Tag: Fox

‘Sleepy Hollow’: The Phoenix Rises From Its Ashes?

While the episode wasn’t perfect we can only hope that ‘Sleepy Hollow’ will pull off what it has planned and at least for the time being there’s no need to dust off the #AbbieMillsDeservesBetter hashtag.

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This is a guest post by Giselle Defares.

Will FOX be able to save Sleepy Hollow? That was the question that bothered critics and fans alike these past nine months. Not since NBC’s Heroes has a show sunk its own ship from season 1 to 2. FOX and TPTB promised to reboot the story and go back to the magic of season 1.

In the wake of the season 3 premiere this has to be said. The bar for Sleep Hollow’s promotion was set very low and they still missed the mark leading up to the premiere on Oct. 1. All the budget on FOX must have gone to the Empire promo but there had to be someone in the PR department who could have thought of utilizing social media to drum up the interest and the show’s scattered fan base (at least earlier than a week before the show starts). It’s ridiculous that Emmy-winner Viola Davis drummed up more buzz for Nicole Beharie in her speech than the PR department has accomplished in three seasons. That is something else.

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There were many things that had to be dealt with in the first episode. There was a nine-month time jump, the broken relationship between Ichabod and Abbie, Jenny back on the forefront, the introduction of two new characters, and last but not least: the case of the week.

In the opening we’re directly introduced to the new villain Pandora (Shannyn Sossamon), who captures the Headless Horseman into her box (or in her own words “it’s more of a dowry”) whilst singing a song. By capturing the Headless Horseman, Pandora gave the box “the power of death” and thus she was able to summon the yaoguai. This is a battlefield demon who paralyzes people and feeds on their fear, which ultimately kills them. This was a great move to tie up the storylines of season 2, hand the baton from one villain to another, but leave the door open. Sossamon plays her role well and it’s interesting to note that during one episode she successfully performed more magic than Katrina in two seasons. How’s that for progress?

We find out that Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie) has moved on with her life and is fully focused on her career. She finished her training with the FBI and is now a working agent under the leadership of her new mentor Mitch Granger (C. Thomas Howell). During their bust of the multi-state drug trafficking ring – with the cheesy name Anaconda- she receives a phone call with news regarding an old friend.

After the loss of his wife Katrina and son Henry in the season finale, Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison) told Abbie that he was going to “clear his head” and then never came back: “I required solitude. Then it became a habit. A deeply regrettable one.” This was a nice touch. He was grieving after all and needed time to find himself again. Ichabod traveled back to Scotland and searched for answers in his family’s tomb. He found a 4,000-year-old tablet marked with Sumerian engravings which translated to “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” OK.

Ichabod travelled back to the States and his family heirloom ensured that he got locked up and he has been in the custody of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement for five days before he called Abbie. The reason? He was ashamed and the necklace that Abraham gave Katrina (that contains his soul) lost its power, which means that something is wrong with the Headless Horseman, and they need to find out what it means. (Side note: Team Witness was still in sync during their time apart since they opted for the same haircut.)

The scene of the first demon attack is in a national park. Two men end up dead and the authorities suspect an animal attack. Abbie knows the area and states that it doesn’t have the right kind of predators. It was a nice moment to see the dynamic between the two. Ichabod the believer and Abbie the sceptic working together as a team; both brought their knowledge to the table. Or as Ichabod dramatically states, “Evil has returned to Sleepy Hollow.”

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The duo heads back to the archives and there’s a lovely reunion with Jenny Mills (Lyndie Greenwood). Unfortunately, Irving won’t be coming back but Jenny explains what happened to him and hints that she helped him disappear. Jenny now works as a paralegal and is slowly finding her way back into society. She helps Ichabod and Abbie find out what the substance is that they found in the national park. She quips, “I spent years recovering obscure artifacts from all over the world – this is what I do.” Amen.

It wouldn’t be Sleepy Hollow without a historical connection and a flashback. They find out that when Benjamin Franklin wrote about the “red devil” at Bunker Hill, it didn’t refer to the redcoats names but to the yaoguai. In the flashback that follows we find out that it was Betsy Ross (Nikki Reed) who delivered the message to Colonel Prescott and thus turned history at Bunker Hill. While Sossamon fares well in her role, Reed doesn’t really make a lasting impression. In part because she didn’t really have much to do in her scenes. Her foreshadowing with the line “one day you’ll meet someone who make you forget all those manners” was a nice touch. It’s certainly funny that all the female characters of Ichabod’s past – historic icons no less- have been sexified and all have romantic ties with Ichabod. Betsy Ross felt modern, thus out of place and was dressed like a lost extra on the set of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Abbie is pulled back into work mode when the FBI receives a tip on their drug bust. She finds out that aggression and gunpowder attracts the yaoguai. Unfortunately, the yaoguai paralyzes her mentor Granger and slashes his throat. Why does she need to lose her mentors this way? Abbie does fire some shots and injures the yaoguai, which is a surprise to Team Witness since the demon is supposed to be invulnerable. The yaoguai has one weakness: it can be wounded when its eyes flash white in order to steal someone’s fear. Whilst Abbie is focused on the drug ring. Ichabod and Jenny hastily conduct a plan to trap the yaoguai. It seems to go well but in the end it’s Abbie who saves the day.

The episode is definitely miles better than most of season 2, yet there are some things that are hit or miss. There was no need for an Asian drug ring just because Team Witness was dealing with a Chinese demon. Hopefully Betsy Ross will be less bland in the upcoming episodes. The dialogue is sometimes very on the nose. Whilst trying to find out what demon there up against, Ichabod finds a book where it states that the demon looks for fear and it’s a servant not a master, to which Jenny states: “ Meaning that someone summoned it here, someone evil.” Jenny had some other questionable lines such as “ Guns, knives, things that go boom. We’re back in the demon-fighting business and I think we’re going to need them.” Alright, didn’t think of that. By the way, we still don’t know how Ichabod was able to travel to Scotland (and back) and how he made his living in the past year. How Sway? At least he’s entertaining the idea of finding a job.

While the episode wasn’t perfect we can only hope that Sleepy Hollow will pull off what it has planned and at least for the time being there’s no need to dust off the #AbbieMillsDeservesBetter hashtag.

 

Giselle Defares comments on film, fashion (law) and American pop culture. See her blog here.

 

‘Glee’ and Transmen

As I hope is obvious by me being a writer for ‘Bitch Flicks,’ I am a feminist, as well as a transman, and it therefore positively enraged me when I found out which character ‘Glee’ was outing as a transman.

Written by Jackson Adler.

FOX’s Glee, a show about a high school glee club, its teachers, and, later, its alumni, is airing its final episode March 20, after six seasons. Glee has been a show aimed at families, teens especially, and has no doubt been an introduction to LGBT issues and representation to many. While not always perfect in how it addresses various issues, it has certainly raised awareness in America to LGBT rights and acceptance. Due to the show having had a fair amount of tokenism of various groups, although it has improved in terms of representation in regard to some of those groups, when it was announced that one of the show’s characters was going to come out as a transman, I was simultaneously unsurprised and excited. I was several seasons behind on the series, and that announcement made my ears perk up and lead me to binge-watching the show again. At that point in time, I had literally seen zero representations of transmen and transboys in fictional media, and it was going to mean a lot to me to see my identity validated. As I hope is obvious by me being a writer for Bitch Flicks, I am a feminist, as well as a transman, and it therefore positively enraged me when I found out which character Glee was outing as a transman.

Dot-Marie Jones as Coach Beiste.
Dot-Marie Jones as Coach Beiste.

 

Football Coach Sheldon (formerly known as Shannon) Beiste has been one of my favorite characters on the show. Dot-Marie Jones is a phenomenal actress, and though the writing quality of her character is incredibly fickle, she commits beautifully to every moment. She and her character are tall, broad, muscular people, and much of Bieste’s character arc is about how every woman deserves to be respected, to feel pretty, and to have a chance at love. Her character has been repetitively bullied by those whose narrow definition of femininity and womanhood is beyond her character’s reach. It is therefore highly important that other characters started to acknowledge Beiste’s femininity, and to see Beiste as a woman who should be treated and respected like any other. When the writers of Glee decided to make Coach Beiste their token transman, it undermined her character arc and a powerful lesson about sexism and bodyshaming. It was a slap in the face to girls who had written to Dot-Marie Jones sharing their personal stories of being bullied for not meeting the narrow physical image of feminine beauty that is wrongfully promoted in our culture. I felt insulted for the actress, because it is her own body that is on display and is argued about in the episodes in which she stars. I felt awful for every woman and girl, and those raised as such, who has ever faced bodyshaming. There are so many other characters on the show from which the writers could have chosen to be their token transman, so choosing Coach Beiste was far from the only, and definitely not the best, option. In my opinion, two of the best characters the writers of Glee could have chosen to be a transman would have been Emma Pillsbury and Quinn Fabray.

Jayma Mays as Emma Pillsbury.
Jayma Mays as Emma Pillsbury.

 

School counselor Emma Pillsbury has anxiety and OCD, and for much of the show was terrified of sex. Many transpeople develop anxiety and OCD due to the pressures they have felt to present and pass as a gender that was assigned to them, and not their true gender. While it would have been great for the character to be out as asexual, another possibility would be that the character is uncomfortable with sex due to physical dysphoria in regards to their own body. Emma Pillsbury coming out as a transman would have also required glee club teacher Will Schuester to address his stance on homosexuality on a more personal level, due to his romantic relationship (and now marriage) with Emma.

Dianna Agron as Quinn Fabray.
Dianna Agron as Quinn Fabray.

 

Quinn Fabray was always obsessed with being the best girl at the school, the best cheerleader with the best boyfriend, the best hair, the best clothes, with being the homecoming and prom queen. Wouldn’t it be interesting if this obsession was revealed to be a way of compensating for not being a girl at all? What if her attraction to fellow blonde Sam Evans was because he was a representation of the type of boy Quinn secretly wanted to be? Then Quinn’s various past partners, including Quinn’s on and off boyfriend hypermasculine Noah “Puck” Puckerman, would have to contemplate their own sexuality and their opinions on homosexuality in a more personal way.

Dot-Marie Jones as Coach Beiste.
Dot-Marie Jones as Coach Beiste.

 

Both Emma and Quinn are skinny, White, and fit what society deems to be attractive. They often wear makeup and “feminine” clothing. Writing either Emma Pillsbury or Quinn Fabray as a transman would have challenged societal views and myths in regard to femininity and masculinity. It would have meant more thorough discussions about identity and sexuality, and the societal biases towards them. Glee so often provides “lessons” for its viewers, so why not address the subject of transmen in a way that thoroughly addresses issues surrounding that identity, instead of going the route that it did and promote a misogynistic message that Coach Beiste really isn’t and never was a woman who should be respected and treated like any other? Though Glee is ending, hopefully other shows, especially family and teen shows, will promote LGBT issues just as often, if not more so, than Glee – though hopefully in a more thorough and respectful way.

 

 

‘The Mindy Project’ : A Case for the Female Anti-Hero


‘The Mindy Project’ premiers Sept. 25 (the pilot is available on Hulu).
The anti-hero is in. While one could analyze at length what this says about our society, it’s clear that we are more smitten with the male anti-hero than the female one. There’s still a notion that our female protagonists–when we get them–need to be flawed, but not too much. We still want them to fit a mold of what we deem good.

Mindy Kaling’s new sitcom, The Mindy Project, gives us the rare fully flawed female anti-hero in a prime-time comedy. What’s striking in the pilot episode (Hulu is previewing the pilot before the show premiers on Fox on Sept. 25), is that Mindy’s character, Mindy Lahiri, an OB/GYN, isn’t particularly lovable. In fact, she’s kind of an asshole.

And it’s great.

Lahiri gets trashed and attempts to ruin her ex’s wedding. She loves romantic comedies in a completely shallow, selfish way. She makes inappropriate (even racist) jokes. Was I being seduced by the fact that M.I.A. was blasting in the background during the show’s climax? Why did all of this work so well for me?

Lahiri, at her ex’s wedding, drunkenly insults the couple (including jabs at his new wife’s ethnicity).


I realized that it felt good to see an unlikable female protagonist. It felt good to see a true female anti-hero. Of course, it’s clear that we are supposed to root for her, and can do so easily. Lahiri as a protagonist fits in more with Sterling Archer, Michael Scott, Larry David and Jeff Winger than she would with Leslie Knope and Liz Lemon. We accept men as lovable assholes, but for women it’s often a different story.

The expectations we have for female characters in entertainment rival the expectations we have for women in our culture. Be funny, but not crude. Be pretty, but not vain. Be confident, but not prideful. Be excellent at your career, but don’t sacrifice love and motherhood. Be sexy, but not sexual.

Our expectations for men are much simpler, and less impossible. In fact, the expectations could be characterized as “lack thereof” (this is problematic in its own way). Perhaps this is the reason why we embrace the male anti-hero (whether it’s a sitcom, hour-long drama, film or Ernest Hemingway novel). Audiences expect men to be crude, shallow and unpleasant on many levels. These low expectations open up countless opportunities for complex male characters.

“I’m sorry, disorderly conduct? Aren’t there rapists and murderers out there?”
Upon release from her arrest, Lahiri shows little remorse.


Don’t get me wrong, I love Knope and Lemon. Knope’s character–the entire show, really–is a shining example of feminism in practice. Lemon is flawed, but is also hyper-self-aware and apologetic for herself in many ways. Both of those characters want to be liked. Lahiri (a true model Millennial) doesn’t seem like someone who would apologize to anyone. She just wants it all.

I look forward to having a relationship with a female anti-hero like I have with so many male anti-heroes on TV. I look forward to laughing and/or cringing at some of the character’s words and actions. Lahiri is not what we’ve been taught is the ideal. She’s real, and says and does things that don’t “fit” the ideal mold. Of course it goes without saying that seeing a curvy woman of color in a leading role feels pretty amazing. 

We don’t need every female protagonist to be a true hero. We simply need more complex depictions of women–the good, the bad and the accurate. We shouldn’t expect our female protagonists to keep sweet any more than we should ourselves. 

A reviewer at The Atlantic Wire, in a disappointed review of the pilot, says of the show’s premise, “… I’m worried this particular setup might not be the one. Bawdy talk in an OB/GYN office followed by drunken antics in a mini dress is all well and good, I guess. But Kaling, to some of us at least, has always seemed a bit better.”What does this mean, exactly, besides A. the show is too feminine, and B. she should be “better” than bawdiness and drunkenness? That’s not the point and is the whole point, all at once.

Lahiri grew up in an era of idealized depictions of love and womanhood via Meg Ryan and Sandra Bullock rom-coms. She wants that happy ending, but doesn’t seem to want to change herself for it. She’s clearly excellent at her career. At the end of the day–and at the end of the episode–she just wants to get laid. So she does. 

She smiles toward the camera and we’re invited not to judge, and not to clutch our pearls and wish for a more perfect female character. We’re simply supposed to come along for the ride.



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

Sunday Recap

It was a short week due to the holiday, but here’s a recap of last week’s posts. Don’t miss the Animated Children’s Films series, which begins tomorrow (Monday)!
The controversy surrounding the film may have superseded the film itself–which is beautifully shot, heartbreaking, and even darkly comedic at times. Fire contains so many elements that I love in film: strong female characters, an exploration of complex issues that is never oversimplified and that never leads to individuals being labeled good or evil (although they certainly behave in good and/or evil ways), and immersion into a culture that isn’t entirely familiar to me. Speaking to a Western audience, Mehta has stated that one of her goals in filmmaking is to “demystify India,” its culture and its traditions. Fire complicates our understanding of a traditional patriarchal culture, and throws into sharp relief the ways these traditions impact women in particular.
Maybe I’m not old-fashioned; maybe I’m stupid for continuing to tune in to programming that doesn’t give a damn whether I watch or not. Or, even worse, maybe they’re just assuming they have “female viewers” (because we’re a silly monolith) because, you know, OMG Pretty Dresses.

There’s something else, though, that I can’t not notice about the NYT article: In the entire 1,187-word article, only about 200 words (3 paragraphs) were devoted to one of the highest honors and most controversial moments of the night: Oprah Winfrey winning the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. She’s the first Black woman to win the award (Quincy Jones won in 1995, the only Black man to win it), yet her win has been called “boneheaded” and “a shameless bid for a ratings boost,” largely because her contributions to the film industry are seen by insiders as lacking.

At the very least, it’s important to discuss Twilight because it’s the First Franchise Film Series Ever to directly target teen girls, and we should probably look at what that means for the future of films made for young women, especially since the Twilight Saga has been overwhelmingly successful at the box office. Luckily, I found an amazing interview with Dr. Natalie Wilson, who points out some major problems with the Twilight Saga, and who blogs for one of my favorite sites, Professor, What If …?
In this post-feminist world, where there is definitely no concern about the emotional health of teenage girls and bullying is not a problem and misogyny is FOR SURE a thing of the past, where no one uses “girl” or “schoolgirl” as an insult, where no one accuses anyone of throwing like a girl or crying like a schoolgirl, and companies would never do something like conflate a teenage girl with mayhem, where teenage girls are all totally secure in their worth as full and equal beings and their humanity is never diminished by objectification or exploitation or marginalization or myriad narratives that daily communicate you are less than, in this amazing new world where feminism has been rendered moot, this is obviously a perfect show that is super funny.
The beauty of Ron’s character is that he’s manly enough to go for powerful women, as has been clearly established in previous episodes. And his interest in the women’s studies professor (who was talking about the oppressive nature of society) is completely believable given his libertarian beliefs. It doesn’t hurt that the actor who plays Swanson is unabashedly manly himself (read the interview with Nick Offerman) and that he’s married to Megan Mullaly, who is hella funny. I love that the character, the writing, and the directing came together so organically to create such greatness.