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Everything’s Coming up Braverman in ‘Parenthood’

‘Parenthood’ is about showing us rounded human beings, triumphantly showing us their strengths and compassionately portraying their weaknesses. The interconnectedness and communication of this family is inspiring, and the series is always true to its characters’ unique psychology.

Everyone gathered 'round the Parenthood table — Everyone gathered ’round the *Parenthood* table

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.
Spoiler Alert

Despite my largely cynical personality, I found myself really enjoying the NBC TV series Parenthood. The show follows the intergenerational lives of the Braverman family living in Berkeley, California. The family is very close-knit, helping each other raise children, weather difficult times, and answer tough questions. Sometimes bordering on goody-goody or saccharine sweetness, the show mostly impresses me with the breadth of important issues addressed and the true-to-life character depth and psychology.

First, let’s address the ways in which Parenthood falls short. The cast is predominantly white. Crosby (Dax Shepard) marries a Black woman, Jasmine (Joy Bryant), and they have two children together, who constitute most of the non-white main characters on the show.

With a cast that big, mainly casting periphery characters of color is a missed opportunity to dig into the intersection of race, culture, class, and family. Though in a limited, somewhat unsatisfactory way, the show does, however, capitalize on Crosby and Jasmine’s life together to delve into issues of interracial family. In a plotline about interracial dating, Adam (Peter Krause) and Christina’s daughter, Haddie, dates a young, Black man, which they forbid under the guise of his age and experience, when it’s clearly more about their discomfort with his class and race. It’s unclear whether or not the show truly acknowledges the racism of Haddie’s parents.

Parenthood also intersects race, class, and adoption themes when Julia and Joel adopt Victor (Xolo Maridueña), an abandoned 10-year-old Latino. Though the way the Braverman clan embraces Julia and Joel’s new son wholeheartedly is full of warmth and humanity, Victor’s representation brings into high relief the lack of class diversity depicted on the show. Though the character Sarah Braverman (Lauren Graham) struggles with money, she has the wealth and home of her parents to fall back on.

The entire Braverman clan comes out for Victor's adoption day — The entire Braverman clan comes out for Victor’s adoption day

I waited five whole seasons for them to introduce a queer character. We all thought it would be young Drew, the quiet, sensitive younger brother of Amber and son of Sarah. Nope! In the very last episode of the most recent season (Season 5), Parenthood showed a long absent Haddie (Sarah Ramos), home from college, in love with a woman.

Haddie kissed a girl...and she liked it — Haddie kissed a girl…and she liked it

Talk about a token LGBTQ character. She’s not even on the show anymore! It felt like Parenthood wanted to show us it was down with the gays without having to deal with any of the issues, hardships, or questions that come with being a young, queer woman in the US. Haddie also dated Alex, a Black man, so the implication is that she’s boundary-pushing and possibly a LUG. Not cool, Parenthood. Not cool.

Haddie Kiss Parenthood — Props for NBC’s on-screen lesbian kiss

Its shortcomings with regard to race, class, and sexuality mean that Parenthood disappointingly represents a narrow, unrealistic demographic of people. Though that seems like a massive fail, now we get to talk about the ways in which Parenthood succeeds. As I already referenced, the show deals with adoption and infertility with its Victor storyline. Not only that, but tackling the “C word,” the gentle-natured Christina (Monica Potter) is diagnosed with breast cancer. While Christina eventually goes into remission, she struggles with sickness, lack of energy, a desire to see her children through their challenges, loss of self-esteem, the death of close friends who also have cancer, and, most importantly, her own agency, her own ability to choose how she will live, how she will face cancer, and how she will prepare herself and her family for her potential death.

Christina shaves her head while undergoing chemotherapy

Fear, insecurity, trust, and love are repeatedly called into question when Parenthood deals with infidelity. We see Camille and Zeek secretly separated before they slowly repair their marriage due to an affair Zeek (Craig T. Nelson) had, showing how time, history, and forgiveness are crucial to any long-term relationship. We see Crosby destroy and slowly rebuild his family when he sleeps with Gaby (Minka Kelly), Max’s aide, which highlights how Crosby needed to grow up, accept responsibility for his actions and choices, and become more steadfast in his relationships. We see Adam and Christina weather a kiss Adam’s assistant, Rachel (Alexandra Daddario), plants on him during a rainstorm, showcasing the need for honesty and compassion within a marriage. The series primarily features male partners transgressing against their female partners, but in the most painful and drawn out indiscretion of all, we see Julia kiss another man and lie about it for a time, which leads to a separation and a difficult custody situation.

Julia and Ed acknowledge their shared attraction

Both characters are sympathetic: Julia (Erika Christensen) is desperate, lonely, and feels invisible, while Joel (Sam Jaeger) feels betrayed and unsupported by his wife in the pursuit of his career. We can also see both of their faults in the situation: Julia is selfish and can’t handle being a stay-at-home mom even though she rashly quit her job, and Joel is rigidly unforgiving and untrusting, refusing to communicate or work on their underlying marital troubles. It’s rare to see an honest, balanced, yet sympathetic portrayal of a drowning relationship due to infidelity.

Parenthood features a teen abortion without judgement. Drew’s (Miles Heizer) girlfriend, Amy (Skyler Day), becomes pregnant. Amy decides to get an abortion, and Drew, in his awkward, teenage way, tries to support her choice and be there for her. Despite his attempts to be a good boyfriend, their youthful relationship disintegrates as a result of the very adult situation they find themselves in. My major complaint is that much of this happens from the perspective of Drew, and we only get glimpses of how Amy feels and how, over a year later when Amy and Drew reconnect, Amy is still troubled by the secret she keeps from her family.

Drew and Amy's relationship falls apart after her abortion — Drew and Amy’s relationship falls apart after her abortion

One of Parenthood‘s pet issues is Asperger syndrome and more broadly autism spectrum. In Season 1, Adam and Christina’s son, Max (Max Burkholder) is diagnosed with Asperger’s. Together, the family rally, compassionately supporting Max to give him structure, safety, and a quality education that doesn’t discriminate against him. Later on, the show introduces Hank (Ray Romano), a love interest of Sarah and a mentor for Max, who is pained to discover that he, like Max, is autism spectrum.

Max and Hank share their love of photography

The series strives to show that despite the very real challenges they face, neither Max nor Hank are incapable of normal lives or of being loved. There aren’t a whole lot of representations of autism spectrum individuals that don’t tokenize them as a “character with a disability”–certainly very few make them primary characters on TV, and even fewer cast them as love interests.

I was impressed with the very real, honest depictions of addiction, in particular the plight of the loved ones of addicts. Sarah’s ex-husband, Seth (John Corbett), is an addict and an absentee father. He flits in and out of his children’s lives, promising to change and disappointing them each time. Amber (brilliantly, viscerally performed by Mae Whitman) is so sensitive that when we meet her, she is acting out, a lost teen with little self-worth who’s hardened her heart to her deadbeat dad, while her younger brother, Drew, yearns for his father, constantly forgiving him and eternally holding out hope that he’ll have a real relationship with his father this time. Sarah, herself, never gives up on Seth, and (while I think it’s unrealistic that Seth does, in fact, go to rehab and eventually maintains his recovery since it happens more often than not that people don’t ever recover) the Holt family exemplifies dysfunction and the behavioral patterns of living with an addict.

Drew finds his wasted father playing a show

For example, Sarah can’t ever choose the potential partner who has his shit together. She’s always drawn to the one who needs her most. Amber also grows up to embody this same trait when she falls in love with deeply troubled war veteran, Ryan (Matt Lauria). Ryan’s storyline allows Parenthood to delve into PTSD as well as the way in which veterans come home haunted. While I’m disappointed that the show has yet to explore PTSD as a result of sexual violence and/or trauma (especially considering how real that storyline is for so, so many people, especially women), Ryan’s arc and the way in which it intersects with Amber’s is crucial for revealing to us how much she’s internalized that responsibility of caring for someone who isn’t healthy.

Ryan nearly dies as a result of his PTSD motivated reckless behavior — Ryan nearly dies as a result of his PTSD-motivated reckless behavior

One storyline that I’ve been incredibly pleased to see is that of Camille (Bonnie Bedelia), the matriarch of the Braverman family. Her family takes her for granted and neglects her needs, invalidating her as a human being. They’ve so cast her in the role of “wife” and “mother” that they don’t see her as anything but an extension of themselves. This is clear in the resistance she meets from the entire clan when she wants to explore her love of painting on an extended, solo trip to Italy followed by her family’s baffled disbelief that she wants to sell the house in order to travel more and not be weighed down by that behemoth of a home. I’ve not often seen a story like this that calls out husbands and children for forgetting that their wives and mothers are human beings with separate hopes and desires.

Zeek realizes his love for Camille is the most important thing in his life

Bottom line, Parenthood is about showing us rounded human beings, triumphantly showing us their strengths and compassionately portraying their weaknesses. The interconnectedness and communication of this family is inspiring, and the series is always true to its characters’ unique psychology, revealing to us that every choice each of them makes is connected in a subtle way. If Season 6 would show us more race, class, and LGBTQ diversity, Parenthood would go from being a really good series to a really great one.

Bitch Flicks writer and editor Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

Exploring Imagination and Feminine Effacement in Cartoon Network’s ‘Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends’

Why examine this offbeat show through a feminist or ethical lens? Because ‘Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends’ (Craig McCracken, 2004-2009) is wildly inventive and subversive. Its plot, which explains that children’s imaginary friends must eventually go live at Madame Foster’s zany orphanage after he or she has outgrown their friend, insists that a child’s imagination has the power to make something real, whether adults believe it or not. At this home, young children are welcome to come and “adopt” one of the friends who is housed there. In this way, the friends are concepts that are “recycled” in order to accommodate children as they grow up.

Written by Jenny Lapekas as part of our theme week on Children’s Television.

Why examine this offbeat show through a feminist or ethical lens? Because Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends (Craig McCracken, 2004-2009) is wildly inventive and subversive. Its plot, which explains that children’s imaginary friends must eventually go live at Madame Foster’s zany orphanage after he or she has outgrown their friend, insists that a child’s imagination has the power to make something real, whether adults believe it or not. At this home, young children are welcome to come and “adopt” one of the friends who is housed there. In this way, the friends are concepts that are “recycled” in order to accommodate children as they grow up.

It’s interesting that Wilt is created with physical defects (his eye and his arm), pointing up the fact that these are not considered flaws by his young creator, but rather just part of who he is, like a hairstyle or shoe size.

There’s a certain level of manic energy present in some of today’s children’s cartoons (see SpongeBob SquarePants), and Foster’s is no exception. It seems as if so much is taking place all at once–most of which is pure nonsense–that we must comb through a cartoon’s goofy dialogue and fast-paced antics to discover central themes of kindness, friendship, and teamwork. I grew up watching David the Gnome, Eureeka’s Castle, Will Quack Quack, Noozles, and Faerie Tale Theatre, all shows that were modest and plodding, patient in their moral messages for kids watching at home. Although Foster’s can be grouped with other kids’ shows that consistently feature a great deal of commotion, this Cartoon Network show boasts some of the most creative characters and engaging plots, even for adults who are fans of clever cartoons with positive messages for everyone. I never had an imaginary friend growing up, and this show is a reminder of that for me.

The commercial for Foster’s states that it’s a place “where good ideas aren’t forgotten.” — The commercial for *Foster’s* states that it’s a place “where good ideas aren’t forgotten.”

We have an eclectic mix of primary characters who we follow throughout the series. The atmosphere at Foster’s rests somewhere between a low level psych ward and a daycare full of rambunctious trouble-makers. Although female-gendered “friends” are largely underrepresented on the show, the lessons Foster’s has to offer to child viewers are healthy and powerful, as they promote building friendships, using your imagination to have fun, and exploring the world around you.

After a fight with his brother, Terrence, which leaves the apartment in disarray, Mac’s mother tells him that at eight years old, he should have outgrown his imaginary friend, Bloo, by now. The fact that after Mac is forced to surrender his kind imaginary friend, yet continues to visit him every day, is evidence that Mac is not quite ready to grow up yet, and perhaps that’s not such a bad thing. We’re never too old to dream, imagine, and tell stories. This pressure to “grow up” translates to a sort of censorship, which inhibits our creative impulses as adults. We can’t be afraid to embrace nonsense; it can always be the root of something spectacular.

We can assume that Mac creates Bloo to cope with the bullying he receives from his obnoxious older brother on a daily basis.

Since the inhabitants of Foster’s are the products of children’s imaginations, it may make more sense to focus on these characters, rather than the humans who help to run the institution. If we simply take a look at the appearance of many imaginary friends, we may surmise that this show is the ultimate lesson in diversity for children viewers. Wilt is very tall with some bodily “deformities,” Eduardo is a Latino creature resembling a bull, and Coco is a bird-like friend whose vocabulary stops at her own name. By observing many of the friends, we get a sense of the psychology behind each creature’s origin. Coco, for example, was dreamed up by a little girl who survives a plane crash and becomes stranded on a desert island; if we look closely, the bird’s head and hair mimic a palm tree, and her body looks like a crashed airplane. In this way, Foster’s can be seen as literally fostering childhood stressors, including the confusion many of us can remember from our early years; the home we find in this cartoon works to make sense of that uncertainty.

Coco’s image is a direct reflection of her little girl’s trauma after a near-death experience.

Because Coco is the only female character within our primary group of imaginary friends, I think it makes sense to focus on her presence in the home. Foster’s houses dozens of more friends, a few of them female, and many of them become entangled in the lives of the main characters. One secondary female character we meet right away is the insufferable Duchess, who believes that she is the best idea anyone’s ever come up with. This leaves Coco as the only primary character who is an imaginary friend in Foster’s (excluding, of course, the humans who help to run the home). What luck that Coco, in spite of her limited vocabulary (or perhaps because of), is simply delightful.

Because Coco is only able to say her own name, she must alter her tone to let her friends know if she’s happy or upset, or if she’s asking a question or giving a direction, etc. This communication has its own set of rules in relation to the other characters (see Stewie from Family Guy). When Bloo first meets her, he repeatedly says “Yes” because he thinks she’s asking if he’d like some cocoa. However, Wilt understands her and explains that she was offering Bloo some juice.

In the first episode of the series, Coco repeatedly squawks “Coco!” at Eduardo as he rescues Mac from a vicious monster created by a “jerky teenage boy,” and Eduardo eventually says in Spanish, “Yes, thanks, Coco, you have a way with words,” clearly an ironic joke that Coco is adept at resolving tense situations, despite the fact that we can’t understand her on some level. It’s also made clear that when we make friends, we eventually begin to speak the same language, even if outsiders are unable to translate it. The show’s inclusion of a Latino character also exposes children to the Spanish language, which can only be a good thing. This scene also solidifies Eduardo as a character we cannot and should not judge based on appearances alone. Despite his large stature and booming voice (not to mention that he’s a bull!), he’s the gentlest friend at Foster’s and is often terrified of children, another example of comical irony in the cartoon.

In season three, Mac responds to Coco’s “gibberish” with an ominous, “Coco, I think if we did that, we’d go to jail,” alerting us to a darker side of Foster’s and its whimsical friends. Like everything else on the show, her thought is left to our own imaginations. What’s convenient and exciting about having Coco around is that she can lay eggs that contain fun prizes. She’s so excited when Bloo arrives at Foster’s that she lays an egg filled with a Ming vase, in addition to a bundle of other mysterious items that Mac carries off when he leaves. Coco also proves her kindness on Bloo’s first night at Foster’s when she gives him an egg with Mac’s photo inside.

Mac is delighted to gather the plastic eggs Coco has laid.

Coco is important not only because she’s one of the only female characters in the house, but because her presence is a mark of understanding: that childhood is its own language, and that play and learning are interconnected and necessary for growth. What children can take away from Foster’s is the understanding that imagination is not synonymous with foolishness, and that it is a muscle to be flexed as often as possible. If this key lesson is instilled in children at a young age, we can expect them to become more creative and tolerant adults who in turn raise their own children to view the world as being full of possibilities, as opposed to the frightening monsters we carry with us from childhood. We may find that those monsters hiding in our closets when we’re kids become the unrealized ideas we hide from as adults. Foster’s materializes this concept beautifully and offers adult viewers the opportunity to live vicariously through each imaginary friend we meet.

Foster’s appeals to kids as it depicts authority figures in a patronizing light, such as the uptight Mr. Herriman, who happens to be a huge rabbit (and also reminds me of the androgynous and high-strung Rabbit of Winnie the Pooh). And yes, most of the friends we follow on the show are males. However, these are forgivable offenses considering the lightheartedness the show promotes, not to mention its celebration of childhood and the endless possibilities of the imagination. Madame Foster’s home offers childhood friends a second chance, proving that imaginary friends don’t die or disappear but are lovingly passed on to the next child who is in need of a wacky companion. Child viewers who actually entertain imaginary friends can easily find some validation in this show’s exploration of that thin line that separates reality from make-believe. Foster’s is a fantastic wonderland for young viewers and a gentle push to adults to pay attention to their child’s imaginary friend, who is always very real for the child.

Note: Season one of Foster’s is currently available on Netflix.

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Jenny holds a Master of Arts degree in English, and she is a part-time instructor at Alvernia University. Her areas of scholarship include women’s literature, menstrual literacy, and rape-revenge cinema. You can find her on WordPress and Pinterest.

‘Steven Universe’: A Superhero Team We Can Believe In

‘Steven Universe’ embraces non-traditional families. Steven is a perfectly happy kid, who is raised by three women who love him. The Gems are wonderful guardians for Steven, acting as mothers, sisters, and leaders to him. Even though the Gems and Steven don’t always see eye to eye, they always try to step beyond their comfort zones for one another. The Gems may not understand the concept of video games, but if Steven wants to go to an arcade, then they’ll go. If Steven wants to throw them several birthdays for the thousands of ones they haven’t celebrated, they’ll let him dress like a clown and play party games with them, because even though they don’t understand it, it clearly means a lot to Steven.

This guest post by Megan Wright appears as part of our theme week on Children’s Television.

In the past years, with all the superhero movies coming out, it’s no surprise that children’s shows would become especially interested in making TV shows to capitalize on the trend. Granted, Saturday morning cartoons have always featured some superheroes, but there have been a great deal of superhero shows coming out lately: Avengers Assemble, Ultimate Spider-Man, and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.!, are just a few examples. But Steven Universe, a show that revolves around a young superhero in the making, is one of the best – and most progressive – examples on television.

Steven is a young boy who gets his superpowers from his powerful gem passed on to him from his mother, who died after giving up her gem. Since his birth, Steven has lived with his mother’s former teammates, the Crystal Gems, who raise Steven and help train him to become a Crystal Gem.

Steven Universe embraces non-traditional families. Steven is a perfectly happy kid, who is raised by three women who love him. The Gems are wonderful guardians for Steven, acting as mothers, sisters, and leaders to him. Even though the Gems and Steven don’t always see eye to eye, they always try to step beyond their comfort zones for one another. The Gems may not understand the concept of video games, but if Steven wants to go to an arcade, then they’ll go. If Steven wants to throw them several birthdays for the thousands of ones they haven’t celebrated, they’ll let him dress like a clown and play party games with them, because even though they don’t understand it, it clearly means a lot to Steven.

Steven also has a good relationship with his father, who doesn’t live with the Gems, but rather in his van. Greg Universe may not always understand the Gems and vice versa, but they get along for Steven’s sake. And even though Steven’s superpowers make Greg nervous, he’ll try to understand and help his son with them. The series makes it clear that one of the reasons Steven is such a carefree and sweet child is that he was raised in a positive environment, with four adult figures who clearly care and love him. His ideas, even if they don’t always work, are praised; his enthusiasm for everything encouraged. Even when his superpowers don’t work, the Gems always try to help him get better as a hero.

Family Portrait: The Gems (and their weapons) and Steven

Most superhero shows have mainly male superheroes as either the focus of the show, or the majority of the team. It’s interesting to see a show that revolves mainly around women with superpowers. Due to his young age, Steven’s powers are inconsistent, so most of the monsters that the Gems battle are defeated by his teammates: Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl. These characters each come equipped with their own special gems, weapons, and superpowers, making them the strength behind the superhero show.

One of the best things about the Gems is how different they are from one another, both in personality and body type. Everything about these characters differs physically: hair, weight, height, superoutfits, etc. Young girls watching this show can probably identify with Amethyst’s outfit of jeans and a shirt, Pearl’s skirt and tights, or Garnet’s shades than they can with Black Widow’s catsuit. It also passes on the message that you don’t have to look a certain way to be a superhero. For girls who constantly have to see huge breasts, skin-tight costumes, and somehow impeccably styled hair if they want to see a female superhero, this show has to be a relief.

Even better is the fact that the Gems all have their own personalities, which go much deeper than most kid shows’ characters. Pearl is orderly and the most cautious of the Gems, but it’s mainly the result of trying to protect Steven on missions. It also doesn’t take away from her abilities as a superhero – she doesn’t shy away from violence and is a master swordswoman.

Meanwhile, Amethyst is much more disorderly and has a lax personality about most things, which leads her to clash with the other Gems. This is explored in “Tiger Millionaire,” an episode where it’s discovered that Amethyst has been participating in underground wrestling in order to get out all her energy and frustration with the other Gems. By the end of the episode, Pearl and Garnet understand Amethyst’s frustration, and support her wrestling.

Garnet is the team leader, a quiet and stoic personality who commands the Gems and keeps them in line. She’s frequently seen going off on missions of her own, and she is the most powerful of the Gems. Her cool head helps keep Steven safe, and keeps Pearl and Amethyst from bickering all the time.

The Gems (from left to right): Pearl, Amethyst and Garnet — The Gems (from left to right): Pearl, Amethyst, and Garnet

The series empathizes teamwork between women rather than fighting. While Amethyst and Pearl might not always get along, the show makes it clear that they are still close teammates. In “Giant Woman,” it’s revealed that Pearl and Amethyst can form together to make Opal, a single being who is a powerful combination of their personalities, weapons, and skills. Unfortunately, because their attitudes clash most of the time, they have a hard time forming her. It’s only when they put their bickering aside that they can become Opal, which gives them an advantage in battle. Opal allows them to crush enemies that they would have been stumped by otherwise. The show empathizes that when women work together, they are more powerful.

I’m a feminist and a superhero fan, and sometimes those two loves conflict. I adore superhero comics, movies, and television shows, but I still have to acknowledge they have their problems. Most women are dressed in skin-tight outfits or barely any clothes at all, women are still in the minority numbers on teams, and there still hasn’t been a movie released yet that has a female as the main superhero.

What Steven Universe gives me is a show that offers a distinctively different take on female superheroes – they’re the most powerful beings on the show, they wear outfits that actually look useful for fighting crime in, and the show allows them to show their inner personalities as well as kick ass. I’m so excited that there’s a show out there like this for young girls: one that reinforces positive cooperation between women, that allows their female characters to have each have their own body types and personalities, and lets them see strong females that don’t apologize for their power.

Megan Wright is a TV reviewer for Gotta Watch It. This is her second time as a guest writer for Bitch Flicks.

Gender, Androgyny, and ‘The Dark Crystal’

The primary theme of ‘The Dark Crystal’ is that there should be no opposites, no dichotomies, no binaries. There cannot be balance when we separate out good and evil, ends and beginnings, cruelty and kindness, male and female. These things are truly one and exist together, inseparable.

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

I’m at it again, reviewing a piece of media from my childhood that powerfully affected me in the hopes of determining what kind of message it imparted to my younger self and how that message helped shape the woman I am today. This time around, it’s Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal. (My blast-from-the-past reviews thus far include: Was Jem and the Holograms a Good Show for Little Girls, Splash: A Feminist Tail Tale?, She-Ra Kinda, Sorta Accidentally Feministy, and “No man may have me”: Red Sonja a Feminist Film in Disguise?) The Dark Crystal, like so many other 80s movies, appealed to me because it was dark, otherworldly, and told a story that was not only unique, but epic in scale. When I look back on The Dark Crystal, what strikes me most is the film’s complicated representation of gender. Most of the film’s characters are overwhelmingly androgynous.

The last gelflings: Jen & Kira — The last Gelflings: Jen and Kira

The heroes of our tale are a pair of Gelflings, the last surviving members of a race the Skeksis genocided to avoid a prophecy foretelling their downfall. In appearance, Gelflings are decidedly androgynous: they are small and child-like with smooth, feminine features and long hair. Both are gentle and soft-spoken; Jen loves to play music on his pipe while Kira sings along. However, being female gives Kira the advantage of flight because female Gelflings have wings.

Kira surprises us by using her wings to rescue Jen

Kira can also speak to animals and plants. Though that is a learned trait from her Podling foster family, women being able to understand creatures of nature is a common trope to denote femininity.

Kira marshals a pair of landstriders to help their quest — Kira marshals a pair of Landstriders to help their quest

Though Kira is physically the least androgynous character in the film, she is brave and sure of herself when Jen is not. Though Jen is the one singled out for destiny and agency with his possession of the crystal shard, he doubts his mission and himself. Kira must spur him to adventure. She also uses her wits and talents to rescue herself when the Skeksis try to drain her essence. Not only that, but in the final scene when the Skeksis are closing in, she sacrifices herself, using her own body to show Jen the path when he is lost. Kira is simply a hero. Her feminine traits don’t make her weak, and her possession of typically coded masculine heroic traits does not make her masculine. At the end of the film when the Skeksis and Mystics are joined together again to form the UrSkeks, one of them says to Jen as he holds Kira’s lifeless form, “She is a part of you.” This is true, especially considering their earlier Dreamfasting scene in which the two touch and share memories. Though Jen is male and Kira is female, their genders do not make them binary. They are stronger together; together they form a single whole. (More on that theme later…)

Kira sacrifices everything to help Jen heal the dark crystal — Kira sacrifices everything to help Jen heal the Dark Crystal

The wise figure of Aughra is also androgynous. She is clearly female with a woman’s voice and large breasts with protruding nipples, but she has a beard and curling ram’s horns along with a removable eye. The companion novel to the film, The World of the Dark Crystal, apparently identifies Aughra as both male and female, the essence and personification of the planet Thra in which our story takes place.

Aughra. Don't mess with her. — Aughra. Don’t mess with her.

Aughra is powerful, ancient, and grotesque. She commands the plants of the earth and holds the crystal shard. She is an astronomer, scientist, and prophetess who can read the future in the stars. She regards the Great Conjunction as “the end of the world…or the beginning,” claiming it’s “all the same.” Like the Gelflings don’t distinguish between self and other when it comes to male and female of their race, Aughra sees ends in beginnings and beginnings in ends. Instead of focusing on how things are different, disparate, and separate, Aughra sees infinite connections, sameness, and harmony in unity.

The entire journey of the film centers around reuniting a sundered shard to make the Dark Crystal whole again. This will reunite the sundered Mystics and Skeksis who were once single beings now separated, embodying binary, dichotomous traits with the Skeksis being evil, selfish, greedy, cruel, and violent while the Mystics are gentle, kind, peaceful, and generous. Interestingly enough, the Mystics and Skeksis are all male, and their combined form continues to be male, but their maleness is not wholly traditionally masculine in its representation.

The Mystics nurture Jen, teaching him the gentle magics of the earth

The Mystics embody more traditionally coded female characteristics: gentleness, nurturing, community building, a connection to the earth: teaching, music, and magic. They’re long-haired and peaceful…the hippies of their planet (one of them even wears a stylin’ do-rag over his hair).

Look at those lovely locks flowing in the wind. Think he conditions?

In many ways, the Skeksis are more overtly masculine in their desire to subjugate others, the grotesque way they eat, their trials by combat, and their quickness to anger and violence. On the other hand, the Skeksis are obsessed with fashion. Their clothing defines them, and the disrobing of our lead Skeksis, Chamberlain, is the height of dishonor and humiliation. They disrobe him before casting him out after he loses the trial-by-stone competition to be emperor.

The Skeksis are serious about their opulent robes.

Chamberlain himself is very androgynous with his high-pitched voice, slight build, and his preference for manipulation over force. The Skeksis are also obsessed with looking youthful. They drain the “essence” of Podlings, turning it into an elixir that they drink in order to temporarily rid themselves of wrinkles. This obsession is reminiscent of our own female-dominated beauty and fashion culture.

A disrobed Chamberlain trying to beguile the naïve Jen

The primary theme of The Dark Crystal is that there should be no opposites, no dichotomies, no binaries. There cannot be balance when we separate out good and evil, ends and beginnings, cruelty and kindness, male and female. These things are truly one and exist together, inseparable. The film’s representations of gender give preference to a more androgynous, non-binary mode of being, insisting that gender and human nature are too rich and complicated to be “this or that,” “one or the other,” “either or.” As a child, this de-coding of masculinity and femininity that allowed characters to be so much more than a simple gender formed a piece of the bedrock of my lifelong questioning of gender roles, gender hierarchy, and the entire binary system of gender. Thanks, Brian Froud and Jim Henson!

“I Choose Gru!”: on ‘Despicable Me 2’ and Lucy Wilde

I only recently discovered the ‘Despicable Me’ movies, and I’m overjoyed that I have an excuse to review the second one and to explicate its feminist elements, especially since so many women have primary roles in the ever-changing life of villain-turned-hero Gru (Steve Carell). In fact, I love these films so much, I enjoyed a Despicable-themed birthday cake earlier this week. It’s no mistake that the second movie concludes while Cinco de Mayo festivities ensue–my birthday!

Written by Jenny Lapekas.

I only recently discovered the Despicable Me movies, and I’m overjoyed that I have an excuse to review the second one and to explicate its feminist elements, especially since so many women have primary roles in the ever-changing life of villain-turned-hero Gru (Steve Carell). In fact, I love these films so much, I enjoyed a Despicable-themed birthday cake earlier this week. It’s no mistake that the second movie concludes while Cinco de Mayo festivities ensue–my birthday!

Gru returns to us in Despicable Me 2 (Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaid, 2013) as a nurturing father to three wonderful little girls–Agnes, Edith, and Margo–and we find that he’s able to merge his fatherhood duties with his exciting lifestyle. In the first film, Gru’s main priority is to become the most evil villain in the world, and he competes with the nerdy yet skilled Vector (Jason Segel) for the title. While Gru’s evil deeds range from cutting in line for coffee to encouraging his ugly dog to poop on his neighbor’s flowers, he literally gives up the moon for his girls, which now includes his new wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig), sent from the Anti-Villain League to request his help in pursuing a new villain. Because Lucy completes the image the girls maintain of the exemplary family before they were adopted, and she finds a way into Gru’s heart as well, I would like to focus primarily on her in this post.

Gru is slow to recognize that Lucy's antics complement his nicely. — Gru is slow to recognize that Lucy’s antics complement his nicely.

The various roles Lucy plays in this movie are pivotal to the plot and character development we see throughout as we come to understand her as a professional, a cunning and intelligent woman, and an undeniably feminist hero. That isn’t to say that Gru is not a feminist character as well–indeed, he is very much so. Lucy becomes Gru’s work partner as the two get themselves into trouble, only to come to each other’s rescue. She then becomes the temporarily unattainable love interest, then the damsel in distress, and finally Gru’s bride and a mother to the precocious girls, who find their new mom pretty amazing. As Gru is busy uncovering clues for the Anti-Villain League and combating Margo’s (Miranda Cosgrove) newfound interest in boys, he can’t help but fall for the poise and quirky charm that Lucy emanates.

At Agnes’s birthday party, an unnamed woman is persistent in setting Gru up on a blind date. Why the push to find someone to love and marry? This buzzing in Gru’s ear is symptomatic of the heteronormative agenda Gru is struggling to resist. Gru rejects the woman’s invitations both intellectually and socially by not-so-politely declining, and bodily by spraying her with a garden hose. His comical proclamation “I did not see you there…or there,” as he knocks her off her feet, signifies the ex-villain’s outright refusal to acknowledge his own “aloneness” (not to be confused with “loneliness”) that others may see when they look at a single (and new) father. Quite simply, Gru feels perfectly fulfilled by his daughters and his rather eccentric life fighting villains and manufacturing delicious jams and jellies.

However, I think it’s important for us to notice this dynamic as a downtrodden Gru admits to “liking” Lucy to his youngest daughter Agnes (Elsie Fisher), trusting her with this intimate and sensitive knowledge. Although Gru inevitably gives in to the social contract that we should all marry, especially when we have children, he does so on his own terms and in the name of true love.

Dressed as a fairy princess for the birthday party, Gru is excitedly told, “I know someone whose husband just died!”

Lucy arrives quite unannounced and throws Gru in the trunk of her car after assaulting him with her “lipstick taser,” a handy tool that helps her to take advantage of her femininity while fighting crime. After Gru proves his strength and cunning in the first movie, it’s a bit of a surprise to watch an unknown character take him down so quickly. However, it’s only fitting that the pair then fall in love and marry; Gru has met his match in more ways than one. Lucy is kind yet assertive, and possibly most important, she knows how to balance these qualities to embody the type of woman that Gru’s daughters can hope to become someday. We love her even as Gru’s minions are chasing her car to save their boss, and we continue to adore her even as she embarks on her journey to Australia to take a new job far away from Gru and the girls, only to jump out of the plane and claim Gru as hers.

As we'll see, the violence in the film is naturalized as a source of comedy. — As we’ll see, the violence in the film is naturalized as a source of comedy.

When Gru is forced to go on a date with the insufferable caricature Shannon (Kristen Schaal), Lucy takes the initiative to end the date prematurely because she sees that Gru is being demeaned by the shallow woman, specifically for wearing a hair piece in order to hide the fact that he’s bald. In perhaps one of the darker scenes in the film (along with Gru indirectly threatening to kill his neighbor’s dog in the first movie), Lucy shoots Shannon with a tranquilizer dart, and the two load Shannon’s inanimate body on the roof of Lucy’s car, reasoning to bystanders that she has drunk a bit too much wine with her meal, and they proceed to dump her body at her doorstep as if she’s dead. If we look carefully later on, we see that Shannon is actually a guest at the couple’s wedding.

Gru is thankful to Lucy for rescuing him.

In the final action scene, I think it’s important to refrain from classifying Lucy as purely a “damsel in distress,” although this is how I reference her above–because this is, after all, what she is when she’s strapped to a rocket–along with a comically large shark–that’s set to launch into a volcano. However, from the moment we meet Lucy, we know she’s self-sufficient and more than anything, smart; after all, her decision to love Gru is smart as he’s likely the only person capable of defeating El Macho. In fact, every decision Lucy makes throughout Despicable Me 2 is for the betterment of Gru and his growing family. He doesn’t rescue Lucy–just as he rescued Edith, Agnes, and Margo in the first movie–because these characters are helpless females; rather, this conclusion confirms his placement as a hero rather than a villain. On the contrary, the women found in the Despicable movies are quite capable of protecting themselves and those they care about.

As Gru attempts to deactivate the rocket, Lucy offers her expertise: “Is there a red one? It’s usually the red one.”

In the wedding scene, which of course involves some skillful dancing, Agnes recites a monologue that she struggles with earlier in the film: an homage to her mother. The meaning of this recitation has now shifted since she’s gained a mother. Earlier, we also enjoy a private moment when Agnes first meets Lucy at the mall and she’s simply dazzled by her presence, a nice precursor to the girls coming to know her as their own mother and celebrating their status as a complete and unique family.

Agnes recites, “She kisses my boo-boos, she braids my hair, we love you mothers, everywhere, and my new mom Lucy, is beyond compare.”

Because of Lucy and the girls, Gru comes to understand that he’s not merely a villain in a perpetually bad mood; he’s a caring father, a loving husband, and a boss who’s willing to give goodnight kisses to each and every one of his funny, yellow workers, who are, after all, part of his family as well. Both Despicable films can be read as feminist pieces as Gru is transformed by the feminine energy he finds pervading his life, influencing his decisions, and causing him to reevaluate his ideals as a villain and a single man. A concurrently responsible yet offbeat character, Gru represents the new family man in this second film. With the introduction of the delightful Lucy, Gru finds yet another reason to strive to be his best possible self by taking on the role of husband and learning that if he overcomes his fear of the unknown (and women!), he can attain true happiness.

A lovely wedding photo, complete with Gru's cranky mother and adorable minions. — A lovely wedding photo, complete with Gru’s cranky mother and adorable minions.

With the upcoming release of Despicable Me 3 (2017), we can expect more zaniness from the extraordinary family!

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Jenny has a Master of Arts degree in English, and she is a part-time instructor at Alvernia University. Her areas of scholarship include women’s literature, menstrual literacy, and rape-revenge cinema. You can find her on WordPress and Pinterest.

Working Class Family With a Touch of Absurdity: ‘Raising Hope’

TV families are generally presented as aspirational. They usually live an upper middle class livestyle and frequently live comfortably on a single salary, have college degrees and wealthy backgrounds.
Usually when characters work menial labor or minimum wage jobs, they are presented as being in a transitory period. This is the stage before the character gets their life together, when the artist waits for a big break or where a youth supplements their allowance with their earnings. It’s rare that this work is presented as the character’s real life, how it will likely always be.

Written by Elizabeth Kiy as part of our theme week on Women and Work/Labor Issues.

Raising Hope Title Card — *Raising Hope* title card

Usually when characters work menial labor or minimum wage jobs, they are presented as being in a transitory period. This is the stage before the character gets their life together, when the artist waits for a big break or where a youth supplements their allowance with their earnings. It’s rare that this work is presented as the character’s real life, how it will likely always be.

Raising Hope is centered the “lower lower middle class” Chance family, Virginia (Martha Plimpton), a maid, is married to Burt (Garret Dillahunt), a struggling landscaper. They have a twenty-something son Jimmy (Lucas Neff), the result of a teen pregnancy, and act as caregivers to Maw Maw (Cloris Leachman), Virginia’s senile grandmother whose house they all live in. Their lives are decidedly unglamorous and everyone lacks maturity. That is, until, in a wacky series of events, Jimmy has a one night stand with a serial killer who gets pregnant, gives birth and is then executed, leaving the baby to the Chances to raise.

Family events like a camp-out on their lawn keep the Chances together and showcase their heart

The baby, Hope is the catalyst for the maturation, not only of her young father, but of his parents who now have a second chance to fix some of their mistakes. Helping them along is Sabrina Collins (Shannon Woodward), Jimmy’s love interest and later girlfriend and wife, who works at the local grocery store, Howdy’s and comes to view Hope as her daughter.

Unlike creator Greg Garcia’s previous blue collar series, My Name is Earl, characters in Raising Hope are not presented as criminals or cons. The criminal acts undertaken by the Chances, such as illegally selling popular Christmas toys or switching price stickers at the grocery store gain the audience’s approval as they are undertaken merely to survive. For the most part, they’re happy with their lot in life, they complain about their jobs only in the usual way people complain about their jobs, and daydream only idly about winning the lottery or making it as a rock star. They’re are uneducated, but intelligent and they have a cramped house, but its full of love, the way the Chances see it, it could be worse.

The Chance most often live in Maw Maw’s small house, but have lived in their van at times

Comedy with working class protagonists is difficult. There are serious problems in their lives that cannot always be easily and in all good conscience laughed at and the stakes are always high. The show, though allowed some degree of comedic license, could be criticized for its portrayal of a “lower lower middle class” lifestyle as full of charming eccentricity, rather than more realistically as a degrading experience. Indeed, most of the problems faced by a family like the Chances could not be solved in a half hour comedy or dealt with in a manner that could leave the viewer in a good mood after the credits. Thus, the show is to often outlandish, existing in a world of quirky characters, mythical town limits, unlikely resurrections and logical paradoxes, the same world enjoyed by other blue collar families on TV, like The Simpsons and Family Guy’s Griffins.

Except, it’s a live action show where the naked faces and emotions of the family are always on display, keeping it solidly grounded in a sense of reality unavailable to the working class cartoon. Burt, Virginia, Jimmy, Sabrina, Maw Maw and Hope are real people, played by real actors and it is to the show’s credit that every once and awhile, the greater reality behind the comedy-creating challenges in their lives is exposed. Under the coat of absurdity, Raising Hope is often a trojan horse of a sitcom, leading viewer to think about poverty and social issues, instead of mere escapism. The Chances didn’t have health insurance for Jimmy’s entire childhood because they couldn’t afford it, they have one GED shared between them, no one was properly educated on safe sex, they’ve lived in their van for prolonged periods and frequently acknowledge that they would be homeless if not for mooching off Maw Maw.

What’s refreshing about the show is that the women are the most intelligent characters, though because the show is a comedy, their intelligence manifests itself in complicated schemes and manipulations. Due to this, Virginia’s frequent use of words like “philostrophical” becomes an adorable quirk, especially as she is one of the show’s shrewdest characters. Virginia and Maw Maw are geniuses when it comes to scheming, usually to help their family members overcome a character flaw, get revenge on someone who has hurt someone they care about and make mild improvements to their lives and Sabrina has learnt from their example. Burt and Jimmy are well-meaning man-children, generally getting easily swept away by their wives’ plans.

Burt and Virginia prepare for wealthy guests, pouring box wine into empty bottles in an attempt to appear well-off

Virginia and Burt are each other’s soul mates and have an egalitarian relationship where financial and childcare responsibilities are shared. However, Burt frequently takes care of handiwork in the home, while Virginia does the cooking and takes care of Maw Maw. They both also work in extremely gendered professions, highlighted by Virginia’s pink maid uniform and all female crews (though a male superior is sometimes glimpsed). While Burt is passionate about lawn work and is shown to have an encyclopedia knowledge of different mosses, Virginia sees her work as pure drudgery, and uses self deprecating humor as a means of coping. In her off hours, she has no shortage of things she is excited about, most of them blue collar passions straight out of reality TV. She’s a hoarder, she believed in the 2012 prophesy, is a doomsday prepper and collects like figurines of pigs dressed up for different jobs. Her great achievements are the small things that make her feel important, such as getting her granddaughter in the church nativity scene and winning the town’s annual bake-off, the sorts of community involvement usually portrayed as the past times of wealthy housewives who don’t have to work.

Virginia works as a maid for Knock Knock Knock Maid Service, cleaning the homes of wealthy families

In a recent episode, Virginia refused a promotion because of a fear of confrontation and the stress that comes from it. Like many women, she has been raised to be non-confrontational and like many lower class women, she does not have any confidence that she move up in the ranks and make her life better. When she ultimately takes it and becomes crew chief, she finds she is good at the work and enjoys it. As the show displays time and time again, though she lacks formal education, Virginia is seriously talented in relating to people and figuring out how to serve their needs.

With her new salary, Virginia is no longer stressed financially and suggests she and Burt could now afford their own apartment. This development counteracts the earlier seasons of the show, which suggest that the Chances could never expect to be better off than they are, by showing that Virginia was one promotion away from being able to support them satisfactorily. It’s a troubling message, suggesting that the poor could easily build themselves up if they just decided to stop being lazy.

But the Chances have shown multiple time that they don’t particularly desire to move up in the world. In one episode, the family is saving money for a new toilet after theirs breaks, they are given an expensive model worth two thousand dollars by a wealthy friend. This appears to be the beginning of the familiar sitcom plot where someone receives and expensive gift and struggles with the morality of accepting it, with the blue collar twist that the luxury item in question is a toilet. Instead, Burt and Virginia worry that having a luxury item will begin to move them to a social strata they don’t belong in and give them a taste for the finer things in life, things they cannot afford. It’s played as a triumph (scored by a song repeating “don’t care about being a winner”) when they return it and come home with a grungy, used model.

Though Burt and Virginia are originally fascinated by the expensive toilet, they ultimately decide such luxuries aren’t for them

They’re comfortable with who they are and luxury just not for them. Virginia, even in her unbridled fantasy, dreams of being given imitation diamonds sold on an infomercial by Fran Drescher for her anniversary.

There are always conflicts when the Chances encounter someone wealthy or well-educated. Hope’s serial killer mother, Lucy’s college degree is frequently brought up as evidence that she was too good for him. Several episodes explore the long standing rivalry between Virginia and her successful cousin Deliah, who often teases her about being poor. In another episode the family struggles to decide whether they can be friends with a rich family whose house Virginia cleans.

Most notably, in the second season, the Chances discovered that Sabrina’s family is extremely wealthy and she has chosen her working class life by refusing to accept their money. When Jimmy and Sabrina attend a party thrown by her father, it is clear that Sabrina assumes her wealth former friends are jerks and feels justified in mocking them. However, after spending time with them, Jimmy concludes that they are trying hard to be kind and include him even though he can’t relate to their stories of their lives. Sabrina, who feels she’s making a stand, the outsider exposing their gross entitlement, is the one who’s really being judgmental as she assumes her rejection of their lifestyle makes her superior. Here, Jimmy realizes that Sabrina is severely insecure and goes through life thinking she is superior to the people she meets, particularly her co-workers at Howdy’s who were born working class and did not make a choice to reject their privilege.

The Chances learn Sabrina is from a wealthy family when Burt sees this picture of her in a client’s house

Though its uncomfortable for a man to point out her flaws and force her to work through them, within the context of a sitcom, it’s refreshing. Raising Hope has a male character, Jimmy at its centre, but the female characters never become axillary figures, merely his wife and mother. In fact in recent seasons, it functions more as an ensemble, where each character has multiple flaws pointed out by everyone around them. Sabrina is not just the hot chick that Jimmy, himself an anxious mess of neuroses (he eats his eyebrows when stressed) has a thing for, but an actual human being. She’s overly competitive, combative and sleeps with a “pantyho” over her head to keep out the spiders. The very things she feels makes her a hero are her character flaws, whereas the things she takes for granted: her unconditional love for her adopted daughter, her enduring friendship with Jimmy within their romantic relationship, her deep affection for his family even when they become embarrassing and her often comically misguided desire to do good are what make her likable.

In one episode, Sabrina leads Occupy Natesville. The Chance family aren’t the kind of people to discuss economic theory or the wide-ranging social and cultural inequities that make their lives a constant struggle. Jimmy takes the protests message as a comfort, letting him know that isn’t their fault they’re poor. None of the family take an interest in what it means on a broader level to be part of the lower levels of the 99% or get involved in working for institutional change to the lives of the working class, but of course, their world is solidly a comedic one where a serious exploration of poverty would be out of place. As often happens in life, it is privileged Sabrina who fights for the lower class, claiming to speak for a group in which she has only tenuous membership. This brings to mind the idea that economic discussions often exclude perspectives of the very people who need them the most, because their voices are stifled by things like lack of education or free time to attend discussions.

In early seasons, Sabrina is a tourist, she exists in their world but doesn’t belong in it. She always be differentiated than the Chances, as she has her rich parents as a safety next. If she is ever desperate for money or in a situation where she just couldn’t take being poor anymore, she always has the option of accepting the money her father would willingly give her. The stakes for her are neither high nor impossible to transcend so she is able joke around at work, drawing faces on fruit and changing product labels.

Sabrina and Jimmy work together at Howdy’s Market

Though coming from a background of more privilege than the average viewer, she functions as an audience surrogate: correcting the Chances when they make mispronounce worlds or misinterpret historical events and showing amusement at the ways they have had to improvise to keep their heads above water. The entertainment she gains from observing the Chances and participating in their traditions can border on exploitative. She views them as a sideshow, a carnival act, even a television show. Her marriage to Jimmy, mandated by her grandmother’s will in exchange for a house, appears to bridge the gap between the Chances’ poverty and the Collinses’ wealth. Instead, it turns Jimmy into what Sabrina was, a tourist who frequently drops in on his parents’ hardscabble lives, but goes home to an expensive house he and his wife own outright. Though the series features lots of craziness and amplified reality, I feel this turn is where the show becomes really unrealistic.

Sabrina and Virginia are two women from very different backgrounds who ended up in a similar place. Though the series is an unrealistic portrayal of working class life, the women of Raising Hope are intelligent, dedicated to their families and coworkers and always well-meaning. The circumstances of their lives are far from ideal, but they way they manage to find reasons to be happy is admirable.

Throughout the series, Virginia is always looking for positive female role models for her granddaughter. Hope could do worse than do adopt some of these qualities from her mother and grandmother.

Also on Bitch Flicks: A Plea For More Roseannes and Norma Raes: Addressing The Lack of Working-Class Female Characters on American Screens

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Elizabeth Kiy is a Canadian writer and freelance journalist living in Toronto, Ontario. She recently graduated from Carleton University where she majored in journalism and minored in film.

‘What Maisie Knew’: (Muffled Quarreling)

‘What Maisie Knew’ might have made a pretty good romcom to watch on an airplane or catch cable on a Sunday morning while you sort your junk mail or something. But it has aspirations of seriousness, despite building to a far-fetched frilly bow tie of a resolution (which, was, admittedly, tempting to my id that totally loves watching romcoms on airplanes and Sunday mornings). Ultimately, ‘What Maisie Knew’ wants to have its Tastykake and deliver a strongly-worded lecture about the dangers of high fructose corn syrup and trans fats too.

Julianne Moore, Onata Aprile, and Alexander Skarsgård in 'What Maisie Knew' — Julianne Moore, Onata Aprile, and Alexander Skarsgård in *What Maisie Knew*

What Maisie Knew might have made a pretty good romcom to watch on an airplane or catch on cable on a Sunday morning while you sort your junk mail or something. But it has aspirations of seriousness, despite building to a far-fetched, frilly bow tie of a resolution (which, was, admittedly, tempting to my id that totally loves watching romcoms on airplanes and Sunday mornings). Ultimately, What Maisie Knew wants to have its Tastykake and deliver a strongly-worded lecture about the dangers of high fructose corn syrup and trans fats,+ too.

The excessively ominous title is just meant to indicate that this movie is told from the perspective of its six-year-old protagonist, Maisie Beale (Onata Aprile). I was worried for the entire first act that someone was going to be murdered or assaulted because of the title and the generally bleak tone of the film. But it’s not about a child witnessing a violent crime; it’s about a child witnessing the fallout of a bitter custody battle between her parents, neither of whom are all that interested in parenting her.

Maisie and her warring biological parents

Her mother, Susanna, is a self-centered past-her-prime rockstar (played by Julianne Moore), who seemingly wants Maisie around mainly because she’s a source of unconditional love. Her father (Steve Coogan) is a smug art dealer who wants to “rescue” Maisie from her “unfit” mother, but he can’t be bothered to actually care for her because he’s constantly on the phone with important clients and jets off to Europe on the regular.

So Dad marries Maisie’s nanny, Margo (Joanna Vanderham), who is conveniently over-the-moon for him even though he’s decades older and looks like Steve Coogan. Susanna revenge-marries a seemingly dim, young bartender named Lincoln (Alexander Skarsgård), not only to stick it to her ex and Margo, but to help her chances in court with the custody decision. There are countless scenes where Maisie is dumped by one of her four caregivers to be with another, only to be left waiting on a bench for hours because no one is there. Lincoln and Margo are clearly the only people giving Maisie the attention and love she needs even as she’s bounced between her generally disinterested and frequently absent parents.

So there’s a solid hour of watching Maisie suffering mild neglect and repeated appearances of the caption “(muffled quarreling)” as we watch Maisie play with her toys while the grownups fight in the next room. Then Maisie’s father takes an extended trip to Europe at the same time Maisie’s mother goes on tour, and her step-parents Margo and Lincoln find themselves awkwardly sharing custody of the girl. And spoiler alert, they fall in love.

And maybe it’s because I was so desperate for a break from the gloomy proceedings or because Vanderham and Skarsgård actually have chemistry or because under Margo and Lincoln’s loving and attentive care, Maisie went from sullen to bubbly, but I bought into this shift toward a more pleasant narrative.

Maisie's step-parents Lincoln and Margo flirting — Maisie’s step-parents Lincoln and Margo flirting

After an hour of harsh realism, I couldn’t help but notice all the holes in this happy ending. Margo essentially kidnaps Maisie and takes her to her cousin’s conveniently unoccupied beach house (and context clues suggest it is roundabout Virginia not Far Rockaway or something). Lincoln presumably quits his job to follow. Who knows how they have money for food or where Maisie’s going to go to school? Susanna gives them her out-of-character and hardly legally binding blessing and rolls away in her tour bus. Maisie’s dad is in England for the foreseeable future and has firmly rejected the idea of taking Maisie with him, so I guess we’re meant to think he just doesn’t care where she ends up. Maisie’s free to literally sail off into the sunset with Margo and Lincoln.

The audience knows this can’t and won’t last. Aside from the practicalities and the likelihood that Maisie’s biological parents may eventually want to take back their child abandonment, there’s the nagging concern that Margo and Lincoln are conflating their shared love of Maisie for love of each other. We already watched their marriages to Maisie’s parents quickly fall apart. Who’s to say these two will last much longer just because they’re closer in age and both good parents?

An implausible happy ending with a new and fragile happy family

I’d still give What Maisie Knew my qualified recommendation. Its fairly original framing is actually quite successful, in large part because Onata Aprile is such a gifted child actress that I didn’t even think to remark upon her talent until just now; she’s so natural her work never even reads as a performance. The adult actors are all game as well, even though their characters aren’t always the most pleasant. And while I don’t think the shift into romcom territory worked, I’m guessing that without it, the movie might have been too much of a downer. It’s only about an hour and a half long, and it’s streaming on Netflix, so you might want to give What Maisie Knew a go.

Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town, South Africa.

Temporary Tomboys: Coming of Age in ‘My Girl’ and ‘Now and Then’

However, the tomboy was a prominent figure in two well-loved films of the period aimed at young girls, though both presented her as a transitional stage in development. My Girl (1991), is the story of precocious 11-year-old Vada Sultenfuss (Anna Chlumsky) who grew up in a funeral parlor and is obsessed with death, while in Now and Then (1995) four childhood friends reunite as adults and remember (in flashbacks) the summer they were 12.

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

Young girls have little power.

Controlled by their parents and teachers as well as financial and societal restrictions, often their only agency is the refusal to obey and to fit into standard gender roles. In early adolescence, they mature physically and socially but have yet to assume real adult responsibility.

A clear example of the the transitory nature of this period is the frequent presence of the tomboy character in coming-of-age films.

Though in real life many girls maintain masculine identities into adulthood, in these films as in much of society, the tomboy is a temporal figure tied to early adolescence that girls are expected to grow out of it order to be a healthy, happy (and inevitably heterosexual) adult. And in coming-of-age films, a genre where characters go through moral tests and life-changing tragedies and emerge stronger and wiser, the proof of her growth is her adoption of a female identity.

Because of female liberation movements in the 1970s, media scholars tend to see the decade as the heyday of the tomboy character in popular culture, with stars such as Jodie Foster, Christy McNichols, and Tatum O’Neal. Female-focused narratives gradually tapered off at the end of the decade, with a rise in powerful male protagonists, effects-driven blockbusters and action heroes in the 80s. In the 90s, “Girl Power” movements brought about an increase in female-directed media, but with a different framing. Gay and lesbian films encouraged positive portrayal of masculine women, but were directed exclusively to adults and others in the community.

Tomboy Roberta in her element, the lone girl who can challenge the boys

However, the tomboy was a prominent figure in two well-loved films of the period aimed at young girls, though both presented her as a transitional stage in development. My Girl (1991), is the story of precocious 11-year-old Vada Sultenfuss (Anna Chlumsky) who grew up in a funeral parlor and is obsessed with death, while in Now and Then (1995) four childhood friends reunite as adults and remember (in flashbacks) the summer they were 12. The girls each fill a particular character archetype, with Christina Ricci and Rosie O’Donnell playing child and adult versions of tomboy Roberta Martin.

As adolescents, both characters are depicted as going through the early stages of puberty, where their female body and nascent sexuality are becoming impossible to ignore and they must come to terms with their gender identities.

Their tomboyism is only a cause for fear or treatment, when the girl appears to have extreme male identification or her tomboyism threatens to extend into adulthood. In this vein, it is acceptable for Roberta and Vada to climb trees, play sports and dress like the boys, but fear of puberty is a step too far.

Roberta pushes the limits of acceptable tomboyishness by binding her breasts

Roberta is panicked about the growth of her breasts and regularly measures them and binds them. Although it is not explained exactly why she is sensitive about them, the film portrays her anxiety as irregular. The other girls, all more acceptably feminine, tease her about their size and tell her she is lucky because men will like them. In this discussion, Roberta is clearly uneasy and disgusted by the idea.

Similarly, Vada is horrified when she learns about her period rather then feeling pride at becoming a woman as girls often do in coming-of-age narratives. She tells her father’s girlfriend Shelly (Jamie Lee Curtis) that it isn’t fair because nothing happens to boys and kicks her friend Thomas J (Macaulay Culkin) out of the house until it is over. As with Vada, a girl’s crisis of gender is because of her difficulty reconciling her view of herself with that of her new sexualized body and differences from male playmates. In both cases however, unease with the tomboy’s female body is portrayed as transitory or naiveté, rather than indication of transsexuality, while her lack of interest in boys is because of her youth, not lesbianism.

Both girls are also established as outsiders who are different from their peers and attempt to be independent from them. Roberta is the only one of her friends who is not feminine and who isn’t interested in romance. Likewise, Vada is neurotic and is a hypochondriac who always feels she is sick. In both cases, they have lost a parent, which leaves a gulf between them and their friends that they cannot possibly understand. As such, the masculine girl often functions as a lone outsider rather than as part of an elaborate subcultural group.

Hotheaded Roberta leads the group to fight the local boys

In both films, the tomboy takes on a leadership role within their group as well. Roberta constantly places herself in the front and distributes things to the other girls; she is also the first to act and suggest new ideas. In this fashion, My Girl begins with Vada selling tickets to a tour of the funeral home, attempting both to scare the boys and make money off them. Vada goes a step further, not only being the protector in her group but the protector of a more feminine boy. Tomboy characters are often paired with effeminate male characters, as it reinforces the binary of masculinity and femininity, suggesting there is no grey area between them.

Vada’s tomboyishness is balanced by effeminate Thomas J

Roberta also transgresses into what is consider boy’s territory by placing herself in direct conflict with the boys, most notably after they steal the boys’ clothes. Later at the baseball game, she gets in a physical fight after one of the boys tells her she needs to remember to act like a girl and says she needs a mother to teach her how to be one. She tries to defend her right to be present in the masculine space, but her friends restrain her, supposedly to keep her dignity.

Moreover, both girls grew up without mothers or a feminine influence on their lives. Instead, each has a father who encourages her tomboyishness rather than attempting to suppress it. Vada’s father (Dan Aykroyd) is portrayed as well meaning but incapable of raising her properly alone. The film suggests he has done a fine job to this point, but he does not know what to say about as she is going through puberty. Likewise, Roberta grew up with a father and three older brothers.

This familial structure suggests their tomboyism is acceptable because they have no female role models. It is suggested, at least in Vada’s case, that her tomboyism is because she doesn’t know how be a woman, rather than a conscious decision.

Shelly acts as Vada’s mother, comforting her and teaching her a beauty routine.

That the film begins with the introduction of an older woman to become Vada’s female role model/motherly influence suggests she couldn’t go on living this way without it.

Shelly is the epitome of femininity–she is a makeup artist, well-versed in fashion and romance. Vada sees Shelly as fascinating and exotic and allows her to take on a motherly role, showing her how to put it on lipstick and reassuring her boys will think she is pretty. In the next scene Vada, wearing full makeup, is trying to walk in an exaggerated impersonation of a movie star’s walk and posing for Thomas J. His next line, asking where her bike is, subtly suggests she will begin to abandon her tomboy qualities as she discovers femininity.

The transformed Vada in a party dress and pretty hair

Both Thomas’s death and Shelly’s influence bring her to a point where, by the end of the film she has nearly abandoned her tomboyishness. At the film’s end, she shows up at her last writing class with her hair out its ponytail, having abandoned her t-shirt and jeans for a frilly dress. Yet she retains some of her old self, still riding bikes, even in her dress.

In contrast, Roberta receives no new mother figure or female role model and could be viewed as what Vada might have become with Shelly. The adult Roberta, though straight, is portrayed as a stereotypical lesbian, a doctor who wears masculine clothes, drinks beer, and plays softball.

Adult Roberta continues to dress in a masculine style, while Chrissy is overtly feminine

Despite this, in the scene where Roberta finds the newspaper with her mother’s death notice in it, she remarks at how beautiful she was. Though she is usually portrayed as strong, this makes her cry and because she keeps repeating the comment, it seems as if she is yearning to be like her mother, but she does not know how to get there without her.

The film uses Chrissy (Ashleigh Aston Moore), Roberta’s childhood friend, as her “mother figure.” Chrissy is naïve and sheltered, to the point where most of what she says is clearly something parroted from her mother. She reminds Roberta to “be a lady” rather than fight and reminds her to “act like a girl” when she is splashing in the mud. In a sense, Chrissy’s mother, though not present in these scenes, is sort of a mother figure to Roberta.

Though best friends, Chrissy and Roberta seem to be opposites. While Roberta is a tomboy, Chrissy is the most stereotypically feminine in the group, easily scared and weak. In the future scenes, where Chrissy is having her baby, they are coupled, with Roberta taking on the husband role. While Chrissy’s actual husband only arrives to hold the baby after its born, Roberta drives her to the hospital and delivers the baby. After it is born, rather than sharing a look with her husband, Chrissy and Roberta are shown looking at each other mouthing “I love you.”

Furthermore, in both films, their first hint of romance is used to suggest a softening of their personalities and movement into a feminine disposition. Early on, Roberta is disgusted by the love quiz her friends are completing.

Her kiss with Scott Wormer plays on her need to question masculinity as he tells her she is good at basketball, not just for a girl but for a guy. Though she threatens to beat him up after if he tells anyone about their kiss, it is revealed later that she has stopped taping her breasts as a result.

Likewise, Vada has a crush on her teacher, an impossible object with no real hope of a future. At the same time, she is disgusted by Shelly’s romance novels and doesn’t understand why people have sex and get married.

When she kisses Thomas J, it is approached as an experiment to see what it is like. Magical sounding music plays as they kiss, as if this kiss will result in a big moment where a spell is broken. Though nothing happens immediately afterward, the kiss marks a change as she is now able take him, someone her age, as a realistic love object.

Vada and Thomas J’s kiss and her first step into a feminine adulthood

His death soon after suggests that his function was merely to pull her out of her tomboyishness and introduce her to heterosexual romance. Indeed, only after Thomas J’s death is she able to make her first female friend. In this sense, the kiss could be seen as breaking a spell.

Though these films make no mention of links between tomboyism and lesbianism, as tomboy characters are given romantic subplots in films where more feminine characters are not; it is suggested that these romances are included as proof they are heterosexual.

Though Now and Then shows the adult Roberta as a fairly masculine woman, it reinforces her heterosexuality as she is referred to as “living in sin with her boyfriend.” Interestingly, this character was based on a real person who did grow up to be a lesbian, but all references to this were edited out at the last momen t. This inadvertently serves to tell viewers that even the most masculine girl can grow up heterosexual.

As such, these tomboy characters emerge at the end of their respective films with more submissive feminine gender identities, the experience of their first love, and close female friends or role models. Due to this, the young girl viewer is meant to assume they fit comfortably into society and are no longer outsiders or ostracized. As such, she is give the message that she too, can only grow up straight and feminine.

Hopefully she realizes it is in her power to question it.

Elizabeth Kiy has a degree in journalism with a minor in film from Carleton University. She lives in Toronto, Ontario and is currently working on a novel.

Why Alex Russo Is My Favorite Fictional Female Wizard

The protagonist of Wizards is a girl who acts like girls really act: she has boyfriends and broken hearts, but isn’t overly boy-crazy or dependent on them; she’s curious and smart enough to ask questions when other people are telling her not to; and throughout the series she faces a lot of the struggles women really do face throughout their lives.

This cross-post by Katherine Filaseta previously appeared at her blog Complaining About Things I Like and appears as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.

Disney is sort of objectively awful when it comes to feminism and people of color, so maybe my standards are low, but I firmly believe Wizards of Waverly Place is the best thing Disney has ever created. Disney’s girls are so often either defined entirely by their relationships to the men around them (see: almost every princess movie ever) or overwhelmingly peppy and ditzy (see: most female protagonists on Disney Channel), but not Alex Russo (played by Selena Gomez). The protagonist of Wizards is a girl who acts like girls really act: she has boyfriends and broken hearts, but isn’t overly boy-crazy or dependent on them; she’s curious and smart enough to ask questions when other people are telling her not to; and throughout the series she faces a lot of the struggles women really do face throughout their lives.

Throughout the series, Alex struggles very realistically with her biracial(/biwizard) identity and surpasses the low expectations set for her by her family, school, and the entire wizarding world. She is confident, witty and independent in a way that would make her an instant “hero” if she were a boy, but instead there is an entire post-series made-for-TV movie about how the things she likes most in herself are also the characteristics society is constantly telling her to repress. When this show first came out I had just graduated high school, and I aspired to be as strong of a woman as this fake TV character who was probably five years younger than me. The fact that Disney–the same company that demonstrates female characters’ femininity by making their wrists smaller than their eyes –created a female character this strong still amazes me.

Alex is the middle child of the Russo family, a half-Mexican/half-Italian half-wizard family whose behavior and use of magic is considered too mischievous for her to ever succeed in winning the competition she must have with her siblings to see who becomes the family wizard. Unlike her brother Justin, a hard-working student who always follows the rules, Alex often uses magic in a way that is referred to throughout the series as “selfish.” So selfish, in fact, that in the post-series movie Alex v. Alex, when she extricates the “bad” parts of her personality that make her “misuse magic” they join forces with another “bad” wizard to try to take over the world. Throughout the series these words–bad, selfish, misuse–are used to describe Alex’s behavior, but I don’t think they are quite accurate. Her younger brother Max is often “misusing” magic but doesn’t get chastised for it; it is simply written off as a boy just playing around. So what makes Alex’s curiosity different? She pushes limits to see what she can get away with, she experiments with spells just to see what would happen, and when the “bad” parts of her are isolated we see that she has a desire for power–but none of these seem like extraordinarily “bad” characteristics to me. Especially when you consider that she is constantly being told she is going to lose the wizard competition to her brother, after which point her powers would be taken away forever; any child in her situation would seize the opportunity to use magic as much as possible while they still can.

Alex also struggles with her biracial identity: She understands the importance of a quinceanera to her mother, but doesn’t feel enough of an attachment to her heritage to put up with wearing a frilly pink dress–or, as she puts it, “I love being half-Mexican and half-whatever he is, but look at all this stuff it’s girly and lame.” Throughout the course of the episode she manages to get out of having to wear the awful dress while still learning that sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do because they are important traditions to your family, for reasons you might not always understand. Alex and her brothers might not know how to dance the salsa, but they know how to eat it when their mom makes it–and sometimes that’s enough.

When presented with challenges, Alex hardly ever just gives up. Despite everyone telling her she can’t become the family wizard, when she finds a motivation to want to succeed (falling in love with another magical being), she pulls herself together and does everything she can to win. She doesn’t do well in school, and her principal and teachers are always explicitly telling her they don’t have any expectations for her, but when she finds a subject she really truly enjoys (art), she works incredibly hard to put together a mural. In “Justin’s Little Sister,” the children learn that genies are con artists who are always trying to outsmart wizards, to which Alex responds, “Well no genie can trick me; I’d make them wish they never met me.” All the men in her family respond to this confident assertion with annoyance and ask why she can’t be more like her brother. What girl with siblings can’t relate to her struggle?

In the end of the series, Alex shows everyone she is capable of way more than what they expected by winning the wizard competition with flying colors and getting to keep her powers. Post-series, she shows everyone they were wrong again, when even after winning the competition they still doubt her ability to responsibly handle magic. Even a children’s TV show is addressing the difficulties strong, successful women face: that when a woman surpasses all expectations by doing really well, her actual merits are still questioned. In fact, Alex’s family makes her feel so terrible about her success that she tries to solve the “problem” by removing her “bad” parts. In the end, she learns that this was the wrong decision and that even the “bad” parts of herself are actually making her a stronger woman–a fantastic end to a fantastic series. Wizards might be just a cheap rip-off of Harry Potter, but as far as girl wizards are concerned, I’ll take Alex Russo over Hermione any day.

Katherine Filaseta is a recent graduate of Washington University in Saint Louis whose life has somehow managed to become constantly split between the United States and India. She really likes Bollywood, education, feminism, the performing arts, and apparently children’s TV. Follow her on twitter and wordpress.

Family, Identity, and the Transgender Heroine in ‘Hit & Miss’

A friend of mine turned me onto the show Hit & Miss, which is a six episode British series currently streaming on Netflix. Hit & Miss follows Mia, played by the ever-talented Chloë Sevigny. Mia is a transgender hit woman who finds she has an 11 year-old son, Ryan.

Written by Amanda Rodriguez

A friend of mine turned me onto the show Hit & Miss, which is a six episode British series currently streaming on Netflix. Hit & Miss follows Mia, played by the ever-talented Chloë Sevigny. Mia is a transgender hit woman who finds she has an 11-year-old son, Ryan. When Mia’s ex-girlfriend and Ryan’s mother dies unexpectedly, Mia must balance the demands of her brutal, secretive work while trying to build a family with her son and his three other siblings of whom Mia is also now the guardian.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpJzeGdlC0U”]

My strongest critique of the series is that the producers did not choose an actual transgender woman to play the role of Mia. Sevigny is, no doubt, an ally and advocate for trans rights as is evinced by her involvement with Hit & Miss as well as Boys Don’t Cry, and while her rendering of Mia is nuanced, strong, and sensitive, it’s just not enough. On Homorazzi.com, Sevigny is quoted as saying, “I was worried people would be angry that they didn’t cast a real person who was transitioning, I asked why they didn’t, and the producers said they didn’t find the right person. It’s a big responsibility toward that community, and I wanted to do them right.”

All I have to say is: bullshit. Bullshit they couldn’t find a capable transgender actress to give authenticity to the character and agency to the transgender community. Look at how amazingly gifted Laverne Cox is as Sophia on the women’s prison series Orange is the New Black. Cox’s portrayal has been successful, breathing life, humanity, and humor into Sophia, proving that there are plenty of transgender actors who are not only talented, but who audiences will receive positively. It’s time to give another under-represented and marginalized group the freedom to represent themselves. Blackface is offensive and is generally accepted as grotesque and hateful. In 20 years, how will people view our insistence that no transgender actors are capable of representing their own lives, struggles, weaknesses, and triumphs?

mia-on-a-job — Chloë Savigny as Mia on a job.

My second major critique of the series is that the camera is obsessed with Mia’s body. Her penis is shown in every single episode. She is often nude or getting dressed, and the audience is encouraged to stare at her body. The camera is fascinated with the incongruity between the curves of Mia’s female form and her (prosthetic) penis. It feels gratuitous and exploitative, objectifying an already marginalized character. The camera’s obsession with Mia’s body tells us two things: 1) Mia is her body; her body is her most important and defining attribute, and 2) Mia is abnormal. The way the camera lingers on her breasts and penis echoes carnival freakshows that insist audience members pruriently gaze at the Other. This isn’t a humanizing, inclusive technique. The camera should not internalize the judgements that Mia and much of the world put on her body because we, the audience, are effectively the camera, it guides our gaze, which should be one of acceptance of the integrity and beauty of its heroine.

My third major critique is the show’s rendering of Mia’s sexuality. She identifies as a straight woman trapped in the biological body of a man. That would be fine, but she also insists to the kids that she loved Wendy, their mother, and that they were happy together, claiming, “We’d probably still be together if I weren’t a transsexual.” (The use of the word “transsexual” makes me cringe…maybe it’s a British thing?) The idea seems to be that Mia was a straight man, and now she is a straight woman. That decomplicates human sexuality, not to mention trans sexuality, in a disappointing way. Why can’t Mia’s sexuality be fluid? The underlying assumption seems to be that it would make her less of a woman to be attracted to both men and women. That is deeply problematic not only to queer sexuality, but to trans sexuality.

I appreciate that Hit & Miss, however, allows Mia to be more than a gender stereotype. Though she is a very feminine woman (wearing make-up, dresses, lingerie, and cute cowgirl boots), Mia is skilled in weaponry and hand-to-hand combat. Some of the most touching sequences in the series are when Mia and her son, Ryan, work out together, bonding as she teaches him the discipline of fitness and boxing for self-defense.

Mia teaches her son, Ryan, to box. — Mia teaches her son, Ryan, to defend himself from bullies.

Not only that, but Mia is gratifyingly self-possessed when it comes to threats against her person. Watching her beat the ever-loving shit out of the waste-of-space, misogynistic, pedophile, rapist, dumb fuck landlord, John, as he threatens her and the kids is one of the most satisfying scenes of all time. He soooo had it coming.

mia-ass-kicking — Mia fucks John’s shit up. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.

Mia’s new lover, Ben, accuses her of still having “too much man left in” her because of her penchant for violence. She rightly tells him to fuck off. Her life is fraught with violence because of her profession and because of her dark, abusive upbringing on the carnival Fairgrounds. I also wonder if the show is saying that violence is inherent in transitioning. It is true that many transgender people face violence and the threat of violence as part of their daily lives. Being who they are is, for some reason, perceived as a threat to hegemony, and fear, aggression, and hate are all too common responses. Hit & Miss also, though, plays with the metaphor of rebirth, and the violent struggle that accompanies it. In a montage sequence, as the children don their sleeping bags (reminiscent of cocoons) to play their favorite game, a butterfly flits across Mia’s sniper rifle scope, causing her to miss her target, which changes her life forever. Mia is in the process of being reborn from a man to a woman, a loner to a family member, and a father to a mother.

Her new lover, Ben, struggles with his own sexuality and masculinity as they relate to Mia’s transition. To prove his straightness, masculinity, and capacity for intimacy, Ben cheats on Mia. He makes a point of performing oral sex on his fling; the significance of which is obvious, but it is also important because Mia isn’t comfortable with Ben touching her penis (understandably so because Mia doesn’t feel her penis is part of her identity). On the morning after the woman has left, Ben finds a handful of hair extensions in his bed. This moment was very compelling for me as a feminist because it is saying that to some degree femininity is a performance even for cis women. This posits the query, “What makes a real woman?” This scene questions the validity that any such creature exists. It subtly asserts that genitalia is as arbitrary as hair length for determining who is and who is not a woman.

mia-and-ben-hook-up — Mia and Ben have sex for the first time.

“Family’s got fuck all to do with blood.” – Mia

That is the best quote of the entire series, and it is one of the major themes of the show. If I had to pick one word to describe the series, it would be: bleak. Hit & Miss is full of violence, trauma, and despair. These are highly damaged people, but together they form a unique family and a new life. Mia pulls them together with her strength, her vulnerability, and her love. By the end of the series, Mia has drawn all the wounded characters together. She senses their need for love and safety, and she gives it freely, in spite of how many curses and slurs they hurl her way. In the depths of darkness, Mia’s indomitable spirit is a beacon, guiding all of them towards hope.

: Mia’s new family

This show has a lot going on; I even question whether or not it’s got too much going on. The primary characters have complex inner lives with myriad painful issues that stem from poverty, neglect, and abuse. A fledgling family getting to know and learning to love each other while navigating these landmine issues; a trans woman learning she has a son, owning her identity, finding romance and family in unexpected places; a hitwoman balancing her seedy career with a desire to give, belong, and build a wholesome life for her family…each of these could be its own storyline. Is it too much to make Mia a hitwoman? Is it purposely sensationalist in order to draw attention to the meat of its tale: family and identity? Is making Mia a hitwoman underscoring Chloë Sevigny’s sentiment that, “There’s a lot more going on with her than just her gender”? Or is an ambitious, often contentious, and always thought-provoking short series like Hit & Miss that’s packed with meaning, metaphor, and depth exactly what we need?

Motherhood in Film & Television: Laura Petrie of ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’

Laura (Mary Tyler Moore), Richie (Larry Matthews), and Rob (Dick Van Dyke) in The Dick Van Dyke Show

This is a guest post from Caitlin Moran

Before Mary Tyler Moore tossed her beret to the Minneapolis sky as Mary Richards, she was the sunny princess of sitcom wives and mothers as Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show. Laura Petrie was a different kind of TV mom. She was young, only 17 when she married on-screen husband Rob. She was perpetually fresh-faced, nimble-footed and smart, a perfect foil for the gangly, handsomely goofy Van Dyke. Laura was the young mother that young mothers wanted to be. I grew up watching reruns of Dick Van Dyke on TVLand with my parents, who had grown up watching it when it originally aired in the sixties, and we all could agree that Laura Petrie was the paragon of feminine charm.

Oh, and did I mention the capri pants? She wore capri pants. She not only wore them, but she rocked them. And she not only rocked them, but she was the first housewife to wear pants on television. The credit for that style decision goes to Moore, who has stated in interviews that while TV shows were constantly showing stay-at-home moms in dresses and aprons and heels, “woman don’t wear full-skirted dresses to vacuum in.” While it may be tempting to brush aside Laura Petrie’s forward-thinking style, her lack of skirt caused a minor flap with the network censors when the show first aired in 1961 (“but how will we know she’s a woman if she’s wearing the pants???” some capris-hating misogynists may have wondered). Laura Petrie’s signature look launched capris into the 1960s fashion zeitgeist, and earned her a spot in InStyle magazine’s Top Ten Most Stylish TV Housewives of All Time.

Laura and Rob Petrie had one child together, a son named Richie. Because Richie is in elementary school for the whole of the show, Laura’s role as a mother focuses on the challenges of raising a small child. She worries that he might be sick when he refuses a cupcake, and helps Rob explain why Richie’s middle name is Rosebud. (It’s an acronym for the names that their parents and grandparents suggested for the baby. Unsurprisingly, that was Rob’s idea.) In the episode “Girls Will Be Boys,” Richie comes home from school three days in a row with bruises on his face, and admits that a girl has been beating him up. After Rob’s visit to the suspected lady bully’s father turns up empty, Laura goes to the child’s house to get to the bottom of the strange beatings. After the girl’s mother insults and dismisses her, Laura refuses to leave until she’s said her piece. “You may not be the rudest person I’ve ever met,” she declares with her trademark quiver, “but you are certainly in the top two.” Door slam, and our girl storms off with the moral high ground and not a hair out of place in her perfect coif.

Laura was never afraid to stand up to her husband when Richie was involved. In the memorable episode “Is That My Boy??” Rob believes that he and Laura have brought home the wrong baby from the hospital. Laura, just days removed from giving birth, attempts to be the voice of reason to her emotionally overwrought husband and, when that fails, plants herself as a barricade in front of the cradle as Rob answers the door to let in the couple he believes took home his actual baby. The ending of the episode, of course, is the most famous of the entire series—the couple that Rob has invited over, the Peters, is black, and the surprise caused one of the longest uninterrupted laughs from a studio audience in sitcom history. Laura herself has a good laugh with Mr. and Mrs. Peters at Rob’s expense, and domestic peace is restored.

Laura pouring Richie a glass of milk

That doesn’t mean that The Dick Van Dyke Show’s treatment of Laura Petrie is without its problems. It is more or less assumed throughout the show that she is a mother and a housewife above everything else, leaving her former aspirations of a dancing career behind. In season three’s “My Part-Time Wife,” Rob is woefully unable to handle Laura stepping in as a secretary at his office, even though she performs her tasks at work deftly and still keeps up the house and supports Richie. When Rob throws a grown-man tantrum over her abilities, Laura apologizes and concedes that she has been “flaunting her successes.” Everyone groan on the count of three.

And the show isn’t exactly subtle when it compares Laura’s domestic bliss with Rob’s cowriter Sally’s romantic woes. Brash, hilarious single girl Sally’s search for a fella is a constant punch line for coworker Buddy, and a source of pity for Laura. Why oh why can’t Sally just find a nice man and have a kid or two of her own? It’s bad enough that Sally writes detailed letters about her cat, Mr. Henderson, to her Aunt Agnes in Cleveland, but does Mr. Henderson have to be named after a former fiancé? Do you have to kick her when she’s down? In many ways, The Dick Van Dyke Show is a product of its era, and its obvious glorification of Laura’s married motherhood over Sally’s career life speaks to a time before the women’s liberation movement, before NOW and Gloria Steinem and certainly before Mary Richards. The tension between career, marriage and motherhood has by no means disappeared (witness the recent debacle over Hilary Rosen’s criticisms of Ann Romney), but to see it played for laughs so openly is disheartening.

Though it has its faults, The Dick Van Dyke Show remains a monument to early-60s Kennedy-era optimism (in fact, the first episode aired on the very day Kennedy was sworn in as president), and no character represents the youthful promise of Camelot more than the Jackie-esque Laura Petrie. In his memoir Dick Van Dyke: My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business, Dick Van Dyke describes her charm thusly: “The first time I stood across from here in rehearsal and heard her say, “Oh, Rob!” I thought, That’s it, we’re home.”

Laura Petrie is a TV mom we’d all like to come home to.

Caitlin Moran is a graduate of Boston College with a degree in English and creative writing. After spending many years battling Western New York winters, she now lives in New York City with a cat and too many books for her apartment. Her work has appeared in the Women’s Media Center, Post Road, Pure Francis, the Susquehanna Review, Winds of Change magazine, HerCampus, and other outlets.

Guest Writer Wednesday: Disney: The Little Mermaid

This piece by Ana Mardoll is cross-posted with permission from her site Ana Mardoll’s Ramblings.

Disney. The word is so synonymous in my mind with “animated feature films” that it’s like using “Kleenex” for “tissue.” When children come to my house, as they sometimes do, they’re invariably drawn to my huge selection of “Disney movies,” only about 70% of which are actually affiliated with Disney in any way shape or form. I enjoy most of them, or I wouldn’t own them. They each have their own problems, but a good many of them have something truly positive that I treasure. And what better way to start a deconstruction of animated feature films with the one I knew first and loved best: The Little Mermaid?

The Little Mermaid is possibly one of the most contentious movies I’ve ever loved. It was created in 1989, and has been specially beloved by many children in general and by myself in particular since then. I must have watched the movie eighty squintillion times as a child; it was one of the few videos I loved enough to manage to convince my parents to buy, and I watched it until the video literally broke from use. By that point, Disney had locked the reel in their “appreciate for value” vault and when they relaunched the movie in theaters in 1997, I was there to see it on the big screen. I have never been able to watch the movie without sobbing straight through from opening titles to end credits.

I sometimes feel like everyone I meet online has seen this movie at least once. Almost all of them have an opinion on the movie. Most of the opinions are strongly polarized: either Ariel is a free-thinking young woman who bravely rejects racism to forge her own destiny and create a lasting peace between two cultures or she’s an idealized anti-feminist icon, complete with Barbie-doll figure and shell bikini, completely willing to throw away her family, her culture, and her own voice for the sake of a man she’s never even met.

Those who fall between these two views tend to stay out of the flame wars. I don’t blame them.

I like The Little Mermaid. I like a lot of things that are problematic, and I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with liking problematic things as long as a certain awareness is maintained that Problems Abound Therein. Art is complicated like that. But I like The Little Mermaid and I think it’s compatible with valuable feminist messages. Certainly, it was my first introduction into a feminist narrative and I have always considered the problematic romance storyline to be camouflage for the real story. But we’ll see whether or not you agree.

Please note that everything I say from here on in is just my opinion.

For me, The Little Mermaid is the story of an Otherkin girl living in a world that is hostile to Otherkin. Ariel is a human born into a merperson’s body, and in a culture that routinely lambasts humans for the very same things that the underwater world does: eat fish. (Seriously. That shark at the beginning who chases Ariel and Flounder is clearly trying to eat them. These are not Happy Vegetarian Fishes.)

For me, The Little Mermaid is the story of a feminist girl living in a world that is hostile to feminist ideals. Ariel is a headstrong young woman who wants knowledge and growth and her own voice, but these things are being systematically denied to her. The only form of learning her father permits is that of patriarchy-approved women’s pursuits: she may study music, but not other cultures.

For me, The Little Mermaid is the story of a culture-conscious girl living in a world that mandates insularity. Ariel wants to learn about cultures and peoples and practices and histories different from her own, but she lives in a world that holds even third-hand study of such things to be utterly forbidden because the power structure believes that the populace is safer if they are steeped in fear and ignorance. (Fearful merpeople won’t try to make contact with the humans, and thus fear maintains their secrecy.)

And now I’ll walk through the film and explain why I feel these things.

The opening titles air over singing humans as they work on the local prince’s pleasure ship / wedding ship / fishing ship. Well, there are three ships in the movie, and they all look pretty much the same to me, so I’m going to assume that Prince Eric has a fleet of all-purpose boats and this is one of them. But the sailors are singing while they collect fish in their nets and Eric (and the audience!) is learning, and here are a couple of problematic things up-front.

One, everyone in this universe is white. (We’re going to be seeing this one a lot in the Disney deconstructions.) Two, this is not a working class universe. Oh, the fishermen are fishing, but this is really the only work you’re going to see in this movie outside of a quick shot of laundry-washing and some cooking. I think Eric’s kingdom is supposed to be one of those picturesque smaller ones where the royalty aren’t far removed from the common folk and don’t mind getting their hands dirty, but it’s kind of a muddled message and it only gets worse when we get to Triton’s kingdom. Let’s just place a big sign over the deconstruction that these are Privileged White People with the inherent issues that inevitably follow.

We pan down under the sea to the King Triton’s Schmancy Music Hall and Combination Throne Room just in time to see Ariel completely fail to show up for a music gig that was intended largely to glorify her father while his daughters display themselves to the populace and use their vocal talents to praise his name. I can’t imagine why a young woman might think she had better uses of her time than to be a public ornament to her father, nor why she might refuse to come to rehearsals (as Sebastian tells us). And when her father realizes that Ariel has failed to show up for the concert, his eyes literally turn red with rage. Yowza.

And here is an important point: Ariel’s dad is abusive. Oh, I think he doesn’t try to be, and I even think he doesn’t want to be, but he is. And I really do think it’s a function of The Patriarchy Hurts Men, Too. You see this clearly in the scenes with Triton and Sebastian: both men shore up each other’s will to be harsher than they otherwise individually would be inclined to be, and they do this because they think it’s expected of them. When Triton is alone and when no one is looking, his face softens, his expression is sad, and he sighs and weeps for the decaying relationship he has with his daughter. It’s when others are looking — notably, Sebastian, the only other adult male in Triton’s scenes — that Triton is at his most abusively fierce.

I don’t think this is a coincidence. Triton isn’t monstrous and Sebastian doesn’t callously bring out the worst in him; they both reinforce each other’s commitment to harmful patriarchy ideals, because they’ve been raised to believe the patriarchy expects them to. Neither is it a coincidence that Triton’s final act of redemption comes after he and Sebastian have revisited a previous conversation and they’ve admitted that they were both wrong and that their actions were harmful. But now I’m jumping ahead.

By giving Triton this characterization, Ariel is immediately given a rich and sympathetic background before she even swims onto the stage. She’s living in a deeply patriarchal and oppressive community where her status as “princess” is largely ornamental and wholly subject to the whims and wishes of her father. While she probably had moments of tenderness between her and her father, particularly when she was younger and could be indulged as a child instead of punished for being a woman, their relationship is strained by his insistence on publicly conforming to aggressive and abusive parenting models whenever anyone is looking. These shifts in emotional tone probably confuse and frustrate Ariel: why is her father so kind at times and yet so harsh at other times? She’s coped with the on-and-off abuse by literally withdrawing. By forgetting rehearsals and the concert and pulling back into her cavern of collections, she’s not passively asserting herself or deliberately catering to the patriarchy; she’s trying to carve out a safe space, mentally and physically.

We are introduced to Ariel who, at great personal risk to her safety — both from the sharks who seek to eat her and from her father who could severely punish her — she is scavenging human items from old shipwrecks. And this… is amazing! Our protagonist is an explorer. What’s more, she’s a scientist, going to a direct source (albeit a bad source, since the seagull is actually ignorant of human affairs, but Ariel has no way of knowing that) to be educated on the items she finds. She wants to understand the humans, and to study the things they do and the items they create. She has a whole secret museum dedicated to all the things she’s collected over the years.

Words fail me in describing how incredible I find this. In another movie, or in a book, there would be more time spent on just how incredibly subversive Ariel is being and has been, for literally years and years. This isn’t a trivial hobby or a girlish obsession; she’s the only person in her culture who is both willing and privileged enough (due to the fact that Triton might not blast his own daughter into tiny bits for breaking his laws) to almost single-handedly set up an entire cultural museum of study on a race of people right outside the kingdom’s doorstep. The sheer bravery and gumption and intellectual devotion necessary for Ariel to have done what she’s done is amazing: she’s essentially created her very own Human Studies department right under the king’s nose because studying other cultures is important, dammit.

I dare you to bring me a Disney heroine who has demonstrated similar levels of bravery, intellect, scientific pursuit, and proactive awesomeness within the first 15 minutes of her own movie.

Then we cut over to Ursula, and… I have mixed feelings about Ursula. On the one hand, she’s a fat woman and a villain in a movie that has problematic body portrayals. Ariel’s sisters are almost uniform in body type, expect for Adella who kind of sort of maybe looks a little bit bigger than her sisters, in the Lane Bryant model sort of way (i.e., same breast and hip proportions, just slightly bigger all over) and who was promptly slimmed down for the sequel because Disney got the memo that fat people are not sexeh because DEATHFATS. The only other fat women in this movie are the castle servants, who are fat in the non-threatening happy-servant kind of way, and the fat woman in the Ursula song who “this one [is] longing to be thinner.” And — rage! — the fat merwoman’s tail extends up and over her breasts like Ursula’s does, but the thin incarnation of the fat woman has the bare-stomach shell-bra combo that Ariel sports. Because nude fat stomachs are obscene and ugly, but thin fat stomachs are normalized and pretty! Grr, Disney.

But! Ursula is sexy. Her breasts! Her butt! The way she moves! Her voice! I don’t honestly remember really… noticing this as a child, but it’s there and it’s largely treated as… normal. Ursula isn’t evil because she’s sexy, nor does she seem really to be evil because she’s fat. She’s just evil and fat and sexy, all in the same package, and I guess that’s kind of cool? I’m not sure. But then when I noticed that in this viewing, I realized that this movie is actually VERY filled with women’s bodies. Can we say that about any other Disney movie?

I don’t just mean the bikinis and the tummies; the women’s bodies here move. Ursula struts realistically around her cave and gods but those breasts and butt are there and they move. And — skipping forward a bit to Ariel’s “I Want” song — Ariel shakes her hips when she sings about “strolling along” the street; she undulates her whole body sensually when she imagines being “warm on the sand.” There are bodies in this movie! And… while they are sexy bodies, I don’t feel like I’m being clubbed with Male Gaze. I like it. I like how it seems to normalize women’s bodies as real, as things that come in different sizes, as things that can be uncovered and sexy and yet not objectified into T&A without a head or a personality needed. I’m just sorry that we have to leave the 1980s in this regard.

Coming back to the movie, Triton yells at Ariel for missing rehearsal. He cuts her off multiple times in this scene, and calls humans “barbarians” which is a nice bit of othering to throw onto the pile of objections to Triton’s character. He then tosses a tone argument at Ariel, which effectively cuts off not only what she was going to say but also punishes her for reacting realistically and legitimately to his bullying. Then Triton tells her that as long as she lives under “my ocean,” she’ll obey “my rules,” which is totally not controlling or an abusive conflation of kingly privilege and parental privilege. And then Triton and Sebastian decide that Ariel, who is a young woman budding into her sexual awakening, needs “constant supervision.” Patriarchy for the win.

And then we have Ariel’s “I Want” song and it still gives me shivers. The opening lines — “If only I could make him understand. I just don’t see things the way he does. I don’t see how a world that makes such wonderful things could be bad.” — reinforce that Ariel is not only longing to be human already, but she’s also inherently more open-minded than her close-minded and prejudice liege-father. Her fantasies of being human conflate with her fantasies of living in a feminist-friendly society where she can speak her mind freely and grow intellectually: “Betcha on land, they understand; bet they don’t reprimand their daughters. Bright young women, sick of swimmin’, ready to stand. And ready to know what the people know; asking my questions and get some answers.”

MORE WOMEN! The picture of fire and the wind up toy that shows dancing both have women in them. The parallel is obvious in that Ariel wants to be these women, but I’m still blown away looking at how many women are in this film in places where I frankly think nowadays they’d be edited out. Maybe it helps that this movie wasn’t made or marketed with the All Important Male Demographic in mind, I don’t know.

Sebastian tumbles out and informs Ariel of what she already knows: her father would be furious if he found out about the museum. Which makes so much sense, really, that his racial hatred of humans extends so far that he would deny his subjects the ability to even study them, if only to come up with more effective ways of avoiding the humans, because studying leads to understanding and understanding leads to compassion and compassion doesn’t mesh well with racial hatred. And, yes, I know they’ve woobied him up with two decades’ worth of backstories and personal tragedy, but I think that waters down the message that sometimes even people we love can be racist assholes.

We zip up to the surface for Ariel to see Prince Eric and for some character establishing shots. And I have to say that Eric is probably my favorite Disney prince. He’s hanging out with his working class and while that could be seen as slumming, he doesn’t seem to mind getting rope burn on his hands and he knows how to steer the boat, so he’s at least not adverse to learning. And he goes back to a fiery burning ship to save his dog.

Ariel saves his life.

They didn’t have to do it this way. They could have had Ariel and Eric catch a glimpse of one another and fall in love that way. Ariel could have been singing in a quiet grotto and Eric could have been drawn to the sound and seen her for a split moment before she disappeared. It would have been pretty and feminine and sweet. But they didn’t do that. They had her proactively search the burning wreckage of a ship, and drag an unconscious man to safety on the shore. And that tells me two things. One, in 1989, being saved from death by a woman didn’t emasculate you forever in the eyes of the (probably) male screenwriters. Two, in 1989, saving a handsome man from drowning was considered an acceptable female fantasy with all the strength, verve, and determination that accompanies that.

Haha, no, there’s totally not a backlash against feminism today in 2012. IT’S ALL YOUR IMAGINATION.

Sebastian tries to convince Ariel that life under the sea is better than life as a human. He has a jazzy musical number and Ariel gives him quirky yeah-I’m-not-buying-it looks before it becomes clear that she’s not really needed for this song routine and goes off with Flounder. And here is a big ol’ world-building mess because apparently the fish neither work nor eat, and they all live off of plankton delivered to their doorstep every morning by magic. Or so Sebastian seems to think from his position of Privilege? I dunno. This is why deconstructing movies with talking animals is hard.

Triton calls Sebastian into his throne room and interrogates Sebastian while cheerily pointing his weaponized triton at the little crab. Haha, that is not scary at all! Sebastian breaks down and tells Triton about Ariel’s museum, and Triton shows up and brutally destroys it all while she weeps and begs him to stop. And this scene? Wrecks me every time. The bit with Triton building himself into a rage — “One less human to worry about! … I don’t have to know them — they’re all the same. Spineless, savage, harpooning fish-eaters, incapable of any feeling…” — is both horrifying and priceless because it really gets through how xenophobic and racist Triton truly is. He doesn’t care that he’s frightening his daughter; the rage has built in him to a point where terrorizing her makes more sense to him than actually talking to her or doing anything other than abusing his position as both king and father.

And this scene is so utterly valuable. Because now Ariel will go to the sea witch and trade her entire life away (and her voice) to go chase after a man she’s never met. Remember that anti-feminist message referenced way back up there at the beginning? But that’s not what she’s doing, not really. As much as Ariel laments in a moment that “If I become human, I’ll never be with my father or sisters again,” her father has driven her away. Ariel isn’t safe under the sea, not emotionally or psychologically. Her life’s obsession with studying and understanding and educating herself on human culture will never be accepted — and if she persists in trying to do so clandestinely, it will only be a matter of time before someone discovers her secret, betrays her to the king, and all her work is destroyed. She knows that fate is inevitable, because it’s just happened not ten minutes ago.

Ariel can either go home and be a good mermaid and play with her hair and go to voice rehearsal and marry a merman who will never share her interests or understand her and she can live and die frustrated and unfulfilled. Or she can take a chance and become everything she’s ever wanted: a human. And she can become that human by finding true love — “Not just any kiss,” Ursula cautions. “The kiss of True Love.” — with the first human she’s ever met, a man who attracts her with his courage and bravery and adventurous spirit. It’s a gamble, and possibly not a good one, but it must seem like the one hope for happiness left available to her.

Human! Ariel washes up on Prince Eric’s beach and is taken for a traumatized survivor of a shipwreck, which seems plausible enough. And while I’m not 100% sure I like Grim pressing Eric to woo the traumatized survivor of a shipwreck rather than, say, provide for her education and psychological care and place her in the best possible position to choose how she wants to live the rest of her life, I do love that Eric is shown as being highly reluctant to treat Ariel with anything less than courtesy and respect. A privileged man who doesn’t react to a pretty half-naked woman washing up on his beach like Christmas has come early? Yes, please.

There’s a scene with a French chef that is so heavy on the cultural stereotypes that I don’t even know what to say. I was going to say that this was one of the only animated feature film songs that features a foreign language, but then I remembered the Charo song in Thumbelina, which is also heavy on cultural stereotypes. *sigh*

Then Eric and Ariel go on a tour of “his kingdom,” which seems to basically be this one decent-sized town, and Ariel is in complete Manic Pixie Dream Girl mode, but for once this makes sense because everything she sees is literally new and exciting and amazing and a dream come true. And then he lets her drive the carriage and she loves it and clears an oddly-placed death-defying jump and once the panic passes, Eric settles back like this is the good life and Ariel is clearly having a ball. I think that’s sweet, frankly.

And then there’s a lot of singing and near-kissing and Ursula showing up to ruin things and Ariel being towed out to the ship which is not nearly as awesome as her swimming out there under her own power, and I get that it makes sense that swimming-with-legs would be something she’s not mastered, but still it feels like the Feminism Power has run out, and then Ariel and Eric reunite just in time for it to be TOO LATE and Ariel is a merperson and Eric does not care even a little bit because Eric is not a racist asshole like Triton. And then Eric saves Ariel’s life with a harpoon while Triton watches, and this is hilarious given Triton’s earlier rant about humans-who-wield-harpoons.

After the exciting showdown scene, Eric recovers slowly on the shore while Ariel watches from her rock. Triton and Sebastian watch from further out, with Triton realizing that she really does love him and that this hasn’t all been About Him and her special butterfly rebellion. Gee, ya think? Sebastian tells him “children got to be free to lead their own lives” and Triton references as earlier conversation where Sebastian said the opposite. And this is the moment where everything is unspoken, but for me it seems like they’re saying yeah, this whole Patriarchy thing is garbage and we were wrong. And then Triton gives Ariel her legs back, she marries Eric, and there’s a new era of peace for both kingdoms, and it is awesome.

And… yeah. It ends in a 16 year old marrying a guy she’s known all of three days. (Assuming we don’t go with the standard handwave that between cuts there could have been years and years of dating that we didn’t see. Because movies don’t work like that.) And, devoid of context, that is Very Problematic. Hell, even with context, it’s not something that gives me warm fuzzies. I do not like the Mandatory Marriage at the ends of these movies, or the implication that it’s not a Happy Ending without one. And I like the Mandatory Marriage even less when it happens to two teenagers (or one teenager and one guy in his early twenties) who’ve known each other only over the course of a few adrenaline-packed and hormone-driven days. I don’t feel like this is a healthy formula. So there’s that.

But it’s also one of the few movies I can think of where an Otherkin protagonist gets the form she’s always felt was really hers. And it’s a movie where a brave young woman defied the racist and xenophobic laws of her homeland in order to create a greater understanding between two cultures and almost single-handedly engineer a peace between both kingdoms. And she did all this while she was sixteen, as a young woman in an abusive family where she was only valued for her ornamental status. She held on to her inner essential self and managed to forge her own path without ever once beating herself up for the abusive things that others did to her. Throughout the movie, the entire narrative seems to scream that being strong-while-female is not a bad thing: it’s okay to defy your racist asshole dad, it’s okay to save the life of the handsome guy who won’t then turn around and act all emasculated and shun you, it’s okay to own your “acceptably feminine” talents in ways that make you happy, social expectations be damned. And for a movie that is now over twenty years old, that seems kind of awesome.

Ana’s Happy Feminism Fuzzies Scorecard

– Otherkin narrative where protagonist proactively gains the form she wants

– Feminist narrative where protagonist longs to be taken seriously as a cultural researcher

– Intellectual narrative where protagonist values museums and cultural study

– Racial/Cultural narrative where protagonist demonstrates that Racism Is Bad

– Body Positive (with caveats) narrative where women characters abound of different body sizes

– Patriarchy Hurts Men narrative where good men are abusive because of patriarchal expectations

Ana’s Sad Epic Fail Scorecard

– Narrative that is entirely cast with white people and has a Angry French Chef stereotype

– Narrative that contains muddled class portrayal and is largely about privileged people

– Narrative that contains no openly QUILTBAG characters

– Narrative that ends with a teen marriage between two almost-strangers

Final Thoughts: The Little Mermaid is — like most Disney movies — rife with issues of class, race, hetereonormity, and body portrayal. But in my opinion it’s ironically one of the least problematic movies in the set (“ironic” because the current cultural narrative is that we’re now BETTER at those things than we were in the 1980s), and if you’re a white heterosexual class-privileged girl living in an oppressive patriarchy — as I was when I came to the movie — it may just resonate with you. Maybe.

As a final link, here is a picture of Disney Princesses dressed as the villains in their movies. I like the Ariel/Ursula swap so very much.

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Ana Mardoll is an avid reader and writer. She loves cats, fairy tales, and intense navel gazing. She blogs on a near daily basis from an undisclosed location in the wild, untamed, and astonishingly dusty Texas wilderness. Her photo-realistic avatars are a gift from best friend and invaluable writing buddy, J.D. Montague.

To read more of Ana’s writings, including her snarktastic literary deconstructions, visit her website at www.AnaMardoll.com.