Tag: Guest Writers

‘The Host’: Less Anti-Feminist Than ‘Twilight’, but Hardly a Sisterhood Manifesta

The Host posters

This guest post by Dr. Natalie Wilson is cross-posted with permission from Ms. Magazine.

I readily admit I did not read The Host. I couldn’t face it after immersing myself in all things Twilight while researching my book Seduced by Twilight. I started it, but less than 20 pages in I couldn’t stomach any more of Stephenie Meyer’s purple, flaccid prose. No, I agree with Nicki Gerlach—that “Meyer is not a particularly concise or elegant writer, never saying in one sentence what she could hammer at for three.”
As such, I went into the film of The Host with low expectations, presuming I would hate it and be bored to tears. I was prepared for a sappy ode to sparkly true love and immortal families. And while the narrative does indeed ultimately celebrate these things, it does so in a way far more engaging than its Twilight predecessor. This is largely due to a stronger lead—a fierce young Melanie Stryder (Saoirse Ronan), who resists the occupation by the alien known as Wanderer (later called Wanda). Early in the movie, after Wanderer is implanted into her neck, she informs her alien occupier through interior dialogue, “I’m still here. Don’t think this is yours. This body is mine.”
Max Irons as Jared and Saoirse Ronan as Melanie in The Host

While I would have been thrilled had this refusal of bodily occupation turned into a sci-fi version of “my body, my choice,” I am familiar enough with Meyer to know this would not be the case, despite her recent claims to being an uber-feminist. Yet while Melanie may not be more bell hooks than Bella Swan, she at least is not the passive sap that led us through thousands of pages and four films of not doing much more than ogling Edward the vampire in Twilight. No, Melanie jumps out of windows, steals cars, survives a trek through the dessert and fends off various humans and alien foes. Alas, she is, like Bella, anchored to the world of patriarchal heteronormativity and gender conformity via her positioning as nurturing sister to her younger brother Jamie, and love interest to first Jarad (Max Irons), then Ian (Jake Abel).
But I was pleasantly surprised when the film didn’t make me grimace through painful odes to abstinence or groan at a genuflection to the mighty power of patriarchs. Instead, I quite liked Melanie, a female character who could not only walk without tripping, seemed to have a mind of her own, chutzpah and, gasp, didn’t deny her sexual urges.
Meyer claimed she intended to “portray a positive relationship between the two women at the center of the story,” and, indeed, she does. Melanie fights Wanderer’s occupation of her body, but they ultimately become close allies, referring to each other as “sister” by film’s end. Is this the sisterhood manifesto Meyer’s recent “I am a feminist” claims suggest she supports? If so, it seems her brand of feminism involves women uniting in their love for men. Que feministe!
Saoirse Ronan in The Host

Admittedly, Melanie and Wanda also love one another by the end of the film, but they are still ultimately defined by their male love interests. (Ah, if only THEY could have become lovers, a la the fanfiction that has Bella  and Alice as the Twilight couple rather than Bella and Edward.)
Granted,  Melanie is far more of a Hermione type than a Bella one.  She is cognizant that the opening claim of the film that  “The Earth is at peace. There is no hunger. There is no violence. The environment is healed. Our world has never been more perfect” is false. When we first see her, she is fighting off the alien invaders of her planet and then willfully jumping from a window, choosing potential death over an alien-occupation of her body. (If only Bella had resisted wolf/vampire takeover with anything like such resistance!) But, alas, Melanie’s identity is also mired in a love triangle—well, more of a quadrangle, actually, wherein her reason to live is fueled not only by her filial love for her little brother but also romantic love for Jared/Ian.  This “unusually crowded romantic triangle—with four aching hearts but only three bodies to play for” (as CNN put it) results in a narrative that is less feminist utopia, more sci-fi romance.
While Melanie gets a feminist gold star for refusing to play the controlled virgin (in fact, she takes the sexual lead, insisting she and Jared should have sex given the apocalyptic alien invasion of the world), things become less copacetic when Wanda and Ian fall for each other—a narrative thread that makes the fight for body/self less between she and Wanderer and more of a question whether she “belongs” to Jared or Ian. While there are certainly queer possibilities in this love triangle of three bodies and four lovers, this is Meyer-world, so of course no such queery-ing happens. Instead, an alien who could have been genderless is decidedly feminized, and an inter-species romance that could have been queer/polyamorous is decidedly hetero-ized.
Movie still from The Host

In the scenes where the Wanda-occupied Melanie desires to kiss Ian, the internal dialogue delivered by Melanie has creepy undertones that smack of valuing only certain kinds of love. When Melanie tells Wanda “this is so wrong … you’re not even from the same planet…” she could just as readily be arguing against same-sex love and/or any romantic formations that do not accord with heterosexual monogamy.
Nevertheless, when Wanda informs Ian that even though “this body loves him” (meaning Melanie’s body) but “I also have feeling of my own,” there is the slightest suggestion that maybe, just maybe, hetero-monogomy is not the only option. Wanda, noting “this is very complicated,” can be read here as arguing for the possibility of polyamory/queer romance, while Melanie’s later insistence she and Wanda can both live in the one body similarly questions the notion of singular, fixed identity.
Regrettably, the ending of the film (spoiler alert!) fails to champion any such queer/feminist notions. No, instead of occupying the same body and loving both Jared and Ian, Wanda is implanted into another human body—a female one, of course—and one that is also white and traditionally attractive. You didn’t think this alien-human love could transcend gender or white privilege, did you? Of course not. This is Meyer-world, after all.
Chandler Canterbury as Jamie in The Host

Though The Host is more feminist-friendly than Twilight in ways, it is no feminist ode. Along the way to its happy-ever-after for the two central couples (Melanie and Jared and Wanda and Ian), it also takes some worrying forays into the violence-is-sexy meme and has undercurrents of pro-life messaging. In one scene, Wanda says “kiss me like you wanna get slapped,” and in others her discovery that the human holdouts are killing aliens can be read as a pro-life message wrapped in an alien invasion package— especially if we consider that some of the first words said of Melanie in the film are “this one wants to live.” Later, Wanda’s character continues this anti-abortion meme, telling the humans, after discovering embryo-sized aliens surrounded by blood on an operating table, “I can’t stay here, not with you slaughtering my family in the next room.”
Alas, while some laud “the significance of one of the most popular authors in the world standing up to say she’s a feminist,” I concur with Jezebel’s Madeleine Davis, who queries Meyer as follows: “If the world’s a better place when women are in charge, why not give them a little bit of agency between the covers of your books?” Admittedly, The Host gives female characters more agency than Twilight, but it is still mired (Meyer-ed?) in traditional romance, normative gender roles, hetero-monogamy as the happy ending and pro-life sentiment. It is more feminist-friendly than Twilight, but is that really a win for feminism when we have to argue the merit of stories that are not as rabidly anti-feminist as that four-book ode to patriarchal romance?

Natalie Wilson, PhD is a literature and women’s studies scholar, blogger, and author. She teaches at Cal State San Marcos and specializes in areas of gender studies, feminism, feminist theory, girl studies, militarism, body studies, boy culture and masculinity, contemporary literature, and popular culture. She is author of the blogs Professor, what if …? and Seduced by Twilight. She is a proud feminist mom of two feminist kids (one daughter, one son) and is an admitted pop-culture junkie. Her favorite food is chocolate.

The Male/Female Gaze on BBC America’s First Season of ‘Orphan Black’

Orphan Black poster

This is a guest post by Ms Misantropia.

Last Saturday was the season finale of BBC America’s Orphan Black, a fast paced Canadian sci-fi series about human cloning. The show’s main protagonist, Sarah Manning (Tatiana Maslany), is a street-wise orphan just returning to Toronto after having spent a year abroad. She barely lands in the city before a woman who looks exactly like her commits suicide by train, right in front of her. In the following commotion — out of curiosity and hoping to score some cash — Sarah grabs the woman’s purse and walks away.
She does find some money in the woman’s purse, but also a cell phone and keys to a nice flat. Having no place to live hiding from an abusive ex-boyfriend, Sarah hatches a crazy plan: she will temporarily switch lives with this woman — Beth Childs — and let the world believe that Sarah Manning is dead. Then she will pick up her young daughter, who is currently living with Sarah’s own foster mother, and she will clean out Beth’s bank account and skip town. To set the plan in motion Sarah enlists the help of her foster brother and best friend, Felix (Jordan Gavaris). However, things start to get complicated quickly when Sarah realizes that Beth was a police detective (with a nosy detective partner), that she lives with a man — Paul (Dylan Bruce) — and that there are even more women out there who look exactly like her. To make matters worse, there also seems to be someone out there trying to kill them all.

Sarah kicking ass
Orphan Black is what television could have evolved into after the 1990s, had not the Internet — with its masses of misogynistic and pornographic material — caused such a backlash during the beginning of the new millennium. The show does not have an overtly feminist agenda; it doesn’t present us with in-depth looks at inequality or the hardships of women, or serve up feminist slaps on the wrist. What it does is tell a story using a modern and more equal filming/viewing alternative, in female (and male) characterization and in camera focus/gaze. The formula is brilliantly simple: Whatever the story, simply avoid the habitual sexism and misogyny that the audience has, sadly, become so used to.
There are many TV shows at the moment that are loaded with gratuitous female nudity. Game of Thrones might be the most widely discussed example, but even shows like critically acclaimed Homeland and the amazing The Americans employ the trick to gain or boost ratings. At a premiere or during sweeps week it becomes glaringly obvious that producers think they can’t promote or continue a show without throwing in random “boob-shots” here and there (and unfortunately they might be right). Sure, we sometimes get a token man-ass-shot during a sex scene, but in actual screen time most sex scenes are almost completely shot at an angle zooming in on the woman’s breasts, naked arched back or orgasmic face.
While naked women in media are almost always beautiful, young and skinny — and constantly sexualized — male nudity is shown in other ways: a man preparing for battle, a man stumbling to the fridge for a snack, a man running down the street in a drunken stupor. Naked men are most often more “normal” looking and are allowed to be old, obese or even ugly. A naked over-weight silly man is funny, even relatable, while a naked over-weight silly woman is either completely invisible, shamefully pitied or horribly degraded — if not in the media itself, then on the Internet afterward. It always comes down to the same thing: a naked man is still a human being, a naked woman (and often also a fully clothed one) is an object.

Paul with his morning coffee
Orphan Black contains quite a few shots of naked bodies, but no obvious gratuitous “boob-shots,” and where there is female sexualized nudity there is also male sexualized nudity. As an example, in the first episode when we see Sarah jumping Paul’s bones in the kitchen (to avoid conversation that would tip him off that she is not Beth) we get to see actor Tatiana Maslany’s naked body for a moment, but it is followed up in the next scene by shots of only Paul’s naked body. The camera lingers on Paul, as Sarah’s gaze lingers on his body. This allows the audience the female gaze — for a change.
Orphan Black hosts an entourage of diverse female characters. Considering that Tatiana Maslany has to introduce several different clone personalities over just a few episodes, the audience can forgive what only briefly feels like parodied acting. As the show develops, 28-year-old Maslany’s skills as a versatile actor become more evident. Though the fast pace of the show doesn’t leave much time for developing very complex characters, the diversity among them makes up for that. Orphan Black has female characters who are strong, weak, smart, caring, neurotic, sexy, tough and downright crazy.

Helena, one of the clones

 With a more diverse and equal viewing experience also comes portraying other characters and relationships than just white straight people. Orphan Black has one main character — Art, Beth’s detective partner — and three other characters who are black, and it has two regular Latina/o characters. The show has not yet made it onto GLAAD’s LBGT characters list but I suspect it is only a matter of time, since two of the main characters are gay — Felix and Cosima — and they are both getting a lot of screen time in every episode.

Felix is, as mentioned earlier, Sarah’s foster brother and best friend. He is an artist and a male prostitute. He can be silly and flamboyant at times, but he is also caring and funny. He’s an excellent sidekick in complex social situations, he always has Sarah’s back, and he gets to serve as the voice of reason more than once. Despite him having to resort to prostitution to make ends meet, he seems to be secure in himself and his sexuality. Cosima is one of the clones, a scientist who is trying to map them all out, and find out the wheres and the whys of their existence. She is smart and sweet, but her scientific curiosity at times gets the better of her and puts her in danger. The show gets extra points for portraying Cosima’s courtship with a fellow scientist without objectifying the two women for the straight male gaze — something most shows nowadays fail miserably at.
Felix and his lover bidding adieu

Orphan Black has been picked up for a second season and is slated to premiere sometime during the first half of 2014.
Ms Misantropia blogs here.

"We Almost Love Each Other": ‘The Mindy Project’s Rom-Com Conclusion

This is a guest post from Leah Prinzivalli.
Spoiler Alert!
Season one of The Mindy Project concludes with predictable romantic comedy twists between Mindy (Mindy Kaling) and her boyfriend Casey (Anders Holm). The Will they? Won’t they? plotline nods to tradition, allowing the comedy to break convention thematically. 
Mindy decides to volunteer in Haiti with Casey, then quickly backs out, setting up the viewer to believe high-maintenance Mindy could not handle third-world living conditions. Her male colleague Danny mocks her, “You called 911 when a butterfly got into your house?” and “You couldn’t last without your Jimmy Choos.” Mindy later goes camping with Casey, Danny (the token “straight guy”), and Morgan (a male nurse). When Danny notices Morgan has caught on fire, Mindy immediately smothers it with her blanket. Danny fails to act and afterward makes an excuse. The incident bolsters Mindy’s confidence in her ability to live in Haiti – leading us to the real reason why she may not end up going, her desire for independence. 
Mindy Kaling stars in The Mindy Project
Despite their constantly changing relationship status, Mindy and Casey’s dynamic is refreshing. When they decide to spend a year together in Haiti, they do so acknowledging, “We almost love each other.” This level-headedness is refreshing both for Mindy as a character and for the traditional romantic comedy plot. At least in this moment, the couple accepts their relationship at face value. 
Not one to stay lucid for long, Mindy tricks Casey both into believing she wants to get married and thinking she’s pregnant in this episode. Danny, again playing the cliché, reminds Mindy that men often fear commitment. Forgetting that Casey is atypical among her boyfriends, Mindy tries to use convention to her advantage in order to escape Haiti and her own fears about committing. When Casey actually does propose, she can’t understand why. Mindy tries to talk him out of it, “I work too much, I’m kinda selfish, I’ve never voted.” He responds, “Who are these guys that make you think that way?” As has become a pattern this season, the importance has been on the men in Mindy’s life to define her view of herself. 
Mindy’s bold take on the romantic gesture
Mindy’s new short haircut is, for better or worse, the most memorable piece of this episode. Danny’s ex-wife/current girlfriend Christina (Chloe Sevigny) remarks, “Whenever I’m in the field I keep my hair short. It’s better for the field and people don’t sexualize you.” A pre-breakup-and-makeup Mindy responds, “Who doesn’t want to be sexualized?” Mindy puts her sexuality and desire to be wanted above the volunteer purpose of the trip, which feels right for the character. This exchange led Mindy to cut her hair short later in the episode, “desexualizing” herself in order to commit to Casey. “Who will have me now?” she asks, implying that only Casey will find her desirable. It is this play on the romantic comedy “bold gesture” that wins Casey back, a comedic device but also a troubling one. When Mindy pulls back her hood to reveal her new hair, one eavesdropping neighbor cries out, “It was a boy the whole time.” Many jokes about the parallel between long hair and womanhood ensue, although the fact remains Mindy still changed her appearance because her boyfriend asked. 
One of the most likable aspects of The Mindy Project is that her career has never been an issue. The character seems most confident in surgery or when dealing with patients and can switch gears instantly from a relationship minidrama to delivering a baby (notably, she works as an OBGYN). For all the focus this episode on Mindy’s relationship struggles, we are reminded of her professional success in a satisfying shot for shot parallel to the first episode. She wipes off her lipstick before surgery to M.I.A’s “Bad Girls.” In the pilot, the “Bad Girls” surgery scene followed Mindy’s arrest for public drunkenness after her ex-boyfriend’s wedding. Last week, we saw Mindy choose Casey over that ex. The patient from the pilot did not have insurance; here she is working as a team with the other doctors to deliver triplets. By the finale, our lead has grown — by a reassuring yet believable amount.
Leah Prinzivalli is a NYC-based writer. For an alarming amount of her thoughts about television, follow her on Twitter @leahprinz.

Up the Stairs, Out the Front Door: ‘Nyctophobia’

Nyctophobia, a film by Emily Bennett
This is a guest post by Emily Bennett.
If you asked me a year ago if I liked scary movies, I would have responded with the immortal words of Sydney Prescott in Scream: “What’s the point? They’re all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can’t act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door. It’s insulting.”
When Scream first came out, I remember being completely obsessed with the film. I watched it at a friend’s slumber party and never told my parents. I secretly made a collage of Skeet Ulrich and hid it in my closet for months. And I remember, every time we’d have a slumber party, someone would bring out some horror movie that we weren’t allowed to watch. Halloween, Arachnophobia, and the dreaded It were favorites. 
Drew Barrymore stars in Scream
I remember my friends and I stuffing pillows into our pajama tops, pretending we were big-breasted girls running away from the killer. None of us thought we could play the killer, so we would run around the house, with huge pillow breasts, screaming in terror. We thought this was what horror films were about. And we thought they were really, really scary.
Once I hit high school, I stopped having slumber parties and started going to acting classes. A LOT of acting classes. I was so devoted to learning my craft that I became an acting snob. And I mean a complete snob. I refused to watch anything without Marlon Brando, James Dean, or Vivien Leigh. My horror film days were over. They were garbage compared to what I was watching and studying, as far as I was concerned.
Fast forward to a few months ago. Devon Mikolas cast me in his horror feature House of the Witchdoctor. I was fortunate enough to act alongside the brilliant Bill Moseley, Leslie Easterbrook, and Dyanne Thorne. I was thrilled! A paying film gig! Then I started to do my research…
I watched nothing but horror films for weeks on end. And I was fascinated, because I was finally seeing them with adult eyes. Don’t get me wrong, The Omen and Rosemary’s Baby held up completely. But other films that had scared the crap out of me suddenly offended me. Some of them were pure obscenity, in fact. There seemed to be no purpose to the female characters’ suffering, and because of that, it wasn’t scary to me anymore. 
After filming House of the Witchdoctor, I returned home and started to write. That childhood love of scary movies came back to me. I decided I wanted to write, produce, and star in my first horror film. It took me no time to decide on the subject of the film. I chose what I felt is the most quintessential fear we all had as children: Nyctophobia, or fear of the dark. 
I wanted to write a seemingly weak male character (Dennis), and a seemingly overpowering female character (Martha) to explore gender stereotypes that exist in horror films. And I wanted to place the male in the fearful role. Writing another “big-breasted bimbo” horror flick didn’t interest me. Instead, I wanted to explore fear in a different way. Hopefully, the end result of the film is that audiences can enjoy it without feeling that they’ve already seen it before. 
Using the crowd sourcing site Seed&Spark was the best decision I could have made for my first film. Instead of being lost in the Kickstarter crowd, I was featured on the site, giving me a HUGE advantage. In the wake of the “Zach Braff Kickstarter debate,” I’m so encouraged that an unknown producer, such as myself, could raise enough money to make a film. I believe crowd sourcing may change the landscape of film for the better, and I’m grateful to be a part of that movement. (This is not a statement for or against Zach Braff’s film.)
Honestly, I don’t have an overarching message to women filmmakers, other than JUST KEEP MAKING FILMS. In the end, I don’t care if a man or a woman made a film, as long as it’s thought provoking and not formulaic. I don’t want to keep seeing the same old horror films with “some big-breasted girl who can’t act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door.” When I watch a horror film, I want to be terrified. And the old formula is just not terrifying anymore. We’ve all seen the same big boobs running away from their death. I’d like to see something else now. So I’m going to write my own films and see what happens.
Emily Bennett was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. She attended The South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, then moved to London to attend The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (3 year BA program). After graduation, Emily acted extensively in New York City and Chicago. Most recently, she starred in Devon Mikolas’ House of the Witchdoctor with the wonderful Bill Moseley and Leslie Easterbrook, premiering at Crypticon Kansas City later this year. Nyctophobia is the first of several films Emily hopes to complete in the next year. Her upcoming horror short Delete will hit the web in June. Once Nyctophobia is completed, she will begin production on her next film Chat Room, starring the devastatingly brilliant Callie Stephens. Ultimately, Emily hopes to combine these films into an anthology to showcase both her vision and the brilliant talent of her cast and crew members. 

Travel Films Week: The Roundup

If men didn’t rape, Louise wouldn’t have shot the rapist. If the system didn’t blame rape victims, they wouldn’t have gone on the run. If men didn’t rape, they could have driven through Texas. If the system didn’t blame rape victims, Louise wouldn’t have been so afraid. If women weren’t taught they deserve to be treated like shit, they wouldn’t have had to become fugitives in order to feel free. If there was a place for liberated, powerful women who live on their own terms in this world, they wouldn’t have had to create their own. If there was a place for liberated, powerful women who live on their own terms in this world, they wouldn’t have had to plummet into the Grand Canyon in order to feel free. 
I hate that the message — “What you thought you wanted is something you really had all along!” – is applied differently to Dorothy than it is to her friends. The Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion are told that they always had a brain, a heart, and courage, and the Wizard giving them their “gifts” is affirmation of their strengths. Dorothy, on the other hand, gets a lecture from Glinda and has to realize that “if I ever look for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard.” Her friends get to realize that they were always smart, emotional, and brave, while she has to learn a lesson about being grateful for what she already has.

From the moment our Sex and the City stars have decided to take this trip together, however, Abu Dhabi is viewed through a lens of Orientalism, demonstrating a Western patronization of the Middle East. Starting on the first day in the city, Abu Dhabi is framed derisively as the polar opposite of sexy and modern New York City. It’s also stereotypically portrayed as the world of Disney’s Jasmine and Aladdin, magic carpets, camels, and desert dunes—”but with cocktails,” Carrie adds. This borderline racist trope plays out vividly through the women’s vacation attire of patterned head wraps, flowing skirts, and breezy cropped pants. Take for example their over-the-top fashion statement as they explore the desert on camelback, only after they have dramatically walked across the sand directly toward the camera of course.
The movie makes interesting commentaries on gender. When Liz eats dinner with Felipe, he tells her how he stayed at home with his kids while his wife worked. Liz calls him “a good feminist husband.” In Italy, there’s a great scene where Liz and her friends celebrate an American Thanksgiving dinner to say goodbye. Her Italian tutor’s mother asks if she’s married. When she replies no, the mother declares that she doesn’t understand why a woman would go off and travel by herself. Her friend Sophie comes to her defense saying that no one would say that to her if she were a man and calls her brave for traveling alone. Another woman at the dinner comments on the difficulty of women’s choices.
I don’t think that Spring Breakers, despite its perpetually-bikini-clad bodies, is an addition to the list of ways these young female bodies have been exploited. Instead, Spring Breakers turns that sexualizing gaze back onto the audience members who may have been enticed to see the film based on the promise of nubile bodies. The opening scene — a montage of spring breakers partying hard set to dubstep — is full of drunk white kids, many of the girls flashing their breasts in true Girls Gone Wild fashion. On a small scale, this may have been titillating, but Korine returns to the theme of careless youth partying with a regularity and focus that not only de-sensitizes the flash of nudity, but eventually makes us grimace. This is a generation partaking in activities they’ll regret because they are bored and aimless. The nudity and partying have no meaning, no purpose, because life for these co-eds has no meaning, no purpose. Korine notes that the film “is more music-based than cinema-based. Music now is mostly loop and sample-based … ” — not even the music of this generation is original. We rely on copies of copies for entertainment. Nothing is real. And when nothing is real, nothing matters.
So what makes a man’s coming-of-age story a “feminist” travel film? The fact equal-opportunity is still so rare these days? No, (though on a side note: sadness and anger!). It’s because as Mercer’s trip progresses, the catalysts are fully-realized women who exist for more than just his gratification. His trip is prompted by his mother’s death. All his stops along the way involve women who reveal something about themselves and/or Mercer. Finally, Kate, from whom Mercer stole the car, tracks him down and finishes the road trip with him. In a moment near the end, Mercer asks Kate, “Want to go to Louisiana with me?” and she raises her eyebrows and notes, “It’s my car,” as if to sum up that though Mercer has been making his own way, it’s women who are enabling and teaching him. It’s women he has learned to be like or not-like, from his mom to his first crush to this girl he just met over the phone.
What all these movies have in common is that they take women who are having personal, relatable conflicts and show that a good adventure and a strange city can revive one’s outlook on life.

While it might not be difficult to find a good female action movie, or even a solidly entertaining “girl time flick,” these movies are unique in their pensive and thoughtful approach to the difficulties women face in life. They show that a little adventure and new surroundings can create a whole new perspective.

They’re certainly worth the watch.

The themes of socially defined and limiting masculinity throughout Easy Rider go hand in hand with the theme of an elusive America. In fact, the idea that this idyllic America can be found is as entrenched in our mythology as the idea that gender performance is set and rigid. Both are myths that are central to our being as a society, and both are myths that are incredibly destructive.

To her credit—and displaying the role she plays in the protection of her daughter—Sheryl looks at Olive and says, “I just want you to understand that it’s okay to be skinny and it’s okay to be fat, if that’s what you wanna be. Whatever you want, it’s okay.” While Olive is processing this, Richard asks Olive to consider whether beauty queens are “skinny or fat,” to which she quietly replies “They’re skinny, I guess.” And Sheryl shoots Richard a death-ray stare as the waitress comes over and serves Olive her “a la mode-ee” side dish.

The director’s feminist aesthetics are apparent in the framing of these early flashbacks. As Mona emerges from the sea, the viewer sees that she is being watched by two young men. Varda’s shot of the naked Mona is succeeded by a shot of postcards of naked women for sale in a bar frequented by the same young men. Disturbingly, they talk of missed opportunities. Varda depicts the sexual objectification and exploitation of Mona in a quite unobtrusive, subtle fashion. Many of the male characters reveal their misogyny themselves in interviews. A garage owner who exploits Mona has the audacity to say female drifters are “always after men.”

Focusing on the existential angst of two white Americans in Japan without any well-defined Japanese characters is enough to turn off many race-conscious viewers to begin with, and Lost in Translation doubles down with some cringeworthy Japanese stereotypes. The film gets alarming mileage out of its Japanese characters pronouncing l’s and r’s similarly, which feels even more dated than the also strangely boundless fax-machine humor in this 2003 film. Charlotte at one point asks Bob why “they mix up l’s and r’s” and he suggests it is “for yuks,” but it isn’t actually funny.

In this essay, we ask how the genre of comedic travel-movies encodes gender-topics and how these are linked to the metaphor of a journey. Thereto we loosely compare the eponymic female protagonists of Woody Allen’s comedy Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) and the dandy-male protagonists of the comedy The Darjeeling Limited (2007) directed by Wes Anderson. Both movies follow socially close connected White, heterosexual US-Americans, who go on a trip to another continent, where they are afflicted by emotional disputes. We also ask how the particular female or male main ensemble is constructed in dialogue to the projected otherness of the countries they are visiting.
Yes. It is always a joyful occasion to see African American romances onscreen (it’s incredibly rare to feature an all African American cast in this genre–unless it’s Tyler Perry related grrrrr!) and not have courtships be the overplayed “thin line between love and hate” stereotype, but Stella’s relationship with Winston wasn’t exactly great as it progressed to turbulent fights and public screaming matches. 
By the film’s cheesy end, I only wished for Delilah’s ghost to visit Stella and continue their friendship in a spiritual manner as Stella embarked on her personal quest. Perhaps even treating herself to more splendid travels and finding other pursuits called “fun” that don’t involve young men.
I could easily and happily blame Richard Linklater for making me believe in destiny, fate, kismet, or the idea of a soul mate. When Before Sunrise was released, I was twelve or thirteen. I remember getting it from the video store with my best friend when we had one of our regular sleepovers. I sat there, greasy-and-brace-faced, completely swindled by the words that tumbled out of Ethan Hawke’s crooked mouth. I wondered if any of the boys whose names I drew on my notebooks or the sides of my Converse One-Stars would ever feel the way about me that Ethan Hawke felt about Julie Delpy.

I think it’s necessary to detach from our obligations and get lost for a while, even if it hurts the ones we love. As human beings (let alone professional creatives), we forget that inspiration is the key element to everything that we do. In all honestly, forcing creativity is the crux of the problem. I recently picked up a book called Daily Rituals: How Artists Work to try to see how my heroes did it. The ultimate conclusion? Practice makes perfect, but you can’t rush it. Although Sylvia ditches her friends for a random stranger, she is choosing to embark on a journey of self-discovery, even if she did so unconsciously. And she has to hope that her friends can understand and love her all the same.

Hypocrisy is a common theme in this film, particularly in Mark’s case. I have found it difficult to sympathize with him, as he’s foul-tempered, selfish, irrational, a workaholic, overly ambitious, and, worst of all, ignores his wife and daughter. He claims he hates the idea of marriage and yet impulsively marries Joanna. He says he’ll never ignore a hitchhiker as long as he lives, and 10 years later, he breaks that promise. He has a one-night-stand while on a business trip alone, but writes a letter to Joanna full of lies about how much he misses her. Once he becomes successful, he claims that he has given Joanna everything that she ever wanted, but in truth, has just given to her everything that he wants. (He reminds me a bit of Homer Simpson gifting Marge a bowling ball with his name on it.)

Travel Films Week: Finding a Brave ‘New World’

Still from There Is a New World Somewhere
This is a guest post by Li Lu.
It’s quite serendipitous that May is “Feminist Travel Films” month here on Bitch Flicks. My film, There Is a New World Somewhere (TIANWS), is exactly that. We are crowdfunding on Seed&Spark, a platform exclusive to truly independent films and filmmakers. We are midway through our campaign, and my team and I couldn’t be happier with how it’s going thus far.

Our film is centered around Sylvia, a troubled young woman. Sylvia struck out from her small town roots in Texas to try her luck in New York City. Why New York? Well, I think E. B. White said it best:

Many of [NYC’s] settlers are probably here to merely escape, not face, reality. But whatever it means, it is a rather rare gift, and I believe it has a positive effect on the creative capacities of New Yorkers – for creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.” –from E. B. White’s Here Is New York

Still from There Is a New World Somewhere
Her “creation” comes in the form of painting. Sylvia strives to achieve success as an artist, but after years of rejection, the honeymoon is over. Now, the city is oppressive rather than inspiring. When an old friend invites Sylvia back to Texas for her wedding, Sylvia jumps at a chance to escape her diminishing self to find the confidence she’s left behind. But on the night before the wedding, she meets Esteban, an electrifying drifter. He dares her to join him on a roadtrip he plans to take through the Deep South. On the morning of the wedding, the two strangers speed off toward New Orleans, leaving the wedding party behind.

Sounds like a dreamy escape, doesn’t it? Travel, for most, is the highest form of escapism. Vacations take you away from the monotony of the daily grind and are the only allotted times when we are allowed to shut that phone off 100%.

This kind of “escapism” is tied to a kind of forgetting or relaxation, but what happens when the act of letting go becomes a euphemism (or “excuse” instead of euphemism) for burying deeper problems at bay? Sylvia, our heroine, takes escapism to the absolute extreme – she literally runs away into the unknown to avoid facing her own shortcomings. It’s an intimate portrayal of a young woman at the sobering, pivotal moment when she must choose to continue to try or to retreat completely. I’m sure everyone has had that moment when you ask yourself: At what point do my dreams begin to hurt me?

Still from There Is a New World Somewhere
Esteban isn’t a perfect man either. He’s a failed musician and has refused to let music become a source for third party pain. He drifts from one place to the next, and seems to kindle a true lust for life. Sylvia admires him and attaches herself to him in hopes of emulating his free spirit. The two find each other at different points in their lives, but they are both just as lost.

This is where the road comes in. Roadtrips are amazing. They give the explorer the freedom to experience and connect with different people and places along the way. There is no itinerary other than the time you allow yourself to become lost within it.

So is this kind of escapism “bad”? Is it selfish? Why does this term connote a negative, judgmental tone?

Ultimately, no. I think it’s necessary to detach from our obligations and get lost for a while, even if it hurts the ones we love. As human beings (let alone professional creatives), we forget that inspiration is the key element to everything that we do. In all honestly, forcing creativity is the crux of the problem. I recently picked up a book called Daily Rituals: How Artists Work to try to see how my heroes did it. The ultimate conclusion? Practice makes perfect, but you can’t rush it. Although Sylvia ditches her friends for a random stranger, she is choosing to embark on a journey of self-discovery, even if she did so unconsciously. And she has to hope that her friends can understand and love her all the same.

Still from There Is a New World Somewhere
What makes this a feminist film? As a female filmmaker, I want to tell this story because it is so intensely intimate to Sylvia’s point of view. I relish the intimacy of films such as Oslo August, 31 or Lust, Caution, and I want to make a film that doesn’t shy away from hard or complex issues. The love scenes will be scenes, not flashes of toned muscles and fluttering eyelashes. Yes, you can call it a coming of age film, but please don’t expect quirky shrugs or one-liners. This is a film about the fight, and all the beauty and ugliness it can contain. I’m not shying away from the hard stuff. I’m not making a self-important film either. I think anyone who has tried to express anything creative can relate to Sylvia’s fears and can take away something meaningful from the film. As Wim Wenders said, “I want to make personal films, not private films.”

All in all, the story of TIANWS and its journey to getting made has clearly been an introspective one. Putting this process out there for all to see is scary as shit. But when I feel this vulnerable, it usually means I’m doing something right.

Here’s to going for it.

To all the roads ahead,

Li

Li Lu was born in Suzhou, China & raised all around the US. She is an alumna of USC’s School of Cinema-TV. Her narrative work has played international festivals and screening series. Her music videos have aired on MTV, Nickelodeon, and YouTube, with some surpassing 1 million views. She loves Siberian huskies.

Travel Films Week: ‘The Go-Getter’: A Male-Led Feminist Film

The Go-Getter movie poster


This is a guest post by Melanie Killingsworth.

The Go-Getter doesn’t scream “feminist.” The central character is a guy named Mercer; in fact, the movie doesn’t actually pass the Bechdel test, because no one really talks to anyone besides Mercer.

Mercer’s first words – to himself and the audience at large – are about Huckleberry Finn, not remotely feminist literature. After a little soliloquy, Mercer steals a car and starts a road trip in search of his older half-brother, Arlen. Along the way, the imagination interludes and fantastical sequences give the movie a dreamy, slightly drugged quality. Where am I going with this, and how is The Go-Getter feminist? Perhaps I should sum up the plot first.

Mercer stops at a pottery collective where Arlen used to live, only to get punched in the mouth by someone Arlen stole from. The puncher repents and offers Mercer some pot, which Mercer tries for the first time. All the collective members sit down for dinner with Mercer, and a few details about his mother come out. She was a substitute teacher and mom at 45, and though those things are hardly for the faint of heart, Mercer feels a need to portray her as a sled dog racer and later someone who travelled the Australian outback. The conversation and the pot help Mercer air some of his feelings, but he’s not much closer to finding Arlen.

The collective a bust, Mercer goes to find his middle-school crush, Joely, whom he obviously idolized; the camera angles point up at her and down at him while she climbs onto the pedestal of bleachers. Joely joins the road trip for kicks in the hopes of taking Mercer’s virginity, while Mercer dresses up and takes ecstasy to impress her before they have sex. In the end, she’s underwhelmed, and he’s apologetic.

Joely in The Go-Getter

Mercer goes from his first sexual experience to the set (shack, really) of a pornographic film where Arlen fleetingly “worked.” The director claims he’s “making art” about “making love,” but the boys in the waiting room talk about girls in dehumanizing ways, and one of the actresses dissolves into tears in the background. “What good is it if she cries before she gets fucked?” the director asks. Mercer isn’t at all sure how to respond, so he steals the camera and runs. They can’t film without it, he figures.

Mercer goes back to find Joely in the hotel with her cousin and a friend. When Mercer tries to take off by himself, the threesome steals Kate’s car and leaves. Mercer hitches a ride after them and steals the car back, again. Next stop is the pet store where Arlen ran a check-scam with an older woman. Said woman ponders Mercer, decides to take a maternal attitude, rambles a bit about free love and choice, then charms Mercer into singing hymns with her not-a-band to fulfill her community service requirements.

All this time, Mercer has been chatting with Kate, the girl from whom he stole the car. One of my favorite sequences is when Mercer is on the phone trying to imagine what Kate might look like, and the visualization runs through several women. It shows only their faces, not their bodies, and some of the suggested mental connections – the oldest of the group liking beer, one of the younger ones coming up on the suggestion of fake teeth – eschew stereotypes.

As Mercer parts ways with the pet shop woman, Kate finally shows up, more angry that Mercer lied than the fact that he still has her car. “Doesn’t anybody know anybody at all?” she asks. The two of them talk as they drive, getting closer emotionally and physically. Eventually, Mercer catches up to Arlen and gets scorn and a bloody lip for his trouble. Kate comforts him, and later they have sex.

Kate as both nurturer and protector

Mercer is finally able to sit down civilly with Arlen. Mercer is not crushed by Arlen’s anger; he addresses Arlen as an equal. No begging, no insecurity or needing a big brother’s acceptance. All the things Mercer has learned about women along the way led Mercer to his brother. Sex may be the turning point that leads to this conversation, but it’s the conversation that causes Mercer to realize he has “become a man,” and a man mostly shaped by women, at that.

So what makes a man’s coming-of-age story a “feminist” travel film? The fact equal-opportunity is still so rare these days? No, (though on a side note: sadness and anger!). It’s because as Mercer’s trip progresses, the catalysts are fully-realized women who exist for more than just his gratification. His trip is prompted by his mother’s death. All his stops along the way involve women who reveal something about themselves and/or Mercer. Finally, Kate, from whom Mercer stole the car, tracks him down and finishes the road trip with him. In a moment near the end, Mercer asks Kate, “Want to go to Louisiana with me?” and she raises her eyebrows and notes, “It’s my car,” as if to sum up that though Mercer has been making his own way, it’s women who are enabling and teaching him. It’s women he has learned to be like or not-like, from his mom to his first crush to this girl he just met over the phone.

Mercer talking to Kate on the phone, while imagining her as his shoulder angel

Women are sexual beings who initiate all Mercer’s intimate interludes. Women make small talk about weather and geography and deep conversation weighing fate versus coincidence. Women are nurturing (they cook food and tend to Mercer’s various injuries), but also capable (they make pottery, paint doors, and run stores). Mercer – and at times other men – are also portrayed as nurturing and loving, and none of these are seen as undesirable or distinctly “female” qualities.

A potential negative to the feminist theme is the porn shack scene. Coming-of-age must deal with sex, but since Mercer deals with it in other ways, is this underdeveloped side trip necessary? It has at least one damsel in distress, one predatory director, and three young boys who are likely being taken advantage of by the director, but who are also looking at the experience as their license to take advantage of the girls. Mercer weakly condemns it, then runs from it. The only real reason for its inclusion is – in leading to Mercer stealing the camera – girls again become a catalyst and point out the uncertainty in Mercer’s actions. He won’t be confident in his decisions until the end of the film when he reaches “manhood.” Of course, it also gives Mercer another noble reason to steal a prop useful to the story, so one could argue for pragmatism.

Another possible negative, Joely’s sexual manipulation of various men, is seen as an individual choice. Her “sins” aren’t sex or promiscuity or drugs; they’re theft of things Mercer already stole. She’s only his equal there, and none of her choices are representative of womanhood, just as Mercer’s choices aren’t representative of manhood.

Neither of these quibbles takes away from the overall woman-positive tone of the story. Kate responds to Mercer stealing her car with frustrated intrigue and working things out verbally. In opposition to this method, violence, the “male” answer to problems (as in, here always perpetrated by males), happens four times – the potter lashing out at Mercer because of Arlen; the three friends physically assaulting Mercer to steal Kate’s car; Mercer attempting to steal the car back, being mocked until someone discharges a gun; and finally, after years of repressed emotion, when Arlen demeans their mother and he and Mercer exchange blows. “Get yourself a hunting knife, can’t nobody take your hat,” the liquor salesman advises.

Mercer’s fantasies imagine how the violent road taken would end

Instead, Mercer becomes strong without violence, has sex without unrealistic idealizations, comes to terms with his brother, and realizes much about himself. All this he learns from women, while he and the story embrace and accept women as equal, strong, complex creatures with agency. Add to that a car trek cross-country to Louisiana – voila! – feminist travel film.

A film doesn’t have to have a woman as the main character to be feminist. This story unabashedly demonstrates the importance of women, not just in relation to men, but to themselves and the world in general.

Melanie Killingsworth is a writer and filmmaker in Portland, OR. Her feminist noir The Lilith Necklace is currently applying to a film festival near you.

Travel Films Week: ‘Spring Breakers’ Forever

This is a guest review by Marcia Herring.
Movie poster for Spring Breakers
In a lifetime, how many chances are we granted to truly reinvent ourselves? Growing up, I would often daydream about taking a trip: leaving my conservative duds, Midwestern accent, and semi-closeted life behind me. I would wake up and magically be able to fill the shoes of an exaggerated version of myself. I could experience life on the other side without the backlash of disapproving parents, poisonous social norms, and my own fear of change. 

Many viewers may not consider the 2013 film Spring Breakers a discussion of how a little change of location can open the doors wide for reinvention — after all it is easy to get distracted by the bright lights and dubstep of Harmony Korine’s portrait of excess and meaninglessness. The plot of Spring Breakers centers around four girls; daydreaming their way through a semester at college in their Kentucky hometown, they become driven by the idea that they might escape and finally have some fun — or discover themselves, depending on which girl you asked. 
Being typical college students, Faith, Candy, Brit and Cotty are broke. How, then, will they get away from the copy-of-a-copy existence they lead? The idea comes — a strange bubble of a thing — to rob a convenience store. It goes down without Faith’s knowledge; she is busy singing half-hearted worship songs at a Christian campus group, and would never approve anyway. Cotty plays getaway driver while Candy and Brit don ski masks and water guns and terrorize their way into enough money to get all four girls to Florida. 
Once there, the freedom proves heady. The girls overindulge in drugs, late-night scooter rides, flirtations, and alcohol. St. Petersburg is already full to the brim of people just like them — here for the week and ready to party, their “real” selves be damned. 
Of course, the hedonistic bliss cannot last long. After all, spring break isn’t forever. Spring Break is not some magical concept that, although it certainly feels like it, exists separate from the rest of the world. The girls get caught. They spend the night in jail, miserable and worried. A judge passes their (relatively tame) sentence, and the girls are rescued from having to call their parents by local “businessman” named Alien (James Franco, in the role he must have been born to play). Conversation with Alien quickly reveals that he is far from the lifeless folk the girls are used to encountering. Alien has his hands in the drug trade of St. Pete, engages in petty crime for entertainment, and even has a rival (Gucci Mane). Alien’s dream is the American Dream, the dream of more, better stuff … and he wants to share that dream with the girls. 
Alien (James Franco) and his girls (l to r: Rachel Korine, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, and Vanessa Hudgens)
The film, which stars Selena Gomez (Wizards of Waverly Place) as Faith, a sheltered good girl gone bad, Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical) as Candy, Ashley Benson (Pretty Little Liars) as Brit, and Rachel Korine (known mostly as director Korine’s much-younger wife) as Cotty, would be easy to read as exploitative. After all, three of the four female stars are known for their roles in relatively-wholesome entertainment. Both Hudgens and Gomez have been a major part of the Disney generation of girls (including Miley Cyrus). Upon reaching late adolescence and the chance to become “real” stars, they have taken career moves that bared skin. They’ve also been subjected to sexual scandals. Is this casting intentional? I don’t doubt it! Does it play into our culture’s obsession with the graduation of young girls into women by subjugating them to a particular brand of role? Yes — in a way. 
Caveat: I am certainly not an advocate for the nudity = mature film career movement; I wanted to touch on a few of the ways Spring Breakers might, depending on how you view the thing, do this a little better than most. For one, none of the “Disney girls” is ever shown nude. The sex scene that focuses on Brit and Candy is much less explicit than the earlier scene where the camera is on Alien. The only top-billed nudity comes from Korine, who is quite a bit older than the other girls — and as director Korine’s wife, I’m sure she had a voice in how to appear in the film. Rachel Korine also spoke to Vice Magazine about being a mentor to the other girls. Many party scenes featured a large number of extras, and Gomez had some hesitance about being in such a mob. Korine physically protected Gomez, and announced that any inappropriate behavior toward Selena would not go unpunished. End caveat! 
I don’t think that Spring Breakers, despite its perpetually-bikini-clad bodies, is an addition to the list of ways these young female bodies have been exploited. Instead, Spring Breakers turns that sexualizing gaze back onto the audience members who may have been enticed to see the film based on the promise of nubile bodies. The opening scene — a montage of spring breakers partying hard set to dubstep — is full of drunk white kids, many of the girls flashing their breasts in true Girls Gone Wild fashion. On a small scale, this may have been titillating, but Korine returns to the theme of careless youth partying with a regularity and focus that not only de-sensitizes the flash of nudity, but eventually makes us grimace. This is a generation partaking in activities they’ll regret because they are bored and aimless. The nudity and partying have no meaning, no purpose, because life for these co-eds has no meaning, no purpose. Korine notes that the film “is more music-based than cinema-based. Music now is mostly loop and sample-based … ” — not even the music of this generation is original. We rely on copies of copies for entertainment. Nothing is real. And when nothing is real, nothing matters. 
Here lies the generational gap when it comes to perception of the film. I went to see Spring Breakers on opening night with my little sister, who happens to be the age of the protagonists. Because she grew up with me for a sister, someone who is constantly looking at media as a reflection of society, my sister could appreciate the self-examination of her generation — after all, a few years ago she was just as lost and aimless as many in the film. A quick look at twitter reviews, however, suggest that many other teens — who were lured in with the promise of a party flick — left the theater frustrated and angry. They keep doing the same things, saying the same lines, these viewers critique, unable or unwilling to look at their own lives, their own twitter accounts and see that cyclical action and speech is indicative of an entire movement of youth. (Oddly enough, if viewers were familiar with Harmony Korine’s previous work, they would be surprised by the strength of the narrative plot in Spring Breakers!) 
That narrative plot is purposefully left open to interpretation. Korine himself has said that just about any interpretation of the film is a valid one. I’ve written previously about the economic implications of the world Korine shows us, but Spring Breakers is also rich with discussion of the female body (as evidenced above!), sexuality, and female power. 

The key for my enjoyment and promotion of this film is that, unlike many other woman-centric narratives, the women make choices and are not unduly punished for them. [The rest of this review contains specific spoilers for the film. Read with caution.] Faith chooses, despite her (ahem) faith, to explore herself with drugs and sexual behavior. She “finds herself” but when threatened with real life consequences, she chooses to return to Kentucky. The other characters are sad to see her go, but never shame her for making this decision. Cotty parties hard, strips down, and flirts with sexual situations. She is not raped — the fact that I was expecting her to be raped really says something about our culture and media depictions of our culture — and when she is shot during a street showdown, it is a wake-up call. Cotty’s wound is directly related to hanging out with a known criminal, not her sexual choices. Again, when she returns home, she is not shamed. 
Brit (Ashley Benson) and Candy (Vanessa Hudgens) dress the part

Brit and Candy are in the film for the longest time, so it makes sense that their story has the most to say about women. Early in the film, they are shown using drugs and not caring about school. They flirt with each other but don’t appear to have a romantic history. Spring break is, for them, not an escape from reality, but a new reality in which they can truly come to life. Something awakens in them when Brit and Candy rob the convenience store — something tied in this narrative with sexuality, violence, and self-awareness. Different readings of the film can boil this awakening down to any one of these aspects, but again, the key for me is that Brit and Candy are not punished for their choices. At first, they seem to need Alien’s presence and permission to embark on these new levels of claiming power through violence and sexual attraction, but as the film unwinds, Brit and Candy leave Alien behind. 
Alien’s own weirdness — he feels, and sometimes acts, like an alien in his own surroundings — lay the groundwork for Brit and Candy to feel safe enough to explore what they want. And what do they want? They want weapons, and the skills to use them well. They want sex, with each other, with someone who loves them. They want to have agency in relationships. They want to flip traditional gender roles around, listening while Alien gets sentimental about Britney Spears, holding the gun Alien simulates fellatio on, committing violent acts without motive or feeling. They want freedom — to display their bodies how they want, to claim power and use it in all aspects of life, to live the life they choose and not one that has been prescribed for them by a culture obsessed with non-reality. True, the extreme new lives of Brit and Candy are also laced with non-reality, but how much of that is because our culture refuses to let this sort of narrative be real? None of these things is granted to women in media, or, for the most part, in life. 
Spring Breakers brings something new to the discussion of women in film. Young female characters with agency populate this critique of youth culture, and young female characters with agency walk away from the narrative unscathed. For some, spring break may be a break from reality. I, for one, hope it is the new normal. 
Marcia Herring is a writer from Missouri. She is still working on her graduate degree, has a day job in retail, and writes freelance for the Lesbrary. She spends most of her free time watching television and movies. She wrote an analysis of Degrassi, Teens and Rape Apologism, contributed a review of X-Men First Class, V/H/S, and reviewed Atonement, Imagine Me & You and The Yellow Wallpaper for Bitch Flicks. 

Picture This: A Woman Goes to Film School and Becomes a Filmmaker

Filmmaker Violeta Barca-Fontana
This is a guest post written by Violeta Barca-Fontana.
INT. FILM SCHOOL, CLASSROOM – DAY 
First day of class at a film school in Madrid. Twenty impatient students are waiting for the teacher, PACO, a very well known film director. Also in the classroom is VIOLETA (20). 
The professor enters the classroom with a serious look and a decided walk. Taking a moment to look over the beardless students, some with incurable acne, who return his gaze with eyes wide open waiting for his wise words. 
MASTER 
You are twenty five students. 
Only three of you will ever direct a film.
The students look at each other hoping they misunderstood him. 
The professor continues with his welcome speech. 
MASTER 
I see there are some women here. 
(beat) 
In film women usually end up in make-up, wardrobe, or as script supervisors. 
The six girls, including Violeta, look at each other for moral support not knowing how to react. 
MASTER 
I say that, just so you take it under consideration. 
That was my very first contact with the film world. The first of many scenes I would live through during my career. 
But my professor was wrong. My first boss was a woman; one of the best line producers in Spain and, without a doubt, one of the toughest and most unscrupulous bosses I have ever had. I learned the most about film making from her. I learned how films were really made, and how a well organized production leads to certain success. 
Carmen, my boss, treated the women of her team much more harshly than the men. At first I thought she was very unfair to do so, but after all these years, reflecting on how much I learned being around her, I realized that maybe she did it because she felt she could bring out the best in them that way. 
I worked with her in two different productions. Without a doubt she treated me worse than any of my co-workers. I think she wanted to take the wind out of my arrogance and break through the wall every film school builds around you: “I know everything and I´m the best.” I think she wanted to show me the subterranean underground of real life, where real movies get made, grown-up movies; where if you want to be called Director, first you have to earn your place with lots of effort and years of experience. 
Violeta, in color.
Schools, and above all film schools, just serve to create confusion among the students leading them to believe that their initial easy success inside can be achieved in the professional world. No, ladies and gentleman; making movies is very complicated. 
In my second film with Carmen, she promoted me from PA to Second AD. The director was the very well known master CARLOS, already considered an icon in Spain. 
Pretty soon Carlos took a liking to me and wanted me to sit in front of the monitors with him all the time, explaining every shot to me. I was fascinated to observe how he would sketch the next shot on a scrap of paper with his Mont-blanc fountain pen to show his Director of Photography. As a film student I look back on those hours with him as a divine gift. 
I have great memories of Carlos as one of my greatest teachers, a true genius. Despite this I sensed that inside he believed the idea that women do not direct movies. Carlos constantly asked one of my male colleagues, strangely enough the script supervisor, when he would direct his next short film, and what was he writing lately. I always hoped that longed question would be asked of me, but it never came, as if he assumed that I was not writing, and I had no intention of directing either. I always wanted to expound about my many projects to my Master. 
INT. PLATÓ DE RODAJE – DAY 
A huge set with over fifty people coming and going, working, loading, unloading, cameras, rails, spotlights. Carlos in the background talking to three men in suits, producers. They talk, they laugh. 
Violeta walks in their direction. Within a few feet she feels observed by the group, who have a big laugh. Violeta is about to pass by when Carlos stops her. 
CARLOS 
Violeta, wait. Come here for a moment. 
Violeta draw close. The men in suits stop laughing but kept their smiles behind their ties. 
CARLOS 
Tell me, what are you working on? So you write? 
Have you ever directed anything? 
Violeta pauses. Uncomfortably, she looks at the group which is waiting for her to give them a failed reply. 
VIOLETA 
(timidly) 
Well, I just finished producing a feature film with two colleagues from school. It’s called La Fiesta and the Walt Disney Company has picked it up for distribution. 
Silence. Their smiles go away. Violeta smiles amiably and moves on to continue her work. 
I don’t know if it’s easier or harder to work with men or women. I feel very comfortable working with both. But what I do know is that most of the time working with women means not having to constantly prove your worth. We all know what we’re capable of and just do our job. 
The Color Thief crew.
This theory held up in my last project, Color Thief. A project, and I promise unintentionally, led almost entirely by females, which from the beginning has been characterized by its fluidity. Is this because it is guided by women? I do not know… 

‘Oblivion:’ A Response to Ignatiy Vishnevetsky’s Review on RogerEbert.com

Oblivion (2013)
Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) stands on the landing pad to his home.
This is a guest post written by Gabrielle Gopie-Tree. 
I’m not a Tom Cruise fan and I usually don’t watch his films, but I quite like Oblivion. To be fair, I am partial to post-apocalyptic productions but often the action is overdone and the plot underdeveloped; this is certainly not the case with Oblivion, which is a film about monoculture. Monoculture lacks the essential elements for life: diversity, complexity, and struggle. 
Ignatiy Vishnevetsky sees it differently. While he offers a humorous critique of patriarchy and a welcome, albeit limited, view of misogyny from his perspective as a White male of eastern origins, his superficial review of Oblivion ignores the soulful theme of the film: self-recovery. This idea is central to every aspect of the movie and is quite an unusual perspective in a Hollywood film, particularly in a genre that is typically focused on stereotypical masculinity. While discussion of sex-inequality in film is an encouraging development, there are serious flaws in this element of Vishnevetsky’s criticism. Here is my point of view from my perspective as a Black female of western origins. 
Vishnevetsky starts with a spirited description of the colour (white) and shape of Jack’s ship, the docking station, and the interior of the central command’s arrival chamber as all being symbolic of female genitalia which he views as encapsulating a violent sexism. I disagree. Instead I see the distilled and contrived soul-lessness of these elements as juxtaposition against the reality of Jack’s former life; a life that keeps calling to Jack in the shape of his attachment to a very green getaway spot on Earth and romantic memories of a woman in pre-apocalyptic New York City. Jack projects an air of perpetual disorientation as his longing for a satisfying existence contrasts with his daily life. 
Jack works with Vica (Andrea Riseborough) character to ensure the logistical resource extraction process on a devastated Earth in the year 2077. Vica and Jack are colleagues as well as lovers. They both represent a futuristic version of the patriarchal family: Jack goes out to work each day returning to prepared meals and perfunctory intimacy. Vica is the classic Stepford Wife in both appearance and behaviour: her sheer plasticity and vacuity are her essence. Jack is depicted as having a ‘ruggedly capable masculinity:’ he fixes, fights, and fucks. Despite the mental manipulation of his masters, Jack has a heart. We see this via his expressions of service to others: his successful fight to save a lone dog as well as the woman who turns out to be his wife, Julia (Olga Kurylenko), from death by drone, and his communication of loyalty to the human resistance who awaken him from his alien-induced programming. These are traits typically associated with the feminine, making this a rather feminist/womanist element of Jack’s character and the film itself. 
Jack struggles with Drone 166 to get the machine to stand up.
While Vishnevetsky compliments the storytelling method used in Oblivion, he simultaneously lambastes the film as being “derivative” of “several science-fiction movies at once.” I see this critique as plausible in light of the theme of the film itself – self-recovery. However, it seems that while Vishnevetsky is comfortable advancing some semblance of a gender critique, he is much less comfortable discussing the racial element of Oblivion, although he does mention the colour of the pseudo-feminine monoculture that amuses him so greatly as “white.” For example, who could miss the racial dynamics in the fact that there is (as far as I can tell) only one non-white man, Beech (Morgan Freeman), and one non-white woman, Julia–or, that Beech has a similar wake-up talk with Jack as did Morpheus (Laurence Fishbourne) with Neo (Keanu Reeves) in The Matrix. Vishnevetsky’s failure to talk race brings the sincerity of his limited discussion of gender into question. 
Morgan Freeman as Beech, the resistance leader who helps Jack recover his identity.
Furthermore, Vishnevetsky’s claim that: Oblivion is about a “lowly technician sending unmanned drones to hunt and kill a demonized, alien Other — until it forgets that it ever was” is overly simplistic. He ignores the element of struggle in the film which is necessary for life and Oblivion is most certainly about the life/death struggle; from the start of the film with Jack and Vica’s life-parody to the story’s culmination in Jack and Julia’s life-reality on a lush green patch of earth, complete with offspring. 
Julia (Olga Kurylenko) and Jack recall a pre-apocalypse moment.
While Vishnevetsky sees Oblivion as “a wannabe mindbender that raises questions about its lead character’s identity — except that the lead character is too sketchy to make these questions compelling,” I see it as an exploration of a man’s struggle to recover himself from monoculture programming which in itself requires interactions with others for one’s self-development to occur. Curiously, Vishnevetsky condemns Jack using the archetype of the self-sufficient masculinised rugged individual but mislabels it as “creation myth.” Thereafter, he bemoans what he sees as none of the many women in the film being “able to do anything without Harper’s help.” This is a very strange critique and smacks of a highly neoliberal notion of sameness as the benchmark for sex-equality. Also, it does not hold up in light of the fact that Vica administers both the home and the office each day while Jack fulfills his duties outside on the ground and she engages in almost all communications with Sally (Melissa Leo) at central control, including the authority to terminate her working relationship with Jack by simply saying they are no longer an “effective team.” Additionally, toward the end of the film Jack and Julia collaborate to challenge the authority of the alien masters including Julia’s decision to undergo cryosleep as the best option for facilitating Jack’s assault on the alien’s central command. 
Do not be fooled by Vishnevetsky’s use of terms such as “uterus,” “vulva,” “mother figure,” “creation myth,” and “misogyny” which suggest a feminist critique of Oblivion that just is not there.
Gabrielle Gopie-Tree has a background in law, politics, psychology and spirituality. She is a nomadic social theorist trying to be the change she wants to see in the world; a believer in the lessons of the guide Qadhafi; and valiantly trying to allow the universe to unfold as it should.

Mixing Business and Pleasure: Making ‘Movement + Location’ and Staying Together

Bodine and Alexis Boling
This is a guest post by Bodine Boling, originally published at Bright Ideas, the Seed&Spark blog.
Here is the synopsis for Movement + Location, a crowdfunded independent science fiction film currently in post-production that I am making with my husband, Alexis Boling:
Kim Getty is an immigrant from 400 years in the future, sent back in time to live out an easier life. It’s a one-way trip of difficult isolation, but in the three years since she landed, Kim has built a life that feels almost satisfying. She has a full time job, shares an apartment with a roommate, and is falling in love. 
But when she stumbles on a teenage girl who is also from the future, Kim’s remade sense of self is tested. After the girl leads Kim to her long-lost husband, now 20 years older than her and maladjusted to this time, Kim’s carefully designed identity begins to unravel. Kim finds herself having to choose between two entirely different lives. But once her secrets are exposed, she realizes that the real decision is what she’s willing to do to survive.
I want to say first that it was a gift to make a movie with my husband. I came back to that thought a lot when we were in the thick of production, both of us feeling misunderstood and unappreciated. Gratitude is a good way to find center when all else is cratering. It bailed me out of stress-induced derangement more than once. 
If you find yourself about to get into something similar, I’d warn you that production with a loved one feels a bit like the worst parts of getting a tattoo. It can be painful, enormously so, and you’ll question whether you’ve made the right decision, and well-meaning friends will be like, No, but really? You’re sure you want to do this?
But if you get the chance, take it. Sharing what matters most to you with the person you most love is something almost no one experiences outside of parenthood. And the end result could be something you’re proud of for the rest of your life.
I have three pieces of advice:
1. Bring in an outside producer who can break ties. You need to trust this producer and they need to feel comfortable saying no to both of you. This is the person you’ll call when your spouse hasn’t responded to an important email even though he promised he would and you don’t want to be accused of nagging. This is the person you’ll pull aside on set so you can vent while the next shot is being set up. It will feel like this person is saving your life, but they will actually be saving your marriage.
2. If something is said to you that can be interpreted two ways, assume it was meant in the way that doesn’t offend you. This is hard advice to take but will make your life ten million times better.
3. Making a movie requires a level of confidence that is brutal to maintain. Remember that the person in the room it’s easiest to get mad at is also the person best able to help you cope. You both understand how hard what you’re doing is and how much it matters. Give the support you want to receive and watch it come back.
And look forward to production ending, which it will, because that’s when people will start telling you how cool it is that you were able to make something with a loved one. This sentiment will be absent on set, but trust that it’ll come. What you’re doing is wonderful, all difficulty aside. Enjoy that if you can.
I promise it’s worth it.

Bodine Boling is a writer, actress and editor based in Brooklyn, NY. You can find her on Twitter and follow her process of making the film at http://movementandlocation.com.

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

Girl Rising (2013)

This is a guest post written by Colleen Lutz Clemens.

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

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

One of the interludes.

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

I love the idea of educating girls. LOVE IT. I love any movie that takes the time and attention to tell the stories of girls to an audience that otherwise would not hear such narratives. I want every girl who wants (and maybe even doesn’t want) to be sitting on the floor or on a chair wearing a hijab, burqa, or baseball cap in a classroom to be there. If that movie is working toward that goal, then I am just about all in, which as a scholar and critic is pretty much as “in” as I can get. However, what proves potentially problematic is the way in which narrator Liam Neeson offers the convenient promise that once girls are educated throughout the world, then global issues will diminish and all will be right.
Thus, two things are still bothering me after seeing the movie a few weeks ago. First, fixing the world via education seems like a pretty big burden to put on the shoulders of girls. The implication of the film is that if girls would just have access to education, so many of the world’s problems such as poverty and malnutrition would disappear. To me this rings the same bell as when people say, “If only women ran the world, there would be no more wars.” There would be wars. There isn’t some kind of natural peace sense linked to the X chromosome. I want girls and women to have the agency that women around the world have been working for—I believe in that idea and in the movie’s thesis that if girls have education, the world can be better. But I don’t think it is just or fair to expect girls to fix all of the problems the movie seems to think they should fix.
Second, the film exploits the burqa to make its point about women’s suffering. It should be no surprise that the last segment is the one that Western audiences will be most eager to witness: the story of Amina in Afghanistan. This young girl is forced to marry at an age when an American girl would still be hanging One Direction posters on her pink walls. Watching her story takes the viewer’s breath away. The girl seemingly has no agency, no voice, until Western filmmakers come and listen to her. She lives in fear of violence, of becoming shamed by expressing her desire to live a life different from the one prescribed to her by virtue of her gender. She is the image of the Aghani woman Westerners are so familiar with but know little about.
Amina

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

I admire the girls. I want Amina to have everything she wants, even after only meeting her for ten minutes in the film. Yet I fear the other girls’ stories get lost in the noise of the past decade’s war with countries where “brown, veiled” people live. I was thrilled to be invited to co-lead a discussion after the film, yet the moment the lights went up the audience only wanted to talk about Afghanistan, about the Taliban, about Islam. Ten minutes into the discussion I gently steered the conversation back to the girls, as they had already been forgotten in the audience’s desire, and I might say selfish desire, to forget the bigger issue and make the suffering and anxiety all about ourselves again.
But Amina’s section also contains my favorite part of the film: when she looks at the camera and accuses the audience of being silent. She pointedly asks: what are “you” going to do? Of course, right after this segment, the film gently supplies an answer: text GIVE to 5515 and donate money to the 10×10 organization. I didn’t see a flood of phones light up in the theater. But this move of Amina looking at an audience filled with Americans and calling them out for staying silent in regards to her actual issue—“I have no school to go to, my family married me off at 13”—gives me the greatest of hope. Not her running up a hill taking off a burqa that she probably put right back on when she got to the other side of the hill: I can only imagine that she was forced to put her veil back on, although the film’s website says it cannot offer information about her current status as it may endanger her. But that she would look the West in the eye and say “You cannot forget about me. I will not forget about you. We are in this together”: that kind of girl rising is the kind of movement I want to be a part of, one what works toward greater access to education and doesn’t need to make me temporarily feel good or justified in the process.
Azmera

 

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