry). Jatin and Sita are newlyweds, but we quickly learn that Jatin loves another woman (Julie, a Chinese-Indian woman who has perfected an American accent and dreams of returning to Hong Kong), and married a “traditional Indian woman” out of pressure from his brother and mother.
The film offers the womens’ perspectives on the conflicts between desire and duty, and between tradition and the realities of a modern India.
As with almost any film centering on family drama and dynamics, we see the tensions simmering beneath the surface as the film focuses on the two women and their lack of fulfillment from their marriages. Mehta, in the DVD’s Director’s Notes for Fire, states,
I wanted to make a film about contemporary, middle-class India, with all its vulnerabilities, foibles and the incredible extremely dramatic battle that is waged daily between the forces of tradition and the desire for an independent, individual voice.
More than 350 million Indians belong to the burgeoning middle-class and lead lives not unlike the Kapur family in Fire. They might not experience exactly the same angst or choices as these particular characters, but the confusions they share are very similar–the ambiguity surrounding sexuality and its manifestation and the incredible weight of figures (especially female ones) from ancient scriptures which define Indian women as pious, dutiful, self-sacrificing, while Indian popular cinema, a.k.a. “Bollywood”, portrays women as sex objects (Mundu’s fantasy).
To capture all this on celluloid was, to a large part, the reason I wanted to do Fire. Even though Fire is very particular in its time and space and setting, I wanted its emotional content to be universal.
Sita learns very early in her marriage that her husband is in love with Julie–he doesn’t hide the relationship from her–and she seeks solace and comfort from Radha. Radha hasn’t been intimate with her husband in 13 years; when Ashok learned she was unable to conceive, he sublimated his desires (and began channeling a good bit of their income) into religious study with his swami. The friendship between Sita and Radha soon evolves into a sexual relationship, and when the women are found out by their family, they must decide whether to obey tradition or follow their hearts.
Radha and Sita
The film explores what traditional marriage has done to alienate these women–particularly Radha–from their own desires. The desire for intimacy and sex, sure, but also the desire to live their lives for themselves, rather than for their husbands. My reading of the film is certainly from a Western perspective, however, and you could argue that the film is about discovering desire (rather than reconnecting to it after a period of alienation), since the traditional, conservative Hindu/Indian culture didn’t allow much–if any–space for individual desire for women. Sita embodies changes in the society, as she comes from a traditional family, but is more critical of the traditional rituals and more in touch with her body and her desires. (When we first meet her, for example, she playfully tries on her new husband’s pants and dances around their bedroom, unashamed of her body.) Sita is also the one who initiates a physical relationship with Radha.
Depicting a lesbian relationship on film fifteen years ago proved hugely controversial, and Fire was immediately banned in Pakistan, and soon after pulled from Indian cinemas for religious insensitivity. Although the film twice passed the Indian censor board–they requested no editing, and no scenes removed–violent protests caused movie houses to stop showing the film. In “Burning Love,” Gary Morris writes,
The reaction of some male members of the audience was so violent that the police had to be called. “I’m going to shoot you, madam!” was one response. According to Mehta, the men who objected couldn’t articulate the word “lesbian” — “this is not in our Indian culture!” was as much as they could bring themselves to say. 

It isn’t only the tangible pleasures of a lesbian relationship that created such heated reactions, though that’s certainly the most obvious reason. This beautifully shot, well-acted film is a powerful, sometimes hypnotic critique of the rigid norms of a patriarchal, post-colonial society that keeps both sexes down.

The controversy surrounding the film may have superseded the film itself–which is beautifully shot, heartbreaking, and even darkly comedic at times. Fire contains so many elements that I love in film: strong female characters, an exploration of complex issues that is never oversimplified and that never leads to individuals being labeled good or evil (although they certainly behave in good and/or evil ways), and immersion into a culture that isn’t entirely familiar to me. Speaking to a Western audience, Mehta has stated that one of her goals in filmmaking is to “demystify India,” its culture and its traditions. Fire complicates our understanding of a traditional patriarchal culture, and throws into sharp relief the ways these traditions impact women in particular.

Again, here’s Mehta on Fire:

We women, especially Indian women, constantly have to go through a metaphorical test of purity in order to be validated as human beings, not unlike Sita’s trial by fire.

I’ve seen most of the women in my family go through this, in one form or another. Do we, as women, have choices? And, if we make choices, what is the price we pay for them?

***

There is a ton of information online about Fire. Here are some selected articles for further reading:

Movie Review: ‘Martha Marcy May Marlene’

Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)
This is a guest post from Carrie Nelson.
Martha Marcy May Marlene is a story told in fragments. Interspersed in the narrative are flashbacks, dreams and hallucinations, so it isn’t always clear what events are happening when, and which ones are actually happening at all. But that’s part of the power of the film – the fragments set an uneasy tone, allowing the viewer to easily slip into the mindset of the heroine as her sense of self and reality slowly unravel.
When we meet Martha (Elizabeth Olsen), she is escaping from a cult in the Catskills. Once she contacts and reunites with her sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson), we learn that she has been out of touch with her family (and ostensibly living with the cult) for two years. The film chronicles Martha’s adjustment to life in a wealthy Connecticut suburb with Lucy and her husband Ted (Hugh Dancy), all while Martha privately reflects on the traumatic experiences she’s left behind.
Through flashbacks, we learn that charismatic leader Patrick (John Hawkes) gave Martha the name Marcy May when she first visits his wilderness compound. At first, Patrick’s home seems like a harmless hippie commune, with rotating chore lists, sustainable gardening and guitar sing-alongs. Soon, though, the façade disappears, and Marcy May is stuck in an ongoing cycle of abuse. At the risk of giving too much away, I will say that one of the more disturbing elements of the film is watching Marcy May transform from the abused to the enabler of abuse. She buys into Patrick’s manipulations so easily that by the time she realizes what’s happened, too much damage has already been done.
We never learn much about Martha’s life before she became Marcy May, but the lack of information does not take away from the audience’s ability to connect to the character. Through her conversations with Lucy, we understand that Martha spent much of her adolescence without close family ties. Lucy was in college when Martha needed a support system, but the sisters never had a close bond. The viewer gets the sense that Martha did not have much of a plan after graduating from high school – not college, not job prospects, not reuniting with her sister. She was drifting, looking for a purpose, which is how she falls in with Patrick. She has nowhere else to go and no one else to turn to – why wouldn’t she connect with such a group? Though we don’t know the specifics of Martha’s history, she is developed strongly enough that her actions are plausible, believable and even disturbingly realistic.
One of the strengths of the film is the emphasis it places on female relationships. The core of the film is Martha’s relationship with Lucy at home and Marcy May’s relationship with Zoe (Louisa Krause), Sarah (Julia Garner) and Katie (Maria Dizzia) at Patrick’s. Much like Margaret Atwood’s brilliant dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, these relationships take place within the confines of patriarchal communities. In Ted and Lucy’s marriage, Ted is the head of the household. He takes issue with Martha moving in with them, and his actions – and the stress he puts on both Lucy and Martha – strain the already tenuous relationship between the sisters. In the cult, the male members are overtly privileged over the female members. In the opening scene, we see that the women in Patrick’s house are not allowed to eat dinner until the men have finished. Chores appear to be segregated by gender, with the men chopping wood and the women sewing, cooking and childrearing. There’s also an incredibly creepy moment when we learn that the children born on the compound, all fathered by Patrick, are all male. The audience never learns what happens to the female babies, but the insinuation is horrifying.
And still, in both of these environments, bonds between women flourish. Martha and Lucy have their differences, but it is clear that they both want to have a relationship again, and they are determined to do whatever they can to make that possible, even while Ted makes Martha feel threatened and unwelcome. Meanwhile, Zoe takes Marcy May under her wing and eases her into the community; this relationship is mirrored later in the film, when Sarah joins the cult and Marcy May transitions from initiated to initiator. Despite the traumas witnessed and experienced by these women, their relationships stay strong. They share support, laughter and strength in the face of abuse, time and time again. Complex relationships between women aren’t commonplace in film these days, so Martha Marcy May Marlene is a refreshing change of pace in this regard.
I’ve heard Martha Marcy May Marlene repeatedly compared to last year’s Winter’s Bone; both films feature beautiful young blondes in breakout roles, playing tough, dynamic characters, opposite creepy performances by John Hawkes. I love both films, but Martha Marcy May Marlene is sticking with me in a way that Winter’s Bone has not. Though Winter’s Bone is a challenging and emotionally difficult film, its protagonist, Ree (Jennifer Lawrence), has closure at the end of her journey. The chilling, ambiguous ending of Martha Marcy May Marlene, however, does not give Martha any sense of closure. No matter how one interprets the ending, it’s clear that it represents the beginning of her horror, rather than her escape from it. The ending of Martha Marcy May Marlene offers no comfort, and its power is still felt long after the credits roll.
I don’t know if Martha Marcy May Marlene can be called a feminist film, per se. None of the underlying messages are inherently feminist or socially progressive; the politics aren’t what make this film interesting. But I do know that this film contains more strong, developed female characters than one typically sees in films today, and the relationships between those women are the backbone of the movie. In particular, Olsen’s performance as Martha/Marcy May is stands out as one of the best I’ve seen this year. Martha Marcy May Marlene is one of the best films you will see this year, featuring some of the most dynamic female characters to appear on-screen this year. Check it out.
Carrie Nelson has previously written aboutPrecious, Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, The Social Network, Sleepaway Camp, and Mad Men for Bitch Flicks. She is a Founder and Editor ofGender Across Bordersand works as a grant writer for an LGBT nonprofit organization in NYC. 

Guest Writer Wednesday: Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan: Viewers’ and Critics’ Miss-steps in a Dance with a Female Protagonist

Black Swan (2010)

As Mila Kunis’s character descends upon Natalie Portman’s in the (dream) oral sex scene in Black Swan, a college-age young woman in the movie theater audibly whispers, “And this is why every guy in the theater is here.” 

Darren Aronofsky’s 2010 Black Swan is a film about repression, perfection, and letting go. 
It is a film about finding, torturing, losing, and gaining oneself through destruction, much like many postmodern films of the same genre (Fight Club, along with Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream and The Wrestler). 
But to too many in that theater and in theaters across the country, it is a sexy, crazy, girl movie about ballet. 
Even though most of the marketing of the film catered directly to the male gaze (focusing, of course, on that oral sex scene, which had nothing to do with sex in the context of the film), it is considered either a movie about a girl, or a movie for girls. Even in the sponsored post on Jezebel (which was heavily promoting the film through advertising), women were supposed to come see the film because of pretty ballet, and shocking scenes—psychological and sexual—all touted in a juvenile, sing-song manner: “Natalie violently masturbates face-down on a mattress under the gazes of two creepy stuffed bunnies. For real.” “Natalie makes out with Mila!” The advertisers seemed desperate to sell a different film to audiences. Females would surely flock to theaters to see ballet, so how could it be marketed toward men (and as seen here, women)? Frivolous lesbian sex. Because certainly men wouldn’t want to see a film about a ballerina (note that these marketing concerns certainly weren’t an issue for The Wrestler). 
The IMDB page describes Black Swan as “A thriller that zeros in on the relationship between a veteran ballet dancer and a rival.” 
But it’s not. Nina’s (Portman) rival, Lily (Kunis), has almost nothing to do with the central plot and theme of this film. However, the allure of feminine cattiness, jealousy, and competitiveness is much easier to digest than the idea that a film could focus on universal human conflicts with a female protagonist. 
Aronofksy’s 2008 film The Wrestler is described on IMDB as follows: “A faded professional wrestler must retire, but finds his quest for a new life outside the ring a dispiriting struggle. “ 
Personal conflict, inner-struggle, the gender-neutral “quest.” 
In an interview that touched upon gender issues in Black Swan, Aronofsky said, “… to me, if you paint a human character with real emotions and really empathize with them, it doesn’t matter if it’s a 50-something aging wrestler, or a 20-something ambitious dancer, they’re just people.” How unfortunate that we must hear that explanation from a director, instead of simply understanding it. 
Lest the blame of this feminine vs. universal (masculine) protagonist issue be placed solely upon the marketing and audience, the feminist lens must also be properly focused. In Debra Cash’s “Swanday Bloody Swanday: Darren Aronofsky’s Sadistic, Misogynistic New Film,” she refers to the film as a “textbook demonstration of what academics refer to as the male gaze… Aronofsky’s fable portrays female powerlessness on every level—youth, friendship, collegiality, retirement, motherhood.” And that in itself is misogynistic? Should we not portray powerlessness because we want to be powerful? Had Aronofsky been celebrating powerlessness, maybe that argument would hold true, but he certainly was not. Showing how destructive powerlessness is should be viewed as a feminist action. 
Many feminist film reviewers also lambasted the misogyny of the ballet’s artistic director, Thomas (played by Vincent Cassel), even though his character’s inherent sexism (referring to his principle dancer as his “Little Princess,” for example) is essential to the themes of repression and being able to break free from said repression. Jill Dolan, at The Feminist Spectator, says that “As her [Nina’s] relationship with Thomas gets more and more entwined, she begins to suffer from a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, idealizing and even identifying with Thomas and his mercurial cruelty.” This is begging the question that Nina is the victim–would we ever assume a grown man in a similar role was the victim? Perhaps we’d glance at the notion, but never give him the simple, passive role of “victim.” Relegating Nina to the role of the victim belittles and negates the larger focus of the film. 
While Thomas’s advice to Nina to touch herself is uncomfortable, it is effective, not purely sexist, in trying to force her to find her Black Swan. What better way to discuss this clearly feminist idea—the female orgasm and the difficulty to attain it due to outside and inside pressures—than in the context of the dichotomy of the White and Black Swans? When she finally does achieve orgasm during the aforementioned dream sequence, it’s clear she can do so only when she has lost herself enough, and lost herself to a point where she can blame someone else for her destruction, that she can let herself (and her Black Swan) free. 
While this literal and figurative climax also serves as the beginning of her perfection and destruction, we can see that the destructive nature of this epiphany relies on the fact that she has not achieved freedom by herself. Dolan presents this scene as if it is a lesbian sex scene, as does Cash. In doing so, these feminist commentators take away the importance of the scene by assuming it’s simply for the male gaze, when in fact it is all about Nina overcoming, or attempting to overcome, the passive social and sexual world that she inhabits, while still striving for perfection. 
This leaves the feminist viewer to wonder what makes a film feminist? Must sexism lose and the oppressed woman break free and live happily ever after? Instead, perhaps the truly feminist film is one that makes the female protagonist represent humanity, not just womanhood. Dolan ends her article with the line: “That’s a message that’s not good for the girls.” This further proves the idea that the message of success through self-destruction cannot be gender-neutral with a female protagonist. 
Aviva Dove-Viebahn, in her Ms. Magazine Blog review “Sex, Lies and Ballet,” acknowledges Aronofsky’s “fascination with the intense humanity and obsessive desires of his characters” in a refreshingly comprehensive review. Dove-Viebahn clearly sees what the others miss—that we as viewers are supposed to be questioning and compelled by Aronofksy’s narrative. 
In the Variety article “Stalking the perfect ending,” Mark Heyman (one of the writers of the film, along with John McLaughlin and Andres Heinz) said about the film’s end: “We wanted it to have some kind of emotional weight and significance and somehow be satisfying, even though it’s tragic… so that it felt like she had achieved something even as she had destroyed herself.” It seems that the writers and the director have a clear understanding of the purpose of the film, and the complicated, yet simple, themes. Why did so many audiences and critics miss the point? 
In Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, he explores probability and the human urge to predict in his Black Swan Theory (typically used to explain world and financial events). He derives the title of the book and theory with the story of the white swan in the “old world”—people had only ever seen white swans, so they assumed all swans were white. The sighting of a black swan was a complete surprise. He says, “It illustrates a severe limitation in our learning from observations or experiences and the fragility of our knowledge. One single observation can invalidate a general statement derived from millennia of confirmatory sightings of millions of white swans.” The male protagonist is the white swan—the millions of white swans. Aronofsky’s Black Swan—the female protagonist—has shocked the people in our “old” world. We don’t know what to do with it exactly, and are unclear of its purpose. 
Taleb goes on to describe the three attributes of the Black Swan: “it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations,” “it carries an extreme impact,” and “in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.” The audiences who quickly categorize Black Swan as a movie for/about women, or the critics who lambast its misogyny, are unable to otherwise grapple with the outlier of a female protagonist who can show us ourselves—male and female. 
Unfortunately, we are still entrenched in a culture where men’s stories are universal stories of humanity, and women’s stories are women’s stories. Until we move past that, and realize that just as we don’t have to be aging professional wrestlers to understand the humanity and struggle of The Wrestler’s protagonist, nor do we have to be young female ballerinas to see Nina as a character that speaks to us in Black Swan, we will continue to be in gendered places in the movie theater, where male protagonists are the norm, and female protagonists are only noteworthy if they are being gone down on.

Leigh Kolb is an English and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri, and has an MFA in creative nonfiction writing. She lives on a small farm with her husband, dogs, chickens, and garden, and makes a terrible dinner party guest because all she wants to talk about is feminism and reproductive rights.