Tag: Food

Gender & Food Week: ‘Life is Sweet’

Guest post written by Alisande Fitzsimons.

Trigger warning: A large part of this post discusses a character who is suffering
from Bulimia.
In many ways Mike Leigh’s 1991 film Life is Sweet should not be extraordinary. An almost entirely improvised piece, it takes place in a working class family home in the unremarkable London suburb of Enfield.
The preparation and consumption of food is a running theme throughout the film. Family man Andy (Jim Broadbent) is a chef in a large, anonymous corporation who, at the start of the film, buys a fast food van* in order to fulfill his ambition to work for himself. Soon after that, his buoyantly optimistic wife Wendy (played charmingly by Alison Steadman) takes a waitressing job at the Regret Rien, a Parisienne-themed eatery that a friend of the couple has recently opened.
The couple’s twin daughters also demonstrate an interest in food, albeit in very different ways. Nicola (Jane Horrocks), a tiny chain-smoking bulimic, binges and purges sweets and chocolate every night, seemingly punishing herself for a crime that’s never revealed. Her sister Natalie has a stereotypically normal relationship with food — managing to sit and eat with her parents, when her sister never can — but works as a plumber, something which was still seen as a bit icky, and not a suitable job for a woman in Britain in the early 90’s. And yes, that was because she may have had to come into contact with human waste.
In spite of its seemingly mundane subject matter, Leigh’s film is superb. Naturalistic to the point where it could be a fly-on-the-wall documentary, it’s also brilliant in its depictions of parts of the female experience that many films approach in ways that make them seem gimmicky.
A young woman with an eating disorder lashing out at everyone around her but never hurting them more than she does herself? Check. A mother desperately trying to stay strong and support her mentally ill child, in spite of the frustration that child’s self-destructive tendencies cause? Check. A closeted lesbian dreaming of escape but ultimately remaining stable and strong for everyone around her? Check.
And that says nothing of Andy, the hard-working but mildly baffled father figure. And yet, despite the tropes and the presentation of these character’s lives as “tragi-comic” none of it is tacky, or even remotely depressing. It is in fact an unusually uplifting watch.
[*Fast food vans may be a British phenomenon. They are mobile kitchens, which park on the side of busy roads and serve snacks such as burgers, bacon sandwiches, baked potatoes and hot dogs to passers-by. Considered low-class, their offerings are typically delicious.]
Family Dynamics
L-R: Nicola (Jane Horrocks) and Wendy (Alison Steadman) in Life is Sweet
To my mind, this film’s main characters are Wendy and Nicola. Although she is undoubtedly a loving mother to both her girls, most of Wendy’s time and energy is taken up by Nicola, and Nicola’s seemingly needless rage at the world around her.
Natalie, though often present — and an interesting depiction of a lesbian who remains closeted — is side-lined while the film-maker and characters concentrate on her sister’s struggle with an eating disorder. Her apparent contentment with her life and realistic ambitions (she wants to take a holiday in America) mean that she does not demand a lot of attention from anyone, including the viewer. Readers who’ve lived with such an illness, or someone suffering from one, may recognise the reality of this on-screen scenario.
Andy, despite being the one family member who gets to fulfill an ambition in the film, also plays second fiddle to his wife and mentally ill daughter. It’s possibly because he spends much of his time either daydreaming or at work, and is thus unaware of the extent of Nicola’s misery, and his wife’s increasing concerns about it.
Wendy and Andy, it’s revealed, struggled to raise their children. There was never enough money, forcing Andy to remain in a job he “hated” for years to support them, while his wife could not pursue her goal of completing a university education. That one of their children reacts to her life – which is, after all, largely funded by her parents’ catering jobs – by developing bulimia nervosa is an obvious manifestation of self-loathing.
Nicola becomes increasingly reclusive and agitated throughout the film, abusing her father for being a “capitalist” when he invests in the fast food van, and refusing to sit with her family at meal times or even mix with anyone outside the family home.
Throughout the film she conceals her bulimia from both of her parents, only agreeing to tell her parents about it in the film’s final scene. Her twin has known about it – and about the locked suitcase full of sweets and chocolate she keeps under the bed – because she hears her bingeing then purging each night, a painful secret she keeps not simply because she loves her sister, but because she also has no idea what to do.
In one scene, Nicola has a blazing argument with Wendy that indicates that she may finally be ready to recover. Shame-faced, Nicola screams that she knows how much the whole family hates her, and that is why they’re trying to force her to eat with them/ mix with other people/ live her life.
Exasperated, her mother snaps, “We don’t hate you! We bloody love you, you stupid girl!” reducing Nicola to tears.
It’s an exchange that cuts to the core of their relationship, and to the thinking of an eating-disorder sufferer. If they loved her, Nicola thinks, they’d let her fulfill the death wish the disease implants in sufferers. Her family, though not entirely aware of what’s going on, love her too much to let her fulfil that particular ambition.
Nicola’s Behaviour
Nicola (Jane Horrocks) in Life is Sweet

Like many bulimics, Nicola hides much of her illness from her family. Its most obvious manifestation is probably her refusal to eat with them at mealtimes, which could easily be taken for rudeness rather than any kind of secretiveness.
One of the more interesting — or just salacious — quirks of her disorder is that food is essential to her sexuality. She cannot become aroused unless her lover (David Thewlis) ties her up and licks chocolate spread from her chest. It’s as if even when in the middle of sex with a man who genuinely cares about her, when she should finally be able to indulge herself without punishment, she is still determined to deny herself. Granted, the metaphors in this film aren’t particularly hard to decipher.
I’ve already mentioned that she keeps a locked suitcase full of sweets and chocolate under her bed, which she uses to abuse her body with each night, stuffing herself full of them before plunging her fingers down her throat in order to bring all that food back up. It’s not until one has had an illness that causes repeated vomiting (this is my last reference to puke, I promise) that one realises how much bulimia nervosa is an act of self-abuse.
To deliberately and repeatedly purge day-in-day-out for months or even years at a time is to truly hate oneself because it is such a horrible experience. Jane Horrocks’ depiction of this level of self-hatred and the harm a person can do to their own body is truly insightful.
I don’t want to recommend this film to anyone who’s suffering or is in recovery from an eating disorder in case it is triggering, but I have heard sufferers say that Horrocks’ performance helped their loved ones to understand the realities of their disorder. I thought that was worth mentioning.
The Regret Rien
L-R: Aubrey (Timothy Spall) and Wendy (Alison Steadman) in Life is Sweet

A little way into the film, Wendy takes a job at the Regret Rien, a restaurant that’s just been opened by a family friend. Parisienne-themed and — there’s no way around this — as clichéd as fuck, the Regret Rien is also in possession of one of the most revolting menus in modern cinema (and I’m including films in which

characters cannibalise each other in that).
A quick sample of what’s on the menu: Saveloy on a Bed of Lychees, Liver in Lager, Pork Cyst, Prune Quiche, King Prawn in Jam Sauce, Tongues in a Rhubarb Hollandaise, Tripe Soufflé, Chilled Brains, Prune Quiche, Grilled Trotter with Eggs Over Easy.
Pork cyst, for God’s sake. And Tripe Souffle.
Apparently meant as a parody of the nouvelle cuisine trend that swept British restaurants in the early 1990’s, it’s not much of a surprise the venture looks set to fail. Its pretentious menu and clichéd décor are directly contrasted with the plain and much more popular food served up by Andy’s fast food van.
By the end of the film the viewer comes, in no uncertain terms, to like the family depicted in it (even Nicola), and a lot of their likeability comes from the fact that they are “salt of the earth” people who aren’t pulled in by gimmicks such as the push bike that sits in the bay window of the Regret Rien.
That’s not to put down working class people with a love of French cuisine, and a dislike of fast food. It’s just to point out that when it comes to cooking, the simplest recipes — like the simplest people — are often the best.
Conclusion
There’s a lot of food in Life Is Sweet, most of it — from the chocolate that Nicola purges to the burgers Andy cooks up, to the vile cuisine Wendy is meant to be serving — bad. But there’s also masses of love.
As I’ve admitted, the metaphors Mike Leigh employs aren’t particularly hard to decipher. But this is a lovely film, a film that takes a mostly realistic look at the difficulties life throws at us and points out that as long as we ignore the pretentious, over-complicated rubbish in favour of the people who love us enough to support us through them, we will be okay.
———-
Alisande Fitzsimons likes to eat. She blogs regularly at xoJane.co.uk and tweets about it @AlisandeF.

Gender & Food Week: Pop-Tarts and Pizza: Food, Gender, and Class in ‘Gilmore Girls’

Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) in Gilmore Girls

Guest post written by Brianna Low.

Throughout Gilmore Girls’ seven seasons, mother and daughter duo Lorelai and Rory Gilmore are often seen eating vast quantities of junk food and ordering copious amounts of take out, which they consume together, often in front of the TV. From the series’ pilot episode it is made clear that neither Lorelai nor Rory have any interest in cooking, and the only things in their refrigerator are frozen fish sticks and leftover take out boxes. Their idiosyncratic approach to food is framed as just another endearing quirk instead of irresponsible, unhealthy, or an example of bad parenting.
While it could be argued that it is somewhat progressive of the Gilmore Girls series to portray two women who have no hang-ups about publicly consuming large amounts of food, it is important to remember that despite their voracious appetites, Rory and Lorelai are still conventionally attractive, thin, white women. Living in the quirky, depoliticized utopia of Stars Hollow, there is no real examination of the way in which the Gilmore’s racial and class privilege exempt them from the social condemnation that is frequently directed at poor single mothers and women of color whose food choices or weight are often criticized without any real consideration to the inequalities in accessibility to healthy, affordable food. Poor single mothers who rely on social programs like food stamps and have children who suffer from obesity and other related health problems are often publicly vilified for being irresponsible, unfit mothers despite the well-documented structural inequalities in food access and affordability.
Despite their objectively unhealthy diets, Rory and Lorelai manage to escape this specific stigma, both within the context of the show and in its outside criticism; this is due largely, I would argue, to their privilege and even the size of their bodies. While I don’t personally find it problematic that Rory and Lorelai are allowed to eat whatever they want with relative impunity, I do think it is important to place their unhealthy-diet-as-plot-device into a larger social and political context when critically examining the relationship between gender and food within the series.

Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel) in Gilmore Girls; image via Emily Grenfell
Lorelai and Rory are not the only ones in the Gilmore Girls universe that have well-documented relationships with food. The diets of many of the supporting cast are intrinsic parts of their identities and function as important aspects of their characterization. The mother of Rory’s best friend Lane, Mrs. Kim, is a strict vegan who makes her daughter drink salad water instead of soda. Michele Gerard, concierge of the Independence and Dragonfly Inn, is a health nut that exhibits an almost fanatical devotion to calorie counting and exercise. The diets of these characters in contrast to Rory and Lorelai’s junk food addiction seem to highlight the drastic differences in the way the Gilmore girls like to eat.

Of all of the supporting characters that are connected in some way to food, two of the most notable examples are Lorelai’s best friend and business partner, Sookie St. James, and Lorelai’s friend and romantic interest, Luke Danes. Sookie, played wonderfully by Melissa McCarthy, is the head chef and co-owner with Lorelai of the Dragonfly Inn. She is an extremely talented cook and a compassionate and loyal friend to Lorelai. Her scenes often take place in the kitchen, where she is seen cooking and dispensing advise to Lorelai. While the kitchen has always been a stereotypically feminine space, Sookie’s fixture there does not come off as regressive. Socially, the world of cooking has been sharply demarcated along gender lines, with the personal and domestic sphere belonging to women and the public and professional sphere being dominated by men. Sookie, a master chef and a woman, is portrayed as a highly skilled and respected cook who demands perfection from herself and her employees.

Sookie St. James (Melissa McCarthy) in Gilmore Girls

Much has been said about the fact that the character of Sookie, a fat woman who is often surrounded by food, is never reduced to her body-size. It’s true that Sookie is never once shamed for her size or subjected to lazy fat jokes, nor does she express any self-hatred or desire to lose weight. It is somewhat sad and telling that Gilmore Girls has received so much praise for treating a plus-sized character with humanity and compassion, but Sookie’s portrayal is indeed remarkable in a popular culture landscape that almost always essentializes fat women to their bodies and positions those bodies as barriers to happiness and love. Sookie is portrayed as an attractive, confident, and competent woman who is deserving of both romantic attention and respect. Her burgeoning relationship and eventual marriage to Jackson, a vegetable farmer, is fully explored and is not framed as some sort of miracle or only chance at love.

Luke Danes, the gruff and grumpy owner of the local diner, possesses many stereotypical markers of traditional masculinity. Seemingly unsentimental, he is often shown shouting angrily at his neighbors and even his customers, he never changes out of his flannel shirt and backwards baseball cap, and often escapes Stars Hollow on fishing and camping trips in order to relieve his stress. Despite this potentially flat characterization, Luke emerges as a complex character that does in fact care deeply about his friends and his community despite his gruff exterior. Luke is an interesting study when looking at the presentations of masculinity and food in the fictional world of Stars Hollow, particularly in the way he is cast as a nurturer who uses food in order to reach out to and comfort his friends and neighbors.

Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) in Gilmore Girls

Throughout all seven seasons Luke is often shown bringing food to the Gilmore’s when they are in need. For example, when Lorelai’s father is hospitalized after a heart attack, Luke brings food to Lorelai and her family at the hospital. Inasmuch as food can be gendered, diners and diner food fare with its burgers, fries, and malts often tend to be coded as masculine, however Luke is an interesting case in that he refuses to eat his own food. Although he is never explicitly referred to as a vegetarian, Luke is shown refusing to eat hamburgers and often refers to meat as “dead cow”. When Luke and Lorelai start dating and eventually move in together, Luke is decidedly more active in their domestic affairs, taking charge of the cooking and their home remodel. While this might not be the most shocking or unheard of example of stereotypical role reversal in heterosexual relationships, it’s definitely interesting when examining Luke and Lorelai’s relationship with food and each other.

Luke’s Diner itself is also integral to the series as it serves as the physical and communal space in which much of the community gathers. Episodes often open with Lorelai and Rory sitting and eating together in Luke’s Diner. Throughout the series, food serves as the unifying agent that brings people together. When Lorelai is unable to afford private school tuition for Rory, she goes to her wealthy parents, Emily and Richard, in order to ask them for a loan. The elder Gilmores agree to the loan, their only stipulation being that Lorelai and Rory attend weekly “Friday night dinners”. These dinners are an attempt to fix the strained relationship between Lorelai and her parents.
Gilmore Girls
Like their daughter, neither Emily nor Richard Gilmore are ever shown cooking, instead the extremely wealthy Gilmore’s have their food prepared for them by personal chefs. The class distinctions between Lorelai and her parents are blatantly obvious and are exhibited in the type of food they consume and the way in which they consume it.

Throughout its seven series run, food plays an integral role in the Gilmore Girl’s universe. While representations of food within the context of the show seemingly transcend stereotypical gender division, food and diet choice are still used to identify and characterize the different personalities that make up the world of Stars Hollow. In the words of Lorelai herself, “It takes years to learn how to eat like we do.”
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Brianna Low is currently a student living in Chicago. She enjoys watching movies and reading about feminism.

Call for Writers: Gender and Food in Film and TV

From decadent desserts to sumptuous savory morsels, the holidays often revolve around food. We congregate with friends and family over food, sharing stories, connected by culinary traditions. So we thought it would be a great time to explore gender and food in film and television.
Food in film and TV crosses the spectrum of genres from weighty dramas (Babette’s Feast, Like Water for Chocolate), bittersweet dramedies (Fried Green Tomatoes), light-hearted comedies (Woman on Top), how-to cooking shows (Giada at Home, The Barefoot Contessa, Boy Meets Grill) and competitive reality series (Chopped, Iron Chef).

We don’t often think of food as gendered, but it is. Society unofficially mandates that men devour meat, women nibble chocolate. Women bake, men grill. Cooking and the kitchen have long been viewed as belonging to the female sphere while the culinary world remains a male-dominated profession. 
All of these gender themes and stereotypes emerge on-screen.

Food symbolizes nourishment, fulfillment and passion. Food can be a way to connect with family (Soul Food, Tortilla Soup, Pieces of April) or even rekindle love (Chocolat). Competitive cooking shows like Top Chef or Hell’s Kitchen often divide teams into men vs. women. For vegans and vegetarians, food intertwines with identity (The Simpsons‘ Lisa Simpson, Roseanne‘s Darlene Connor). Some women have found liberation through food (Eat, Pray, Love) and a way to express their voice through cooking (Julie & Julia, Waitress).

We want to hear from you. We want to publish your reviews and analyses of food and gender in film and TV. A feminist review of Julie & Julia? How food serves as an on-screen symbol of expression for women? How female families in film connect over cooking? An article on gender tropes in cooking TV shows? We want it all…and more!
Here are some suggested food movies, documentaries, and TV shows:
Julie & Julia
Soul Food
Waitress
Pieces of April
Like Water for Chocolate
Eat, Pray, Love
Chocolat
Babette’s Feast
Alice
Eat Drink Man Woman
Tortilla Soup
Eating
Cheers
I Am Love
Super Size Me
No Reservations
Sideways
Ratatouille
Tampopo
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover
The Mistress of Spices
Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place
Top Chef
Woman on Top
Fried Green Tomatoes
As a reminder, these are a few basic guidelines for guest writers on our site:
–We like most of our pieces to be 1,000 – 2,000 words, preferably with some images and links.
–Please send your piece in the text of an email, including links to all images, no later than Friday, December, 21st.
–Include a 2-3 sentence bio for placement at the end of your piece.
Email us at btchflcks(at)gmail(dot)com if you’d like to contribute a review. We accept original pieces or cross-posts.
Submit away!

Quote of the Day: Scarlett Johansson Tired of Sexist Diet Questions

Robert Downey, Jr. and Scarlett Johansson at The Avengers press conference in London

Cross-posted at Women and Hollywood.

Wow, who knew I could love Scarlett Johansson so much?? I posted this on Bitch Flicks‘ Facebook page but thought it was too great not to post here too.
At The Avengers press conference in London, a reporter proceeded to ask Robert Downey Jr. an in-depth, thought-provoking question about his character (Tony Stark/Iron Man) and then asked Johansson about her diet. I shit you not.
Reporter: “I have a question to Robert and to Scarlett. Firstly to Robert, throughout Iron Man 1 and 2, Tony Stark started off as a very egotistical character but learns how to fight as a team. And so how did you approach this role, bearing in mind that kind of maturity as a human being when it comes to the Tony Stark character, and did you learn anything throughout the three movies that you made?
“And to Scarlett, to get into shape for Black Widow did you have anything special to do in terms of the diet, like did you have to eat any specific food, or that sort of thing?”
Scarlett: “How come you get the really interesting existential question, and I get the like, “rabbit food” question?“
Amen, sister! If you watch the video, you’ll see just how perturbed Johansson is to be asked. As she should be. Why the hell did the reporter save the diet question for one of the two women on the panel??

Johansson has spoken in favor of feminism (yet doesn’t necessarily call herself a feminist) and female friendship, supports Planned Parenthood and condemns Hollywood’s ageism against women calling it “a very vain, vain industry.”  So it’s no surprise she calls out this bullshit. I only wish more actors and members of the media would follow her lead.

The reporter’s question particularly rubs me the wrong way because lots of women have such a contentious relationship with food. Eating should be a fun, sensual, pleasurable experience. But too many women fear food, afraid of what it will do to their bodies. The media monitors and polices women’s consumption. Between diet books, exercise DVDs, weight loss shakes, low-fat foods – the dieting industry is a money-making juggernaut. And it’s geared towards women.

In response to the asinine question, Sarah at Pop Cultured astutely asserts:

“The respect given to you if you’re a man in the entertainment business, and the respect given to you if you’re a woman in the entertainment business: all perfectly summed up in one idiotically thought out line of questioning.”
It’s ridiculous — not to mention offensive and sexist — Hollywood, the entertainment industry, and the media lavish praise on men for their minds and their talents while objectifying women and reducing female actors to their appearances. As we recently witnessed with Ashley Judd fighting back against toxic bodysnarking and the heinous criticism of Jennifer Lawrence’s body, the media constantly scrutinizes, visually dismembers, critiques and polices women’s bodies. The media wreaks havoc on women’s body images, telling us we’re too fat or too skinny. Never just right.

This constant bombardment of objectification of women leads to normalizing sexism and violence against women. It reinforces the notion that women are nothing more than sex objects for the male gaze.

So reporters, think twice before you ask a woman yet another stupid diet question. Ugh.

Motherhood in Film & Television: Being a Good Mother in ‘Gilmore Girls’

Rory and Lorelai Gilmore are the Gilmore Girls
This is a guest post from Friederike Wunschik
The two main characters of Gilmore Girls are a mother-daughter pair: Lorelai and Rory Gilmore. There are two things the viewer is told almost instantly: they are only 16 years apart and actually have the same first name (though the daughter goes by a baby-version of it). 
The Lorelais’ adventures and development are what propels the series forward. Their relationship is characterized by friendship, mutual understanding and respect, with only a few hiccups when the older Lorelai actually goes into mom-mode. They live in Stars Hollow (the imaginary Connecticut town that serves as the backdrop for most of the series), which is quaint, safe, and homogenous (there are practically no persons of color and income disparity is not an issue). Both are depicted as strong and independent women with the occasional romantic interest that never really threatens this independence.
Lorelai Gilmore is certainly depicted as a non-conventional mother. She has been described as a “disgraced Connecticut Brahmin teen heiress who flees prep school to keep and raise her now teen-aged daughter while estranged from her own parents” (Jennifer Crusie, Coffee at Luke’s, p. 174). But she is not the only mother in the series. Gilmore Girls spends a surprisingly large amount of time focusing on mother-characters, some of which are shown more often and more in-depth than others.
The first episode deals with Lorelai reluctantly contacting her parents (after 16 years of barely talking to them) in order to ask them for financial help. The viewer is immediately aware of the awkwardness and manipulation between Lorelai and her mother, Emily. Later we meet one of Rory’s friends, Lane, whose Korean immigrant mother is shown to be very strict and religious – she is only ever addressed as “Mrs. Kim”.
In subsequent seasons other mothers are show-cased:
  • Liz Danes, Luke’s sister (Luke is one of Lorelai’s main love-interests) and mother of Rory’s troubled second boyfriend Jess
  • Sookie (Lorelai’s best friend; she becomes pregnant in season 3)
  • Sherry Tinsdale (the absent mother of Rory’s much younger half-sister Gigi)
  • Lane, Rory’s best friend (she becomes pregnant in season 7)
This list is not complete in any way, and many of the female inhabitants of Stars Hollow take on temporary parenting responsibilities throughout the series.
Despite the various complications and problems the characters experience as mothers, motherhood is depicted as a fundamentally good thing in Gilmore Girls. Each mother in this series tries her best and finds her own solutions to various problems.
However, the different mother-models occasionally clash, causing the characters to question each others’ and their own style and technique. They even go so far as to openly criticize each other, forcing the viewer to consider both points of view and weigh the advantages and disadvantages of the parenting approaches. Nevertheless, it is important to note that every child in the series turns out alright, despite any problems it might have encountered.
In the following paragraphs I will analyze some of the issues the mothers of the series struggle with. 
Nurturing and Food
It is easy – but not fair – to extrapolate the quality of parenting a mother provides from the quality of the meals she serves.
One of the most emphasized aspects of Lorelai Gilmore’s mothering, apart from her youthful mother-friend approach, is the lack of home cooking. The Gilmore girls barely use their kitchen and table. They make coffee and Pop Tarts. They order take-out – a lot. The biggest effort Lorelai ever puts into the preparation of food is when she makes peanut butter sandwiches and marshmallow and gummy bear skewers for a movie marathon or “dessert sushi” to cheer up Rory (Season 07 Episode 02; check out http://gilmoregirlsgourmet.tumblr.com/post/12420447490/dessert-sushi for more on dessert sushi).
Dessert sushi
This lack of culinary skill is a matter of pride for Lorelai. She and Rory eat quite a lot junk food during each episode, but most “real” meals are consumed either at Luke’s diner, at Emily’s house, or consist of a selection of take-out eaten in front of the television. Lorelai is a working mom and does not have a lot of time to prepare meals. Her refusal to even try can be interpreted in several ways: she enjoys her consumerist lifestyle too much, she is too much of a child herself to consider providing a healthy and balanced diet to her daughter, or she is happy to be free of a chore she doesn’t enjoy.
Emily’s dinner table
Emily on the other hand uses Friday night dinners to guarantee a certain involvement in her daughter’s and granddaughter’s lives. She does not prepare meals either, she has help do that for her. Nevertheless she plans the meals and insists they be eaten at an impeccably set dining room table. Because she tries to control Lorelai’s life through the forced attendance, these dinners are often the site of conflict; in one instance Emily even tells the maid to take away Lorelai’s plate, thereby showing the viewer how much she is willing to use these meals as a means of control. (S04E06)
Mrs. Kim’s dinner table
Mrs. Kim’s Korean cooking is only used to highlight her Otherness. Lane longs for the pizza and candy diet Rory is on, yet she must endure weird foreign food that none of her friends know. Because Mrs. Kim is so strict about a healthy diet, Lane is forced to hide a stash of candy bars under the floorboards in her room and is afraid to eat fried foods, convinced her mother can smell it on her later.
As a chef, Sookie is used to cooking elaborate haute cuisine meals. She likes experimenting with ingredients and tastes. When she is asked to cater a children’s birthday she serves decidedly grown-up food. This incident serves to highlight her unpreparedness for motherhood: how can she look after a child when she doesn’t even know what to feed them? (S04E03) This unpreparedness is mirrored in the final season when Sookie finds out she is pregnant for a third time. (S07E12) After giving birth to her second child, Sookie had ordered (not asked) her husband to get a vasectomy, which he failed to do. This third pregnancy freaks Sookie out and she lists all the ways she is not mentally prepared for this baby “there was less than 4000 left […] diapers! For the last year and a half I’ve been changing more than 20 diapers a day! […] There was a light at the end of the tunnel. […] Diaper rash, colic, and potty training.”
Controlling One’s Child
As mentioned before, Emily uses Friday night dinners to keep tabs on both her daughter and granddaughter. She has a history of trying to control every aspect of Lorelai’s life (Lorelai occasionally compares her mother to dictators). Lorelai says that she would have run away, teen pregnancy or not, because she had “nothing in that house; I had no life, I had no air; you strangled me.” Emily argues that she did everything to provide a good life for Lorelai “I put you in good schools, I gave you the best of everything, and I made sure you had the finest opportunities.” (S01E09) These efforts were not only wildly unsuccessful, but might have actually driven Lorelai to actively seek out activities and people her mother would disapprove of. (S07E03)
Given her reaction to her mother’s parenting, it is not surprising that Lorelai is much more lax when it comes to Rory. Lorelai tries not to pass too much judgement on boyfriends and is not too strict about curfews. However, when Rory slips up and doesn’t come home at all (S01E09), Lorelai almost lets Emily convince her that Rory will make the same mistakes Lorelai did and will “ruin everything” by becoming a teen mom.
Emily is not the only one to criticize Lorelai’s laissez-faire attitude: Mrs. Kim confronts her in S01E07 and tells her “maybe you should be less busy […] then you could keep your daughter from running around kissing boys. […]” Arguing that “Lane is a young impressionable girl, she doesn’t need to hear about your daughter’s kissing.” Obviously Mrs. Kim feels that Lorelai and Rory are undermining her efforts to raise Lane appropriately. In the end, her strict parenting does not stop Lane from dropping out of college, joining a band and marrying a man who is not Korean. Nevertheless, Mrs. Kim makes peace with that in the end, helping her son-in-law to write a song, throwing Lane’s wedding, and offering her support when Lane unexpectedly becomes pregnant. None of her religious parenting has really stuck, except one thing: Lane won’t have sex until she is married and when she does have sex she comes away believing that her mother was right when she said it is not enjoyable at all. (S07E02)
Liz Danes presumably also had her first child very early, though not as early as Lorelai, and her son Jess serves as an example of a child running wild because his mother cannot control him. She is a single mother and somewhat of a wild child herself. Because she cannot provide a stable household to her son, Liz sends Jess to live with his uncle Luke in Stars Hollow. Despite being a troubled teenager, Jess later finds happiness in running an independent publishing house. (S06E18) Liz becomes pregnant again in season 6. This second pregnancy makes Liz panic and she convinces herself that her husband, TJ, will be a horrible father and she needs to avoid the mistakes she made with Jess. (S06E21) In the end, though, she and TJ are very happy together and have fun raising their daughter.
Parental Absence
Absent parents play a substantial role in Gilmore Girls. Lorelai is a single mom, Liz was a single mom, the viewer is never told whether there is a Mr. Kim or not, even Luke finds out he’s missed the first 12 years of his daughter’s life because he didn’t know about her. Yet, the parent whose absence is seen as most problematic is Sherry’s.
Shortly after Rory’s father, Christopher, decides to be more involved in his daughter’s life, the viewer is introduced to his girlfriend Sherry (S02E14), only to find out that Christopher is unhappy in his relationship and wants to leave her. Nevertheless, when he finds out she is pregnant, he goes back to her. (S02E22) Two years later Sherry leaves Christopher and their daughter Gigi to take a job in Paris, France. (S05E06) After another two years she contacts Christopher and says she would like to see Gigi again. (S07E07) Her disappearance and reappearance drive the plot of several episodes in which Lorelai and Rory contemplate and try to make sense of Sherry’s actions. Although ultimately no real judgement is passed, the Gilmore girls are obviously baffled and alienated by this behavior and wary of Sherry’s reconnecting with Christopher and Gigi.
No Bad Mothers Here
Ultimately, none of the mothers shown in Gilmore Girls are bad mothers. Even Emily is shown to be understanding and nurturing. In the end everything turns out alright: Rory graduates from Yale, making her mother and grandparents proud; the entire town of Stars Hollow throws Rory a graduation party, prompting Emily and her husband to express their pride in their daughter for cultivating such strong friendships for herself and her daughter; Jess has redeemed himself and his mother by pursuing an intellectual life as an author and publisher; Lane has reconciled herself with Mrs. Kim and gives birth to twin boys.
Lorelai is obviously celebrated as the best mother in town, she is young, fun, independent, and interested in letting Rory be herself. But throughout the series the viewer sees that she doesn’t have the answers to all the questions and all the mothers are just doing the best they can.
Further reading: 
Calvin, Ritch, ed. Gilmore Girls and the Politics of Identity: Essays on Family and Feminism in the Television Series. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008.
Crusie, Jennifer, ed. Coffee at Luke’s: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gabfest. Dallas, TX: BenBella, 2007.

Friederike Wunschik lives in Germany and has an M.A. in American Culture Studies. She occasionally blogs on friederike.wunschik.net. She will become a mother later this year and is excited and terrified at the same time.

‘The Hunger Games’ Review in Conversation: Part 1 on Jennifer Lawrence, Female Protagonists, Body Image, Disability, Whitewashing, Hunger & Food

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games

Part 1 of the Review in Conversation on The Hunger Games.

Megan’s Take:
In a dystopian future, the nation of Panem stands where North America once existed. The government at the Capitol, which controls the country, mandates a girl and boy between the ages of 12 and 18 are selected by lottery in each of the 12 Districts as tributes to compete in a fight to the death called the Hunger Games aired on live television. 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers when her little sister Prim’s name is called. But in the Hunger Games, only one person can survive.

I devoured The Hunger Games trilogy, reading all 3 books in a matter of 2 days. Katniss descends from a line of strong literary female protagonists (Karana in Island of the Blue Dolphins, Miyax in Julie of the Wolves, Jo March in Little Women, Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables, Jane Eyre, Meg Murray in A Wrinkle in Time, Hermione Granger in Harry Potter) for young adult readers. The story echoes themes in The Lottery, The Most Dangerous Game, Gladiator, 1984, Island of the Blue Dolphins and Battle Royale, yet forges a new path. The female-centric series’ haunting themes – poverty, war, sacrifice, love, starvation, media influence, government control, class difference, and economic inequity – riveted me. The books’ memorable characters lingered long after I closed the pages. I didn’t want to say goodbye. So my expectations for the film were high when I saw the midnight premiere.
Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss
While other female film franchises exist, no female-centric movies aside from Twilight, Bridesmaids and Mamma Mia have experienced this meteoric success. Some people pit Katniss and Bella against each other as if there isn’t room in this world for both. While I’m no fan of the Twilight Saga (I’ll admit it makes me want to gouge my eyes out), putting them in a dichotomy implies girls and women can only identify with either Katniss OR Bella, not both or neither. Thankfully, others question this comparison.

I thought the movie was fantastic. I often lament the lack of strong female protagonists in film. We desperately need more characters like Katniss on-screen. A skilled archer, Katniss is smart, stubborn, brave, abrasive and self-reliant. She not only fights for her own survival; she’s compelled to protect her family. Living in the most impoverished neighborhood in the poorest of the 12 Districts, Katniss is the resourceful breadwinner, illegally hunting for food to feed her family. She’s a surrogate mother to her sister Prim and even her own traumatized mother, grief-stricken over the death of her daughters’ father. Despite her tough exterior, she possesses a vulnerability. What makes Katniss unique is that she “feels empathy when nobody else does.” She’s compelled to defend others, even her competition.

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss

Jennifer Lawrence’s powerful performance as the “Girl on Fire” has been lauded by critics. And rightfully so. She’s stunning, perfectly conveying strength, rage, fear, and vulnerability through her body language, a flick of her eyes, never needing to utter a single word. She trained in archery, free running, yoga, climbing and combat. Regarding Lawrence’s casting as Katniss, director Gary Ross, moved by her powerful audition, called it “the easiest casting decision” of his life. Author Collins also fully supported Lawrence as Katniss. 
The casting call, however, wanted an “underfed but strong” actor, and was limited only to “Caucasian” women. What. The. Fuck. I mean really, Hollywood?? No, women of color could even audition?! Collins describes Katniss’ appearance in the book as olive skinned with black hair. Hello…that could be tons of female actors of color! Why the hell must she be white?! You’re going to exclude young women of color and, on top of that, you only want malnourished-looking women?! Yes, starvation is a vital issue in the series. But in the book, Katniss says she possesses lean muscles from hunting. 
Lawrence is receiving an assload of toxic bodysnarking from the misogynisitc media. The NY Times’ Mahnola Dargis claimed “her seductive, womanly figure makes a bad fit for a dystopian fantasy about a people starved into submission,”Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy commented on her “lingering baby fat,” Hollywood Elsewhere’s Jeffrey Wells accuses Lawrence of being “big-boned” and “seems too big for Hutcherson” as male romantic partners should at least be as tall as their female counterparts (heaven forbid a woman is bigger or taller than her love interest…gasp!). The media constantly tells women we must be skinny. This toxicity destroys women’s body image.

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss
Amber’s Take:
I agree with all your comments on Katniss being a strong female protagonist, and what a relief it is for a franchise fronted by a young woman to win the box office (as of this writing) four weeks in a row. Although the Twilight comparisons irk me, too, they almost seem inevitable, as so few big Hollywood releases have featured female protagonists. As with so many Hollywood franchises, however, this one takes a small step forward: a strong young woman is in the lead, but she is whitewashed to “play it safe” with the viewing public. Although the film is set in—and was filmed in–modern-day Appalachia, I see no reason why the lead needed to be “Caucasian.”
I have to talk about the “body snarking,” because while I would never call Jennifer Lawrence “too big” to play Katniss, she is older than Katniss. The 17-year-old Lawrence who starred in Winter’s Bone would have been a more convincing 16-year-old Katniss than the actor at age 21. Women in their 20s playing teenagers certainly isn’t a new thing (how many times have you watched a movie or TV show and noticed twenty-somethings playing high school students?), but the tendency for this to happen does create unrealistic expectations for teenage girls and conflate girlhood with womanhood. I think this problem will only become more apparent in the following two films of the series, too.

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss

Much has been said about Lawrence’s body, but I’m not really interested in analyzing it—the incessant discussion of female bodies is part of the problem. What I do want to discuss is the film’s handling of food and hunger (a conversation I think many people are sincerely trying to have who end up derailing into critiques of Lawrence’s body). Everyone in District 12 is hungry, including Katniss. Winning the Hunger Games isn’t just about surviving; it’s also about bringing extra food home to your district—especially important for the poorer areas. The Capitol uses hunger as a political tool—a fact that doesn’t come through clearly enough in the movie. (An anecdote: The person who saw the movie with me didn’t understand why it was called The Hunger Games.)

In the book, Katniss eats and enjoys the plentiful food provided to her in the lead up to the game. She finds a particular lamb stew rich and delicious and she enjoys eating it until she’s full. For a girl who’s been hungry much of her life, the food available on that train trip would be irresistible. Yet in the movie, Katniss seems uninterested, even immune to the lavish spread. Is there a reason Katniss can’t enjoy a hearty stew to fortify herself for the impending game?  This de-emphasis of food changes the character of the story dramatically. Remember the moment when Gale presents a roll to Katniss in the woods and she exclaims “Is this real?!” and they break the roll to enjoy together? The berries Katniss and Peeta threaten to eat in their Romeo-and-Juliet-style sabotage of the game? The story of nourishment and consumption takes a major hit when the movie doesn’t permit Katniss to eat and enjoy food and, for me, this might trump whatever positive body-image message might be implied by the decision to cast Lawrence without regard to the “underfed” description in the casting call, and without regard to her adult status.

Megan’s Take:
I didn’t really have a problem with Lawrence being older than Katniss. Although I totally agree about the concern for girls “conflating girlhood with womanhood.” But I suppose it didn’t bother me so much because Katniss is never sexualized. She cares about archery, not what she’s wearing. While Katniss receives a pageant-style makeover, so do the male tributes. While it hints at it, I just wish the movie had conveyed the book’s satire of toxic beauty standards.
I could NOT agree more with you on the themes of hunger and food or rather how they’re severely diminished almost to the point of erasure in the film. As a feminist vegan, I’m passionate about food justice and our relationship with food. Food and hunger are vital themes in the trilogy. Food is used as a reward while withholding food a punishment wielded as a weapon against Panem’s citizens. While the movie hints at these themes through the Capitol’s citizens’ garish costumes versus District 12’s simple garb or the lavishness of food at the Capitol, it doesn’t fully capture the book’s themes of food justice, food shortages, hunger and class inequities.

Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket and Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen
It’s rare to see an impoverished protagonist and a film contend with economic inequities. Even within the impoverished District 12, there are class distinctions. In the book, Katniss tells Peeta he doesn’t understand her desire to not owe anyone anything because he’s not from the Seam, the poorest neighborhood in District 12. The reason Gale had his name in the Reaping 42 times was so he could obtain more rations for his family. Katniss continually describes food and she always gorges herself like she’ll never eat again…because she doesn’t know if she will. 
Jennifer Lawrence and Amandla Stenberg as Rue

I too didn’t understand the de-emphasis of food and hunger. In reality, 1 in 6 children suffer from hunger. And I too loved Collins’ descriptions of food, like Katniss relishing her favorite nourishing lamb (dislike) stew with dried plums (yum!) and the sweetness of hot chocolate touching her lips for the first time. And of course there was the continual symbol of bread — the warm and fragrant bread accompanied by Prim’s cheese Katniss eats with Gale, or Peeta’s burned bread that saves her life years earlier, or District 11 sending Katniss a loaf of bread for her alliance with Rue (who was from District 11) as a symbol of solidarity and quiet revolution, which the film eliminates, showing the citizens (many of whom are people of color) rioting instead. 

Society equates food with morality — healthy food is good, decadent food sinful. While eating should be a sensual experience, through diet ads the media constantly tells us that women shouldn’t enjoy food. Food is constantly a threat to women’s bodies and we must resist its seductive allure. That’s why it was so refreshing to read Katniss’ delight in savoring food.
Beyond nourishment, I saw hunger serving as a metaphor for consumption — consumption of merchandise and media with its gravitational pull of reality TV and celeb culture. To eliminate the message of food, hunger and consumption dilutes its powerful message.
Speaking of parts eliminated from the book, I was disappointed the film eliminated the leads’ disabilities. In the book, Katniss loses her hearing, becoming deaf in one ear, and Peeta has his leg amputated. The movie hints at her hearing loss with sound effects but doesn’t actually address it. People often say that losing their hearing would be the end of the world but Katniss must adapt as a hunter and survive. It’s also a powerful message that in the book the Capitol “fixes” people’s disabilities without their consent. Sadly, it says even more that the film erases disabilities altogether. The fact that a movie can’t have a disabled protagonist or a disabled love interest is pathetic.
Amber’s Take:
The film really diminished a lot of powerful themes and messages from the book, and I couldn’t agree more with you about minimizing injury, or what equates to erasure of disability. Ironic that the book has the Capitol “fixing” disability, but the film itself erases it–making the filmmakers the Capitol. We — the viewers — are already in the uncomfortable position of watching the Games much like the Capitol citizens (something else the film minimizes, I think).

In a way, it’s funny that we haven’t really talked about violence, and how — in order to get a PG-13 rating — the film sanitized violence. The books are intended for a Young Adult audience, but are filled with brutal murders. The movie is, too, and I think we could see the de-emphasis of violence as either positive or negative: Positive in that the movie doesn’t glorify violence, or depict it graphically (which movies do too much of in general), but bad in that the movie isn’t as dark or complex as it could have been. While I realize that a filmmaker must make difficult choices when adapting a book (series), every choice made about The Hunger Gamesmade it safer — and more likely to not put off, offend, or disturb mainstream viewers. In essence, making it a successful blockbuster.

Stay tuned for the next part of the Review in Conversation on The Hunger Games, in which we’ll discuss race in the world of the film, female relationships, and that love triangle.

Amber Leab is a Co-Founder and Contributing Editor to Bitch Flicks. 

Megan Kearns is a Bitch Flicks Contributor and Founder of The Opinioness of the World.