Female Writers – Bitch Flicks

The Sleepover Paradigm: What to Do When the Party’s Over

Plus, things got in the way–like jobs, schedules, coworkers, relationships, disappointments and distance…basically just growing up. So when I sat down to create ‘Young Like Us,’ an original series that I wrote with Chloe Sarbib, my real college roommate, this is exactly what we (and the rest of our all-female production team and main cast) wanted to explore.

This is a guest post by Cleo Handler.

Remember how you felt at the end of a big sleepover, when you’d wake up with a Sour Patch Watermelon and Junior Mint hangover and the DVD menu for Mean Girls back up on the TV, still blaring the same few bars of “Overdrive” on repeat? You’d reach around groggily for your glasses, not wanting to leave, but feeling kind of sick and realizing you had a full day of homework ahead of you. That’s just what graduating college is like.

Mean Girls – the sleepover classic — *Mean Girls* – the sleepover classic

Or at least, that’s how I felt. When I found myself alone in New York City, after four years of playing a Little League game of “Adult” and winning participation trophies, I was disoriented and overwhelmed. But most of all, I was no longer at one giant, constant slumber party with my friends, where no one told us what to eat or when to go to bed. Friendships suddenly required work (and hours on the train!) and I wasn’t sure how to adjust. Plus, things got in the way–like jobs, schedules, coworkers, relationships, disappointments and distance…basically just growing up. So when I sat down to create Young Like Us, an original series that I wrote with Chloe Sarbib, my real college roommate, this is exactly what we (and the rest of our all-female production team and main cast) wanted to explore.

Young Like Us characters on the stoop with their landlord Larry (Brad Dourif) in the pilot episode — *Young Like Us* characters on the stoop with their landlord Larry (Brad Dourif) in the pilot episode

When the main characters Mia, Ava, and Charlie realize that post-college life is pulling them in very different directions, they are forced to give up their shared Brooklyn apartment (with their creepy landlord Brad Dourif) and maybe more. In a last-ditch effort to stay in Neverland, Charlie convinces her reluctant friends that the best way for them to hang out more is to become a girl band – because bands never break up, right? Through the songs the girls (try to) write each week, they are able to explore the confusion of being a semi-adult, the same confusion we often struggled to articulate in our own lives.

Many shows out there deal with similar issues of shifting female friendships and navigating the transition to the real world (like gems Broad City and of course Girls, but we still felt that something was missing – and that’s where the music came in. The Young Like Us characters, like most 20-somethings we know, are too self-aware, self-deprecating, and defensive to address many of the serious issues they’re wrestling with in conversation. But the songs could take the characters to places where dialogue could not. In their music, the girls can more honestly explore crises of sexuality, identity, and piercing loneliness, as well as a nostalgia for the past and an anxiety about the future.

The Young Like Us girls writing a song in their studio, in Episode 2 - “High-Waisted” — The *Young Like Us* girls writing a song in their studio, in Episode 2 – “High-Waisted”

Of course, there are many great musicals out there that do this, like the incredible Fun Home now on Broadway (speaking of Alison Bechdel and powerful feminist stories, check this) but there’s one key difference – for them, the songs are (largely) supposed to be unconsciously interwoven with reality, an external projection of their inner angst, expressed when their feelings are just too large to be contained by dialogue. What we found with our series is that music is not only a powerful tool when it’s supposed to be invisibly intertwined or employed effortlessly. Our characters do not have the power to burst into fully formed, gorgeous songs through theater magic; they sit there working it out consciously, struggling and writing together, and the material they come up with is not always great. They have some successful moments and some nice turns of phrase, but basically they don’t know what they’re doing and it doesn’t really matter. (Not only did this take some pressure off us as writers, but it also gave us the cool opportunity to actually finish the girls’ incomplete song fragments post-episodes, in collaborations with some generous and extremely talented friends of ours on a full album). But most importantly, this let our characters grapple with the idea that writing music takes work, as does friendship. Neither is about the finished product because the thing that really counts is the struggle to put your feelings into words, the give and take along the way, the collaboration.

So I’m not necessarily saying that the cure-all for keeping your shifting friendships alive in the real world is to form a band. BUT–if you’re thrust out into a new situation, finding yourself a bit lost, and feeling that familiar sugar high post sleepover crash coming on, you might as well break out the old Rock Band game and let yourself ease into real life with another round of “Island in the Sun.”

Cleo Handler is an actress, writer, and lyricist in Brooklyn, NY. She has written several original plays and musicals, including Glass Act and From the Fire, and co-created and starred in the musical web series Young Like Us. She is a member of the Advanced BMI Musical Theater workshop, and has recently acted in projects such as the upcoming TNT drama Public Morals (Barbara) and the sitcom Honest Living. Cleo can be found on her website and on Twitter.

‘Her Side of the Bed’: One Bitch’s Story in Navigating the World of Indie Film Production

This is a guest post by Bryn Woznicki.

As a female, indie filmmaker, you must be a Jane of all trades. At once a benevolent monarch, the next minute kissing someone’s ass. Constantly selling yourself, but maintaining confidence (this makes you attractive). Toeing the line of being interested but not being too eager (we don’t want to appear desperate, after all) and keeping a stiff upper lip, and just the right amount of bend-or-else-you’ll-break attitude so you can adeptly navigate inevitable rejection and whatever Murphy’s Law may throw your way. Cake, right?

I’m Bryn Woznicki, director, co-producer and co-writer of Her Side of the Bed (if that isn’t enough, I’m also in the damn thing).

Her Side of the Bed is about Rachel Nolan, a recently dumped, 20-something writer living in New York. She moves in with her best friend Nicole, who vows to get her over the heartbreak by any means possible, but after sharing an intimate night together their friendship is forever changed. It is a coming-of-age story that follows one womanʼs journey through self discovery and the evolution and ultimate deterioration of a friendship. The film channels the raunch, wit, and self-aware insecurity of Girls as well as the explorative vulnerability of Blue is the Warmest Color.

In the film, best friend Nicole (Bryn Woznicki) and Rachel (Chelsea Morgan) discover a lot about themselves, and each other.

The film was written by me and my my co-star, Chelsea Morgan, who plays Rachel. We began this journey in 2012, and the cultivation and birth of this film baby has been a real bumpy fucking road.

On set and in bed, Nicole mugs for the camera while Rachel sets her sights set on something else.

Both creators and performers by nature, Chelsea and I met in a musical theatre class in community college. Upon meeting each other, we both had the distinct feeling that we’d met somewhere before. We were sure of it, in fact. But in comparing our histories, we realized that we had never met. We agreed our previous meeting must have been in a past life and we left it at that. We created together. We had chemistry. We had fun. We both had an innate sense of humor and a penchant for “yes, and-ing.”

We found that we were vibrating on the same frequency. Creating together came naturally, and laughs were abundant. We shared common ground: we wanted to tell stories and we wanted to act, but we were left in limbo. Skimming through casting notices was always disheartening: not ugly or fat enough to play the ugly fat friend, and not perfect enough to play anyone else. And that’s what the casting notices focused on. Looks and body types. “Overweight best friend; she’s very happy despite never having had a boyfriend.” Or “Sexy, gorgeous legal assistant.” Or “Fit and pretty waitress.” Or “Girl next door… think Keira Knightly.”

Bryn Woznicki directs Rachel (Chelsea Morgan) as she walks home barefoot through the streets of Brooklyn.

We didn’t fit into the molds presented to us, and we weren’t sure we wanted to. And anyway, who’s to say we weren’t sexy and gorgeous? Who’s to say we must be happy in spite of never having had a boyfriend? Who’s to say any boyfriend, lack thereof, or any other person aside from OURSELVES should be in charge of our happiness? And where are the deep, layered, female roles? Characters with personalities, defining qualities outside of their outward appearance or ability to pull dudes? So we started creating our own projects and our own roles.

At the time, I was in film school and was spending a ton of time in production, learning every job on an indie set, the dynamics and idiosyncrasies, and the most important lesson of indie filmmaking: making something from nothing, creating with no money, little help and few resources.

In 2012, I teamed up with the talented Fiona Bates and together we produced Love On-The-Line, an 11-episode web series that I directed and produced. Chelsea and I also played supporting roles.

Love On-The-Line, an 11 episode web series produced and directed by Bryn, starring Chelsea and Bryn. — *Love On-The-Line*, an 11-episode web series produced and directed by Bryn, starring Chelsea and Bryn.

This was the first project where I directed and acted at once. It’s very difficult. At that point I had directed half a dozen projects and produced several dozen, and only then did I feel somewhat comfortable bridging the gap between actor and director. For those just starting out, I suggest you find strong footing in both roles before you perform both at the same time. It’s still a struggle, at once being the “watcher” and the “watched,” and it calls for a ton of grace under pressure.

Love On-The-Line was a lot of work. It was calling in all of our favors, asking our talented friends to work for free, giving up our weekend, every weekend, and hustling. Lots and lots of hustling. But we were creating. And we were being funny. And we were paving the road for ourselves.

The summer of 2012 we wrote and shot a pilot in two months. After a particularly adventuresome summer, we were high on life and our creative accomplishments. We wanted to do more. But bigger this time. We’d just shot a half hour pilot… next step, feature film! How hard could it be, right?

I called Chelsea one day. “I have an story for a feature film,” I told her. “So do I,” she countered. “You go first.” Much like our first meeting, by some strange, cosmic coincidence, our ideas for our features were eerily similar. We essentially both came up with the same idea, independently of one another. We took this as a sign, and we went to work.

For two months we overdosed on each other. We slept at each other’s houses nearly every night. We watched movies for reference, we drank a lot of wine. Sometimes, many times, the wording of a sentence wouldn’t ring true to us. We’d mull it over, turn it upside down, search for alternatives, and an hour later conclude that our original wording was the best. We sent our first draft around and had people read it. We revised it half a dozen times. Then a dozen. We acted scenes out to see how they felt. We lived and breathed this film.

In a way we kind of put the cart before the horse. We were so high on our idea, so confident, that we raised what money we could, flew to New York and shot what we could on our small budget. “The money will fall into place…” “Wait till they see this footage, investors will be chomping at the bit!” But that’s not what happened. We did capture some gorgeous footage, as well as some important lessons.

Armed with a small budget and a positive attitude, the crew flew to New York to begin shooting.

After we returned from New York, we used what little money we had left to shoot in L.A. We weren’t remotely close to being finished but we had enough footage to make a nice trailer for fundraising purposes. And we created a Facebook. And a Twitter. A Tumblr. We held and Indiegogo campaign, and a Kickstarter. And made a website. We got fiscal sponsorship from The Film Collaborative. We took meetings with anyone who would meet us. We showed the trailer to everyone. We get interviewed and written up, but still we could not finish the film.

Some of the players pose for a photo during Her Side of the Bed’s Film Finishing Fundraiser held in 2014, (L to R) Chris Ferro (playing “Ernest” in the film), Bryn Woznicki (“Nicole”), Chelsea Morgan (“Rachel”), and Steven Anthony Lawrence (who plays a caricatured, drug-dealer version of himself in the film) — Some of the players pose for a photo during *Her Side of the Bed*’s Film Finishing Fundraiser held in 2014, (L to R) Chris Ferro (playing “Ernest” in the film), Bryn Woznicki (“Nicole”), Chelsea Morgan (“Rachel”), and Steven Anthony Lawrence (who plays a caricatured, drug-dealer version of himself in the film)

Creation of an independent feature film and all that its production entails was outside of the scope of our understanding. It takes a LOT of money. And a LOT of people. Good, competent people. who believe in the work and who are willing to put in crazy hours and energy, probably getting paid a lot less than their worth.

After sitting on our footage and our social media campaigns for over a year, I was feeling very depressed. I’d heard it takes three years, start to finish, to make an indie film. But no one told me it would feel so long. We had almost everything in place that we needed to finish this film: gorgeous locations, talented crew, a few actors with recognizable faces… but we didn’t have the money. And we didn’t know where to get it.

Although we’d received a ton of support from friends online… even garnering a bunch of fans from around the world that we’d never met before, these numbers didn’t, unfortunately, translate to money. We didn’t know if the lack of financial support was due to the fact that most of our friends are starving artists like we are, or perhaps people weren’t so quick to advertise their support of such seemingly “subversive” material. All we know is we put in a ton of work for very little payout and we still didn’t have to resources to finish our film.

But the long, excruciating pause between bouts of production was also fruitful. It allowed our frenetic energy to settle a bit, giving us time and space to become more grounded. No longer in a race to the finish line, we had something very valuable: time. We had time to sit back and review what we’d done thus far. We made space for learning and for changes. We had time to reassess and then reassemble our team, hiring new crew where we found it beneficial, letting go of others that didn’t quite fit. The year plus of non-shooting allowed us to really appreciate this project, to yearn for its fruition, and to appreciate it in the way that you can only appreciate something that’s elusive, dangling attractively in front of you yet slightly beyond your grasp.

By some stoke of luck, or as my grandmother would call it, “a little mazel,” we found a benevolent donor. A family friend. Someone with some cash and a belief in us, and we made budget. We will finish shooting in May.

What would we have done had we not received money from this gracious supporter? I shudder to think. It would have probably been a mix of grant applications upon grant applications (WHICH of course, is still on our agenda), scrimping and saving our own money, conducting another low-yielding fundraising campaign. And lots of hairs graying, and pacing, and panic attacks, and wondering, “Am I wasting my time? Should I just give this up and get a ‘big girl’ job with more security? Will I ever forgive myself if I abandon my dreams?” But the money did come. And we are moving forward, and this film, this child, which has given me so much hope, and joy, and anxiety and pain, will finally evolve into its next stage of being.

If I were to give any advice to indie filmmakers, and especially women in this industry it would be this: It’s going to be hard. Really, really hard. You must be unrelenting. But practice tact, learn how to read people, know when to to keep pushing and when to let go. You’re going to need to hustle. Grow a thick skin. Learn to take rejection gracefully, because it’s going to happen. A lot. You can’t let it break you and you can’t take it personally; you just need to learn whatever you can (all bad experiences are a chance to learn, dontchya know!), dust yourself off, and try again tomorrow.

Hold onto the people who build you up: positive people who believe in you. Dump the people who don’t. Learn positive self talk, at the very least create three positive thoughts for each negative one. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others, but don’t be a pushover. Don’t be afraid to say exactly what’s on your mind, and ask for exactly what you need.

People will underestimate you. If you’re a woman, you may be labeled “bossy” or a “bitch.” Or more likely, the sexism won’t be blatant, but rather subtle and insidious. You won’t be exactly sure why, but you’re left with a bad taste in your mouth. I found that it most often rears its ugly head when I’m at a film festival; the program directors call the directors on stage and there’s one woman to every 10 men. Or it is manifest in the form of someone’s incredulity. “Oh, wow. A feature film? How did you manage that?” A subtle put down, that could almost be misinterpreted as kind. Or when speaking to people about your work, they won’t give you their full attention. As if you’re not worth it. As if you’re not to be taken seriously. “Oh, you’re a filmmaker? How fun!” Yeah, guy. Fun. Barrels of it.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what they think. Whether it’s filmmaking or shoemaking, directing or designing, if you’ve found something that calls to you… something that excites you, turns you on mentally and emotionally… something that makes you feel happy when you’re doing it… run toward it. Keep running. And don’t look back.

Bryn Woznicki is a writer, director, producer, and (although she doesn’t like to admit it) actor living in her hometown of Los Angeles, California. When not making art, she likes making people laugh, speaking Italian and experimenting in the kitchen. You can find her on IMDb here and on Twitter here.

‘For a Good Time, Call …’: A Modern Rom Com About Friendship

But ‘For a Good Time, Call…’ doesn’t think of itself as better than other films with sex workers as their protagonists, with Lauren using Katie’s virginity against her as a metaphor for her insecurity when they have their first major fight, a prevalent attitude that buys into virgins being lesser versions of sex-having humans. As Vivian in ‘Pretty Woman’ resents Edward for making her “feel cheap,” Lauren’s treatment of her housemate brings up feelings of worthlessness for Katie. “You make me feel like I’ll never be good enough for you,” she cries. It seems we can’t win either way: women are slut- and prude-shamed no matter our real or perceived bedroom habits.

Ari Graynor, Justin Long, and Lauren Miller in For a Good Time, Call ... — Ari Graynor, Justin Long, and Lauren Miller in *For a Good Time, Call …*

This cross-post by Scarlett Harris was previously published at Filmme Fatales and appears as part of our theme week on Representations of Sex Workers.

Sex workers get a bum rap in most aspects of society. In April 2013, publisher Mia Freedman and author of The Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Brooke Magnanti, butted heads about the use of the word “prostitute” and whether it’s a valid career choice for our daughters on Aussie talk show Q&A; the murder of sex worker Tracy Connelly in Melbourne in July sparked protestations as to why her death wasn’t given as much attention as, say, white, middle-class Irish immigrant beauty Jill Meagher’s, also occurring in Melbourne; and we still stigmatise the exchange of sex for money despite it being one of the oldest occupations in the world and, to my mind, a necessary one.

Many pop cultural representations of sex workers tend to play into the notions that they need to be “saved” or are less than: Leaving Las Vegas, Lovelace, Pretty Woman. One that shines a refreshingly progressive and nonchalant light on sex work is 2012’s For a Good Time, Call…, starring Ari Graynor and Lauren Miller (who also cowrote the effort).

College enemies Katie (Graynor) and Lauren (Miller) are forced to move in together by their mutual gay bestie, Jesse (played by Justin Long), after a series of unfortunate events sees neither one being able to afford to live alone in the Big Apple. When Lauren discovers Katie pays the bills by working for a phone sex line, she decides to help her make it into a viable small business, and before long Lauren’s in on it, too.

Lauren Miller in For a Good Time, Call ... — Lauren Miller in *For a Good Time, Call …*

While the roommates and their friends don’t bat an eyelid at their supposedly sordid occupation—Jesse wants to be involved, Katie meets her sweet, unassuming boyfriend via the hotline, and a prospective employer of Lauren’s applauds her for her newfound laidback demeanor—not everyone is so impressed. Lauren’s WASPy parents are mortified she ditched (read: was fired from) her long-time publishing gig in order to “listen to guys jack off,” as her father puts it.

Not to stoop to their level, but phone sex is probably the most banal of all possible sex work avenues to go down (pardon the pun!); big bucks can be made from any location without mandatory sex or nudity. Talk about a low-risk, high return investment! If anything, Lauren’s parents should be proud of their daughter’s entrepreneurial skills and her ability to turn a profit in a hostile economy, not slut-shaming her based on very little information. (Granted, the dildos on the coffee table and the g-string bunting strewn across the lounge room as the revelation is made probably don’t lend themselves to acceptance.)

If they looked beneath the surface they’d see that Lauren’s sexy, loudmouthed pole-dancing roommate who once peed in their daughter’s car (“It was a graduation present!”) has actually never had sex. And that the seemingly successful career woman was unhappy in her “boring,” passionless relationship and uninspiring publishing gig. The differences that once saw Lauren and Katie clash in college now bring them closer together in an alternate version of the heteronormative rom-com, where female friendship reigns supreme. Quite a contrast from the hooker sex-worker-with-a-heart-of-gold-who-needs-saving-by/from-a-man trope of the above mentioned Pretty Woman, Lovelace, etc.

But For a Good Time, Call… doesn’t think of itself as better than other films with sex workers as their protagonists, with Lauren using Katie’s virginity against her as a metaphor for her insecurity when they have their first major fight, a prevalent attitude that buys into virgins being lesser versions of sex-having humans. As Vivian in Pretty Woman resents Edward for making her “feel cheap,” Lauren’s treatment of her housemate brings up feelings of worthlessness for Katie. “You make me feel like I’ll never be good enough for you,” she cries. It seems we can’t win either way: women are slut- and prude-shamed no matter our real or perceived bedroom habits.

Above all, For a Good Time, Call… is a rom com about best friends; screw the menz. Unlike in the above mentioned sex worker movie cache, men are not the moral of this love story.

Scarlett Harris is a Melbourne, Australia-based freelance writer and blogger at The Early Bird Catches the Worm (soon to be undergoing a revamp; stay tuned!).

‘Troop Beverly Hills’: What A Thrill

Initially the girls of Troop Beverly Hills are portrayed as clueless and privileged, but they are allowed to grow and transform themselves over the course of the movie. The film writers don’t do it unrealistically by turning them into tomboys overnight or at all. The girls retain their femininity, which they are made fun of for by the Red Feathers, throughout the film.

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

Sometimes revisiting a favorite film as an adult can be disappointing, but more often than not it isn’t. I find that I still very much enjoy my childhood favorites.

Troop Beverly Hills was released in 1989. If for no other reason, watch this film for the 80s fashion. It is absolutely fab and you can thank me now. I must confess that I watched it on the original VHS that my family has owned since it was released. And I must confess that I still absolutely love this film. Enough gushing though, let’s get into the nitty gritty.

That fabulous 80's fashion — That fabulous 80s fashion

Shelly Long is the driving force in this movie. She plays a spoiled socialite who is getting a divorce from her rich husband. In an attempt to bond with her daughter and prove to her husband that she can finish what she starts she decides to become her daughter Hannah’s Wilderness Girls troop leader. I find myself identifying with Hannah because my mom was my Girl Scout troop leader. I however cannot identify with the Beverly Hills mansion.

Back to the plot. This is a classic story about the underdogs, who happen to be fabulously wealthy girls, triumphing over mean girls. I was curious about the background of this movie and discovered that it was written and produced by women. This definitely makes sense since it is almost entirely a female cast. The girls of Troop Beverly Hills are the outcasts of the Wilderness Girls troops. They are not taken seriously and made fun of because they are into fashion and don’t know how to camp. A hilarious scene ensues when they attempt to go camping. After being driven to the campsite and each girl bringing tons of luggage–I repeat luggage, as in suitcases instead of camping gear even though it is for only one night–it starts pouring rain. This is just too much for anyone to handle so they pack up and head to the Beverly Hills Hotel where roughing it is sharing one bathroom amongst nine of them.

Troop Beverly Hills’ mean-girl nemeses are the Red Feathers. The Red Feathers are real Wilderness Girls who have earned badges whereas the girls of Troop Beverly Hills don’t have any badges. They didn’t even have uniforms until Hannah’s mom took them shopping, because as a rich Beverly Hills housewife shopping is the one thing she knows how to do. She is also determined to help the girls earn badges in their own way. She teaches them how to survive in Beverly Hills. They earn badges in such varied activities as jewelry appraisal, shopping, sushi appreciation, and gardening with glamour.

Oh and those Red Feathers are a mean bunch led by a mean leader who happens to be one the mother of one of the girls. They are out to get Troop Beverly Hills because they don’t think they belong or deserve to be Wilderness Girls because they are too girly and spoiled. So what do the Red Feathers do? Instead of encouraging or mentoring Troop Beverly Hills they set out to sabotage them. They laugh and make fun of the Troop Beverly Hills craft project, which is a camping clothing rack. Troop Beverly Hills were the pioneers of “glamping” way before the term “glamping” even existed.

The Red Feathers’ troop leader is in a position of authority and strips Troop Beverly Hills of their badges because they aren’t “real” wilderness badges. However, this is not a devastating moment for the girls of Troop Beverly Hills. Instead they graciously surrender their badges. Their new goal is to sell the most cookies and make it to the Wilderness Jamboree competition. Being the mean girls that they are, the Red Feathers’ attempt to sabotage Troop Beverly Hills’ cookie selling by going into their neighborhood and selling cookies to all the rich folk in Beverly Hills first. This is devastating to the girls, but they manage to rally together and come up with some great cookie selling tactics like having a mini concert and a fashion show. Troop Beverly Hills is triumphant and sells enough cookies to go on to the Wilderness Jamboree competition.

They took a creative chance on a song and dance to sell cookies.

It is during the Wilderness Jamboree competition that the girls of Troop Beverly Hills are challenged and prove themselves as real Wilderness Girls despite the fact that they still like fashion. Again the Red Feathers do not try to win fairly, but instead try to sabotage Troop Beverly Hills. Their mean girl move is to switch the direction of the flags that help guide the troops to the finish. However, Troop Beverly Hills triumphs and finishes before the Red Feathers do. This infuriates the Red Feathers because Troop Beverly Hills does not deserve to win because they are spoiled and still too into fashion to be taken seriously as Wilderness Girls. So they bust out their biggest mean girl move yet and their troop leader who mapped the course is going to lead them on the course the following day to guarantee that they win.

Troop Beverly Hills is continuously sabotaged by the Red Feathers, but they remain optimistic and never give up. They learn to believe in themselves, how to be strong-willed and not give up, and how to work together as a team. When it seems as though the Red Feathers will win because of their cheating schemes, Troop Beverly Hills perseveres and wins the competition. And not in a ruthless way, but in a compassionate way. Troop Beverly Hills stops to help the injured Red Feathers’ leader who was abandoned by her own troop. Her troop abandoning her is a classic mean girls maneuver–when the going gets tough is each for her own–is the reason the Red Feathers lose. Of course the Red Feathers were sore losers and ran away with the trophy, but even that doesn’t upset Troop Beverly Hills. They have earned what is most valuable to them and can’t be taken away: self-confidence.

Proving in the end that you can be into fashion and a wilderness girl. — Proving in the end that you can be into fashion *and* be a Wilderness Girl.

Phaydra Babinchok is a feminist activist and comedy writer based in Chicago. She is chapter leader of WAM! Women, Action, and the Media Chicago. She tweets about cats and feminist porn @PhaydraAnnette.

‘The Killing’ and the Misogyny of Hating Bad Mothers

The Killing promotional still.

Written by Leigh Kolb

Vilifying mothers is a national pastime. Absent mothers, celebrity mothers, helicopter mothers, working mothers, stay-at-home mothers, mothers with too many children, mothers with too few children, women who don’t want to be or can’t be mothers–for women, there’s no clear way to do it right.

In AMC’s The Killing, “bad” mothers have been woven throughout all three seasons.

It would be easy to see this as a failing on the show’s part; instead, I think we can see it as a realistic depiction of how we treat mothers in our culture represented in both in the fictional world of the show and in critics’ responses to the series.

In the first two seasons of The Killing, the plot centers around the murder of Rosie Larsen, a 17-year-old girl. Her grieving parents–Mitch and Stan–have a difficult time (understandably) in the aftermath of her death and in the investigation. Mitch (Michelle Forbes), in the midst of a breakdown, leaves her two sons with Stan and her sister as she hits the road to try to heal or find something to ease the pain.

Mitch Larsen: bad mother.

In last year’s “The 10 Worst Moms on TV” on Yahoo TV, Mitch Larsen was featured as one of the worst. The critic wrote:

“Her daughter may or may not have been a prostitute or involved in some illegal doings at a casino. And she ended up dead seemingly because of it. But instead of hunkering down and paying more attention to her remaining children, Mitch left her sons to be raised by a depressed father and their hooker aunt while she went off to live in a motel and act creepy around wayward runaway girls.”

Mitch’s interaction with the runaway girl was a direct response to her feelings of inadequacy about her failings as a mother to Rosie. She was attempting to heal and grow. She mothered the runaway girl the best she knew how and was still abandoned and hurt. Mothering is difficult and complex–it’s not a simple equation of just being there all of the time.

In season 3, the victim pool has grown substantially–a number of teenage girls are found murdered, and the suspect appears to be a youth pastor at a homeless shelter.

One of the missing girls who is still unaccounted for, Kallie Leeds, has a terrible no-good single mother, Danette Leeds (Amy Seimetz), who seems to prioritize cigarettes, beer and getting laid over her difficult relationship with her daughter. Her neglect and indifference are seen as central to Kallie’s victimization.

Danette: bad mother.

As Danette and another mother of a missing girl sit next to each other at the police station, Danette notices that the other mother has a binder full of photographs and composite photos. She seems uncomfortable, as if she’s understanding the depth of her neglect. She recognizes that Kallie’s life trajectory closely mirrors her own, and the weight of that is pushing down on her. She was being the kind of parent she knew how to be, and she didn’t know how to be June Cleaver. Most mothers don’t.

While these supporting characters’ relationships with their daughters are troubled, and it would be easy for the audience to “blame” the victimization of the daughters on their mothers, it wouldn’t be correct. We are so used to complex, fallible male characters that we are also conditioned to see them as complex and fallible, not good or evil. When we’re presented with women with the same depth of characterization–especially mothers–we don’t know what to do except what we’ve been conditioned to do: criticize them and blame them.

This is blatantly obvious when we consider the show’s protagonist, detective Sarah Linden (played by the amazing Mireille Enos).

Linden has consistently been portrayed as a terrible mother in critics’ reviews of the series. She is a realistic female lead character–she is good at her job, works tirelessly and struggles with her failings in her personal life and professional life. Complex female characters are a good thing, and The Killing consistently delivers them (it can’t hurt that the show’s producer and many of the writers are women).

In the first two seasons, Linden had custody of her young teenage son, Jack. Her work means long hours away from him and dinner from vending machines. Linden herself was a foster child and has difficulty negotiating her upbringing and being the kind of mother that she’s supposed to be, but cannot. In the third season, Jack has moved to Chicago to live full-time with his father–he’s thriving, and living with his father. That’s good, right? No, Sarah Linden is evidently still a piece of shit mother.

Sarah Linden: bad mother.

In reviews of The Killing, writers often take an acerbic tone when mentioning her as a mother.

For example, this reviewer seems to think taking a jog makes her a bad mother:

“We all struggle with the work-life balance thing, and detective Sarah Linden is hardly an exception. Finding time to mother her son, for instance, seems to be a challenge. Jogging, however, she manages to squeeze in. And it’s a good thing, too. Because Linden (finally) got a major break in the case this week, and it’s all thanks to the fact that she prioritizes cardio over sleep, parenthood, marriage, friendship, or updating a sweater collection that appears to have been sourced from Dress Barn circa 1997.”

This reviewer fails to make the connection that she’s preoccupied by an intense case, so she needs to stay in Seattle (or maybe the fact that she’s putting her career first figures into this assessment):

“But she’s still the World’s Worst Mother — her son lives in Chicago and she won’t visit because, well, he’s the only person she knows there. Wow, Linden. Just, wow.”

In a Salon review from last year (which, remarkably, denounces The Killing for not being “fun” enough), the reviewer slips in, “Yes, it’s still raining, and Linden’s still a bad mother…”

Even the New York Times, in a review from the first season, comes to the conclusion that the “scariest aspect” of the show is the theme of absent motherhood. Crooked politicians, murders, prostitution… those don’t hold a candle to bad mothers.

“Sarah Linden refuses to accept that her inattentiveness is gravely affecting her son until she is forced to reckon with her absence around him. And in Mitch Larsen (Michelle Forbes) we bear witness to a character who is present in her daughter’s life and yet still positioned at a significant remove from the darkest secrets of her adolescence. In the end, of course, this is the scariest aspect of all.”

And in the aforementioned Yahoo TV list, Linden gets first place. The manifesto against her begins: “She’s not actively trying to kill her son, but she may end up doing so anyway.”

OK then.

I’m not going to try to defend Sarah Linden’s parenting. That would be ludicrous–she doesn’t need defending. She’s a complex, realistic character with real issues.

At Bitch Flicks, Megan Kearns posted in the first season how it was “refreshing” to see this kind of character trying to navigate her different roles, and that “the lead character is an accomplished single mom striving to keep her son out of trouble all while maintaining her demanding career.” She manages to do that by the third season, but it’s still not good enough.

Instead, audiences and critics alike focus much too closely on the female protagonist’s failings as a mother. We do not do that with male protagonists. (OK, six seasons in, after an episode highlighting parenting, Jezebel posted about how Don Draper was a “shitty dad.”)

Is Dexter a good father? What about Rick Grimes? Walter White?

Certainly there are lists of “bad dads” in TV/film, but the tone is different, more tongue-in-cheek. And a focus on these characters’ fathering abilities doesn’t run throughout conversations about the show, especially not with the same venom we see about Linden. When there’s a bad father in the mix, it’s just a poignant piece of a Joseph Campbell hero’s journey. Bad mothers, however, deserve to be burned at the proverbial stake.

There is a dearth of female antiheroes in film and television. The response to Sarah Linden shows why this is. When audiences see female characters, they think primarily in critical terms, especially about their roles as mothers and wives. (Of course this extends past fictional characters; there’s consistent and persistent hand-wringing about real-life women working too much and not being good enough mothers.) Women aren’t perfect (especially within the narrow confines of perfection that our society has put in place). Female characters shouldn’t be perfect.

My son is doing fine and my sweaters are warm and comfortable, assholes.

Linden’s role as a parent, girlfriend and ex-wife is just one small part of the grand scheme of the show. Her partner, Stephen Holder, has a girlfriend this season. He forgets Valentine’s Day and is never home. He is not painted as a villain, because he’s out getting shit done. He’s doing his job. That is what is important in The Killing. So when critics focus (in depth, or just in passing) on how terrible a mother Linden is, that further erodes what should be good about having strong, complex female characters.

Sarah Linden may not be a full-time mother. But she’s a bad-ass mother, and that is what should matter the most.

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

A Letter to Hollywood: Keep Films Like ‘The Heat’ Coming

The Heat movie poster.

Dear Hollywood Movie Executives,

As I have driven by my local movie theater this summer, I’ve been struck by how I haven’t wanted to see most of the movies. You haven’t been getting much money from me.

But I’d like to talk to you about The Heat, which opened nationwide last weekend.

I’m not a buddy-cop movie aficionado; in fact, I could count the number of films in that genre that I’ve seen on about a half of a hand, tops. But The Heat? I wanted to see it. So you got some of my money.

Judging from the crowded theater at a weekday afternoon showing–including a trio of dude-bros in front of me–and the fact that the film came in second at the box office, you got some of lots of people’s money.

The Heat promotional still.

There’s money in this for you. What’s “this”? This is producing and releasing blockbuster films with female leads.

I know, I know. You’ve been hesitant to do so. Men’s stories have long been the standard-bearer of literature and film. Men’s stories are universal, women’s stories are for women. In the middle of June, 90 percent of feature films were about men or groups of men, and Man of Steel had about six times the number of showings as all of the films about women combined.

Mullins (McCarthy) and Ashburn (Bullock) work together.

Stories about (white) men have been easy for you for a long time. Just because it’s easy, doesn’t mean it’s good or right–or even the most financially sound.

When Bridesmaids (directed by Paul Feig, who directed The Heat) was released, it passed up Knocked Up as Judd Apatow’s highest-grossing film. Pitch Perfect made almost $100 million worldwide.

Is this just our petite lady-ration? One big female-fronted blockbuster per year?

Please sir, I want some more.

The Heat delivers just the kind of big escapism that one would expect from a summer blockbuster. Melissa McCarthy is absolutely amazing. She is a national treasure. And while the film is fairly formulaic, the punch lines are not.

Ashburn and Mullins also drink together.

Officer Mullins (McCarthy) roughs up and arrests a man soliciting a prostitute. He feels her full wrath because he tries to excuse his actions by saying his wife just had a baby and everything downstairs was messy. There is not one punch line about Mullins’s weight. More than one man comes to her in desperation because she’s not called them back. While Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) walks the stereotype line (she’s an “unlikable” but highly successful single woman), she’s a good agent, and she and Mullins complement one another.

Spanx (Ashburn’s, not Mullins’s), vaginas, areolas … the premise of the film may be masculine, but women weren’t just inserted into men’s roles. This female-centric comedy worked. Women are funny.

And I’ll tell you what–those dude-bros in front of me were laughing hard when Mullins was criticizing Ashburn’s Spanx (because her “furnace” couldn’t “air out” in them).

Mullins is shocked by the concept of Spanx.

Women are funny. Female writers are funny (Parks and Recreation‘s Katie Dippold wrote The Heat). Female performers are funny. Jokes about strictly female experiences are funny–for everybody.

If women can laugh at men’s jokes–which doesn’t seem to be a problem–then men can laugh at women’s jokes. It’s pretty simple. The Heat shows us that. Cops, whiskey, drug rings, and a refrigerator full of guns and ammo may feel masculine, but Ashburn and Mullins show that women can wield it all.

The Heat made me laugh and cry.

I want more. I want theaters to be packed with genre films with women at the helm–in character, with the writing credits, as directors. The Heat 2 is already in the works, but there is so much opportunity for women in blockbusters. And I want dude-bros going to those movies in droves. I bet they will, too.

Now you need to believe it.

These female-led blockbusters are always “surprise,” hits, but how many times can you be surprised by the success of movies with female protagonists? At some point, you need to realize that people like this.

If you take up my plea and fund more female-centric films, I must warn you: some of them might not be awesome. Some may be mediocre, or bad. Just like movies with male leads. When Freddie Got Fingered bombed, the takeaway wasn’t that men can’t carry comedies. Remember that.

When the film ended, I stopped the trio of teenage boys and asked them if they liked the movie. It was unanimous: yes. I asked if they ever thought about not seeing it because the main characters were women. It was unanimous: no. (One exclaimed, “Not once.”)

If you don’t believe me and my dude-bros, here’s some recommended reading: NPR, Jezebel, Women and Hollywood, and Vulture all give the film favorable to glowing reviews.

One more thing: we need to talk about marketing. These movie posters are an atrocity. Mullins’s weight wasn’t an issue on-screen, but clearly your marketing departments felt the need to drastically change her.

Make them stop that.

No.

Sincerely,

Leigh Kolb

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

‘Girl Rising:’ What Can We Do To Help Girls? Ask Liam Neeson.

Girl Rising (2013)

This is a guest post written by Colleen Lutz Clemens.

Girl Rising unites prominent female authors, such as Edwidge Danticat from Haiti or Aminatta Forna from Sierra Leone, with girls such as Wadley or Mariama from their respective countries. Together, Danticat and Wadley, Forna and Mariama, and seven other pairs have their stories of oppression, resistance, community, and family narrated by the likes of Beyoncé or Meryl Streep. Each story works as a discrete unit in the film, using animation, music, and images to give the viewer a glimpse into each girl’s reserve of resilience.

Wadley from Haiti

Mariama from Sierra Leone

Connecting the nine stories are interludes which show other girls in school uniforms as they hold us up signs sharing dreary statistics about girls in the developing world, such as boys outnumber girls in primary schools by 33 million. The stories teach the audience that these girls live in families that love them—even if that love looks different than it does in “the West”—and that education, poetry, art, and organizing are the keys to giving each girl the tools to recognize her own importance and to find her voice.

One of the interludes.

Girl Rising knows and plays to its audience: women in “the West” with access to basic services and education who have some extra money in the bank and a desire to help other women. The documentary works to connect audience members to a movement with the lofty goal of raising money to ensure more girls are educated worldwide.

I love the idea of educating girls. LOVE IT. I love any movie that takes the time and attention to tell the stories of girls to an audience that otherwise would not hear such narratives. I want every girl who wants (and maybe even doesn’t want) to be sitting on the floor or on a chair wearing a hijab, burqa, or baseball cap in a classroom to be there. If that movie is working toward that goal, then I am just about all in, which as a scholar and critic is pretty much as “in” as I can get. However, what proves potentially problematic is the way in which narrator Liam Neeson offers the convenient promise that once girls are educated throughout the world, then global issues will diminish and all will be right.

Thus, two things are still bothering me after seeing the movie a few weeks ago. First, fixing the world via education seems like a pretty big burden to put on the shoulders of girls. The implication of the film is that if girls would just have access to education, so many of the world’s problems such as poverty and malnutrition would disappear. To me this rings the same bell as when people say, “If only women ran the world, there would be no more wars.” There would be wars. There isn’t some kind of natural peace sense linked to the X chromosome. I want girls and women to have the agency that women around the world have been working for—I believe in that idea and in the movie’s thesis that if girls have education, the world can be better. But I don’t think it is just or fair to expect girls to fix all of the problems the movie seems to think they should fix.

Second, the film exploits the burqa to make its point about women’s suffering. It should be no surprise that the last segment is the one that Western audiences will be most eager to witness: the story of Amina in Afghanistan. This young girl is forced to marry at an age when an American girl would still be hanging One Direction posters on her pink walls. Watching her story takes the viewer’s breath away. The girl seemingly has no agency, no voice, until Western filmmakers come and listen to her. She lives in fear of violence, of becoming shamed by expressing her desire to live a life different from the one prescribed to her by virtue of her gender. She is the image of the Aghani woman Westerners are so familiar with but know little about.

Amina

Here’s my concern: I don’t think any of these problems will go away if she rejects and sheds her burqa. So when (spoiler alert) veiled girls start to run up the hill tearing off their burqas as the music crescendos and the voiceover offers us the idea that liberation is just around the corner once the girls reveal their identities, I cringe. This gesture is a bravery manufactured for the audience. Taking off a burqa is a solution that makes the audience feel good. It echoes the rhetoric of post-9/11 warmongering when suddenly we needed to invade countries in the name of women who needed liberation, a convenient excuse when those same women’s plights were completely ignored up until September 10, 2001. Of course, the movie does this on purpose, allowing us to feel justified all over again in our simultaneous invasion and ignorance.

I admire the girls. I want Amina to have everything she wants, even after only meeting her for ten minutes in the film. Yet I fear the other girls’ stories get lost in the noise of the past decade’s war with countries where “brown, veiled” people live. I was thrilled to be invited to co-lead a discussion after the film, yet the moment the lights went up the audience only wanted to talk about Afghanistan, about the Taliban, about Islam. Ten minutes into the discussion I gently steered the conversation back to the girls, as they had already been forgotten in the audience’s desire, and I might say selfish desire, to forget the bigger issue and make the suffering and anxiety all about ourselves again.

But Amina’s section also contains my favorite part of the film: when she looks at the camera and accuses the audience of being silent. She pointedly asks: what are “you” going to do? Of course, right after this segment, the film gently supplies an answer: text GIVE to 5515 and donate money to the 10×10 organization. I didn’t see a flood of phones light up in the theater. But this move of Amina looking at an audience filled with Americans and calling them out for staying silent in regards to her actual issue—“I have no school to go to, my family married me off at 13”—gives me the greatest of hope. Not her running up a hill taking off a burqa that she probably put right back on when she got to the other side of the hill: I can only imagine that she was forced to put her veil back on, although the film’s website says it cannot offer information about her current status as it may endanger her. But that she would look the West in the eye and say “You cannot forget about me. I will not forget about you. We are in this together”: that kind of girl rising is the kind of movement I want to be a part of, one what works toward greater access to education and doesn’t need to make me temporarily feel good or justified in the process.

Azmera

Colleen Lutz Clemens is assistant professor of non-Western literatures at Kutztown University. She blogs about gender issues and postcolonial theory and literature at http://kupoco.wordpress.com/. When she isn’t reading, writing, or grading, she is wrangling her one-year old daughter, two dogs, and on occasion her partner.

‘The Journey of Natty Gann’: Family-Friendly and Feminist-Friendly!

Written by Robin Hitchcock.

The Journey of Natty Gann

When I was a young girl, I was obsessed with the trailer for The Journey of Natty Gann (for which I will issue a spoiler warning, although I find it dubious that a Disney family film could be spoiled):

I remember popping in my VHS copy of The Sword in the Stone just to watch this trailer, sometimes three or four times in a row. It hit all my little girl id buttons: A tough kid (a tough GIRL!) on an epic adventure without the assistance of adults! Baby-faced John Cusack! A pet wolf! (I’m terribly afraid of dogs, so I’ve always weirdly loved characters who aren’t even afraid of wolves. See also, Julie of the Wolves, Young Robin’s favorite book). And yet, I never saw the actual movie before this week, through a combination of poor availability on home video and a nagging fear that the actual movie could never live up to my love for the trailer.

But when I caught The Journey of Natty Gann on South African satellite this weekend, I knew the time had come to actually watch it. And the film managed to live up to my impossibly high expectations. If you can’t stand live action Disney family films, there is nothing for you here, but Natty Gann is a fine example of the form.

For those unable to watch the trailer above, here’s a rough outline of the plot: In the middle of the Great Depression, twelve-year-old Natty Gann runs away from her neglectful reluctant caregiver (Lainie Kazan) in Chicago to find her father, who has gone out west for work. Everyone cynically tells Natty that her father abandoned her, but in truth he is a good man (despite being played by Ray Wise, who I suppose had not yet been saddled with the typecasting that has defined the last twenty years of his career) and is trying to save enough money to buy Natty a train ticket of her own to join him. Natalie faces a series of adventures along the way, picks up a pet wolf, and meets another young kid on a journey of his own, Harry (John Cusack).

John Cusack as Harry

Harry was one of the best surprises of the film for me. I’m pretty much powerless in the face of young John Cusack, but I still worried that his character might be too much of a mentor figure for Natty or merely part of a boring old romantic subplot. There are touches of both, but ultimately Harry comes across as Natty’s fellow adventurer. He thinks of himself as more street-wise (or rail-wise?) than Natty, but very quickly learns not to condescend to her.

Natty Gann (Meredith Salenger) gets her Katniss on

And Meredith Salenger is absolutely terrific as Natty Gann. Even feminist-in-training Young Robin recognized some of the problems with the “tomboy” character archetype: that the way for a girl to be cool was for to not be “girly.” What’s remarkable about the character Natty Gann as written by Jeanne Rosenberg and played by Salenger is that her personality is just that–her personality, given even rougher edges by the hard circumstances of her life. Her toughness isn’t meant to make her any less of a “real girl.” Natty struggles to be accepted as equal to adults, rather than equal to the boys. When Harry tells her, “You’re a real woman of the world, kid” we know she’s earned the respect she seeks.

The Journey of Natty Gann is a movie I’ll want my hypothetical children to see; to entertain them, teach them life lessons, and help begin their feminist indoctrination. And as an adult, I still found myself enjoying every minute of it. What more could you ask of a family film? [Perhaps the absence of an attempted rape scene, although said scene if fleeting, not exploitative, and ripe to become a Teachable Moment]

And in the meantime, let’s find Meredith Salenger her career-redefining role. She’s talented, gorgeous, and clearly a sweetheart: she tweeted me after I praised Natty Gann on Twitter while I was watching it: [I’d love to go back and time and tell Young Robin about that, although explaining Twitter to a child in the late 1980s sounds even more difficult than inventing time travel.]

Also based on Twitter, I see that Meredith Salenger is good friends with Parks & Rec‘s Retta, so I may have an idea how to go about reinvigorating her career: *cough* SPINOFF *cough*

The Journey of Natty Gann: Family-Friendly and Feminist-Friendly!

Written by Robin Hitchcock.

The Journey of Natty Gann

John Cusack as Harry

Natty Gann (Meredith Salenger) gets her Katniss on

Also based on Twitter, I see that Meredith Salenger is good friends with Parks & Rec‘s Retta, so I may have an idea how to go about reinvigorating her career: *cough* SPINOFF *cough*

Women of Color In Film and TV: Conflicting Thoughts On ‘Sita Sings The Blues’

By Myrna Waldron

In the film’s opening sequence, Sita rubs Rama’s leg.

So before I start, let’s address the elephant in the room. This film is about The Ramayana, an important text in Hindu mythology, and primarily focuses on Sita, an avatar of the goddess Lakshmi, who is married to Rama, an avatar of Vishnu. But the film was written and directed by a white animator, Nina Paley. There is some effort to represent the story and Indian culture faithfully (and the only non-Indian members of the cast play white characters), but the sense of humour and deliberate contrasting between ancient tragedy and modern comedy leaves an undeniably western perspective on this legend. So, yes, this film counts as cultural appropriation. That is not exactly what I’m going to be talking about today, since I am frankly unqualified to do so. I have read objections to the film by Indians, and they naturally are far more knowledgable about the Ramayana and Hinduism in general. I’m just a white atheist who went to Catholic school, and my only previous knowledge of the Ramayana is from a very shortened version I read in a fairy tale collection as a child.

But even considering the cultural appropriation problem, I still like this film. There is no media which is not problematic in some fashion. You can still like problematic things provided you recognize and understand what the problematic elements of the film are. Sita Sings the Blues is beautifully animated, quite funny, entertaining, and introduced me to the music of Annette Hanshaw. But the concerns that Indians have brought up about the film’s depiction of the Ramayana are valid. Therefore I am going to try to approach this film in the most balanced way I can – I want to focus on the things that are great about it, but also criticize the parts that are problematic. If you are unfamiliar with the film, or have not seen it in a while, it has been released under a Creative Commons licence and is available to watch for free on the film’s official website, YouTube, and Hulu.

“Big, round, firm, juicy…LOTUSES!”

The Good:

I love that this is a successful indie film written, directed, edited and produced by a single woman, Nina Paley, and the film is about a woman of colour. You can really tell this was a labour of love for her, and it’s an incredible achievement that one animator was able to do a feature length film on her own. The film is also explicitly meant to be feminist – in a long summary of the film that she released to the press, she described Sita Sings the Blues as “a tale of truth, justice, and a woman’s cry for equal treatment.” I hope to see more films helmed by women, and not just independent ones. I know that women of colour have an even harder time getting recognized as filmmakers, and I would like to see this same story retold from someone who grew up in Hindu culture, as opposed to a westerner. WOC filmmakers often do not get given a chance to succeed, as they are never given funding nor marketing, and naturally blamed for their films’ financial failure. Quite a vicious cycle. I would love to see more ways for feminist film lovers to discover films made by women and women of colour.

One of my favourite things in the world is animation, so this film’s widely varying animation styles (and narrative styles that change with the visuals) was such eye candy for me. If I’m counting correctly, there are 6 styles of animation used in this film. The film starts with a stylized Sita rubbing Rama’s leg (depicted in the animated gif at the top), led by stylized and symbolic depictions of the gods. It then rotates into other animation styles. Nina Paley’s autobiographical portions are done in a scribbly, loose style. The 3 Indians who narrate the story are represented as shadow puppets. The Ramayana characters’ dialogue is shown through two different forms of Indian-style artwork – one with lots of detail and bright colours, one with wide, expressive eyes and simple use of colour. The bulk of the film is devoted to Annette Hanshaw jazz songs as “performed” by Sita to complement the narrative. The sequences are presented in a modern vector graphic style, with lots of circles used in the character designs, and is even more stylized in presentation than the introductory sequence. Finally, one scene depicts an Indian woman drawn in white stencil dancing in flames and singing to Rama (it’s kind of hard to describe). Because the visual and narrative styles rotate so quickly (no portion is over 5 minutes) the story keeps you interested and you never stay in one style long enough to get bored.

I love the Annette Hanshaw sequences, but I have to say, my favourite parts of the film are when three English-speaking Indians from various parts of the country, Aseem Chhabra, Bhavana Nagulapally, and Manish Acharya, narrate the story of The Ramayana and are represented as shadow puppets. I love listening to the very subtle differences in their accents, and how the oral tradition of the story has subtle variations depending on cultural location. I’m just sorry they weren’t identified by name (I had to use the Wiki to credit them) so I could tell them apart beyond “Two males, one female.” Because their discussions are unscripted and they are reciting the story from memory, they make lighthearted jokes about the story, modernize some of the language (one describes Sita telling her kidnapper Ravana that his “ass is grass.”), argue mildly about details and names, and point out some of the plot holes. I laughed out loud when the three agreed that Sita left a trail of jewelry for Rama to follow, then one wondered how much jewelry Sita was wearing to be able to drop jewels for that long a distance. In response, another one says, “Don’t challenge these stories!” I also found it interesting that as they told the story, they questioned some of its details. Ravana is supposedly unquestionably the villain, yet had a past of being learned and a noble warrior. They wondered why he would be so out of character as to kidnap another man’s wife. One also marvelled that the supposed villain did not do the cliche thing and force himself upon Sita. I think questioning and analysis of one’s own culture is a good thing, so I really ate up the shadow puppets’ discourse on The Ramayana.

Probably the most popular sequences of the film are the stylized vector graphics of an impossibly curvy (she’s all boobs and hips and almost no waist) Sita “singing” jazz and blues songs performed by 1920s singer Annette Hanshaw. Hanshaw has this incredible ability to filter deep emotion through her voice, and having Sita perform these songs gives her a necessary amount of emotional depth. All we know of Sita via the narration is that she is absolutely devoted to her husband, no matter what. The Hanshaw songs thus have Sita expressing joy, adoration, heartbreak, hope, and acceptance, while still maintaining that necessary devotion to Rama. This is important since, no matter how you approach the story, Sita has a very tough time and is treated unfairly – we know that Ravana never touched her and Sita has only ever been with Rama, but she is still punished for even the possibility that another man touched her. The woman whose agency was taken from her should be given a way to express herself, so the blues sequences are a nice compromise.

Finally, the gif above depicts another one of the better points of the film, which is its sense of humour. In this scene, Ravana’s sister is trying to tempt him to kidnap Sita by describing her beauty. She says, “Her skin is fair like the lotus blossom. Her eyes are like lotus pools. Her hands are like, um, lotuses. Her breasts are like big, round, firm, juicy…LOTUSES!” Sita’s story is unquestionably a tragedy, so the little sprinklings of humour here and there keep the movie from being emotionally draining. I like the use of deliberate anachronisms to emphasize the differences between the ancient Indian setting, and the modern culture of today. Annette Hanshaw’s songs reference technologies that naturally wouldn’t have existed in ancient times, so Paley instead has Sita humorously hold a banana next to her ear when Annette sings about using a phone. And as I mentioned before, the little jokes that the shadow puppet narrators make (and their disagreements on plot details and names) help to make the narrative as lighthearted as possible. I admit I really dislike films that depress me, so this narrative decision appealed to me.

Sita sings “Mean To Me” while going through her trial by fire

The Problematic:

Okay, now for the flaws. The autobiographical bits retelling the end of Nina Paley’s marriage are terrible. They drag the story to a screeching halt, the loose, drab and scribbly animation style contrasts far too much with the sumptuous and colourful styles used in the other animation sequences, and the story seems far too biased towards Nina’s perspective. I naturally don’t know the details of what really happened, but I have trouble believing that Nina’s former husband Dave is as selfish, heartless, sexless and aloof as she depicts him as being. There had to have been a reason he suddenly lost interest in her beyond their being separated by his job for some months. And I feel so uncomfortable discussing a woman’s personal life, and yet she put this stuff right in her movie, so I can’t help but talk about it! I really think that the autobiographical portions should not have been in the film. It might have been cathartic for her, but it’s awkward for everyone else.

Another big problem with the autobiographical portions is that I think it’s going too far for Ms. Paley to directly identify herself and the end of her marriage with Sita and her marital problems. Sita and Rama are more-or-less Hindu gods, so for a mortal white woman to compare herself with them has to come off as kind of blasphemous and egotistical. I’m glad she found comfort and inspiration in reading The Ramayana, but I would have left that revelation as perhaps a footnote or just a single scene. The autobiographical bits are interspersed throughout the film to contrast/compare directly to the chapters of Sita’s story, so you’re quite obviously supposed to identify the two women together. There are lots of western films where a character is meant to be a Jesus analogue or is Messianic in some way, but it is almost always a symbolic comparison, not an overt one. There’s no attempt at symbolism here, and I have to wonder if it would still be acceptable even if it was purely symbolic.

Ms. Paley is also unfortunately channelling her grief and anger over the end of her marriage through her depiction of Rama. This is supposed to be the most virtuous and wise man living, and yet the film depicts him as cruel, cold, weak-willed and stubborn. I, too, would question his supposed perfection after he continued to doubt Sita after she already passed his trial by fire (depicted in the gif above). But I think his character has to have been exaggerated somewhat in this film. Some of the people writing objections have argued that in The Ramayana, Rama was extremely broken-hearted and reluctant to banish Sita, but she loved him so much she persuaded him to send her away so that he could be an effective ruler for his people. That’s some extraordinarily self-sacrificing behaviour on Sita’s part, but it seems much more plausible considering the first half of the story is emphasizing how much they absolutely love each other.

This negative depiction of Rama goes as far as to basically make him the real villain of the story instead of Ravana. He is even shown kicking, pushing and walking over Sita while she is heavily pregnant. WHOA. It’s really going way too far to depict a man of being a domestic abuser if there isn’t any evidence for it. Again, this is an avatar of a god, and even though he has made a mistake in doubting Sita and sending her away (putting his own reputation amongst his people above the love of his wife), this exaggeration of his character is offensive. When Sita bears Rama’s twin sons and they are raised to praise him, they even sing a sarcastic song about how great and wonderful Rama is and that his word should never be questioned. I get the feminist attempt to question why the man’s judgement is always accepted above the rights of the woman, but the questioning should be directed at their own culture, not someone else’s. Just like we don’t like it when other cultures judge us by their standards, we don’t have the right to judge them by ours either.

The film’s biggest problem is that it is judging ancient Hindu mythology and custom by modern western feminist standards. If a modern western story came out where a wife is kidnapped, her kidnapper demands to marry her but does not rape her, she is rescued, her husband fears that she has been “tainted,” she proves she hasn’t, and yet is still suspected by others, and is ultimately banished while pregnant with her husband’s sons, and the husband is still depicted as the hero of the story, I would understand the virulent criticism. But because this is the story of the Ramayana, it’s not fair for a white feminist to start complaining about it, and then create a film which reflects mostly her views without making it clear she’s taking liberties with the story. Yes, it’s obvious that Sita never sang jazz songs, but it’s not so obvious that Rama wasn’t actually as cold and cruel to her as he is depicted in this film.

This unfortunately reeks of the cliche where white feminists go to women of colour and start telling them that they are oppressed by their culture and condescendingly try to “free” them from it. Women of colour can speak for themselves and make up their own minds. That’s what intersectionality is all about – we do not tell people of other cultures (and gender identities, and sexualities, etc etc) how they’re supposed to act and think. The first time I saw this film a few years ago, I was just as angry at Rama as Ms. Paley wants me to be, because I was completely ignorant of the story. It wasn’t until I started researching for this review that I found out that, wait a sec, she’s not depicting him accurately or fairly. When you have the influence to present another religion’s story to an audience that is likely going to be unfamiliar with it, the responsible thing to do is to either depict it accurately, or make it clear that it is an exaggeration. Sita Sings the Blues’ messages have unfortunately been diluted because of this strongly problematic element.

So while my feelings on Sita Sings the Blues are conflicted, I still think that it is a well made film despite its flaws. I encourage people to make up their own minds about it. If nothing else, the film gets us to consider differences in cultures and religions, and white women’s feminism vs the feminism/womanism of women of colour.

I don’t think Nina Paley is intentionally racist, she’s just fallen victim to one of the big problems of western culture where the white person forgets that their perspective and opinion is not the only valid one. The vast majority of people won’t think about this sort of thing unless they immerse themselves into social justice culture, and even then it’s quite difficult to adjust your way of looking at the world. As one poignant Tumblr post said (and I’m paraphrasing), in social justice spaces we try to explore deep intersectional concepts like the erasure of trans* people of colour. In the “real” world we struggle to explain to people that ‘feminism’ is not a bad word.

I also do not think that the film should be banned or censored like some right-wing groups have demanded, but I do think Paley should have made it more clear that she was taking some really strong liberties with the story. I have struggled for weeks trying to figure out how I was going to approach this film, so I hope I have been as fair as possible in my review. If nothing else, I have gained yet another new perspective and understanding of this film via my research on it, and that’s the best I can hope for.

P.S. I am trying a new experiment where I decorate the review with custom-made animated gifs of the film/show I’m reviewing, rather than just grabbing stuff off of Google Images. Please let me know if you like this new format, or whether you’d prefer static screenshots instead.

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

Gender and Food Week: ‘Bridesmaids’: Brunch, Brazilian Food, Baking, and Best Friends

Bridesmaids

Guest post written by Laura A. Shamas.

The rituals of contemporary female friendship are punctuated with food and drink as signifiers in the 2011 comedy hit Bridesmaids, directed by Paul Feig. Many of the key emotional moments of the film involve food and drink. Intimate aspects of female friendship are revealed while eating; a female collective bonds over feasting (and its repercussions); and a developing romance is linked to carrots and cake.

In the opening scene of Bridesmaids, set in Milwaukee, and written by Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig, Annie Walker (Kristen Wiig) is sexually involved with Ted (Jon Hamm). Their encounters are casual, or so they say to each other. When Ted asks her to leave his home in the morning, the disappointment shows on Annie’s face. But later, over brunch with her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph), we learn how detrimental “the Ted thing” is for Annie. Annie tries to frame the torrid night with Ted as an “adult sleepover” but Lillian tells her she can do better: “You hate yourself after you see him.” The female friendship ritual of a weekend brunch with a girlfriend is highlighted here. Lillian’s loyalty to Annie is established through her candor, her desire to protect Annie, and her inspiring admonition to Annie to find a better partner. The scene ends with the goofy pair playing with their food, placing it in their teeth — a reflection of the playful nature of their bond and its longevity: they’ve been friends since childhood. They are comfortable and authentic with each other.

In the next scene, as they walk away from the restaurant, Annie’s deeper tie with food is revealed. Lillian and Annie stroll past a deserted bakery named “Cake Baby,” a business Annie opened during the recession. Annie registers sadness as she sees the empty building again. To comfort her friend Lillian comments: “They were good cakes, Annie.”

Annie is no longer a baker. She currently works in a jewelry store as a sales clerk, where she tells frequently customers that love doesn’t last — a philosophy that goes against the “eternal bliss” code needed to sell wedding rings to couples. And her home life is equally unsettled because her male roommate’s sister has moved in to the small apartment; the roommate’s sister is featured in a food-related scene when she pours an open package of green peas on her back in order to calm a new tattoo.

Annie’s one bright spot in life is getting together with Lillian. She brings a bottle of wine over to Lillian’s apartment for an evening in with drinks and magazines. There’s a wire basket filled with apples on the coffee table, and Lillian, holding out her hand in a formal way, says: “I want to eat an apple.” It is then that Annie notices Lillian’s glittering ring. Lillian is newly engaged to Doug. Apples, as symbols, are present in many ancient stories, such as “The Golden Apples” from the Garden of Hesperides or the tale of Adam and Eve. Apples classically represent knowledge; according to legend, this comes from the five-point star present in the apple’s core (Chevalier and Gheerbrant 36). By becoming engaged, Lillian indicates she is ready to move on to another phase, to gain more knowledge, to individuate. This is underscored by the visual and textual reference to apples in this scene. Lillian asks Annie to be her Maid of Honor at the impending nuptials.

When Annie goes to pick up her mom (Jill Clayburgh) to attend Lillian and Doug’s engagement party, her mother gently states that Annie is in a downward spiral: “Hitting bottom is a good thing…because there’s nowhere to go but up.” In Maureen Murdock’s book The Heroine’s Journey, Murdock differentiates the steps of a female hero’s journey from those of a male hero. One of Murdock’s vital points involves a “Descent to the Goddess” to heal aspects of a mother-daughter split. According to Murdock, a woman begins an initiation process on the descent arc of a heroine’s journey: “It may involve a seemingly endless period of wandering, grief, rage, dethroning kings, of looking for the lost pieces of herself, and meeting the dark feminine. It may take weeks, months or years” (8). These steps may be seen in Annie’s journey in “Bridesmaids.” Her fruitless dalliance with Ted, her aimless job and transient home life, her connection to a lost childhood through Lillian (and the mourning of childhood’s end) are all present in the early part of the film. Annie’s meeting of the “dark feminine” in Bridesmaidsis yet to come.

At the subsequent fancy engagement party, another ritual of female friendship is revealed. In a sequence with Annie and the beautiful Helen (Rose Byrne), Lillian’s newer “best friend,” Annie and Helen compete with each other to deliver the best bridal toast, with alternate, escalating praise of Lillian in front of the gathered crowd. There, Annie drinks champagne, and reveals that Annie and Lillian have a ritual of “drunken Saturday nights at Rockin’ Sushi.” Saturday nights are times of revelry and letting loose; Annie and Lillian have a standing BFF hangout restaurant ritual on that night. We later learn that Helen longs for this: an ongoing invitation to female revelry and even the spontaneity involved in such female revelry. It’s something the seemingly perfect Helen doesn’t have.

At the engagement party, the rest of the female collective in the film is 3 introduced: the “Bridesmaids.” Newlywed innocent Becca (Ellie Kemper), jaded mother-of-three Rita (Wendi McClendon-Covey), and the intrepid Megan, sister to the groom (Melissa McCarthy) are there. They, along with Helen and Annie, complete Lillian’s assembled group of female wedding supporters. It is through the activities of this group that the “dark feminine” is explored more fully in the film.

In the hierarchy of a wedding, a bride and groom are the most important roles. Bridesmaids, taken as an archetypal female construction, may be seen to represent “sisterhood,” a unified group of female attendants to the bride. If so, the dysfunction of this specific collective, as revealed in Act Two, serves as wry, hilarious commentary on aspects of the dark feminine and our wedding rituals from the female gaze.

Near the end of Act One, Annie is pulled over at night for a violation by a state policeman named Nathan Rhodes, his last name perhaps a commentary of Annie’s own life at a crossroads. Annie’s tail lights need to be repaired, a recurring metaphor reflecting Annie’s inner life. Rhodes (Chris O’Dowd) recognizes Annie from her bakery days. He tells her how much he admired her delicious pastries, especially her cream puffs. In this scene we learn that the bakery is connected to emotional pain for Annie — and not just for the financial devastation she suffered when it failed. Her boyfriend, who worked there, left her when it closed. Rhodes reminds her: “I appreciated your cakes.”

After this encounter, a brief baking sequence follows for Annie. In the kitchen alone, she bakes a beautiful cupcake for herself, decorated with a gorgeous flower on top. Annie’s baking skills and her artistry are displayed. Pensively, she eats the single perfect cupcake, alone.

A baker is someone who could be seen to work “alchemically”; the transformation of raw materials into something edible and wonderful involves the use of an oven, which, as an image, could resonate as “womb.” Annie begins, in the scene above, to try to reconnect with her baking skills, and the warmth of the womb.

In Act Two, Annie meets the dark feminine as reflected by the bridesmaids — and her own psyche. It is in perhaps the most famous sequence in the film, involving feasting at an authentic Brazilian restaurant and subsequent scenes at an exclusive couture bridal shop named “Belle en Blanc,” that the dark feminine is revealed in a graphic, scatological way.

The competition between Annie and Helen is highlighted throughout this sequence. Whether it’s over the theme of the bridal shower, or where the bachelorette party should be held, Annie and Helen are at odds. Annie’s taste is seen as déclassé compared to Helen’s standards. After the meal at the Brazilian restaurant, presented as a communal feasting experience, Helen and Annie spar over the selection of the bridesmaids’ dresses. It is then that the group becomes sick with food poisoning, leading to the massive need for a bathroom, including a toilet, a sink, and in Lillian’s case, the city street. When Annie tries to pretend she does not feel sick, Helen tests her resolve by handing her a Jordan Almond to eat.

The juxtaposition of the name of the shop, “Belle en Blanc,” compared to what happens to the collective, suggests an ironic commentary on aspects of the dark feminine. And it is related to food. The food poisoning underscores the feminine spiritual poisoning felt between Annie and Helen, and even Lillian, as revealed by competition and wedding stress. At one point, a character says that one of the dresses at “Belle en Blanc” is so pretty that it makes her stomach hurt.

On Annie’s way home from another Ted encounter, she stops at a small liquor market, and reaches to buy a drink called “Calm.” There, she sees Rhodes again, and he offers her carrots. She ends up eating carrots with him, sitting on a car hood outside. He tells her she should be setting up a new bakery. Annie replies that she doesn’t bake anymore. A carrot is dropped on the ground, and Rhodes says that there is always one lucky, ugly carrot in the bag. He offers it to her. She won’t take it. But their fun continues into the dawn, as he shows her how to use his official radar gun to catch speeders.

When the Bridesmaids return home prematurely — after a disastrous attempt to fly to Vegas for a bachelorette party — Annie encounters Rhodes. They go to a bar. Upon hearing her tale of woe, Rhodes dubs her the “Maid of Dishonor” and urges Annie to start baking again. Annie says it doesn’t make her happy anymore. She spends the night with Rhodes, and they become sexually involved. In the morning, he surprises her by assembling baking supplies to encourage her to bake again: “Your workshop awaits.” Angered, Annie refuses: “I don’t need you to fix me.” She leaves, declaring their encounter a mistake.

After losing her job and apartment, Annie moves back in with her mother. She refuses Rhodes’ calls. Annie tells her mom that she hadn’t hit bottom before. Now, perhaps she finally has. This realization is underscored when she drives by her old bakery and sees the business name “Cake Baby” newly defaced with a sexual slur.

At the elaborate French-toned bridal shower, arranged perfectly by Helen but stolen from Annie’s idea, is a chocolate fountain and a giant heart-shaped cookie. As a shower gift to Lillian, Annie assembled an amazing box of childhood memories. Helen tops Annie by giving Lillian a trip to Paris to meet with the couture wedding dress designer. At the party, Annie breaks down, and in a culminating Act Two event, attacks the giant heart cookie and the chocolate fountain. In a rant, Annie calls out Lillian for participating in such a pretentious social gathering. Lillian responds: she disinvites Annie from the wedding. By attacking the giant cookie heart, Annie embodies her own need to address matters of the heart, and even her “baking.” The dark chocolate fountain is perhaps an ironic visual callback to the dark feminine as seen earlier in the “Belle en Blanc” sequence. Annie’s rage could also be seen as a part of dark feminine power — her own.

After Annie’s car is damaged in a hit and run, she’s depressed. With nowhere to go, she stays inside her mother’s home all the time — the ultimate “Return to the Womb.” Megan comes to visit, with the nine pups she stole from the bridal shower. Trying to encourage her, Megan tells Annie: “You’re your problem and you’re also your solution.”

Annie starts baking. She cracks eggs, whisks, blends sugars. Her car is finally repaired, and it’s all gratis, thanks to a deal Rhodes made with the mechanic who owed him a favor. To show her appreciation, Annie leaves a beautiful cake with a carrot on top at Rhodes’ doorstep, a reference to the lucky carrot he told her about. This is a signifier that Annie is ascending, healing, back on her path. Her descent spiral is over. She can “bake” again. A carrot, in folklore, is related to fertility and seeding; it also is reputed to have medicinal qualities connected to “sight.” The carrot on the cake represents the renewal of Annie’s vision, her “warming,” and her outreach to Rhodes. But Rhodes leaves the box outside on his front step. Annie sees raccoons eating from the box, at one point.

Further Act Three action involves trying to track down the missing Lillian, who has disappeared. Helen locates Annie at her mom’s house, and the two frenemies try to find Lillian. It is in through this activity we learn of Helen’s longing for true female friendship — that she’s never had a long term female friendship like Lillian’s and Annie’s relationship.

Eventually, Lillian is found at her apartment. She walked out on her own rehearsal dinner. She tells Annie: “I outcrazied you.” On the brink of her own life — changing step, Lillian worries about what will happen to Annie in the future.

Annie reassures Lillian: “I’m gonna be fine, I am fine” — an indication that Annie knows she’s better. Then she helps Lillian get ready for the ceremony. The wedding is back on track.

Act Three culminates in entire wedding rocking out to Wilson Phillips’ performance of “Hold On,” an extravagance arranged by Helen. But after it all, Annie invites Helen to a Saturday evening out sometime at Rockin’ Sushi with Lillian and Annie — the ultimate girlfriend ritual. This makes Helen happy, and signals also that Annie has “warmed up” to Helen. Annie wants to include Helen in the drunken Rockin’ Sushi ritual of female friendship, including revelry and spontaneity.

After Rhodes and Annie get together at the movie’s end — when he picks her up after the wedding and reveals “I ate your cake”– a final coda to the film involves Megan and Air Marshall Jon who use food, “a bear sandwich,” in bawdy foreplay. The rituals of contemporary female friendships are underscored by the use and presence of food and drink as signifiers at important emotional moments throughout Bridesmaids. Annie Walker’s journey in the movie, in a downward spiral or “descent motif” is healed through her encounters with aspects of the dark feminine as revealed in the shadow side of “sisterhood” and in her own psyche. Annie’s healing process, after failing at business and at love, is also reflected in her great talent to bake again in Act Three. But this time, she’s not baking for business or commerce — she’s baking to express herself, to be warm, to acknowledge finding the Lucky Carrot.

Works Cited

Chevalier, Jean and Alain Gheerbrant. The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols.

John Buchanan-Brown, trans. London: Penguin, 1996. Murdock, Maureen.

The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness. Boston: Shambala, 1990.

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Laura Shamas is a writer, film consultant, and mythologist. Her newest book is Pop Mythology: Collected Essays.

‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’: I didn’t get it.

Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild

Just in case the world does end today, I need to get something off my chest, so I can go to my apocalyptic grave with an unburdened movie-loving conscience: I didn’t get Beasts of the Southern Wild.

When it started picking up mad buzz and heaps of festival awards earlier this year, Beasts of the Southern Wild shot up to the top of my to-see list. A visually-stunning, lyrical American fable centered on the breakout performance of a five-year-old powerhouse of a little girl? Sign me up!

I finally got the chance to see Beasts of the Southern Wild on an overnight transatlantic flight last fall, admittedly imperfect screening conditions. I fell asleep during my first attempt to watch it, lulled by its dreamlike qualities (on top of travel fatigue and a couple 187ml bottles of red wine). So I tried watching it again later in the flight, after the sun had come up. I managed to stay awake this time, but not awake enough to understand WHAT ON EARTH WAS GOING ON.

This is the part of the review where I should offer a brief synopsis of the film, but I didn’t understand what was happening enough to be able to adequately do so. In my memory it goes something like this: Hushpuppy lives in The Bathtub, a simple swampy community isolated from the rest of society. Hushpuppy explains her worldview in poetic narration while Events Occur.

Here’s a few more half-remembered details, bolstered by some research into other reviews: Hushpuppy’s dad is also around, bouncing intermittently between neglect of and tough love survival training for Hushpuppy. And then there is a storm and a forced-evacuation from the suddenly-present government? And Hushpuppy and some other little girls go look for Hushpuppy’s mom, and may or may not find her? And then Hushpuppy wins a staring contest with a herd of gigantic prehistoric animals who floated over from the melting ice caps?

Hushpuppy vs. Auroch

Whaaaat? This all makes The Tree of Life seem like a straightforward piece of traditional storytelling.

What makes Beasts of the Southern Wild so elusive is that it is told from the perspective of its young protagonist, Hushpuppy (played by Quvenzhané Wallis, only five years old at the time of filming). Wallis really is a magnetic screen presence, and I wanted to love this movie on the basis of her captivating performance alone. But I also wanted to know what was happening. The sci-fi fan in me was too distracted by the unanswered questions (among them: what year is it?) resulting from the sidelined world-building of The Bathtub to fully invest in the character-driven, loosely-structured story in Beasts, no matter how engaging I found Wallis’s tiny tour de force.

Writing for Bitch Flicks last summer, Megan Kearns suggested,

“Even as you watch the film, you might not understand or fully comprehend the meaning of the unusual plot. But let its poetic beauty, emotions and raw honesty wash over you. Let it sink in.”

I tried. I want to support experimental narratives. I want to support films that showcase marginalized groups like children, women, and people of color (Hushpuppy is a triple threat!). I want to be intellectual enough, patient enough, film-lover enough and feminist enough to enjoy Beasts of the Southern Wild, but I was not.

So if this is the end of days, at least I will go out honestly. Do you have any cinematic confessions to share with the class while you still have the chance?