Gabourey Sidibe – Bitch Flicks

Fat, Black, and Desirable: Fat Positivity and Black Women

If these women aren’t seeing any positive images of themselves on screen, how are they able to construct an identity of truth? Even though they can rely on their community for positivity, if it’s not reinforced through media representation then it renders that support useless.

This guest post by Chantell Monique appears as part of our theme week on Fatphobia and Fat Positivity.

When thinking about positive images of fat Black women in television, one normally thinks of any television show starring Queen Latifah or Jill Scott. Unfortunately, work by these two women is not enough to combat the plethora of stereotypical and fat-phobic images that plague fat Black women. While it has been difficult to find positive images of fat White women on television, for the past five years there has been more positive visibility than that of Black women. There is a slow and steady body-positive movement taking place in the form of social media and television representation; however, due to White privilege and constant stereotyping, fat Black women have been excluded from this conversation. Including Black women in this movement can potentially lead to more fat-positive representation, e.g. complex characters and romantic love interests, thereby allowing fat Black women to challenge stereotypes and restructure their image to include desirability and worth.

Tess Holliday plus-size model and body-positive activist — Tess Holliday, plus-size model and body-positive activist

Poet Sonya Renee Taylor wrote a passionate piece for The Militant Baker titled, “Weighting to be Seen” in which she discusses the body-positive movement and the lack of women of color involved. She highlights a few names of bloggers and “body positive heroines” noting that aside from their body sizes, it’s their whiteness that allows their images of “bravery” to go viral. Taylor says, “Our society tells us fatness is not beautiful. Blackness is not beautiful. So even while reclaiming size diversity as beautiful, the presence of Blackness complicates the narrative.” She argues that although there is a body-positive movement occurring, including Black women in this conversation “complicates the narrative”; therefore, it’s easier to leave them out altogether. She’s not asserting this is by anyone’s conscious choice, but it’s a result of White privilege. Taylor says, “Being seen in our bodies, in our fullness and beauty is a birthright women of color have never had…the vehicle to even beginning to dismantle weight stigma is to be seen as fully human in this society [which] is a privilege that requires white skin…” Taylor’s observation of the body-positive movement challenges the notion that all women can and have been included; in addition, it underlines why there has been a lack of fat-positive representation of Black women in television.

Melissa McCarthy in Mike and Molly — Melissa McCarthy in *Mike and Molly*

Hollywood has a complicated relationship with fatness, especially female fatness; how it chooses to deal with fat bodies indicates a general lack of respect, and worth. We’ve witnessed fat female bodies being used a comedy, marginalized or ignored all together. Yet over the past five years, we’ve seen a modest amount of fat-positivity in terms of female representation. For example, Melissa McCarthy in Mike & Molly (2010-)–Molly is the protagonist worthy of a romantic relationship which fuels the show’s storyline. In addition, Drop Dead Diva (2009-2014) follows the love and career of a feisty model reincarnated as a plus-size attorney. It must be noted, being reincarnated in the form of a plus-size woman can be seen as a punishment; however, once the show deals with this theme, it rarely mentions her fatness in a negative way. Instead, the viewer gets to watch the heroine argue cases and fall in and out of love. After a string of strong film performances, Australian actress Rebel Wilson landed a starring role on her own show, Super Fun Night (2013-2014). Even though it got canceled, she was the lead, not a stereotypical sidekick. Another body-positive representation is HBO’s Girls (2012-); Lena Dunham’s ability to showcase her body on television either casually or sexually highlights the notion that no matter the size, women are complex, sexual and beautiful beings. The last and most interesting body-positive handling of a fat woman is in Showtime’s Homeland (2011-); although not a fully flushed out character, a plus-size woman engages in “fat sex” with the hunky male lead that stunned most viewers while also commenting on idea that yes, fat women have sex! These images, in conjunction with the body-positive social media presence, bring awareness to fatness in a way that encourages consideration and thought. Unfortunately, like Taylor points out, the faces that represent this movement are White, which leaves fat Black women alone to battle engrained stereotypes such as the ever-present Mammy.

In “Mammies, Matriarchs, and Other Controlling Images,” Patricia Hill Collins argues that stereotypes such as The Mammy “simultaneously reflect and distort both the ways in which black women view themselves…and the ways in which they are viewed by others”; therefore, if the image of the Black woman is relegated to an asexual nurturer who lacks desirability, how can she or others see her as worthy of love? This notion has been egregiously reflected in television; for example, Cate Young writes an article for Bitch Flicks that investigates the treatment of Gabourey Sidibe’s Queenie in American Horror Story: Coven. She uses the Strong Black Woman stereotype in order to analyze Sidibe’s character, asserting that “Queenie is presented as being the only one unworthy of love or sex.” While Young doesn’t mention Sidibe’s size, one can only assume it was easier for AHS to portray a fat Black woman as unlovable instead of a thin one. Thin Black actress experience stereotyping also but there is substantial proof that indicates Hollywood is comfortable showcasing them as more lovable than fat Black women.

Amber Riley as Glee’s Mercedes — Amber Riley as *Glee*’s Mercedes

Unfortunately, there aren’t fat-positive images of fat Black women comparable to those of fat White women e.g. leading characters that show some semblance of depth and complexity. Instead, fat Black women have been pushed to the margins of television, infiltrating stereotypical roles that communicate undesirability. To illustrate, Amber Riley’s character on Glee (2009-) never had a lasting romantic relationship. We were able to see the majority of Glee’s cast fall in love and engage in sustainable relationships but not her. At one point she dates two gentlemen but finally decides not to be with either one. While one can appreciate a woman’s right to be single, not giving the plus-size Black girl a romantic relationship implicitly reinforces her undesirability. Through these images, fat Black girls are able to shape their identity but if television says their undesirable, if affects their self-perception.

Jill Scott, one of Hollywood’s go-to plus-size Black women

There has been constant discourse regarding representation of fat Black women in television and because images help to shape our identities, consuming negative images can impact how fat Black women see themselves. Dwight E. Brooks and Lisa P. Hebert, authors of “Gender, Race, And Media Representation,” argue, “How individuals construct their social identities, how they come to understand what it means to be male, female, black, white…is shaped by commodified text produced by media…”; consequently, there are no innocent images out there and relying on stereotypes in order to define a group of people greatly impacts their self-perception. This can be directly applied to fat Black women who have been characterized as undesirable and unworthy of romantic love. If these women aren’t seeing any positive images of themselves on screen, how are they able to construct an identity of truth? Even though they can rely on their community for positivity, if it’s not reinforced through media representation then it renders that support useless.

1990s Living Single starring Queen Latifah — 1990s *Living Single* starring Queen Latifah

There are talented fat Black actresses desperate to play complex characters without submitting to mainstream standards of beauty but there are no substantial roles available to them. During the 1990s Golden Age of Television (Living Single, Moesha, The Parkers, That’s so Raven, etc.) there were countless parts for women of color but as times have changed, so have the opportunities. We’re unable to rely on Queen Latifah and Jill Scott to speak for a whole group of women and because a powerful showrunner like Shonda Rhimes has normalized diversity on television, it seems unfair to ask her to create characters that actually look like her, especially after all she’s done for Black women. This means fat Black women must not only become part of the body-positive movement but perhaps the face of it; in addition, we must look for creative ways to tell our stories, taking an active role in our media portrayal. Only then can we combat White privilege and stereotypes in order to restructure our images to include desirability and worth.

Chantell Monique is a Creative Writing instructor and screenwriter, living in Los Angeles. She holds a MA in English from Indiana University, South Bend. She has previously written for Bitch Flicks and is a contributor for BlackGirlNerds.com. She’s addicted to Harry Potter, Netflix and anything pertaining to social justice and Black female representation in film and television. Twitter @31pottergirl

Cookie and Co.: The Women of ‘Empire’

Fox’s midseason drama ‘Empire’ is a huge hit, and it is easy to see why. The gloriously soapy family melodrama is chockablock with “watercooler moments” (are those still a thing?), many provided by the series’s breakout character Cookie Lyon, played with obvious joy by Taraji P. Henson. But despite all the well-deserved attention Cookie is getting, she’s not the only great female character ‘Empire’ has to offer.

Written by Robin Hitchcock.

FOX’s midseason drama Empire is a huge hit, and it is easy to see why. The gloriously soapy family melodrama is chockablock with “watercooler moments” (are those still a thing?), many provided by the series’s breakout character Cookie Lyon, played with obvious joy by Taraji P. Henson.

Taraji P. Henson as Cookie Lyon in 'Empire' — Taraji P. Henson as Cookie Lyon in *Empire*

Cookie, the ex-wife of legendary hip hop mogul Lucious Lyon (and mother the three sons vying to inherit his empire), has just been released from a 17-year stint in prison. She co-founded the company (somewhat clunkily called Empire) with Lucious, and wants the riches, fame, and power she was denied when she took the fall for the drug dealing that financed the company in its early days. Surrounded by schemers, Cookie in contrast works to get what she wants by sheer force of will. And an abundance of charisma floating on her fearlessness, brazenness, and enviable style. Cookie is glorious.

Despite all the well-deserved attention Cookie is getting, she’s not the only great female character Empire has to offer. This is a refreshing surprise, given co-creators Lee Daniels and Danny Strong (the same creative team behind The Butler, a movie I loved) pitch the series as “King Lear in the hip hop world,” but swapped daughters Regan, Goneril, and Cordelia for sons. These sons are all compelling characters: business-focused Andre, struggling with bipolar disorder; and promising artists Jamal, whose favor with Lucious is challenged by his homosexuality; and Hakeem, whose favor with Lucious is challenged by his tendency to be a little shit. And it does seem more true to the character of Lucious to want to leave his legacy in the hands of a male heir. But part of me will always be disappointed we couldn’t have female versions of Andre, Jamal, and Hakeem.

But, as I said, Empire still delivers a range of complex female characters to love and love to hate.

Anika (Grace Gealy) is "a bitch who can slice your throat without even disturbing her pearls" — Anika (Grace Gealy) is “a ho who can slice your throat without even disturbing her pearls”

Anika (Grace Gealy), is head of Empire A&R and Lucious’s new woman. Anika and Cookie immediately strike up a fierce rivalry, first for power in the company (Anika backing Hakeem’s rising star, Cookie pushing for Jamal), and inevitably for Lucious’s affections. The rivalry works because each woman is equally savvy, but with opposing styles: where Cookie is all unbridled assertiveness, Anika is cool-headed and graceful even at her most sinister. It’s pretty much impossible not to root for Cookie, but Anika commands respect as a worthy opponent.

Kaitlin Doubleday as Rhonda in 'Empire' — Kaitlin Doubleday as Rhonda in *Empire*

Another schemer is Andre’s wife Rhonda (Kaitlin Doubleday), who also lusts for power through the proxy of her husband. Rhonda at first seems completely unsympathetic, seeking to put Jamal and Hakeem “at war” with each other to benefit Andre. The Lyon family find Rhonda inherently suspect because she’s a highly educated upper class white woman. When Andre defends his wife as “brilliant,” Cookie responds “Pretty white girls always are, even when they ain’t.” Lucious straight-up tells Andre, “the moment you brought that white woman into my house, I knew I couldn’t trust you. I knew then that you didn’t want to be part of my family.” But Rhonda truly cares for Andre and is in many ways a good match for him (as he also has a mind for business). And her alternating support of and frustration with her mentally ill partner shows her at her most genuine.

Lucious (Terrence Howard) being typically dismissive of his assistant Becky (Gabourey Sidibe)

While not major characters, I would be remiss not to mention Lucious and Cookie’s all-star assistants. Gabourey Sidibe plays Becky, Lucious’s long-suffering but resilient PA. Becky expertly anticipates Lucious’s needs and exudes stunning patience with his routine dismissal of her. Cookie’s assistant Porsha (Ta’Rhonda Jones) is somewhat less competent (although nowhere near as inept as Cookie’s constant berating would have you believe). Porsha wins the audience’s respect by becoming something of a double agent after Anika asks her to betray Cookie. She can clearly hold her own in Empire‘s tangled web of manipulation.

Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray) with his older paramour Camilla (Naomi Campbell)

Even Empire‘s most minor female characters are interesting. Hakeem’s love interests Tiana (Serayah) and Camilla (Naomi Campbell) both have their gif-able moments. When Hakeem catches Tiana cheating on him with a woman, she points out he also has “a side piece” and asks him if her indiscretion bothers him more because it was with a woman. She then demands respect for her girlfriend, making space for her on the set of a music video shoot. Older woman Camilla calls Hakeem out on the Oedipal element to their trysts (Hakeem was a baby when Cookie went to jail, so he grew up without a mother figure), and manages to hold her own in a showdown with Lucious, refusing his offer to pay her off to leave Hakeem.

So despite swapping its King Lear‘s daughters for sons, Empire manages to present an array of strong female characters. Cookie Lyon is a force of nature and an undeniable gift to pop culture, but the other women of Empire aren’t entirely eclipsed by her awesomeness. Which is really saying something. Here’s one more gif to prove it:

Cookie says "The streets aren't made for everybody. That's why they invented sidewalks." — Cookie says “The streets aren’t made for everybody. That’s why they invented sidewalks.”

Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town who hopes to one day be 1% as fabulous as Cookie Lyon.

‘AHS: Coven’: Gabourey Sidibe’s Queenie as an Embodiment of the “Strong Black Woman” Stereotype

Firstly, a definition of sorts: the myth of the “strong Black woman” is loosely defined as a Black woman who is emotionally hardy to the point of feeling no pain. She is never fazed or hysterical. She is cold and calculating. She has no personal needs or desires and doesn’t complain. She can take a beating and come out on the other side unharmed. This is supposed to be seen as a good thing. Black women are “so strong” that no amount of abuse will break them. They will always keep plodding on. “Strong black women” are superhuman.

This guest post by Cate Young previously appeared at her blog, BattyMamzelle, and is cross-posted with permission.

Last week, I read a great article by Nichole Perkins on Buzzfeed that talked about the way the character development of the leading ladies of both Scandal and Sleepy Hollow were working toward dismantling the harmful depictions of “strong Black women” in media. It was a great read, and I loved that someone else shared my conclusions about Olivia Pope’s characterization.

What stuck out to me however, was Perkins’ characterization of Gabourey Sidibe’s character Queenie on American Horror Story: Coven as a negative embodiment of the “strong Black woman” stereotype. She says:

Then there is Gabourey Sidibe as Queenie on American Horror Story: Coven, a “human voodoo doll” whose supernatural power is the inability to feel pain, even as she inflicts said pain onto someone else. […] These Strong Black Women feel no emotional pain, tolerate severe physical trauma with no reaction, and menace others with stone faces.

I love American Horror Story: Coven. But even though I had immediately made the connection to the racialized violence against Black bodies this season, I hadn’t picked up on Perkins’ perspective of Queenie as an SBW. After seeing the episode “The Replacements,” I not only vehemently agree with her, I also want to expand on her observations.

Immediately, we can see the issues with this so-called “positive stereotype.” It paints Black women as unfeeling, and incapable of emotional pain. It justifies abuses perpetuated against them as “not as bad” because “they can take it.” In essence, it makes Black women a target for “warranted” violence, because the belief is that said violence will not affect them.

Now, on Perkins’ original point, AHSC‘s Queenie is a Black witch (superhuman) whose magical power is to literally injure herself without feeling pain. The only way she is able to inflict pain on other people is to inflict it on herself first. Her suffering is part and parcel of her experience. And yet, she feels no pain, therefore hurting her isn’t really hurting her is it? She can take it! With Queenie, Ryan Murphy has conceived of a character that is the literal embodiment of a harmful stereotype.

That’s not all. In “The Replacements,” Fiona Goode (Jessice Lange) appoints the racist Madam LaLaurie (Kathy Bates) as Queenie’s personal slave as punishment for her bigotry. LaLaurie is openly racist towards Queenie and uses every opportunity she can to demean her, and “remind her of her place” even though their “traditional roles” have been effectively subverted. Queenie takes it all in stride until she realizes who exactly LaLaurie actually is and recalls her reputation for torturing her slaves.

Later though, the minotaur that LaLaurie created comes back to haunt her, sent by former lover Marie Laveau (Angela Basset). Terrified, LaLaurie begs Queenie to protect her. The very same woman who she said wasn’t worthy to be served at breakfast, should put her own safety on the line to save her. And she DOES. Despite all of LaLaurie’s ill treatement, Queenie still feel compelled to protect her against the present threat. This plays into ideas about Black women being in service to white women, but never equal to them. Think The Help and Hilly Holbrook‘s “Home Health Sanitation Initiative.”

The other major issue I had with this episode was the presentation of Queenie’s sexuality. Queenie is presented as being the only one unworthy of love or sex. Early on, we learn that Queenie is the only virgin in the house. Later she tells LaLaurie that she is fat because “Dr. Phil says that kids from broken homes use food to replace love,” indicating quite explicitly that love is not something she feels she as access to. After confronting the minotaur to save LaLaurie, she offers to have sex with him as she masturbates:

You just wanted love, and that makes you a beast. They called me that too. But that’s not who we are. We both deserve love like everybody else. Don’t you want to love me?

So, not only is Queenie not worthy of love or sex, the only love/sex is entitled to is from a literal beast. And let’s not even get into the demonization of black sexuality by literally and figuratively turning a Black man into a beast. Queenie’s sexuality is degraded as being less than, a fact that she seems aware of. She is so “desperate and deranged” that she loses her virginity to an animal.

The use of the word “we” is significant to me also. Not only does Queenie see the minotaur as a beast, she sees herself as one too. She has internalized the idea that her blackness correlates to bestiality, and has now literally given into that characterization. The fact that she sees herself as equal to an animal that is subhuman and that that idea isn’t challenged in any way is a very problematic and racist way to portray black sexuality.

There is a lot of anti-Black sentiment tied up in Queenie’s character and it makes me uncomfortable and unhappy. It could be argued that half the story is about a racist slave owner who was renowned for her cruelty, and so anti-Blackness is to be expected in the narrative. But in my opinion, not enough is done to subvert those stereotypes. Having Fiona declare that she hates racists simply isn’t enough if every interaction of Queenie’s upholds the existing status quo. It is a disservice to have a talented actress like Sidibe, who has already been heavily maligned because of her weight, be characterized in a way that reinforces ideas about why she isn’t suitable for better more complex roles in Hollywood.

This isn’t the first time that AHS has had a problem with women. The show has a long history of disempowering women through rape, so it’s not surprising that it would also have a problem with Black women specifically. But to play into deeply racist ideas about Black womanhood is unsettling to me in a completely personal way. Having Queenie be characterized as a superhuman beast who is unworthy of love is a powerful message to send in a world rife with anti-Blackness where #stopblackgirls2013 can trend for an entire day. I can only hope that the rest of the season gets better.

Cate Young is a Trinidadian freelance writer and photographer, and author of BattyMamzelle, a feminist pop culture blog focused on film, television, music, and critical commentary on media representation. Cate has a BA in Photojournalism from Boston University and is currently pursuing her MA in Mass Communications so that she can more effectively examine the symbolic annihilation of women of colour in the media and deliver the critical feminist smack down. Follow her on twitter at @BattyMamzelle.

Exploring Bodily Autonomy on ‘American Horror Story: Coven’

From the get go, female sexuality in Coven is positioned as dangerous, sometimes deadly and something that people will try over and over again to control. In the first episode, a young witch, Zoe Benson, comes to the knowledge of her powers by accidentally killing the boy she chooses to have her first penetrative sexual encounter with, one of the few fully consensual sex acts we see on Coven. She literally kills a man with her vagina. The message that female sexuality is dangerous if not deadly is hammered home with the language Cordelia uses to welcome Zoe to the school for witches. The other girls claim that Cordelia wants them to suppress their witchy powers, and she responds, “Not suppress–control.” She expresses the idea that their powers are dangerous unless they are strictly controlled. This is not a subtle metaphor for the repression and control of women’s bodies and sexuality.

This is a guest post by Gaayathri Nair.

The horror genre is not commonly kind to women. It has a tendency to rely on violence against women for cheap thrills and is notorious for positioning women as passive objects. Ryan Murphy and Brian Falchuk have claimed that American Horror Story: Coven is an explicitly feminist season of American Horror Story. Previous seasons of American Horror Story have attempted to address sexism and misogyny in the horror genre. However, both American Horror Story: Murder House and American Horror Story: Asylum relied heavily on both the objectification of and violence against women as a plot device.

There are definitely cool things about Coven. The core cast is made up entirely of women, and each one of them is richly developed and three-dimensional. Overall, the show is deliciously complex and there are many plotlines that attack certain issues in an interesting way. One of the key concerns of Coven appears to be bodily autonomy, both in terms of gender and race, and many of the storylines can be read as explorations of the issues surrounding bodily autonomy. I think that the first episode of Coven serves as a great microcosm for how the show handles these issues so I will focus my analysis on that while bringing in content from later episodes where relevant.

Coven opens in 1834 New Orleans in the house of Madame Delphine LaLaurie, a real historical figure. She is having a dinner party and over the course of the dinner party we are introduced to the fact one of her daughters has her eye on Bastian, a house slave. Later that night, La Laurie’s nighttime ablutions are interrupted by her husband telling her that during the dinner party her youngest daughter Pauline had sex with Bastian. What follows next is horrifying. La Laurie abuses Pauline physically and verbally and then says, “You know what we’re gonna say? We’re gonna say that he took you by force like the savage he is.” Bastian pleads his innocence stating that “Pauline came on to me and I told her I belong to someone else.” Bastian is a helpless victim in a power game being carried out by two white women. Bastian is taken upstairs to La Laurie’s torture chamber where she says, “Bastian, if you want to act like a beast then we’re gonna treat you like one.” She then proceeds to place a bull’s head over his own and turns him into a Minotaur, the literal embodiment of racist assumptions about black men–part man part beast. The whole scene is thick with imagery that calls to mind the myth of the black buck or brute .

The scene works well at subverting the myth as Bastian’s clear innocence is juxtaposed with LaLaurie’s depravity. The other slaves in the attic have been horribly tortured and when one of them asks her, “Why are you doing this to us?” La Laurie flippantly replies, “Because I can,” once again reinforcing the power structures at play. It is thought that between 1865 and 1895 approximately 10,00 black men were lynched, ostensibly for the crime of raping white women, although only about one third of these people were actually accused of rape and those who were, were mostly in consensual relationships with white women. Bastian has no bodily autonomy; he is completely at the mercy of the white women who own him. Pauline uses his body because she can and Delphine dehumanises him because she can. It illustrates the truth about the destructive racist myths that surround black men that they are just that–myths. Black men have much more to fear from whiteness than the other way round.

From the get go, female sexuality in Coven is positioned as dangerous, sometimes deadly and something that people will try over and over again to control. In the first episode, a young witch, Zoe Benson, comes to the knowledge of her powers by accidentally killing the boy she chooses to have her first penetrative sexual encounter with, one of the few fully consensual sex acts we see on Coven. She literally kills a man with her vagina. The message that female sexuality is dangerous if not deadly is hammered home with the language Cordelia uses to welcome Zoe to the school for witches. The other girls claim that Cordelia wants them to suppress their witchy powers, and she responds, “Not suppress–control.” She expresses the idea that their powers are dangerous unless they are strictly controlled. This is not a subtle metaphor for the repression and control of women’s bodies and sexuality. She emphasises that the world they live in is dangerous and they must protect themselves as best they can by only using their powers in tightly controlled situations.

Coven’s exploration of the repression and control of female sexuality falls down for me later on in the episode where there is a graphic depiction of a drugging and gang rape of one of the young witches. Madison Montgomery is a character who appears to be modeled on Lindsay Lohan–a once successful film star whose career has become overshadowed by substance abuse problems and her eccentric behaviour is drugged and gang raped by frat boys who film the attack on their phones. This is obviously meant to call to mind the Steubenville case.

Madison sizzles on the screen; she is sexy, confident, and aggressive. It is unsurprising, from an analytical perspective, that she is the one who is raped. The manner in which it happens and her interactions with the instigator before the fact, where she commands him to go get her a drink, makes it seem like she is being punished for her confidence and sexual availability by being drugged and raped by a pack of frat boys. This ultimately serves to support rape culture narratives. I cannot see anything subversive about this story arc. Madison gets her revenge when the frat boys try to escape on their bus by using her telekinetic powers to flip it over–killing most of them. I think the writers view this as the ultimate feminist payback fantasy, especially as Madison is the quintessential imperfect rape victim, one who would be unlikely to ever see justice through the court system.

There are some positives; for example, it is made exceedingly clear that it is the frat boys who are at fault. However the damage is done, regardless of intention the show reinforces, not subverts the myth that only “bad girls,” i.e. girls that have sex on their own terms and dress provocatively, are the ones that get raped. This flies in the face of the truth about rape–that it is something that can happen to any woman regardless of her dress or demeanour. The show does get one thing right: drug-facilitated rape is one of the most common forms of rape, but that type of rape doesn’t just happen to sexually aggressive beautiful girls.

Rape culture positions women generally (because of the impossible standards) but “bad women” in particular as being deserving of or asking for their assaults. While we know that it is the frat boys who are at fault, the juxtaposition of Madison’s actions with the rape creates a certain subtext. If only she was nicer, if only she wasn’t so rude and arrogant, this would have never happened to her. The lead frat boy clearly wanted to take her down a peg. At its core, the whole story arc serves to reinforce rape culture tropes. Furthermore, the depiction of the gang rape is deeply disturbing, cutting between Madison’s point of view and the rapists. It is fundamentally objectifying and serves to glamorise violence against women.

These lessons about female sexuality are followed through in later episodes, particularly episode three where Queenie, the only fat and black witch that lives in the house, attempts to seduce the Minotaur that has been sent by Marie Laveau, the voodoo practitioner, to attack the witch school in episode three. She winds up being attacked; we don’t know exactly what happens to her but it is severely debilitating. Once again a woman who was, perhaps problematically, trying to own her sexuality is punished for it. Queenie also equates herself as a fat black woman as something analogous to Bastian the Minotaur–society sees them both as something monstrous. I can’t decide if presenting this actually subverts or supports the idea. Fat women generally and fat black women in particular are constantly dehumanized in our society and this scene could be read as purely reinforcing that; at the same time it holds up an uncomfortable mirror to the world we live in. Queenie is not being mocked or used for laughs, she is expressing her sadness at the way the world sees her. The fact that the words are coming from Queenie’s own mouth makes them a powerful indictment of a world that treats women like her as less than human. At the same time, Queenie is just another sad fat chick reinforcing dominant narratives about fatness. At least Queenie is not a “sassy black woman” a trope that confines most fat black women in pop culture.

Another way in which Coven explores bodily autonomy and sexuality is in how ageing affects women. It speaks to the way in which women of a certain age are made invisible in our society. Jessica Lange’s character, Fiona, is the supreme, the most powerful of all the witches and therefore their leader. Over the course of the season we learn that a new supreme is rising and that means her power is waning. In the first episode we are treated to the sheer desperation she feels. She pays a doctor to give her experimental treatments that have never been used on humans, and her anxiety is more pronounced with each moment she is on screen. When the injections do not work she resorts to sucking the life force out of the doctor and killing him. This gives her what she craves for about a minute. Delphine La Laurie also goes to extreme lengths to preserve her youth using blood and pancreases harvested from her slaves to make a poultice to keep her young.

The portrayal of these two women is very much wrapped up in the male gaze. A large part of what is making Fiona unhappy is that she no longer gets the attention she craves, especially from men, and in Delphine’s case her need to keep the roving eye of her husband is reinforced throughout the season. These women reveal the obsession with youth and beauty that is forced upon women, but Coven fails to truly capture the ways in which these are societal expectations–not ones that are innate to women on their own. Delphine and Fiona are evil or morally complex in their own ways and the dire lengths they go to for youth and beauty are just another expression of their ruthless natures. The idea of the “vain sorceress” is as old as Snow White and I was a little disappointed to see it play out in Coven. A fixation on youth and beauty is not something that makes women evil; it is something that is pushed on to women by a culture that only values women for their youth and beauty, no matter what other qualities they might have. Women’s bodily autonomy is constrained by the narrow social roles that are enforced upon us.

The failings of Coven are unsurprising considering it is a mainstream television show in the horror genre. I think that a pro-woman intention has tangled with the male gaze to create a product that both supports and subverts misogyny and is as objectifying as it is empowering. I have to give Murphy and Falchuk credit for creating a vehicle for so many talented women and giving them interesting and nuanced storylines. My hope is that things only get better from here.

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Gaayathri Nair is a freelance writer and feminist activist. You can find more of her work at her blog A Human Story and on twitter as @A_Gaayathri.

Women of Color in Film and TV Week: A Girl Struggles to Survive Her Chaotic Homelife in ‘Yelling to the Sky’

Written by Megan Kearns.

Yelling to the Skystruck a visceral chord with me. I related to it in a way I often don’t with films. I’m not a biracial woman growing up impoverished, who turns to selling drugs as a means of survival. But I grew up with an absent father and a single mother struggling with mental illness, feeling trapped by my surroundings, desperate to break free.

All the actors give stellar performances in this emotionally raw and gritty film. Zoe Kravitz in particular captivates with a nuanced, powerful performance as the smart, struggling Sweetness O’Hara, trying to survive in a whirlwind of turmoil. Sweetness and her older sister live in a troubled home with unstable, unreliable parents: their white father, an alcoholic and their African-American mother who suffers from mental illness.

Yelling to the Sky opens with a jarring scene. Sweetness is getting bullied and beaten up in the street by her classmates. Latonya (Gabourey Sidibe) taunts her for the lightness of her skin and her biracial heritage – briefly raising complex issues of race and colorism. But she’s rescued by her older sister Ola (Antonique Smith in a scene-stealing powerhouse performance) who we see, as the camera eventually pans out, is very pregnant. This juxtaposition of a brawling pregnant woman, a fiercely protective sister, makes an interesting commentary on our expectations of gender.

Sweetness’ unpredictable father Gordon (Jason Clarke) vacillates between affectionate charisma and volatile violence and rage. He verbally and physically abuses every woman in the household. He tries to make amends for his deplorable parenting later in the film. But since he’s caused so much trauma, it might be too late for forgiveness.

Unfortunately, we never really learn about Sweetness’ mother Lorene (Yolanda Ross) who seems numbed by medication and/or depression beyond Sweetness asking if she was hospitalized in a mental institution when she “went away.” I wish the film had explored more of their relationship.

While I was disappointed the film didn’t explore mother-daughter relationships, it does show the bonds of sisterhood. The relationship between Sweetness and Ola is my favorite part of the film. We see the girls joke, play, challenge and comfort one another. Both rely on one other for support. Ola leaves home to live with her boyfriend, leaving Sweetness to fend for herself alone. But she’s not the only one trapped. Months later, Ola must return home with her baby, now a single mother. Her dreams of escape nothing but nebulous memories.

Yelling to the Skyis a searing portrayal of one girl’s pain. Of her frustration at being confined and trapped in a world not her choosing. Sweetness doesn’t focus on her education or her future. She deals with the immediacy of her pain. She starts selling drugs as a way to make money. She numbs herself with drugs, alcohol and surrounding herself with a cadre of bullies and drug dealers. Sweetness desperately yearns to escape. But where to? Where can she go?

Mahoney said she wanted to evoke feelings of claustrophobia when Sweetness spent time at home. And she succeeds beautifully. You feel just as trapped as Sweetness, chained by loneliness, fear and desperation. When she’s out in the streets, it feels frenetic with drunken stupors, drive-by shootings and drug deals gone wrong.

Zoe Kravitz as Sweetness O’Hara in Yelling to the Sky

Is the film perfect? No it definitely falters at times. I wish we had learned more about each of the characters. It feels very much like a snapshot, a voyeuristic peek through the window into their messy and complicated lives. Just when you’re lured in, the window abruptly closes. But the biggest flaw? I wish it had more deeply explored the issue of race without resorting to stereotypes.

A painful history of colorism and skin shade hierarchy— dark vs. light skin — exists amongst black women. When the media portrays black women, we often see women with lighter skin, straighter hair and more Caucasian features. Both L’Orealand Ellephotoshopped black to make their skin appear much lighter. The media often whitewashes black women, continually perpetuating the unachievable attainment of the white ideal of beauty. “The myth of black beauty” and the preference for lighter black skin can be traced back to slavery.

While light-skinned biracial and black women possess privilege, they may also face a backlash and be deemed not “black enough.” While the jarring opening scene of Yelling to the Sky certainly alludes to this, it is never explored further. Instead, the film resorts to racial stereotypes: “dark(er)-skinned black people are mean and like to victimize light(er)-skinned black people,” “girls/teenagers/women who are “authentically” black are bad” and “interracial relationships are dysfunctional.”

I cringed seeing Sidibe depicted as the dark-skinned, mean, overweight bully terrorizing a lighter-skinned petite girl. When the roles reverse and Sweetness beats the shit out of Latonya, I get the sense that it should feel like vindication for her earlier torment. But it feels empty and hollow. But maybe that’s the point, that retribution and violence are empty and hollow. As this is a semi-autobiographical film, perhaps these circumstances transpired in writer/director Victoria Mahoney’s own life, especially as she’s a biracial woman. But as these racial stereotypes occur over and over in media, it would have been great to have them deconstructed or not appear at all.

We don’t see enough female protagonists, women of color in film or female filmmakers of color. We don’t see enough films exploring issues of gender and race. And we should. In an interview, Mahoney (a promising new filmmaker who is certainly one to watch) shared her inspiration for the film:

“Stemming from my teenage obsession with Chekov’s Three Sisters and a connection to the theme of “manufacturing illusions in order to sustain day to day life.” I related on a gut level to the notion of joy and opportunity, existing elsewhere while in the same breadth knowing it was a lie. The illusion of “one day it’ll be different” is what kept me alive and smashing that illusion might’ve been my death. Putting this film out is important because (yet another generation of) young people are facing the exact same isolation, confusion, neglect, inquiry, desire, and heartache. All these years later, there’s little to no progress or solution. Adults have become freakishly focused on ‘self’, so much so, that we’re failing our responsibilities to participate and aid in the development and advancement of young people’s spiritual and intellectual growth.”

This is what I related to and why I’m so thankful for Yelling to the Sky. I may be a white woman and I may not have made the same choices Sweetness made, but it showed me I wasn’t alone. It felt cathartic watching.

My childhood existed of treacherous terrain to navigate. My mother was preoccupied by her own problems. I never knew what I was walking into when I went home. So I focused on the future. I clung to the hope that one day things would be different. That was the sole reason I survived. It’s the one thing that kept me going. While my mind was fixated on the future, my actions were grounded in the present. Like Sweetness, I skipped classes and almost didn’t graduate high school for I wanted to numb my pain. It’s this delicate dance of present angst and future hopes that Mahoney captures so well.

Sure, some people may find Yelling to the Sky bleak or hopeless. It’s heartbreaking to watch Sweetness spiral out of control. Sweetness clamors to escape, to break free. Yet there’s nowhere to go. Echoing real-life, the film ends with ambiguity and uncertainty. You don’t know how her life will turn out. Sweetness’ story – her struggle to survive amidst the chaos swirling around her, desperate to cling to any semblance of community – is one worth telling. And it’s one we don’t see often enough.

Guest Writer Wednesday: The Black Play Thing on The Big C

Cross posted at Womanist Musings.

Let me say from the start that I take no issue with inter-racial relationships. I do however have a problem when Black sexuality is used as a device in the media. Much of last Monday’s episode had to do with sexuality. Cathy, played by Laura Linney, is dying of cancer and is determined to change her life before she dies. The episode begins with her standing up for herself when someone rudely steps in front her and ends with her having sex on a desk with a Black man that she barely knows. While this kind of sexual behavior is out of character from her, I am not certain that anonymous sex as liberation is a positive move for women.

Her son is 14 years old and as such he is beginning to explore his sexuality. He bumps into Andrea, who is played by Gabourey Sidibe, running laps around a track. She tells him to “stop looking at her titties.” When he denies looking at her, she tells him how great hers are and that he probably has never touched “titties” before. Of course, this leads to male bravado, which prompts her to invite him to touch her breasts. When he hesitates she grabs his hand, places it on her breast and then promptly jogs away. Considering that Gabourey’s character is nothing but filler on the show, it gives the impression that Black female bodies exist for the purposes of White male sexual experimentation. This is even further problematic when we consider the brutal history of rape and slavery that exists between White Men and Black women. You cannot divorce this narrative from a scene on television no matter how race conscious the actors themselves are. Furthermore, the language which is utilized in this scene does not inspire a full respect for Andrea’s body.

The idea that Black bodies can and should be used for sexual experimentation or as a form of rebellion is based squarely in racism. First, Cathy waxes her pubic hair and then she takes off her panties to reveal her vagina to the man she would later sleep with. Throughout the entire episode, he is not even given a name, which of course presents him as little more than a mandigo to sexually satisfy his Missy Anne. What passes between them is not sex, or even a woman finding some form of liberation — but the service of a Black buck for his mistress. Black men have time and time again functioned as a form of rebellion for White women, because our White supremacist society expects them to couple with White males. Even as White women are objectifying Black men and reducing them to roving penises, it is seen as liberation because inter-racial sex is still considered taboo by many. It is a false positive because agency should not involve the repetition of reductive constructions.

There is a difference between a loving relationship between two parties and the objectification of one group by another. Simply because White women are oppressed due to patriarchy, does not mean that they lack the ability to oppress people of colour in various instances. The very fact that their identity often becomes spoiled, once they engage in an inter-racial relationship, furthers the idea that bodies of colour exist as a form of rebellion against the sexist norm. What we learned in this episode, is that for Cathy, liberation means the freedom to break taboos and utilize the Whiteness of her body to her advantage. Considering that this program is largely White with the exception of a few appearances of Sidibe as Andrea, it seems that White woman liberation is little more than the ability to act with the same impunity as White men.

Renee Martin’s blogs include Womanist Musings, Tell It WOC Speak, and Women’s Eye on Media.

Ripley’s Rebuke: The Big C

I decided to give The Big C a try, thinking a television show that stars Oscar-nominated Laura Linney, and the very recently Oscar-nominated Gabourey Sidibe, just might successfully pull-off a series about a woman dying from Stage IV melanoma. Instead, The Big C comes across as a slew of quirky characters competing in the Who Can Be the Biggest Asshole contest.

The show centers around Cathy (Laura Linney), a middle-aged woman diagnosed with Stage IV melanoma. As of the first five episodes, only her neighbor knows that she has cancer, and she refuses to discuss the issue with her immediate family. It’s easy to identify with Cathy’s unwillingness to open up to her husband, son, and brother about her diagnosis; she’s spent most of her life mothering all of them. She wants to avoid their pity. And she wants to avoid the role reversal of going from caretaker to taken care of.

But the show goes way too far in its depiction of Cathy as a cancer-stricken woman who, instead of undergoing treatment, forgoes it in favor of “grabbing life by the balls” (the show’s actual tagline). The writers make her boringly crazy in her new zest for life: “Look, I’m pouring red wine all over my expensive couch!” … “Look, I’m shooting my son with a paintball gun on his school bus!” … “Look, I’m doing cartwheels!” … “Look, I just stole a live lobster from the restaurant tank!” Worst of all, they make her mean, not in a way that showcases her strength or even her fear, but for sheer “comedic” effect, all the while asking the audience to forgive her for lashing out—remember, she’s got cancer for god’s sake!

Check it:

In the first episode, Cathy, who apparently teaches high school (summer school in this case), fat shames Sidibe’s character, Andrea, in front of the entire class. After Andrea makes a joke about Cathy’s recent unfocused and apathetic attitude toward teaching, Cathy responds with:

You can’t be fat and mean, Andrea … If you’re gonna dish it out, you gotta be able to lick it up. Fat people are jolly for a reason. Fat repels people, but joy attracts them. Now I know everyone’s laughing at your cruel jokes, but nobody’s inviting you to the prom. So you can either be fat and jolly or a skinny bitch. It’s up to you.

Watch the Clip

Really, Showtime? You took a gorgeous, talented actress and cast her as The Fat Girl who gets paid $100 by her teacher for every pound she loses? And, of course, it’s important that you make sure the teacher verbally and emotionally abuses The Fat Girl first. And that she chastises The Fat Girl about diet and exercise and her lack of motivation, even after The Fat Girl lists a slew of her past unsuccessful dieting attempts. And that her teacher totally, believably just happens to pull up beside her in a car, immediately pouring The Fat Girl’s giant slushy onto the street. (Because we all know, a Fat Girl can’t say no to a giant slushy.)

What gives, Showtime? Are we supposed to laugh our asses off at Andrea’s apparently disgusting fatness? (Admittedly, it’s just hilarious every time Andrea gets caught with another bag of potato chips that Cathy’s forced to take away from her.) Or, do you just want us to feel bad for Cathy for projecting her own desire to be “healthy” onto a young highschooler who has her whole life ahead of her, earnestly telling The Fat Girl, “I just don’t want you to drop dead before you graduate … “? Read: I might have to die young, but I can make sure Andrea doesn’t!

This is all a hoot, really.

And, if I can take this further, Showtime, what are we to make of The Fat Girl’s willingness to put up with Cathy’s behavior toward her? Oh, I forgot—Fat Girls don’t feel the way “regular” people feel; they’re too busy simultaneously pounding milkshakes and scarfing Big Macs to be bothered with the nonsense of experiencing emotions. The Fat Girl’s abysmal self-esteem must not even allow her to fathom standing up for herself, right? Because all Fat Girls deep down hate themselves and sit on the couch binge-eating pizzas, gaining more and more weight, never getting invited to the prom and, therefore, never deserving authentic love (ie, not the charity-case kind) or self-respect.

Or maybe she just wants the $100 for every pound she loses. Thank god for good, old-fashioned motivation wrapped up in a little Fat Hatred, right?

Really, hilarious.

The thing is, this could’ve been an intelligent show, if it weren’t so desperately trying to avoid sentimentality and any hint of darkness. Heather Havrilesky suggests, in her review over at Salon, that perhaps the show’s creator received direction to make the whole thing a little less dark, a little less … “deathy.” She writes:

I’m going to guess that either show creator Darlene Hunt or Laura Linney or both of them were given the following note at some point: “Lighten it up!” Maybe some test audience thought the story was too gloomy, too depressing, too focused on death. “Death? Yuck!” they said. “We don’t want death! We want zany pot-dealer moms who shrug and slurp on frappuccinos! We want zany multiple-personality-disorder moms who shrug and toss back canned beer! We want zany nurse moms who shrug and pop prescription drugs and have affairs with their pharmacist buddies! But zany control-freak moms who shrug and get naked in the back yard, because they’re about to die? No thank you!”

But the strategy to “lighten up this whole Stage IV cancer thing” ultimately fails in its cliche-ridden execution.

The over the top attempt to prevent the audience from getting too bogged down in death gives us Marlene (Phyllis Somerville), Cathy’s feisty old neighbor who refuses to mow her lawn or watch her dog or interact with anyone, blah. It gives us Paul (Oliver Platt), Cathy’s husband, the witty, schlubby yet lovable man-child in constant need of mothering by his wife. It gives us Adam (Gabriel Basso), Cathy’s son, the angsty, video game playing, mother-hating teenage boy who, in one absolutely necessary scene, gets caught masturbating by his mom. It gives us Sean (John Benjamin Hickey), Cathy’s brother—my favorite, really—an eco-extremist who eats leftover food from the garbage, protests gas-guzzling SUVs with a megaphone, refuses to bathe, avoids the dentist (fuck the system, you know?), and deliberately lives as a homeless person because he’s, like, so above the establishment.

(I find Sean particularly problematic because of the unapologetic excess of white, heterosexual, male privilege, as if there aren’t people who actually don’t have the means to go to the dentist, as if millions of people aren’t actually homeless, and, by the way, who don’t also have the convenient luxury of an upper middle class sister showing up every other day with food and clothing and money. See above for previous examples of the man-child.)

Basically, the show wallows in stereotypes but doesn’t take them far enough to make much of a commentary on … anything. I want the show to say something about class issues and privilege. I want the show to say something about the health care system and how financial prosperity, or lack thereof, might impact treatment decisions. I want the show to say something about victim-blaming, about the very real challenges of a woman living with men who don’t respect her, about aging and how it feels to navigate the world in a body deemed less desirable, less able.

But this show wants to laugh at those things: “Look, I’m setting my expensive couch on fire, because I can.” … “Look! I’m paying the workers double to install my swimming pool immediately, because I can.” … “Look! I’m shaming an obese student into losing weight, because I can.” Perhaps what disappoints me most is that the show expects the audience to root for Cathy in all her reckless, carefree, unacknowledged privilege abandon, like, “Look! She’s totally grabbing life by the balls, just like the tagline said she would.”

Movie Review: Precious, Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire

*This guest post also appears on Gender Across Borders.

Last week, I saw the much-anticipated film Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire. And I haven’t stopped thinking about it all week. Not because I’m in shock, though the film does depict a number of truly horrific and violent situations. And not because I’m blinded by completely uncritical love, because the film is far from perfect, and I recognize that. The reason Precious has stuck with me is because it is, by all accounts, an extremely well-made film. The acting is tremendous and the visuals feel authentic. And, best of all, the film is filled with strong, nuanced, and interesting female characters. In a time when women are often relegated to forgettable romantic comedies and bit parts in “male-centric” films, and when plus-sized women and women of color barely star in mainstream films at all, Precious is a welcomed break from typical multiplex fare.

I want to start by addressing the criticisms of Precious, because many of them are valid. The material is bleak — at times, perhaps, too bleak. Considering the lack of decent portrayals of people of color in film today, do we really need another film that highlights all the most negative things that might happen to a young woman of color?

From Racialicious:

So when I found out Push was being adapted for the silver screen, I cringed at the prospect of revisiting Precious’s bleakly rendered world. I dreaded watching in technicolor all the awful things I’d imagined while reading. And I reeeally didn’t want to return to the hollowness that haunted the ending. What possible reason would Hollywood have for further dramatizing an existence as heinous as Precious’s?

It was certainly something to think about. Black American dramas have the tendency to pull their viewers into dark corners and assault them. The grittiest ripped-from-the-headlines realities and the woes so commonplace the news doesn’t bother covering them at all bogart their way into our fiction. Push will be no exception and I wasn’t sure if I should be pleased about that.

And, at the same time, the response to the film, though overwhelmingly positive, has tended to be superficial. As Latoya writes:

While Precious puts forth an array of issues, these are not engaged with by the reviewers. Is it because of the heaviness of the subject matter? Perhaps. But I find it interesting that I have seen more discussion of Mariah Carey appearing without make-up than any discussion of the underlying issues in the film.

Finally, there is the significant issue of colorism. Though Precious Jones has dark skin, the women of color who help her have light skin. While this is problematic all on its own, it’s even more of an issue when one considers that this casting doesn’t actually reflect the character descriptions in the book Push. Feministing has more:

In the book, the description of Blue Rain, the half-messiah, half-educator that delivers Precious from the bondage of illiteracy and abuse is as follows: “She dark, got nice face, big eyes, and…long dreadlocky hair.” (39-40) This character in the movie is played by Paula Patton, a light-skinned African American woman with straightened hair. By no means do I doubt the talent of Patton, but it means something that the directors chose to cast one of the most central characters of the film against Sapphire’s original description.

None of these issues can be ignored in discussing this film. And, sadly, these are the problems that will prevent Precious from being a great film, rather than just a very good film. In particular, I wonder why the decision to cast Paula Patton and Mariah Carey was made. While both women deliver fantastic performances, it’s hard to believe that there weren’t any actresses of equal talent who fit more closely to Sapphire’s descriptions. Though I haven’t read Push, it is my understanding that Blu Rain (the character played by Patton) is meant to be the positive embodiment of everything Precious dislikes in herself and her mother. The casting of a light-skinned woman makes this point much less clear, and it’s disappointing that Lee Daniels and the others involved in the casting of Precious didn’t do more to be true to Sapphire’s intents.

All that being said — Precious is still a very, very good film. Both Gabourey Sidibe and Mo’Nique deliver career-defining performances; this was Sidibe’s first film, and I hope we’ll be seeing much more of her in the coming years. And all of the female characters, including Precious, her mother, Blu Rain, Mrs. Weiss (a social worker, played by Carey), and the other girls in Precious’ GED class, are well developed and complicated. For instance, though Precious’ mother is characterized as a villain, I don’t think she can be seen in such polarizing terms. Though she commits horrible acts of violence and abuse against Precious throughout the film, we learn that there’s more to her than meets the eye and that her actions (as horrifying as they may be) are motivated by her own fears and insecurities. She may be a villain, to some degree, but she isn’t evil — much like Precious, she’s a victim of her own circumstances, and she is forced to make difficult choices. A similar character in another film may be depicted as completely one-dimensional, but Mo’Nique’s performance shows us that there is more to this woman — and to all of the women in the film, for that matter — than what initially appears on the surface.

Another strength is the way in which Precious handles its subject matter. Certainly, all of the issues addressed in the film — including (but not limited to) rape, incest, teen pregnancy, poverty and illiteracy — have been addressed before by other films, and when addressing such topics, it’s all too easy to come off sounding preachy or melodramatic. Precious does not fall in to this trap. Precious addresses these topics honestly and directly, never undermining the horror of it all but still making it clear that these are real aspects of life, and that they aren’t death sentences. Though the character Precious is forced to deal with a huge number of issues that no young woman should ever need to face, the audience is not supposed to pity her. Precious is too strong a character for that. Though the film ends on an ambiguous note, I left the theatre confident that she would go on and do well in life, because I had just spent the past two hours watching her face incredible odds and constantly surviving them with grace. We don’t want to see Precious experience all of the terrible situations she encounters, but we never fear or doubt her. She is clear-headed and determined, and she is a fantastic role model for all young women, from all walks of life. And we ultimately feel empathy, not pity, for her.

If you haven’t had an opportunity to see Precious, I highly recommend checking it out. It’s a flawed film, and it’s not something that will appeal to everyone. But for all its faults, Precious remains a strong film that addresses a wide variety of issues that need to be discussed candidly in film more often. And, if nothing else, it’s bound to be one of the most feminist movies you see this year.

Carrie Polansky is one of the Editors of Gender Across Borders. She graduated from Emerson College in 2008 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Visual and Media Arts (and a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies). Today, she works for an LGBT nonprofit organization in NYC and continues to be passionate about media and feminism.

Movie Preview: Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire

Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire. Starring Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe, Mo’Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, and Lenny Kravitz. Written by Sapphire (novel), Geoffrey Fletcher, and Ramona Lofton. Directed by Lee Daniels.

I can’t wait to see this film. The Sundance Film Festival honored it with several awards, including the Grand Jury Prize, the Audience Award, and a Special Jury Prize for Acting for Mo’Nique’s performance. You can read an interview with Mo’Nique here, where she discusses her role as Precious’s mother, Mary.

Eric D. Snider summarizes the film as follows:

“The premise of Push: Based on a Novel by Sapphire is so unsettling and bleak that no one would blame you if you didn’t want to see it: It’s the story of an obese 16-year-old illiterate Harlem girl who’s pregnant (for the second time) by her own father, lives with her monstrously abusive mother, and has almost given up on life. But if you do see it, you’ll find that it’s compelling and artistic, punctuated with warm humor and masterful performances, and ultimately triumphant and hopeful.”

And Paul Moore writes the following: “During the Q&A after the screening I attended, a girl stood up and said, ‘I’m from Harlem and I know people like that, but I’ve never seen it on a screen before.’ She then thanked director Lee Daniels through her tears and sat down.”

Since it doesn’t release until November, I haven’t found too many reviews, but definitely check out Emanuel Levy’s review and Amber Wilkinson’s less enthusiastic review.

Now watch the trailer.