Guest Writers – Page 15

Women in Science Fiction Week: Examining Stereotypes with Ursula K. Le Guin

Guest post written by Carissa Harwood.

In the past, the act of writing science fiction has been a traditionally male dominated genre. Women have sought to create their own meanings in the books they read that don’t often include their perspectives and experiences. In recent decades, though, women writers have searched for and taken control over a fiction category that seeks to shrink them, or exploit their gender for some statement, whether intentional or not, about the female body.

While times have certainly changed, and there are many fine science fiction writers, male and female, Ursula Le Guin stands out for me as a writer who has created new meanings for women in science fiction with seeming ease in her writing. She takes a simple concept — the ‘what if’ factor — and creates whole worlds that she populates as she gives us her answer. That’s the big golden key to science fiction writing — exploring the ‘what if’.

Here’s a ‘what if’ from her novel The Left Hand of Darkness — what if there was a planet where gender wasn’t so easily defined? What if there was a planet where men had the children, what would that be like? So often I’ve come across aspiring authors who request that I review their NEW FRESH EXCITING sci-fi novel, even though my blog explicitly states I no longer review new science fiction. And here’s the reason: the submissions (from male authors) I’ve read invariably read like this (I made this up as an example, this is not a direct quote from anywhere):

“Susie laughed manically as she switched Betty’s birth control pills with pez. ‘Now I can have Tommy all to myself’, she smirked.” There is a lot of smirking going on in these novels, and I hate the word smirk. It should be used sparingly. A smirk should be used to indicate a sarcastic smile, an I-know-something- you-don’t-know sing-song smile, and I’ve always associated the smirk with something teenagers like to do. And that is how many writers of science fiction write their female characters: smirking adolescents.

Science fiction is, or should be, a place to examine stereotypes and political and social conventions, not to reinforce them. Before Le Guin came along, we had authors like Piers Anthony (a notorious misogynist, although like most misogynists he denies that he is one) and Ray Bradbury. Now I wouldn’t go so far as to call Bradbury a misogynist — I admire Bradbury’s work, I really do, because many of his themes are universal. But he falls into the same trap that Stephen King does — very few of his main characters are female, and more often than not, men are the decision makers, and the ones that move the plot along. It’s interesting to note that many writers tend to write towards their own gender. In Bradbury’s fiction, like Anthony and King, the female characters often end up in supporting roles as wives, mothers, and crushes that turn into ‘marionettes’ or a controllable programmable robot that can be easily manipulated.

I read these books as a child and teenager, and I experienced a sense of dissatisfaction with the minor roles women were playing in this male literary playground. So I wondered what women writing science fiction would be like, and that’s where I found Ursula Le Guin, who didn’t merit her own displays in the library lobby like the other authors I’ve mentioned. At least, not when I was a kid.

Compare Bradbury’s marionettes and Anthony’s robot women to Le Guin’s character of Sita Dulip in Changing Planes. The main character is a woman who travels alone and fearlessly not only to other cities in the world, but other dimensions and other planets and cultures. She isn’t someone’s ‘female companion.’ She’s not defined by her marital status or her relationships or how many children she can or cannot produce. Not once does she ask anyone’s permission. Not once does she require a male guardian or escort. Not once does she require supervision. She just goes, because that’s what any thinking and curious person should be allowed to do without restriction—go forth and explore and learn and imagine. And she can do all this without one single mention of menstruation, (or mentioning having to pack tampons) or heartlessly abandoning her children in favor of a free life seeing what the universe has to offer. A woman can venture forth into the world (or worlds, in this case) without one single thought for her reproductive capabilities.

What’s so innovative about that? A woman traveling alone, doing what she wants? Because there’s no sense of fear, or intimidation or dependence on anyone else. Sita Dulip is truly a free individual. There’s no sense of loss, or not belonging anywhere. It’s simply a story of exploring and learning, without any literal or figurative baggage.

Let’s look at another comparison of science fiction as a way to explore deeply held social constructs by looking at John Scalzi’s brilliant take on The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, by Ursula Le Guin. He wrote about this as a lens through which to examine the Penn State scandal, and I had my students read this article when we discussed comparing literature to current events. The world she constructed in the novel goes like this: If you could have a happy wonderful, perfect life, but the price was that one child would have to live his or her life in misery, neglect and starvation for the rest of that child’s life—would you do it? Could you live your life knowing it took someone’s direct pain and misery? What happens to the people who stay? What happens to the people who walk away into an uncertain world?

It’s these kinds of questions that are explored through science fiction that really melt my butter. And I’m not saying–at all–that women can write science fiction better, I just want women to have an active voice, and active participation.

It’s the demand for participation in this world as something other than a reproductive vehicle that I wanted to find. Writing is a mental communication of ideas from the author’s brain to yours, a communication that, hopefully, journeys with you as you read along and create new possibilities and opportunities, challenging our perspectives and allowing us into the hearts and minds of the most diverse cast of characters you can imagine. All writing explores how we think, but fiction provides with a vehicle we can ride in. I just don’t think the vehicles should come in distinct shades of pink or blue with all their incumbent stereotypes. This can only happen if, and hopefully when, more women take up the pen to write their own stories, and seek to answer their own ‘what ifs’.

Carissa Harwood is an adjunct professor and writer of things rich and strange, from aliens to zombies, with some feminism, paranormal romance, and urban fantasy thrown into the mix. She holds a Masters of Fine Arts Degree in Playwrighting and blogs at 3500 Words per Pound.

Women in Science Fiction Week: The Strong, Intelligent and Diverse Women of ‘Firefly’ and ‘Serenity’

Cast of Firefly and Serenity

Guest post written by Janyce Denise Glasper.

“Why do you keep writing strong female characters?”
“Because you’re still asking that question,” Joss Whedon quips.

Mastermind behind phenomenal, groundbreaking television hits, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel and recently helming a little box office smash called The Avengers, Whedon has always crafted the powerful, intelligent female hero. He illustrates that aesthetic further in the short lived FOX series Firefly turned feature motion picture, Serenity showcasing not just one, but four intriguing women characters- Zoe, Kaylee, Inara, and River.

In a science fiction space western combining a thrilling taste of adventure, mayhem, and Whedon’s trademark humor, flying aboard with the wisecracking Captain Malcolm Reynolds, softhearted Wash, short-tempered Jayne, and the good doctor, Simon, these spirited and diverse women bring more than male gazing eye candy ornamentation.

The women of Firefly and Serenity — L-R: Jewel Staite (Kaylee), Summer Glau (River), Morena Baccarin (Inara), Gina Torres (Zoe)

Wife of Wash, Zoe Washburne is a resilient, tough, hold the guns chick with a fiery attitude that is as wild as the curls of her hair. In the face of tragedy, she sheds not a tear, going head first into battle with weapons blazing in each hand while not wearing emotions on sleeve. This firecracker’s mind is sharply focused on the end game and to the Serenity crew, staying alive is the best option.

Gina Torres is made for Zoe. In every moving inch of her body and facial expression, she flaunts a calm, collected exterior that shields a force to be reckoned with. She is neither weak nor insecure in her prowess, taking fearless approach in the scariest of situations.

Zoe (Gina Torres)

Often, I have disagreed with angry sentiments of viewers voicing displeasure at Zoe calling Malcolm “Sir” and denoting that there is a master/slave relationship at work. He isn’t a whip slashing, verbally abusive tyrant lying on his back getting fanned upon while being hand fed grapes.

No. No. No.

He is a commander of a vessel, treating the crew like his family. Out of all of them, there is a special sibling type bond between him and Zoe. She, not Jayne, is his right hand man, or in this case woman. She has been at his side as a comrade in a lost war against the Alliance and that experience hasn’t wrought animosity, but pain and regret. Malcolm sees Zoe as his equal and that speaks volumes.

Yes. He tells her what to do, but she does in a way that she sees fit.

“Love. You can learn all the math in the ‘verse… but you take a boat in the air that you don’t love… she’ll shake you off just as sure as the turn of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she ought to fall down… tells you she’s hurting before she keels. Makes her a home.”

Malcolm’s quote is about Serenity, their beloved ship who is another unspoken feminine hero that is an integral part of the film.

Kaylee (Jewel Staite)

In comes Kaylee Frye, the adorable, sweet-natured Texan engineer who gets down and dirty repairing anything that needs fixing above the space vessel. Utterly devoted to the job, even without formal training, Kaylee speaks of things, especially emotions in mechanical terms and is often seen in oily, dirty jumpsuit. She may be seem to the anti-feminine, doing the “man’s” job, but that is not what’s so compelling about her. Often the voice of reasoning and moral compassion without being sanctimonious or preachy, Kaylee is the very heart of Serenity.

Actress Jewel Staite breathes a genuine special charm into Kaylee that is quite refreshing to watch. At times it seems that she doesn’t have a place amongst her sharply trained warrior peers, but Staite gives her a reason for being an imperative member. For in the toughest, most grueling predicament, when having to use a gun, Kaylee’s stern determination and iron will has her bravely wielding the weapon without tears and “womanly” fussiness. That’s something to be valued and commended.

Inara (Morena Baccarin)

Serenity means the state of being calm and untroubled — Inara Serra embodies the definition. The poised, tranquil companion, or in other words a courtesan, has illustrious skills beyond sensual grace. Softly spoken and wisely engaged, she battles with tongue more so than weapon. An expert with combat and a bow and arrow and often a vital aide in fighting the good fight, she gets knocked around a bit, but that doesn’t stop her from continuing to join in the battle of Malcolm verses The Operative, licking her wounds and going back for more to protect nearly brutally defeated captain.

Morena Baccarin personifies her character flawlessly. Possessing such phenomenal skill using widened eyes and speaking dialogue with sharp, clever articulation, a viewer cannot help but be arrested by her representation of peaceful tranquility, the way she floats effervescently into a scene, and the unmentionable smoldering toe-to-toe chemistry with Nathan Fillion who plays the sardonic Malcolm.

River (Summer Glau)

Last but certainly not least, River Tam, a former Alliance test subject, is the secret weapon. A broken mentally destroyed psychic, she is precocious, observant, and vulnerable, but her brother, Simon is overprotective in babying her at times. When she is purposely triggered by a creepy Alliance induced subliminal message, she unleashes a wild can of whoop ass crazy in a bar, maliciously hurting not only innocent bystanders, but also a Serenity crewmember which ultimately terrifies everyone. Yet seeing her brother down on the ground towards the climatic end pushes a different button and causes her to give the most poignant of sacrifices. While soft orchestra music plays, she fights passionately, kicking and punching the monstrous, once human Reavers with the strength of a thousand warriors.

She has then rightfully earned passage on the crew, albeit at the captain’s side commanding ship.

Summer Glau brings versatility to the complexity of River, showcasing the depths of a damaged psyche, ranging from cryptic, shattered girlish innocence, to altogether frightening, emotionless devoid. It would take only a solid actress to take on a role so challenging and Glau renders River meticulously.

The women of Firefly and Serenity — L-R: Gina Torres, Summer Glau, Morena Baccarin, Jewel Staite

Though under the command of a man, that doesn’t stop Zoe, Kaylee, Inara, and River from brutally speaking their razor tongued minds to the captain. River is an extraordinary circumstance; her words are enigmatic as opposed to outright as with the other three.

Certainly not breaking down into sobs or running away in fright, these four animated, beautiful, and talented women band together in the face of battle. Along with the rest of the Serenity crew, an excellent villain played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, and a brilliantly penned script, there’s a reason fans remain attached to Whedon’s charismatic “browncoat” vision, especially the female rebel.

Janyce Denise Glasper is a writer/artist running two silly blogs of creative adventures called Sugarygingersnap and AfroVeganChick. She enjoys good female centric film, cute rubber duckies, chocolate covered everything (except bugs!), Days of Our Lives, and slaying nightly demons Buffy style in Dayton, Ohio.

Women in Science Fiction Week: Thoughts on Strong Female Characters: Carolyn Fry from ‘Pitch Black’

This guest post written by Rhea Daniel previously appeared at Bitch Flicks on June, 13 2012 and originally published at Short Stories, cross-posted with permission.

So I saw The Avengers(2012). I’ll be honest, pure entertainment, skillful use of existing archetypes to create entertaining group dynamic, how can you not fall for that?

However the whole ‘strong woman character’ attribution to Joss Whedon isn’t completely merited. I love his truly sympathetic essay about women on Whedonesque.com, and his feminist bent, however as ‘strong’ women go, I could never relate to his female characters.

To me a character that deserves the reputation of a feminist heroine would be Carolyn Fry(Radha Mitchell) from David Twohy’s Pitch Black (2000), regardless of whether he intended it that way. We have time to watch her character grow through the movie, but she is a secondary character, Riddick is the famed anti-hero. To make an impression in spite of that is huge.

While Fry takes the reins of the group on the deserted planet by default, the one thing that drives her bravery is her terrible mistake — attempting to eject the passengers in cryogenic sleep to lighten the load of the spaceship before it crashed, stopped from doing so by the more conscientious navigator who died as a result, earning her a lot of resentment from the group, their mistrust eventually pushing her to fight for her leadership position more fiercely. I don’t particularly consider that a negative point, I see a person deeply ridden with guilt, antagonists willing her to fail, Riddick keenly watching her every move, reacting to her willingness to risk her safety for the sake of the others with amusement. I see a lot of a pressure on a person who is not particularly skilled to handle the task before her, but she pushes on in spite of that.

[…]

It’s not that I don’t still love Ripley/esque sci-fi warriors, I just find Carolyn Fry’s inner turmoil borne of the vicissitudes of external forces much more approachable, and strangely unsung. I like her more because she is unsure of herself, searching for firm ground to walk upon, because unlike Ripley, she doesn’t know where she stands, steeling her vulnerable frame against the next onslaught.

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Rhea Daniel got to see a lot of movies as a kid because her family members were obsessive movie-watchers. She frequently finds herself in a bind between her love for art and her feminist conscience. Meanwhile she is trying to be a better writer and artist and you can find her at http://rheadaniel.blogspot.com/.

Women in Science Fiction Week: ‘Splice’: Womb Horror and the Mother Scientist

Guest post written by Mychael Blinde.

NSFW | Trigger warning for survivors of sexual assault
Warning: Spoilers abound!!

Splice explores gendered body horror at the locus of the womb, reveling in the horror of procreation. It touches on themes of bestiality, incest, and rape. It’s also a movie about being a mom.

Though it received somewhat lackluster reviews, I encourage anyone interested in feminism and film to give Vincenzo Natali’s sci-fi body horror film a try. Splice features female characters who are intelligent, emotionally complex, and incontrol. They’re not perfect, but they are three dimensional characters whose decisions drive the story. (One of them morphs into a male, but we’ll get to that.)

Splice asks a lot of questions about the terms and conditions of conception, gestation, birth,and motherhood, all without stabbing the viewer in the eye with reductive answers.

It also features some campy moments. Hipster scientists shout things like “It was the only way!” Academy Award winning actor Adrien Brody expresses his frustration by throwing down not just his jacket, but his scarf as well!

If you can stomach the juxtaposition of big thinky concepts and stilted clichéd dialogue, you will find Splice a thoroughly enjoyable mindfuck of a film.

Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley) and Clive Nicoli (Brody), long-term partners in romance and biochemistry, have developed a method to splice the DNA from various animals together to create hybrid creatures.

Viewers are actually birthed into the film from the perspective of Fred, the couple’s latest scientific endeavor, a male companion to their first hybrid, Ginger.

Splice

Elsa and Clive aspire to splice human DNA to develop cures for genetic diseases, but the pharmaceutical company funding their research puts a halt on all splicing until the duo can synthesize the medicinal protein necessary to create a commercially viable lifestock drug.

Newstead Pharma’s financial interests are represented by Joan Chorot (Simona Maicanescu), who insists Elsa and Clive begin “Phase Two: The product stage.”

Joan Chorot (Simona Maicanescu) in Splice

Joan doesn’t get a lot of screen time, but her brief appearances are a pleasure to watch. She’s articulate and always in control. It’s awesome to see a woman kicking ass in the role of the money-grubbing corporation, and Joan is a stellar example of how to do it right.

After their splicing research is shut down, Clive suggests they quit, but Elsa convinces Clive to proceed with the human splicing and to generate an embryo.

Clive Nicoli (Adrien Brody) and Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley) in Splice

In both the romantic and the professional relationship between Clive and Elsa (and this is a movie very much interested in the conflation of work and sex), Elsa is in charge.

Over and over, Elsa insists that they take the next step. She is the opposite of what I call the Male Protagonist’s Girlfriend — a pretty lady bystander who supplements the male protagonist’s story arc.

Elsa and Clive also deviate from the typical representation of long-term monogamous heterosexual partners: it is he, not she, who desires to have a child:

Elsa: “You are talking about having a kid.”
Clive: “Is that so unreasonable?”
Elsa: “Yeah, because I’m the one who has to have it…”
Clive: “Come on. What’s the worst that can happen?”
Elsa: “How about after we crack male pregnancy?”

Meaningfully, this discussion is cut short by an alert sent from the machine housing the hybrid fetus. When they arrive at the lab, the embryo is all grown up and preparing to evacuate the biochemically engineered womb.

Though Elsa doesn’t gestate and birth the baby from her own body, the birth experience is physically traumatizing for her. She becomes trapped in the birth canal and is injected with poisonous serum. In a rare moment of control, Clive saves Elsa. But after the birth, Elsa again takes charge: she refuses to allow Clive to kill the female hybrid and insists that they raise her in the lab.

Weirdly, the couple begins to function less like scientists and more like normal parents: frustrated because the baby won’t eat, stressed out because it won’t stop crying. However, unlike most parents, their baby has a stinging whip tail, and they are forced to relegate their progeny to the laboratory’s basement to keep her existence a secret.

Elsa (Sarah Polley) in Splice

Elsa becomes more and more emotionally attached to the creature, and eventually names her Dren. Clive is worried about their secret being revealed and disturbed by Elsa’s displays of maternal affection. Nevertheless, he resigns himself to raising her, and Dren grows to be a young adult in a matter of months.

One night, Clive and Elsa realize they haven’t boned down lately. Clive doesn’t have any condoms, but Elsa says, “What’s the worst that could happen?” – suggesting that she’s decided she wouldn’t mind gestating a child, maybe? – and they have at. This is the first of three sex scenes in Splice.

Cinematically, their lovemaking is depicted as underwhelming. Neither Elsa nor Clive take off any clothing. Creepily, Dren watches.

Meanwhile, pressure is building at the pharmaceutical company.

Their presentation at the shareholders’ meeting goes disastrously wrong. Unbeknownst to Clive and Elsa, their specimen Ginger has changed into a male, and Ginger and Fred tear each other apart and splash guts and blood all over the audience. Not good PR.

In deep shit with the company, Clive and Elsa are forced to relocate Dren to Elsa’s deceased mother’s farm.

Here we learn the backstory of Elsa’s childhood; themes of feminism, motherhood, and family history come into play.

We learn that Elsa’s mother forbade Barbies and makeup. Elsa explains that “She said makeup debased women.” The word “feminist” is never used in Splice, but Elsa’s mother’s Barbie-banning and makeup-denying seem emblematic of a certain type of feminist parenting.

We also learn that Elsa’s mother raised her in substandard living conditions, relegating her to a ramshackle, barely furnished bedroom.

Initially I viewed this as a problematic conflation of being a feminist with being a neglectful person and bad mother. But it’s far more complicated than that.

Elsa expresses her love for Dren by giving her the very things her mother denied her.

Dren (Delphine Chanéac) and Elsa (Sarah Polley) in Splice

But the Barbie and the makeover don’t make Dren happy; in fact, the Barbie explicitly makes Dren sad. Looking into a mirror, she holds the doll’s long blonde tresses against her bald head and becomes upset.

Over the course of the film, Elsa locks Dren up in a lab, then a basement, and eventually her mother’s barn, and Dren resents her for it. Elsa seems unable to break the cycle of her own mother’s physical and emotional neglect.

Perhaps the idea is that makeup is not a substitute for ideal living quarters and engaged parenting. What matters isn’t whether or not you give your daughter a Barbie, but whether or not you lock her in a barn.

And it turns out, Dren really is Elsa’s genetic daughter. To his chagrin, Clive discovers Elsa used her own DNA to create Dren: “Why the fuck did you want to make her in the first place? Huh? For the betterment of mankind? You never wanted a normal child because you were afraid of losing control. But an experiment…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, but it seems clear that Elsa is using science as a way to disassociate herself from motherhood while still being able to create and raise a child. Presumably we’re to understand that Elsa’s desire for complete control stems from her tragic upbringing: “Look at your family history,” Clive exhorts.

Elsa tries to convey her genetic connection to Dren by explaining to her: “You’re a part of me, and I’m a part of you. I’m inside you.” She strives to smooth over their mother-daughter animosity, but the two wind up in a physical altercation that results in Elsa knocking Dren unconscious, tying her up, stripping her naked, and removing her tail and stinger. This scene has undertones of both castration and rape. Elsa has become a monstrous mother scientist.

Clive is horrified by Elsa’s actions, but she informs him that she is going to use Dren’s amputated stinger to finally synthesize the protein and heads to the lab, where she succeeds.

Elsa (Sarah Polley) in Splice

She tells off her obnoxious supervisor: “When some real scientists get here, come take a look.”

While Elsa’s away, Dren seduces Clive. If Elsa’s sin is her obsessive need to control, Clive’s sin is his inclination to relinquish control.

This is the film’s second sex scene. Cinematically it is sensual, queer in a fantasy-mythical-creature sort of way, strange but beautiful. Ominously, Dren grows back her tail stinger. Then Clive notices Elsa has come back and is watching them. She storms out and he chases her. Back at their apartment, Clive and Elsa decide that they finally have to kill Dren.

But when they return to the barn, it turns out Dren is already dying. After she dies, Clive’s brother (who also works in the lab) and their supervisor show up. He announces he knows their secret and demands to see the human-spliced creature. Elsa informs him that Dren is dead, throws a shovel at him and says, “See for yourself.”

Except Dren is no longer buried behind the barn. Like Ginger, she has morphed into a male, and in the film’s climax, he kills everybody but Elsa.

Dren as male in Splice

A note on the gender transition: I am uncomfortable with the representation of Dren’s metamorphosis from female to male. It is predicated on the idea that transitioning from a female body to a male body is horrific, and it exploits trans individuals by sensationalizing the transitioning body as evil and freakish. It’s not trans positive. I understand that Splice’s story necessitates this metamorphosis and that Dren isn’t exactly a human, but let’s call out problematic shit when we see it.

Chasing women through the woods at night is a staple of slasher flicks, but this movie isn’t about slashing – it’s about splicing. Dren chases Elsa through the woods, but instead of slaughtering Elsa, Dren rapes her.

This is Splice’s third sex scene. Cinematically it is gut-wrenchingly horrifying, as any rape depicted onscreen needs to be in order to convey the awfulness that is sexual violation. Dren’s rape of Elsa is as disgusting and awful as Dren’s sex with Clive is beautiful and sensual.

When Elsa screams “What do you want?” Dren replies: “Inside…of…you.”

Clive stabs Dren with a branch (wielding the metaphorical phallus) as Dren orgasms, but Dren is not killed, and attacks Clive. Elsa pulls her pants back on and bashes Dren in the head with a big rock. This critically injurs Dren, who takes a moment to survey the situation – then stabs Clive with his tail. Elsa bashes Dren in the head again, killing Dren once and for all.

Elsa is the character who cut off Dren’s stinger and the one who deals Dren the death blow. And yet in his final moments, Dren chooses to kill Clive. Why?

Because inside of Elsa is a womb, the growing space for a new creature. And sure enough, in the film’s resolution we discover that Elsa is pregnant. Of the three sexual encounters that take place in this movie, the reproductively viable encounter is the rape. Elsa lives to be the final girl not because she wields a chainsaw, but because she wields womb. (And a big rock.)

Unlike Veronica of The Fly (“I want an abortion!”) or, more recently, Elizabeth of Prometheus (“Get it out of me!”), Elsa decides to gestate her monster progeny to term.

I appreciate both The Fly and Prometheus because each asks its audience to empathize with a woman who desperately needs an abortion. I also appreciate Splice for asking its viewers to honor Elsa’s decision not to abort. Joan makes it clear that Elsa has a choice: “Nobody would blame you if you didn’t do this. You could just put an end to it and walk away.” (Would that this were the standard response to women experiencing unwanted pregnancies!)

But Elsa does not to put an end to it. Why does she decide to bring it to term?

Sure, the company’s giving her a shitload of money for gestating Dren’s offspring. But throughout the film, Elsa has insisted on moving forward with human splicing experiments. Perhaps she sees this as a necessary extension of that research.

Or maybe this is another chance for Elsa to use science to mediate motherhood. Is the pregnancy Elsa’s punishment, or her redemption? We’ll never know. All she says is, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

The film closes with a shot of the two women, the film’s only surviving characters, looking out a window.

Mychael Blinde is not a scientist, but she is afraid to give birth. She is interested in representations of gender in popular culture and blogs at Vagina Dentwata.

Women in Science Fiction Week: Mary Svevo: ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’s Other Strong Female Character

Kirsten Dunst as Mary Svevo in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Guest post written by Amanda Civitello.

Warning: spoilers ahead!!

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is precisely the kind of science fiction movie I like: a film in which the futuristic, scientific aspects are so well integrated into the plot that there is never a moment when the premise is implausible, a moment in which the audience is compelled to step outside the world of the film and remark, “I don’t believe it.” The viewer’s willingness to accept that world, and even to recognize it as her own, is part of what makes the very best films of the genre so disquieting. I realize that this isn’t everyone’s opinion of the genre, but mine was formed young. I was ten when my dad first let me watch Jurassic Park, even though it was released some three years prior. I wasn’t the type of child to watch potentially frightening movies, and he only let me watch it because he wanted me to see a movie with a lead female scientist. Curiously enough –and much to my dad’s surprise – what terrified me wasn’t the CGI dinosaurs, or the deadly snakes and the electric fences, but rather the concept of the film. The fact that it wasn’t so difficult for me to imagine a world in which a place like Jurassic Park could exist. I’d been to zoos and theme parks; Dolly the sheep had just been cloned. I could believe that sometime, in the not-so-distant future, a similar theme park might not be so far-fetched. Consequently, I was petrified. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind lacks the outright scare value of a film like Jurassic Park or Alien, but still delivers an unsettling punch.

When Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind made its debut, critics and audiences alike were charmed by Charlie Kaufman’s intelligent,engaging screenplay, which marries an enjoyable love story with the kind of philosophical introspection that viewers have come to expect from a Kaufman film. The “spotless mind” of the title, a reference to Alexander Pope’s poem Eloisa to Abelard, refers to the premise of the film: people choosing to alter their memories through Lacuna, a medical company which performs “targeted memory erasure” designed to erase only specific people or events from the patient’s memory. Performed through a mixture of science and art, the procedure relies on “mapping” the subject’s brain when the specific memories are triggered, and then selectively erasing those memories while the patient is sedated. Patients bring any objects associated with the undesired memories to the company, which then disposes of them, so that potential triggers, which could compromise the efficacy of the erasure, are minimized. Similarly, patients’ friends who might inadvertently mention the undesired memories are made aware of the situation and requested not to mention them in the subject’s presence.

The various story arcs concern patients and employees at Lacuna: Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (KateWinslet), lovers who independently seek out Lacuna’s services to forget one another, Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson), who “diagnoses” patients, Stan (Marc Ruffalo) and his assistant Patrick (Elijah Wood), the memory erasure technicians, and Mary (Kirsten Dunst), the company’s receptionist. The ensemble cast rises to the occasion with compelling performances, particularly, as many critics noted, from Kate Winslet, whose portrayal of Clementine, something of an eccentric extrovert, garnered much critical attention. Clementine is praised as a much-needed strong female lead in a love story, because she pursues Joel, is firmly in charge of her own affairs, and takes great pleasure in telling brooding, artistic Joel that she has no intention of becoming his muse. As she puts it, “Too many guys think I’m a concept, or I complete them, or I’m gonna make them alive. But I’m just a fucked-up girl who’s lookin’ for my own peace of mind.” In a time when many female leads are typecast as the hero’s romantic ideal, Clementine’s insistence on being taken for the woman she is, not the woman her lover wants her to be, is refreshing. Far from a quirky, plucky, childlike heroine who serves to inspire her moody boyfriend (the so-called “ManicPixie Dream Girl”), she’s unafraid to assert her individuality, speak her mind, and do as she pleases, dressing as she likes and dying her hair a rainbow of colors when the mood takes her. She can be uncompromising, brusque and matter-of-fact, but she makes her thoughts known. It’s Clementine who first seeks out Lacuna to erase her memories of Joel when she grows bored with him, feeling that his more quiet nature is trapping her. It’s easy to see why she’s easily the film’s “strong female character” and Winslet received an Oscar nod for her work.

Kate Winslet as Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

But the film stars another woman, albeit in a more supporting role within the cast: Kirsten Dunst, who gives a sensitive portrayal of Mary, a character who is in many ways the polar opposite of Clementine. Mary is quiet, almost mousy. She wears rather plain, unobtrusive clothes. At work, she wears a smart white lab coat, as if to reinforce the medical nature of the proceedings, and answers the phone in the same measured tone of voice, responding to all queries with variations on the same stock phrases. Her inner extrovert manifests only after a combination of alcohol and pot, which lead her (and Stan) to have a wild dance party, including jumping half-dressed on the bed while Joel’s memory is being erased. Mary is, however, a woman who knows her own mind as the film progresses. She exchanges her seemingly blind devotion to Lacuna and Dr. Mierzwiak for her own brand of individual agency. By the end, it’s clear why: Mary has had her memory altered by Dr. Mierzwiak, after what appears to be some convincing on his part, when the affair they’d been having was discovered by his wife. The knowledge, if not the memory, of this seems to jolt Mary into coming into her own. Unfortunately, all this occurs in the last ten minutes of the film. For whatever reason, Mary is most definitely a sidelined supporting character, whose potential is never fully realized in the cinematic release, as director’s commentary and the trivia about the shooting script attest.

Clementine, to be sure, isn’t always a paragon of girl power: as any realistic, well-developed character would, she has her moments of insecurity and uncertainty. In several scenes, for example,she begs, “don’t ever leave me, Joely.” Mary’s insecurities seem to run deeper; where Clementine’s appear to be exceptions to her normal behavior, lack of self-confidence seems to be Mary’s norm. The film, as one would expect something so thoughtfully crafted and well-edited, makes effective arguments about the two characters, by making use of visual imagery and the wonderful soundtrack. We are meant to read Clementine as strong-willed and Mary as rather pathetic.

Smart directorial and script decisions carry the argument against Mary further. There’s a vibrancy of color to Clementine’s scenes – even the ones that take place outside of Joel’s memory – that’s wholly absent in Mary’s. Clementine’s clothes, particularly a favorite orange sweatshirt and ever-changing hair color, are more visually arresting than are Mary’s sedate, professional daywear. Clementine’s scenes are marked by a sense of urgency and excitement. Mary’s dancing scene, the only one in which she could be described as“energetic,” has more of a frenzy about it. Clementine is exuberant and effervescent; even Mary’s exuberant moment is tempered by a degree of desperation. She’s only having fun because she’s stoned.

Like Clementine, Mary is the pursuer, not necessarily the pursued, though both have eager men interested in them. In Clementine’s case, Patrick quite obviously pursues her, using questionable techniques involving objects and memories filched from Joel while his memory is being replaced. Mary is the object of Stan’s affection, and it’s even implied that they live together; she only has eyes for Dr. Mierzwiak, whom she attempts to woo with poetry. The film presents Mary’s attempts to charm Dr. Mierzwiak as the counterpoint to Clementine’s successful pursuit of Joel. Where we see an image of empowerment in Clementine’s efforts, the kind of go-get that is frequently attached to male roles, Mary’s are sadly pathetic and desperate. We pity Mary as she recites her quotes to Dr. Mierzwiak and wince along with him when she refers to “Pope Alexander.” He reacts indulgently, as if she’s a child in need of congratulations and encouragement for telling him things he already knows,and so do we. The set up of the shot helps in this regard: Mary is seen from a distance, curled up in an arm chair, while Dr. Mierzwiak is seen in close profile, typing away at the computer to fix errors in Joel’s erasure. She’s superfluous; he’s integral. We are as unimpressed as he is with her quotation-book poetry (and in the end, it’s clear that he might have heard these same quotes during their previous relationship). Given what happens next, Mary’s quote choices are eerily prescient. She’s the one who comments on the beauty of the work, about art and science, in her dreamy voice, and considers what the targeted memory erasure means for their clients, and who ultimately makes the difficult ethical choice to release the company’s files when she discovers the coercion in her own erasure. Why can’t Mary be a thinker, too?

The viewer takes for granted that Clementine will have something of a philosophy, even if that philosophy happens to be, “I’m not a concept,” a phrase which reminds us outright that while it’s tempting, she’s not about to be boxed in to a label denoting her as, for want of better shorthand, an archetypal “Manic Pixie Dream Girl.” She is capable of making that statement about her identity. One never imagines that Mary would to do anything like that, and indeed, the film actively argues against that expectation for her. What’s interesting, however, is that the film originally provided for more of Mary’s back story.

In the cinematic release, Mary never confronts Dr. Mierzwiak about her discovery, so we never have the opportunity to see her speak up for herself, thus denying her character the kind of assertiveness that so characterizes Clementine. With the traumatic discovery of her abortion (at the urging of Dr. Mierzwiak) excised from the film, Mary’s decision to release the documents becomes more of a convenient deus ex machina than a manifestation of her agony: she mails out the files in a fit of pique, motivated by anger, so that there’s a plausible narrative reason for Joel and Clementine to make another attempt at their relationship. It makes for a better, more polished and satisfying ending for the film, but I’m glad that the director’s commentary mentions Mary’s sad tale.

Earlier in Pope’s long poem, he writes: “Though cold like you, unmov’d and silent grown/ I have not yet forgot myself to stone.” If Clementine knows her own mind and her own worth from the outset, Mary figures it out as the film progresses. Despite everything, including the Lacuna intervention-by-brain-damage, Mary manages not to forget herself entirely. The only disappointment with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is that the film ends just as we’re starting to find out who she is.

Amanda Civitello is a freelance writer based in Chicago and Northwesternalum. She contributed a review of Daphne for the Bitch Flicks LGBTQI themeweek. You can find her on Twitter at @amcivitello and at amandacivitello.squarespace.com.

Women in Science Fiction Week: Deciphering Island Patriarchy: Finding Feminism in ‘Lost’

This guest post written by Natalie Wilson previously appeared at Bitch Flicks on April, 14 2010 and originally appeared at Girl with Pen!

With the 6^th and final season upon us, will Lost finally zoom towards a feminist future? With the number of female characters dwindling and the simultaneous deification of hetero white males, can feminist Lost fans hope for a satisfying island conclusion?

Previous seasons have been a mixed bag on this count.

Lost has many strong female characters, many of whom I could easily see wearing a “This is what a feminist look like” t-shirt. As noted by Melissa McEwan of Shakesville, an admitted Lost junkie, “Generally, the female characters are more well-rounded than just about any other female characters on television, especially in ensemble casts.”

Lost has often presented ‘gender outside the box’ characters, suggesting being human is more important than being a masculine man or a feminine woman. After all, when you are fighting for your life, ‘doing gender right’ is hardly at the top of your priority list.

While Jack and Sawyer try to out-macho each other in their love triangle with Kate, neither hold entirely to the Rambo-man-in-jungle motif. As for the women, they just might be the strongest, bravest, wisest female characters to grace a major network screen since Cagney and Lacey.

Though the island is certainly patriarchal, one could make a strong case that male-rule is not such a good thing for (island) society. Kate or Juliet would be far better leaders than any of the island patriarchs (and as some episodes suggest, would make great co-leaders – what a feminist concept!)

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Women in Science Fiction Week: ‘Avatar’

Guest post written by Elizabeth Tiller previously appeared at Bitch Flicks on February 26, 2010 and originally appeared on the Stilwell Film blog, cross-posted with permission.

Admittedly, Avatar isn’t my thing, I’m not big on James Cameron or any alien films (not only his), I’ve never been interested in Star Wars or Star Trek (though I have seen enough of both franchises to hold a conversation), so I wasn’t planning on watching Avatar at any point in my life. However, this afternoon, I changed my mind when a free screening became available to me. With my original plans canceled and a spare two and a half hours available, I tucked into James Cameron’s latest film.

Well, Avatar wasn’t what I thought it would be, but it wasn’t any better. I spent most of the first half of the movie developing alternate titles ending with “in space.” “Pocahontas in Space,” “Dances with Wolves in Space,” and “Titanic in Space” all sprang to mind. For the most part, it seems Cameron has taken plots from various other films, thrown them together, dyed it blue, and placed it on the fictitious planet, Pandora, to create a science-fiction retelling of the Pocahontas mythos.

[…]

As much as I would like to sit through a movie like this and enjoy it for what it is (ground-breaking sci-fi entertainment that will go down in history), I simply can’t. James Cameron’s attempt to create a more spiritual, natural, and peaceful society leaves me annoyed that once again this idea is filtered through a white, Western, male member of a patriarchal society. Some theorists will consider Cameron’s Alien trilogy feminist, because of Sigourney Weaver’s empowered Ripley (legend says it was written to be asexual–with casting deciding the character’s sex), but she still has to prove her femininity and womanliness by saving cats and small children. I fear that many feminists will laud Avatar as well–for creating a world where the people worship a female entity (“Eywa”), because the Clan leader’s female mate/wife is as powerful as him, and since the female lead is as empowered as Ripley. However, like Ripley, Neytiri too has her feminine trappings, as her power can be explained away through her heritage.

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Elizabeth Tiller is a PhD student researching femme fatales in European cinema. Last year, she founded Stilwell Film, a non-profit that provides free outdoor film screenings to southern Johnson County, Kansas during July. In her spare time, she plays rugby, frequents karaoke nights, and watches high quality films like The Blue Lagoon.

Women in Science Fiction Week: Why Olivia Dunham on ‘Fringe’ Is My Favorite Female Character on TV

Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) on Fringe

Guest post written by Clint Waters.

“Sometimes answers lead to more questions.”

If you haven’t been watching Fringe…for the love of science fiction, please start. Full of twists and turns, along with a healthy blend of drama, action and just the right amount of comedy, the plot never fails to deliver an engaging episode. Perhaps the best part of the series is the well-crafted and well-acted characters. As this is Women in Science Fiction Week, allow me to explain why Fringe‘s lead, Olivia Dunham, is everything one can hope for.

And, for that matter, if you haven’t been watching Fringe I urge you once more to go watch it. Go! For I see SPOILER ALERT on the horizon! Ruuuuun. But, no, seriously, from here on out I’m going to be discussing important plot points and reveals so continue at your own risk.

With the disclaimers out of the way, I’d like to say that Olivia is easily my favorite female character in a television series. To put it simply, she is a kickass lady. As an FBI agent turned Fringe Division investigator, Olivia is never afraid to pull her gun out and start kicking down doors (or look fabulous while doing so).

Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) on Fringe

She often puts herself in harm’s way to protect those around her and is willing to do anything necessary in the name of justice and fringe science (including having electrical equipment embedded in her skull and then being submerged in an isolation tank.

Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) on Fringe in isolation tank

What I love most is her seemingly inability to be made vulnerable by villains. In several episodes she is rendered unconscious and kidnapped, however, she is hardly ever saved by other people. Although the other members of Fringe are looking for her, she’s the one to smash something against someone’s head or brandish a scalpel as a deadly weapon in order to escape. And it’s not that she busts down doors, guns blazing, but that she knows the appropriate time to do so, or when a lock pick and stealth will suffice.

Olivia (Anna Torv) and her niece on Fringe

That’s not to say she is an emotionless, crime-solving machine. Throughout the series we learn that she has had her fair share of troubles: being experimented on as a child, abused by a stepfather (that she later shoots, still in her childhood), losing her mother and betrayed by anyone she actually lets herself fall in love with. Especially tender are the scenes between Olivia and her niece, as well as those that happen throughout her and Peter’s relationship. However, these emotional problems of the past and current relationships do nothing to weaken her as a character, nor do they manifest themselves in trite explorations of self. In a writing perspective, they are very concrete and rational vehicles of characterization.

Olivia (Anna Torv) and Peter (Joshua Jackson) on Fringe

Many of these plot points and even Olivia’s life in general are confused and muddled by the version of her that lives in the alternate universe: Fauxlivia (as Walter dubs her and later becomes canon). The great thing about Fauxlivia is that she’s not just Olivia in a red wig (although, of course, they are played by the same actress). Lending itself to the suspension of disbelief surrounding the whole alternate universe, Fauxlivia has had a completely different life than the Olivia from our universe. She is more brazen and foolhardy, whereas Olivia is calculated and precise. Essentially, the creators’ of Fringe did something wonderful and gave us two Olivias, one to love and root for, and another to realize how she could be a completely different person/character. What truly amazes me about this is Anna Torv’s ability to play both characters so well. I found myself forgetting that they were the same person in real life, I was so busy glaring every time Fauxlivia appeared on the screen.

Olivia and Fauxlivia (both played by Anna Torv) on Fringe

The show explores this notion as Fauxlivia and Olivia swap places for a few months, Fauxlivia posing and trying to gather intelligence on our universe while real Olivia is trying to escape the alternate one. Perhaps one of the most intriguing parts presented in the show is an Invasion of the Bodysnatchers or The Thing-esque game of not knowing who is who. Once Olivia returns we are presented with a very troublesome thought: how do you go on living your life, living in your house, loving your boyfriend when someone else has been living your life. How hurt would you feel knowing that no one could tell a difference, that you could literally be replaced? Pretty scary stuff. But she makes it through as she always does (with a few enjoyable catty interactions with her alternate self).

Overall, Olivia Dunham is a prime example of what it is to be a heroine in a science fiction world. She can break bones, witness the aftermath of a gruesome fringe event without batting an eye, and go toe-to-toe with mastermind villains, and yet she is not invincible or impervious to emotional situations. Although she is constantly surrounded by extraordinary events and weird circumstances, she is a truly believable character, imbued in verisimilitude. With a fifth season on the horizon (slated for September), I cannot wait to see what is in store for Olivia and her team.

Clint Waters is a creative writing major, German minor at Western Kentucky University. He is in his final year and hopes to pursue any career that remotely deals with writing in a creative fashion. Visit his blog at redintooth.tumblr.com.

Women in Science Fiction Week: The Problem with Female Representation in Science Fiction on Television

Falling Skies‘ Margaret

Guest post written by Paul and Renee.

The wonderful thing about science fiction is that the writers have the opportunity to create a world, which while based on ours, can be markedly different. This means that there should be a place for strong female characters who are not restricted by sexism or forced into a situation in which they must perform femininity on a daily basis to be accepted as ‘woman.’ Despite the freedom of this genre; however, nothing is born outside of discourse, which means of course that we end up with the same sexist tropes repeatedly.

Even in shows which readily lend themselves to recurring scenes of violence, because women have historically been framed as delicate and passive, men end up in the leadership roles. This also means that when the action does finally happen, women are placed into nurturing roles like doctors and nurses to aid the wounded men. While some may see this exchange as complementary, it in fact sets up a serious gender divide that is reductive.

We actually see this most strongly and most blatantly in dystopias. In Falling Skies, humanity is locked into a battle for survival against an alien threat. Humanity is nearly extinct, the group is excited at the prospect of a capital that has managed to scrape together 2,000 survivors. The 2nd Massachusetts itself is reduced to a mere 150 people, meaning it has lost nearly half of its already low numbers since the series began. Clearly, this is a series about desperation – every man must be ready to fight, desperately, to survive.

And I said “man” purposefully there. Because, while there are plenty of women in the crowd scenes and even in most of the fight scenes we will find one token, nameless female fighter in a large number of men, the vast majority of the fighters are male. In fact, there’s only ever one named female fighter at a time (Karen, who gets replaced by Maggie after she is captured. She also inherited Karen’s love interest – which did rather make the two women seem interchangeable).

Remember how desperate humanity is here. For most of the show, Jimmy, a 13 year old boy was drafted to fight. As they get more desperate, Matt, a 6 year old boy, starts carrying a gun around and taking part in military action. Where are the women? It’s clearly not a matter of military background with both children and school teachers on the battlefield, why do we only see one or two women standing side by side with their men to hold the line against the alien threat?

By contrast, the most prominent female characters we do see except for the interchangeable-Hal-Love-Interest are, of course, caregivers. Dr. Ann Glass and Lourdes, the medical team for the 2nd Massachusetts. It’s the 21st century, humanity is nearly destroyed, every day is a struggle to survive – I think we can move past men holding guns while women roll bandages.

We can see a similar pervasive female passivity in Alphas, reinforced and ingrained by the special abilities the characters have. Two of the characters, Cameron and Bill, have abilities that make them dangerous in a fight. Their physical capabilities make them the team muscle – contrast that with the two women. Well, they have super senses and limited mind control respectively. The women are inherently placed in support roles and set up as support from the very beginning. And I know that someone will say “well, they don’t have combat powers!” true – but why was it written that way? Why couldn’t Nina have the super-strength? Why did the writers choose the women and the disabled character to have the less active, support powers? And that’s not to say their powers aren’t powerful or useful – far from it – but then, so is rolling bandages.

Sanctuary‘s Helen Magnus

Even in shows like Sanctuary where we have female leadership, not all women are created equal. Helen Magnus is the only female of the original scientists to survive. The two most prominent recurring female characters outside of the protagonist are Kate Freelander and Abbey Corrigan. Kate essentially is the replacement for Ashley, Magnus’ daughter who died at the end of season one. She is a woman of colour who seems to exist only for Magnus to reform her evil ways. She disappears for large swaths of time and is barely missed by the team. In this way, they make her quite disposable. There were other options to send to work in hollow earth, but it was Kate that was chosen. Biggie would have made a much more natural choice but because he was a fan favourite, there was no way he would have been sent.

In the case of Abbey, she exists it seems solely to be the Mary Sue of the show. She is just shy of vapid and has no real storyline other than being Will’s girlfriend. Everything that the Sanctuary deals with is far above her pay grade. Kate was also featured in the highly regrettable musical episode which was her only form of communication for a time. So it would seem that to elevate one woman, all of the other female characters must pay a price and it is particularly troubling when it comes to Kate because of the racial dynamic at play. Once again, we have White woman acting as earth mother to a person of colour.

Even when we have strong female characters, they are still not free of damaging tropes. In Continuum, Kiera is strong and is proactive; each week she and her partner Carlos, take turns hunting down the bad guys. Keira is not afraid to get physical if she has to. That sounds great doesn’t it? It would be if that was all I had to say about her, but it seems that once again, a strong female character cannot just be strong. She has to have a vulnerable side and for Keira it’s motherhood. It makes sense that a mother living so far away from her child, would miss her son desperately, but it does not make sense that this sense of loss would turn into her deciding to lecture her grandmother into giving birth and rejecting every legitimate reason she had to have an abortion.

Continuum‘s Kiera

In “The Test of Time,” Lily Jones, is a homeless high school dropout with no parental support, who finds herself pregnant. Obviously, becoming a parent at this point would be absolutely daunting, but Kiera does not even pause for one moment to legitimise a single thing that Lily says. Instead, the entire message of the episode is that marriage is the answer to teenage pregnancy. Marry the father and everything will magically become fixed and you won’t regret the sacrifices you have to make to parent effectively. The writers prove this to us by showing us that when Kiera had her own unplanned pregnancy, she of course married the father and was happy. Ta-da instant fairytale.

If you are going to go to the trouble of having a strong female character, you would think that the writers would then attempt to exclude messages that are obviously anti-woman. The entire episode implied that abortion in and of itself is the wrong choice to make no matter the circumstances and they used the strong female character to send this message. This isn’t empowerment, this is sending us back to the days of the back alley, coat hangers and death.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about this female passivity and women taking an incomprehensible step back in combat is that we should be past this. We have so many shows that have female characters who will stand forward and kick arse – Mutant X had Shalimar, Heroes was willing to have women who were as dangerous as any of the men.

And we have several female protagonists now, taking charge, fighting the good fight with everything from swords to lasers (though often, as we said above, even these characters have to be made vulnerable); so why oh why do we keep doing this? Why do we keep making the female fighters the exceptions? Why is it so hard to have female warriors standing side by side, in like numbers, like skill and like strength to their male counterparts?

Paul and Renee blog and review at Fangs for the Fantasy. We’re great lovers of the genre and consume it in all its forms – but as marginalised people we also analyse critically through a social justice lens.

Guest Writer Wednesday: ‘I Don’t Know How She Does It’


Sarah Jessica Parker in I Don’t Know How She Does It

Guest post written by Kim Cummings. Originally published at her blog Filmmaking, Motherhood and Apple Pie, cross-posted with permission.

I finally saw I Don’t Know How She Does It. I was excited to watch it, because I loved the book by Alison Pearson, except for the ending where (SPOILER ALERT)-> she gives up everything to move to the country and be a SAHM (stay-at-home-Mom, in case you’re unfamiliar with Mommy-lingo.) <-(END SPOILER). I was curious to see how they would handle the ending in the movie. I won’t spoil it for you, but although it was satisfying in a movie-world kind of way, it wasn’t real and completely skirted the issues raised by the story.

If you don’t know the premise, the story is about a working-mom who loves her job and her kids and is constantly stressed-out by juggling the two. And it’s funny. You can see why it would appeal to me. I love what I do. Who wouldn’t? It has it all: low pay, long hours, constant rejection and humiliating pleas for money. (Click here to witness my own humiliating plea.) But at the end of it, if you’re lucky, you have a movie. Something that, hopefully, will live on past you. Or at least until the next new innovation in technology renders your film/tape/USB drive obsolete. But I digress.

Sarah Jessica Parker and Pierce Brosnan in I Don’t Know How She Does It

I Don’t Know How She Does It spoke to me, in a way that a lot of films don’t. I related to the main character’s struggle – I live by my lists. I thought I lost my Droid yesterday and almost went into cardiac arrest because I couldn’t figure out how I’d manage even 10 minutes without it. And there were funny send-ups of female stereotypes: the SAHM who has made her kids her career, the ambitious single woman who lives for her work and swears never to have children, and the male boss who doesn’t want to hear about your kids, or that you have a life, and gets all tongue-tied at the mere mention of a mammogram. But there were some things the film got really wrong. For instance, Sarah Jessica Parker ends up working on a project with Pierce Brosnon and they start to really connect. So much so that (SPOILER ALERT) -> he asks her to run away with him to Aruba and she doesn’t even blink before saying no. Really? I mean, I love my husband, but if Pierce Brosnan asked me to run away to Aruba, I’d be in Bloomie’s buying a new bathing suit before you could say “Charge it!” Maybe I’d come to my senses once ensconced on the plane and hearing the dulcet tones of a newborn crying right before take-off. (Or maybe not.) <-(END SPOILER) And, like a lot of popular present-day myths, the movie capitalizes on the perceived sharp-divide between working moms and stay-at-home moms. Yes, there are those who pursue child-rearing like an extreme sport and look down on those of us who don’t, but most of us feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day, no matter what choices we’ve made. Finally, there is the ending. The same boss who got tongue-tied at the mention of a mammogram takes a stand that is completely out of character. Yes, it was nice and made me feel good, but what I really wanted was a “Nine to Five” stringing up of the chauvinistic boss type of ending. (Now there’s a funny, angry feminist comedy!) Still, despite it’s flaws, I recommend the film. Especially if you’re having one of those “too-tired-to-clean-the-puke/spaghetti sauce/chocolate-off-my-shirt” days.

Kim Cummings is an award-winning filmmaker living in New York City. Her first feature film, “In Montauk,” premiered June 21 at VisionFest12 in Tribeca.

Guest Writer Wednesday: The Princess Archetype In The Movies

The Hunger Games poster, Brave poster, Snow White and the Huntsman poster

Guest post written by Laura A. Shamas. Originally published at Women and Hollywood, cross-posted with permission.

What kind of “princess” is better off in the woods than at home? A princess who is more like the archetype of Artemis than of Aphrodite. In three recent films, we’ve seen a shift in the “princess” archetype in popular culture. In the past, the princess, a key character in fairy tales and myths, was depicted in films as a love interest, or even as a prize to be won, such as in Tangled, Enchanted, Shrek, and The Princess Bride, to name a few. The main focus of the princess’ sphere and her agency was in regards to love, relationships and marriage. But in The Hunger Games, Snow White and the Huntsman, and Brave, the heroine-protagonists are not interested in courtship; they have much more pressing problems to solve, and they all involve an exile or escape through an “enchanted” wilderness.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), in The Hunger Games, sacrifices her own safe position to replace her sister Primrose (Willow Shields) in The Hunger Games televised competition, and in doing so, she must represent District 12– and fight to save her own life. Although not technically a “princess,” Katniss does represent her region and is “crowned” in a formal ceremony by the end of the film. Her prowess in the woods, especially as an archer, is quickly established in Act One. Her skills in the forest are featured throughout the film, and she owes her eventual success in the Panem contest in large part to her athletic talents which serve her well in the woods.

In Snow White and the Huntsman, Princess Snow White (Kristen Stewart) suffers the death of her mother. Her father, the king, finds a second wife: the malevolent, beauty-seeking succubus Ravenna. After being detained for years in a tower by Ravenna’s brother, the princess escapes into the Dark Forest, followed by the eventual mentorship of the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth). While in the woods, the Huntsman teaches her a crucial defensive move to use in hand-to-hand combat. Snow White soon realizes that she must avenge her father’s death, and become Queen in order to save the land from Ravenna’s destruction. In Act Three, armored on horseback and leading an attack, we see that Snow White did indeed learn lessons in the forest, especially in her final climactic battle with Ravenna.

In Brave, Princess Merida (Kelly Macdonald), loves to ride, hike and scale sheer, tall cliffs by herself in tenth century Scotland. Her mother Elinor (Emma Thompson) wants her teenaged-daughter to wed, as is traditional. In the Highland Games, Merida bests all of her suitors as an archer; in effect, she wins her own hand in wedlock. When this feat does not end the competition for marriage, Merida revolts; she runs away into the nearby shadowy timberland. She comes across a witch in the woods, and acquires a spell from her to be used on her mother; all Merida knows is that the spell will change her mother somehow. When the Queen is transformed into a bear, Merida must undo this grave error, and spends the rest of the movie trying to do so.

Much as been written already about these three protagonists as “action” or “warrior” princesses. But these “princesses” share something much deeper than that: all three share a tie to the archetype of the goddess Artemis.

In Greek mythology, Artemis is known as the “nature girl” archetype; her name is Diana in the Roman pantheon. Artemis/Diana loves to roam the woods, mountains, or meadows—anywhere in the outdoors. The bear is one of her sacred symbols. She’s a killer archer as well; one of the most famous classical statues of this goddess shows her with her full quiver on her back. Artemis is a renowned huntress; she excels at it.

Katniss is introduced to us as an Artemisian presence early in The Hunger Games, when we see her hunting for food among trees before the tributes are even picked. For most of the film, the focus is on Katniss’ strengths as a fit survivalist, and she’s forced to face some technological woodland “trickery,” manipulated by the contest officials—thus making her woods “enchanted.” Snow White, in the Dark Forest sequences with the Huntsman and in the Act Three battle, becomes more Artemisian as the film progresses. Her mentor is a huntsman; she is training for the Hunt. Merida exhibits characteristics of Artemis from the start; her story also becomes about a mothering bear. The competition for Merida’s hand in the Highland Games is reminiscent of the story of Atalanta, thought by many scholars to be linked to the worship of Artemis. As an infant, Atalanta was raised as a bear in the woods. As an adult princess, Atalanta competed with any suitor in a race, and killed those who failed to best her. Since she was the fastest runner in the land, all the men who tried to marry her died—except for one.

Looking at this further from a mythic perspective, these film princesses are a move away from an “Aphrodite” love goddess archetype, previously valued in a royal maiden who is beautiful and winsome: a love trophy. These new protagonists embrace Artemis, the athletic huntress, instead.

The role of the princess in myth and fairy tales, traditionally, is related to her ability to heal and “reproduce” for the kingdom, either through marriage or action. Through their adventurous arcs, Katniss, Snow White, and Merida do “heal” their respective lands/regions. But they do so thanks to the time they spend in thewilderness, learning lessons to be found in the mysterious shadows there. They emerge from the “Dark Forest” victorious, as only Artemis can.

In mythology, we see stories about patterns of behavior that help us to understand what it means to be human. That all three of these hit films were released within a three-month period could be seen as an indication that Artemis, as an archetype, has emerged from the collective unconscious, poised for a fight with a sword or bow, held by a female hand. These films seem to signal a “call to action” for women to fight for identity issues, status, and rights. It is an interesting to note that at a time when we discuss the “War on Women” in the socio-political arena, iterations of Artemis are on the rise in films—and making money.

Laura Shamas, Ph.D., is a writer and mythologist, who works in theater, film, and pop culture analysis. Her new book, POP MYTHOLOGY: COLLECTED ESSAYS is available on Amazon.

Guest Writer Wednesday: The Feminism of Sailor Moon

Sailor Moon characters

Guest post written by Myrna Waldron. Cross-posted from Soapboxing Geek with permission.

This has been a post I’ve been meaning to write for a long time. I’m an absolutely die-hard fan of Sailor Moon, and part of that is because it served as my childhood introduction to feminism. That might be a little bit hard to believe, considering the superheroines of the show are known for outfits not much more revealing than Wonder Woman’s. Silly outfits aside (you get used to them), this show was absolutely groundbreaking. Its protagonists are 10 realistically flawed, individual and talented teenage girls (and women) who, oh, you know. Save the world.

First, let me take you back in time to the summer of 1995. I’m a 9-year-old Canadian girl with a lot of time on her hands. I’m bored out of my mind, because there’s very little on television that appeals to me. Sure, there were shows made for girls back then. But they were Care Bears and My Little Pony (and I sure as heck don’t mean the Lauren Faust version) and obviously meant for very young girls. Jem and She-Ra are long since off the air, and the Powerpuff Girls won’t premiere for another 3 years. Generally, my choices were gender-neutral shows like Alvin & The Chipmunks, or male-audience shows like the 90s revival of Spider-Man. I wanted a little action. And, bless the alignment of the stars, I see this commercial for this new show called Sailor Moon. The stars aligned so perfectly that I happened to tune in on August 28th, 1995, the day that Sailor Moon premiered on YTV. I was hooked after one episode, and I can honestly say that this show changed my life.

So why is Sailor Moon feminist, besides having a mostly female cast? I have decided to take a page from my previous feminist Disney Princess essay and go through the characters individually, and explain why I, as a feminist, value them. Although I initially got into Sailor Moon via the English version, I will be basing my analysis off of the Japanese version of the series. I have long since felt that the English version does a disservice to its fans by making the characters immature, censoring homosexuality, and stereotyping what it is to be a teenager. I will also plead artistic license on the spelling and order of the names. So, without further adieu, the Sailor Soldiers.

Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino:

Our heroine. Our very flawed heroine. And how refreshing that is! Instead of a very boring Superman who could do no wrong, here was a fairly young teenager thrown into an overwhelming situation, and reacting negatively to it. She’s clumsy, she’s a glutton, she’s a crybaby. And that’s okay! Teenagers are allowed to have flaws, and superheroes should too. Usagi has demonstrated time and time again that her love for her friends and family is more important to her than anything else in the world. She will give anything, including her life, to make sure that they live on in peace and happiness. As we see in flashbacks during the R movie, she’s the type of person who is willing to be friends with everyone, including the loners and the outcasts. She’s got a tremendously strong moral compass, and is a consummate optimist. Her relationship with Mamoru is firmly established as one of unconditional trust, support, and equality. Overall, Usagi’s character establishes that a good leader does not have to be someone unrealistically perfect. A good leader just needs to care for everyone equally.

Sailor Mercury/Ami Mizuno:

Ami is by far the most popular character in the show (on both sides of the Pacific). It has been theorized that this is because she exhibits the character traits most valued in Japanese society. She’s incredibly studious, brilliant, analytical, and humble (some might even say submissive). What I appreciated most about Ami is how she approaches situations with logic rather than with emotion. Her style of fighting is mostly defensive, so she acts in a support role on the team. She is by no means not valued by the others, as they often turn to her to give the answers that intuition alone cannot determine. In her civilian life, we see that she is very shy, and is sometimes uptight. She also exhibits a tendency to be insecure, and has taken it very hard that her devotion to her studies has ostracized her from her peers. Ami’s character establishes that even the most mature teenager doubts themselves sometimes, and that it’s okay to do so. It’s very feminist to say that we’re allowed to see doubts in ourselves, and that it’s okay to play a supporting role rather than to be a leader.

Sailor Mars/Rei Hino:

Rei’s character is probably the most unfairly treated by the fans, and especially by the dub. Yes, she and Usagi argue all the time. Friends sometimes do that. One aspect of Rei’s character that gets lost in translation is just how close she is to Usagi. The inners usually refer to each other with the “-chan” suffix, which usually denotes a female friend. Rei, however, just calls Usagi “Usagi.” To leave off a suffix indicates incredible closeness, like the relationship between best friends. Now, as for Rei herself, she has some traits that feminists definitely value. She’s very ambitious – she has some interest in men, but would rather focus on achieving her career dreams first. She’s also quite generous – she offers up space in Hikawa Shrine for her friends to study in, and joins them, even though she doesn’t need to take a high school entrance exam. She does this entirely out of solidarity. She also regularly uses her gift of premonition to help her friends, not herself. Rei is someone who knows exactly what she wants out of life – her confidence contrasts nicely with Ami’s character. Here is a character who encourages women to dream, and dream big.

Sailor Jupiter/Makoto Kino:

Makoto is one of the more interesting characters when cast into a feminist light. What Makoto is good at, and the things she loves doing most, are traditionally domestic hobbies like cooking, baking, and cleaning. Being domestic is not the least bit anti-feminist, as women should be able to be whatever makes them happiest. One subtle aspect of her character is her body insecurity, which is a common issue for women that gets comparatively little media attention. As a very tall, athletic and curvy girl, Makoto often feels self-conscious about her body – especially since she is stereotyped by others as a tomboy. She breaks the stereotype of what certain “types” of women are “supposed” to be interested in. She is much more boy-crazy than the others, but I see this more as a manifestation of loneliness. She is an orphan, and while incredibly independent, she has no one besides her friends to confide in. Makoto is one of my favourite characters because she does not allow herself to be confined to anyone’s idea of what a young woman should be. Her protective instincts and fierce independence are incredibly admirable.

Sailor Venus/Minako Aino:

Minako combines a few of the traits of the others (leadership and bad habits from Usagi, ambition from Rei, athleticism from Makoto) but still manages to stand completely on her own. As the personification of the Goddess of Love, Minako’s made it her life’s mission to bring love and joy to others. Her career ambitions are even more defined than Rei’s, as she is shown actively pursuing becoming an idol singer. She was also chronologically the first Soldier to awaken, and this was an inspiration of strength, independence and courage for Usagi. Her backstory, which revealed that she chose to fake her own death rather than come between her two best friends’ romance, despite being in love with one of them, shows tremendous self-sacrifice. Although I would hope no one would have to make the choice Minako did, it’s an important message that sometimes our dreams don’t work out, but that people go through tremendous maturity and growth when they learn to let them go and seek out new dreams. Venus’s self-confidence and determination towards her dream career is another good message – learn what you’re good at, love what you’re good at, and don’t let anyone try to bring you down.

Sailor Chibi-Moon/Chibiusa Tsukino:

Long story short, she’s Usagi’s future daughter, and she’s like her in every way. Starting with the S season onwards though, she starts to come into her own as a distinct character. Usagi has a natural ability to befriend people, but Chibiusa is lonely and, having grown up in isolation as the crown princess, doesn’t really know how to approach people. She also starts out spoiled, but it is excused in that she is physically about 5 years old at her introduction. Where Usagi is ditzy and flighty, Chibiusa is often surprisingly wise beyond her years and is an excellent student – traits, I believe, she inherited from her father. One feminist aspect of her character is her devotion and admiration for her mother. By this, I mean Neo Queen Serenity, not Usagi. Chibiusa values NQS’s grace, maturity and strength. Her greatest dream is to become a mature young woman like her mother eventually became. Chibiusa herself eventually ages to about preteen/early teen age and is much more emotionally mature than how she was at the beginning of the series. This shows the series’ willingness to allow its characters to grow and change, like a real woman would.

Sailor Pluto/Setsuna Meioh:

The Outer Senshi as a whole are noted for being a little bit older (with one…interesting exception) and a little bit wiser than the Inner Senshi. No one personifies the gifts of age and wisdom better than Setsuna. She is the Guardian of Time, and is thus more-or-less immortal because of her duties. However, her duties, as important as they are, are also a curse. She must remain aloof and separate from the others, except in times of crisis. We see glimpses of the loneliness (loneliness is kind of a theme in this series) this causes, but she is incredibly stoic and refuses to let this on to others. She is not truly aloof, as we see in her relationship with Chibiusa. She is incredibly kind and supportive to her, and many have recognized this as a kind of bittersweet maternal instinct. When she adopts a civilian life, she is established as a brilliant scientist, with skills in both biology and physics. This is an important feminist message, as it reaffirms that women have equally valuable skills to offer in the maths & sciences.

Sailor Uranus/Haruka Tenoh:

I’m going to digress a little before I get into analyzing Haruka’s character. Uranus and Neptune were my first introduction to homosexual relationships. Although they were never shown kissing, it was obvious to me that they were in a romantic relationship. And, because I benefited from a largely agnostic upbringing, my only thought as a kid was, “Well, that’s unusual, but so what?” I credit these two characters for showing me that a lesbian relationship is just as loving and just as valid as any other one. It is a feminist belief that people should be allowed to embrace and affirm their sexual identities. Now, as for Haruka herself, she’s one of my absolute favourite fictional characters. She’s even more tomboyish than Makoto (she often physically presents herself as male, though since she identifies as female she is not transgendered) and is an incredibly talented athlete and race car driver. She also possesses a genius intellect. Despite her tough exterior, she shows a “softness” streak in her personality. In the S season, she is much more uncomfortable with the harsh choices she and Neptune must make in order to prevent the world’s destruction. In the episode when Usagi’s heart crystal is stolen, Haruka is shown slamming down in frustration and grief at the thought of having to sacrifice Usagi’s life should her heart crystal be one that forms a world-saving talisman. Haruka is wracked with guilt and sees her hands as being dirty, and must be reminded by Michiru that although the sacrifice of three innocent people is horrible, the destruction of the world is much worse. She is thus an example of someone who defies the stereotype of the tough, masculine woman by demonstrating empathy and vulnerability. In addition to this, many of the younger fans have had difficulty understanding Haruka’s appearance and sexuality (such as thinking that she’s a hermaphrodite or carries the soul of her nonexistent twin brother or something), so she’s an important example of how gender expression and sexuality can and will differ from the “norm.”

Sailor Neptune/Michiru Kaioh:

The polar opposite of Usagi. And that’s great, because one of this show’s greatest strengths is to show how diverse young women can be. Michiru is a gifted artist, both as a violinist and as a painter. She is about 15-16 when she is introduced, but has already made a career as a world-class performer and artist. Haruka often plays piano as her duet partner. She is also quite athletic, but prefers swimming (since it is her element) to running. She complements Haruka’s outward masculinity by presenting herself with a traditionally feminine appearance. Similarly, while Haruka is the “softer” of the two when it comes to performing their duties, Michiru defies the ultra-feminine stereotype by having a much colder and more determined outlook. She and Haruka are absolutely inseparable; two sides of the same coin. She serves as another important feminist example that “traditional” gender performance and sexuality have nothing to do with each other. She defies yet another stereotype of women, especially lesbian women.

Sailor Saturn/Hotaru Tomoe:

My personal favourite. Another character who experiences incredible loneliness, her character arc explores her new friendship with the equally lonely Chibiusa while she struggles with poor health and a mostly absent (and as we learn later, possessed) father. Her friendship with Chibiusa is absolutely adorable. It is an almost ideal best friend situation – no rivalry, no clashing of personalities. They just genuinely enjoy spending time with each other. Chibiusa, now having learned how to be a good friend, worries about Hotaru and does everything in her power to help her. In the S season, Hotaru has the incredible burden of carrying three separate identities – the good (herself), the evil (Mistress 9) and the neutral (Sailor Saturn). Uranus, Neptune and Pluto’s mission is to prevent the awakening of Sailor Saturn, who has the power of life and death and is prophesied to destroy the world. At the end of the season, Hotaru overcomes Mistress 9’s possession by drawing power from her love for others, namely her father and Chibiusa. This love also allows her to turn the prophecy on its head; she uses her destructive powers to destroy evil from its inside, knowing that she will not survive the effort. But, since she also has the power of life, she is instantly reincarnated as a baby, and rescued by a despondent Sailor Moon. She is similar to Usagi in this sense since she is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for others. Her storyline is resumed two seasons later in the Stars season, and has some very interesting feminist subtexts. Sailor Pluto, recognizing that Saturn’s power will soon be needed once more, adopts Hotaru from her amnesiac father. Due to the pressing need for Saturn’s power, Hotaru grows physically and intellectually at a staggering rate. Setsuna, Michiru and Haruka raise her together, and Hotaru sees each one equally as her parent, calling them Setsuna-mama, Michiru-mama, and Haruka-papa. Similarly to how positively Haruka and Michiru’s relationship is depicted, alternative families are thus depicted positively in this series as well.

I hope you have enjoyed my feminist analysis of the main Sailor Moon cast. This will not be my only examination of the series, as there is so much more I want to say and not enough room in one Tumblr post to say it. The main point I want to get across is just how incredible and important this series is for women of any age. It depicts female characters of incredible strength, ability, kindness and diversity. It shows us just how badly we need more shows like Sailor Moon in the world, and how very little attention is given to superheroines. (Still waiting on that Wonder Woman movie, Warner Bros.) 20 years later, Sailor Moon is still groundbreaking, still influential, still feminist. And in the name of the Moon…that’s pretty awesome.

Original source for the character images borrowed from Manga Style!.

Myrna Waldron is a 25-year-old pop culture fanatic with a special passion for animation. She can be reached on Twitter at @SoapboxingGeek, where she muses openly about whatever strikes her fancy.