Fantasy – Page 7 – Bitch Flicks

Miyazaki Month: Howl’s Moving Castle

Howl’s Moving Castle travelling through the mountains

The next film featured in my “Miyazaki Month” retrospective is Howl’s Moving Castle. It was the successor to Spirited Away, which was supposed to be Miyazaki’s Swan Song, but then again so was Princess Mononoke. Dude’s never going to retire, and that’s just fine. It didn’t repeat Spirited Away’s success at the Oscars (losing to Curse of the Were-Rabbit) but is still a fan favourite. It’s also one of his few films to be an adaptation (Ponyo’s retelling of The Little Mermaid being the other one) though it doesn’t even try to be faithful. I have read the original book by Diana Wynne Jones, but it’s been a few years (Yes, I promise to re-read it soon). I do know for sure that the war subplot was definitely not in the novel. TV Tropes says that Miyazaki was incredibly upset by the US invasion of Iraq (as any sensible person would be) so he wove that into his adaptation. Environmentalism isn’t a theme this time (beyond lavish depictions of nature, but that’s a Ghibli thing) but pacifism and feminism make a reappearance.

So far, the English dub script is the most accurate of the three films I’ve reviewed. I suspect this is because this film is an adaptation of a Western novel and, as such, includes a Western understanding of Fantasy Tropes rather than Japanese. Far less localization would be required in adapting the script. No Captain Obvious lines this time, thank goodness. There were a few line changes I took notice of, however. In the Japanese version, Sophie says that she hired herself as a cleaning lady. In the dub, however, she says that Calcifer hired her because he couldn’t stand how messy the castle was. Not really sure why the change was necessary here. Another change irked me a little. When Howl is telling Sophie about his past with the Witch of the Waste, in Japanese, he says, “She seemed quite interesting, so I approached her. But she terrified me, and I ran away.” In English, he says, “She was once quite beautiful, so I decided to pursue her. But I realized she wasn’t, so, as usual, I ran away.” The Witch is extremely overweight, but until her powers are stripped by Suliman, she’s clearly still beautiful. This script change reinforces the bullshit that fat women are automatically no longer beautiful.

Spirited Away’s English cast is still better than this film’s. I honestly really do not like the casting of Christian Bale as Howl. I’ve never liked his Batman voice, and that’s honestly all I can hear here. And really, for a character who is a flamboyant, foppish pretty-boy, they chose Christian Bale? Still, at least he had prior experience as a voice actor for Disney. Jean Simmons and Emily Mortimer are fine as Old and Young Sophie. Though it’s a little distracting that Sophie is the only one with a British accent here. And as a fan of old movies, I loved being able to hear Lauren Bacall’s husky voice again. As for Billy Crystal, well, I think they just gave him a basic translation of the Japanese script and told him to go nuts. Calcifer’s dialogue diverges from the original script the most, and definitely has an improvisational air to it. But I don’t mind, since his performance makes the movie. (He also had prior Disney voice acting experience.)

If I had one big complaint to make about this film, it’s that the 3rd act is a MESS. It’s taken me several re-watchings of the film to make heads or tails of it, because there is just way too much going on and very little is explained. This is a problem that is in a lot of Miyazaki films, but it’s particularly bad here. I believe the film’s ending diverges almost completely from the book’s, too. The really mindbending thing is that the film contains a causal loop. Sophie travels to Howl’s past via the black portal on the door, and witnesses him making the bargain with Calcifer. No reason is given for him to make this decision. She’s able to manipulate the events of the past rather than just watching them, and says that she knows now how to save both of them, and asks for him to find her in the future. And the first thing he ever said to her was, “I was looking everywhere for you.” But it is not explained how the black portal can travel to the past. And it is the black portal that Howl exits through when he’s out sabotaging the bombers. So…what exactly does that black portal DO? Was Sophie only allowed to go to the past because she was desperately trying to find a way to help Howl? This stuff still confuses me 10 years later. I know that showing rather than telling is an important filmmaking principle, but there’s a limit here.

Sophie can no longer put up with Howl’s vanity, saying she has never once been beautiful

Sophie is another wonderful Miyazaki female protagonist. Like the others, she has agency, and drives forward her own story. Howl’s name may be in the title, but he’s a secondary protagonist to her. Her character arc is centred around her low self-esteem, and is a commentary on how women are pitted against each other in the interest of attracting men. She’s shy and relatively plain compared to her glamorous mother and sister, so she dresses dowdy and keeps telling herself that she’s not beautiful (even though anyone who sees her would disagree). The Witch of the Waste, who desires to possess Howl’s heart, is jealous of Sophie (and presumably any woman that gets mixed up with Howl), so she casts a curse to make Sophie become a 90 year old woman. We could probably divine some Freudian implications here – The Witch removed her rival by taking her fertility away. The properties of the curse are another thing that aren’t really explained in this film. As the story progresses, Sophie gradually becomes younger (usually appearing 60ish rather than 90ish), but in times when she shows confidence, reverts back to her true age. Her hair even reverts to its original colour when she’s asleep, suggesting that she has to be conscious of the spell for it to work. The explanation given on TV Tropes which makes the most sense to me is that she is unknowingly recasting the spell on herself every time she puts herself down, and that it actually broke long before. Thematically, it seems that this film is arguing that age is in many ways a social construct, and that you only sabotage yourself when you put yourself down. But I can certainly sympathize with Sophie. Lord knows I’ve been there.

Although I find the ending convoluted, I enjoyed watching Sophie save the day. Howl only has his double-edged sword magic to rely on, whereas she has a quick wit that she didn’t recognize in herself until she became old. It wasn’t until there was no reason to doubt herself anymore that she started gaining confidence. Much of her actions are because of her love for Howl, but she does not have a slavish single-minded devotion to him. Instead, her love makes her want to stand up for him, and to want to care for the others in their “family.” She even forgives The Witch and uses affection to persuade her to give Howl’s heart back to him. Only weeks before, she was enjoying The Witch’s struggles to climb the palace steps. It shows how far both of them have come. And I liked that two people who originally considered each other romantic rivals could find an understanding and an affection for each other as family. How often does that happen?

The Witch of the Waste’s powers are stripped away by Suliman

Speaking of The Witch of the Waste, I’m still not sure how I feel about her character. I wonder how necessary it was to make her grotesquely fat (admittedly, I don’t remember if she was overweight or not in the novel). She’s clearly the kind of fat person who never moves around at all (she doesn’t even walk if she doesn’t have to), but I am getting very tired of depictions of fat people that make us out to be as lazy as possible. It’s inferred that her outward appearance is a reflection of the ugliness inside of her, but again, is that kind of inference really necessary? It was also kind of sadistic that Madame Suliman forced her to climb up an enormous amount of stairs in order to debase the Witch and make her physically weak. Still, I do like that once again in a Miyazaki film, here’s a supposed villain with some moral ambiguities. She’s clearly not completely to blame for her predicament, or for her greed for Howl’s heart, as she, too, gave up her heart to a demon. And once she’s depowered, she’s a sweet, senile old lady – this is who she really is inside.

Madame Suliman appears to be the real villain of this story. She allows the King to be a blustering, warmongering fool. She entices The Witch of the Waste into coming to the Palace with a promise that her powers will be respected at last, and instead springs a trap that removes The Witch’s powers (brushing it off as a punishment for The Witch’s selfishness). And she sends a royal invite to Howl under both of his pseudonyms, knowing that he cannot refuse and that both of them are him. She even plans to blackmail Howl into fighting for the Empire, or she will depower him just like she did to The Witch. Suliman is a total tyrant, and yet she gets away with it at the end because she’s planning to stop the war. Bit of an anticlimax there, but then again, there was already too much going on in the 3rd act. I wish I knew more about her, especially her time as Howl’s teacher. Surely some of the “War is bad!” stuff could have been dropped for a little more character development for her. (I’m already sympathetic to that message, after all.)

Howl presents to Sophie a beautiful field filled with ponds and wildflowers

I sound like I dislike this film more than I do. I really do love the fairy tale story, Sophie and Calcifer’s characters, and the trademark sumptuous visuals. I love the steampunkiness of the setting (which appears to be Victorian Germany). I love that this is a fairy tale where the heroine is the one who drives the story forward, and makes everything all right in the end. I remember reading some bullcrap from the screenwriter of Oz: The Great and Powerful complaining that there aren’t enough fairy tales with men as the heroes. (Yes, really.) If he’d seen this film, maybe he’d finally understand just how rare heroines like Sophie are. What I love, most of all, is this film’s approach to the issue of self-esteem of women. Miyazaki understands very well just how hard it is for us to be confident in a world that is constantly telling us that we’re inferior. And that we have to find the confidence within ourselves – being told we’re beautiful isn’t enough, we have to believe it.

Myrna Waldron is a feminist writer/blogger with a particular emphasis on all things nerdy. She lives in Toronto and has studied English and Film at York University. Myrna has a particular interest in the animation medium, having written extensively on American, Canadian and Japanese animation. She also has a passion for Sci-Fi & Fantasy literature, pop culture literature such as cartoons/comics, and the gaming subculture. She maintains a personal collection of blog posts, rants, essays and musings at The Soapboxing Geek, and tweets with reckless pottymouthed abandon at @SoapboxingGeek.

Miyazaki Month: Spirited Away

Written by Myrna Waldron.

Haku and Chihiro walk through a floral maze

Spirited Away has a deserved reputation as Hayao Miyazaki’s Magnum Opus, and even managed to outgross Princess Mononoke at the Japanese box office. It’s also, to this date, the only traditionally animated non-Western animated feature to win the Best Animated Feature Oscar. Which really should be called the Pixar Award For Distinguished Achievement At Being Pixar. I have trouble believing that the film is 12 years old, because it feels like it was released only yesterday. I slightly prefer Princess Mononoke, but Spirited Away is just as much a masterpiece as Miyazaki’s other works.

And, of course, it’s feminist too.

The English dub is not as accurate as Princess Mononoke’s was. It’s still very well done, but there was a lot more ad-libbing, extra dialogue, and some slight fiddling around with plot points. The Captain Obvious problem happens again with some of Chihiro’s dialogue, (“Haku! You’re bleeding!”) and they have her talk about Haku a lot more often than she does in the original script. The other characters often make allusions to The Power of Love that weren’t there in the original. Zeniba even says that her curse on Haku was broken by Chihiro’s love for him, though I think this change was added not so much to push the romance angle but to make the whole situation with Zeniba a little clearer. …Not that it helped much. I prefer the casting of voice actors in this film, as there aren’t any gratuitous celebrity voice actors this time. Of the main cast, the most well-known name is the late Suzanne Pleschette, and she would only be familiar to Baby Boomers for the most part. Even then, she and almost all of the others had previous experience as voice actors for Disney. And yes, Disney, you get a cookie for casting Daveigh Chase (who was fantastic as Lilo) instead of one of the Fannings. One other thing I have to commend the English dub for is that hilarious song about No-Face that John Ratzenberger ad-libbed for his character. Definite improvement over the original, which was already a very funny scene. I don’t know why the English dub team decided to go back to doing celebrity voice actors for future Ghibli releases, especially ones that are destined to immediately date the film like a Cyrus sister and a Jonas brother would.

Chihiro is the type of little girl heroine I wish I had when I was younger. Hayao Miyazaki has said that he specifically designed her to be average, relatable, likeable, and non-sexualized. He has also said how much he resents that a hero can be unattractive, but a heroine must always be cute. Chihiro really does look, act and feel like a real Japanese child, not a fantasy of what one “should” be. Her story has been compared to Alice in Wonderland, which I can sorta see (little girl is trapped in a dreamlike world where people are needlessly hostile to her and not much makes sense). One thing I really love about how Chihiro is depicted in this movie is all the little touches that make her feel real. When she puts on her shoes, she taps her toes on the floor to make sure the shoe is on properly as she walks off. Something that we normally don’t even think about, our tiniest little unconscious habits, Hayao Miyazaki has thought of, and added to the depiction of his heroine.

As mentioned before, one of Miyazaki’s favourite themes is environmentalism, and it plays a role in the plot in two instances. First, Chihiro proves herself to Yubaba and the other workers by successfully “curing” the Stink God that was actually the spirit of a severely polluted river. The “Stink God”’s appearance is a pretty heavy condemnation of how disgusting pollution is. The characters make it clear with their expressions that the bathhouse guest is the worst thing they have ever smelled in their lives. Its very presence rots the furniture. It’s actually pretty hard not to feel grossed out during that scene, and again at the end when Chihiro and the others pull the enormous pile of garbage out of the river spirit. This scene gives a strong visual consequence of pollution, and by adding a spiritual element to it, gives another reason for sympathy. Environmentalism is referenced again when Haku turns out to be the spirit of the Kohaku River. Chihiro had fallen in the river when she was very small, and he had saved her. She tells him that the river was drained and built over, which is why Haku forgot his name and identity and entered his life of servitude to Yubaba. A major character’s life was ruined by a lack of reverence for nature.

Chihiro and Haku remember how they know each other

I am appreciative that once again, romance is not the most important “goal” of the story, but what is most important is to just to show Chihiro’s maturing (though I do think the English dub pushed the “power of love” angle a bit too much). And really, I honestly feel uncomfortable thinking of Chihiro and Haku’s relationship as romantic. The characters mention that Chihiro loves him, but it’s a very shortsighted person who immediately concludes that the only definition of love between non-related people has to be romantic. She’s a little girl, he’s an immortal dragon spirit. There’s no way their relationship (if there even is one) can work – they’re better off as friends, just like Ashitaka and San. And really, who’s to say that Chihiro isn’t the type of person who just loves everyone? She’s shown to be a kind and generous person, and she even shows some degree of affection towards Yubaba.

It is fitting that the beginning of the film is about Chihiro and her family moving to a new home, as the major theme of the film is transition and change. Chihiro is just at the cusp of puberty – that awkward, rather unpleasant time where you are rapidly leaving childhood and you’re not sure what’s going to happen next. She starts out petulant and sullen as she hates having to leave her friends behind. And right from the beginning, we see how negligent and foolish her parents are, as they let Chihiro roll around in the backseat without a seatbelt (and her father drives around like a maniac!). It’s too late for her parents to learn anything, so Chihiro has to step up and be the responsible one. She has her moments of weakness, especially near the beginning when she repeatedly breaks down and cries, but this is a reasonable reaction for her. I’m (supposedly) an adult, and I’m not so sure I wouldn’t panic if I were in her situation. It’s very striking when Chihiro shows maturity – she remembers her manners again, she works hard without complaint, and she shows that she has a great intuitive ability. This is very deliberate, I suspect. Just like Chihiro’s parents, we often make the mistake of dismissing a child entirely because they’re a child. And little girls in particular seem to be dismissed and underestimated the most. Look at the crappy toys they get. “Here, honey, this is a plastic iron and ironing board so you can play at doing work! And here’s a doll that talks about nothing but shopping!” Miyazaki has given us a heroine that shows us just how strong and capable children can be – intellectually, emotionally, and physically.

The other characters go through a character arc of maturity and change as well, and likely as a result of meeting Chihiro. Haku starts off ambiguously – he confusingly shows great kindness and yet great coldness to Chihiro at the same time. But when he regains his name, and regains his freedom, his cold eyes become warm and affectionate. He starts off as a kind of saviour or guardian to Chihiro, which she repays by being a kind of saviour to him. Rin, the spirit that Chihiro assists in the bathhouse, very quickly goes from contempt to kindness as she gets to know Chihiro. Her third helper, Kamaji, starts off gruffly, but quickly goes well out of his way to help her, such as pretending that she’s his granddaughter, and even giving her train tickets that he had been saving for 40 years. These three characters who serve as her helpers all have one thing in common – they make a complete arc from rejecting Chihiro to totally embracing her.

Chihiro passes by a mysterious stone statue

The twin sorceresses, Yubaba and Zeniba, also go through a character transition. Yubaba is apparently the villain of the story, as she steals Chihiro’s name and forces her to work for her parents’ freedom. And yet she is not entirely evil, (there’s that trademark Miyazaki moral ambiguity again) as she clearly loves her baby Boh, and even keeps her word to release Chihiro’s contract if she passes her test. She’s not a nice lady by any means, but when the story ends she doesn’t seem nearly as horrible as she did at the beginning. Boh himself goes through a fairly quick maturation, as he starts off as a coddled shut-in paranoid about germs, and ends up happily assisting Chihiro, and both figuratively and literally stands up to his mother. Zeniba… I have a little more trouble understanding. When we first see her, she’s clearly trying to kill Haku for stealing her golden seal. She also physically transforms all the creatures in Yubaba’s room, which seems to be a punishment against her sister. At that point, she is not only physically identical to Yubaba, but identical in personality as well. So it is pretty jarring for her to be suddenly sweet and grandmotherly to Chihiro when they meet. She’s still kind of brusque, but definitely a complete transformation from her introduction. I’ve never entirely been able to figure it out. There’s a theory that Yubaba and Zeniba are two halves of the same person (which is hinted at when Chihiro calls both of them “Granny”), which sort of gives an explanation…but it’s hard to wrap my mind around.

The whole movie is kind of a mind screw, really, and I don’t think that’s entirely because I’m mostly unfamiliar with Japanese mythology. When I finished rewatching it yesterday, I had more questions than answers. I cannot take credit for this observation, but my mind was blown when it was pointed out how different the entrance to the tunnel was at the beginning and the end of the film. At the end, the red paint has worn off. The tunnel has been covered in ivy. The cobblestones are covered with grass. The foliage is thicker. And the little stone statue has been eroded by weather. Chihiro’s father points out that there are leaves all over the car, and dust inside it. But just how long were they trapped inside the spirit world? It seemed like less than a week to Chihiro’s perspective, but it has obviously been much longer than that. All of those changes from beginning to end suggest that they were in there for decades. Time and space clearly have no meaning there (for one thing, the day/night schedule is flipped), because why would it matter to something immortal and immaterial? But then the horror hit me. What happened when they arrived at their new home? At the very least, this family has been missing for a week. Pretty heavy implications there.

I have other questions too, not just about the period of time and ambiguity of Zeniba’s character. Is Boh actually Yubaba’s baby? How long has he been a baby? What do the bathhouse workers actually look like (their humanoid appearance is obviously not natural)? What will happen to Haku, since the river that he represents is gone? Did cleaning the polluted river spirit actually clean the river itself? Were Chihiro’s parents genuinely being gluttonous, or were they enchanted to act that way? How did it become nighttime so quickly after Chihiro’s family crossed into the spirit world in broad daylight? Were Chihiro’s family the only humans who stumbled into the spirit world, or have there been others? (The tunnel’s not all that well hidden, after all!) But the fact that I want all these answers tells me that this is the mark of a film with rich world-building, and a film that shows rather than tells. When I woke up this morning, I thought I didn’t have as much to say about Spirited Away. And yet, here I am babbling for 2100 words. That’s the sign of a film that is special.

In ‘Game of Thrones’ the Mother of Dragons Is Taking Down the Patriarchy

While many women orchestrate machinations behind the scenes, no woman is openly a leader, boldly challenging patriarchy to rule. Except for one. Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen.

Emilia Clarke as Daenerys in Game of Thrones

Written by Megan Kearns for our Infertility, Miscarriage and Infant Loss Week. | Warning: Spoilers ahead!

When I first wrote about Game of Thrones two years ago, I wrote about its vacillation between showcasing strong, intelligent female characters and its sexist objectification and misogynistic rape culture.

I received an exorbitant amount of comments on my criticism of the show — even though I simultaneously lauded its brilliant acting and interesting characters and dialogue. Some told me I didn’t understand anything about the show. Others told me to wait, just wait as it would get better. While the show suffers serious problems, particularly in its sexposition and depiction of graphic female nudity, as the show has progressed, it has indeed become more and more feminist.

We witness more of the women expressing their disdain for their lot in life due to their gender. We see women buck gender norms (Arya, Brienne, Yara Greyjoy) and we see women scheme to surreptitiously assert their power (Margaery Tyrell, Cersei Lannister, Olenna Redwyne) or even just to better their lot in life (Shae, Ros, Sansa).

While many women orchestrate machinations behind the scenes, no woman is openly a leader, boldly challenging patriarchy to rule. Except for one. Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen.

When I first wrote about Dany (Emilia Clarke), I was captivated by her. She drew me in immediately and became my favorite character. I loved watching her transformation from meek and timid, bullied by her creepy brother Viserys, to a powerful yet kind-hearted Khaleesi (Queen). Each episode she grows more bold and assertive. Yet she continually strives to be fair and just. Watching her growth has been the most enjoyable aspect of the series.

Daenerys marries Khal Drogo in an arranged marriage in order to secure Viserys, rightful heir to the Iron Throne after the murder of their father the king, an army so he can claim the throne. Viserys uses Dany, telling her he would have all 40,000 Dothraki rape her if it garnered him an army. Nice guy.

After a rapey wedding night (Sorrynotsorry, fans. It is), Daenerys and Drogo eventually form a bond and fall in love with one another. (I know, I know, but bare with me). Dany grows more confident and assertive both with her sexuality and her authoritativeness in giving the khalasar (clan or tribe) commands. Months later, when Viserys hits her, she hits him back and tells him if he strikes her again, she will have his hands cut off.

When Dany becomes pregnant with a son, she eventually convinces her husband to cross the sea, something the Dothraki fear, in order to claim the Iron Throne and rule. Both Daenerys and Drogo believe their son Rhaego will be the heir to the throne, calling him the “Stallion Who Mounts the World,” because according to a Dothraki prophecy he will be a great khal (king) of khals, uniting the Dothraki as one khalasar (clan or tribe) and conquer the world.

Game of Thrones

After Khal Drogo’s khalasar conquer a village, Daenerys — growing more confident and outspoken — prevents the men from raping the enslaved women. When challenged by her husband, she boldly defends her decision, trying to advocate for the women’s rights. Rather than crediting his wife’s penchant for advocacy, Drogo tells her she grows fierce as their son grows in her womb, “filling her with fire.”

But after her husband has a wound, Mirri Maz Duur an enslaved shaman whose life Dany spares, treats his injury. Yet he falls deathly ill. Mirri tells Dany how to save him, by using blood magic, something forbidden by the Dothraki. Dany follows her instructions. Yet she goes into labor and passes out. When Dany awakens, her advisor Jorah tells her that her son was born dead and deformed with scales. She’s been “rewarded” by having Drogo a shell of his former self in a catatonic state. When Dany confronts the shaman, asking when she will be reunited with her husband, Mirri replies:

“When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before.”

Mirri’s spell took the life of Daenerys’ unborn son as revenge for the Dothraki attack on her village. Also inherent is an infertility curse, that Dany will not have any of her own children. She loses the lives of both her husband and her unborn child.

With nothing left to lose, Daenerys resolves to make a bold and drastic decision which showcases her resolve and empowerment. As Angela Smith wrote on bereaved mothers at Bitch Flicks:

“It’s not uncommon for women to feel empowered to make drastic changes after losing a child. They may, understandably, become far less tolerant of others due to the realization nobody at all can break them down any further than they’ve already been broken.”

Dany has one of her Khalasaar place 3 dragon eggs she was given as a wedding present on the pyre. As the fire burns, she steps into the flames, despite the protestations of Jorah. In the morning, a new day has dawned. Dany emerges from the ashes unharmed, and the eggs have hatched with the 3 dragons perched on her body.

Daenerys becomes the Mother of Dragons

But now that she has lost her son, Daenerys decides she will take the Iron Throne herself and rule the Seven Kingdoms. After all the men in her life — her husband, son and brother — have died, she claims the throne for her own.

Dany becomes the metaphorical phoenix rising from the ashes, purging the last vestiges of her former timidity to transition into her life as a powerful leader.

At the end of season one, I’ll admit I worried that her magical powers were somehow explaining away her awesomeness. But now I see that no, it’s merely to highlight the importance of her role in Game of Thrones — as a woman leader challenging sexism.

Daenerys is continually called the Mother of Dragons, spoken with awe and reverence. In many cases, women are allowed to lead or be ruthless as lioness mothers. And while Dany lost her son, and she may be cursed with infertility by Mirri, she still remains a mother figure. She envisions herself as the mother to her 3 dragons. In the second season’s episode “Prince of Winterfell,” Dany’s dragons are kidnapped in the city of Qarth. When Jorah tells her to abandon them, that they are not her children, and escape, Dany replies:

“A mother does not flee without her children…They are my children, and they are the only children I will everhave.”

Daenerys risks her life to save her dragons, and they save her life and free her when she’s captured as well. The mysterious masked woman Quaithe tells Jorah that “dragons are fire made flesh…and fire is power.” Daenerys has given birth to power. Power contains a duality – it can subjugate and torment or it can crush oppression and yield justice.

Speaking with confident assuredness, Daenerys tells those that doubt her:

“When my dragons are grown, we will take back what was stolen from me and destroy those who have wronged me! We will lay waste to armies and burn cities to the ground!…I will take what is mine, with fire and blood!”

In season 3, after having survived the treacheries in the city of Qarth, Daenerys looks to procure an army in the city of Astapor in order to take the Iron Throne. Despite her steeliness, she has not lost her kindness. She tries to give water to a dying slave. She doesn’t hide her horror and disgust during negotiations when she hears that murdering a newborn in front of the infant’s mother is a component of the training for the highly skilled slave warriors, the Unsullied. To her advisors, she expresses her unease over buying slaves for an army. She doesn’t want the “blood of innocents” on her hands.

Daenerys with advisors Ser Jorah Mormont and Ser Barristan Selmy

In last week’s episode “And Now His Watch Is Ended,” Game of Thrones turned a corner in perhaps the most feminist episode of the series.

Daenerys makes a trade for all 8,000 Unsullied warriors, appearing as if she’s going to give up her dragon Drogon to make the exchange. But it’s all a ruse. When the brutal slaver Kraznys — who has insulted Dany with sexist, slut-shaming insults, erroneously thinking she didn’t understand the Valeryian language — is irritated that her dragon doesn’t obey him, she retorts that of course he doesn’t, “a dragon is a not a slave.” Dany then orders the Unsullied, now in her command, to murder the slavers and break the chains off the slaves. She frees the enslaved warriors, asking them to fight for her as free men. Daenerys then drops the whip equating ownership of the slaves. In essence, she drops the symbolic weapon of tyranny and oppression, heralding rebellion.

If there was ever any question, Daenerys is clearly here to dismantle the patriarchy.

Not only is she a woman leader, her very existence challenging the status quo. But Daenerys openly questions and challenges patriarchal norms. She refuses to abide by societal gender limitations mandating men must rule. She’s determined to forge a different path. Rather than follow in the footsteps of leaders embodying toxic masculinity, she’s determined to rule through respect, kindness and fairness — not through intimidation or fear. Daenerys refuses to enslave people. She wants to emancipate them.

The Mother of Dragons cares for the dragons as if they were her own babies. Could it be that Daenerys will become the archetypal mother of humanity? Perhaps. She’s wielding justice, crushing oppression and protecting the weak. Yet it is the loss of her son that enables Daenerys to envision herself in the role of leader. No longer is she supporting a man to be a great leader. She has become that leader.

The princess has become a queen.

Dany being a badass. Boom.

No, ‘Oz the Great and Powerful,’ We Don’t Need More Male-Centric Fairy Tales

Written by Megan Kearns.

After seeing Oz the Great and Powerful, I was annoyed. And angry.

Everything in the film revolves around one dude: James Franco as Oscar Diggs aka Oz. Bleh. It’s a patriarchal dream come true.

Women in the film fawn over Oz, swoon over him, make googly eyes at him, get enraged by him and arguably wreck their lives because of him. Glinda (Michelle Williams), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Theodora (Mila Kunis) all repeat throughout the film that Oz is there to save them. Even after Glinda who’s wise to his shenanigans, knows he’s not really a wizard, she still perpetuates the façade that he’s a savior, the one person who will bring the land salvation. Oz literally puts a female character, the broken China Girl, back together. Oz catalyzes Theodora’s destructive transformation from naïve and sweet, albeit with a quick temper, to heartless and wicked. Oh and of course we get women pitted against each other. Just for funsies.

The film is boring and vapid. The tissue-thin characters lack depth, wasting the tremendous talents of Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams and Mila Kunis. Hideous gender stereotypes get tossed around. In her fantastic review, Natalie Wilson points out the film’s many weaknesses, including reinforcing the trope that women are wicked and erasing the feminism of the books.

One of the reasons that made Wicked and The Wizard of Ozso special — they focus on the women for a change. As Bitch Flicks writer Myrna Waldron astutely points out, the Oz series boasts powerful women in leadership roles. The women aren’t princesses (aside from Princess Ozma in the books of course). The women are either “ordinary” or witches, dismantling the “all witches are evil” trope. The women in Oz lead, give advice, scheme, make decisions on their own, go on journeys, forge friendships. They may work cooperatively with men but they don’t sit around and wait for men to save them.

So how did this happen? How did a female-centric, feminist series devolve into male pandering? It comes down to an aspect of the film’s production that to the best of my knowledge I haven’t seen anyone else raise: the need for “a fairy tale with a good strong male protagonist.”

Producer Joe Roth — who didn’t realize The Wizard of Oz was just the first in a series of 14 books, — shares what drew him to develop Oz the Great and Powerful:

“When [screenwriter] Mitchell [Kapner] starts talking about that man behind the curtain and how he got there, this storyline immediately strikes me as a great idea for a movie for a couple of reasons. One was because I love The Wizard of Oz. But this character is only in the last few minutes of that film and we have no idea who he is.

“And the second reason was — during the years that I spent running Walt Disney Studios — I learned about how hard it was to find a fairy tale with a good strong male protagonist. You’ve got your Sleeping Beauties, your Cinderellas and your Alices. But a fairy tale with a male protagonist is very hard to come by. But with the origin story of the Wizard of Oz, here was a fairy tale story with a natural male protagonist. Which is why I knew that this was an idea for a movie that was genuinely worth pursuing.”

So only films with a “natural male protagonist” are worth pursuing? Roth has also produced Alice in Wonderland, Snow White and the Huntsman and the upcoming Angelina Jolie film Maleficent – all female-centric fairy-tale films. So maybe he’s tired of all the ladies. And of course he can personally pursue any story he wants. But to take such an iconic series with a plucky female protagonist, full of complex female characters and a female ruler (Ozma) and then strip it of its female empowerment and nuance all to focus on a dude?? Stop. Just stop.

What’s great about Dorothy is she’s not a princess. She’s a “regular” girl on a quest and an emotional journey, something we too often see men and boys embark on. Now I understand if they didn’t want to rival the Judy Garland classic. But why not film one of the other books in the series? Or why not film the musical Wicked, a story revolving around the bonds of female friendship?

So what about Roth’s assertion, that it’s difficult to find male leads in fairy tale films? Nope, it’s really not that hard. Jack the Giant Slayer, Shrek, Aladdin, Mickey and the Beanstalk, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, The Sword in the Stone, Hercules, hell even Beauty and the Beast all feature male leads in fairy tale films.

As I’ve written before when I wrote about my excitement for Brave, too many children’s films, particularly animated films, don’t feature girls and women in leading roles. “Originally titled Rapunzel, Disney’s Tangled, the most recent animated film featuring a girl, was renamed a gender-neutral title to be less girl-centric. Its marketing didn’t just focus on Rapunzel but featured “bad-boy” thief Flynn Ryder in order to lure a male audience. Male characters dominate animated films.” Wreck-It Ralph, Ice Age, Rango, Kung Fu Panda and aside from Bravethe entire pantheon of Pixar’s films (Toy Story, Up, Wall-E, etc.), put male roles front and center.

As of 2010, “family films exhibited a gender disparity as only 29% of speaking roles belonged to female characters in the top grossing films within the past few years.” Superhero films (Spiderman, Iron Man, Batman, The Avengers aside from Black Widow), and swashbuckling adventures (Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars) — all with huge audiences of children — also feature male protagonists. Most movies for kids are just sexism in training.

In fairy tale films, the female characters we do see are princesses (Brave, Snow White and the Huntsman, The Little Mermaid, The Princess and the Frog, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty). While there’s nothing wrong with having characters as princesses — and with Brave we got a huge step for female empowerment — as a collective they contribute to princess culture. Princess culture typically celebrates female objectification, reifying the stereotype that women’s and girls’ worth should be tied to their beauty. It also perpetuates the pressure of perfection — women and girls must be everything to everyone. And princess culture follows girls into womanhood with wedding obsessions and the fairy tale myth of finding Prince Charming.

In too many films for both children and adults, female characters’ fall into tropes of damsels in distress, femme fatales, and manic pixie dream girls. Their stories often revolve around men, just like in Oz. The women talk about men. They wax about finding love. They yearn to be rescued, looking to men to fix their lives.

With the pervasive lack of female protagonists, media implies that girls and women don’t matter. It teaches girls they should serve as supporting roles in real life, rather than lead themselves. In a film with three powerful sorceresses, the message shouldn’t be that a “good man” can save us all.

So no, we don’t need any more films, fairy-tale or otherwise, revolving around men.

‘Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters’ Trailer

By Erin Fenner

The trailer doesn’t provide the full context for why Gretel (Gemma Arterton), in the upcoming movie Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, headbutts a grumpy fella (Peter Stormare) after he says, “I’m not going to have you telling me what to do.” I really hope the exchange between grumpy guy and Gretel escalates as rapidly as the trailer implies. As in: did she really just headbutt a person for asking not to be bossed around?

Meet Gretel: our strong female character.

Gretel is the sort of gal that will easily turn an absurd macho flick into the sort of film all genders could enjoy, right? She’s beautiful, but oh-so-deadly. Her bad-assed tone of voice and ability to slowly walk away from explosions means she will be more appealing to women than a Bond girl would.

Don’t worry though, gender-norm-sensitive-mainstream, she’s plenty palatable too. Even though she appears alongside her brother throughout most of the trailer – swaggering, punching and weapon-wielding – she still screams at the end of the trailer beckoning for Hansel to save her.

In what has become typical in fantasy/sci-fi action flicks; we are presented with the façade of a strong female character only to be reminded of their passivity and dependence upon their male counterpart.

Because this particular film isn’t out until next week, this characterization of Gretel may be off. She may be consistently strong. She may rescue Hansel. But, we know that we are being sold the movie with those aggravating and too-predictable gender expectations. Studios want to bring people into this movie with a women desperate to be saved, and they lazily present her strength to smooth over the sexist edges.

The Oz Series & The Power of Women

By Myrna Waldron

Oz: The Great and Powerful Poster (Source: firstshowing.net)

Today, I’m going to rant about a film that hasn’t even come out yet. Most of you are probably aware that a prequel to The Wizard of Oz entitled Oz The Great and Powerful will be coming out this spring. James Franco has reunited with the original Spider-Man trilogy’s director Sam Raimi to play Oscar Diggs, the future Wizard of Oz. Those who have seen the 1939 film (and I’d wager just about everyone has) know that The Wizard is a fraud who has been flim-flamming the residents of Oz with illusions, pyrotechnics and some serious fast-talking.

Now, the trailer is beautiful. I thought it was really clever how the journey from Kansas to Oz gradually transitioned from black & white fullscreen to full colour widescreen. (Though if this is a prequel to the 1939 canon that’s a continuity error – The Wizard is from Nebraska, not Kansas) Danny Elfman is likely to deliver a good score. The cast is excellent too – the three Witches are played by Rachel Weisz, Mila Kunis and Michelle Williams, and James Franco amuses me. It’s nice to see him playing something besides the stoner James Dean bit he’s been doing since his Freaks & Geeks days (not counting 127 Hours). The film’s visuals are beautiful, and quite obviously inspired by Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland, which looked great…but was a shitty film.

I’m probably going to see Oz The Great and Powerful since I love fantasy movies and have loved the Oz series all my life…but I’m pissed. And all it took was one line in the trailer:

“Are you the great man we’ve been waiting for?”

Glinda of Oz Novel Cover (Source: Wikipedia)

The Oz series, at least while still written by L. Frank Baum, has always been partly about the power and strength of women. Most significantly, Dorothy Gale, Princess Ozma and the four Witches of the cardinal directions (Glinda especially) are the ones who solve all the problems (obviously not counting the evil ones) and wield all the power. Baum still balances the gender dynamics by having well-written male characters as well. There have been dozens of unofficial sequels (Baum himself wrote 14 Oz books altogether before he died), not even counting revisionist/alternate universe media like Wicked. This film appears to be based on an original story (not one of the novels) and inspired by the 1939 film, and I can tell. The Wicked Witch of the West’s green skin is a dead giveaway, as well as Glinda being blonde and the Witch of the North. In the original novels, the Witch of the West did not have green skin, and Glinda was the redheaded Witch of the South. The 1939 film combined the Witch of the North (who ultimately wasn’t a significant character in the books anyway) and Glinda into one character. Actually, Glinda’s being blonde in this adaptation is telling me that they’re borrowing more than a little bit from Wicked.

Dorothy, Ozma and Glinda serve significant leadership positions in Oz. Princess Ozma is the true hereditary ruler of Oz – her position having been usurped by The Wizard. Glinda is by far the most powerful sorceress in Oz, and both Dorothy and Ozma often defer to her wisdom. Dorothy, of course, is the plucky orphan outsider who combines resourcefulness and bravery. She and Ozma are extremely close best friends – so close, in fact, that many people have done a queer reading of their relationship. It is not just my interpretation of the series that makes it subtextually feminist, L. Frank Baum deliberately wrote it as such. He is the son-in-law of Matilda Gage, a prominent 19th century suffragette. Although the biographic adaptation of Baum’s life, The Dreamer of Oz, painted their relationship as strained and antagonistic (and even implied she was the inspiration for the Witch of the West), he actually deeply admired her for her feminist political beliefs and was directly involved in the women’s suffrage movement as an advocate. Nice attempt at trying to make Gage a Straw Feminist, huh? Dorothy also serves as a memorial to his niece who died in infancy; his wife Maud was so distraught at Dorothy’s death (as she’d always wanted a daughter) Baum named his book’s heroine after her – and it is quite easy to interpret Oz as a symbolic heaven.

Princess Ozma (Source: Wikipedia)

Despite Princess Ozma being one of the most important characters in the entire Oz series, I can only recall two adaptations that even acknowledge she exists (and I’ve seen so many Oz adaptations I can’t remember them all) – cult classic Return To Oz and the 80s anime TV series The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Return To Oz makes her a kind of damsel in distress imprisoned by Princess Mombi, but at least makes the strong friendship between Ozma and Dorothy very clear. The anime TV series has one of the more unusual interpretations of Ozma. As in the original novels, Ozma had been transformed by Mombi (who is a minor witch, not a princess) into a boy named Tip so that no one could ever recognize her. After Glinda reveals who she really is and transforms her back, Ozma remains distinctly tomboyish – suggesting that Ozma’s life as a boy was a lot more absolute than just a physical transformation.

Since Oz The Great and Powerful is a prequel, I doubt they’ll even mention Ozma (never mind Dorothy), especially since they’re apparently going to make Diggs a heroic protagonist. I can’t even put The Wizard’s narrative role into words – he’s not a hero as he’s a fraud and an usurper, but he’s not a villain as he is mostly benevolent. Anti-Villain? I dunno. I don’t want to start talking like a TV Tropes page. What the trailer has implied, however, is that the Witches are going to defer to his authority and apparently prophesied power. What kind of bullshit is that?

Kristen Chenoweth & Idina Menzel in Wicked (Source: last.fm)

If we had to get an Oz prequel adaptation, why did we get this instead of Wicked? Wicked has its flaws, but the musical version echoes the main themes of the original books by making it about a strong friendship between girls/women. What we’ve seemingly got here is a story where three incredibly powerful sorceresses are unable to solve Oz’s problems on their own, and are waiting for a man to save them. A man who is a fraud. Two of the Witches inevitably will become part of the problem – the brunettes in the dark clothing, of course, not the pretty blonde in the pastels. The trailer also suggests that at least one of the Witches (it looks like Mila Kunis) will have a romance with Diggs, cause of course we can’t have women in a story without at least one of them wanting to bang the hero.

I hope the trailer is just being deceptive for marketing purposes. I hope the story isn’t really about powerful women waiting for a man to save them. But I’m not optimistic. The 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz remains one of my favourite movies of all time, and it retains one of Baum’s feminist themes – the women had the power all along. But it’s really distressing me how much this upcoming film relies on the canon of the 1939 adaptation, and doesn’t seem to have considered L. Frank Baum’s novels at all. With fourteen Oz books written by him and dozens of other adaptations/sequels/whatevers out there taking advantage of the Oz series being public domain, why did we need yet another original Oz story? And why, why, why did we need one that heavily implies that three powerful sorceresses need an ordinary man to rescue them? As an Oz series fan…that’s a load of humbug.

‘The Hobbit’: A Totally Expected Bro-Fest

Written by Erin Fenner

Is there enough dude on this poster for you?

Bad Taste, 1987, was Peter Jackson’s first dip into epic nerd movies and his first film. While he may be best known for his specially affected J.R.R. Tolkien interpretations, I personally will always love Jackson for his exploding sheep and (literally) brain-snatchy/gory aliens in Bad Taste. The film is about a group of investigators who discover that a town is being overrun by aliens who are harvesting humans for their fast food franchise. It was extremely low budget – less than $30,000 – and Jackson recruited his friends to play starring roles. Jackson, himself, actually plays two lead characters in the movie. The aesthetic is that of a film school project – rough and cleverly stupid. It’s gruesome; on of the heroes repeatedly squishes his brain back into his skull and keeps it in with a hat and belt.

Its cheeky absurdity fits snugly into a cult/b-movie-lover’s tastes.

But.

But, it has no female characters. The only women in the film are extras – two extras in huge alien suits.

So, in 2012, one quarter-life-crisis after Jackson’s first feature-length film, we saw a pretty similar problem.

The Hobbit is well acted with predictably great special effects, humorous dialogue and a compelling arc.

But.

But, there is only one female character with a speaking part and maybe a couple female hobbit extras who you see behind a frolicking Frodo (Elijah Wood) or Bilbo (Martin Freeman/Ian Holm).

Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) is the only woman with a speaking part in The Hobbit. And really, her role is little more than a cameo. While men are talking, Galadriel elegantly paces around the room – her gauzy dress seemingly slowing her down by the unnecessarily long train. Gandalf (Ian McKellen) steals a word with her to talk about his plan with Bilbo and the dwarves. She supports him and smiles slowly. While I like the unexpected sexual tension between Galadriel and Gandalf – it’s less than gratifying to see a woman plugged into a movie with no purpose other than to be a magical validator.

This lack of lady in the film has not gone unnoticedor uncontested. But, Alyssa Rosenburg with the XX Factorsaid in her piece, “We Don’t Need Women in the Hobbit” that women shouldn’t be included for the sake of equity. Rosenberg writes:

“All-male spaces and social circles existed in the kind of medieval settings Tolkien was commenting on, they exist today, and stories that are set in those environments aren’t uninteresting to me because I’m a woman — in fact, just the reverse. My hope isn’t that they go away, but that intellectually curious men should be able to find stories about femininity, and female spaces, whether they’re fantastical or not, just as fascinating, even if there aren’t male characters in the mix.”

Unfortunately Rosenburg’s argument is just as indolent as Jackson’s move to include only one woman for less than a ten minute scene to balance the dudeness of The Hobbit, an almost three-hour-long movie.

If Jackson was really sticking to the details of Tolkien’s novel for accuracy’s sake then Bilbo would have been fatter and the dwarves all hairy and large-nosed. While Fili (Dean O’Gorman) and Kili (Aidan Turner) were adorable; their delicate five-o-clock shadows did not resemble anything dwarf-like. So, since Jackson Hollywooded this story up anyway, you think he could have included some women’s voices and stories instead of lazily inserting a suspiciously always-glowing Galadriel.

All male spaces exist, but that doesn’t mean that the surrounding non-male space shouldn’t be included – or that the story shouldn’t be updated to stay relevant. And the idea that women ought to expose themselves to more male-only spaces is giggleable. Since infancy girls are exposed to story books, movies and television shows that have few if any female characters. And hey, what about action movies, Westerns, superhero flicks and on and on. While women sneak a peek into these films here and there; they are usually a romantic interest or the object that can sexily swagger.

Women are a small percentage of the roles in Hollywood movies. In 2011 women made up only 33% of all movie characters of the top 100 domestic grossing films, and only 11% of protagonists were women. In the same year women only made up 18%of writers, directors, producers, executive producers, editors and cinematographers of the 250 domestic top grossing films.

We do need to include more women in stories that originally didn’t include women because if we’re not proactive about representing women it won’t happen.

So – even though Jackson’s tantalizing nerdy films are pleasing – more needs to be demanded from them. More women.

The Women of ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’

Written by Myrna Waldron.

Spoiler warning.

People have been asking me for a long time to cover this series, and it’s easy to tell why. A genre-blending young adult animated series, it is by far one of the most inclusive and feminist television series I have ever encountered. Unusually for an American television series, the cast is entirely populated by people of colour; the Four Nations are fantasy versions of Asian (mostly Chinese, Japanese and Tibetan) and Inuit cultures. The male and female characters are given equal attention and developed realistically, and, most miraculously, disabled characters are depicted with tact, understanding and dignity.

As a feminist, it gave me particular pleasure to see a cast full of women with diverse personalities, as well as both emotional and physical strength. The show even directly addresses issues of sexism by allowing its female characters to confront it head-on, and convince their detractors that women are just as capable as men, particularly in reference to physical strength and Bending skill. The series has a lot going for it, but this particular review will focus on the main female characters of A:TLA, Katara, Toph, Azula, Suki, Mai and Ty Lee, and how each character explicitly demonstrates the feminist ideals of skilled abilities, emotional depth, diverse and realistic characterizations, and, as appropriate for a series combining fantasy and martial arts, sheer physical power.

Katara

Katara is introduced at the beginning of the series as the Southern Water Tribe’s last remaining Waterbender, the others having been murdered, kidnapped, or gone off to war. She starts off quite unskilled, as there was no one left to instruct her, but this changes very quickly once she joins Aang on his quest to master the four elements. Like the dual nature of water’s abilities to heal and to harm, Katara is a multifaceted person who in one instance can be motherly and kind, and in another to have a formidably steely determination. She is the most traditionally feminine of the female characters in this series, which often led to her male opponents to underestimate her abilities. Notably, she directly confronts her brother Sokka (who as the eldest male remaining in their village, had a bit of a macho He Man complex) and the Northern Water Tribe’s Waterbending Master’s sexism. Sokka gradually learns for himself to appreciate the skill and determination of women (more on that later) but she must directly prove to Master Pakku her considerable skill. The Northern Water Tribe is a paternalistic society, where only the males are taught to Bend in combat; the women are only allowed to receive instruction in healing. Katara appreciates healing Waterbending (especially since it is a rare gift) but she wishes to master all the possibilities of Waterbending, tradition be damned. After Master Pakku discovers that Katara is the granddaughter of his first love and wears the necklace he gave her, he agrees to teach Katara, and later tells her that she has mastered Waterbending faster than any other pupil he’s ever taught.

As mentioned earlier, Katara is an example of how a person’s being traditionally feminine does not equal weakness. For the first third of the series, she is very much the Team Mom to her immature companions, as Sokka can be very lazy and Aang very impulsive. One of her biggest flaws is that she holds on to anger for long periods and finds it difficult to forgive; it is not until Zuko accompanies her on her search for her mother’s murderer that she learns that compassion and forgiveness require tremendous strength, as she makes the difficult decision not to take revenge on the murderer, and learns to forgive Zuko for his betrayal in a moment of weakness. As the main female protagonist, it was a foregone conclusion from the first episode that she would be Aang’s love interest, though his initial attraction to her beauty grows into a deep love and respect for her abilities over time. If Aang is the soul of the group, Toph the muscle, and Sokka the brains, then Katara is the heart…and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Toph

Toph is the second female protagonist introduced in the series, and for a while serves as a counterpoint/foil to Katara and offers a sense of gender balance to Aang’s group. Where Katara is feminine and motherly, Toph is tomboyish, cocky and often lazy. The character was originally intended to be male (the Earthbender in the series’ opening sequence is the character’s original design), but her gender role thwarting characterization is a far more interesting result. Of course, the most important aspect of her characterization is that she is blind, a great example of a character with a disability who is treated with tact, dignity, and even a sense of humour. As the only daughter of the Bei Fongs, a wealthy and prominent Earth Kingdom family, they have coddled and shielded her from the world as they think people would take advantage of her due to her disability. Their efforts are unnecessary, because Toph is arguably the most powerful Earthbender in the world. She has the unique ability to sense the vibrations in the earth, and this not only serves her well as a Bender, but also grants her a certain degree of “sight.” She is not without her limitations, however, as she feels extremely uncomfortable while flying on Appa, and has some difficulty with sand (as it is fluid rather than solid like regular earth) for a while. She becomes truly blind when Zuko accidentally burns the soles of her feet, but even this setback does not hinder her for long. Her unique abilities are what make her a particularly effective teacher for Aang; since Earth is the opposite of his natural ability, it would take a special Earthbending Master to teach him a special understanding of the element. Of the three elements Aang must learn to master, it is notable that two out of his three teachers are female. Like Katara, Toph is a primarily self-taught Bender, who before going off with Aang used to sneak off to participate in Earthbending tournaments (that amusingly parody pro-wrestling) and remained undefeated in them. She is arguably the strongest Earthbender because along with her formidable bending skill, she invents the metalbending technique by sensing impurities within iron; only King Bumi could possibly match her skills.

In the first batch of episodes after her introduction, Toph clashes with Katara because they are opposites of each other. Katara has a need to order people around and keep things efficient and organized (as she was basically forced into that role after her mother’s death), but Toph is laid back and messy (to put it mildly). It seems to be a deliberate rejection of the rigid and opulent lifestyle which she was raised in. Toph can be refined and does know the ideal moments to exploit her social rank, but her true personality is as earthy as her element. As the series goes on, Katara and Toph gradually become more comfortable around each other, and grow to understand each others’ idiosyncrasies. They also learn how to combine their bending abilities to create mud, which is both a useful tool as well as a weapon. Toph’s inclusion in the group offers an important balance to the character relationships, as Katara can be overbearing, and I am of the biased belief that the more strong female characters are included in a show, the better the show becomes. Toph also shares the comedy relief role with Sokka, though while Sokka prefers wordplay and sarcasm, she jokes about her own disability. She is so capable and confident that her traveling companions repeatedly forget that she’s blind, and she isn’t afraid to poke fun at that. She is an unusual and very welcomed depiction of a disabled character; many times characters with disabilities are involved in cloying and condescending ‘inspirational’ stories about ‘overcoming’ their disability, as if the whole reason for a disability to exist is for it to make able-bodied people feel guilty. Toph understands that her blindness does limit her in many ways, and although she has a particularly effective way of compensating for her blindness, she accepts her limitations.

Azula

Azula is an example of a female antagonist that is just as multifaceted and well-developed as a protagonist should be. The third Bender of the three main female characters, Azula is a prodigy Firebender, which is particularly notable as she is the Princess of the Fire Nation, and the Fire Lord’s family is infamous for their prodigious Bending skills. Like the other two female Benders, Azula has a special ability that sets her apart from other Benders of her element; her fire blazes so hot it is blue. Since Firebending derives some of its power from the passionate emotions of the Bender, her blue fire is a visual clue to a great depth of her rage and fury. She is also one of the few people with the ability to Bend lightning. But she is not only formidable as a Bender, but in hand-to-hand combat as well, making her an arguably even more deadly foe than her father. Of all the antagonists in A:TLA, she is the only character who even came close to defeating Aang, having mortally wounded him with lightning while he was trying to enter into the Avatar State. Though Katara was able to save his life with special healing water, he would have the scars of Azula’s attack on his back and foot for the rest of his life.
As an antagonist, Azula is both a tragic and frightening character. Having internalized the imperalistic propaganda that the Fire Nation concentrates on in their war effort, she is a Machiavellian perfectionist obsessed with furthering her father’s agenda, and rooting out any threats to the Fire Nation, whether they be her brother Zuko’s wavering loyalty, or Aang’s mission to stop the war at all costs. While Zuko bears an enormous facial scar as physical proof of their father’s abusive parenting, Azula’s scars are mental. As the series goes on, she becomes so obsessed with the Fire Nation’s cause, and pleasing her unpleasable father, that she becomes unhinged, paranoiac, and with an almost unstoppable rage. However, her mother Ursa also shares some blame for the deterioration of Azula’s mental state; it is revealed at the end of the series that Azula deeply resents her mother for seeing her as a monster and rejecting her while blatantly favouring Zuko. Although it is unfortunate that the show’s depiction of mental illness is that of an antagonist’s (furthering the stigma against the condition), it is important that Azula’s tragic fate shows the damage that parental abuse and neglect can sometimes cause.

Suki

Suki is a secondary character introduced near the beginning of the series who returns later and becomes a part of Aang’s travelling group. A non-Bender, Suki is a leader of the Kyoshi Island Warriors, a group of female martial artists established by and named for Avatar Kyoshi, the most recent Earth Kingdom Avatar. The Kyoshi Warriors have a specific green uniform, fight with metal bladed fans, and all wear a Kabuki-like face paint that was favoured by Kyoshi. Her duties as a Kyoshi Warrior make her a kind of guardian – when she is reintroduced in the series she is performing a security guard-like function at an Earth Kingdom customs office. Even without her weapon, Suki is an exceptional martial artist and tactical planner. Azula recognizes her talents, and after defeating the Kyoshi Warriors separates Suki from her group and places her in a maximum security Fire Nation prison. She organizes a prison break-out with Zuko, Sokka, and his father Hakoda. Her absolute skill with martial arts, and sheer bravery, impresses Hakoda enough to comment on it to Sokka, who similarly reacts with pride, adoration and admiration. “That’s some girl.” “Tell me about it.”
Suki’s relationship with Sokka is one of the more naturally progressing romantic relationships in the series. When they first meet, she is one of the first people besides Katara to directly confront Sokka’s tendency towards a sexist dismissal of women’s abilities. By teaching him the ways of the Kyoshi Warriors, Sokka learns a new appreciation for the talents of women. She is also naturally confident, and makes her attraction to him clear by kissing him on the cheek. When they reunite, Sokka has matured, and has even experienced heartbreak after losing Princess Yue so quickly after their relationship began. Suki is understanding of his natural hesitation towards her, but it’s not long before teenage hormones take over and they decide to start a relationship. After he releases her from the Fire Nation prison, she remains at his side, and is his intellectual and physical equal as the two highly skilled non-Benders of Aang’s group.

Mai

Mai is another non-Bending supporting character, who along with Ty Lee starts off as an antagonist after being recruited by their friend Azula, but gradually becomes a protagonist as she becomes disillusioned by Azula’s hatred and rage. The closest thing the series has to a “Goth,” she is a quiet and seemingly emotionless teenager who has sadly accepted her parents’ preference for her much younger brother. A member of an aristocratic Fire Nation family, she was Zuko’s girlfriend before his banishment, and quickly reunites with him after he is welcomed back to the Fire Nation. She compliments him well, as she keeps her emotions very guarded, and Zuko longs to be able to have the emotional control that she does. While they are stiff and formal around friends and family members, when they are alone together they are able to relax. People around Mai tend to make the mistaken assumption that she has no emotions at all, when in fact her true emotions run as deeply and passionately as any other Fire Nation native. Rather than letting her emotions quickly burn, they instead smoulder. Her defining moment is when she turns on Azula and helps Zuko to escape the Fire Nation prison despite his betrayal of her country. She tells Azula, “I love Zuko…more than I fear you.” As a warrior, her knife-throwing abilities are as steely as her emotional resolve. She possesses an almost supernatural skill with the knives, so it is easy to see why Azula recruited her to her cause (besides the pretense of childhood friendship). Like Sokka when it comes to Suki, Zuko also possesses a deep admiration for Mai’s skills, confidently praising her to others such as the prison guard needlessly assigned for her protection.

Ty Lee

Lastly, Ty Lee is another non-Bender who serves as a contrast and foil to Mai. Where Mai is quiet and stoic, Ty Lee is exuberant and cheerful. Azula comes across Ty Lee after she has joined a traveling circus, and, knowing Ty Lee’s particularly formidable skills, invites her to leave the circus and join her on her travels. Ty Lee is a traditional martial artist who has the ability to quickly strike the vital pressure points that temporarily disable Bending. As many of the people traveling with Aang do not have non-Bending combat skills, her attacks neutralize her opponents entirely and leave them vulnerable. In terms of her personality, Ty Lee is unlike any other Fire Nation native, especially those in the upper classes. Where the Fire Lord’s family is full of rage, and Mai is sad and withdrawn, she is energetic and almost always has a smile, even in combat. She eventually reveals that her cheerful exterior is a facade she puts on, and that her impulsively joining the circus was a desperate attempt at differentiating herself from her six identical sisters. Ty Lee exhibits a deep-set motivation towards individuality, which in her case is successful since Aang is the only other A:TLA character with a comparably cheerful personality. She also shares the deep moral beliefs that Mai has, and betrays Azula at the same time Mai does. She is also unusually sexually confident, as she is both comfortable with her body and with the boys that approach her. Ty Lee’s approach to sexuality is notable in that it is a positive depiction of a female character who is popular with the opposite sex (particularly for a teenage character); she is not ridiculed, shamed, or jealously made a rival for it.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is a triumph in almost every aspect. As an action/adventure epic, it has a compelling and exciting story that grips you and leaves you dying to know what happens next, even after the story has ended. The animation, voice acting and music are excellent. There is a great deal of care and research given to the series, particularly in its representation of Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan and Inuit cultures and of various martial arts techniques. It is about as inclusive and diverse as a North American series can get, as the cast is entirely people of colour, and individuals with disabilities are fairly represented as well – the only group missing in representation are LGBTQ individuals, but perhaps sequel series The Legend of Korra can rectify that. Most importantly for this review, A:TLA has some of the most well written female characters I have ever seen. Its female cast not only shows the diverse amount of personalities women can have, but also how neither adherence nor thwarting of gender roles has anything to do with strength and ability. Each female character is an incredible warrior with a special ability that sets her apart from others, and even demonstrates to the males in their lives about the capability and strength of women. A:TLA is already almost the perfect television series, but it is also refreshingly feminist.

All images taken from the Avatar Wiki, and edited by me.

Myrna Waldron is a feminist writer/blogger with a particular emphasis on all things nerdy. She lives in Toronto and has studied English and Film at York University. Myrna has a particular interest in the animation medium, having written extensively on American, Canadian and Japanese animation. She also has a passion for Sci-Fi & Fantasy literature, pop culture literature such as cartoons/comics, and the gaming subculture. She maintains a personal collection of blog posts, rants, essays and musings at The Soapboxing Geek, and tweets with reckless pottymouthed abandon at @SoapboxingGeek.

‘The Last Unicorn’ Is The Anti-Disney Fairy Tale

DVD Cover Art for The Last Unicorn

Warning: Spoilers ahead

I was probably 6 or 7 years old the first time I saw The Last Unicorn. And while I thought it was pretty, I found it incredibly boring. It wasn’t until much later in my life that I rewatched it and understood why it was so boring to Little Girl Me – this is not a film for children, and never should have been marketed as such. Such is the major pitfall of an animated film – unless it explicitly says it’s pornography (and sometimes not even then – people are stupid), people assume it’s for children. What makes The Last Unicorn so special is it might be one of the most bittersweet and poignant fantasy movies ever made. It is the Anti-Disney film – everything that Disney fairy tales are not.

The characters are incredibly well fleshed out. They are deeply, deeply flawed. The Unicorn is proud (perhaps even vain), Schmendrick is overconfident, Molly Grue deeply regrets her lost youth, King Haggard is depressed to the point of selfishness, and Prince Lir does not know the difference between real heroism and pointless posturing. There are no sweet singing Princesses who can charm the forest animals here. The handsome Prince must learn how to be valiant, it does not come naturally to him. The virtues the characters value are the ones that are hardest to achieve – sacrifice, acceptance of mortality, acceptance of regret, and the twofold rush of joy and pain that being in love causes.
The content of the story is very adult. Other than one brief bizarre scene (more on that later), there is no comedy here. The mood is melancholy and lonely. Death is very clearly discussed, and even depicted once the Harpy kills Mommy Fortuna and her assistant, Rukh. The film’s depiction of a Harpy does not shy away from visual adult content, as she is shown to have three large and pendulous breasts with nipples. The Harpy’s breasts are not the least bit sexualized, they serve only to show that she is terrifying and female. The scene in which Schmendrick accidentally enchants a tree into coming alive and falling in love with him is also very adult in content, and almost seems like a Big Lipped Alligator Moment because it clashes with the rest of the film. The tree squishes Schmendrick against her enormous enchanted breasts, and it is clear that he does not find this predicament the least bit desirable. It is hard to determine what the film’s goal in depicting the two characters’ breasts this way was, but my best guess is that they wished to depict breasts as mere visual signifiers of a character being biologically female, not as physical targets of sexual desire.

Various scenes from the film

Dreams don’t come true. Yes, The Unicorn succeeds in her goal to free her fellow Unicorns, but to do so she had to give up her newfound mortality, and must live forever knowing regret, and remembering the love she once had. This taint of humanity even separates her from the other unicorns, as they would have no comprehension of human emotions such as these. The other characters don’t achieve their dreams either. Schmendrick does eventually prove that he is a talented magician, but clearly will never have true control over magic. Molly Grue has finally met her unicorn, and found second love with Schmendrick, but her youth and innocence are long since gone. Even King Haggard never truly achieved his dreams of genuine happiness, as he never gained control of all of the unicorns, and was otherwise miserable when he wasn’t looking at them.
The handsome Prince doesn’t get the girl. Lir’s love for Amalthea is such that he tells her not to give up on her quest in order to be with him, knowing that once she becomes a unicorn again she cannot stay with him. His love is also unrequited for a time, and is only reciprocated once The Unicorn forgets what she truly is and mentally becomes human enough to feel love. So, unlike in many Disney films, the “love at first sight” situation does not go nearly as smoothly. Their love for each other does not end once Amalthea becomes The Unicorn once more, but there is now no hope for them to marry. Both sadly accept that they are to be forever separated, which is even more painful for The Unicorn because she is the only one who will experience “forever.”
Molly Grue’s life story is a particularly sad and poignant one. As the commonlaw wife of an infamous outlaw known as Captain Cully, she has watched her youth fade, and become endlessly frustrated with having no money, no food, and endless mouths to feed. She is incredibly kind, but deeply dissatisfied with her lot in life. When she finally meets The Unicorn, she is enraged because, unlike in fantasy lore where the unicorn always comes to a beautiful young virgin, The Unicorn has come to her when she is middle-aged and, perhaps, sexually ruined. (Being the lover of an outlaw could not have done great things for her reputation.) “How can you come to me now, when I am this?” Molly bitterly asks her. This, I think, is a commentary on how fairy tales always seem to only value the young and innocent, and see women who are no longer young and virginal as corrupted, tainted, and worthless. The Unicorn, however, recognizes Molly’s incredible kindness, and, comforting her the best she can, tells her, “I’m here now.”

The Unicorn in her forest

The two antagonists of the story, Mommy Fortuna and King Haggard, contrast strongly with Disney villains in that they are very morally ambiguous. Mommy Fortuna is a powerful sorceress, who is one of the few humans who can recognize The Unicorn for what she is, rather than just as a beautiful mare. She uses illusions in her traveling caravan to give her patrons what they want to see, which is visions of terrifying mythical creatures. The Unicorn and The Harpy are the only real magical creatures she has captured. Mommy Fortuna knows that The Harpy will one day kill her, and, unlike Disney villains, is fully ready to embrace her fate and is unafraid of death. Her only desire is a perverted form of immortality – her body will die, but The Harpy will forever remember that it was Mommy Fortuna who captured her. King Haggard is even more morally ambiguous. He is not truly evil, but desperately depressed to the point where it has made him selfish. The sight of unicorns are the only things that give him joy, and make him recapture his lost youth. Unable to face life without knowing that his source of joy was available to him at any time, he instructed his pet, The Red Bull, to gather all the unicorns together and imprison them in the sea next to his castle. He has not done this for the sake of evil, but as an absolutely desperate attempt to cure his lifelong depression.
The themes of this story are incredibly abstract and deep. In most Disney films, you can generally glean themes about kindness, true love, achieving dreams, and conquering evil. Here, there are themes surrounding (im)mortality, regret, memory, lost love, tragic flaws, broken dreams, possessions, mental illness, revenge, and the very nature of human emotions. This is not a happy movie. It is bittersweet, at best, even though things turned out as well as they could have without there being a deus ex machina to solve everything. It is and never was intended to be a movie for children. It’s a movie for teenagers and adults who have already heard all the fairy tale cliches, and want something that will make them think rather than something that might give a superficial emotional catharsis. This movie made me incredibly sad, but it might possibly be one of the greatest animated fantasy films ever made.

Why I Love ‘Adventure Time’

Title Screen for Adventure Time

Warning: Spoilers up to the end of Season 3

Adventure Time is a Cartoon Network animated series that combines surrealistic comedy, fantasy and science-fiction. Based on a 2008 short by Pendleton Ward that went viral, it parodies the tropes, archetypes and cliches of fairy tales, video games and childhood action figure battles. The basic premise is about Finn, the last remaining human, and his best friend/adoptive brother Jake (a shape-shifting dog), going on your typical slay-the-monster-save-the-princess adventures. Now in its fourth season, it’s an enormous hit with all genders and age groups and shows no signs of slowing down. And let me tell you, as a feminist, why I am absolutely celebrating this show.

The main cast of Adventure Time

Almost every female character is a princess, but the typical cliche Damsel In Distress and/or romance-obsessed girly-girl are parodied and subverted for all they’re worth. In several instances, the princess characters (Bubblegum especially) show little interest in romance, and far more interest in their own personal hobbies. Even more encouraging is that often the female characters are completely able to rescue themselves, and don’t need Finn & Jake’s help.

The characters are given genuine honest-to-goodness flaws. Finn is heroic, but has a terrible bad temper and an impulsive streak. Jake is easygoing, but not nearly as clever or level-headed as he thinks he is. Princess Bubblegum is a scientific genius, but can be incredibly callous about the feelings of others. Marceline is a talented musician, but also has deep insecurities about how her friends perceive her. Flame Princess is astoundingly powerful, but also has dangerously passionate emotions. In all of these cases, there’s no black and white morality. It’s an important lesson for children (since this is a children’s show) to present morality as it really is – in shades of grey.

I love all the female characters, including the gender flipped versions of Finn and Jake, Fionna and Cake. My main complaint with the series is that the female characters don’t appear nearly often enough, and especially not together. We eventually do get some Bechdel Test passing goodness (Bubblegum and Marceline don’t get along too well – and people have naturally interpreted this as sexual tension) but so far the three main female characters have not yet all appeared in the same story together. I suspect that the main reason for this is because each story is about 11-12 minutes in total, and there’s only so much time for introducing characters and conflicts.

Jake stretching around the other main cast members

Speaking of Fionna and Cake, I can see now why that episode is so astoundingly popular amongst the fandom. It’s easily my favourite one of the series. Fionna is an absolutely adorable character – slightly chubby instead of unrealistically slender, tomboyish instead of traditionally feminine, and she still retains her male counterpart’s bravery and heroicism. She still fights with a sword. For my fellow gamers, think of all the games you’ve played in which a female character is a sword fighter. Not very many, right? But there’s no reason they can’t, and this is one thing I really love about the gender flip episode. I also practically exploded with joy at the final scene where Fionna talks about how she has lots of guy friends, but isn’t interested in/isn’t ready to date them, and that there’s nothing wrong with that. THANK YOU. It’s incredibly frustrating how many people think that somehow something is missing if you don’t have an official romantic partner, or that men and women can’t have a platonic friendship. Shippers could do well to remember this – you can like someone without wanting to bang them. (Also, as a Sailor Moon fan, you can’t imagine my joy at seeing Fionna’s ballgown homage to Princess Serenity’s outfit) At any rate, I hope the Gender Swap episodes happen on a regular basis, rather than a once-a-season deal. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had more shows about an ass-kicking girl and her feline best friend? (*coughcoughSailorMooncoughcough*)

This is a fairly obvious point, but I really love how Princess Bubblegum’s interest in science is depicted. She’s an absolute genius – shattering the still pervasive stereotype that the sciences are the domain of men – and she also bucks the stereotype that nerdy/geeky people are unable to have fun or to relate to others. Similarly, Marceline’s interest in punk/indie rock also combats the stereotype that rock is a genre made by and for the enjoyment of men. Girls like to headbang too!

The Christmas special, which reveals that pseudo-antagonist Ice King was actually a human antique dealer driven insane by his find of a magic crown, is an interesting way of approaching and explaining his very archetypal tendency to kidnap and try to marry princesses. In the Ice King’s case, it’s not so much a wanting to stick to traditional fairy tale gender roles, but a manifestation of his grief over losing the fiance he used to nickname “Princess.” The Ice King is primarily a comic character, but this episode finally established him as being tragic.

Fionna and Cake

I appreciated that, for once, romantic tensions are resolved rather than dragged on, and on, and on, and on. They make it clear that while Princess Bubblegum likes Finn as a person, she feels she’s too old for him, and her sometimes callous treatment of his feelings proves that she isn’t the right partner for him. Flame Princess isn’t the perfect girlfriend either, but at least in their case, Finn and Flame got together very quickly, changing the romantic plotline from “Will they or won’t they?” to “What happens now they’ve got together?” I also like that Jake and Lady Rainicorn’s relationship is loving, positive, literally interracial, and well…adult. (Lady Rainicorn’s dialogue is only in Korean, and bilingual viewers have revealed she says some incredibly raunchy things that only Jake can understand)

In the “Memory of a Memory” episode, Marceline’s (ex) boyfriend tries to bully her into traditional gender roles. He even pulls the “Go back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich” bit. She finds out he tried to trick her, and kicks his ass. (Also, dear men who think this joke is funny: Wow. You’re original. YES I AM GOING TO GO IN THE KITCHEN AND I’M GOING TO MAKE LOTS OF DELICIOUS FOOD WHICH YOU CAN’T HAVE.)

In some ways, other than Marceline, Lumpy Space Princess is my favourite character. She is absolutely hilarious as a sassy valley girl type who, by most accounts, should not be as confident about her body and her sexiness as she “should” be. After all, she’s literally a purple ball of lumps. But this is an important message – you DON’T have to match cultural standards of beauty to be sexy. It’s all about confidence. I’m a fatass, and I’m friggin’ sexy if I do say so myself. And in her own way, LSP is sexy too. At least to fellow Space Lumps.

Finn

The show just keeps getting better every season. The quality of animation has spiked, the character arcs are realistic and well-defined, and the storylines are mature without losing their comedic edge. I’m absolutely hooked on this series, and it’s a refreshing feeling that this year, along with Gravity Falls, I got to watch some great new children’s shows that deserve every bit of praise they receive.

Lastly, I love the sense of humour in the show. I’ve always been a fan of surrealism, as well as referential humour. And I’m also a big fan of fart jokes, like the one where Jake morphs himself into a farting cheetah. I’m 25 years old, and fart jokes are still funny.

LGBTQI Week: Women Empowerment and LGBT Issues in ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. The World’: Strange and Nonexistent

This is a guest post by Marla Koenigsknecht.

*As a note, I am not including anything about the comic series, only the movie.
*Synopsis from imdb.

!!SPOILER ALERT!!

Probably most women can say they’ve had their share of “evil exes.” Sure, your past may come back and bite you in the butt, BUT I’m also sure it’s never come back in the form of super-powered henchmen with quirky names. I’m also sure it’s never happened in the style of an arcade game, either. Well, that’s what happens in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. And while watching Michael Cera kick butt is super entertaining, and we all think Cera’s shrimpy (yes, shrimpy) voice is adorable, the movie doesn’t do women any justice. I find this to be Cera’s most misogynistic role because his character is…well…an asshole to women.

It all begins with 22-year-old Scott and his new high school girlfriend, Knives Chau. He says that he likes dating someone 5 years his junior because it’s simple. However, everyone else advises him to break up with her (he’s also only using her to get over his ex who cheated on him). But that doesn’t stop Scott, who begins cheating on Knives once he meets Ramona—a funky, hipster chick. Before he can begin dating Ramona, he must defeat her seven evil exes in fights to the death. The movie is filled with tons of funny quips and witty, fast-paced jokes—and I’ll be honest, I loved it the first time I saw it. But the more times I watched it and thought about it, I realized that Scott Pilgrim is too much of a “guys’” movie—something rather disappointing, in my opinion.

Knives Chau (played by Ellen Wong)

I’ll start with Knives. Not only do they repeat the fact that she’s only 17 over and over, but it’s definitely apparent she worships the ground Scott walks on; yeah, so I dated an older guy at a young age. It’s exciting—but Knives doesn’t have enough self-respect to leave a guy who doesn’t respect her. She even becomes obsessive and stalker-ish, changing her looks to look more like Ramona and trying to make him jealous. She is portrayed as crazy, and we’re supposed to roll our eyes and laugh. She even says, “I hate her stupid guts!” like Ramona ruined her love life, when Scott’s the one stringing Knives along in his game. Ramona didn’t know that Scott was cheating on Knives with her and shouldn’t be blamed for stealing Scott when he lacked the nerve to break up with Knives. It’s just another way to pit girls against one another, acting like Scott is the victim, and therefore okay for him to hurt a vulnerable teen because he’s in love with Ramona. Following this scene, one of the evil exes “punches the highlights” out of Knives’ hair because she tries to stand up for Scott, and it’s clear then. No one respects this poor girl. And her lack of respect from others is reflected from her own lack of self-respect. The biggest issue I have with this is that she never finds her own self-respect either. It is never resolved in the way I would like it to be, which would be Knives finding self-respect on her own. Instead it’s given to her from Scott (more on this later).

As for Ramona, I personally love the character at first. She seems really strong, but then after Ramona’s exes arrive she’s just a girl in a man’s world. In this movie, Ramona isn’t the love of someone’s life, but a prize to be won. It is even stated that they are “controlling the future of Ramona’s love life.” She waits around while Scott fights these battles for her, when really all she should have to do is tell them to stop. At one time she says, “I’ve dabbled in being a bitch.” So, standing up for herself means she’s a bitch, and that means she has to wait for Scott to kill all her exes before she can be “free” of her past baggage and over-controlling exes. In the end fight, her most recent ex Gideon Graves is shown petting Ramona like a dog (before he eventually fights Scott). Before the fight, Scott “gained the power of self-respect.” But why does Scott need to be the one to gain self-respect? Why not Ramona? She deserves to get rid of her own baggage, not have Scott kill it for her. She even stands up and fights Gideon, but says, “Let’s both be girls.” She can only fight someone when the person is a “girl” (figurative or not). Again, girls against each other. Which leads me to my next point.

Gideon (Jason Schwartzman) and Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead)

Roxy is one of Ramona’s exes, when she was “a little bi-curious.” Before the fight actually begins, Scott finds it hard to believe that Ramona dated a girl, even though his roommate Wallace is gay. He doesn’t question that. Maybe Scott has this idea in his mind that Ramona is this perfect, exactly-what-he-wants, girl. But does that mean that a “perfect girl” is one with no previous baggage, especially in the form of another woman? His disbelief in her bisexual past indicates a lack of freedom for women. Perhaps Scott is threatened by her sexual past, because it might mean he as a man is not needed to fulfill her expectations. Especially because Ramona is a decently strong woman when we first meet her. Wallace is free to explore other men, but Ramona is unable to have a bisexual past without it being laughed at. At this point, before Roxy hits Scott, Ramona steps in. So, she can fight against a woman, but not a man? And who doesn’t love a good cat fight?! (sigh, rolls eyes, gag, etc.) My personal favorite is that Ramona grabs Scott and uses him as a puppet to hit Roxy because Scott says, “I don’t think I can hit a girl….They’re soft.” Roxy yells, “Fight your own battles, lazy ass!” to Scott. Oh, the insufferable irony. To Scott, the man who is fighting Ramona’s own battle at that moment. As if Ramona couldn’t do that the past how many years? Of course not, she’s a girl.

Homosexuality is also portrayed weirdly in this movie, in the case of Wallace and Roxy. Wallace (the roommate) has the power to turn straight men around him gay, and several times does the audience see this happening. It makes being homosexual seem like a fad–which seems rather insensitive. The end of Roxy’s fight is rather odd as well. Ramona tells Scott to touch the back of Roxy’s knee, and it makes her orgasm to death (literally, she blows up). That, and when Scott says, “You had a sexy phase?” about their relationship reminds me too much of how men find lesbians hot together and makes me want to gag. Her battle scene just seems like a comic relief fight from the real action. If you compare Roxy’s fight to Lucas Lee’s (another evil ex) fight, you’ll notice several differences (ignore the snowflakes and Spanish subtitles in the second video). First, you’ll notice the obvious gender differences: the lowered voice, built body and facial hair for Lucas…the smaller body, pigtails, and higher voice for Roxy. It makes you aware of which one to take seriously. Second, in Lucas’s fight, Ramona sits and watches. And third, notice that Ramona gives a back story to Lucas (she does that for all of the ex-boyfriends), and Roxy doesn’t because being a lesbian is a joke here.

Everyone is okay at the end of the movie. And only because Ramona’s exes are dead and her bad past is defeated (courtesy of Scott, not herself), he and Knives have reconciled, and Scott gets the girl. But only because Scott apologized. And while I like that he did find some kindness to apologize, I’m still irked by this. I don’t think the girls in this movie should have needed Scott to apologize just to feel okay in the end. I wish they would’ve been given more empowerment to find respect for themselves without Scott–especially because these girls could have been portrayed as strong and able to stick up for themselves.

Honestly, I like that this movie attempts to show triumph over mistakes, but I hate that it requires Scott’s self-respect before the women’s. Because I feel the women have been wronged most in this movie, I wish that they had found their own self-faith before he did. Personally I have found in relationships—and in life—that strength comes from my own faith in myself and then having faith in another person. I wish the women of Scott Pilgrim had the same empowerment Scott had earned. That they wouldn’t need Scott’s self-assurance to have their own. That they would’ve been able to say, “Screw you, Scott!” or “Screw you, deadly exes!” or “Screw you, misogynists!” I mean… it’s all the same, right?

———-

Marla Koenigsknecht is junior at Michigan State University. She is an English and Professional Writing student. She also is the Assistant Editor of The Offbeat, a literary magazine on MSU campus.

LGBTQI Week: The Problem with GLBT Representation in True Blood and Lost Girl

This is a guest post by Paul and Renee.

When it comes to GLBT representation in the media, unless a television show is targeted specifically at the community, erasure continues to be the norm. Urban fantasy has moved from a small die hard audience to the mainstream and though we can regularly see shows about vampires, werewolves, fae, and ghosts, there are few GLBT characters and a dearth of decent representation.

HBO’s True Blood and Showcase’s Lost Girl have the most visible GLBT characters on television in North America, in terms of the urban fantasy genre. Though both shows have GLBT characters who have extremely high profiles and a reputation of being extremely GLBT friendly, there are certainly many problematic elements.

True Blood is based on The Southern Vampire Series written by Charlaine Harris. In the novels, Lafayette is killed off quite early and is shamed for participating in a sex party. Thankfully, the character of Lafayette in True Blood has become a staple of the show. Despite being a fan favourite, Lafayette is a character that inarguably fulfills a lot of stereotypes that are aimed at same gender loving men of colour. Lafayette is a cook but he moonlights as a sex worker and a drug dealer. Though he is routinely given some of the best lines to say, he too often falls into the sassy best friend role.

Nelsan Ellis as Lafayette and Kevin Alejandro as Jesus in True Blood

In season three, we learned that Lafayette only started dealing V and doing sex work to pay for the hospitalisation of his mentally ill mother and though the reason is understandable, no other character on True Blood has been forced into this position though they are all working class.

If Lafayette is dogged by several stereotypes, Talbot revels in them. The lover of Russell Edgington (who is an awesome villain but also personifies the depraved, psychopathic homosexual trope), Talbot is a 700-year-old vampire who squeals at the sight of violence. He throws epic temper tantrums over the interior decorating. Someone stamp a rainbow on him and call his unicorn, he’s done. But to quickly fill his shoes we have Steve Newlin – get yourself another trope bingo card because he’s a) a gay man trying to force his attentions on a straight man b) a closeted homophobe, c) a closeted, bigoted preacher and d) getting campier by the episode – have you hit bingo yet? Bet you will by the end of the season, this was just 2 episodes!

The women aren’t free from stereotyping either; Tara finds her love for women and with it an interest in kick boxing – did she get some free dungerees and power tools with that?

I do have to say that not all the portrayals are stereotyped – Eddie subverts many (albeit he exists to serve and help Jason grow) and Jesus more – we don’t see enough about Pam and Nan to see what they fit. But except for Pam, they all fit one trope – GAY DEATH. Yes, there’s a drastic amount of “gay death” on this show. It’s a sad trope that GBLT people rarely live long on the television screen and their sexualty is often the cause of their deaths – and with Talbot (who actually died during gay sex! And to hurt his gay lover), Jesus (at the hands of his gay lover!), Eddie (found by his killers because he hired a gay prostitute), Sophie Ann and Nan were racking up the body count.

But, perhaps the most glaring flaw in True Blood is how the GBLT romances compare with the straight counterparts. True Blood is not a show that is shy about nudity or sex scenes – it is pretty unusual for episodes to go by without at least someone humping someone wearing very little. Eric, Sookie, Jason, Bill, Sam – we have seen them naked and going at it hammer and tongs. But Lafayette and Jesus? The contrast is blatant – even most of their kisses are in low light conditions. They go to bed wearing multiple layers of clothing (in Louisiana, no less) and their scenes together commonly have them sitting pretty far apart and lacking any real physical (or even emotional) intimacy. The emotional distance is very telling in what should be some of the most poignant scenes between them – when Jesus is grieving over his dead friend, when he is risking his life going into Marne’s shop, when Jesus emerges from that shop injured (Lafayette actually ran to hug Tara while Jesus bleeds); you’d expect some emotional angst here. But throughout season 4, you could have mistaken them for roommates, not lovers. This sanitisation is sadly prevalent with gay and bi male couples in television in general – their sex lives are considered more obscene than their straight counterparts, in need of censorship and “toning down.” True Blood’s straight explicitness makes this extremely blatant – with Lafayette and Jesus and even with Sam and Bill’s “Water in Arkansas” dream sequence (that cuts out just before a kiss). The closest we get to any explicit scenes is with Eric and Talbot – again with low light kissing, no nudity and, of course, saved for straight audiences by including the dreaded gay death.

We contrast that with the lesbian relationships and, if anything, we see a different story. But is this putting them on the same explicit level as the straight relationships or is it an attempt to pander to the straight male gaze? If anything, the scenes between women are more sexualised than between straight couples – not because they’re more explicit, but because they are less personal. Nan Flannigan and Pam both have sex (oral sex that doesn’t smudge their perfect make up, no less) with nameless, characterless women. The only actual relationship we have seen between two women is Tara and Naomi – and again, we saw them make out and have sex almost before we knew Naomi’s name. She appeared in exactly five episodes – and not for much of them at that – and in that time they were either having sex or fighting over Tara’s deception. She has now disappeared. Tara and Naomi’s relationship seemed to exist more to show sex and provide Tara with conflict than to be an actual relationship. All of these sex scenes feel even more gratuitous than the majority of the straight sex scenes because they add precious little to plot, story, development or any relationship – they’re there for the sake of the sex.

Rutina Wesley as Tara Thornton in True Blood

I love that True Blood goes out of its way to include so many GBLT characters – yet at the same time they make me cringe. Inclusion of many characters is great – but we shouldn’t be able to go through TV Tropes, ticking off the stereotypes, the tropes and the unfortunate prejudiced portrayals.

In Lost Girl, we move from having a GLBT character as a sidekick to the protagonist. Bo is a succubus – a being which takes life force from others through sexual contact. At first she is only interested in taking energy from evil doers because she has absolutely no control over her abilities. When she discovers that she is actually a member of the fae, and not some sinful freak, Bo begins a relationship with Dyson – a male werewolf. Vying for her attention is also the beautiful human doctor Lauren.

Essentially what develops is a love triangle and, as to be expected, it is far from simple. Bo has good chemistry with both Dyson and Lauren and in the end engages in sex with them separately. The problem then becomes a question of who does Bo really belong with. It is clear from the outset that though she cares very deeply for Lauren, her real love is Dyson. Dyson even goes as far as sacrificing the most important thing in his life – his love for her at the end of season one, in order to save Bo’s life. When they do have a break in their relationship, it is because he is temporarily unable to feel passion for her. It is during this period that Bo explores further possibilities with Lauren, which rather makes Lauren look like second choice.

Lauren is heavily attracted to Bo, but she is searching for a cure for her comatose girlfriend Nadia, who has been in stasis for five years. The first time that Lauren and Bo have sex, it is because Lauren has been ordered to do so by The Ash – the leader of the light fae. This amounts to sex through deception. Unfortunately, this isn’t the last time that sex between women happens at the behest of a man, which reads like cheap titillation. In a break from both Lauren and Dyson, Bo briefly dates the dark fae Ryan and he initiates a threesome, but what the camera focuses on is Bo’s interaction with the woman he procured. Clearly this was a sexual performance meant to please the straight male gaze.

The cast of Lost Girl

One of the most frustrating aspects of same sex love on Lost Girl is its treatment of the relationship between Nadia and Bo. After spending five years looking for cure for Nadia, Lauren is finally successful. However, after Nadia is infected by The Garuda, a few short episodes later, Lauren quickly assents to her desire to die. How are we to believe that Lauren held this faithful love for all of these years and then so quickly agreed that her partner should die? Nadia and Lauren’s feelings for her were determined disposable for the sake of furthering a love story which has clearly already been decided.

Even when Bo learns to control her desire to drain life energy during sex, there are still only two instances of sex between her and Lauren, which pales to the numerous times that Bo engaged in sex with Dyson. Lauren is the fragile human that Bo can potentially hurt, whereas Dyson literally represents everything that is good in terms of protection, strength and healing.

This of course places a premium on the heterosexual relationship over and above the gay one.

And this is perhaps the cornerstone of GBLT depictions in media in general – and certainly in these shows specifically – GBLT relationships are nearly always depicted as secondary to relationships of straight people. They can be there, but they have to take a back seat to the “real” relationships and depictions. Too often this backseat results in characters that are fraught with tropes and are frequently laden with stereotype after stereotype.

We’re happy, after so much erasure, that we’re actually seeing GBLT inclusion – and these programmes certainly do a lot right – but there’s still a lot dogging these characters.

———-

Paul and Renee blog and review at Fangs for the Fantasy. We’re great lovers of the genre and consume it in all its forms – but as marginalised people we also analyse critically through a social justice lens.