Female Characters – Bitch Flicks

Obsessed with Boyhood: The Latent Misogyny Running Rampant in Richard Linklater’s Films

On the surface, a lot of his female characters reflect strong ideals. … But take a deeper look and Linklater’s female characters tell another story: one of a creator deeply obsessed with ignorant male stereotypes and the women that encourage them. … Looking back through his films, they all contain this running theme of underdeveloped man-children who are routinely validated in their anti-woman approach.

This guest post written by Maya Bastian appears as part of our theme week on Unpopular Opinions.

Disappointed. That would be the first way to describe how I felt after walking out of Richard Linklater’s latest release Everybody Wants Some!!, 20 minutes into the film. Disgusted. That was my second response. These feelings quickly turned to outrage as I realized that I had just played witness to the reversion of cultural ideals that has overtaken our society as of late.

Hailed as “achingly perceptive” by Variety and “utopian” by The New York Times, Linklater himself refers to the film as a “spiritual sequel” to his earlier nostalgia-laden hit Dazed and Confused. In reality, it’s an intensely sophomoric and outdated romp through the lives of five college jocks who bandy around, seducing girls, and partying until they drop. The male protagonists refer to women as “bitches” when they get rejected and intelligent women are thought of as “dykes.” Set in 1980s Texas, it’s a throwback to Porky’s–era films, where the women are idly brutalized and consent is disregarded several times throughout the course of the movie.

What is astounding is that the glaring misogyny that runs rampant throughout is completely brushed aside by just about every critic. The Guardian gave it a rave review, saying, “The attitudes towards women are unenlightened but the freshman of Linklater’s joyful 80’s campus movie reveal occasional complexity.” RogerEbert.com called it a “gentle film” but I would argue the opposite. There is nothing gentle about flouting consent and flaunting camera angles that are meant to denigrate the female form.

The disappointing part is that I’ve been a fan of Linklater’s films for some time, excited by his subversion of narrative techniques and his bold commitment to strong characters that buck the status quo. Waking Life was startlingly moving and profound. Tape was cinematic genius in its execution.

On the surface, a lot of his female characters reflect strong ideals. Sooze (Amie Carey) in Suburbia is a hardcore third-waver and lashes out “angrily” about smashing the patriarchy. The lead female character Amy (Uma Thurman) in Tape presents as a strong woman and an accomplished lawyer. Celine (Julie Delpy) in Before Sunrise and the rest of the Before Trilogy, is intellectual, graceful, and human. Sure, they all seem like feminist role models. But take a deeper look and Linklater’s female characters tell another story: one of a creator deeply obsessed with ignorant male stereotypes and the women that encourage them.

After viewing Everybody Wants Some!!, I had to reassess my devotion to Linklater. It led me to review his earlier titles, only to realize that he is suffering from the classic virgin/whore rhetoric. Every one of his narratives are about male characters running rampant over women’s rights.

Looking back through his films, they all contain this running theme of underdeveloped man-children who are routinely validated in their anti-woman approach. These characters often appear fun and exciting. No one really challenges them on their behavior, most simply laugh it off. A glaring example is Steve Zahn’s character in Suburbia, aptly named Buff. He primarily exists to reflect an attitude that glorifies acting poorly, hurting others, and treating women as objects. Yet no one ever seriously addresses his behavior except for Sooze, the token feminist, who gets quickly shot down by her peers.

While he does include the occasional strong female voice, Linklater tends to tokenize these women. They are often one-note characters who are stereotypes of themselves. Even Celine in the Before Sunrise series falls victim to this pattern. Though she starts off as a thinking, feeling woman with complexity in Before Sunrise, by the end of the series, she has devolved into a bitter, nitpicky wife, treading alongside all of the female “married woman” stereotypes that we fight so hard to deflect and dismantle. In Before Midnight, her character presents as “flat” and one-dimensional, with Linklater adhering to the school of thought that strong, intelligent women are incapable of compromise and empathy.

Linklater marginalizes his female characters in almost every movie that he has made. Tape, while brilliant in its technical prowess, reduces the only female character (Uma Thurman), as an object to be fought over. Dazed and Confused is another glaring instance of hyper-sexualization, where practically every woman lacks definition. The only substantial female character is the nerdy redhead Cynthia (Marissa Ribisi), who ends up being objectified by the much older Wooderson (Matthew McConaughey) in what is considered one of THE classic lines of the film.

As Linklater’s oeuvre evolves, the sidelining of his female characters increases. In School of Rock, the only two adult female characters (Sarah Silverman and Joan Cusack) are both uptight, angry, and only serve as foils to guitarist Dewey Finn’s (Jack Black) brilliant plans. Even in the much lauded Boyhood, we see signs of the director’s tendency to tokenize women. In Linklater’s world, we can only ever be seen on one side of the virgin/whore rhetoric. Either he focuses his camera on our bodies and our loose morals or he martyrs us, as is the case with the long-suffering single mother (Patricia Arquette) in Boyhood. While it’s worth mentioning that Patricia Arquette’s performance is brilliant, it still serves as further proof that Linklater perpetuates male-centric stories where women exist as an afterthought, only putting them front and center when they can fulfill society’s categorization of women into tiny, little boxes.

Which brings us back to his latest effort. Shockingly produced by a woman, Megan Ellison of Zero Dark Thirty fame, Everybody Wants Some!! continues to receive rave reviews. Apparently bro culture has reached its cultural apotheosis.

Salon writer and self-proclaimed feminist, Joanna Novak, even professed that she didn’t see anything wrong with the throwback and glorification of bro culture, though she jokes that looking past the “casual sexism” and enjoying the “bro-centric ideology” might make her a “bad feminist.” But here’s the thing. The longer we as a society continue to glorify boys acting badly, laugh at a bunch of jocks using women and lying to get them into bed, jeer along with them at so called “imperfect” bodies, the longer rape culture will exist and the objectification of women will reign supreme. Why is it so hard to convict a rapist? Perhaps it’s because the media sees handsome, swagger-ful boys as cute and cheeky as opposed to predatory. Perpetuating this social construct of masculinity in a time when we need desperately to dissect it and deflect it instead, is a dangerous path.

While the reviews of this pointless, nostalgia-saturated narrative are shocking, the response isn’t surprising. The current swath of the films’ reviewers are primarily men who seem to be joyfully reliving their youth.

One shining light in this otherwise woeful collection of reviews is Jill Richard’s article in the Los Angeles Review of Books. She delineates that as a culture, we are past the age of Animal House style fraternity. Richard writes:

“If one is a bro, the bro squad looks like a great time. But I suppose I feel like that squad wouldn’t have me as a member, or would rape me, and that makes all the difference. […] …There is no non-sinister defense for the ‘American male birthright’ as a conceptual category.”

On a larger scale, Linklater has not just disappointed me as a filmmaker, but as an artist. We have reached an apex in our society, where art must be a voice for the under-represented. Artists have an obligation to create pieces that speak to the condition of our culture and of the world. The time to laud ego-centric films that glorify the glory days of its maker have passed. We no longer need to see work that makes us laugh but that does not make us think.

During the release of Boyhood, one Los Angeles Times critic refused to pander to the flow of warm reviews. While just about everyone was hailing the film as genius, Kenneth Turan took a solitary stance against the film, amid consternation from fellow critics. What he said rings profoundly true in our age of hyperbole and over-hyped cinema. While he did not end up reviewing the film, he did write an incredibly astute article on the nature of genius and the way our society creates cultural impunity by lauding films that don’t deserve it. Turan writes:

“…The fuss about ‘Boyhood’ emphasized to me how much we live in a culture of hyperbole, how much we yearn to anoint films and call them masterpieces, perhaps to make our own critical lives feel more significant because it allows us to lay claim to having experienced something grand and meaningful.”

As Indiewire‘s Sam Adams writes in response to Turan’s perspective, asserting the need for diverse opinions in film criticism:

“Masterpieces, however, are not made so by unanimous praise, but by careful scrutiny. Criticisms, and the extent to which they illuminate the fascinating imperfections beneath those ‘masterpieces’ surfaces, only make them stronger.”

Turan’s and Adams’ points ring true to many socially conscious ears. Richard Linklater is no longer a genius in my eyes, but simply a talented filmmaker who has achieved success by pandering to societal norms, sadly failing to use his indefatigable intelligence to see through them.

Disappointing at best, destructive and debilitating at worst.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

The Flattening of Celine: How Before Midnight Reduces a Feminist Icon

The One Night Stand That Wasn’t: Before Sunrise and Before Sunset‘s Jesse and Celine

Boyhood (Featuring Girlhood)

The Bad Mamas of Contemporary Cinema

Maya Bastian is a writer and award-winning filmmaker who focuses on socio-political issues. She sits on the board of Breakthroughs Film Festival, a short film fest championing new generation female filmmakers. Follow her on social media @mayabasti or check out her website for more info: www.mayabastian.com.

‘The Faculty’: Gender, Dialogue, and Naked Alien Space Monsters

How did these male filmmakers make a movie marketed to men full of female characters who actually get the majority of the dialogue? I’m about to crack the code and share the secret — are you ready to become enlightened? Here’s how they did it: They included female characters and gave them lines. WHAT. Yes, it’s that simple.

Written by Mychael Elaine.

Do you love feminism and space monsters? This essay is for you!

A note to my non-binary readers: This essay takes a super reductive approach to gender. In order to address systemic sexism in the film industry, I’m using charts that graph dialogue spoken by characters listed either as “Male” or “Female,” and I’m using language like “men” and “women” as though there were nothing outside of that binary. It is not my intent to erase you. It is my hope that soon we will experience such a proliferation of non-binary representation that graphs like these become outdated because they don’t include you.

A note to my binary readers: Are you wondering what this “non-binary” thing is all about? Here are some links to resources that will help you understand what it means and why it’s important.

In The Faculty, six teens grapple with angst and aliens at their small town high school. The film was released in 1998, way before smartphones, when movie-teen research happened in makeshift garage labs and movie-teen scientific conclusions were drawn from classic works of literature. (#oldmillennial #oregontrailgeneration)

Eighteen years later, women are shattering glass ceilings all over the place, but men still talk way more than women, at work and in films. From a Time article titled “Why Women Talk Less Than Men at Work” published last month:

“Study after study has shown that women are interrupted (by both genders) more than men; that men speak significantly more in meetings than women do (one study found they account for 75% of conversation); that even when women speak less they are perceived to have spoken more…”

Here’s how this all plays out in the dialogue breakdown of high-grossing, blockbuster films:

Data courtesy of Polygraph — click here to visit the site and explore their data.
I’ve made slight modifications to my screenshot of Polygraph’s site for clarity.

Like the Bechdel Test, Polygraph’s analysis brings beautiful, cold, hard data to aid in discussions about representations of gender in popular culture. It isn’t surprising to look at this data and see how much men obviously dominate film dialogue, but boy is it depressing. So how do we fight against it?

Enter the space monsters.

A quick glance at The Faculty might lead you to believe that male characters speak the majority of lines in the film. Here are three reasons why:

The Faculty’s key creators are men: director, Robert Rodriguez; story, David Wechter and Bruce Kimmel; screenplay, Kevin Williamson.
The cover of the DVD and the movie poster both feature male characters most prominently.
There isn’t much dialogue in the trailer, but the three people who speak are all men. (A woman gets to scream, though! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAREPRESENTATIONAAAAAA!!!!)

All signs point to a film made by men, for men. (Of course, ostensibly the film was made for all genders. Thank you, patriarchy!)

But look at where The Faculty lives on this graph:

I’ve made slight modifications to my screenshot of Polygraph’s site for clarity.

How did these male filmmakers make a movie marketed to men full of female characters who actually get the majority of the dialogue?

I’m about to crack the code and share the secret — are you ready to become enlightened? Here’s how they did it:

They included female characters and gave them lines.

WHAT.

Yes, it’s that simple.

There’s a scene in the film where the teens are wondering why on earth aliens would be on earth in their little town in Ohio:

Stan (mocking): Alright Casey… let’s go alien for a second… Why here? Why Ohio?

Casey: If you were going to take over the world, would you blow up the White
House, Independence Day style, or sneak in through the back door?

Women don’t speak in The Faculty’s trailer and aren’t featured prominently in the movie’s promotional materials – instead, they sneak in through the film’s back door.

Am I arguing that we should purposefully exclude women from promotional materials to “trick” men into watching films filled with ladies? Absolutely not. But in 1998, women couldn’t blow up the cinematic White House, Ghostbusters 2016 style.

And let’s face it, it’s 2016 and this happened…

In a perfect world, men would never fall prey to the mindset that if a story is about women then it is exclusively for women, but they still do. And they’re still being raised to do so. One tactic to combat the disparity in women’s representation in films is to make like a parasitic alien and get sneaky.

How do women infiltrate this movie? The Faculty makes it look easy.

First of all, there are lots of great lady side characters: Salma Hayek as Nurse Harper, Bebe Neuwirth as Principal Drake, Famke Janssen as Ms. Burke, Piper Laurie as Mrs. Olson.

Then, of the six main characters, three are women and three are men. And, as an added bonus, the women aren’t damsels in distress – they are afforded agency and impact on the film’s plot.

Delilah (Jordana Brewster) is confident and competent and takes no shit:

Stokely (Clea DuVall) is intelligent and insightful and brave:

Stokely also takes no shit

Mary Beth Louise Hutchinson (Laura Harris) is charismatic to the max and also the powerful evil space alien intent on taking over the planet:

Ah yes, Mary Beth Louise Hutchinson. We’ve talked about gender and dialogue, now let’s get to the naked space alien.

Some might argue that this is yet another needlessly exploitative display of the female body in film, perpetuated by yet another group of male filmmakers. And those who would argue this are not wrong – women’s bodies are exploited pretty much everywhere and all the time.

But here’s why I dig Mary Beth’s naked alien scene. Naked women in horror films are often victims of horrible atrocities. This time it’s the naked woman who wields all the terrifying power. When tough-guy Zeke first sees her in the locker room walking around naked, the teenage boy is not filled with lust, but with fear. You can hear the horror in his voice when he asks, “Mary Beth…why are you naked?”

Her nudity is terrifying: her nakedness is out of place; she is out of place – she is a powerful and dangerous adversary. And even though ultimately she morphs into a giant worm-blob and Casey smashes her with gym bleachers, this moment — the scary naked woman moment — is a subversion I always enjoy.

Despite all of the above, The Faculty is not perfect. Here are a few issues:

Lack of Diversity: The DVD and poster might lead you to believe that Usher is the only character of color in the film. Other than Salma Hayek, this is pretty much true. This movie is full of white people. White people space aliens.

Don’t invest time in this movie if you are looking for characters of color, characters with disabilities, or queer characters. (Stokely is briefly identified as a lesbian, but it turns out she’s faking it to make people stay away from her, so…)

Yucky Masculinity: The film suffers from some pretty standard icky representations of men. It glorifies the asshole with a heart of gold (Zeke loves science!) and romanticizes the Nice Guy ™ (Casey loves Delilah!).

Plus What’s With the Ending? I can’t wrap my head around it. Everyone is coupled up all happily and heterosexually, like it’s the end of a Shakespeare comedy and time for everyone to get married. Zeke is on the football team? He and Ms. Burke are a… couple? Stokely is wearing lavender?!

Maybe the message is that only when you defeat naked parasitic space aliens will you achieve self-actualization. But part of me wants to believe that there’s something more sinister going on here. Does the teens’ conformity to societal norms mirror the conformity of those infected by aliens? Are socio-cultural expectations the true mind-controlling parasite?

Probably not.

Anyway, here’s my conclusion: The Faculty isn’t a feminist masterpiece, but it proves that it is possible for men sell a film to a male audience and fill it full of women who get to take up time and space. Women should get to take up space. All marginalized people should get to take up space.

We need to pay attention to who gets to speak, and how often they speak, and for how long. We need to be cognizant of the disproportionate allocation of dialogue to men and to women, to white people and to people of color, to the privileged and the oppressed. We need to make space for all minority groups, on our movie screens and at our places of employment. We can’t do that if we don’t pay attention to who gets to speak.

Mychael Elaine is a Bitch Flicks staff writer and writes about representations of gender in horror films at Vagina Dentwata.

How Feminist Is ‘Beauty and the Beast’?

Belle saves the Beast – not just physically by breaking the spell, but emotionally and psychologically by changing his behavior and smoothing his sharp edges. … Both of them begin as loners and societal misfits, but they end as the perfect fit in each other’s lives. However, this nice, mushy message comes at a cost: Belle’s agency as a character. …When we are introduced to Belle she has no more growing left to do in this film other than learn to be less judgmental and find a suitable husband.

This guest post written by Hannah Collins is an edited version that originally appeared at Fanny Pack. It is cross-posted with permission.

Based on the classic French fairy tale and the 1946 French film, Le Belle at la Bete, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (1991) is one of the most critically acclaimed and universally loved in the Princess catalogue. The story revolves around the titular ‘Beast’ – a vain and selfish Prince who is transformed into a monstrous animal by an enchantress as punishment for his flaws – and Belle (the ‘Beauty’), a kind and intelligent girl whom he imprisons in the hope that she might help break the spell put on him. Despite his poor anger-management skills (and inability to use cutlery) Belle slowly begins to tame the Beast’s temperament and work her way into his heart. But, before she can return his feelings and make him human again, an angry mob from her village led by the villainous Gaston – desperate for Belle’s hand in marriage – threaten to destroy everything.

As usual, I’ll be using six key questions to filter the film’s feminist/anti-feminist messages through and ultimately give it a ‘Positive,’ ‘Neutral,’ or ‘Negative’ stamp on it at the end. So without further ado, let’s see how Disney’s sixth official Princess movie holds up.

Belle
Mrs. Potts
The old beggar woman/enchantress
The feather duster maid (called ‘Babette’)
The Wardrobe (called ‘Madame de la Grand Bouche’, which translates to ‘Madame Big Mouth’. Nice.)
The Triplets (called the ‘Bimbettes’… Hmm.)

Total: 8 principle female characters (with speaking parts) compared to 11 principle male characters (with speaking parts).

In a word, no. And this is a good break with tradition, as nearly every Princess movie so far from Snow White, to Cinderella, to Sleeping Beauty, to The Little Mermaid have had female villains motivated solely by vacuous jealousy.

Although the Prince/Beast is the perceived villain to begin with in Beauty and the Beast, the real villain is Belle’s relentless pursuer, Gaston – clearly the more beastly of the two, personality-wise.

Apart from Mrs. Potts, who acts as a surrogate matriarchal figure to just about everyone, Belle disappointingly has very little interactions with any other female character. All of her close allies – her father, the Beast, Cogsworth, and Lumiere – are male, through a combination of circumstance and choice.

This serves subliminally to reinforce Belle’s ‘otherness’ as she seems unable and/or unwilling to maintain relationships with others of her gender. Unfortunately, this is also reflected across the rest of the film’s female characters, with the tightest bonds of friendship being between men: Gaston and LeFou; and Lumiere and Cogsworth.

For the final two-thirds of the film the answer to this is Belle, with her father, Maurice, keeping things barreling along through the first act. Yet, even when Belle does become the driving force of the plot, she doesn’t actually attract the majority of the viewer’s emotional investment. That’s because most of this investment is funneled into the Beast’s quest to regain his humanity instead.

At the start of the film, Belle flitters around a field belting out a song about “wanting so much more than this provincial life,” yet her unfalteringly charismatic character doesn’t develop one bit throughout the story. Geographically-speaking, she also only ends up living what can’t be more than a few miles away from the home she dreamed of travelling far away from. Meanwhile, the Beast’s character enjoys a dramatically shifting arc that also bears the weight of the entire story’s moral as an added bonus. In this respect, Belle – the eponymous princess of this supposed Princess-oriented movie – is effectively side-lined in her own film.

If toxic masculinity took cartoon form, it would look like Gaston. While Belle is a flawed but emphatically feminist heroine, Gaston is a perfect send-up of laddish, brutish, and gross chauvinism. His interactions with her are all deliberately sexist, offensive, vile, and stupid – i.e. the perfect counter-balance to Belle’s pragmatism, wit, and intelligence. Gaston’s attraction to Belle is based firstly on her obvious good looks, and secondly because her constant rejection of him turns his failing courtship of her into a game, and as a proud hunter who “uses antlers in all of his decorating,” you know that Gaston basically just sees her as little more than another deer to chase, shoot, sling over his back, and carry home to become another trophy over his fireplace.

[youtube_sc url=”https://youtu.be/wNlpuD42_BM”]

During his solo song (sung in that flawless baritone), we’re given a handy checklist of things to have and achieve before any self-respecting ‘man’s man’ can be counted as worthy:

Body hair. A lot of it.
Spitting. Be good at it.
Hunting. Do it often.
Using animals as decoration. Everywhere.
Eating 4 dozen raw eggs to become the “size of a barge.”
Drinking. All the time.
Chess (although because being smart is basically useless, the only way to win is by slapping the board away from your oppenent.)
Stomping around in boots. No, really – go out and buy some, now.

With his square jaw, bulging muscles, and operatically-deep voice, Gaston is kind of like a Disney prince gone wrong. And Belle, with all her well-developed intellect, seems to be the only person to call this out. Even her father says that he “seems handsome” and suggests Belle should give him a chance in the romance department. The rest of the town – especially his loyal lackey, LeFou, and the horny triplets – treat Gaston like the village hero, never questioning his judgment, and happy to attend an impromptu wedding for he and Belle (before she’s even agreed to it) or sing an ode to his chest hair in the tavern, or later on be led blindly on a witch hunt to kill the Beast he showed them in a “magic mirror.”

The Beast on the other hand, with his anger problems, selfishness, and emotional unavailability is someone who starts off in a similar place to Gaston – albeit minus the gushing self-confidence. He doesn’t even call Belle by her name to begin with, just “the girl.” The difference between he and Gaston is that rather than forcing himself upon her, the Beast allows himself to be changed for the better by Belle, thus turning himself into a man worthy of her love. As Gaston becomes more and more incensed and frenzied to the point of trying to blackmail Belle into marrying him, the Beast learns to control his anger and becomes more docile and open to the needs of others until he earns rather than wins her affections.

The ultimate proof of his transformation comes when he allows Belle to leave the castle to attend to her sick father at the expense of him being able to break the spell. (Although, seeing how close the town and castle seem to be, there’s no reason he should have assumed Belle couldn’t have popped back to the castle later on…)

Most of Belle’s characteristics fit the usual wish list for Disney Princesses we’ve encountered so far: beauty, charm, kindness, a good set of pipes, and a touch of wistful longing for “something more” than the life they’re trapped in. But Belle has another trick up her puffy dress sleeves: intellectualism. Like our previous heroine, Ariel, Belle is curious about the world around her. The difference here is that Belle has been able to satiate her curiosity with books, turning her into an imaginative, ambitious, sharp-witted, and worldly heroine.

As I mentioned previously, the downside to all this glowing perfection is that Belle seems to have done all her character development off-screen, but she also has another severe weakness: Her heightened intelligence has given her one hell of a superiority complex.

At the start she sings about her “little town, full of little people” and is bored by the routine of everyone else’s lives. She laments that no one reads and imagines more like she does. Similarly, the rest of the town look down on her for being intellectual and “weird.”

During this opening number we see a woman struggling with a comical amount of children – literally juggling babies in her arms – while desperately trying to buy some eggs. Meanwhile, Belle sails past on the back of a cart, smiling and singing about the joy of reading – unburdened by the troubles of being a working-class mother. This is the best insight we get into Belle’s P.O.V: All sweetness and pleasantries on the outside, but internally judging the other women around her who have slavishly “given up” on any hope of independence or self-empowerment.

Belle’s quest for self-betterment is both her greatest strength and weakness. She is presented to young girls watching the film as a woman ahead of her time – a model early feminist, before the term was even invented, who dreams of living life beyond her designated place in society. Yet, by doing so, she can’t help but dole out pity to the other women around her who were not able to choose to live their lives in the way that she has so luckily been able to. In some ways, Belle is the epitome of some of the feminist movement’s problems: white, elitist, and judgmental. And also kind of a hypocrite – after all, let’s not forget that the only two books we see Belle actually engaged with are romance stories – one (pictured below) she reads a passage from referencing “Prince Charming” and the other is Romeo and Juliet. Maybe her desires aren’t quite as wildly different from everyone else’s as she might wish.

Yes, I know. How can one of Disney’s foremost feminist heroines be merely a ‘Neutral’ in terms of gender representation? Hear me out.

The core philosophy of Beauty and the Beast is to love what’s inside of someone rather than just what’s on the outside. This makes it the first time a Disney Princess film has broken the nonsensical ‘love at first sight’ BS that has been at the heart of every previous story – and this is where most of its plus points come from. Belle saves the Beast – not just physically by breaking the spell, but emotionally and psychologically by changing his behavior and smoothing his sharp edges. He begins as a self-loathing, literal monster, and ends up as a well-rounded man who literally and figuratively reclaims his humanity thanks to Belle. Belle, meanwhile, is rewarded with the one thing she (secretly) always longed for: someone who truly understands her. Both of them begin as loners and societal misfits, but they end as the perfect fit in each other’s lives.

However, this nice, mushy message comes at a cost: Belle’s agency as a character. As I’ve established, when we are introduced to Belle she has no more growing left to do in this film other than learn to be less judgmental and find a suitable husband. In fact, I was left feeling a little cheated by the end. The opening, uplifting number makes us anticipate the journey of a modern woman ready to go globe-trotting… only to lead down the same well-trodden path of her finding the nearest castle and Prince to hook up with and stay put in his library for the rest of her life.

In the end, Belle is actually demoted to the usual passive ‘Prince’ role – a one-note hero who swoops in to save the day in the nick of time, leaving the Beast fulfilling the lead, active ‘Princess’ role. This, ultimately, is why what should have been a ‘Positive’ film for gender representation, has sadly balanced out into a ‘Neutral’ one instead.

Hannah Collins is a London-born writer and illustrator fascinated by the intersection between pop/visual culture and feminism. On the blogging scene, Hannah has attracted over 1 million readers to her blog on gender representation in pop culture. By day, she is currently a freelance illustrator for children’s books and comics, and by night (and any other available hour) she contributes to the Cosmic Anvil and Fanny Pack blogs, as well as her own.

The Evolution of Women in Car Movies

This is a guest post written by Chelsy Ranard.

From Imperator Furiosa to Letty Ortiz, strong and knowledgeable female characters crop up in car movies. The women who used to be relegated to flag girls and objectified as hood ornaments are now being introduced as main characters with their own plot points and story developments. Women have notoriously had a minimal past in the automotive industry (and sadly, women are still underrepresented) and their history in automotive movies is no different. However, much like the evolution of women in film in general, women are evolving from props to leading characters in recent years.

Flag Girls and Hood Ornaments

The stereotypical woman in a car movie has been the woman in tall heels and a short skirt waving the start flag before a race. She’s been the beautiful woman in a bikini lying on top of a hood, washing the car, or standing next to the car in some sort of way.

These women don’t have names, any character development, and tend to be nothing more than gorgeous props, similar to the cars themselves in each scene. Car movies tend to be marketed towards men, so naturally there tend to be beautiful women next to beautiful cars. Even in some movies that portray strong women who know cars and drive them, a few flag girls still remain, but this used to be the only role available for women in car movies — unless you were a love interest; then at least you had a name.

Sexism has been an issue in Hollywood in general, not just movies in the car or action genre. Men are paid more and given more leading roles than women and this continues to be a pervasive issue. Women tend to be props in car movies, but they do in movies in other genres as well. This is an issue evolving and changing, however, and an exceeding amount of actresses speak out against sexism and the gender disparity in Hollywood and are working to change it. Women are still unequal to their male co-stars, especially in male-dominated genres, but the evolution is at an upward slope in car movies and in film and television in general.

Sexualized Characters

The women portrayed in car movies are almost always sexualized; the hyper-sexualized characters are almost always the flag girl type. But even the women taking their roles from props to supporting characters still remain highly sexualized and objectified. Think Megan Fox’s character in Transformers, or Jessica Simpson as Daisy Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard movie. These women are car women, not just flag girls or love interests, and are supporting characters. However, Fox’s character still bends over an engine in a crop-top while tightening a cap and Simpson’s character tricks men with her bikini-clad body.

While car movies now mix together more prominent women full of character development and car knowledge, these women are still sexualized. This is definitely not just a woman problem as Hollywood demands that all their stars be beautiful and men are not strangers to shirtless scenes. But men have a wider range of roles portrayed, as well as more lead roles and speaking lines and women are sexualized and objectified, often for the Male Gaze — in film, television and other media — far more than men.

Strong Female Characters

Fortunately, the role of the strong woman in car movies is not a myth and many movies are beginning to add more complex, intelligent, resilient female characters with agency. While some female characters are still sexualized and some aren’t main characters, the more films that feature strong women, the more upward momentum we see on-screen. Characters mentioned before like Letty, played by Michelle Rodriguez in The Fast and the Furious franchise, or Imperator Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road, are two examples of amazing female characters in car movies who don’t exist as props, who aren’t overly sexualized, and who possess character and story developments.

Some other strong female characters in car movies include Thelma (Geena Davis) and Louise (Susan Sarandon) in Thelma & Louise, Stella (Charlize Theron) in The Italian Job, Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei) in My Cousin Vinny, and Sway (Angelina Jolie) in Gone in 60 Seconds. Some of these movies walk the line for what is considered a “car movie,” but all of these women drive and represent the strong female characters our car movies need; although we could do with even less sexualization.

Movies That are Breaking Through

The Fast and the Furious franchise is the highest-grossing car movie franchise and has created seven movies so far, all of which feature women in main roles; but all of them also feature flag girls as well. However, the story created for one of the main characters, Letty, in such a big car movie franchise makes it one of the movies causing change as they try to break through the norm. Letty, whose story and character development undergo major plot points throughout the movies, is not sexualized in the way that Fox’s or Simpson’s characters are in their roles. She’s also featured in one of the largest car stunt scenes in film, a feat that not many women in car movies have been able to achieve.

Even in movies like Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the main character is a woman and an amazing pilot. Katniss in The Hunger Games trilogy, Hermione in the Harry Potter series, and Tris in the Divergent series are all strong female leads for whom younger generations can identify. They are all leads or co-leads in their movies; brave, intelligent, and strong who show that women are not just love interests in action-filled franchises.

In such a male-dominated genre, the women who appear in car movies stick out like a sore thumb. With each woman we see on-screen in these movies who exists as more than just a flag girl, who has a name, who isn’t just a love interest, and isn’t sexualized — it’s a huge win for women in car films, and women in general. Reaching equality is about making small changes until they build up into big changes, and each win gets women closer to being represented equally among men. In a genre that used to be all Burt Reynolds and Steve McQueen, it’s nice to see women like Michelle Rodriguez and Charlize Theron become common names in the car genre as well.

Chelsy Ranard is a writer from Montana who is now living in Boise, Idaho. She graduated with her journalism degree from the University of Montana in 2012. She is a passionate feminist, loves listening to talk radio, and prefers her coffee cold. Follow her on Twitter at @Chelsy5.

‘Game of Thrones’ Week: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts from our ‘Game of Thrones’ Theme Week here.

Bowed, Bent, and Broken: Examining the Women of Color on Game of Thrones by Clara Mae

With the women of color being so scarce in the show, it’s just as important to look at the quality of these portrayals. While Game of Thrones does give us some strong women of color, many of them are portrayed problematically in their own ways: either put into subservient roles, exoticized, demonized, or otherwise discarded by the narrative in ways that the white characters aren’t.

Let’s Talk About the Children: War and the Loss of Innocence on Game of Thrones by Amy Woolsey

Children have always figured prominently in Game of Thrones, but their presence seems especially meaningful this [fourth] season, as we get a clearer glimpse of the war’s effect on bystanders, people not entrenched in political intrigue and behind-the-scenes strategizing.

Game of Thrones: Does It Feel Worse to Cheer For or Against Daenerys? by Katherine Murray

It’s hard to ignore that this is a white woman from a foreign nation who feels it’s her birthright to teach a bunch of brown people how they should behave. … On the flip side, watching a woman lose power on Game of Thrones always seems to involve watching her be sexually victimized somehow, which I can’t really get on board with, no matter how awful she is.

Why I Will Miss Ygritte’s Fierce Feminism on Game of Thrones by Jackie Johnson

Ygritte was fierce, she was vibrant, and she didn’t take any shit. Ygritte’s feminism was multi-dimensional, and for me she will always be missed.

When Brienne Met Jaime: The Rom-Com Hiding in Game of Thrones by Victoria Edel

But in that web of gloom, there’s this beautiful shining light: Brienne and Jaime. And while rom-coms are not often praised for their realism, to me, this couple is the most grounded, sensible thing about the show.

Game of Thrones: Catelyn Stark and Motherhood Tropes by Sophie Hall

Catelyn Stark’s main function in the show is to be a mother to Robb Stark, a prominent male character, whereas in the book series, A Song of Ice and Fire, she is so much more than that. … The show creators are here relying on mother tropes in order to set up the characters; Catelyn is now the nag who only cares about her family and nothing else, whereas Ned is now the valiant hero who wants to seek justice.

Game of Thrones: Is Jon Snow Too Feminine for the Masculine World? by Siobhan Denton

Whilst ostensibly male in terms of gender, Jon Snow’s character is arguably definably feminine through his actions, motivations and interactions with both female and male characters. … This is not to suggest that Jon’s character is not masculine; certainly his actions in battle signal him to be a hero in the archetypical sense, but I am suggesting that Jon Snow’s masculinity coexists with a feminine expression…

In Game of Thrones the Mother of Dragons Is Taking Down the Patriarchy by Megan Kearns

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.

Another Dead Sex Worker on Game of Thrones by Amanda Rodriguez

Even after the finale of its fourth season, the HBO series Game of Thrones continues its reputation for unpredictability and for subverting our genre expectations. However, a glaring pattern of predictability is emerging: all sex workers with significant roles will die horribly. Think about it.

“Love No One But Your Children”: Cersei Lannister and Motherhood on Game of Thrones by Sophie Hall

Cersei Lannister is cunning, deceitful, jealous and entirely about self-preservation. Yet, her show self seems to tie these exclusively with her relationship with her children… Why is motherhood the go-to in order to flesh out her character? Why can’t she be separate from her children, the same way the father of them, Jaime Lannister, is?

The Occasional Purposeful Nudity on Game of Thrones by Lady T

In fact, the difference between gratuitous nudity and artistic nudity is not that difficult to discern. Even Game of Thrones, the show that puts the word “tit” in “titillation,” occasionally uses nudity in a way that isn’t exploitative and adds to a scene rather than detracting from it.

Controversy is Coming for Game of Thrones by Rachel Redfern

Here’s the thing–for all of its controversy (which isn’t hurting the show’s viewership, I’m sure), people are still connecting to this show and are connecting to the terrible, senseless, often difficult situations that they have to struggle through. Game of Thrones offers us, and its characters, no clear way out of mess, no neatly tied up episode endings, hell, even the most devoted fans can only speculate on the series’ ending. This show hosts both the unknown future and the sadly familiar past of familial dysfunction and bad romantic choices.

Sex Workers Are Disposable on Game of Thrones by Gaayathri Nair

When we are introduced to Ros, she is working in Winterfell but as war approaches she decides to try her luck in King’s Landing expressing the view that if all the men leave for war there is not going to be much for her in Winterfell. Once there she goes from being “just a sex worker” to getting involved in the politics of the realm by becoming the right hand woman of Little Finger and subsequently double crossing him by becoming an agent for Varys. However despite her many interesting qualities and potential for interesting storylines, Ros basically exists for one reason to provide exposition regarding male characters on the show while naked. She is sexposition personified.

Masculinity in Game of Thrones: More Than Fairytale Tropes by Jess Sanders

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

Game of Thrones: The Meta-Feminist Arc of Daenerys Targaryen by Amanda Rodriguez

The journey of Daenerys Targaryen is a prototype for female liberation, one that charts women’s emancipation over the centuries and encourages us to push harder and dream bigger for even more freedom now.

Here There Be Sexism?: Game of Thrones and Gender by Megan Kearns

I recognize that there’s a difference between displaying sexism because it’s the time period and condoning said sexism. But this IS a fantasy, not history, meaning the writers can imagine any world they wish to create. So why imagine a misogynistic one?

Motherhood in Film & Television: Spawning the World: Motherhood in Game of Thrones by Rachel Redfern

One of the aspects that struck me in the show though, is the portrayal of motherhood. Far from being absent or swept to the side, the film’s mothers are a driving force in the plot development and are some of the most multi-dimensional of the series (credit has to be given to the actresses who play them).

Gratuitous Female Nudity and Complex Female Characters in Game of Thrones by Lady T

Yes, Game of Thrones is a show that loves its nudity. HBO is known for gratuitous displays of naked ladies in many of its show, but Game of Thrones might as well exist on a network called HBOOB.

Game of Thrones Season 2 Trailer: Will Women Fare Better This Season? by Megan Kearns

Luckily, Season 2 will see an influx of new characters, including lots of female roles. Huzzah! The “Red Priestess” Melisandre of Asshai (Carice van Houten), female warrior (!!!!) Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie), noblewoman Lady Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer), Ygritte (Rose Leslie), the Ironborn captain (double !!!!) Yara Greyjoy (Gemma Whelan) named “Asha” in the novels. Wait, a sorceress, warrior and ship captain?? More women in leadership roles?? Sounds promising!

Rey Is Not the First Female Jedi Protagonist

You can thank me when you’ve finished watching ‘Star Wars: Clone Wars’ and ‘Star Wars Rebels.’ In my opinion, they’re everything ANY of the ‘Star Wars’ movies lacked in story writing, character development, and feminism. You’re welcome.

This guest post written by Estella Ramirez.

A few years ago, I wrote an article about Ahsoka Tano. I praised the animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, because of its variety of female characters and how it passes the Bechdel Test, with some story arcs featuring a trilogy of women in leading roles. These often included Ahsoka Tano as our Jedi hero and Asajj Ventress as our force-sensitive villain, so powerful, only Yoda could confront her without assistance. At the start of the show, Ahsoka has been assigned as Anakin Skywalker’s Padawan. She is not presented to us as exceptionally strong with the force, the way Luke, Anakin, and most recently, Rey, were presented. Unlike these three, Ahsoka underwent a lifetime of Jedi training. This immunizes her against that ill-intentioned label of “Mary Sue,” whereby one claims that a female character is inexplicably perfect, yet she displays exhilarating super-human abilities that are in keeping with the other Jedis. She is, however, exceptional in her drive to improve as a Jedi and, as she matures as a character, to improve as a leader. Ahsoka is as confident and independently minded as Anakin, yet humble enough to take direction at crucial moments, from him, from Clone Trooper captains, from Senator Amidala, and from her Jedi fellows and elders. One gets a sense of her weaknesses as well as her strengths.

Asajj Ventress is introduced to us as an imposing villain. As her character develops, we learn that she comes from a clan called the Night Sisters. She is exceptionally force sensitive, but she is neither Jedi nor Sith. She becomes more and more compelling as the show progresses. Let’s just say Clone Wars showrunner Dave Filoni knows how to pick his writing teams.

In that article, I looked forward to a new project by Filoni and team, called Star Wars Rebels. The time has come to praise this show, especially in light of the overwhelming success in theatres of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

It’s clear The Force Awakens captured our curiosity and our hearts. Many have pointed out what I do not need to say. Hooray for a blockbuster with a woman Jedi protagonist!!! I defend her unrealistic natural ability by pointing out that EVERY MALE HERO IN EVERY ACTION MOVIE possesses unrealistic ability and unrealistic luck. That’s the point: to see on-screen someone doing the things we could only do in our fantasies. We love our underdogs. For Star Wars in particular, it is important to note that being in tune with the force gives you the power to transcend your physical limitations. It’s what’s so endearing and inspiring about Yoda. No one questions Yoda’s power even though he is the size of a terrier and at least hundreds of years old. But Rey has no training! I feel the comment sections pulsating with the words. To that, I submit what Anakin Skywalker, barely out of toddlerhood, was able to do without Jedi training.

Star Wars tells us that to triumph you need to be strong of mind, focus, and little else. If your suspension of disbelief is only threatened when the character is a woman, then you need to reevaluate your life. I’ll add that both Rey and Finn had applicable training to explain their skills with the light saber. Rey survived as an orphan in Jakku fighting with a staff (and we don’t know all her life yet, so hold your judgment) and Finn had combat training as a Storm Trooper since childhood, so it can be presumed that his training could have been comprehensive, despite how necessary a plot point it is for Storm Troopers to be completely incompetent when faced by our heroes. Hey, it’s a movie. Finn, it’s important to note, represents an exceptional character as well. Of all the storm troopers, he has the independence of thought and strength of character to rebel against his training, on moral principle.

As lovely as it is to see the matter-of-factness with which The Force Awakens makes Rey a Jedi protagonist, and how audiences overwhelmingly embraced the movie, we have yet to reach feminist paradise. When it comes to the toys and game pieces (#WheresRey) some decision-makers decided that boys wouldn’t be interested in Rey figurines – no fair to blame the boys. They aren’t the problem; it’s our job to be the adults. Even if focus groups showed that boys preferred to play with figurines that they identified with, where were the adults to see the commercial potential of girls buying action figures because they finally could identify with them? I watched the movie…twice. And I cried quite a bit…twice. I thought about the little girls who would see the movie, for whom what’s possible drastically shifted forward, but just as importantly, the little boys, and children anywhere in the gender spectrum, who would see the possibilities for women and girls. I still remember being in second grade with my Barbies, and my classmate pulling down their tops and acting out how smitten he was. In my previous article, I wrote about how despite the show representing Ahsoka Tano as a fully realized character, fetishists managed to objectify her in their fan art. My hope is that today’s kids can see images and toys depicting women as heroes and protagonists instead, and they realize female characters are interesting for some of the same reasons male characters are – they take their imagination on a world of story and adventure.

Observing the other women in The Force Awakens, I’m looking forward to more of Lupita Nyong’o’s character Maz, because one does not hire an actress of her caliber and not bank on further developing her character in the sequels. I’d like to see more of Captain Phasma, who was severely undermined by how easily Finn and company captured her. I get that it was necessary to the plot, but is that all there is to her? Having one developed female character in Rey, and a few respectful nods to women of color in the background as military and pilots, shows a nice bit of progress, but it’s not enough.

At a talk in Georgetown University last year, Ruth Bader Ginsberg (aka Notorious RBG) said we’ll have enough female justices when all nine justices are women because when all nine have been men, no one questioned it. At the end of the movie, Rey reverently hands back Luke’s saber to him, and you know what? We’ll have enough female Jedi when one woman hands the saber to another woman, when Rey is more than just a female Luke Skywalker, when any child would love to play with a Rey figurine because, duh, she’s a hero.

To see how it’s really done, check out Rebels. Before Ezra shows up, half the Rebel team on the Ghost is comprised of women. Hera is the ship’s lead pilot and owner, and Sabine is the explosives expert, artist, and tagger.

They get shit done. In an interesting episode, Hera and Sabine bond over a difficult mission, incidentally because Ezra and Zeb failed to refuel the ship, as directed by Hera. Hera and Sabine encounter ravenous creatures, and must fight them off with limited resources and without a means of escape. Ezra and Zeb, like Finn does with Rey, rush over to save the “damsels” only to find the women found a solution themselves. They climb aboard while covering the remaining creatures with gunfire. Ezra attempts to save Sabine from one such creature, but finding him overcome, Sabine saves him. They may not be Jedis, and our protagonist Jedis are indeed men, but Hera and Sabine are equally compelling protagonists in the storytelling.

Filoni and his team have been writing feminist stories long before The Force Awakens. I don’t know if it’s deliberate on their part, or if the stories are what I call accidentally or “casually feminist,” meaning they organically pass the Bechdel Test by virtue of including more female lead characters. In any case, this is ideal as it proves that anyone can enjoy a feminist story. The shows are meant for kids, and adults love them, too, because they are good stories, made better by having more female characters. There’s less “Mary Sue” happening because no one female character has to represent the whole of her gender.

Lastly, without spoiling the identity, I’ll hint that a female Jedi appears at the end of the first season of Rebels (squee!), and another squee-worthy female character appearing in its current second season. You can thank me when you’ve finished watching Clone Wars and Rebels. In my opinion, they’re everything ANY of the Star Wars movies lacked in story writing, character development, and feminism. You’re welcome.

Estella Ramirez is a private tutor, writing coach, and singer in Los Angeles. She has an MFA in Creative Writing, and her poetry has been featured in several literary journals. You can read her other article on Ahsoka Tano at The Toast. Read more of her feminist-friendly fandom writing, plus other updates at her personal blog. You can also find her profiles on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Moonfaze Feminist Film Festival: Her Story Illuminated

Writer/Director/Actress and Moonfaze Film Festival Founder Premstar Santana has taken on the challenge of not waiting for Hollywood to feature feminist cinema. She is creating the platform that elevates feminist viewpoints from marginalized voices that rarely get the opportunity to shine.

On December 5, 2015 Writer/Director/Actress and all-around badass Premstar Santana created a phenomenal short film festival centering powerful feminist narratives. Presented inside of LA Mother, (a non-profit organization and multi-purpose creative space that is dedicated to nurturing women in business and the arts), Premstar carved out a safe space for diverse voices from around the globe to flourish. By creating this platform in conjunction with LA Mother, Premstar has taken on the challenge of not waiting for Hollywood to feature feminist cinema. She is creating the platform that elevates feminist viewpoints from marginalized voices that rarely get the opportunity to shine.

The one day evening event started off with a mixer where patrons could nibble on fresh popped popcorn, enjoy some libations and partake of tasty bites provided by a Korean BBQ food truck. Premstar introduced herself the moment I walked in and thanked me for supporting her event. I was immediately struck by her warmth and her sincere appreciation for every person who turned out. And there were a lot of people there. When it was time for the short film showcase to begin, every seat was filled, with an overflow audience sitting on the staircase and standing in the back. A packed house.

The opening film, Luna — written, directed by, and starring Premstar herself — immediately set the tone for the rest of the festival. Premstar’s film let me know that she was not bullshitting about her clarion call to elevate the game. Luna, is an experimental film that introduces us to a woman performing a sacred ceremony inside a circle of burning candles in a dark room. There is a blood offering, an incantation that opens another dimension, and the woman finds herself surrounded by nature and facing a mirror image of herself who simply says “Hello, I’ve been waiting for you…are you ready?” Our protagonist then responds by asking “For What?” Her question is answered by her second self, “To dance.” The film ends with a gorgeous shot of Premstar standing on a sunlit beach watching ocean waves, the full moon high above her head. The piece resonated with me emotionally, and I had the rare moment of instantly recognizing a fellow sister/creator. After watching her other work in the festival (the sci-fi tinged Dos Lunas) I understood Premstar to be a thoughtful and gifted artist. Her work is deeply personal, poetic, and at times haunting. She creates compelling cinema, so I felt confident that I would enjoy the films presented. I felt like I was at a cinema tapas bar, nibbling on all the various films she was spreading before us at LA Mother.

The films themselves ranged from comedy, horror, experimental, dramatic thrillers, documentaries and even a Bollywood drenched piece that had a shocking ending that delighted the receptive audience. One of the crowd favorites was a 6-minute French comedy film called Papa Dans Maman (Dad in Mum) written and directed by Fabrice Bracq. In the film two young sisters hear their mother and father having sex. They try to decide if they should go inside the bedroom to investigate when they hear an unexpected arrival downstairs. The humor worked because of the expressive faces of the young actresses, and the tension that was created by the one sister peeking through the bedroom keyhole and telling the other what she sees.

Another standout piece was the aforementioned 12-minute U.S. Bollywood-Punk Musical, The Pink Sorrys, written by Ben Stoddard and directed by Anam Syed. A deadly girl gang seeks retribution after one of their own is sexually assaulted. The graphic ending was pretty bloody and followed the rape/revenge trope popular in ’70s exploitation cinema. I enjoyed the unique mash-up to tell an unpleasant story about violence against women’s bodies. And come on — Bollywood. Punk. Musical. You got me.

Afghan rapper Sonita Alizadeh directed and stars in a music video called Brides for Sale where she spits her own rap lyrics advocating for the end of forced marriages globally. In Diyu (written and directed by Christine Yuan), a teenaged girl is caught between heaven and hell in a strangely hypnotic experimental film that won the Best Director Award at the end of the evening.

The festival found the right balance of showing some serious life-altering narratives alongside lighter fare that was equally compelling in different ways. One of my other comedy favorites was a film starring Moonfaze’s Festival Manager Sarah Hawkins. Roller Coaster (written and directed by Sarah’s father Bradley Hawkins) is a sweet tale about Emily, an aspiring actress who sets out for an audition, only to encounter obstacles that may cause her to miss her big break. The film playfully highlights the plastic-looking homogeneity of casting calls where women feel the need to look a certain way (mainly white, thin, surgically enhanced or bleached in some way). What struck me about Sarah Hawkins as an actor is that her face had that classic oldschool natural beauty that I miss. In fact, that is what struck me about most of the films in the festival. All these wonderful new faces that don’t have the bland manufactured Hollywood “look.”

At the close of the festival, awards were given in various categories for Best Screenwriting, Cinematography, Acting, Best Experimental Film, Best Documentary, and Best Director. I left the festival elated and impressed with the quality and variety of the films I watched.

A few days later, still excited about the festival, I contacted Premstar and invited her and Festival manager Sarah Hawkins to talk about Moonfaze on the Screenwriter’s Rant Room Podcast I co-host. It was important to give these feminist filmmakers another platform to talk about their work. You can listen to the podcast here.

Premstar said she conceived the idea for the festival in the summer of 2015, and less than six months later it came to fruition. Feminist filmmakers are hungry and ready to share their stories and 2016 will see another Moonfaze Film Festival. As I told Premstar and Sarah on the podcast, the work that Moonfaze has done is reminiscent of song lyrics done by the acapella singing group, Sweet Honey in the Rock. The lyrics are, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” Simply put, we don’t have to wait for someone else to do this work. Fam, we got this. We really do.

Premstar Santana and all the filmmakers involved in the very first Moonfaze Film Festival are bold, unapologetic, and creating new life-giving narratives. I look forward to the 2^nd Annual Festival. You should too.

For more information about the Moonfaze Film Festival and Premstar Santana, check out these websites:

premstarsantana.com

moonfaze.lamother.com

Staff Writer Lisa Bolekaja is a speculative fiction writer, screenwriter, podcaster, Sci-Fi slush reader for Apex Magazine, and a devoted cinefile. A former Film Independent Fellow and a member of the Horror Writers Association, her fiction can be found on Amazon.com.

‘The Tribe’: Navigating the Beauty and Horror of Silent Children

The film moves through arcs of pity, empathy, and then downright horror. Violence is abrupt and can come from anyone. I was blessed to watch the film with an audience that was one third deaf, and the experience of witnessing visceral scenes with the sounds of hands pounding, slapping, moving around me with frantic finger blurs of American Sign Language made the viewing electric.

“The silent pictures were the purest form of cinema; the only thing they lacked was the sound of people talking and noises. In many of the films now being made, there is very little cinema. They are mostly what I call ‘photographs of people talking.’ When we tell a story in cinema, we should resort to dialogue only when it’s impossible to do otherwise.”

Alfred Hitchcock in Hitchcock, by François Truffaut

Writer/Director Miroslav Slaboshpitsky said in an interview that he was inspired to write his film The Tribe because he attended a school that was near a school for the deaf when he was younger. (Incidentally, Slaboshpitsky filmed The Tribe at his old school.) There were fights from time to time between students from his school and the deaf students. He carried these memories for many years, finally unleashing them in a film that has gathered both praise, and in some places, ridicule for being a gimmick film, a one-trick pony only being celebrated because it is a story told completely in Ukrainian Sign Language.

There are no subtitles, no voice-overs, no music or sound design. The only sounds we hear are natural noises around the actors–à la dogme films— when they move within rooms slamming doors, are in cars, are outside walking in snow, or the excited vocal inflections emitted from an agitated signer who often uses sharp finger pokes and hand slaps to catch the attention of people not looking them in the eye. Viewing the film is pretty close to Hitchcock’s idea of “pure cinema.” Viewers don’t even know the names of the characters because our eyes have to do all the work, and we are basically resorted to assigning actors descriptive traits for names like New Kid, Kingpin, Boss Man, Blonde homegirl, and Brunette homegirl to track folks. (After viewing the film, I had to go online and check to see if the actors were even assigned names.)

Not since the silent films during the pre-sound era assigned to me during college have I experienced a film where I had to work at understanding and interpreting human interactions with visuals only. The fascinating part of Slaboshpitsky intentionally making viewers work at comprehension is that my interpretation of the film might be completely different from someone else.

Sergey (Grigoriy Fsenko) is a deaf high school student who tries to fit into his new boarding school and becomes ensnared in a criminal enterprise ran by a gang of older male students and a woodshop teacher. They are into everything. Petty theft, burglary, prostitution, bullying, and assaults on other students. These kids are the poster children for Thug Life Ukraine.

For the first ten minutes of the film, we are forced to orient ourselves. What may appear to be a slow and tedious start is really narrative time designed to acclimate and settle hearing viewers into leaning on visual cues full throttle. We become Sergey trying to figure out the place and its pecking order. Sergey is given instant sympathy because he has no idea what he is getting himself into. He can barely find a room and a bed to occupy before he’s pushed around and forced to sleep in the hallway on his first night. Eventually Sergey is jumped into the “gang” and the film branches out to the other characters. We are witness to the evening prostitution where two teen-aged girls, who are part of the crew, are driven off campus to truck stops by the woodshop teacher and a student handler/pimp. The girls have quick hook-ups inside the trucks, the teen handler/pimp collects the money, and at the end of the night, the woodshop teacher drives them all back to school.

There are only two main female characters in The Tribe, a blonde and a brunette who are dorm roommates and apparently best friends. It would be easy for me to write that they are just objects used throughout the film. They are. But all the underlings in the gang are objects. All bodies are commodities used for profit, from the elementary-aged boys sent out to sell cheap souvenirs on the trains and streets (while also lifting a wallet and a purse or two), to the crews that roam the streets at night to roll over some unlucky citizen walking home at night with groceries.

Unfortunately for this film, the female presence is only used for sexual exploitation. The females are not calling any shots and aren’t bossing any underlings around. They are there to pleasure men. Perhaps it would be different if there were some teen-aged boys also being prostituted along with the girls when they were dropped off at the truck stop. Or at least more girls participating on the stroll and other girls involved in different parts of the criminal enterprise other than prostitution. At least there would be a balance and a sense of “it is what it is.” (I’m not advocating that seeing more girls pimped in the film makes it better in that world, but it might give a semblance of business is business and the female characters were there to make money and have agency for themselves too.) This shouldn’t deter people from seeing the film, it’s just my observation that sometimes screenwriters stick women in scripts for titillation purposes and not as fully realized characters integral to the plot.

There is a lot of sex in the film that isn’t romanticized. People fuck. And not for love. This leads to one of my favorite scenes in the movie. Anya (Yana Novikova) completes a night of sex work and Sergey (her new handler/pimp) walks her back to their dorm. As handler payment (a reward given to the guys who escort the two girls at night to the trucks), Anya hikes up her skirt inside a cold dirty room, bends over and offers her backside to Sergey to do what he will. It’s very clinical, no foreplay, just stick your penis here boy and be done. Sergey flips the encounter on Anya and makes a pallet on the floor and mounts her missionary style so he can see her face. He tries to kiss her, but she protests and turns her head. Eventually they switch positions again, and while sexually spooning her, he manipulates her clitoris and Anya appears aroused and surprised that a male would take time to pleasure her during the act. We watch everything in real time (and full nudity), and when they climax, Anya kisses him. It’s a lovely scene because the sex moves from a passionless unfeeling payment fuck for Anya, (although Sergey is clearly in love with her) into a tender moment where we witness the first sign of emotional connection between anyone in the film. It’s a plot point that eventually spirals the film toward a cringe-worthy abortion sequence and then onto its horrific conclusion.

The sex added a layer to Sergey’s character that I wasn’t expecting. The audience assumes from his earlier awkwardness that he was just a virginal follower, clumsy with girls, and knowing nothing. But watching their sex scene I was struck at how insistent he was at touching Anya in a particular way, moving her into positions not with awkward fumblings, but with an experienced need to please her. It was the first clue Sergey wasn’t what he seemed. Later in the film we find out that we were wrong about him from the start.

The conclusion of The Tribe reminded me of Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible. It is brutal and heart-wrenching in its abrupt closure. The film stays with you. I spent a few days trying to process what it meant to me as a viewer. Was my interpretation of the events correct? Did my eyes deceive me? What social clues did I miss because I don’t know Sign Language? The Tribe was pretty close to pure cinema. It has a seventies realism that I miss in movies today, and the actors look like regular people, not Hollywood augmented look-alikes. The cast is made up of deaf untrained actors who do a hell of a job bringing this world to life. It’s not a film for everyone, but I hope people will step out of their comfort zone to watch it. It will haunt you.

Staff Writer Lisa Bolekaja can be heard co-hosting Hilliard Guess’ Screenwriters Rant Room (the latest episode featuring Empire TV series writer Carlito Machete). Her most recent Sci Fi short story is in Uncanny Magazine, and she can be found on Twitter lurking in the tags #SaturdayNightSciFi and #FridayNightHorror @LisaBolekaja

‘Living Single’ and ‘Girlfriends’: The Roots of Sex Positivity for Black Women on TV

There were never any shows that centered happy, single, child-free Black women that prioritized good sex as part of successful living. That is until two television shows came on the scene, ‘Living Single’ (1993-1998, created by Yvette Lee Bowser) and ‘Girlfriends’ (2000-2007, created by Mara Brock Akil).

Women in the African diaspora have had a hard time claiming healthy ownership of their own bodies. From slavery to the present, Black women (and Black girls) have endured the stigma of having their bodies shamed and sexualized in ways that have been physically, psychologically, and spiritually damaging (see the history of Saartjie “Sarah” Baartman). They had not been afforded healthy representations of Black female sexuality. The Black female body has been viewed as naturally wanton, lascivious, or “fast-tailed” because of sexual exploitation during enslavement. If the sexual revolution of the ’60s and ’70s liberated White women to explore their bodies with abandon, this sex positivity didn’t free Black women from the baggage of their inhumane body history.

Historically in U.S. film and television, Black women have never been allowed to have sexual agency without stigma. If Black women actually showed up in the media, typically she was boxed into several known stereotypes— the Mammy (the asexual being who fixes white people problems while neglecting her own), the Sapphire (angry Black woman or Sassy Black woman), Tragic Mulatto (the light-skinned Black woman who can’t seem to fit into the White world because of the stain of Black blood), or a Jezebel (the hypersexual, loose woman, known today as a THOT—that hoe over there), and even the Respectable Negro (a Black woman who is married/widowed, often pious, and successful based on selfless motherhood. She often places judgment on other Black women who don’t fit her mold).

From the earliest days of television featuring Black characters, shows like Beulah, The Amos ‘n Andy Show, Julia, Sanford and Son, Good Times, The Jeffersons, and right on through Gimme A Break, and 227, Black women have played riffs of the traditional stereotypes. The emergence of Claire Huxtable, the successful attorney and mother of five children on The Cosby Show, fashioned a new type of Black woman we hadn’t seen before (although low-key, she could be sassy and gave off a whiff of subtle respectability in some episodes), and yet she was still bound up in family life. There were never any shows that centered happy, single, child-free Black women that prioritized good sex as part of successful living. That is until two television shows came on the scene, Living Single (1993-1998, created by Yvette Lee Bowser) and Girlfriends (2000-2007, created by Mara Brock Akil).

These two shows revolutionized Black female sexuality on television by giving Black women sexual agency without falling back on tired tropes. They also opened the door to later shows featuring Black single women who embraced sex as a part of good living without stigma (Half and Half, Single Ladies, and Scandal). Two characters in particular stood out from both series that became the precursors for sexually carefree Black women:

Maxine Shaw (Erika Alexander) and Lynn Searcy (Persia White)

Living Single

Living Single followed a group of four female friends and their two male neighbors living in a Brooklyn brownstone apartment. They were upwardly mobile in their careers as lawyers, magazine owners, stockbrokers, and independent building maintenance handymen. The show gravitated around rap star Queen Latifah’s character, Khadijah James, and each week found the crew in various complications related to their jobs, love lives, and each other. It was rare to see a show dominated by Black professionals. Finding “Mr. Right” is often the end goal for women-centered shows, but thankfully Living Single didn’t spend too much time having the women lament about not having found “the one.” One character, Régine (Kim Fields), was painted as a gold-digger, but she was the only one who had a hint of desperation in terms of having a relationship based on material comfort. Khadijah’s cousin Synclaire (Kim Coles) was the naïve, sweet-natured friend who dripped with positivity and wholesomeness. But it was Maxine, the high-powered attorney who was the standout favorite.

From her shaved head with braids, gorgeous dark skin, and power suits, Maxine had healthy sexual relationships without strings. She dated often, and was typically the one to cut relationships short when men wanted more serious (and more monogamous) relations. Some women who watched the show faithfully wore their hair like Maxine as well as imitating her fashion sense. She lived her life on her own terms (she was not a roommate with the other women because she had her own place), and she had the income to do as she pleased. She was verbally assertive, and was quick to challenge men, especially her epic battles with Khadijah’s neighbor and friend, stockbroker Kyle Baker (T.C. Carson). Their verbal spats underscored the sexual tension and attraction they really had for each other. When they get drunk one night and slept together, they choose to keep the relationship a secret, with Maxine pushing to keep the hot sex in the realm of platonic fuck buddies.

Unlike Black women from previous TV shows, pleasure and freedom was the goal for Maxine. This didn’t mean that marriage or motherhood, or some form of connection wasn’t a possibility for her, it just wasn’t the ONLY goal in her life. Her career and her friendships meant just as much as having a man, or dreaming of a family. After finally revealing their sexual connection to their friends, Kyle accepts a job in London and asks Maxine to join him. Kyle was the best sex partner Maxine ever had. He was successful, gorgeous, and her equal in every way. And yet Maxine turned him down because she valued her autonomy and wasn’t willing to give up her life and lifestyle to follow him. She didn’t try to convince him to stay (even though she really wanted him), and they parted as lovers who respected each other’s decision, even though it was a difficult one. Maxine had such a sense of self that she allowed her dream man to leave without a fight. That was a revelation to the core audience.

Unfortunately, in the last season of the series, Maxine was shown to miss Kyle, and had the wild idea that her life would have meaning if she had a baby. She goes to a sperm bank and inadvertently gets inseminated with Kyle’s sperm. In the series finale she reconciles with Kyle and we are left to believe that they will be happy raising their baby together. It is a cliché happy ending, especially since Maxine had been presented as the ultimate carefree Black woman. However, the fans loved it, and on some level, it was nice to see her get the partner she deserved, one who was as sexually uninhibited as she was, and one who respected her choice to be that way. She owned her beautiful Black body. Maxine offered Black women watching the show an opportunity to embrace their sexual sides with humor and much needed positivity.

Girlfriends

Much like the template of Living Single, Girlfriends followed the humorous trials and tribulations of four young success driven Black women living in Los Angeles. In this world, attorney Joan Clayton (Tracee Ellis Ross) was the main protagonist who set the pace for her three friends– Maya Wilkes (Golden Brooks) her Compton hood girl personal assistant, Toni Childs (Jill Marie Jones) her college roommate and a high end real estate agent with a taste for expensive things, and Lynn Searcy (Persia White), another former college roommate with several post graduate degrees and counting, but no real job because of her unsettled bohemian lifestyle.

All the women on Girlfriends were sexually active and enjoyed good sex (although Joan had a ninety day waiting period for her beaus prior to sex which became an issue with some), but it was Lynn who was the most sexually experimental. She openly discussed her sex toys and personal sex tricks (The “Lynn Spin”), ménage à trois, group sex, sex swings/chairs, and same-gender hook-ups. There was no sexual experience she hadn’t tried or was afraid to engage in. She even had her own fuck buddy arrangement with the clique’s mutual male friend, the lawyer William Dent (Reggie Hayes).

Lynn essentially stepped up the sexual freedom of Maxine on Living Single, and overall, the women of Girlfriends were a little more nuanced in their performances than the characters of Living Single (except for Maya, who took some time to lower the hood shtick she displayed in earlier episodes). Both Maxine and Lynn brought a refreshing and openly accepted sexuality that had never been present in Black female television characters. These two women were the ones viewers like me wanted to sit around with holding glasses of wine and listening to the details of their sexual exploits.

None of the women from either show carried the stigmas of the past that haunted the Black female body. They revealed to the world the Black Female Gaze in sexual matters which upset some critics (including Bill Cosby, and Spike Lee who accused them of being oversexed embarrassments). Like most new shows, it did take time for Living Single and Girlfriends to hit their stride, and each had their corny struggle moments to figure out their voice. However, in the end, they brought forth Black women with positive and healthy sexual pursuits. They left the sexual baggage and shaming in the past in order to present Black female sexuality in a healthy new light.

Staff writer Lisa Bolekaja co-hosts Hilliard Guess’ Screenwriters Rant Room, and her latest speculative fiction short story “Three Voices” can be read in Uncanny Magazine. She divides her time between California and Italy. She can be found on Twitter @LisaBolekaja lurking in the hashtags #SaturdayNightSciFi and #FridayNightHorror

‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’: Childhood Is The Pits

The heroic journey of Short Round is the catalyst for both Willie’s and Indy’s own growth and transcendence, as Willie becomes proactive and Indy becomes responsible.

Ke Huy Quan as Short Round, facing the pits

Written by Brigit McCone.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is the coolest kids’ movie ever made about severe child abuse. Just as Roald Dahl’s Matilda does for daughters and mothers, so The Temple of Doom affirms that the good father must empower his son, and defends the child’s right to reject and resist abusive behavior. Critics who strive to dismiss the film as the original trilogy’s “weakest” often snark about the allegedly annoying chirpiness of Ke Huy Quan’s heartfelt performance. I suspect they are actually uncomfortable that Spielberg’s film narratively centers Short Round as its protagonist, while casually assuming that an adult audience identify with him. From his hero-worship of Indy to his glee at the film’s thrill rides, Short Round’s emotional responses cue our own, including an assumed desire to break up kissing couples and see squealing girls get giant millipedes down the back of their necks.

The film embodies the sensibility of a twelve-year-old boy, wholeheartedly and without ironic distance. The mighty Indiana Jones himself is regularly “fridged,” disempowered by the mind-controlling Black Blood of Kali Ma (Mother Kali) and voodoo dolls, to further Short Round’s heroic journey. As much as Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, his Temple of Doom showcases the director’s extraordinary empathy for a young boy’s worldview, though it conjures a nightmare of parental abuse rather than E.T.‘s fantasy playmate, leading to accusations that the film is “too dark”. Validating a child’s experiences by confronting the terror of abusive parents is apparently less acceptable than Nazi torturers to mainstream (adult) viewers. Just as audiences can only fully appreciate Spielberg’s film by identifying wholeheartedly with Short Round, so Indy must learn to identify with the child’s perspective to grow into the role of good father, from careless and selfish beginnings. His newfound identification is showcased when begged to flee the hellish Thuggee lair. Harrison Ford turns, jaw set in iconic resolution, and growls “right! All of us” before battling for the cathartic liberation of every last one of the film’s abused children. Coolest. Dad. Ever.

"Left Tunnel, Indy!" - good father. Crap navigator. — “Left Tunnel, Indy!” – good father. Crap navigator.

Because Short Round is positioned as the protagonist of the film in terms of agency, I don’t read it as a conventional White Savior narrative. Indy’s swaggering Fedora the Explorer is repeatedly punished for assuming he knows better than the film’s Asian boys. As Short Round puts it, with a frustration familiar to any child, “I keep telling you, you listen to me more, you live longer!” Interestingly, the Prime Minister of Pangkot explicitly accuses British colonials of viewing Indians as children, while the Thuggee appropriate the village’s power source and indoctrinate their children like nightmare colonizer-fathers (yes, Indians are the film’s primary representatives of Patriarcho-colonialism. “Projection” has many cinematic meanings). The film’s paternalist Brits monitor and stifle, but fail to figure out what’s really going on until it’s too late. Only the holy fire of Short Round’s torch, that awakens Indy as Indy’s fiery wrath awakens the Sankara stones, can defeat the Thuggee menace.

Where British colonizers infantilize adults, Indiana Jones lets children drive (a powerful metaphor, if inadvisable from a vehicular manslaughter standpoint). The supernatural power of the stones confirms that Indiana Jones operates in a syncretic universe, in which the divine can manifest equally as Shiva or Jehovah, marking no culture as inherently superior. However, the failure of The Last Crusade to even mention Short Round’s fate, in its meditations on the meaning of fatherhood, reinforces the vilest stereotypes of interracial adoptees as disposable rent-a-kids. Indian culture is also caricatured and distorted by the film, even granted the disturbing true history of the Thuggee death cult. Where in Hinduism the god Shiva and goddess Kali are consorts, each representing forces of combined destruction and creation, Spielberg and Lucas create a simplistic opposition between a heroic Shiva and an evil Kali.

The historical Thuggee did kill in Kali’s name, indoctrinating young boys into their cult, but did not target women. The film’s plot, with Indy possessed by his skull-faced mother goddess and compelled to destroy his blonde love interest, therefore resembles a Bollywood reimagining of Hitchcock’s Psycho more than Hinduism. Spielberg’s Thuggee are a cult that brutally enslave children, both boys and girls. The boys are terrified that their puberty will force them to become mindless abusers themselves: “will become like them. Will be alive, but like a nightmare. You drink blood, you not wake up from nightmare”. We see no adult women among the Thuggee which, along with the attempted sacrifice of Willie, forces us to conclude that the enslaved girls have their hearts torn out and are fed to the flames when they hit puberty. The film’s vision of the Thuggee is thus a nightmare caricature of patriarchy: consuming women heart first, enslaving children and turning terrified boys into inevitable replicas of their abusive fathers, for fear of sharing the sacrificial woman’s fate (“projection” has oh so many cinematic meanings). How appropriate, then, that the surrogate family at the film’s heart – Indy, Willie and Short Round – caricature traditional gender roles. Indy is an overtly macho leader who lusts after “fortune and glory”; Willie is a squeamish, passive beauty who seeks to control violent men with sex appeal; Short Round is a colonized kid who models his whole identity on his father-figure. When Indy is forced to drink the Kool-Aid of Kali Ma, this substance abuse terrifyingly alters his personality, becoming a violent and unloving nightmare father. It is up to Short Round to break this cycle and fight back (dun-ta-dun-tah, dun-ta-daaah!)

Kate Capshaw as Willie, facing the pits of Mommy-goddess issues — Kate Capshaw as Willie, facing the fiery pits of patriarchy’s Mommy-goddess issues

Willie is a perfect deconstruction of the myth of female sexual power, and Kate Capshaw plays her with tongue firmly in cheek. She attempts to secure her position in Shanghai by her sexual power over an influential mob boss, but he hardly cares if she dies. She tries to bolster her shaky self-worth by accusing Indy of being unable to take his eyes off her, only to be humiliated as he pointedly pulls his fedora over those eyes and naps. Further outraged as Indy seems more interested in feeling up a statue than in making love to her, the objectified Willie is reduced to being farcically jealous of a literal object. After Indy becomes evil through drinking the Black Blood of Kali Ma (what is it with women and their wicked bleeding, amirite?), Willie attempts to cure him using traditionally female strategies of appeasing, pleading and crying, that are shown to be totally ineffective. The audience is lured into a contemptuous “girls are stoopid” view of Willie, that reflects the typical psychology of children in abusive families, who cope with their own terrifying helplessness by identifying with the seeming strength of the abuser, and redirecting their angry frustration at the apparently weaker, appeasing parent. If you are one of the many feminists who hate Willie, ask why you intensely dislike a woman who struggles to secure her safety nonviolently, and is out of her depth in a situation where we would be likewise. Battling to be more than some man’s Willie, Willie shows great guts, becoming a partner in adventure who courageously fights for Short Round, braving hideous bugs to free him and forcefully stamping on the fingers of the villainous Mola Ram as he climbs to get them. Willie even develops a sense of humor about being hosed by Short Round’s elephant. Coolest. Mom. Ever.

Of course, there are problems with this model. The Indiana Jones trilogy follows the usual pattern of male-authored feminist empowerment, in proposing that women can become equal to men by proving that they can be masculine, with no self-scrutiny or uncomfortable adjustments necessary in the underlying ideology of male domination. Insecurity over female sexuality pervades these representations. If a woman tries to get her way using sexual power, like Kate Capshaw’s Willie, she is ruthlessly mocked. If she succeeds in getting her way using sexual power, like Alison Doody’s Elsa of The Last Crusade, she is dropped screaming into a bottomless abyss. Only Karen Allen’s Marion Ravenwood, of Raiders of the Lost Ark, is a truly Cool Girl, because she can drink more than men, doesn’t dress too sexy and has no problem with violence. By contrast, many Asian philosophies teach that our full humanity is a balance between the forces of shiva and shakti, yin and yang. To impose a rigid gender binary, society must code shiva/yang as exclusively male, and shakti/yin as exclusively female. Each of these exclusions, enforced by strict gender policing, serves to suppress full human potential. Yet, just as Spielberg and Lucas reject the positive potential of shakti in their distortion of Hinduism, so they reject the positive potential of femininity in their distortion of women. Through Cool Girls like Marion Ravenwood, the trilogy accepts that the female is not necessarily feminine, but does nothing to question the demonization of femininity itself.

"Kali Ma Shakti De!" - Mola Ram summons his feminine side — “Kali Ma Shakti De!” – Mola Ram summons his feminine side

As for the boy-child, Short Round is repeatedly shown humorously mirroring Indy, underlining his hero worship, which is also expressed in his contempt for Willie: “you call him Dr. Jones, doll!” Trapped in the nightmarish Thuggee model, however, in which Indy has become corrupted into a violent Thug, Short Round breaks his identification with him and, with tears in his eyes, symbolically rejects him by burning him, before fighting to save mother-figure Willie from the sacrificial pit. Spielberg’s Temple of Doom resembles a Euro-American vision of hell, that Short Round must escape by braving its fires and learning to wield them himself. The abused child’s empowerment fantasy allows Short Round to locate the voodoo doll that is controlling his parent, and remove the pin, so that Indy can be magically admirable again. Indy’s own fury, at being manipulated into a mindless slave of the wicked Temple of Patriarcho-colonialism, can then awaken Shiva’s righteous flame and destroy Mola Ram’s arch-abuser. Only through such painful awakening, not appeasement, can the cycle be broken and the nightmare escaped.

The heroic journey of Short Round is the catalyst for both Willie’s and Indy’s own growth and transcendence, as Willie becomes proactive and Indy becomes responsible. Ultimately, Indy renounces “fortune and glory” in favor of giving back to the community. A reconciliation with feminine values, after all? Since community values are represented by Shiva’s Penis… perhaps not. By breaking his chains and rejecting the abusive father, it is Short Round who single-handedly turns the film around. If Ke Huy Quan doesn’t break your heart as he croaks “I love you! Wake up, Indy!” before swinging that torch, you may need to check your pulse. Annoying? Bah! Give that kid an Oscar.

Short Round and the Father Figure of Doom

The Indiana Jones trilogy commands a rabid devotion that none of its many imitators can match, because its thrill rides cover a masculine psychological journey of archetypal power. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy must defeat his shadow self in Belloq, and reconcile with his female counterpart in Marion, by embracing humility and accepting his limits. In The Temple of Doom, he must accept the responsibilities of the father and confront his fear of becoming the abusive father. Finally, in The Last Crusade, Indy must forgive his own father, and consciously walk in the footsteps of his father’s teaching. The films have less to offer female audiences: a promise of equality through rejecting femininity, and an opportunity to overidentify with an Asian boy. But societies are defined by the freedom and dignity granted to their most vulnerable members. By unabashedly celebrating the empowerment of children, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom becomes a manifesto for the liberation of Shorties everywhere. Wake the hell up, Indy.

Brigit McCone has a lingering fondness for fedoras, writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and pretending The Crystal Skull never happened.

‘Sharknado 3’: TV’s Guilty Pleasure

Don’t judge me.

I am a fan of the ‘Sharknado’ franchise put out by the SyFy Channel.

Don’t judge me.

I am a fan of the Sharknado franchise put out by the SyFy Channel. In a nutshell, all three of the movie plots are pretty basic. Literally there are tornadoes erupting in major U.S. cities that are filled with man-eating sharks of all types and sizes. In the first installment it was Los Angeles. The second took place in New York. In Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!, we start out in the White House and end up at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. Flying sharks appear suddenly, eat, kill, and maim people, and then dissipate to form tornadoes again in another part of town. I know, stupid.

A shark taking a break from causing mayhem by visiting the Lincoln Memorial.

The quick and dirty rundown is that Ian Ziering and Tara Reid return as Fin Shepard and April Wexler who are now expecting a new baby together. Fin is accepting the “Order of the Golden Chainsaw” from the President in the White House (Mark Cuban) for saving New York in the last film. While Fin is in D.C., April is in Florida at Universal Studios Orlando with their oldest daughter and Bo Derek (who plays April’s mother, May Wexler). Storms begin eight minutes into the film and it’s the usual farce of flying shark mayhem. Fin tries to get down to Florida to save his family, and he meets up with his former bar employee, Nova Clarke (Cassie Scerbo). Nova tools around in a reinforced RV fighting sharks like a Mad Max movie reject with her nerdy sidekick Lucas (Frankie Muniz). They (minus Lucas) make it to Florida and reunite with Fin’s family. Fin soon finds his way inside a space shuttle with his father Gilbert Shepard (David Hasselhoff) to save the planet from the sharknado infestation.

The only reasons to watch Sharknado 3 (or any of them really) are:

Cameo Appearances.

There are so many familiar and sometimes controversial faces in Sharnado 3, and part of the fun is chuckling at who actually signed up to appear in it. Most known actors in the SyFy Creature Feature programming are former (minor) stars from the ’80s and ’90s, and some are even names who used to be in blockbuster films a few years ago (Vivica Fox from Independence Day and Kill Bill appeared in Sharknado 2). Sharknado 3 boasts cameos from R&B singer Ne-Yo, Lou Ferrigno (the original Incredible Hulk), Harvey Levin (TMZ host), Jackie Collins (author/socialite), Frankie Muniz (the Malcolm in the Middle star who looked so old in this), and real-life political figures like Anthony Wiener (who now works for a crisis PR firm–oh, the irony), Ann Coulter (why did she not get eaten in this thing?), and Michele Bachmann (so random).

Landmarks Destroyed

The White House, the Washington Monument, the Capitol Rotunda, and of course, if you saw the other two films set in New York and Los Angeles, you saw the Statue of Liberty lose her head and the Santa Monica Pier’s Ferris Wheel destroy the boardwalk.

Ridiculous Shark Deaths, Lack of Realism, and Poor CGI

Sharknado 3 is not afraid to show how low-budget it is and how obvious the CGI is crafted. It’s part of the joke in many ways. The producers pour on the cheap-ass quality, and we love it. As our hero Fin gets caught inside his car as a new storm rages around him, he jumps out and has to grab ahold of his car door to keep himself from flying away. Mind you, everything else around him that is heavier than his car is being lifted into the sky, but his vehicle stays put on the ground, barely shaking from the high winds of flying sharks. But we don’t care. Sharks swallow people whole, they slap people to death with their fins, and they bite off all your limbs. Some even gulp you down in outer space. They have no chill. Bonus: George R.R. Martin has a Game of Thrones bloodfest comeuppance.

Nostalgia for Old School Creature Features

If you grew up loving Lloyd Kaufman’s Toxic Avenger series, Roger Corman’s American International Pictures, or the old Hammer Film Productions, then Sharknado 3 is for you. It’s for people who enjoyed Saturday afternoon Creature Features like Godzilla and Gamera that were often followed by Kung Fu Theater classics.

That’s it.

Sharknado 3 is the Krispy Kreme donut of movies. There is no nutritional value whatsoever for a cinephile, but damn it, as soon as that “Hot Now” sign goes on, you have to have it. It is so god-awful that it’s good. I made Patron flavored cupcakes to snack on as I indulged in the sublime foolishness. Sidenote: Sharknado films are for drinking parties. It’s always better with liquor.

The actors themselves know that this awful TV movie is a fluke to be such a success. Ian Ziering has stated that he took the job only because he needed to work and support his family. The actor Steve Guttenberg reportedly was offered the role of Fin Shepard but turned it down. He regretted it later after the first Sharknado film blew up. (But no worries, he can try to make up for his faux pas by being comical in the upcoming SyFy original movie, Lavalantula. Yes. LAVALANTULA.)

You thought I was playing. Lavalantula. — You thought I was playing. *Lavalantula*.

All the Sharknado TV movies owe their popularity and longevity with their mockbuster sequels to us, the fans. We made this cultural zietgiest happen. Social media and livetweets propelled this thing into the fandom stratosphere. The SyFy network have had other audacious TV movies like Frankenfish, Sharktopus, Piranhaconda (stop laughing), Dinoshark, Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda, and a few days ago, Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf (hand to God). But somehow, only Sharknado became a thing. I confess, I own a Sharknado T-shirt, and Sharknado leggings, and wear them proudly like I would my Wonder Woman, Batman, and Loki fan gear. There’s something life-affirming about cherishing pure D-level entertainment. The collective eye-winking warms my heart.

The Shepard family reunited for a final showdown in Florida.

The PR end of Sharknado 1, 2, and 3 was smart to engage the public. As the second movie was being made, there was a contest on Twitter to name the movie subtitle. The best title winner would win actual props from the movie along with having the prestige of naming a campfest. Sharknado 3 is already priming the pump for a new installment. As the premier ended Wednesday night, the SyFy channel posted two Twitter hashtags, #AprilLives and #AprilDies. (Sorry Tara Reid, I tweeted #AprilDies because #teamnova.) The fans will decide the fate of Reid’s character April, who gave birth to Fin’s baby inside of a shark falling to earth from outer space. No, for real. That happened. This type of interaction is gold for fans like me who wonder how the writers/producers will level up from sharks in space. What could they possibly have in store for us hardcore stans in Sharknado 4? The only thing I can add is to have the producers cast me in a walk-on role, where I run from sharks and maybe bash a few upside the noggin with coconuts somewhere in the Fiji Islands. I’m just saying.

Until Sharknado 4 appears, I’ll eagerly await giant spiders spewing lava from their butts. Bring it SyFy channel. I’m a ride or die fan waiting for my close-up.

Staff writer Lisa Bolekaja is the co-host of Hilliard Guess’ Screenwriters Rant Room. When not watching cheesy SyFy flicks, she can be found in the Twitter hashtags #SaturdaynightSciFi and #Fridaynighthorror. She divides her time between Italy and several cities in California. You can read her short SF/F story “Three Voices” at Uncanny Magazine.

‘Ackee & Saltfish’: There Are Other Narratives to Explore

We need new filmmakers like Cecile Emeke to break new ground with digital media. Smash the stranglehold of white filmmakers being the only ones telling Black stories that often dredge up old stereotypes and tired narratives. We need the specificity of Emeke’s vision. And dammit, I need more Rachel and Olivia in my life.

“It would be nice to have a story where it doesn’t always have to relate around men, or drug dealer boyfriend, babymama drama, (gun crime), or my Daddy’s gone. It doesn’t have to be like that. There are other narratives you know.”

–Michelle Tiwo (Olivia in Cecile Emeke’s Ackee and Saltfish)

I happened to be on Twitter the day Ava DuVernay hosted her 12-hour Rebel-A-Thon social media conversation with 42 Black filmmakers on May 27. With the hashtag #Array, various screenwriters, directors, and producers answered questions from fans and interacted with one another. I gave a shout-out online with my support, but also stated that I wanted to see more underrepresented filmmakers outside of the U.S.

Another Twitter user following the hashtag dropped filmmaker Cecile Emeke into my mentions. I quickly went to YouTube and discovered her humorous comedic web series Ackee & Saltfish.

Cecile Emeke, creator/writer/director of "Ackee and Saltfish" and "Strolling" — Cecile Emeke, creator/writer/director of *Ackee & Saltfish* and *Strolling*

Completely crowd-funded, Cecile Emeke has created quite an impression with her work. She is redefining what Black female writer/directors can bring to the table. And this is critical, especially from a Black European female. Just like Black women in the U.S., it is hella rare for Black women in Europe to bring their voices to the table. The excitement I have for Amma Asante and the success of her critically underrated (and underplayed) Belle only makes me hunger for stories about Black women across the pond. Emeke herself has some strong words about being tired of white filmmakers telling Black stories with a white gaze. This familiar complaint is even more searing especially with the release of Girlhood by French filmmaker Céline Sciamma. (You can read what Emeke has to say about that here.)

Ackee & Saltfish is a very important piece of work that should be signal boosted with viewership and financial support immediately. It has an authentic, playful, low-key coolness that I want to see more of. The two lead characters in the series, Michelle Tiwo (Olivia) and Vanessa Babirye (Rachel), are not contrived stereotypes, and are not dealing with the usual negative tropes ascribed to Black female characters (refer again to Michelle Tiwo’s words I quote at the beginning of this piece). They are carefree Black women just living their life.

Michelle Tiwo (Olivia) and Vanessa Babirye (Rachel) having a typical chat that revels in sharp verbal zingers.

Let me stress this: we hardly ever see Black women just dealing with themselves and their friendships without contrived outside interference. Every webisode centers on Olivia and Rachel just chilling within their friendship. Some viewers may mistake this for being a plot-less series (or may be reminded of the old American comedy Seinfeld being a show about “nothing”). The show hinges on subtle character-based humor. Olivia and Rachel are the plot. The conflict in Ackee & Saltfish is the differences in how Olivia and Rachel interact with one another. Olivia is the more assertive, outspoken realist, whereas Rachel is the more laid-back and soft-spoken one, often looking at her friend Olivia with an expression of incredulous wonder at the things she says. The friendship feels real to me, and the way Emeke films the series, the viewer may often feel like the third person in the room simply hanging out and listening to the two banter about Lauryn Hill tickets, bread backs, how one’s breath smells, or why Solange Knowles should adopt Olivia. The easy back and forth between the two actors may have the feel of improv, but their lines are scripted by Emeke.

Rachel's boyfriend prepared a dish of Ackee without Saltfish and Olivia has come undone over it. — Rachel’s boyfriend prepared a dish of Ackee without Saltfish and Olivia has come undone over it.

My favorite episode is about Olivia and Rachel hanging inside a carpet store because it’s raining and they don’t want to get wet. While trying to stay dry they have to contend with a faceless store owner who keeps pestering them with “Excuse me!” when he sees they are not there to buy carpet. Eventually they hear music playing in the store, and they start dancing, doing moves I’ve done myself (like The Butterfly). It’s silly and reminds me of the random moments I’ve had with my friends.

Olivia thinks she's the next Serena Williams. Rachel is not impressed. — Olivia thinks she’s the next Serena Williams. Rachel is not impressed.

Thus far, all the episodes (including the original short film) only show Olivia and Rachel interacting with each other. I’m hoping that as Emeke’s fan base grows, and she can secure more funding to make more episodes, that she will eventually allow us to see these two besties engage with other characters. I want the web series to be picked up and turned into a TV series with longer episodes. There are six episodes available to watch online. There is also a 10-minute “support” video where Emeke and her actors talk about the work they’re doing while encouraging viewers to give financial support with donations so they can create more content. (I have done that!)

The other project Emeke has in her creative arsenal is the intriguing documentary series called Strolling in the U.K., and Flâner in France. Emeke films young Black people strolling in their neighborhoods as they talk about what it’s like living in their respective spaces. Over nine episodes (about 10 minutes each) participants discuss race, class, gentrification, colorism, colonial legacies, Afrofuturism, what it means to be a Black British person, or a Black French person (or British Jamaican, or British Nigerian), Black mental health, sexuality, sexism, misogyny and the list goes on. The power of this documentary series for someone like me, a Black American, is the decentering of African Americans as the dominating cultural force in the African diaspora. I can listen to new Black voices who share the same transatlantic African history, but who have a differing perspective on how the African diaspora should connect based on where their ancestors landed after enslavement. They are echoing my Twitter call to hear from underrepresented voices from across the pond. Strolling is a Black cultural call and response, a digital “How your people doin’ over there Fam?” and they answer “Living like this, Sis.”

Strolling in the U.K. with young Black Brits in the Strolling documentary series. — Strolling in the U.K. with young Black Brits in the *Strolling* documentary series.

In Flâner, Emeke allows young Black French voices to be heard speaking their own truth. — In *Flaner*, Emeke allows young Black French voices to be heard speaking their own truth.

Emeke would like to take the Strolling series to other places outside of Europe, and I am here for it. How amazing it would be if she were able to travel to Japan, India, Brazil, Mexico, and Australia, Indonesia or parts of Canada to record unique voices with unique perspectives? People of African descent are everywhere, blended into other cultures with rich stories to tell the rest of the world. The Strolling series is also an opportunity for White and non-Black people of color to understand that there is not one monolithic “Black” experience. Thank goodness. That would be boring.

Friendship goals. Rachel and Olivia. More please.

P.S. I know you were wondering, here it is:

Ackee and Saltfish the dish. Google the recipe and enjoy.

Lisa Bolekaja co-hosts Hilliard Guess’ Screenwriters Rant Room, and her latest speculative short story “Three Voices” can be read in Uncanny Magazine. She can be found on Twitter @LisaBolekaja