Tag: Erin Tatum

‘The Mortal Instruments’: City of Mansplaining

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
Written by Erin Tatum. 
It looks like I’ll be taking the hipster side of things in Women in Sports Week with The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. Shadow hunting may not be considered a mainstream sport yet, but then again, most people said that it would be impossible to turn Quidditch into a sport. Those naysayers severely underestimated the number of college kids that would be willing to run around with a broomstick chafing their crotch. I eagerly anticipate the inevitable hordes of geeky/drunk college kids lighting their shadows on fire and stamping them out. Anyway, it’s not like athleticism or any other hobbies are required in City of Bones. If you’re a girl, you barely need to have a functioning brain! Any man within a 50 mile radius will come running to dictate everything you ever wanted to know about life.
Clary and Simon.
Before I get too deep into sarcasm, let’s back up and set the stage for the impending testosterone-saturated wasteland. Full disclaimer that I haven’t read the books, so don’t expect any comparisons. Clary (which sounds suspiciously close to Cassandra Clare, the author) is just a Normal Teenage Girl who has recently been doodling strange symbols everywhere. Her mother Jocelyn (Lena Headey) notices and nervously tries to stop her from going out alone, but Clary (Lily Collins) blows her off to hang out with Simon (Robert Sheehan). Judging by the glasses and khaki jacket, Simon is going to be the geeky friendzoned sidekick. He follows her around like a hopelessly lost puppy, and I’m preemptively gagging at the Anguished Declaration of Love that seems to already be ebbing at the surface. Man, if I could take a second to be shallow, Robert Sheehan is consistently gorgeous, and they have to try really hard to make him frumpy. His career confuses me because he either plays hedonistic pricks or overly romantic saps. Either way, his characters always have lady issues in that he either objectifies them as a Casanova or demonizes them as a nice guy. In case you haven’t guessed, this is clearly going to be a case of the latter.
Jace is 2 pretty 4 u.
Clary drags a reluctant Simon into a club because she recognizes the symbol on the sign as the one she can’t get out of her head, even though no one else can see what she’s talking about. A stranger overhears her and convinces the bouncer to let them through. Inside, Clary sees some odd looking patrons. She watches a mysterious blonde boy kill the stranger and releases a bloodcurdling scream, causing the rest of the club to stare at her in alarm because they once again don’t see what she’s looking at. Clary is rattled, but goes to a coffee shop with Simon the next day. Meanwhile, thugs break into her house and corner her mom, demanding to see an unspecified cup. Jocelyn beats them over the head with a frying pan and barricades herself in the bathroom. She frantically calls the kids. Clary is having a very intense conversation with the blonde boy, Jace (Jamie Campbell Bower). Neither Simon nor Clary picks up her call, which is quite a heavy-handed commentary on how teenagers aren’t emotionally attentive enough to their parents and yada yada. “Kids, pick up calls from your parents on the first ring! You never know if they’re having a near-death experience!” Clary finally answers and Jocelyn tells her she loves her before presumably committing suicide by drinking poison. Kiss that last sweet drop of estrogen goodbye, because it’s more or less a sausage fest from here on out.
“I wonder how soon we can start fighting over her after she wakes up.”
After racing home to save her mom, Clary finds the house abandoned with Jocelyn nowhere in sight. Jace saves her from the last of the demons, brushing off her bewilderment and describing as much of their supernatural world as he can. He and Jocelyn are shadow hunters. This is where the mansplaining starts and it only goes downhill from here. Jace and Clary try and rescue Clary’s family friend Luke from torture, but Clary feels betrayed when Luke tells his captors that he was only cozying up to her family for the cup. Jace tells Clary that they need to go to The Institute, which seems like a poor man’s holographic Hogwarts with more ghosts and less British people. Simon winds up getting dragged along too by coincidence. We can’t have that awkward teen love triangle angst unless all three spokes are shoehorned into the same contrived spectacular battle! Shoving a girl between her socially constipated best friend and a hotter, usually supernatural/sociopathic lust object (or two) has never been done before! Putting a girl in the middle of a heterosexual love triangle may feel progressive in giving the illusion of female agency, but really it just sets her up for failure. Masculine entitlement remains intact; it’s just a question of who she’ll end up with. It’s property ping pong. Clary tearfully collapses on the way to The Institute, reacting quite normally to her life disintegrating in the past 36 hours. Luckily, Jace is there to deliver a rousing monologue about why she needs to do what he tells her, complete with pseudo-eskimo kissing in the pouring rain. They make it to The Institute, where Clary immediately passes out from a demon-inflicted wound. She dramatically faints onto Simon, and then both boys watch in concern as she loses consciousness. Gee, I sure am excited to deal with their circle jerk dynamic for the next 90 minutes!
Alec threatens Clary to keep his secret safe.
Clary’s survival confirms that she’s supernatural. She meets Jace’s tutor, Hodge (Jarred Harris, nearly unrecognizable), who fills her in on the shadow hunters. Everyone seems to like her except Alec (Kevin Zegers). Alec is very possessive of Jace and doesn’t want Clary at The Institute. At this point I joked to my mom that Alec probably had a crush on Jace. What can I say, I try to find homoeroticism in everything when I’m bored or frustrated with a plot. Alec’s sister Isabelle confirms the crush to Clary in the next scene. As excited as I was that one of my crackpot queer angst ideas came true, not even a bisexual love triangle could shake up this hetero snooze fest. It’s a sad day when I type that sentence. For the most part, Alec is portrayed as deeply ashamed of both his orientation and his attraction to Jace, who is oblivious. This might be more sympathetic if they interacted enough to support the original best friend premise. Alec just sort of follows Jace around and tells people to stay away from him but is always belligerent about his motives. Using assumed incompatible orientation as a means for setting up your Alpha couple and fueling Clary’s entitlement complex is lazy and vaguely homophobic in that it establishes Clary as a doe-eyed beacon of femininity wrongfully pitted against the delusional, predatory gay.
Looking hot while defeated is a complicated art form.
The gang has to go to a party at Magnus Bane’s to get answers about why Clary’s memory is blocked. This conveniently involves dressing very provocatively. As the only other remaining female cast member, Isabelle gives Clary tips on how to sex it up. Clary proves her identity as a Good Girl by complaining incessantly that she looks like a prostitute, an opinion immediately confirmed by the men as soon as they leave Isabelle’s room. Nonetheless, Jace compliments her and Simon stares at her dry mouthed. Simon cements his emasculation by being roofied at the party and kidnapped by vampires. Of course, Jace engineers a dramatic rescue because Clary is too distraught to think clearly. Those silly women and their emotions! The vampires attack Jace and company on their way out, leading to some elaborate sword fighting while a weakened Simon pathetically stumbles around in the background, his weight supported by Clary. As soon as Simon loses his claim to masculinity, he also loses his humanity. The worst thing you can be in this movie is feminine or effeminate, unless you’re Clary, and even then you have to have a truck load of special powers to compensate for it. I choose to ignore the gendered fuckery of this scene and focus on the fact that Robert Sheehan is shirtless.
“This is not the sleeping arrangement I imagined.”
While Simon recovers, Clary and Jace take the opportunity to celebrate Clary’s recent birthday because they’re both vapid, self-absorbed people. Jace takes her to some sort of garden room with incredibly crappy CGI effects. They have an Almost Kiss, but Jace cuts it off, which seems anticlimactic until Clary trips and falls into him, leading to a gratuitous make out session. A fantastic drinking game for City of Bones would be to take a shot every time Clary gasps. Girl has an excellent and/or terrible set of lungs. Simon predictably opens his door just as Jace and Clary are leaning in for the farewell kiss. An epic stereo geyser of friendzoned tantrums ensues. Jace is offended by Clary’s attempts to downplay their relationship to Simon, storming off and shouting, “the kiss wasn’t that special to me either!!1!1” Oh, just shut up and kiss Alec already. Simon piles on by giving Clary the profession of love she’s been avoiding the entire movie. As annoyed as I am with the romanticization of male entitlement, my biggest issue lies with what makes people like Jace and Clary worthy of such tortured admirers in the first place. They’re both just pretty faces with zero substance and a bunch of informed attributes. There is no there there. Simon and Alec should hook up instead.
“I’ll never drink from a red solo cup again!”

Every guy continues to tell Clary how she should act and how she should feel and about her past and what she can and can’t handle until some plot has to happen. The implications of deliberately denying a young woman knowledge about her own abilities through memory suppression out of mercy has startling echoes of rape culture and is therefore glossed over by the excitement of the romantic tension in Jace and Clary’s mentor–student dynamic. Alec is gravely wounded by the only prominent woman of color in the film who turns out to be an evil witch because I guess they’re just going for a stereotype smorgasbord at this point. Magnus Bane arrives to heal him, but it will take the rest of the movie, freeing up Jace to go be a hero and avoid any serious discussion of Alec’s feelings. Jace also barely interacts with Alec after his injury, in contrast to Clary, who the narrative would like you to believe almost single-handedly nursed Simon back to health. Some best friend. Also, Clary stole the Mortal Cup back from the witch, and some dude named Valentino comes back, which the audience knows is bad because the whole reason Jocelyn drank the poison was to avoid him.

“Halt! I will smite you with my inexplicable appeal!”

I apologize that my summary of the finale will be somewhat brief and scattered. My estrogen-addled brain must not have been complex enough to understand it and I didn’t have a man with me to explain what was happening. The final climax goes on for what feels like years and it just refuses to die. We get some backstory diarrhea in a last-ditch effort to turn Jace and Clary into compelling characters. Basically, Valentino pulls a Darth Vader on Clary and says that he is her father. Hodge is apparently evil and in cahoots with Valentino to get the cup. There is a Seaworld-esque water portal of great significance, which Clary manages to dive into without issue despite the fact that you supposedly need years of training to do so. She’s just that special. Her mom is in suspended animation a la Hercules on the other side. Valentino tells Jace that he’s his father as well, making Jace and Clary brother and sister. This is probably a lie because Hodge pulled the suggestion of said truth bomb out of his ass when he didn’t want Valentino yelling at him, but it might be true, and there’s some flashback evidence to support it. Either way, Jace and Clary’s near sexytimes just became very awkward. Simon and Isabelle have been hanging out a lot and fighting together, so I’m sure he will be settling for her in the future. Clary saves the day when she carves another unknown symbol into her hand to stop the shadow monsters because she realizes she can manipulate anything she points the symbol at. This is both a weird glorification of self harm and a cringe-inducing level of Mary Sueness. No one has ever seen her power before! She patches up things with Luke and rouses her mom from her coma with an apologetic monologue of love. Yawn.

“My head says incest, but my heart says yes!”

All seems well as Jocelyn recovers from the hospital with Luke by her side. Simon says (ha!) sorry for being a pouty douche and delivers the death knoll for his own relevance by voluntarily opting out of the love triangle, at least for now. Clary returns home and uses the same power that she just saved an entire building of people with to tidy the house. Supernatural abilities – good for salvaging humanity and preparing to be a housewife! Jace appears to compliment her domestic skills and calls her an angel. That’s likely foreshadowing, but I threw up in my mouth regardless. The problem with female exceptionalism is it really loses its luster of empowerment if it’s only affirmed by the approval of the male gaze. Jace admits that he doesn’t think the sibling allegations are true and Clary hesitantly wraps her arms around his waist as they ride off on a motorcycle to contemplate their potentially incestuous future.

Black Masculinity in ‘Lee Daniels’ The Butler’

Lee Daniels’ The Butler
Written by Erin Tatum.
My experience going to see Lee Daniels’ The Butler made an impression on me even before the film started playing. I don’t think I have ever been to a movie where every single preview featured a protagonist of color. It reminded me just how whitewashed Hollywood is. Why are films about people of color only marketed through the platform of other films whose primary audience is anticipated to be people of color? Maybe I’m naive – I had forgotten how big of a factor racial demographics are for advertising. All of the previews were spectacular and left me wanting to see more. It’s a shame that these gems don’t get more publicity.
Lee Daniels’ The Butler is a tall order to say the least: it runs a staggering 132 minutes and spans eight presidential administrations with an all-star cast including Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, Mariah Carey (blink and you’ll miss her), David Oyelowo, Terrence Howard, and Cuba Gooding Jr., just to name a few. It’s to the point where one article calls the film a “cameo roulette.” The amount of history covered is absolutely breathtaking in scope. The script can feel uneven at times because of this, especially in the beginning. You might spend 20 minutes in one year and then cover the next five years in 10 minutes. I applaud the tenacity of the casting director, as I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many cast changes to reflect characters aging. Of course it is a little ridiculous that 52-year-old Forest Whitaker plays Cecil from approximately age 25 into his 90s, but the magic of makeup does wonders. The attention to detail in this film is meticulous, from the clothing to the decor to the hairstyles. The differences and subtleties of each presidential personality are also captured thoroughly even if briefly. There is even a particularly funny scene where Dwight Eisenhower gruffly asks Cecil for… toilet paper assistance… as his beagles sit loyally by the toilet.
Cecil and Gloria.
At its core, the film chronicles the cross-generational struggle to define black identity and masculinity in a racist American society. Little Cecil learns that subservience is the best policy after his father is shot dead for uttering a simple monotone “hey” at the ruthless cotton farm owner, Thomas (Alex Pettyfer), who had likely just raped his mother. Thomas’ elderly mother (Vanessa Redgrave) takes pity on Cecil and allows him to become a domestic servant, where he quickly adapts to being neither seen nor heard. These skills come in handy when he leaves the South and begins serving wealthy white clientele at various DC hotels, leading to his recruitment as a White House butler. Before starting the job, he is reminded that “there are no politics in the White House.” He thus resolves to continue to be painstakingly neutral on any potential political conflict, even if he is explicitly asked for his opinion. His commitment to his career soon borders on obsessive as he works long days and nights, leaving his marriage to wife Gloria (Winfrey) in a perpetual state of decay. Although he watches her battle alcoholism and strongly suspects her affair with the neighbor, Cecil’s commitment to family values and tradition never wavers.
Gloria is unhappy and has an affair.
Cecil’s attitude of racial uplift through hard work starkly contrasts to the restlessness of his older son Lewis (Oyelowo). He is shown to be scornful of and perhaps embarrassed by his father’s position from the time he is a teenager, a disconnect that is all the more exacerbated when he begins to participate in nonviolent civil rights protests while in college. The scenes of the diner sit-in and the Freedom Rides are some of the most emotionally resonant of the film. You can actually feel the burning hatred of their attackers and a few well-timed close-ups ensure that you’re up close and personal to some of their most inhumane and humiliating tactics. One girl has ketchup smeared on her face. Lewis has hot coffee thrown in his eyes. On that note, I’ve never been more disgusted by saliva. You watch one of the attackers lean in and spit a loogie on the cheek of one of the girls protesting and it is vile. Lewis continues to participate in the civil rights efforts despite multiple arrests, much to his parents’ chagrin. Cecil remarks that he “doesn’t understand how Lewis can’t see that the president is going to make things better for us,” particularly after witnessing slow but steady changes in racial policy.
Cecil and Gloria with Lewis (right) and Charlie (left)
What we are witnessing here is friction in the generation gap over ideas about the best means to achieve racial uplift. Cecil espouses the belief in assimilation through passivity and diligence. He grew up in an era where discrimination was benign and silence was survival. In contrast, Lewis believes that discrimination means disrespect and silence equates to, dare I say, emasculation. When Lewis’ generation came of age in the 60s, what was really at stake was the question of the reputation and respectability of black masculinity. Cecil views his way of life as making the best of the limited parameters available for the fulfillment of black manhood, whereas Lewis perceives such servitude as a shameful complacency with histories of racial power dynamics and as an insult to black integrity. In what is arguably one of the most dramatic moments of the film, Cecil snaps on Lewis and his hippie girlfriend Carol (Yaya Alafia) essentially for being apathetic flower children with no respect for the sacrifices of their parents, prompting Lewis to call him an Uncle Tom. This insult provokes an epic slap from Gloria and I must say Oprah has one hell of a backhand. The freeze between father and son becomes permanent and only deepens after Lewis fails to attend his younger brother Charlie’s funeral following his death in the Vietnam War.
Cecil confronts Lewis after he is first sentenced to jail.
Inevitably, the ideological rifts between them soften over the decades. Cecil finally gets the recognition he deserves when he successfully advocates for equal compensation and promotion opportunities for black White House employees during the Reagan Administration (it’s appalling that it took that long). The Reagans invite him and Gloria to the state dinner as guests, but something isn’t sitting right with Cecil and he finds himself increasingly dissatisfied with his job. He decides to patch things up with Lewis and joins him in protesting the imprisonment of Mandela, even getting a taste of Lewis’ life by being arrested and briefly incarcerated. As an old man, Cecil retrospectively feels a great sense of pride for Lewis’ contributions to the civil rights and black power movement. Masculinity is therefore reaffirmed as having the persistence to make your mark on society in the face of great adversity.
Things come full circle as Cecil and Gloria eagerly campaign for the election of Obama in 2008. Gloria passes away, leaving Lewis as Cecil’s last surviving family. Father and son watch the election results with tears in their eyes. Cecil is invited to meet the new president and is warmly greeted by the butler, who is also an African-American man. As Cecil walks stiffly but proudly to meet Obama, there is a definitive sense of collective triumph. Eight decades later, black masculinity is allegedly getting the respect it deserves. Although masculine privilege remains unquestioned and racial dynamics will always be a work in progress, the poignancy of the ending does bring a smile to your face.

The Women of ‘We’re the Millers’: Brats and Strippers

We’re the Millers
When I heard that We’re the Millers was a drug smuggling comedy with a fake family at its center, I knew I would have to check it out. Marijuana has become a trademark of arrested development for men in film, so I was excited to see a comedy that dealt with drug/petty crime issues within the context of a family dynamic, even if they aren’t technically related. Jennifer Aniston’s recent career has been fascinating to me because of how far she continues to go to get away from the Rachel image. Ever since her split from Brad Pitt, it’s apparently been open season for everyone and their mother to talk about how much Aniston fails at womanhood. Every article about her either harps on her looming infertility or bemoans the alleged last dying coughs of her career. It has to be difficult to keep your head up in such an ageist industry while being typecast as the girl-next-door into your 40s. In keeping with that defiance, Aniston plays Rose, a stripper. I have mixed feelings of this as empowering that I’ll get to later.
Emma Roberts delivers consistently good albeit unremarkable performances. We’re the same age, so I remember watching her on Unfabulous and commiserating about middle school angst. I haven’t heard much about her lately. She seems to have skipped the crazy rebel child phase that all the Disney prodigies go through. I googled her before writing this to try and find some relevant links and the only news that popped up was a story about her being denied service after trying to cut a line at a bakery. I’m not kidding. She plays Casey, a runaway teen who starts out as your typical Bratty Teenage Daughter. As for the guys, I’ve found that Jason Sudeikis (David) is a funnier version of Jason Bateman, minus the latter’s dour midlife crisis cynicism. Then there’s Kenny, the obligatory socially inept dork. I’ve never heard of Will Poulter, but he has the weirdest and most immaculately arched eyebrows I’ve ever seen.
(from left to right) Casey, Rose, David and Kenny.
Rose and Casey are established as the brains and common sense to the selfishness of David and the wide-eyed naïveté of Kenny. The women of the ensemble may be smarter, but they are both introduced in the context of their relationship to the male characters. Rose and David resent each other for what initially seems to be unresolved relationship issues given his snide crack at her unseen boyfriend. (Later it’s revealed that the animosity between them stems from David ruining Rose’s favorite painting during a failed first attempt to flirt with her and they were never actually together. I liked that they went out of their way to avoid the cliché, but this is one occasion where the cliché might have made more sense.) Casey is introduced us when Kenny tries to save her from a gang of thugs trying to steal her phone. The gang robs David of his stash instead, prompting the smuggling in order to pay back Brad (Ed Helms), his supplier.
While the selling point of “the Millers” relies on the oddball factor, the film predictably only references Rose and Casey’s past lives to highlight the zaniness of their situation instead of pointing out why a stripper and a homeless girl would be far more willing to risk everything for some drug money. That’s understandable given the genre, but Rose and to a lesser extent Casey are constantly passive aggressively reminded of how useless and expendable they are by David. The insults decrease in proportion to David’s growing affection for them. Why is it that female characters are only respectable to the extent that male characters see fit to humanize them? David calls Rose a cheap stripper for the majority of the film. It’s telling that he and Rose have their first scene of genuine romantic chemistry after Rose admits her real name is Sarah. Strippers clearly aren’t viable romantic options or even real people until they tell you their true identity! Casey is little more than a petulant annoyance until David starts to feel paternalistic towards her. Hell, he even jokes about killing Casey himself as a drug cartel holds a gun to their heads in what is supposed to be the emotional climax of the film.
Rose and David get a little more than they bargained for while camping.
Beyond that, issues of masculinity are fairly banal and played for laughs at the guys’ expense. Nick Offerman delivers a fantastic performance as a big bear of a DEA officer looking to spice up his marriage with his wife through swinging (and hitting on David, no less!). Taking pity on Kenny after witnessing his disastrous attempts to flirt with the swinging couple’s daughter, Melissa, Casey decides to teach him how to kiss. David and Rose walk in and Rose decides that she will also kiss Kenny to help him diversify his technique and then the two women compare notes by trial and error. The result is arguably the funniest scene of the film. Kenny goes back and forth between Casey and Rose in a veritable table tennis of kissing as David provides feedback while lazily munching potato chips. That sort of nerd’s wet dream might be predictable, but the way it’s executed is hilarious. Why else would you put a virgin with a stripper and a streetwise homeless girl? Jennifer Aniston was not pleased. Of course, Melissa comes over at that exact moment to visit Kenny and thinks that she’s stumbled upon foreplay to an incestuous orgy. Given my piece last week, I was relieved that I could laugh at this. At least they’re not actually related this time!
Rose does an impromptu dance in a warehouse.
Rose’s profession inevitably comes in handy during the first action climax. Cornered by the drug cartel, Rose realizes that she’s been passing as a suburban mom a little too well and offers to prove herself by literally stripping for her life. Really, you are lying to yourself if you thought the powers that be would waste any opportunity to showcase Jennifer Aniston’s legs. The ensuing montage is pure wet, slow-motion fan service. The dance ends with Rose releasing a steam valve, disorienting their captors enough to let their “family” escape. I’m torn about this scene because although it’s trying almost too hard to show that strippers can be smart and intuitive, Rose’s most valuable asset is still her body and her ability to be objectified. I take issue not so much the objectification itself so much as the fact that the definitive aspect of Rose’s character seems to be “LOL WHAT 40+ and still hot?!?”. Certainly Aniston’s boldness and athleticism are praiseworthy, but given the amount that the actors talk about it in interviews, you would think the strip routine was her sole appearance.
Will We’re the Millers be remembered as anyone’s iconic role? Probably not. However, it was thoroughly entertaining and ended on an unexpectedly heartwarming note as the Millers start their new life together in the suburbs as part of the witness protection program. Rose and Casey becoming David’s wife and daughter respectively can feel blasé in light of their colorful histories, but all is not quite as it seems The close-up of the marijuana plants growing in the backyard before the cut to the credits indicates that although their hardships may be a thing of the past, their comically gray morality will always be close at hand.

Female Sexuality is the Real Horror in ‘Womb’

Womb poster
Written by Erin Tatum.

Today, I wanted to talk about a little film called Womb. It’s not very well known – Doctor Who fans will recognize it as one of Matt Smith‘s leading roles before his TARDIS fame. The film presents a fascinating introspective on the ethics of cloning while at the same time highlighting the difficulty of differentiating types of love, putting an oddly poignant spin on the sci-fi genre. Above all else, I enjoy director Benedek Fliegauf’s unabashed aggressiveness in deconstructing everything we romanticize about childhood and then punching us in the throat with our own sentimentality.

The symbolism of this fetus is going to get exponentially creepier.

First of all, the setting and cinematography is breathtakingly gorgeous in the most depressing way possible. The characters are constantly surrounded by haunting, saturated bleakness. This proves to be an effective backdrop for the ensuing emotional turmoil while underscoring the overarching question of morality that plagues the main character, Rebecca. The opening voice over is Rebecca’s exhausted yet serene affirmation that “it’s over now” and that her presumably dead lover has left her with a final parting blessing of pregnancy. If you haven’t looked up an overview of the plot, you are probably thinking that this is going to be a powerful romantic drama that ends in the tragedy of death mixed with the hope of the baby’s promise for the future. You’d be about a quarter right. It’s about to get all Freudian up in here.

Savor the wholesomeness while you can.

We begin by watching the blossoming childhood romance between Rebecca and her neighbor, Tommy. They are inseparable, spending all day playing together and developing little rituals unique to their friendship. Everything seems perfect until Rebecca announces that she and her mother are moving to Japan. Tommy awkwardly kisses Rebecca and she runs embarrassed out of the room. It’s genuine and heartfelt enough to make me almost forget my annoyance that we force heterosexuality on children by romanticizing the hell out of every opposite sex friendship, but I’ll let it slide because damn these kids are adorable. Later, he tells her that he has a plan to rescue her in the morning before she leaves. Alas, Tommy fails to show up and Rebecca leaves without saying goodbye. 

The one appropriate instance of romantic chemistry in this film.

After completing university, Rebecca returns to her original home in England. Of course, her secret primary motivation is to find Tommy, who just happens to live in the exact same place because apparently childhood defines your entire existence. Tommy dumps his current girlfriend like a sack of hot potatoes the second Rebecca finds him and the two attempt to pick up their relationship where they left off, except now with hormones and stuff. They briefly kiss, but Rebecca puts the brakes on, telling him it feels weird. Oh honey, if only you knew. She insists on accompanying Tommy to protest the opening of a national park filled with cloned animals. While they’re driving, Rebecca suddenly announces that she really has to pee. Tommy pulls the car over so that Rebecca can pee in a bush. He decides to exit the car for some reason and is promptly struck and killed by another car, marking the only time in cinematic history that a full bladder has served as the catalyst for the entirety of a film’s central dramatic plot.

Not yolo? Oh no.

Rebecca feels responsible for Tommy’s death and tells his grieving parents that they can totally bring him back because Rebecca plans to impregnate herself with his clone! Tommy’s mom is rightfully appalled, but Tommy’s dad is just like “Whatever, you do you.” This is the part where this film starts making your skin crawl. It’s really sweet and noble and you know Rebecca is willing to put herself through the inevitable confusion out of love for Tommy. However, it’s shortsighted and selfish and adds a whole new stratosphere to the definition of pedophilia, because it’s obvious that on some level, Rebecca chooses to bring Tommy back out of regret that they never consummated their relationship. Carrying a fetus with the subconscious intention of having sex with that future person somewhere down the line is a part of the id that I never want to think about. That said, this decision marks an important shift in how Rebecca’s sexuality is perceived. She declares herself to be a literal vehicle of perversion. From here on out, her desires are marked as obsessive, predatory, and unnatural, which is a striking contrast to when her innocence and devotion to Tommy was celebrated within the sanctity of revived childhood romance just a few weeks ago.
Just casually huffing my son’s preteen pheromones nbd.

Tommy’s parents decide that watching the clone version of Tommy grow up would be too painful and move away, leaving Rebecca to raise him on her own. She decides to tell her son that his father is the original Tommy, who died in a car accident before he was born. We jump forward to where cloned Tommy is the same age as the original Tommy was when he and Rebecca first met. Rebecca’s affections toward him are thus a bit too intimate – stroking his face a little too long, deeply inhaling the scent of his skin, sitting naked with him in the bathtub even though Tommy is clearly too old to need assistance. Eva Green, the actress who plays older Rebecca, does a great job of representing the bizarre fusion of the butterflies from your first crush with more physical adult desires. These scenes just left me wondering how on earth they explained this dynamic to the child actor. “Okay, you’re going to be in love with a girl your age and then come back later as a cloned version of your character, only now you don’t know that your former girlfriend is actually your mom. She still has a wildly inappropriate crush on you, but just act oblivious until it becomes relevant to the plot again.” I know that sometimes a film crew won’t explain darker themes to child actors to protect them, but surely they had to give him a heads up about this. I would be concerned if I were 11 and the 20-something actress playing my mom was sensuously smelling my neck.

Mother and child reunion…bow chicka wow wow.

My confusion was rather explicitly cleared up soon enough, when a playful mother-son wrestling match quickly progresses into a steamy moment of sexually charged flirting. Tommy pins Rebecca to the ground, forcefully straddling her. With an impish grin on his face, he breathlessly declares, “I could do whatever I want with you,” and there’s a little too much pleasure and excitement in his triumphant tone. The cataclysm of taboos makes this scene the most significant of the film in terms of social commentary on sexuality. For all of the times we want to pathologize Rebecca’s desires as the source of the problem, this exchange very much implicates Tommy in that deviance. The binary between childhood innocence and adult depravity is not as polarized as we’d like to think. Children can be sexual too, a cringe-inducing reality that society desperately tries to bury by creating strict scripts of innocence and chastity for childhood romance, immortalized by Hallmark cards and Hummel figurines.
Beyond making a case for the existence of children’s sexuality, Tommy’s actions also indicate that his desires may be a bit sadistic, only further shattering the haven of pre-pubescence. He clearly enjoys dominating Rebecca, tauntingly putting his face inches from hers knowing full well, even if only subconsciously, that they’re both in the heat of the moment and teetering on some level of sexual release. Again, we’re talking about 11-year-old Tommy. I also think that this is one of those moments that’s supposed to minimize the incest factor by implying that cloned Tommy has some sort of unconscious ESP link to the memories and feelings of original Tommy, but that small scrap of comfort is totally obliterated by the fact that you’re witnessing a completely consensual erotic moment between an adult and a child. Rebecca gasps, “Go ahead,” but the two are interrupted by Tommy’s friend calling his name. Tommy deliberately lets his face hover above Rebecca’s for a few more seconds, seemingly relishing her helplessness and obvious desperation. If you don’t think Tommy is now complicit in whatever freaky dynamic is going on here, you’re delusional. I found myself wishing that he would kiss her just to break the tension and then immediately wanted to drink myself to death for even letting the thought cross my mind. He reluctantly stands up and walks over to his friend, leaving Rebecca sprawled out in the sand and looking uncomfortably close to orgasm.
Genetic engineering: a proven birthday ruiner.
Rumors about Tommy being a clone isolate him from his friends because their mothers don’t want them to be associated with a “copy.” No one shows up for Tommy’s birthday party. The whole idea of clones as a metaphor for any oppressed minority that experiences overt discrimination might be more effective if the main character hadn’t gestated her boyfriend’s clone with the primary purpose of acting out her repressed childhood sexual urges, but at least it’s a valiant attempt. Tommy’s bewilderment at his sudden outcast status does pull at your heartstrings. Conveniently, Tommy’s new lack of social life means that Rebecca will be his only support system growing up. I’m sure that will only make their relationship healthier! Ah, there’s nothing like an incestuous dystopia to carry you through those troubled teen years.
This is awkward enough without the Freudian possessiveness.
Just in case you weren’t horrified enough yet, the unresolved sexual tension between Tommy and Rebecca is about to skyrocket off the Richter scale. Like his mother, Tommy returns to his childhood home, now the same age as when the original Tommy died. Unhappily for Rebecca, he arrives with his girlfriend, Monica, in tow. Rebecca mopes around the house, taking every opportunity to be jealous and pouty. She seems particularly disillusioned when she goes to wake Tommy, only to discover Monica in bed with him and connect the dots that they probably had sex the night before. The implication is that Rebecca has been single and celibate ever since the original Tommy died. On one hand, our sympathy leans toward her because she has sacrificed everything for Tommy and it’s a sad juxtaposition to watch her plateau in loneliness while Tommy’s life is filled with friends and opportunities.
Rebecca sulking over Monica’s failed olive branch pastries.
Still, here Rebecca’s motives start to acquire a distinctly vindictive, bitter undertone that erodes her original justification of everlasting love and devotion. She’s pissed that her relationship with clone Tommy hasn’t magically replicated into her romance with original Tommy, but she forgets that they’re different people and Tommy has no obligation to simply pick up the life of his original where it left off. Plus, her warped nostalgia creates impossibly high expectations on several counts, considering she never told him the truth and she should have anticipated that Tommy isn’t supposed to want to have sex with his own mother. Womb has a weird tendency to humanize incest in ways that make you feel dirty for even contemplating the scenario enough to formulate an opinion.
Giving new meaning to the phrase “sexy fishnets.”
Rebecca’s hostility toward Monica creates tension in Tommy’s relationship with Monica. Monica senses the growing distance between them and tries to keep their relationship alive with lots of flirting and sex, much to Rebecca’s chagrin. Despite Monica’s best efforts, everything falls apart when yet another play fight derails into not-so-subtle passion, culminating in Tommy shoving his head under Rebecca’s shirt. Monica has been watching them and realizes that they both look a little too aroused for family fun, prompting her to storm off. Tommy once again lets his face linger near Rebecca’s before chasing after Monica, giving her a particularly intense Stare of Rediscovered Lust with Inevitably Dramatic Consequences. That Tommy sure knows how to leave a lady wanting more. It’s a shame he only seems to be at the top of this game when he’s fighting off oedipal sexual urges.
This moment is too sad for a witty caption.
The last screw of Rebecca’s fantasy comes loose when Tommy runs into the original Tommy’s mother, feeling an eerie familiarity with her. He can no longer stand Rebecca’s silence and demands concrete answers about his genealogy. Rebecca caves and shows him old footage of the original Tommy protesting. He berates Rebecca for lying to him his whole life. It’s all quite heartbreaking and raw and I had to crank down my sound because Matt Smith’s anguish is so visceral it’s terrifying. The subtext that was once relegated to awkward pauses and unspoken taboos rapidly shifts to fear. Tommy rapes Rebecca and it’s brutally carnal, especially when compared to his naively bewildered romantic interactions as the Doctor (skip to the 2:15 mark and marvel at the sheer volume of flailing). The experience is filled with tears and anger and is so very obviously the opposite of everything Rebecca has been dreaming of for the past two decades.
I’m sure he’s off to more dismal horizons.
Tommy departs quietly and alone soon after the incident. The viewer knows that he impregnated Rebecca. The ultimate consensus of the film seems to be Rebecca making peace with the pain that both Tommys have caused her because now she will have Tommy’s child, which is implied to be the fulfillment she was searching for all along. This bittersweet romanticism appears to gloss over the fact that clone Tommy is a rapist, but I guess that puts us back at sum zero in terms of morality judgments. Rebecca was punished throughout the film for allowing her sexuality to transcend even the laws of mortality. Womb might be insinuating that female desire is the root of all evil, but then again, no one else walks away squeaky clean either.

Welcome New Staff Writer Erin Tatum!

Written by Erin Tatum
Hey everyone! My name is Erin and I’m so excited to contribute to this awesome website. I just recently graduated from UC Berkeley with a major in Film and a minor in LGBT studies, so I think I win the award for the bachelor’s degree that is simultaneously the coolest and most irrelevant to just about any mainstream career path.
I’ve been addicted to television for years now, but my love for media hasn’t stopped me from noticing that television and film don’t always do right by women and other minorities. Although I definitely endorse television as escapism, I also think it’s critical that we don’t just shut our brains off. I am a bit of a trope analysis junkie. To put that more accurately, I live on TV Tropes. The fact that media representations fall into certain patterns fascinates me because I think it speaks volumes about how our society perceives a group at large. In particular, as a disabled woman, I am deeply invested in the representation of disability. Frankly, we have a lot of work to do. I also eagerly await the day when killing off both disabled and LGBT characters is no longer your run-of-the-mill resolution.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that watching television is a waste of time. I was able to turn my love for the show Skins into a presentation at an academic conference and it was amazing! It really confirmed my commitment to obsessing over television in a professional context for the rest of forever. However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have preferences for what I watch. I absolutely loathe love triangles and I think they’re the cheapest and most tired gimmick in the creativity handbook. Yes, we understand these things happen in real life and that happy relationships are supposedly boring to portray, but that doesn’t mean you have to beat that dead horse into glue every season. Part of the reason I get so attached to certain shows is because I am a sucker for innovation. I am easily seduced by strong performances and fresh ideas and I’m not ashamed.
I have an unhealthy obsession with the BBC. Some of the programs I watch include Orphan Black, My Mad Fat Diary, Fresh Meat, Bad Education, Orange is the New Black, Skins, Misfits, Downton Abbey, Futurama, Bomb Girls, Girls, and New Girl. Actually, I watch a lot of things with the word “girl” in it, which probably gives my blatant feminism away right off the bat.
In summary, if you ever want to talk to a bona fide TV fanatic fixated on improving representation of marginalized identities, I’m your girl.

Disabilities Week: ‘Glee’s Not So Gleeful Representation of Disabled Women

Glee poster, Season 3

This is a guest review by Erin Tatum.

It’s no secret that Glee is offensive to pretty much anyone who isn’t an able white male. While Glee has justifiably received a lot of flak for its treatment of certain communities – notable examples include Brittany breaking up with Santana only to be shoved into a nonsensical heterosexual relationship with Sam and relegating Tina and Mike to the background as self-aware Asian stereotypes – viewers have been relatively mum with respect to Glee’s treatment of disability. Artie is Glee‘s resident disabled character, whose rampant sexism is often played for laughs as he rehearses the trope of masculine entitlement no matter how ridiculous the conditions (in this case, the assumption that his disability should normally negate his sexuality, making his womanizing ways all the more ludicrous). Given that Artie’s disability is so wrapped up in issues of male privilege, I was curious to see if or how Glee would handle women with disabilities. Unsurprisingly, the two brief instances of women with physical disabilities were both heavily sexually coded and presented in ways that policed and shamed female sexuality.

Quinn seems to be Ryan Murphy’s favorite punching bag. I don’t understand how someone can get pregnant, give their baby up for adoption, get accepted to Yale, get into a car accident, and be disabled and then miraculously healed again in the span of four years, but Glee does have a knack for redefining the narratively impossible. After said car accident, Quinn makes an implausibly short recovery to return to school weeks later perfectly unscathed except for the presence of her wheelchair.

Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron) and Artie Abrams (Kevin McHale) in Glee

Flanked by her new BFF Artie – which tells you that this is going to be a very special minority duo bonding episode! – Quinn tells a distraught Rachel that this is the happiest day of her life. I groaned then and there because I knew Quinn wouldn’t remain disabled and this was just going to be her 575th chance to get some perspective (what I like to call Drive-by Oppression as a tool for lazy character development) and realize the benefits of able privilege. The problem is that Quinn’s introductory episode with a disability – rather than highlighting all the strength of the disabled community, is really just a reaffirmation of everything able-bodied people find unsavory about disability and a justification for Quinn’s ableist prejudices.

Quinn and Artie sing “I’m Still Standing”

Quinn and Artie lip-synch to a particularly offensive duet of “I’m Still Standing,” which is meant to be an inspirational metaphor for staying strong and being glad you’re still alive and yada yada. Again, this might actually mean something if the entire episode weren’t devoted to Quinn proving to everyone how not disabled she is because it doesn’t fit her character trajectory. As we all know, just like in real life, those who start out able-bodied never become disabled because that doesn’t logically make sense with how they’re supposed to be!

Artie shows Quinn how to wheel up a ramp

The episode shows some obligatory wheelchair-based bonding between Quinn and Artie, such as Artie teaching Quinn how to wheel herself up a ramp. Can I say that I found the whole Artie as disability Yoda plotline doubly offensive because neither of the actors is disabled in real life? Stop pretending that sitting down in a wheelchair is all it takes to accurately portray disability. Anyway, Quinn gets offended the second Artie insinuates that she might have to plan for life with a disability long-term. As someone who has had a disability from birth, I can’t imagine the turmoil that formerly able-bodied people must go through after suffering an accident. That said, it’s another matter entirely to endorse Quinn’s pessimism as a means of reasserting ableist privilege over Artie because it sends a message that deep down, all people believe that the disabled lifestyle is limiting, tragic, and not all that viable when it comes to achieving overall life goals. Her interaction with Artie pretty much ends here, signaling the start of her ascent back into an able-bodied lifestyle.

Of course, Quinn couldn’t pass through her tenure with a disability without some good old-fashioned disabled sexuality shaming! Yes, Ryan Murphy has her take the stereotypical route of assuming that she’ll never be loved again because of her disgusting wheelchair. Nevertheless, sparks fly between her and dreadlocked, overzealous Christian Joe, a.k.a. Teen Jesus. Many of their fellow glee clubbers exchange knowing side-eyes and suppressed giggles when the duo shares a sensuous duet of “Saving All My Love for You.” The reaction to their performance stands in glaring contrast to those from Quinn’s past romantic duets in its distinctively patronizing tone, already signaling Quinn as an object of infantilism. Disabled sexuality can only ever hope to parody “legitimate” adult sexuality as a spectacle of able titillation.

Quinn uses her reflection in a hand dryer to apply her lipstick

The girls excitedly gossip about Joe’s obvious crush in the bathroom, where Quinn makes the best of her newly lowered height by stoically reapplying her lipstick in the reflection of the hand dryer. Quinn brushes off their teasing by announcing that she’s said goodbye to that part of her life because clearly no one would ever want her when she’s in a chair, as evidenced by Joe’s discomfort during a steamy moment in physical therapy (yes, really). The worst part is that her speedy recovery validates this mentality. It’s moments like this that make me sad for young viewers with disabilities who may actually perceive these characters as role models. For those who have lived with a disability and have no possibility of recovery, all scenes like this do is perpetuate the myth of disability as a sexless Siberia of perpetual isolation. Further, Quinn’s attitude is marketed as noble.

Quinn gets physical therapy from Teen Jesus

But there’s a bright spot, kids! It turns out Joe was only recoiling in horror from Quinn’s crippled body because he apparently has a nasty habit of getting boners around her. This catalyzes a spiritual crisis within him because he is against premarital sex. Quinn finds out via feeling his erection against her leg, causing her to smirk in self-satisfaction because she’s still got it. Joe then saves face by babbling some drivel about how beautiful she is and how she makes him question his faith. The audience is supposed to find his innocence and chastity in spite of boners endearing, making it perhaps the most pervy analog to I Kiss Your Hand ever. I know this show is going for the love after tragedy angle, but I can’t help but think it’s a little too convenient that they paired the abstinent Christian with the recently disabled girl. By coupling up the two characters that appear to be the most logically sexually repressed, the narrative supposedly gives them a happy ending while weaseling out of the obligation to show them actually having any physical intimacy that we could expect with any of the other couples. Perhaps in an inadvertent confirmation of this erasure, Quinn and Joe are not shown to be physically affectionate with each other during any point in their pseudo-relationship. Quinn regains the ability to walk after a measly five episodes, declaring herself a viable vixen once more as she returns to make out with Puck for no reason while never mentioning that Joe or her relationship with him existed.

Betty (Ali Stoker) and Artie in Glee

On the opposite end of the sexual expression spectrum, Betty is Emma’s disabled niece who appears for about three quarters of an episode for the sole purpose of having a one night stand with Artie while checking his ego. Artie barely greets her before she shuts him down with a swift “oh hell no.” Artie immediately whines that she is only rejecting him because he’s in a chair, which I must say is the first time I’ve heard internalized ableism as a reason for friendzoning someone. Of course, Glee would never have the chops to explore the social complexity of internalized ableism, especially in a romantic context, so you know right off the bat that we’re going to be treated to an abridged version of the nice guy chasing the uppity bitch.

Accordingly, Betty is 100% sass. She explains that she doesn’t date “losers in chairs” because she’s blonde, captain of the cheerleading squad, and has big boobs. I guess after Quinn, the writers were desperate to show how inclusive they could be, so they decided to make Betty represent every reverse disability stereotype dialed up to 11 in a single sentence. The problem is that reverse stereotypes usually only mock the given community more because they act as a wink wink nudge nudge to the audience that the original stereotypes are true since the reverse is hilariously unfathomable. Everything in this scene, from the way Betty coyly dismisses Artie to Artie’s dumbfounded expression after every new burn is played for laughs. The exchange is horribly uncomfortable to watch because it has the snide, childish undertone of “LOL, look at the disabled people who think they can have standards!” It’s also incredibly troubling and disappointing that Betty’s self-confidence as a disabled woman translates into her perceiving disabled men as unfit objects of desire, sending the message that even people with disabilities themselves view other people with disabilities as incapable of being romantic partners, which only validates the traditional able conception of our community. Why is it that transcending your minority into the social privilege of majority always involves perpetuating harmful stereotypes and internalized hate against your own community?

Betty and Artie at the dance

Artie confronts Betty later, claiming she is a terrible, mean girl who hates her chair. Betty scolds him for playing the disability card and argues that she did not reject him out of any self-loathing, but simply because he’s an idiot. Artie spends most of his time being a misogynistic douchebag, and it’s a shame that only a woman with a disability could come close to legitimately calling him out on it. Since the powers that be would rather light themselves on fire than let their precious white boys face any criticism, we are left with the formulaic nice guy taming the shrew resolution. A silly montage plays as they dance together how able-bodied people think disabled people should dance, which means swiveling their chairs in a lot of fancy complex choreography.

Betty and Artie after their one night stand

Just to hammer home the fact that disabled people are kidding themselves by trying to have a sex life, the post-coitus aftermath shows Artie and Betty sharing a chuckle over the fact that neither of them felt anything, so they can’t possibly determine if the sex was good or not.

So to sum up, women with disabilities are constantly compelled to address the elephant in the room that is their presumably absent sexuality. You are allowed two modes: sad, stoic, and sexless; or cruel, bitchy, and promiscuous. Both are media stereotypes that women have faced before, but it becomes especially problematic when disability is thrown into the mix. No matter how sexually active a given character is, trying to achieve and maintain healthy sexuality is seen as a futile pursuit because disabled people and especially disabled women can never hope to have the “real thing.” Unfortunately, Glee happily perpetuates the myth that the sexuality of ladies with disabilities is either tragic or hilarious for cheap pity or laughs where appropriate.

Ali Stroker and Dani Shay

In an awesome case of life giving the middle finger to art, the (actually disabled!) actress who plays Betty, Ali Stroker, is currently involved in a relationship with fellow former Glee Project contestant Dani Shay. Their relationship is beyond adorable and Dani even wrote a song for her, the music video for which lets us get up close and personal with some pretty sensual moments between the two. It is possible for women with disabilities to be involved in loving, serious relationships, and ironically, the personal life of the very actress Glee attempted to pigeonhole exemplifies just how wrong the media is about disabled sexuality. Like all women, we are perfectly capable of wielding our own sexual agency, and the media needs to start reflecting that.


Erin Tatum is a recent graduate of UC Berkeley, where she majored in film and minored in LGBT studies. She is incredibly interested in social justice, media representation, intersectional feminism, and queer theory. British television and Netflix consume way too much of her time. She is particularly fascinated by the portrayal of sexuality and ability in television.