Fantasy – Page 4 – Bitch Flicks

‘Into the Badlands’: Will Blasian Love Last?

‘Into the Badlands’, based on the classic Chinese tale ‘Journey to the West’, is set in a futuristic dystopian world where past wars have created a new feudal society. It’s gratifying to finally get an onscreen Blasian couple where they kiss, have sex, and get to have a real relationship.

Written by Lisa Bolekaja, this article appears as part of our theme week on Interracial Relationships.

For the last few weeks, fans of AMC’s Into the Badlands have been waiting to hear if the series will be renewed for a second season. Its six-part first season story arc hooked a number of viewers who eagerly await more episodes of the dystopian, martial arts fantasy extravaganza. The show is a throwback to the action excitement of 1970s Kung Fu theater with large doses of mystery, adventure, beautifully choreographed fight sequences, and a forbidden romance at its core. I am a big fan and find myself constantly checking social media to see if I will be gifted with another season.

Into the Badlands, based on the classic Chinese tale Journey to the West, is set in a futuristic dystopian world where past wars have created a new feudal society divided up between seven “Barons” who run everything on various Louisiana plantations — harking back to images of a slave society and a brutally defined hierarchy. People pick poppy plants instead of cotton, and everyone’s clothing looks like updated Gone With the Wind duds, only cooler looking with lots of leather. Guns have been banished, and although people originally flocked to the various Barons for protection and guidance in a world turned upside down because of war, the “protection” eventually lapsed into forced servitude. There are townspeople; healers, merchants, bar owners, brothels etc., and then there is the warrior class who live on the plantations.

Under the leadership of the Barons are lethal trained killers known as Clippers. Children with the potential to become Clippers are called colts and go through military training in the martial arts. Everyone else who isn’t trained in the art of war is forced to work on the plantations growing the poppy plants that are harvested into opium. They are known as cogs. (read: slaves).

The top Clipper on any given plantation is known as a Regent, and action star Daniel Wu is Sunny, the baddest Clipper in all the Badlands. He has tattoos on his back for the number of people he has killed. Sunny’s Baron is the conniving and ruthless Quinn (Martin Csokas), a man determined to control all of the Badlands. Quinn doesn’t know that the other Barons are plotting to overthrow him, and his personal life is a hot mess (two wives who dislike each other, and a son itching to take over). He depends on Sunny’s loyalty and fighting prowess. All Clippers are beholden to and only live for their Baron. They are not allowed to marry, have children, or have personal lives outside of the Baron’s wishes. Everyone in this society lives at the discretion and bidding of the various Barons. To go against this hierarchy of power and position is to risk immediate death.

Orphaned as a child, Sunny only knows the life of a Clipper. When we first meet him, he has been dispatched on his motorcycle to check on a cargo of new cogs that have not arrived at Quinn’s plantation. Sunny finds that the cogs have been killed, their bodies still chained together and rotting on the side of a desolate road. He notices that there is a person missing from the shackled group of slaves and sets off to find Quinn’s stolen property.

This scenario sets into motion two events that change the course of Sunny’s life forever. The first event is finding and rescuing M.K. (Aramis Knight), a young teen who wears a mysterious pendant that represents a fabled city called Azra that lies outside of the Badlands. People don’t believe it exists, but Sunny recognizes the pendant as something that matches a compass he owns and has hidden away from his own childhood. Sunny is intrigued with M.K., curious to know why he was kidnapped and not murdered like the other cogs. The second event that shakes up Sunny’s life is that the forbidden romance he’s has been secretly having with Veil (Madeliene Mantock), a Black woman who works as a healer in town, has borne fruit: Veil is pregnant and she’s keeping their baby, rules be damned.

What makes Sunny’s relationship with Veil exciting to me is the fact that it is a unique interracial pairing between two people of color. And not just the usual (almost cliché) interracial pairing of a White person with a person of color that we often find in film and TV. (On the flip side, the real shocker would have been to cast a talented Asian actress as Sunny’s love interest. Two people of color from the same racial background who are in love and have a romance at the center of the narrative? What? I can only dream.)

My mouth literally flew open when the show premiered on the east coast first and I saw a picture posted on social media of Sunny and Veil in bed together. The first reaction was, “Wow an AMBW couple on TV in bed together! Blasian love!”, and immediately afterwards I thought, “Damn, should I even bother to be invested in that relationship? They are probably going to kill her in the first episode.” I was bummed that my reactions were excitement about a Black woman being loved on, and then automatically assuming that she would be killed off because it has been proven that Black characters tend to be bumped off first. It’s tradition; this assumption about Veil’s immediate demise had levels to it.

Typically, women are used to motivate male characters into action, via revenge or to have someone to rescue. They exist as plot devices (with tropes like Damsel in Distress or Women in Refrigerators) to help the story move along. This problem is exacerbated at times when that woman is a woman of color because they are not often deemed as important as a white female character. If Veil had been white, in my mind, she may last a few episodes. But because she was Black, I girded my loins and waited for the big chop. This saddens me because by the time I was able to watch the entire show during its west coast broadcast, I had already prepared myself to let Veil go. And praise ye old Gods, Veil has survived all six episodes, and actually has some agency.

The rare pairings of an Asian male character and a Black female character has a tenuous history in cinema. The few films that even touch upon the slightest hint of a possible romance between AMBW couples has been disappointing. The two most recent films that my cinema friends and I still complain about is Ninja Assassin and Romeo Must Die. There was obvious chemistry between Naomie Harris and Rain. There was even a rumored shower scene between them that was supposedly cut. But Ninja Assassin just toyed with us, and fans of the film created fanfiction to fill in the gaps of romance that may have been there more overtly had Naomie Harris’ character been a white woman.

The travesty that is Romeo Must Die has always irked fans of that film. Jet Li and the late Aaliyah couldn’t even get a kiss at the end? All that sexual tension, and flat out cuteness together didn’t warrant a little lip action? It has been said that there was a kissing scene at the end that was cut because a test audience didn’t like it. I don’t know who was in that test audience that ruined the earned love scene of Jet Li and Aaliyah, but in the words of Sam Jackson, I hope they die and burn in hell. We were robbed.

The closest thing that I’ve seen that even tried to have a recurring Blasian couple was Flashforward (2009) with John Cho and Gabrielle Union. But then Cho’s character ended up getting a lesbian white woman pregnant on purpose and…yeah, that sucked.

There are other films and TV shows that have had AMBW pairings:

Virtuality (2009)

Robot Stories (2003)

Catfish in Black Bean Sauce (1999)

Cinderella (1997)

Fakin’ Da Funk (1997)

But it’s a nice surprise to see a deeper relationship between Veil and Sunny. It would be great if we could see more of their love scenes developed. The arrival of M.K. and Veil’s pregnancy have created an urgency in Sunny that tests his loyalty as a Regent/Clipper. Some of the writing of the show has me questioning why Sunny is so loyal to the unstable, villainous Quinn. Quinn murders Veil’s adoptive parents. Sunny tells Veil what happened when she confronts him about it, and yet he still goes back to work like “I can’t do anything.” Sunny finally making plans to escape with Veil and M.K. come a little too late. We needed to see him stand up for his woman and baby sooner.

Thank goodness Veil isn’t allowed to be a weak damsel in distress waiting for Sunny to save her. She works through difficult situations to keep herself and her unborn child alive when he’s not around. Veil even tells Sunny that she may or may not leave with him once he secures passage on a boat for them to escape. It’s a small moment that lets the audience know that she will make it with or without Sunny.

Sunny and Veil are set up to be a surrogate family for M.K. and the boy is pretty quick to pick up on the fact that the secret affair of Sunny and Veil is pretty obvious whenever they are near each other. M.K. himself has the beginnings of his own interracial romance with Tilda (Ally Ioannides), the Clipper daughter of a female Baron known as The Widow (Emily Beecham — one of my favorites on the show), which brings on another set of problems that mirror Sunny and Veil’s forbidden union.

Into the Badlands is an imaginative show that is here for fans of dynamic martial arts, and also kickass women. More than half of the main cast is made up of women full of agency who drive the series just as much as the men. My only criticism in that respect is that Veil is the only regular cast member who is a woman of color. I see a lot of female background extras that are women of color, (just like there are tons of men and boys of color on the show, even those with regular speaking roles), so it would’ve been nice to see another woman of color who is a major player. It’s pretty lazy casting to have six female speaking parts, and only one is a woman of color? And no, The Widow being a redhead does not count as diversity in women. They could have given us at least three women of color. Asian, Native, Latinx…so easy to do. But no. There’s just Veil.

The season finale left us with a cliffhanger. M.K. kidnapped again, Sunny tied up on the boat and what that means for his family’s safe passage out of the Badlands, and Veil left alone in town wondering what happened to her man. The six episodes were fast and furious fun, and I hope that Sunny and Veil’s relationship continues over the long haul. It’s exciting to see a handsome Asian male actor shine as the hero, be a sexually desired hottie, and NOT be a stereotype or sidekick to a white male character. It’s also gratifying to finally get an onscreen Blasian couple where they kiss, have sex, and get to have a real relationship. At least I hope so. C’mon, AMC. Renew Into the Badlands. The fans are waiting.

Staff Writer Lisa Bolekaja is a writer, screenwriter, and podcaster. She’s an Apex Magazine slush reader, a member of the Horror Writers Association, a former Film Independent Fellow and a Twitter fiend. You can find her posted up on the AMC Into the Badlands fan page waiting for word of Season 2.

Interracial Relationships in ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’: The Importance of Finn & Rey

This guest post by Sophie Hall appears as part of our theme week on Interracial Relationships.

It’s been over a month since Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released. Nonetheless, it’s still being discussed as if people just got out of its opening midnight screening, high on sleep depravity and Red Bull. The most popular topics seem to be that Han Solo scene, Rey’s parentage, Kylo Ren’s tantrums, etc. However, one of the topics that I feel hasn’t received the acknowledgment, let alone coverage, that it deserves, is Finn and Rey, the film’s two young leads, as a romantic couple. Sure, the pair have received attention (and controversy) over their race and gender. But them as a couple? Not so much. And I feel that’s a shame as for me, they’re a major step forward for portrayals of interracial couples in mainstream cinema.

Not only is it great to have two franchises dominate the box office featuring prominent interracial relationships in the same year (the other being Fast and Furious 7), but The Force Awakens also delivers on another level. Whenever children are treated to a trip to the cinema, they are almost always fed the same message from the big screen — that the most important love exists between two straight white people. More often than not, those on-screen romantic relationships are unhealthy or downright toxic. Finn and Rey aren’t part of the typical ‘Blockbuster Couples Club’, where the man is a lovable misogynist and the woman is a sexualized ‘badass’ who still needs saving. Not only does The Force Awakens show children that relationships can actually exist outside of two white people, but more importantly, it demonstrates that they can have emotionally healthy ones too.

Let’s start by analyzing one of the most refreshing aspects of this burgeoning relationship: Finn’s treatment of Rey. Soon after they first meet, Finn grabs Rey’s hand to escape an oncoming group of Stormtroopers. However, Finn’s intention isn’t asserting his masculinity as expected. He knows that Rey can handle herself, as he already witnessed her putting two attackers in their place single-handed. The reason he takes her hand is because, as he confesses to her later on, she had “looked at me like no one had.”

If you consider Finn’s backstory, this line is very vital to his character arc. Separated from a family he can’t remember and having been raised and trained to kill, Finn had been stripped of all identity. When Rey thinks that he is in the Resistance and looks at him with admiration and respect, little does she know that she is the first person to ever do so. From that one act, Finn becomes irrevocably tied to Rey. When Finn saw danger approaching he took her hand, but he did it because he will protect her at all costs but doesn’t doubt that Rey is capable of protecting herself. He may even have wanted her to protect him.

Now, let’s compare this scene to the main couple of Jurassic World’s introduction, Owen and Claire. When Claire arrives at Owen’s house to talk business, Owen suggests they take it into the bedroom. Claire says that his remarks aren’t funny, while Owen disagrees. Now, imagine how easy it could’ve been for Finn to lie to Rey about being in the Resistance to get into her pants rather than being afraid of rejection because that’s the intention of most heroes, isn’t it? Look at Peter Quill with Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain Kirk with any female character in Star Trek, James Bond with, again, any female character in any of his films. With The Force Awakens though, children not only witness a man of color being a hero; the film also tells them there is more to seeing your potential love interest than as a sex object.

This mutual respect and commitment is evident throughout the entire film. When he sees Rey taken hostage by Kylo Ren, Finn discards his weapon (even with Stormtroopers still present) and futilely chases after her. When Kylo Ren knocks Rey unconscious, he again drops his weapon and rushes to her side, even with the enemy a meter or so away. When the Resistance tries to figure out how to disable the weapons on Starkiller Base, Finn lies and says that he knows how, just so he can go and help Rey escape. The need to ensure Rey’s safety overwhelms his own survival instinct every time.

For a leading man to treat the leading woman in this way is a feat in itself, but it’s also important for interracial relationship representation in cinema. On the website Fat Pink Cast, there is an article titled ‘Yes, Finn/Rey is heteronormative, but not all straight romances are created equal.’ One of their writers Jonelle states:

“Black male characters aren’t always like Finn, who is well-rounded; fearful, yet brave, gentle, but strong, earnest and a total goofball at the same time. He’s the antithesis of a tertiary smooth-talking walking racial stereotype.”

To have a Black character like this to not only be the co-lead in an iconic franchise but to also include him in a healthy, positively portrayed relationship with a white woman is a brilliant statement. Finn and Rey can be just as adventurous as William Turner and Elizabeth Swan, bicker as much as Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, wax as poetic as Aragorn and Arwen and take as many names as Rick O’Connell and Evy Carnahan. Finn and Rey’s difference in race doesn’t put any limitations on what this couple can and do achieve.

While Rey treating Finn with kindness is what won him over, this isn’t just a one-sided relationship. When Finn recovers from unconsciousness after an explosion on Jakku, he immediately asks Rey if she is okay. In the script, it states that, “And that very question touches her — having never in her life been asked it.” Like Finn, Rey grew up in an environment void of love, having to depend on herself for survival. Also like Finn, this is her first experience of intimacy and after that exchange, it is she who offers him her hand. When Rey discovers that it was Finn’s idea to go back to Starkiller Base to save her, the script states that, “She is speechless — this is all she’s ever wanted anyone to do,” and Finn is the first one to do it.

Their longing for affection is something that they recognize and connect with in each other, but they don’t hold this over each other to emotionally manipulate one another. Chewbacca tells Rey that it was Finn’s idea to come back for her while, when Rey saves Finn from the rathtars, she doesn’t divulge that she did. Rey reciprocating Finn’s caring concerns helps to make this relationship so special. This isn’t a Black character worshiping the white lead; their feelings are mutual. They both recognize how significant they are to each other, they both face their fears for each other, and they both make sacrifices for each other. Finn returns to the place he’s been running from the entire film for Rey, and Rey finally embraces the force that she’s been running from the entire film in order to save Finn.

Finn and Rey’s relationship is a step forward for portrayals of interracial relationships, and relationships in general, as it doesn’t diminish Rey’s agency. Even though Finn consistently tries to save her throughout The Force Awakens, that doesn’t mean Rey isn’t capable of saving herself. She’s able to withhold information from Kylo Ren and break herself out of his cell without Finn’s — or anyone’s — aid. The film depicts positive representation for both the men of color and the women characters.

Again, let’s compare Rey and Finn’s relationship to some other recent blockbusters. In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Bruce Banner had to save Natasha Romanoff from a cell in order to make him seem the hero, even though it makes no sense that Natasha’s character wouldn’t have been able to break out of there herself (she’s a skilled enough spy to be an Avenger!) The film forsakes Natasha’s agency in order to progress her romantic relationship. The Force Awakens doesn’t make these compromises; Rey’s character never weakens in order for her counterpart to succeed, and vice versa with Finn.

For Finn and Rey, their relationship can also be seen as a timely arrival, and hopefully their relationship can pave the way for other cinematic interracial relationships. Yes, the Harry Potter franchise may have been an integral part of our generation’s childhoods, but that doesn’t erase the fact that the film adaptations’ treatment of people of color wasn’t the best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x67OjOLj11g

With such a wide range of characters, not one of the characters of color was given a substantial role. We barely even know anything about Harry’s first love interest, Cho Chang. She exists as more of a reaction to ‘It’s about time for Harry got a girl’ than actually about fleshing out why they were attracted to one another. As you can see in the video above, Cho had Harry at, “two pumpkin pasties please.”

The Force Awakens features more than one central interracial relationship. There’s also Finn and resistance pilot Poe Dameron, and I swear there is more to it than Poe biting his lip at the sight of Finn wearing his leather jacket. In the Marvel cinematic universe, we see plenty of interracial relationships… between supporting characters who are people of color and the white superheroes of the films. Every Falcon has his Captain America, War Machine his Iron Man, Luis his Ant-Man…

But this time, it’s not just the fact that it’s a Black man who has the superior narrative role in a relationship; it’s that his friend is a person of color too (Poe is played by Guatemalan American actor Oscar Isaac). Very rarely are people of color friendships showcased in blockbusters, so to have it in 2015’s most anticipated film is a welcome surprise. Their relationship doesn’t solely exist to fill the bromance quota, as it holds crucial significance for each character. Poe continuously helps Finn with his identity narrative and as for Finn on Poe’s behalf; we’ll get to that in a minute. We don’t witness a person of color existing onscreen to support a white character, but rather two characters of color build each other up.

Despite the similarities this pair shares with other male friendships in cinema, what sets Finn and Poe’s relationship apart is that their bromance could possibly turn into a romance. Even though Finn expresses a romantic interest in Rey (“You got a boyfriend? Cute boyfriend?”), on more than one occasion, Poe seems to express a romantic interest in Finn. Critic Helen O’Hara points out in an article for The Telegraph that:

“Poe gives Finn his name, replacing the Stormtrooper designation FN-2187, and then gives him a jacket. When reunited after believing one another dead, Poe runs towards Finn and throws himself into an embrace; if Finn were a woman, we’d be in little doubt that that was enough to signal interest. Should we doubt it just because they’re both men?”

If Disney romantically connected Finn and Poe in the next Star Wars, it would be yet another achievement in giving people the LGBTQ representation that the mainstream media deprives us from seeing onscreen. Even if the next Star Wars doesn’t pair the two men but acknowledges Poe’s queer sexuality and displays a straight/gay friendship between two men of color — that would still be a major accomplishment.

Ultimately, this leads us to what makes The Force Awakens so special; the effect the trio will have on the younger generation. A woman is a Jedi in training, a Black man is a Resistance fighter and a Latino man is the greatest pilot in the galaxy. More importantly, they all helped each other fulfill these roles. The sky is the limit for these characters, and the sky should be the limit for the children watching too.

Sophie Hall is from London and has graduated from university with a degree in Creative Writing. She is currently writing a sci-fi comic book series called White Leopard for Wasteland Paradise Comics. Her previous article for Bitch Flicks was ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’: Violence Helps Our Heroines Have a Lovely Day.

When the Girl Looks: The Girl’s Gaze in Teen TV

In this moment, then, Elena is completely relieved of the conventional position of girl-as-object, and is therefore able to occupy a different position as a desiring subject. By purposefully making herself invisible, Elena momentarily evades and perhaps refuses to be defined by the adult male gaze that governs girlhood.

This guest post by Athena Bellas appears as part of our theme week on The Female Gaze.

Within contemporary visual culture, girls are frequently positioned as spectacular objects to be looked at. For example, girls are often either positioned as eroticised objects of desire for an adult male gaze, or as pathologized objects of adult concern in order to makes diagnoses about “the problem with girls today.” Both of these gazes police the borders of girlhood, placing girls under the surveillance of a watchful and scrutinising adult eye. In both instances, the girl is positioned as a to-be-looked-at object rather than an active and agentic subject, which means that it is sometimes difficult for our culture to create space to imagine the girl as the holder of the gaze. When we do get representations of girls erotically contemplating the male figure, these representations are often met with derision and dismissal by adult culture. For example, reviews of the Twilight films repeatedly ridiculed Bella Swan’s erotic contemplation of Edward Cullen’s glittering, perfectly coiffed figure as mere fodder for girls’ “wet dreams” (like this is a bad thing), and fangirls shrieking with delight at the sight of their favourite boy band are diagnosed as embarrassingly hysterical and hormonal. This contempt for the girl’s gaze in patriarchal visual culture leads to what Michele Fine calls the “missing discourse of desire” for girls, because there is a consistent shaming, silencing, and erasure of girls’ expressions of desire.

However, even within this complex web of regulatory adult gazes, there are intervals and gaps where challenges and disruptions can take place. There are important spaces within visual culture that provide representations of a girl’s gaze, and I am particularly interested in teen television as one of these spaces. This television genre often centres on representing a teen heroine’s perspective and addresses a teen girl spectator, and the privileging of this frequently dismissed point of view has the potential to disrupt the central position of the adult male gaze. While not all teen TV does this successfully, there are certainly moments within this genre that provide a significant space for the representation of girls actively gazing, exploring, and acting upon their desires. There are, of course, many great examples of girls’ gazes in teen shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, My So-Called Life, Veronica Mars, and The 100, among others. In this article, I want to explore the CW network’s paranormal teen series The Vampire Diaries, because it has depicted clear moments in which the gendered terms of the desiring gaze are reversed, turning conventional tropes and iconographies of desire on their head. In this reconfiguration, the girl looks and is (at least temporarily) able to refuse her position as object-to-be-looked-at.

In one of the most iconic scenes from The Vampire Diaries, we can see a powerful, desiring teen girl gaze being represented. Damon and Elena are on a road trip together, and they stop at a motel for the night. At this stage in the narrative, the sexual tension between the two of them is so ridiculously palpable, and everyone is screaming, “Just kiss already!” at their TV screens. Elena feigns sleep, secretly watching a half-dressed Damon sip whiskey as he languorously reclines in a chair.

His bare torso is bathed in the moonlight that streams through the window, creating a beautiful dappled pattern of light and shade across his figure. The camera is aligned with Elena’s gaze, recording the details of Damon’s body in lingering extreme close-ups.

Importantly, Elena is temporarily “invisible” in this scene – her gaze is unmonitored and unreturned as she secretly watches him. In this moment, then, Elena is completely relieved of the conventional position of girl-as-object, and is therefore able to occupy a different position as a desiring subject. By purposefully making herself invisible, Elena momentarily evades and perhaps refuses to be defined by the adult male gaze that governs girlhood. I think that this moment is resistant space where alternatives to the dominant system of desire can be explored. This sequence provides an alternative visual language in which the male figure is made to bear what Laura Mulvey calls “the burden of sexual objectification,” allowing for the representation of the heroine’s active and agentic desire.

In another scene in season four, Damon undresses in front of Elena. In the first shot, we see Elena’s eyes carefully scanning Damon’s figure from head to toe and in the reverse shot, the camera scans and records the contours of his body in intricate detail, encouraging spectators to look at him in the same manner.

Like the scene described above, his body is spot-lit, but this time by shafts of gold sunlight streaming in through the windows, emphasising the openness of his display, and the clarity of Elena’s view of him. Damon unbuttons his trousers and asks Elena, “Are you staying for the whole show or…?” The soundtrack punctuates his playful offer by emphasising the sound of each button popping as he strips off his clothing. Damon recognises his status as Elena’s object of desire, and that he is “on show” for her gaze. As a spectacular object on show, Damon occupies a conventionally feminine position – he is definitely an object of erotic contemplation and spectacle – rather than occupying the traditionally masculine position of action, moving the narrative forward, and control.

By spectacularizing Damon’s figure through the use of extreme close-ups, ultra slow motion, and dramatic lighting, the text invites spectators to look at the male figure through Elena’s desiring perspective. So, the female gaze exists within the narrative world of The Vampire Diaries, and through these representational strategies, spectators are also encouraged to align and identify with it – to occupy and explore this position of active looking alongside Elena. I think that these moments, which reverse the conventional politics of representing the gaze, reconfigure some of the traditional iconography associated with girlhood that ordinarily positions girls as desirable, rather than desiring, and as spectacles, rather than subjects. In this text, we are presented with girls who are able to find moments in which they can evade the adult male gaze, and also claim a desiring subjective position from which to look. This pushes the representational boundaries that often contain girlhood, and I am hopeful that this results in an expansion into new and even more disruptive territories of articulation for the teen girl gaze.

Dr. Athena Bellas has a PhD in Screen and Cultural Studies from the University of Melbourne. Her PhD and current research explore representations of adolescent girlhood in fairy tales and contemporary screen media. She blogs at teenscreenfeminism.wordpress.com and tweets at @AthenaBellas and @TeenScreenFem.

The Courage to Cry: Men and Boys’ Emotions in ‘Naruto’

However, when boys are told that “boys don’t cry” and that men should “man up,” their emotions are not respected, and they often internalize this stigma, sometimes with devastating consequences. Of course, simply crying won’t cure a condition as severe as PTSD, but men being shown that they are not “weak” for experiencing emotions and needing help will undoubtedly aid in the road to recovery.

This post by Jackson Adler previously appeared at The Windowsill and appears here as part of our theme week on Masculinity. Cross-posted with permission.

CONTAINS SPOILERS for the Naruto franchise.

It’s still pretty rare to see boys and men cry in TV and film. Male characters shedding a tear or two has become slightly more common (thank you, Scandal), but rarely anything more, even when a character is grieving over the loss of a loved one. TV and film, with or without intention, often spread the stigma against men and boys expressing powerful emotions in healthy ways such as crying. According to Dr. Christia Brown in her Psychology Today article “Boys Who Cry Might Have It All Figured Out,” “For boys, they are taught that sadness is not okay, and expressing sadness is definitely not okay. But emotions don’t evaporate, they have to be expressed somehow. For boys, an acceptable emotion is anger. They can fight, [and] show aggression.” If emotions are channeled into verbal or physical violence, such as when men with PTSD become physically abusive to their partners or spouses (such as in the case of Sir Patrick Stewart’s father), the consequences can be absolutely devastating, and sometimes fatal. This is not to say that anger should be ignored or that anger cannot be expressed in a healthy and non-abusive manner. For example, righteous anger at injustice leads many into lives of activism in which they create positive changes in their communities. However, when boys are told that “boys don’t cry” and that men should “man up,” their emotions are not respected, and they often internalize this stigma, sometimes with devastating consequences. Of course, simply crying won’t cure a condition as severe as PTSD, but men being shown that they are not “weak” for experiencing emotions and needing help will undoubtedly aid in the road to recovery.

For these reasons, I am proud of Kishimoto Masashi, the man who created the Naruto manga series, for creating male characters who unabashedly cry, and who are emotionally supported by their peers when they express their emotions in this way. His manga series, which will conclude on Nov. 10, has since been adapted into two anime series (Naruto and Naruto Shippuden) and several animated films. In Naruto, a story that is set among militarized warrior states and focuses on the ninja who act as their soldiers, men and boys, whether soldiers or civilians, experience severe trauma and great loss. Most of the scenes when a male character cries take place when that character is grieving over the loss of a loved one, but a number also take place when a character is emotionally touched, when they are pleading for the protection of a loved one, when they are seeking forgiveness, when they are lonely, or when they are tortured, persecuted, bullied, or ostracized. When these characters express their emotions through crying, they are not emasculated in the slightest. Heroes, villains, gray-area characters, top-notch soldiers, political leaders, medical professionals, and average civilians all cry in Naruto.

Even the most powerful and intimidating of characters are told by their peers that it is all right for them to cry, and are shown empathy and support. In Naruto Shippuden in the episode “Disappearance,” the characters Itachi and Kisame, elite members of the terrorist organization Akatsuki, receive a false report that Itachi’s younger brother has been killed. When Itachi steps out into the rain for what seems to be a private moment, Kisame says to Itachi, “I don’t know what someone as cold as you could be thinking right now, but from here, you look as though you are crying.” Far from mocking him, Kisame goes on to say, “It’s too bad about your younger brother,” and expresses that it must be lonely for Itachi to be “the sole survivor of [his] clan.” Though Itachi then reveals that he knows the information they received is false, it is a surprising moment of closeness and support between characters whose professions are so violent.

The storyline of the Naruto franchise is an action/fantasy one about a boy named Naruto, who trains to be a ninja and to serve his country. Like Naruto, many of the characters in the story are children who have been affected by war and are trained to become child soldiers. Though the story is written for children, and even contains a fair amount of slapstick and goofy humor, it certainly does not shy away from serious content. “War is hell,” one character says. Many of the child characters experience severe trauma, often, but not always, from war, long before they are permitted to fight in combat. Naruto’s grows up rather alone, even being ostracized and otherwise bullied by his community, and the second main character, Sasuke, who is Naruto’s friend and rival, and Itachi’s younger brother, witnessed the murder of his parents and the genocide of his clan when he was very young.

Naruto wears his heart on his sleeve, and cries often in the story, which frequently stems from his great amount of empathy and love for others. Naruto cries in the first episode when he overhears his teacher Iruka say to another teacher that he believes in Naruto, and Naruto realizes that someone cares about him after all. Sasuke cries much more rarely, often feigning indifference instead, but frequently channels his emotions into rage or violence. Much of the story revolves around Naruto and other characters trying to help Sasuke to heal, to connect with others, and to let go of rage, violence, and an all-consuming, overwhelming, and relentless quest for revenge. Sasuke and a number of other characters in Naruto either start the story with signs of PTSD or develop symptoms of it along the way.

The Naruto manga series ends in only a few weeks, and has culminated in a confrontation between Sasuke and Naruto. They each have the same goal – to make the world a better, more loving, and more peaceful place. Sasuke believes that he has to take the fate of the world on his own shoulders, and that he cannot ask for help. Naruto hopes to help Sasuke to see that he does not have to face all the pain and hatred in the world, and in himself, on his own. Many men are afraid to ask for help or support when they need it because of the stigma that they are weak if they do. Their emotions and healthy expressions of them are often ignored or mocked. Naruto sets a good example for everyone – that crying, that suffering, and that asking for help do not make a person weak. Naruto is also a good example of someone who shows empathy and support for others’ emotions and needs. I certainly hope that more people emulate Naruto and reach out to those is pain, and that those is pain start to feel comfortable asking for help and expressing themselves in a healthy way. Naruto is a hero who cries, who suffers, and who helps others. If there were more heroes like that in the media, maybe the stigma against men crying or asking for help would cease.

Jackson Adler is a transmasculine aromantic bi/pansexual skinny white middle class dude with an Auditory Processing Disorder and a Weak Working Memory who enjoys cartoons, musical theatre, and vegan boba drinks. Jackson has a BA in Theater, and is a writer, activist, performer, director, teacher, and dramaturge.

Masculinity in ‘Game of Thrones’: More Than Fairytale Tropes

Boys are judged on their ability to swing a sword or work a trade, criticised for showing weakness, and taught to grow up hard and cold. Doesn’t sound unfamiliar, does it? Masculinity is praised in Westerosi society, as it is in our own.

This guest post by Jess Sanders appears as part of our theme week on Masculinity.

HBO are not my favourite showrunners. They spoil Game of Thrones for me. They use rape as a plot device and women as decoration – I mean, there is a guy working on the show who openly admits to playing “the pervert side of the audience” for god’s sake. Numerous times, I’ve wanted to stop watching out of sheer anger… but I just can’t.

While the presentation of the show is so inherently misogynistic, I am too invested in the characters and the story they’re telling. I love how George R. R. Martin (GRRM) gives us a world we can believe in, and nuanced storylines to read and watch (I just wish the show had been put into better hands to do them justice!).

Game of Thrones is a medieval fantasy. It is set in the kind of world that fairytales and folklore are made of. We’ve got dragons, brave knights, and beautiful maidens – all the components are there. GRRM could have made some easy money writing a romance: the handsome prince rescues the helpless princess; they all live happily ever after, the end. But nobody lives happily ever after in Game of Thrones.

Much like a fairytale, there are plenty of recognisable male tropes: warriors, lotharios, noble heroes. Game of Thrones is a story of rich and powerful patriarchs raising sons to be rightful heirs and trading their daughters in political power-plays. Boys are judged on their ability to swing a sword or work a trade, criticised for showing weakness, and taught to grow up hard and cold. Doesn’t sound unfamiliar, does it? Masculinity is praised in Westerosi society, as it is in our own.

But instead of championing macho ideals, GoT presents a wide range of fully developed male characters who are vulnerable, have real problems and vices, and are not tall, dark, handsome or at all “chiselled.”

My favourite of these is Samwell Tarly, played by John Bradley. I love Sam. He is so much the opposite of any sort of hero stereotype: he’s a fat, pink-faced coward who’s terrified of, well – most things. He’s not strong, he hates fighting, and he’s painfully shy around girls. He just isn’t “masculine” in the traditional sense of the word. But it’s Sam who first kills a White Walker with Dragon Glass. Since then, we haven’t seem him miraculously transformed into a warrior – because he isn’t and doesn’t want to be one – but when the White Walkers finally get to the wall, he might’ve actually saved the day.

Sam finds his courage defending Gilly and Baby Sam against a White Walker.

Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) is another of my favourite unexpected heroes. He’s probably one of the best-loved characters on the show and, as a dwarf, could easily have had a loveable underdog story. But he’s not an underdog. Tyrion is an arrogant drunk who visits a lot of brothels. And he’s more than capable of being as cruel and calculating as the other Lannisters (just ask Maester Pycelle). On the other hand, he’s done noble things, like respecting Sansa’s wishes about consummating their marriage. He once slapped Joffrey in the face. Tyrion hasn’t become an all-around good guy or a complete “baddie” because his life has been hard, and we never have to feel sorry for or pity him – yeah, we’re on his side, but he’s not perfect and that makes him real.

“Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you. “ – Tyrion Lannister

Then there’s Gwendoline Christie as Brienne of Tarth. I know we were talking about men, but I really couldn’t write an article on masculinity and not mention Brienne could I? I think Brienne might just be my idol. On the surface, she is the typical “Joan of Arc” character: a tall woman in men’s armour, hair cut short, stony faced and over-sincere. Brienne refuses to be outwardly feminine – not just because it isn’t in her nature, but because she’s got too much to prove to show anything that could be considered “weakness.” But even then, she’s not a caricature. Brienne loved Renly Baratheon, so much so that she was willing to die for him – albeit not in a helpless way but in a dies-in-bloody-battle kind of way. She doesn’t want to be anybody’s little wife, but she’s not afraid to feel. Like many of the male characters, she seems to be driven by a strong sense of pride and duty, but for Brienne that’s about doing what’s right – not gaining power or status as her male counterparts have been conditioned to do.

Just Brienne being her usual badass self.

It’s a difficult world to navigate for women. In contrast to Brienne, Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) uses her sexuality to get what she wants. Olenna and Margaery Tyrell (Diana Rigg, Natalie Dormer) work together, using a combination of Olenna’s wisdom and Margaery’s beauty as their weapon, to secure a future for their House. The women of Westeros live all their lives controlled by men – they use any tool available to take some of that power back.

“Tears aren’t a woman’s only weapon, the best one’s between your legs.” – Cersei Lannister

The more I’ve written about masculinity here, the more I could have written about. I feel like I could have done a whole article’s-worth of writing on each of the characters I’ve mentioned and more. I think that’s a testament to the overwhelmingly varied range of diverse and complex characters to be found in the show and books.

George R. R. Martin has presented us a patriarchy that’s falling apart, with men too wrapped up in their power struggles and wars to notice the impending threat of White Walkers, and the arrival of winter. Over the course of writing, I realised how many of the stereotypically masculine characters are now dead, while the thinkers and the “weaker” characters live:

King Robert Baratheon: warrior, womaniser, drunkard – suffered an “unfortunate hunting accident”
Ned Stark: noble Northman – had his head cut off,
Robb Stark: hero and “King in the North” – slaughtered at his wedding feast,
Stannis Baratheon: cold-hearted and dutiful “rightful King” – has (presumably) had his comeuppance at the hands of Brienne,
Khal Drogo: Dothraki warrior – cursed,
Jon Snow: (I know! I know! Sorry!); hero and dutiful Commander of the Night’s Watch – ambushed and stabbed to death (?) by his Brothers at the Wall,
Tywin Lannister: ruthless, formidable patriarch – shot with a crossbow on the toilet (by Tyrion, no less),
King Joffrey Baratheon: cruel, spoilt boy-king – poisoned on his wedding day.

It seems that, in Game of Thrones, being “manly” might get you glory, but it might also get you killed. Valar Morghulis, after all.

Jess Sanders is a 22-year-old feminist and writer from “The North” (otherwise known as Yorkshire, England). She can be found tweeting excitedly or angrily at @jsssndrs.

‘Jupiter Ascending’: Female-centric Fantasy That’s Not Quite Feminist

So yes, ‘Jupiter Ascending’ provides women and girls the “you’re secretly the most important person in the solar system” narrative that is so often granted to cishet white men, the demographic who already are treated as the most important people by virtue of the kyriarchy. What’s missing, however, is the part where Jupiter taps into her secret set of special skills.

Poster for 'Jupiter Ascending' — Poster for ‘Jupiter Ascending’

If you’re not on Tumblr, you might have entirely missed the existence of The Wachowskis’ space opera Jupiter Ascending. Bumped from last summer to a mercy-kill February release, it was panned by critics and ignored by audiences. Save the fannishly inclined, largely female Tumblr users who happen to populate my dashboard, who completely lost their minds over this movie. I blinked and missed its momentary theatrical release and had to wait for it on video to find out if it met the subculture hype. And I am here to report that Jupiter Ascending is a delightful cheesy sci-fi flick, if you’re into that sort of thing. And while it isn’t a feminist triumph in the way that Mad Max: Fury Road is (and even that movie’s feminism has been called into question), Jupiter Ascending is unusually suited to a female viewership, which is sadly still rather revolutionary, particularly for a genre flick.

Why does this spaceship look like a fancy mechanical fish? Why doesn't yours!? — Why does this spaceship look like a fancy mechanical fish? Why doesn’t yours!?

Gavia Baker-Whitlaw’s Daily Dot piece “Why Women Love Jupiter Ascending“ notes that its story “is the precise gender-flipped equivalent of all those movies where some weak-chinned rando turns out to be the Chosen One” usually with a hyper-competent and hot “Strong Female Character” acting as his guide through his Newly Discovered Destiny. In Jupiter Ascending, Mila Kunis’s Jupiter Jones is a mild-mannered housecleaner who discovers she is actually solar system royalty after Genetically Engineered Space Werewolf Channing Tatum rescues her from an alien attack. Jupiter finds that she is at the center of a war between three royal Jovian siblings (yes I just had to look up the demonym for Jupiter I love my life) who all seek to control Earth and its seven billion harvestable humans so they can rejuvenate their youth by bathing in Soylent Green Espom Salts. She has a claim to Earth because she is the reincarnation of their mother and is also immune to bee stings. Or something. (The intricacies of the plot are not important, I only recount them here because they amuse me.)

Bees don't sting solar system royalty for some reason. — Bees don’t sting solar system royalty for some reason.

So yes, Jupiter Ascending provides women and girls the “you’re secretly the most important person in the solar system” narrative that is so often granted to cishet white men, the demographic who already are treated as the most important people by virtue of the kyriarchy (you really need to be MORE important, cishet white dudes?). What’s missing, however, is the part where Jupiter taps into her secret set of special skills, as we see with our once-mundane male Chosen Ones from The Matrix‘s Neo to The Lego Movie‘s Emmett to Wanted‘s Whatever-James-McAvoy’s-character-was-named. She never eclipses the badassness of her Trinity-equivalent, the aforementioned Genetically-Engineered Space Werewolf, Caine Wise (one of the great joys of the film is when people call him “Wise” while he’s doing foolishly reckless things. I’m not sure if that was intentional). Caine needs to rescue Jupiter throughout the film; his preferred style of rescue is to give her a piggyback ride while he zooms around on his gravity-defying space rollerblades. If all these absurd details haven’t convinced you to watch this movie yet, I’m not sure what will. When she’s on her own, Jupiter’s “action” is largely about contract law.

Jupiter gets a lot of piggyback rides from Caine

Because Jupiter’s secret importance doesn’t come with previously untapped hyper-competence or the unique importance of her particular abilities, it is simply a royal birthright. She’s more along the lines of The Princess Diaries‘ Mia Thermopolis than Neo. And women aren’t really wanting for “you are actually a princess!” narratives. There are 30-odd Disney movies about that. Jupiter Ascending isn’t a power fantasy, it is a wish-fulfillment fantasy.

Women already have "you're really a princess!" stories — Women already have “you’re really a princess!” stories

But it is still a fantasy for women in a big-budget sci fi movie, which is incredibly rare. Is that why Jupiter Ascending flopped at the box office, or at least why the studio lost confidence in it as a potential summer release? I suspect it has more to do with the current difficulty selling big movies without source material. If even the Wachowskis’ own Matrix trilogy (which provided the very namesake of Tasha Robinson’s Trinity Syndrome) couldn’t bring in a new era of original sci-fi blockbusters (the only two I can think of are Avatar and Pacific Rim), the failure of Jupiter Ascending seems foretold. So hopefully studios will focus on Jupiter Ascending‘s lack of source material rather than its female protagonist when they try to avoid making other movies that meet its fate. Then again, only basing movies on properties that already exist will perpetuate male-dominated stories. So we’re kinda screwed either way, which isn’t an unfamiliar position for feminist film fans.

Eddie Redmayne as Balem Abrasax (that's the kind of character name you get with 'Jupiter Ascending') — Eddie Redmayne as Balem Abrasax (that’s the kind of character name you get with *Jupiter Ascending*)

Jupiter Ascending might go on to be a cult classic, and if you like bizarre scifi you should help it get there. I didn’t even get into Academy Award Winner Eddie Redmayne’s astonishingly campy performance as Balem Abrasax, who prefers the cape-but-no-shirt look and only speaks in whispers and screams (in the alternate universe where Jupiter Ascending was released in Summer 2014, Michael Keaton gazes lovingly upon his Best Actor Oscar). While Jupiter Ascending deserves accolades for providing female-centric fantasy, it doesn’t go the distance to become a truly feminist film (it is certainly nine or ten notches below Mad Max: Fury Road, which doesn’t even meet the bar for some people). But while I can’t recommend Jupiter Ascending as a feminist film, I do recommend it as a fun film. They can’t all have Furiosa.

Robin Hitchcock is a Pittsburgh-based writer who sadly has been stung by bees.

Evil-Lyn: Fantasy’s Underrated Icon

A character with few rivals and even fewer scruples, Evil-Lyn was arguably one of the better developed villains in the show. And in the annals of females from sci-fi/fantasy, her name should be spoken of in the same breath as Wonder Woman and Princess Leia.

This guest post by Robert Aldrich appears as part of our theme week on Unlikable Women.

The female antagonist has historically been an underwritten, under-explored, and often under-appreciated role in fiction. Going back throughout history, the female villain has almost invariably been seen as more novelty than respected foe, more a token deviation from the norm than anything worthy of real development. The trend started in the modern era with Irene Adler testing her mettle against Sherlock Holmes in the short story “A Scandal in Bohemia,” though by the time comics and sci-fi/fantasy had come into their own, most heroes had their “token women opponents.” Going further, we can find a few sparse and rare examples, such as Milady de Winter from Alexander Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, Morgan LeFay in the Arthurian Legend, all the way perhaps to Delilah in the Biblical story of Sampson.

While literature was at times more progressive, television and movies still depicted the female antagonist as one who relies on guile and lies (and maybe sex appeal depending on the writers and the era), but rarely if ever are they seen as comparable adversaries. From James Bond to the A-Team, from Flash Gordon to the sword-and-sandal epics of the 1950s into the 1980s, most female antagonists were evil queens or villainous witches who send forth minions to do their work. They were bosses or femme fatales who enacted complex schemes but who faltered when confronted directly with the hero. This is often because no matter how powerful they may appear to be socially, their actual might is negligible. And moreover, they tend to disappear as randomly as they appeared, providing a single-story novelty of the woman-villain, or the feminine agent who only seemed to exist to facilitate the plans of their male superiors.

Then came Evil-Lyn.

Joke all you want about the corniness of 1983’s He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon series (and there’s plenty to joke about), but the show’s writers created a wholly underappreciated female icon in Evil-Lyn, the self-titled Sorceress of Darkness. A character with few rivals and even fewer scruples, Evil-Lyn was arguably one of the better developed villains in the show. And in the annals of females from sci-fi/fantasy, her name should be spoken of in the same breath as Wonder Woman and Princess Leia.

The world of He-Man is one of classical pulp fantasy. Science and high technology co-exist on a world that is full of marvels that defy comprehension (and sometimes reason). Benevolent monarchs, feudal societies, and creatures of more varieties than can be imagined, all make up the foundations of daily life. It’s here on Eternia, a world at the center of the universe, that cosmic forces are personified as colorful individuals or encapsulated in simple objects such as rods, gems, staves, and swords.

Over the course of the show, we’re introduced to a menagerie of dynamic characters like He-Man, Skeletor, Orko, as well as many other fan favorites. Among the many characters are three prominent females: the Sorceress (a pseudo-deity who sees over the forces of good), Teela (Captain of the Royal Guard and sidekick to He-Man), and Evil-Lyn. Initially conceived as a counterpart to Teela in the action figure toy line (because this was the 1980s and of course there was a toy line), Evil-Lyn would almost immediately transcend that balancing role and become something different, something outside the hierarchy of power and roles found in most traditional fantasy stories.

Probably the most distinctive element of Evil-Lyn was her thirst for power, which was terrifying considering the power she already commanded. Evil-Lyn’s magical might was matched by very few (principally only Skeletor himself, the show’s primary villain, and the Sorceress of Grayskull). Outside of those two key and central figures, Evil-Lyn had few if any peers.

Also fundamental to her character, as well as underscoring her magical prowess, is that Evil-Lyn never demonstrated any combat prowess. While not unheard of for female characters in traditionally male-targeted shows, she stands out in a show like He-Man because everybody is a master combatant. The aforementioned Teela is the Captain of the Royal Guard and debateably as capable a fighter as He-Man. The Sorceress, from whom pretty much all the powers of good derive their might, gets involved in many a battle (often in the form of a great falcon known as Zoar). Even He-Man’s own mother, Queen Marlena, is actually a combat pilot (Lt. Marlena Glenn, and reputedly one of Earth’s first female astronauts). Every woman in this show was capable of throwing down, except Evil-Lyn.

This isn’t a short-coming on her part, however. It’s a testament. In a world where physical might and combat prowess are universally required, that she doesn’t have (or certainly never demonstrates) the requisite skills speaks volumes to the intelligence, cunning, and magical might that she does command. Unlike the “evil witches” in other fantasy stories, however, Evil-Lyn doesn’t rely on henchmen or artifacts to work her will. She is shown throughout the run of the show to have little need for henchmen or intermediary agents, nor does she often rely on magical amulets or great artifacts. Even her oft-present orb staff appears to be more trinket than necessity. Her magic is her own and she has more than enough for almost any need.

While Evil-Lyn is powerful, she is also ambitious. Her role as Skeletor’s aide is on the promise that he will grant her greater power (or that she will take his when the opportunity presents itself). Beyond working with Skeletor, Evil-Lyn works with anyone else she chooses, more than occasionally executing her own schemes independent of Skeletor’s plans or ambitions, loaning out her skills and knowledge to other malevolent forces in the pursuit of greater power.

The 1987 live-action movie deviated somewhat from the depiction of Evil-Lyn, but only in downplaying the verbose demeanor she showed in the cartoon and replaced it with a colder and harsher, otherworldly presence. Played by Meg Foster, Evil-Lyn showed fewer magical powers and less boisterous personality, but she lost none of her critical role to Skeletor. Indeed, we see instances where he confides that his success in conquering Eternia and holding the people is due almost solely to her, while there are hints of perhaps more than a partnership (maybe even romance?) at play between the two.

Almost two decades after the first series aired, He-Man would be rebooted for the 2002 animated series. This series would develop Evil-Lyn even further as well as more firmly establish her as more than mere henchman to Skeletor. She undermines Skeletor’s plans by aligning with other factions (namely Kobra Khan and the Snake Men), all in the pursuit of power. In the wake of this betrayal, we learn that Skeletor and she once were partners before he was turned into the deformed warrior-wizard we all know today.

Looking at Evil-Lyn as a character, she was almost without peer. Never before in pop culture – especially children’s entertainment – had a female character been so unmitgatingly evil, so self-serving, and yet so powerful. In the He-Man franchise, she is one of the great powers of the world, whom no one dares underestimate. She has no minions, and has no need for any. She is no diabolical queen, sitting scheming atop a throne, and hiding behind others. She is a mercenary who does what she wishes and goes where she pleases.

Robert V Aldrich is a novelist and speaker based out of North Carolina. His most recent book, Rhest for the Wicked, is now available, and he publishes a blog and serials at his website, TeachTheSky.com. You can follow him there, or on Twitter @rvaldrich.

‘The Boxtrolls’: Better Than Its “Man in a Dress” Jokes

In a nice contrast to many children’s films and books, the character at the start who goes against the mob is a girl, Lord Portley-Rind’s daughter, Winnie (voiced by Elle Fanning in a mid-Atlantic accent passing as British). Although Winnie, in her pink ruffled dress and blonde ringlets might look like other storybook heroines, her fits over never being believed or taken seriously by adults and her morbid fascination with the boxtrolls make her more like Daria than Alice in Wonderland. When she asks another character if boxtrolls ate his parents, she adds, “Did they let you, I mean, make you, watch?”

Written by Ren Jender as part of our theme week on the Academy Awards.

Critics are loath to say out loud that well-made (and even some not-so-well-made) films, like the rest of pop culture, influence us in every way–fashion, language, and politics. But the proof that critics understand the political power of film comes to light in indirect ways: critics aren’t giving much publicity to the racist but groundbreaking and, in its day, critically acclaimed film, The Birth of a Nation in this, the year that marks a full century since its premiere. And since a North Carolina man shot, execution style, his Muslim, charity-minded neighbors (and a rash of anti-Muslim actions have followed) the (mostly male) cadre of critics who previously were singing the praises of American Sniper, a film that depicts Muslims as perfectly appropriate, shoot ’em up targets, stopped doing so.

Deciding what to write about The Boxtrolls (directed by Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi), a film I enjoyed on many levels but which contains some destructively retrograde messages–mixed in with its mostly progressive ones–was difficult. I should make clear that I’m not usually an eager consumer of entertainment designed for children. I don’t have kids of my own and although I liked the one Harry Potter book I’ve read I never felt the need to read the others. But The Boxtrolls is beautiful to look at (and comes from LAIKA, the same folks who gave us Coraline)–stop-motion animation set in a steam-punk version of 19th century England. With a great deal of economy (the clever script by Irena Brignull, Phil Dale, Adam Pava, and Anthony Stacchi is based on the book, Here Be Monsters! by Alan Snow) the film sets up the premise: boxtrolls, small monster-like creatures who get their name from the cardboard boxes they wear and draw themselves into, turtle-like, at the first sign of danger, scavenge the town streets at night for scraps and goods they can take to their underground lair. Archibald Snatcher (played, magnificently, by Ben Kingsley–it’s the best role he’s had since Sexy Beast; he should play villains more often!) is an opportunistic striver who seeks to elevate his station, first by demonizing the harmless boxtrolls and then capturing all of them, making the streets “safe” for the townspeople and collecting his reward from the town’s ruling elite, headed by Lord Portley-Rind (voiced by Jared Harris) who resembles the king in a deck of cards and has about as much depth.

Winnie’s curiosity about the boxtrolls ends up with her encountering them in their own lair–and meeting Eggs, named after the box he wears, (and voiced by Isaac Hempstead Wright) a human boy adopted by the boxtrolls who doesn’t realize he’s not one of them, though he’s twice their height. After he disavows all the ways he is different from his adopted kin he can’t really argue when Winnie suggests, “Then let’s see you fit in your box.”

WinnieEggsBoxtrollsSmall — Winnie and Eggs

The two work together to try to stop the machinations of Snatcher (whose name, manner and appearance seem to be a tribute to the “child catcher” in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) though as in most films, the boy takes on the main role in vanquishing the villain. In spite of how vivid the animators and Fanning make Winnie, this film does not even come close to passing the Bechdel test. One of the few women characters, Winnie’s mother, is played by the great Toni Collette but she barely gets a line in. And the boxtrolls must reproduce by cloning because we never see one who’s female.

But the huge problem at the center of The Boxtrolls are the scenes when the screenwriters, to show how propaganda can influence the actions of otherwise reasonable people, have Snatcher put on a corset and an evening dress and assume an alter-ego, a red-haired, French chanteuse who sexily sings about killing boxtrolls while she charms all the men in town (who don’t seem to see beyond the wig). I’ve written before about the history of murderous trans* women in film but I was particularly surprised to find this trope–along with the one in which a trans* woman hides her identity and the men who were attracted to her are chagrined once she is outed–in a film that aggressively courts a progressive audience.

Not only is The Boxtrolls full of messages about not dehumanizing those who are “different,” and that adoptive families are just as loving as other families, but it also has kind of an Occupy moment when its boy hero tell others, “Stand up for yourselves. Don’t be afraid anymore.” At the end of the film over the credits we hear “The Boxtrolls Song” an explicitly pro-queer-family anthem by Eric Idle (of Monty Python fame) that includes in its laundry list of different kinds of families those with two Moms or two Dads.

I was sad that this otherwise delightful, humorous (some of Kingley’s lines made me laugh like I haven’t since Obvious Child), anti-capitalist film nominated for a Best Animated Feature Oscar had to pollute itself with “man in a dress” jokes, especially considering that these jokes couldn’t be mere throwaways–stop-motion films take years of painstaking effort to create (which could also explain the “Occupy” theme). I wondered if anyone involved in the film knew that a generation ago, making fun of the rest of the queer community would have been considered acceptable children’s entertainment too.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2dFVnp5K0o” iv_load_policy=”3″]

Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing. besides appearing every week on Bitch Flicks, has also been published in The Toast, RH Reality Check, xoJane and the Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender

Colleen Atwood’s Costumes in Disney’s ‘Into The Woods’

Atwood’s designs are stunning, but they also highlight the discussions of gender roles and racial relationships in America.

Written by Jackson Adler as part of our theme week on the Academy Awards.

Colleen Atwood is an Academy Award nominee for Best Costume Design for Disney’s Into The Woods. In order to represent the hodgepodge of characters, she based their costumes in differing time periods, ranging from Medieval European to 1930’s America. Each costume also has a bit of a modern flair, especially Cinderella and Cinderella’s Prince’s costumes. Atwood’s designs are stunning, but they also highlight the discussions of gender roles and racial relationships in America.

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

The stage play of Into The Woods has feminist moments, with all characters written to be complicated, not just the men and boys. An example of this, as Bitch Flicks’ Katherine Murray has previously covered, is the role of The Witch as multi-faceted. While the Disney film retains many of the feminist moments and aspects from the original stage play, it has made some changes to the story that undermine them. This is representative in some of the costumes. Rapunzel’s costume is wrapped in ribbon and fabric, symbolically showing how Rapunzel feels tied up and trapped by her mother, barely able to breathe freely. While in the Disney adaptation, we see Rapunzel’s unhealthy relationship with her mother, The Witch, we never see the original production’s outcome for Rapunzel. Rapunzel is metaphorically tied up and restricted, but we never see her metaphorically undone and unraveled. Riding off into the distance with her prince does not free Rapunzel in the stage play, as being locked in a tower all her life has, understandably, lasting consequences on her psyche. Rapunzel’s restrictive life with her mother is shown beautifully through her costume, but Disney’s cut of Rapunzel’s ending undermines how telling that costume is of her emotional and psychological well-being.

Colleen Attwood with her costumes for The Witch, Rapunzel, and Little Red. — Colleen Atwood with her costumes for The Witch, Rapunzel, and Little Red.

Rapunzel’s white and pink costume is contrasted beautifully by The Witch’s first costume (black) and her second costume (blue). The Witch’s costumes take up more space than Rapunzel’s, showing the freedom The Witch has to move in the outside world, contrasting with Rapunzel’s captivity. They are also masculinized, as the two princes have the same color scheme – Rapunzel’s Prince in black and Cinderella’s Prince in blue. In order to have influence and power, it is implied by these costumes that The Witch has taken on some masculine and patriarchal qualities. This is evident by her treatment and dress of Rapunzel, wanting to keep her daughter soft, sweet, and subservient. Atwood has praised Meryl Streep’s use of her costumes, creating a collaboration between actor and costume designer in telling the story. In her song “Stay With Me,” The Witch switches back and forth between patriarchal abuse and maternal love, with Streep physicalizing this by standing above Rapunzel and yelling at her, to sitting next to Rapunzel and embracing her. When The Witch regains her former beauty, her costume takes up more space and Streep stands taller, symbolically showing the confidence that The Witch has gained from her beauty. However, though she looks younger and more conventionally beautiful, she has unwittingly lost her magic powers and her ability to defeat Rapunzel’s Prince. Streep’s performance combined with her costumes show how The Witch attempts to form her own identity and destiny amidst conflicting messages of how to be a powerful and successful woman in a sexist and patriarchal world. That The Witch is punished by Disney’s ending of her story, symbolically being sucked into Hell, is problematic, as it seems to eternally condemn her for attempting to be a powerful woman.

Cinderella's Stepmother, with Lucinda and Florinda. — Cinderella’s Stepmother, with Lucinda and Florinda.

This is echoed in the color scheme for Cinderella’s Stepmother, and her stepsisters Florinda and Lucinda. The Stepmother and her daughters are in black and gold, while Cinderella wears gold when she attends the ball. This codes gold as representative of female glamour, while black is representative of women adopting patriarchal actions. Interestingly, Florinda and Lucinda are physically punished (their eyes are picked out by birds), but The Stepmother is not. Cinderella’s Father is cut from the Disney film, and it is in the stage play that we see that Cinderella’s Father is alcoholic and severely neglectful of his daughter. The storyline of Cinderella’s family can be interpreted in two different ways. Was Cinderella’s Father driven to drunken ineffectiveness by a cruel and greedy second wife? Or was it Cinderella’s Father’s drunken ineffectiveness that made The Stepmother take control of and be the head of the family because someone had to? We know that Cinderella’s Mother was incredibly kind, and that she died. Perhaps it was the death of his beloved wife that lead Cinderella’s Father to drink, and The Stepmother is merely trying to survive in a patriarchal world. What else would lead her to do something so drastic as to mutilate the feet of her daughters in an attempt to marry them off to a prince – someone with money who will financially take care of the family? Florinda and Lucinda are punished, perhaps, for not standing up to their mother and treating Cinderella kindly and as an equal, while The Stepmother isn’t blamed, since her cruelty was merely a misguided attempt to achieve security for herself and her family. Cinderella never wears black or blue, and she ends up rejecting her prince’s patriarchy. At the end of the story, Cinderella works closely with The Baker, someone who fits in with her color scheme of earth tones (though still wears a bit of blue), and who earlier learned that “it takes two” (meaning equality) to have a healthy relationship.

Cinderella and The Baker's Wife. — Cinderella and The Baker’s Wife.

The Baker’s Wife wears many different colors, with her main costume being mostly red, with a fair amount of blue, gold, and black. Atwood and Emily Blunt thought it important that The Baker’s Wife’s resourcefulness should be shown in her costume, and that it was made up of “whatever she could find.” The Baker’s Wife is a working class woman struggling to get by, who argues with her husband, who wants a child, and who also wants a fulfilling sex life. Her song “Moments in the Woods” debates the question of can women have it all? And should they? She has red for passion and sexual desire, blue and black for masculine traits that she adopts to get by, and gold because she would like a bit of glamour in her life. Disney arguably punishes her lust by making her a fallen woman via having her fall to her death from a cliff.

Red and blue are also the color scheme for Little Red Riding Hood, whose storyline with The Wolf is reminiscent of sexual assault. Little Red is more assertive than most of the other female characters, and her dress is blue and has puffed sleeves, and, in these ways, is similar to The Witch’s second costume. We never hear of Little Red’s male family members whether in the stage musical or the film adaptation. It is therefore implied that Little Red is raised solely by her mother (whom we never see) and her grandmother. With her black hair, blue dress, and cape of red, Little Red is an empowered and sexual woman in the making, guided by independent women. The Wolf is in black and blue, with a red boutonniere. When Little Red is hesitant about trusting The Wolf, he points her towards some (in the Disney film) blue and phallic looking flowers for her to gather – seemingly supporting her masculine independence. By taking Grandmother’s place in bed and wearing her clothes in order to attack Little Red, The Wolf is seemingly sensitive and more maternalistic – something he hopes will be attractive to Little Red. Though Little Red is wary, The Wolf deceives Little Red long enough to take her off guard and attack her, reminiscent of date rape.

While the color scheme of The Wolf’s costume works well in telling the story, the design itself is incredibly problematic. As I have written before, The Wolf’s costume is a zoot suit, which has a rich racial history in The United States. In the 1930’s and 40’s, the zoot suit was a symbol of power among young people of color, and it was criminalized by the white populace and media. The Wolf wearing a zoot suit and attacking a white girl in Into The Woods is reminiscent of a white actor in blackface attacking a white woman in the controversial and highly racist Birth of a Nation. That Depp, Atwood, and director Rob Marshall all thought it was a good idea for the costume to be a zoot suit is upsetting to say the least.

As especially evidenced by the zoot suit, Atwood’s costumes are not all period appropriate to Medieval Germany. Many of them are similar to the neo-Medieval styles of British television series Merlin and Robin Hood, and the American series Reign. Merlin and Robin Hood have ethnic diversity, and Reign is (mostly) feminist. Into The Woods’ modernity highlights how relevant its feminist moments from the stage play are to contemporary audiences. However, Into The Woods has very little ethnic diversity. Even in a more period-appropriate adaptation, Into The Woods could have characters who are people of color, as centuries of trade, colonization, and war had brought diversity to Medieval Europe. While there are PoC extras in the film, as both peasants and royalty, any character with a line or a lyric is White. By Atwood making the costumes in varying time periods, with both contemporary and fantastical elements, it highlights that this is a story and a world in which anything goes – from talking wolves, to giants, to magic beans. However, evidently for Disney, the casting of people of color was too much.

Colleen Atwood’s costumes both contribute to the story of Into The Woods and, indirectly and directly, point out Disney’s flaws in the telling of it. Her costumes beautifully support the theme of gender roles in the story, and if it wasn’t for putting Johnny Depp in a zoot suit, I might support the idea of her winning an Oscar for her work on the film. Either way, I hope Hollywood does a lot of self-reflecting in regard to how it does and does not address gender and race.

Child-Eating Parents in ‘Into the Woods’ and Every Children’s Story Ever

Your dad is an ogre or giant, your mom is a witch, and both of them want to kill you. Welcome to your fairy tale life.

Written by Katherine Murray.

Your dad is an ogre or giant, your mom is a witch, and both of them want to kill you. Welcome to your fairy tale life.

If you’ve ever read a fairy tale before, the idea that mother figures end up being witches is not exactly news. Young, beautiful, kind, and loving parents (mothers, especially) are usually MIA or KIA before the action starts, and the child heroes instead interact with angry, powerful fantasy characters who are about the same age their parents would be, and fill some of the same roles their parents would fill, but also want to murder them in shocking and terrible ways.

The clearest example of this is probably Hansel and Gretel, where parents eat their own children through the proxy of a witch, but it’s a theme that repeats itself in children’s literature.

Disney’s adaptation of Into the Woods contains a smorgasbord of missing parents, one of whom is replaced by a bone-crushing giant, and one of whom is replaced by a witch. The giant comes into play during the movie’s riff on Jack and the Beanstalk, where fatherless Jack meets an oedipal complex a “big tall terrible lady giant” who behaves toward him as a mother would before her husband tries to eat Jack for lunch (as recapped in this song). The witch is a more developed character, and a better example of what Into the Woods has to offer as an adult-oriented fairy tale.

The witch, who isn’t ever named, plays a role in multiple plot lines, but her origin is in Rapunzel. After catching her neighbour trying to make off with her vegetables, she curses him and locks his daughter in a tower, raising the girl as her own. From there, the story progresses in the usual way – Rapunzel meets a prince; the witch becomes jealous and attacks them; Rapunzel is reunited with her prince and leaves the witch behind forever.

Some of the commentary on Into the Woods (both the movie and the pre-Disney musical) has painted the relationship between Rapunzel and the witch as one about parents struggling to let go of their children and wanting to shelter them from the dangers of the world. James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim even introduce the witch’s signature song, “Stay with Me” as a touching song about family relationships that’s supposed to show us a gentler side of the witch.

And, while it’s true that “Stay with Me” presents the witch as an emotionally complex person, it also presents her as a pretty shitty parent. If you listen to the whole thing, including how the scene begins and ends, she’s emotionally manipulative, self-centred, prone to sudden fits of anger, and unreasonably punitive.

Kind of like Rapunzel’s witch mom in that other Disney movie.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the dynamic in Into the Woods influenced Tangled in some way.

Tangled is a lot less nuanced in its presentation – the witch in Tangled is purely self-interested and doesn’t show any signs of genuine affection for Rapunzel. In this version of the story, Rapunzel unknowingly has the power to rejuvenate people, and the witch wants her to stay in the tower and act as a personal fountain of youth. As part of her plan to keep Rapunzel under control, she systematically destroys Rapunzel’s confidence and self-esteem, convincing her that she’s so ugly, helpless, and stupid that she’d never survive on her own, and no one else would want her.

The turning point in the story comes when Rapunzel, who’s been raised by an abusive parent her entire life, without anything else to compare it to, realizes that her witch mother doesn’t really love her, and that she deserves to be part of a family that treats her with kindness and respect.

Into the Woods, which is intended for an audience of adults, is more layered. It’s clear that the witch feels more than one way about Rapunzel. It’s not a case where she’s just lying when she says she loves her daughter, but she displays a selfish, greedy kind of love that turns Rapunzel into an object whose feelings and needs aren’t important.

In the movie, their story arc ends when Rapunzel rides into the woods with her prince, vowing never to see the witch again. The second act of the musical, on stage, is much more explicit in showing us the long-term fallout of Rapunzel’s awful childhood – even though things are all right for her now, she can’t ever be happy because of the way she was raised. It’s an experience that’s going to haunt her forever.

Treating your children as things you own that exist to make you happy – and treating them as things that are defective, when they don’t make you happy – is an abusive form of parenting that more than one witch mother seems to exhibit.

Other Mother, the villain of Coraline, doesn’t have a pointy hat and a broom, but she’s a supernatural creature with magic powers who stands in for Coraline’s real mother in much of the movie.

In this case, the swap is more literal. Coraline, feeling temporarily neglected by her parents, finds a door behind the wallpaper in her house, leading to a world where everything is way more fun an interesting. The Other world is a copy of the world Coraline lives in, where everything revolves around her, and where she is (initially) welcomed by an alternate version of her mother, who’s far more attentive, warm and happy. The only thing Coraline has to do to stay in the world where everything’s awesome and great all the time is let Other Mother carve out her eyes.

When Coraline asserts herself by politely refusing to do that, Other Mother turns into a monster who rages at Coraline for disappointing her, kidnaps Coraline’s real parents, and tries to trap Coraline in the Other world forever. We then learn that Other Mother controls everyone else in the Other world, punishing them if they don’t seem happy enough, and forbidding them to talk to each other when she’s not there.

When Coraline asks why Other Mother is so determined to keep her in the Other world, one of the other characters explains that she wants something to love that isn’t her – or, possibly, “She’d just love something to eat.”

The story resolves when Coraline escapes from Other Mother, and realizes that her parents, although they’re not perfect, genuinely love her, care about her feelings and well-being, and, unlike Other Mother, would never hurt her on purpose. The smothering, overly-attentive “love” that Other Mother initially displays for Coraline is really a greedy, hungry desire for something to trap and control. Love doesn’t mean giving someone everything you have so as to buy the right to keep them.

In most children’s stories, the substitution of witch for mom or giant for dad is a safe way of exploring children’s fears about their parents. Children need their parents to take care of them, which leaves them at their parents’ mercy; even good parents sometimes express sides of themselves that their children find frightening or confusing – stories where children are mistreated or endangered by mother and father figures who aren’t literally their parents provide a way to confront the fear of mistreatment or endangerment while also providing a safety net that says, “Your real mom and dad aren’t like this.” In other words, it’s too awful to think that your mother is evil, so she becomes two people – one that’s nice (and dead or gone) and one that’s really mean.

Because Other Mother looks and sounds just like Coraline’s real mother, the association between nice mom and mean mom is more obvious in Coraline, but the distance between Coraline’s actual mother and the monster behind the wallpaper is clear. One is a reasonable human being and one is an imposter.

Spirited Away, a Japanese film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, offers a more nuanced reading of the switch between nice mom and mean mom, with the witch grandmother Yubaba. Yubaba is murderous and terrifying, but is occasionally replaced by her kindly “twin sister” who invites the movie’s heroine to call her “grandma” and likes to make people tea and knit sweaters. In general terms, Miyazaki’s films seem comfortable with the idea that people aren’t all one way – that there are many, sometimes contradictory sides to our personalities, that are expressed at different times. By the end of Spirited Away, it’s strongly implied that Yubaba and her “sister” are actually the same person, each expressing different aspects of who she is.

The typical witch substitution removes all the negative aspects from mom, and sends them out into the world as a monster that can be defeated. It’s rare to find a mother figure who’s capable of both kindness and cruelty, and rarer still to find one who is predominantly cruel, without being wicked all the way through.

Where Other Mother and the witch from Tangled are pure evil wearing the mask of friendship, the witch from Into the Woods is the rare example of a mother figure who’s mostly bad, with occasional moments of goodness. That fits the story’s more mature approach to fairy tales, and its overarching message that right and wrong and good and bad are not as clear as children’s books would make them seem.

If the child-eaters of children’s stories are monsters, the ones in real life are more likely to be like the witch in Into the Woods: emotionally-immature adults with poor boundaries, who see their children as things that belong to them, like lamps and cars. They can be nice sometimes. They can elicit pity. They can express vulnerable emotions, and they can share common experiences with parents who are mostly good. They honestly do want something to love, but they’d also love something to eat.

We’re so used to seeing negative human qualities externalized into monsters, that’s it’s still surprising when a character is both monstrous and recognizably human. In a story that’s about adulthood, and coming to understand yourself and the world more clearly, the crucial move Into the Woods makes is in allowing Rapunzel’s witch mother to be her “real” mother – the only one she’ll ever know. The childhood projections of nice mom and mean mom collapse into one single person, and the thought that was too terrible to entertain in childhood – that maybe your mom is a witch – becomes real, layered and deepened through the knowledge that witches can also be people.

Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies and TV on her blog.

‘Mannequin’: A Dummy’s Guide to True and Everlasting Love

By any regular standards, even the 1980s, ‘Mannequin’ is a TERRIBLE movie. It never should have been green lit, let alone hit wide release. It’s often lumped in with other Brat Pack pics, thanks to the presence of Andrew McCarthy and James Spader, but it really should be categorized separately, as a romcom gone wrong. Showroom dummies that come to life after hours should be the stuff of horror movies, or episodes of ‘Doctor Who,’ not fluffy fantasies starring a nearly naked Kim Cattrall. John Hughes wouldn’t have touched this material with a ten-foot pole.

This guest post by Karina Wilson appears as part of our theme week on The Brat Pack.

By any regular standards, even the 1980s, Mannequin is a TERRIBLE movie. It never should have been green lit, let alone hit wide release. It’s often lumped in with other Brat Pack pics, thanks to the presence of Andrew McCarthy and James Spader, but it really should be categorized separately, as a romcom gone wrong. Showroom dummies that come to life after hours should be the stuff of horror movies, or episodes of Doctor Who, not fluffy fantasies starring a nearly naked Kim Cattrall. John Hughes wouldn’t have touched this material with a ten-foot pole.

It’s hard to believe the filmmakers ever thought audiences would fall for the outrageous plot. An Ancient Egyptian princess, Emmy (Kim Cattrall), escapes arranged marriage to a camel dung salesman by disappearing in a puff of smoke and reincarnating as a showroom dummy in 1987 Philadelphia, where she finds true love with the career-challenged Jonathan (Andrew McCarthy) inside a glittering retail palace (Wanamaker’s, now Macy’s Center City). She exploits the well-documented Philadelphian obsession with classy department store window displays to turn Jonathan’s life around, defeat the bad guys, and [SPOILER ALERT] get married (in a climactic window display!) and live happily ever after.

Critics, understandably, hated it. Roger Ebert thought it was, quite literally, DOA (“Mannequin is dead. The wake lasts 1 1/2 hours, and then we can leave the theater”). Janet Maslin in the New York Times lamented the lack of substance (“In place of a real story, there is just the spectacle of stock characters being put through their paces to fill up the time”) and lousy performances (“It’s never a disappointment when the mannequin, which comes to life only intermittently, turns back into wood”). Leonard Maltin called it “absolute rock-bottom fare. Dispiriting to anyone who remembers what movie comedy ought to be.” Yet it was a hit – grossing more than $42 million off a $6 million budget – and was nominated for an Academy Award – for Starship’s theme song, “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.”

I willingly confess to loving Mannequin. It’s so wrong, it’s absolutely right. It’s a big, tatty rescue pooch who plants her paws on your chest and gives you a slobbery kiss of a movie: certain people, dog people, Mannequin people, can’t help but be charmed. Even now, watching it as a hard-bitten 40-something, it invokes my inner impressionable teen.

I adore the unromantic hero, Jonathan Switcher, because he manages to be simultaneously weird and endearing. There’s something a bit off kilter from the top: when we first meet him, he’s salivating over a naked clothes dummy. He exudes every which way of warning signal, from the pronounced doll fetish to the Frankenstein complex to the social ineptitude. When the dummy-making gig doesn’t work out, he is hired and quickly fired from a succession of menial occupations, which consequently causes him to be dumped by his improbably put-together girlfriend, Roxie (Carole Davis). Poor Jonathan would drown instantly if forced to dive into the perilous depths of the 2014 dating pool. However, this was the 1980s, when you could splash about in the shallow end and still qualify as Kim Cattrall’s dream date. On the plus side, Jonathan rides a Harley, lives in a sweet studio apartment (obviously comes from money, yay 1980s!), and he’s Andrew McCarthy. Andrew fucking McCarthy. Be still, my perpetual adolescent heart.

For those of you who don’t recall, Andrew McCarthy was the Beta Male of the Brat Pack. He wasn’t as beautiful as Rob Lowe, or as badass as Judd Nelson, or as peppy as Robert Downey Jr., but you’d take him over Anthony Michael Hall or Jon Cryer any day. He had a burning blue stare, a voice that dropped to a creaky growl when – as often happened – his character was wracked with emotion, and a lift to his chin suggesting a stubborn streak a mile wide. He was cool enough to pop his collar and run with the in-crowd, but he was also sensitive enough to be an individual, even (shock!) an artist, and follow his dream. He was the Nice Guy before the term became so ridiculously devalued. He was the boy who might, quite unexpectedly, offer to walk you home after prom turned to tears, and then turn misery and humiliation into the most enchanted evening of your life through the power of his goofy grin and kind eyes. I loved him then and I love him still.

He’s wasted in Mannequin. He does his best with the material, and manages to make Jonathan geeky and adorable, a whisper away from quietly insane: in lesser hands, the guy would be plain creepy. McCarthy makes it halfway believable that Emmy, who has had her pick of hot dates (Christopher Columbus!) throughout history, might finally settle for the lowest status employee in the store. And Cattrall keeps up Emmy’s end of the deal, regarding Jonathan as a feline would a toy stuffed with catnip – with unadulterated delight. She bats him between her paws, chews on him gently, and, when the montage is done, curls up beside him and goes to sleep. Girl clearly likes to dominate, and there’s a coy whiff of BDSM about some of their dress-up-and-play. What else are they going to do with those tennis racquets other than spank each other’s ass?

In a cute subversion of romcom norms, then, Emmy is the Alpha Female who picks out the Nice Beta Male early on in the narrative and seduces him with a plastic smile. She has been dating for millennia. When she sees it, she knows exactly what she wants – and it ain’t the traditional alpha hero. Jonathan and Emmy are perfect for one another from the moment they lay eyes on one another. There’s no need for a makeover montage. This is due to bad storytelling rather than feminist innovation, but it’s so refreshingly unusual, it works. She’s content to dazzle, he’s content to be awed – and when required, he saves her life. We should all aspire to such a Mr. Right.

The writers, Michael Gottlieb and Edward Rugoff, manage to throw a few obstacles in the happy couple’s way (the course of true love never did run smooth) in the form of manic supporting characters. Forget three-dimensional, thinking, feeling, human beings – crass stereotypes abound. There’s flamboyant, gay, black, promiscuous Hollywood (Meshach Taylor), the set designer who takes Jonathan under his sateen wing. Estelle Getty pops up as the store’s owner, Claire Timkin. G.W. Bailey reprises his Police Academy shtick as Felix, the bumbling security guard – Cattrall was a fellow alumni, best known for her sex kitten turns in Porky’s and Police Academy at this point, so he must have felt at home. And there’s the villainous Richards, James Spader abandoning his usual sexy-husky bad-boy turn in favor of playing a rival storeowner with cartoonish slicked-back hair and outsize spectacles. None of it makes much sense. But somehow Jonathan and Emmy win and Richards and Roxie lose and the finale is all “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” most triumphant good.

That’s all, folks. Mannequin is fun, but wafer-thin. Although considered a cult classic, it has zero cultural significance, especially when compared to the canon Brat Pack hits that defined a generation. It’s a vapid Technicolor fantasy that, by being so poorly conceived and written, accidentally manages to subvert all the other Pygmalion stories. Flimsy as she is, Emmy is the romantic heroine who doesn’t have to be reshaped or reinvent herself in order to deserve her adoring swain. All she needs is for us to believe she’s real.

Karina Wilson is a British writer and story consultant based in Los Angeles. She writes a regular column on horror fiction at Litreactor and can also be found at Horror Film History.

Lack of Diversity in Hollywood Blockbusters is “Staggering”

Examining the top 100 domestic grossing sci-fi and fantasy movies as reported by Box Office Mojo, the study finds that only 14 percent of the movies feature a female protagonist and only 8 percent feature a protagonist of color.

This is a guest post from LEE & LOW BOOKS.

As moviegoers flock to theaters this weekend to see Lucy and Guardians of the Galaxy, a new study released by children’s book publisher LEE & LOW BOOKS illuminates the dramatic lack of diversity in top-grossing Hollywood blockbusters in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Examining the top 100 domestic grossing sci-fi and fantasy movies as reported by Box Office Mojo, the study finds that only 14 percent of the movies feature a female protagonist and only 8 percent feature a protagonist of color.

The study also finds that no movies on the list feature a woman of color as the protagonist; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender protagonists are likewise absent. Only one movie (Avatar) features a protagonist with a disability. Perhaps most surprising, the study reports that only two actors of color have appeared in lead roles: Will Smith, who plays six out of the eight protagonists of color, and Keanu Reeves (The Matrix Reloaded). The last protagonist of color is Aladdin, a cartoon character voiced by a white actor.

“The statistics are certainly striking, especially since sci-fi and fantasy belong to a genre that prides itself on creativity and imagination,” says Marissa Lee, co-founder of the international grassroots organization Racebending.com, which is dedicated to furthering equal opportunities in Hollywood and beyond. “Hollywood has managed to market some weird stuff, like a tentpole movie about talking teenage turtle martial artists, or cars that change into space robots. I don’t buy that when it comes to marketing diverse leads, suddenly this giant industry can’t do it.”

Imran Siddiquee, director of communications at The Representation Project, a movement that uses film and media content to expose injustices created by gender stereotypes, says Hollywood blockbusters are rarely accidental. “Just look at the top ten films in each of the last five years: nearly every single one had a budget of more than $100 million,” Siddiquee says. “Meanwhile, there hasn’t been a single film released this year starring a person of color with a budget of more than $50 million.”

For more than 20 years, LEE & LOW BOOKS has published award-winning children’s books that are “about everyone, for everyone” (including science fiction and fantasy under the Tu Books imprint). The company is committed to fostering conversations about race, gender, and diversity in publishing and beyond. For more information, visit leeandlow.com.