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Top 10 Superheroines Who Deserve Their Own Movies

So few superheroines are given their own movies. I’m officially declaring that it’s high time we had more superhero movies starring women. The first in a series of posts, I’m starting with a list of my top 10 picks for super babes who deserve their own flicks.

This repost written by Amanda Rodriguez appears as part of our theme week on Superheroines. | Editor’s note: Since this article’s original posting in June 2014, solo films have been announced for Wonder Woman, Painkiller Jane, and Black Widow.

Most rational people seem to agree that we desperately need more representations of female superheroes to serve as inspiration and role models for girls and women alike. In truth, there is no shortage of superheroines in the world; we’ve got seriously acclaimed, seriously badass female characters from comic books, TV shows, and video games. Though these women tend to be hypersexualized or relegated to the role of supporting cast member for some dude, we still love them and can’t get enough of them. It still remains that so few superheroines are given their own movies. I’m officially declaring that it’s high time we had more superhero movies starring women. The first in a series of posts, I’m starting with a list of my top 10 picks for super babes who deserve their own flicks.

These are the superheroines I’d choose to get a movie if I ran Hollywood:

1. Batwoman

Not to be confused with Batgirl, the DC character Batwoman is the highest profile lesbian character in comic book history. A wealthy military brat who was expelled from West Point Academy due to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Batwoman is a defiant, tattooed socialite by day and a crime asskicker by night. With compelling, topical social themes (particularly with regard to queer culture), amazing action sequences and a lush, lurid and darkly magical underbelly of Gotham that we never saw with Batman, Batwoman has so much to offer audiences.

2. Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman is practically a goddess; she’s an Amazon princess with superhuman strength and agility raised only among women on the concealed Paradise Island. With her superior physical prowess and training, she constantly saves the day and her love interest, Steve Trevor. Not only that, but she also has cool gadgets like her invisible plane, Lasso of Truth, and her bullet deflecting bracelets (Wolverine’s adamantium bones ain’t got nothing on Wonder Woman’s gauntlets). The world has been clamoring for and drumming up rumors of a Wonder Woman movie for at least a decade. She’s as steeped in history as Superman, as iconic as Batman, as patriotic as Captain America, as strong as Hulk and way sexier than Ironman, and yet Superman, Batman, and Hulk have all had their own movie series AND their own series’ reboots while the rights to Wonder Woman languish on the shelf. Hell, the 70s were more progressive than today because they recognized the need and market for female superheroes when they created the beloved Wonder Woman TV series starring Lynda Carter that ran for four years. Give the woman a movie already, damn it!

3. The Bionic Woman

Speaking of the 70s and their penchant for female-driven TV shows, Jaime Sommers, aka The Bionic Woman, first had her own TV series in 1976, which was then rebooted in 2007 as Bionic Woman. After an accident nearly kills her, Jaime is retrofitted with a bionic ear, arm, and legs, giving her superhuman strength and speed in those limbs as well as acute hearing that she uses in her secret agenting. Though Jaime Sommers was imagined as a spin-off to the male-driven series The Six Million Dollar Man, she was successful in her own right and expanded the horizons of little girls in the 70s. I want Jaime to get a real movie, not just some piddly made-for-TV deal. My only requirement for said movie is that it keep the super sweet 70s sound effects for when she uses her bionic powers.

4. Samus Aran from Metroid

Samus Aran is a space bounty hunter who destroys evil Metroids in the Nintendo video game (you guessed it) Metroid. Because of Samus’ androgynous power suit, game players assumed she was a man until the big reveal at the end of the original 1986 game when she takes off her helmet. Gamers loved it. Not only that, but Metroid was and continues to be one of Nintendo’s most lucrative and popular game series, such that the latest installment of the game (Metroid: Other M) came out as recently as 2010. With ever-expanding plotlines and character development, Samus has proven that she is compelling enough to carry a series for over two and a half decades. Instead of making another crappy Resident Evil movie, I say we give Samus a chance.

5. Runaways

Runaways is a comic book series that chronicles the adventures of a group of minors who discover that their parents are supervillains. Not wanting to go down the evil paths of their parents, the kids make a break for it. Now, both boys and girls are part of the gang, but there are more girls than boys, and the women are nuanced, funny and smart. The de facto leader of the rag-tag group is Nico, a goth Japanese-American witch (um…how cool is that??). Then there’s Gertrude who doesn’t have any powers (unless you count her telepathic link to her female raptor), but she’s tough, smart, confident and is a fat-positive representation of a nontraditional female comic book body type. Next, little Molly is a scrapper and a mutant with superhuman strength and great hats who kicks the shit out of Wolverine. Finally, we’ve got the alien Karolina with powers of light and flight who explores her sexuality, realizing she’s a lesbian. Karolina ends up falling in love with the shapeshifting Skrull, Xavin, and the storyline explores transgender themes. Joss Whedon himself was involved for a time in the series, so you know it’s full of humor, darkness, and deep connections to the character. There’s so much WIN in Runaways that it’s a crime they haven’t made a movie out of it yet.

6. She-Ra: Princess of Power

She-Ra is the twin sister (and spin-off) of He-Man. Possessing incredible strength, a healing touch, an ability to communicate with animals, and a power sword that transforms into anything she wants, She-Ra is, frankly, the shit. Ever since I was a bitty thing, I always loved She-Ra, and I’d contend that with her organizing of a 99.9% female force to fight the evil Horde, She-Ra and her powerful lady friends are busting up the patriarchy. Though 1985 saw the feature length animated film introducing She-Ra’s origin story through the eyes of her brother in The Secret of the Sword, it’s time for She-Ra to have her own live action film. I mean, He-Man got his chance on the big screen with Masters of the Universe, starring Dolph Lundgren. Though I love Lundren’s mush-mouth rendition of the most powerful man in the universe, it’s universally regarded as a steaming pile of Cringer crap. I’m sure She-Ra can easily top reviews like that, especially with her women-powered “Great Rebellion.”

7. Storm

Storm, aka Ororo Munroe, is one of the most powerful mutants in the X-Men franchise. She is intelligent, well-respected, and a leader among her mutant peers and teammates. Storm also flies and controls the fucking weather. Does it get more badass than that? Storm was the very first prominent Black female in either DC or Marvel, and the fanbase for this strong Black woman grows all the time. Though the X-Men film series sprung for the acclaimed Halle Berry to play Storm, her character is habitually underutilized and poorly developed. Enough! Let’s get Lupita Nyong’o to play Storm in her origin story, chronicling her thievery in Cairo, her stint as a worshiped goddess when her powers first emerged, and her eventual induction into the X-Men. That, friends, is an epic tale.

8. Xena: Warrior Princess

Xena: Warrior Princess is a TV series that ran for six years about a couple of women traveling and fighting their way across the world, their stories weaving in and out of ancient Western mythology. Xena herself is a complex character, full of strength and skill in combat, while battling her own past and demons. Her companion Gabriel, though also quite skilled at martial arts, is the gentler of the two, always advocating compassion and reason. Together, the pair formed a powerful duo with pronounced lesbionic undertones that has appealed to queer audiences for nearly 20 years. I suspect the statuesque Lucy Lawless could even be convinced to reprise her role as this fierce female warrior who stood up to gods and men alike.

9. Black Widow

Black Widow, aka Natalia Alianovna “Natasha” Romanova, began as a Russian spy. With impressive martial arts abilities and wily womanly charms, Black Widow is renowned as one of the deadliest assassins in the Marvel universe. In an attempt to redeem her past, Black Widow joins the S.H.I.E.L.D agency and the Avengers, adding her considerable skills (that she has cultivated without the aid of magical abilities) to the team. Though I’m not, personally, the biggest fan of Black Widow, I’m impressed by her universal appeal. She’s appeared in a handful of comic book movie adaptations, most notably The Avengers, and people go ga-ga for her. Even those who care little for the rallying cry for greater female on-screen representation and even less for feminism are all about Black Widow starring in her own film. Hell, she even has a remarkably life-like action figure…proof positive that this gal has made it to the big-time.

10. Codex from The Guild

The Guild is a web series with short episodes that focuses on Codex, aka Cyd Sherman, an introvert with an addiction to massive multi-player online roleplaying games (MMORPG). In her online guild, Cyd is the powerful priestess Codex. Reality and her online personae collide when members of the guild begin to meet in real life. This is a fun and quirky web series written and created by its female star, the talented Felicia Day. Not all superheroines need to have superpowers and save the day. In fact, some superheroines just have to give it all they’ve got to make it through the day. With powers of humor and authenticity, Codex would make a welcome addition to the superhero film family.

Honorable Mention

1. Painkiller Jane

Queer Painkiller Jane has rapid healing powers like those of Wolverine, but she tends to be far grittier and darker, even facing off against the Terminator in a particularly bloody installment. She briefly had her own craptastic television series starring Kristanna Loken before it was wisely canceled.

2. Rogue

From the X-Men, Rogue is the complicated and compelling daughter of Mystique with vampire-like powers that make her nearly invulnerable but also render her unable to touch any other living creature.

3. Batgirl

Batgirl has had many permutations throughout the ages, beginning as a sidekick to Batman and Robin in comics, TV as well as film and ending with several different versions of her own comic series, including her incarnation as Oracle, the paraplegic command center for the Birds of Prey comic and disappointing TV series.

4. Power Girl

Power Girl is another version of Supergirl who, therefore, has the same powers as Superman. She is a leader among other superheroes, a formidable foe, and renowned for being “fresh and fun.”

5. Psylocke

It might seem ridiculous that so many X-Men made this list, but, damn, they have got some awesome ladies on the roster. I’m ending with Psylocke, my all-time favorite X-Men character. Elizabeth Braddock is a telepath who can use her telekinesis to create pyschic weapons. Upon her death, she inhabits the body of a Japanese ninja, eventually taking over the body completely so that she adds hardcore martial arts skills to her repertoire.

I know I missed a bunch of amazing superheroines. That’s a good thing because it means there are so many badass super babes out there that I can’t possibly name them all. Now we’ve just got to get a bunch of those ladies up on the big screen to show us reflections of ourselves and to inspire us to be more.

Sound off in the comments by listing your top female superhero picks to get their own films!

Take a look at the rest of my Top 10 installments: Top 10 Villainesses Who Deserve Their Own Movies, Top 10 Superheroine Movies That Need a Reboot, and Top 10 Superheroes Who Are Betters as Superheroines.

Bitch Flicks writer and editor Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

‘Catwoman,’ ‘Elektra,’ and the Death of the Cinema Superheroine

Now, don’t get me wrong – neither ‘Catwoman’ nor ‘Elektra’ are by any means good movies. The first is silly, the second dull, and both are confusing and ugly, with little interest in their source material and an odd propensity to give characters magical powers. They deserved to fail – but they didn’t deserve to take an entire gender down with them.

This guest post written by Heather Davidson appears as part of our theme week on Superheroines.

Cast your mind back, if you can, to a time before superhero films dominated the box office. A time before the one-two punch of Iron Man and The Dark Knight revolutionized the genre and made no summer complete without half a dozen comic book adaptions hitting screens. This was the world Catwoman and Elektra premiered in. The latter a spin-off from 2003’s Daredevil, the former inexplicably completely unconnected to the following year’s Batman Begins, both were complete flops. Catwoman failed to make back its budget, Elektra barely did, and they both received a critical mauling.

When movies fail, studios go looking for explanations. In this case, they looked at the failure of Elektra and Catwoman, as well as the failure of the film Supergirl back in 1984, and they came to a conclusion: superheroines don’t sell. It’s a conclusion that Hollywood seems to have adopted as gospel; last year, Wikileaks published a 2014 email exchange between the CEOs of Marvel and Sony with the subject line “Female Movies,” in which Elektra, Catwoman, and Supergirl were cited as “disasters.” The reluctance among the big studios to greenlight any more “female movies” is obvious – when Wonder Woman premieres next year, it will have been twelve years since we last saw a movie with a woman superhero in the lead role.

Now, don’t get me wrong – neither Catwoman nor Elektra are by any means good movies. The first is silly, the second dull, and both are confusing and ugly, with little interest in their source material and an odd propensity to give characters magical powers. They deserved to fail – but they didn’t deserve to take an entire gender down with them.

All the complaints you can make about Catwoman and Elektra can be levelled against so many other superhero movies (with the possible exception of the whole magical powers thing): Green Lantern, Daredevil, Superman Returns, and Jonah Hex. Like Catwoman, Elektra, and Supergirl, the protagonists of these flops shared a gender – yet you would never see them in a list entitled “Male Movies.” The reasons given for their failure are many and varied: they had poor scripts, dull action scenes, bad special effects. This isn’t a privilege afforded to women-led movies; everything comes back to the gender of their protagonist.

However, calling Catwoman and Elektra “female movies” is disingenuous. Both movies were directed by men, with male screenwriters and an almost all-male team of producers (Catwoman does give a producer credit to Denise Di Novi). The lack of women’s voices on the production teams is blatant. Elektra is interested in its protagonist’s gender only so far as it creates the opportunity to put Jennifer Garner in a revealing outfit and have her kiss another woman. Meanwhile, Catwoman’s idea of womanhood is that of a boardroom full of men desperately trying to appeal to women aged 18-39, complete with a ‘sassy’ best friend and plot revolving around face cream.

We’ve never had a superheroine movie engage with gender and womanhood in the way TV series like Jessica Jones or Supergirl have in recent years; all it takes is a woman in a visible role (outside the male protagonist’s love interest, of course) for a film to become a “female movie.” For Hollywood, the experience of the white, straight, man is universal, but he can’t empathize with anyone else. As such, even in ensemble pictures like the X-Men or Avengers franchises, the superheroines are marginalized in the movies and their marketing in favor of their male co-stars. Of the 60 items produced to tie-in to the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron last year, Scarlet Johansson’s Black Widow featured on just 3. The issue was obvious enough for Mark Ruffalo, who played her love interest in the film, to publicly demand Marvel produce more.

This marginalization extends to women behind the camera as well, as Anne Hathaway noted in an interview with the Los Angeles Times’ Rebecca Keegan in 2014:

“A male director can have a series of failures and still get hired. Sometimes movies don’t work, and I feel like if it stars a woman or is directed by a woman, the wheels can’t fall off the train. If this movie directed by a woman does well and this movie directed by a woman does well and then one doesn’t, it’s ‘oh, people don’t like movies directed by women.'”

It’s been sixteen years since X-Men kicked off the superhero boom of the 2000s, and we have yet to see a comic book blockbuster directed by a woman. That’s not to say women have been entirely absent from the director’s chair – Lexi Alexander (who repeatedly advocates for women filmmakers in Hollywood) directed the low budget Punisher: War Zone in 2008, and Patty Jenkins was hired to direct Thor: The Dark World, but left during pre-production. Marvel Studios, at least, gained a reputation for being willing to take risks on unproven directors, like Marc Webb and the Russo brothers, or those whose previous projects had lost money, like Joss Whedon, and James Gunn. However, this approach evidently only extends to male filmmakers. While Marvel claims to be in talks with women directors about the upcoming Captain Marvel movie, and Jenkins is currently overseeing post-production on Wonder Woman, we’ve spent a decade and a half without female representation in a genre that has come to dominate Hollywood. The failure of Catwoman and Elektra may have erased women’s faces from the superhero film, but they never even gave our voices a chance.

With the first female lead in over a decade and first female director ever, the pressure is high on Wonder Woman to succeed. Protest over the lack of representation for marginalized groups in Hollywood has, thankfully, gained enough mainstream prominence in the last few years that, even if the movie crashes and burns, it’s untenable for the studios to continue excluding women as they have. However, you can be sure that if the film does flop, fingers won’t be pointed at its bizarre scripting system, its troubled production, or its ties to an equally unsettled cinematic universe. The reasons for its failure will begin and end with the gender of its star and director.

In linguistics, there’s a concept known as ‘markedness.’ Out of two paired terms, one will be ‘unmarked’ and other ‘marked.’ The unmarked term is the norm – walk, host, lion. In contrast, its marked equivalent stands out – walked, hostess, lioness. ‘Superheroine’ is a marked term. The actresses who play them are marked, as are the “female movies” they star in. For the past decade, they’ve been marked for failure, by a studio system dominated by short-sighted male executives who can’t see past previous failures. We’re entering a new era for superheroes on-screen, where women again have a seat at the table. We can’t let them take it away again.

Heather Davidson is a web developer-cum-graphic designer-cum writer, with as much of an attention span as that implies. She writes about tech, the niche corners of pop culture and radical activism – preferably all at the same time. Follow her on Twitter @heatherlauren.

How the ‘X-Men’ Films Failed Iconic Black Female Superhero Storm

To me, this is where the ‘X-Men’ films utterly fail Storm as a character. While her comic form is definitely a sympathetic and understanding person, more importantly, she is a warrior trained in hand-to-hand combat, an orphan, a divorcee, a Black woman in a leadership role on a team of mostly white men, a wife, a mentor, and an activist.

This guest post written by Sara Century appears as part of our theme week on Superheroines.

Originally introduced in 1975, Storm is widely celebrated as the first Black female superhero. Although The Butterfly in comic magazine Hell-Rider is technically the first. While the first Black male recurring character in a Marvel or DC comic predates Storm by 12 years, it’s impossible to minimize the importance of even her first appearance, especially as she is the first Black woman “to play either a major or supporting role” in Marvel or DC comics. To dissect how the X-Men film franchise fails the previously established iconic character of Storm, we must first view her other incarnations.

In the comics, Storm (Ororo Munroe) is a mutant who has the power of weather control and the ability to fly on wind currents and control lightning. She has been a recurring character in the X-Men for the last 41 years. Storm is introduced as a girl who was orphaned at age six, thereby thrown into a world where she had to fend for herself. She fell in with a group of children who were also pickpockets, and she lived in Cairo until she set out on her own. Discovering her mutant powers around puberty, she was worshiped as an African goddess by what amounted to being a fairly problematic depiction of rural Africans before being discovered by Xavier. At that time, she joined the X-Men.

At first a serene pacifist, life with the X-Men forced her to encounter multiple ethical quandaries. She grew slowly more comfortable with violence, leading into the famous storyline in which she fights Callisto of the Morlocks, kills her, claims leadership of the Morlocks, completely forgets about them, and ultimately returns leadership to turns-out-not-THAT-dead Callisto. There’s a lot going on in that storyline, but it did give us punk Storm. Disavowed by the costume’s designer Paul Smith as “a bad joke that went too far,” he obviously has no grasp of how that look more than anything else ignited an undying love for Storm in artistic, queer, and feminist subcultures that lasts to this very day. She led the team even after she temporarily lost her powers, up until she took a brief hiatus to hook up with a character named Forge in one of the better early Storm stories, “Lifedeath” and “Lifedeath II.”

The 1990s saw Storm’s development meander under the traditionally listless direction of writers like Scott Lobdell, culminating in a marriage between her and Black Panther that was severely out-of-character for them both. The move was another example of the common mistake comic book companies make, where they think that marrying one of their most powerful female characters to an established male character and making her more or less his sidekick/wife will make women want to read comics. Sidenote: it pretty much unfailingly doesn’t. Black Panther annulled their marriage behind her back, Marvel lost it’s only Black couple, and Storm rejoined the X-Men.

Importantly, and seldom mentioned, Storm is one of the X-Men who shows the greatest ability to change her methods of operation over time; Storm’s versatility sets her apart. In comparison with other female comic book characters, whose moments of growth often come off as stilted and out of character, Storm developed into a completely different person via a logical chain of events. Writers used her fear of enclosed spaces for years as her “kryptonite,” but in recent years, we see that Storm is no longer afraid to be trapped, having undergone about a decade of therapy to deal with the problem. She mentored the X-Men character besides herself that is most known for her queer subtext, aka Kitty Pryde. When Kitty reacted negatively to her punk look, Storm struggled until she found a way to reconnect with her. Storm went to the desert to find herself again after she lost her powers, fell in love with Forge, and then went to Japan and had a fling with a woman named Yukio when things didn’t work out. She lost her powers, and yet remained the leader of the X-Men. She was queer-coded for decades, and finally Marvel writers admitted to her bisexuality in the last couple of years. She is consistently one of the few characters in the X-Men universe that examines herself with any kind of objectivity.

Because the character has existed in multiple different mediums under the dictates of dozens if not hundreds of different creators in her time, there have been multiple takes on her. The version of Storm in the animated television series X-Men that ran from 1992 to 1997 shared few similarities with Storm in the comics. Rather than the street tough child that became a goddess and then an X-Man like in the comic, in the animated series, while a similar background remained, writers played up Storm’s trauma more than the skills she learned as a thief on the streets of Cairo. I believe it was this early on that the image of Storm in public consciousness began to go awry. Don’t misunderstand, I love animated TV series Storm. Her theatrical nature is absolutely true to the comics, and it’s one of her most important traits; every sentence she speaks is a declaration of her awe-inspiring power. Even though I tend to sort of chuckle at the melodrama in her grandiose, booming voice, it is consistent with everything I love about the character. However, in the animated series, Storm’s only settings are 1 or 11, there is no mid-point. Even the seemingly casual sentence, “I’ll meet you at the monorail,” becomes “I SHALL MEET YOU – AT THE MONORAAAAIL!” She’s great, but she lacks in human characteristics, and appears as larger than life in even the most relaxed contexts. She’s either yelling or she’s asleep, there is no third option.

In the 2000s animated television series, X-Men: Evolution, Storm is portrayed as a teacher, older than most of the other X-Men, with the exceptions of Professor Xavier, Beast, and Wolverine. In the show, she is the aunt of Spyke, and the recruiter of new X-Men, which puts her in a supporting role. This is a Storm based more closely to her original version, and not the current comic book form. She was not the Storm that stabbed Callisto, led the Morlocks, or married Black Panther, but, rather, simply a teacher at the Xavier Institute, and thereby just so happens to occasionally be involved in skirmishes with supervillains. Storm is authoritarian and even disciplinarian, but, consistent with the comics, she is also the voice of reason.

Famously, the X-Men films have been the worst to the character, treating her as a B-lister. Played by Halle Berry in X-Men, X-Men 2 (X2), X-Men: The Last Stand, and X-Men: Days of Future Past, thus far her film version’s most memorable moment is regrettably the universally cringe-inducing line, “Do you know what happens when a toad gets struck by lightning? … The same thing that happens to everything else.” The context for the line is worse, as it occurs immediately after getting beaten up by the notoriously useless villain Toad, and before getting stabbed by Wolverine as shapeshifter Mystique has taken her form. Halle Berry’s time as the focal point in all the fight scenes of the X-Men franchise combined clocks in at around two minutes of screen time, most of which is spent slowly levitating while her eyes change color. Her role in X-Men 2 is essentially to empathetically listen to Nightcrawler talk about his problems.

To me, this is where the X-Men films utterly fail Storm as a character. While her comic form is definitely a sympathetic and understanding person, more importantly, she is a warrior trained in hand-to-hand combat, an orphan, a divorcee, a Black woman in a leadership role on a team of mostly white men, a wife, a mentor, and an activist. I don’t believe that the movies have to follow the comic to the letter, but I don’t feel like I’m going that far out on a limb to say that any attempts to add even just one of these facets to Storm’s movie persona would be deeply appreciated by X-Men fans. That is to say, I hope that X-Men: Apocalypse will give Storm a better turn, but likewise I feel my skepticism is warranted, given the previous history of the franchise neglecting the awesomeness of all of its female characters, Storm most notably of all.

References:

Born to the Queen: Why Can’t the X-Men Movies Capture the Majesty of Storm

Storm and the X-Men as Racial Projects

Sara Century is a multimedia performance artist, and you can follow her work at saracentury.wordpress.com.

Captain Uhura Snub: The Politics of Ava DuVernay’s Oscar

It is appropriate, when celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., to recall Dr. King’s words to Nichelle Nichols, as she considered quitting ‘Star Trek’ in frustration at the limitations of her role: “You can’t leave!… For the first time on television, we are being seen as we should be seen every day. As intelligent, quality, beautiful people … who can go into space.” Dr. King’s words show that he clearly understood the value of a token image, as a symbol, a precedent and a possibility model for future progress.

Written by Brigit McCone as part of our theme week on the Academy Awards.

After seeing Selma, I’ve finally stopped yelling “Ava DuVernay was robbed! Robbed, I tell you!” long enough to jot down some thoughts. Let’s be clear: Ava DuVernay was robbed because her work on Selma turns familiar history into a gripping story, humanizes Martin Luther King Jr. while honoring his legacy, and captures the sweep of history without sacrificing the resonance of individual lives. It was inspirational history, the kind the Oscars typically reward, executed with supreme skill. Though her representation of L.B.J. was criticized, DuVernay’s characterization accurately reflected his wider shift from obstructing to supporting civil rights, while taking artistic liberties with the timeline of that shift. If Ron Howard could win Best Director for the blatantly inaccurate A Beautiful Mind, DuVernay was obviously due a nomination for Selma. Minimum.

It is because DuVernay’s work was brilliant, beyond her race and gender, that we must ask why a Black woman was snubbed. Did 12 Years A Slave‘s triumph at the 2014 Oscars influence the snubbing of Selma‘s director and actors? Recall Kathryn Bigelow’s win for Best Director in 2010. The moment Barbra Streisand stepped out to present the award, it was clear Bigelow’s name would be called. Though Bigelow’s acceptance speech never referenced being the first woman to win, Streisand’s presence shrieked, “It was time we gave it to a woman,” even as the hypermasculine Hurt Locker hardly challenged the Academy’s preference for male stories. Or recall 2001, when Denzel Washington and Halle Berry made their historic wins at the same ceremony as Sidney Poitier’s lifetime achievement award, a synchronicity that shrieked “It was time we gave it to Black performers,” threatening to overshadow Washington and Berry’s individual excellence. The Academy is not exactly subtle in framing minority wins as token gestures. If Bigelow resisted the symbolism of her win, Berry embraced it, using her speech to honor Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll, Jada Pinkett, Angela Bassett, Vivica Fox, and Oprah Winfrey. Tokenism is uncomfortable, but it’s still visibility. Tokens are symbols, precedents and possibility models (as Laverne Cox might put it). If we read Oscars partly as tokens, the question arises: was Ava DuVernay snubbed because, as a Black woman, the Oscars of Steve McQueen and Kathryn Bigelow collectively represented her category?

The African American feminist Ana Julia Cooper wrote “Women versus the Indian” in 1891, criticizing white suffragettes who viewed women as a separate category, in competition with racial minorities for their rights (see also Sojourner Truth’s “Ar’nt I a Woman?”). Those who mentally isolate categories of oppression seek to maximize mainstream approval in their choice of spokesperson: the straight man of color for racial justice; the white, cis woman for feminism; the white, straight-acting gay man for LGBT causes. Each individual choice of “representative” collectively upholds the overall superiority of the straight, white male perspective (add wealthy, educated, able-bodied etc.). Because this pattern channels subversive impulses into a collective reinforcement of dominant ideology, dominant culture rewards it. One symptom is the repeated use of white women and Black men to collectively represent Black women – “the Captain Uhura snub.”

Not pictured: Captains Sisko and Janeway

It is appropriate, when celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., to recall Dr. King’s words to Nichelle Nichols, as she considered quitting Star Trek in frustration at the limitations of her role: “You can’t leave!… For the first time on television, we are being seen as we should be seen every day. As intelligent, quality, beautiful people … who can go into space.” Dr. King’s words show that he clearly understood the value of a token image, as a symbol, a precedent and a possibility model for future progress.

Nichelle Nichols’ Lieutenant Nyota Uhura should be an icon to every woman who is underemployed and unappreciated at work. Her mouth said, “Klingons on line one, Captain,” but her eyes said, “I should be running this place.” Within the limitations of her role, representing both token Black lieutenant and token woman, and thereby freeing a seat for another white guy, Nichols took every opportunity to demonstrate Uhura’s intelligence, charisma, courage and sex appeal. When allowed to banter with Spock, in scenes that inspired their romantic relationship in JJ Abrams’ reboot, Uhura revealed herself to be Spock’s respected intellectual equal, with the skills to man the helm, navigation and science station if needed. In combat with Mirror!Sulu, she revealed potential as an action heroine, anticipating Pam Grier (whose groundbreaking stardom in blaxploitation inspired a trend of white action heroines, instead of mainstream opportunities for Pam Grier). Uhura was cool under pressure and commanding. Though the original Star Trek‘s “Turnabout Intruder” episode claimed that women were not emotionally capable of captaincy, Uhura disproved that claim on the animated (and female-authored) “The Lorelei Signal.”

In time, society progressed and its vision of the future evolved. Dr. King’s dream of television normalizing inspirational Black leadership came true for the Trekverse, when Captain Ben Sisko of Deep Space Nine took command, combining professional skill with hands-on fathering. The aspirations of feminists paid off when Kate Mulgrew’s swashbuckling Janeway helmed Voyager. But while evolution in Star Trek‘s racial and feminist politics produced a few token promotions of Uhura’s rank, it left her marginalized supporting role unchanged. Zoe Saldana’s Uhura occupies roughly the same position in Star Trek reboots as Nichelle Nichols did on the original show. Black women can be judges, police chiefs, or politicians on our screens, at statistically disproportionate rates, but only in tokenist supporting roles that serve to discredit the reality of discrimination. When the time comes for diversity among aspirational heroes, those heroes become white women and Black men. That, in a nutshell, is the Captain Uhura snub, the intersectional finger trap of representation politics. Nichols herself aged regally and with no diminishing of spirit in the later Star Trek films, but Sisko and Janeway substitute for the unique icon that Nichols’ Captain Uhura could have been, not only as a Black woman but as a woman who paid her dues in limited and sexualized roles before showing what she was capable of. Voyager drew a sharp line between the asexual (or rather, not overtly sexualized) competence of Janeway and the spandex-clad sex-bot Seven of Nine. Captain Uhura would have straddled that line, challenging the assumed incompatibility of being a sexual object with being an aspirational hero.

Not pictured: Captain Marvel and Black Panther

Ororo Munroe, a.k.a. Storm, is an icon. As a member of the X-Men, she fights for the rights of the mutant minority, against those who fear what they cannot understand. As an ally (and sometime wife) of Black Panther, she defends the sovereignty of Wakanda against colonial forces. Oh, and she also flies, bends the elements to her will and shoots lightning. 20th Century Fox owns the rights to X-Men, so Marvel Studios cannot be directly blamed for scheduling Captain Marvel and Black Panther to headline instead of Ororo (though they can easily be blamed for taking a decade to produce diverse superhero films). But upcoming plans to film starring vehicles for Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel have put female superheroes on the agenda. Why hasn’t this prompted 20th Century Fox to greenlight a solo outing for Wind-rider Storm, despite the rich source material of Greg Pak’s popular solo comics and the fact that the woman shoots lightning? Storm’s role in Bryan Singer’s X-Men franchise screamed “Lieutenant Uhura,” providing visible diversity while being constantly marginalized by the plot. Pak has the last word: “Storm’s the embodiment of fierce, raw power – and deep abiding empathy. She’s the most powerful woman in the Marvel Universe — incredibly exciting and elemental — even dangerous.” Movie, please.

Not pictured: Richard Pryor and Joan Rivers

In an earlier post, I discussed evidence for regarding Loretta Mary Aiken, better known as Moms Mabley, as the pioneer of modern stand-up comedy. Evolving from vaudeville monologues, Jackie Mabley was nicknamed “Moms” because of her nurturing attitude to other performers. Her tackling of taboo topics such as race, gender, sexual double standards, poverty, and substance abuse, defined the truth-telling role we associate with the art of stand-up today. Moms herself said that everyone stole from her apart from Redd Foxx, and she was older than Redd, too.

In particular, Richard Pryor and Joan Rivers, many decades younger than Mabley, both recognized her as a major influence. In pop culture, Pryor is often hailed as the “Godfather of Comedy.” The tendency of Black comedians to recognize Pryor as the most significant pioneer of Black comedy comes at the expense of Pryor’s own acknowledged debt to Mabley, as does the tendency of feminists to cite Joan Rivers as the groundbreaking pioneer of female stand-up. Moms is often totally omitted from lists of top stand-ups, despite her claim to being the original. These choices of “representative” diminish the unique contribution of Moms Mabley, and the visibility of Black women as innovators of world culture.

Not pictured: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton

As we prepare for Barack Obama to step down from the U.S. presidency, all indicators point to the next Democratic nominee being a white woman, with Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren as the frontrunners. When we celebrate womankind finally getting their shot at global leadership (Angela Merkel aside), let us take a moment to remember the candidacy of Shirley Chisholm (not to mention that Ana Julia Cooper should clearly have been running the country in the 1890s).

A founding member of the 1971 National Women’s Political Caucus, as well as the first Black congresswoman, Chisholm actively mentored an all-female staff, took political stands in favor of reproductive rights and against the Vietnam war, and fought against social exclusion on the basis of class, race and gender. Her political philosophy may be summarized by her 1972 presidential campaign slogan: “Unbought and Unbossed.” She was the first woman to win delegates for a major party nomination and the first Black candidate to run on a major party ticket. Chisholm’s voting record shows exceptional integrity and political courage, matched by the intelligence and determination to rise from a background of poverty and intersectional discriminations. Chisholm was an exemplary candidate. The fact that her career trajectory – breaking boundaries for both women and Black candidates before being snubbed for leadership – mirrors a fictional Star Trek character, hints at the power of the collective imagination to shape reality.

Change will come. After establishing her reputation with Grey’s Anatomy, which introduced a dynamic, multiracial cast behind the commercial appeal of white protagonists, Meredith Grey and Dr. McDreamy, Shonda Rhimes has created compelling, multi-faceted Black heroines (or antiheroines) who dominate Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder. Whoopi Goldberg has directed a documentary on Moms Mabley, while Shola Lynch directed one about Shirley Chisholm’s presidential bid. Last year, directors Amma Asante and Gina Prince-Bythewood offered Gugu Mbatha-Raw starring roles as fully realized protagonists. But these are all examples of Black women directors, fighting alone for better screen representations. Yes, Ava DuVernay has demonstrated talent and ambition with Selma that cannot be destroyed by a mere Oscar snub. Yes, she will probably continue to make great films until her achievements are officially recognized (am I the only one rooting for a biopic of Queen Nzinga starring Lupita Nyong’o?). But it’s high time that the “progressive” mainstream, from the Academy to Star Trek to white feminist commentators, started opening doors without waiting for them to be beaten down.

"Open a hailing frequency, Mr. Kirk" — “Open a hailing frequency, Mr. Kirk”

Brigit McCone reckons Ranavalona of Madagascar should be the next epic Shonda Rhimes antiheroine. She writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and shouting at the television on Oscar night.

The Fantasy of Mammy, the Truth of Patsey

However, I want to challenge that particular narrative: that nothing has changed. If we juxtapose McDaniel’s Mammy alongside Nyong’o’s Patsey, we might realize that, apart from being slaves, their characters are nothing alike. Indeed, from a historical and cinematic context, something significant has changed. Mammy is the mask that pro-slavery apologists used to erase the existence of the Patseys in slavery. It is remarkable that it took 75 years to remove that mask from depictions of cinematic slavery.

This guest post by Janell Hobson previously appeared at the Ms. Blog and is cross-posted with permission.

It was not lost on some that, 75 years after Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, the beautiful, poised, and talented Lupita Nyong’o would become the sixth black woman to win that same Oscar—and for playing the same type of role, a slave.

If we count Halle Berry’s Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role, that brings the full count of African American women Oscar winners to seven. And when we look at the types of portrayals that won these awards—McDaniel as “Mammy,” Whoopi Goldberg as a con-artist spiritual adviser, Halle Berry as an oversexed and imbalanced grieving widow and mother, Jennifer Hudson as a sassy yet rejected lover singing with much attitude, Monique as a deranged abusive welfare mother, Octavia Spencer as a sassy yet abused maid, and now Lupita Nyong’o as a raped, whipped and victimized slave—it’s very easy to imagine that our subservience as black women (or even our hysteria as women in general; just look at the roles that white actresses often win for) is what is recognizable and later celebrated. In short, such recognition might convince us that nothing has changed.

However, I want to challenge that particular narrative: that nothing has changed. If we juxtapose McDaniel’s Mammy alongside Nyong’o’s Patsey, we might realize that, apart from being slaves, their characters are nothing alike. Indeed, from a historical and cinematic context, something significant has changed. Mammy is the mask that pro-slavery apologists used to erase the existence of the Patseys in slavery. It is remarkable that it took 75 years to remove that mask from depictions of cinematic slavery.

There are other changes that we cannot overlook: The fact that McDaniel was forced to sit in the back row the night of the Oscars ceremony, segregated from the rest of her white cast members in the movie Gone with the Wind, contrasts with Nyong’o sitting up front with all the other A-list stars. There is also the fact that McDaniel and other black actors in the Negro Actors Guild fought to remove the n-word from the script of Gone with the Wind, as well as other offensive scenes of racial degradation (shoe-shining her master’s shoes on her knees, or having Butterfly McQueen’s Prissy eating watermelon or being slapped onscreen by Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett O’Hara). I sometimes wonder: Had the Negro Actors Guild not intervened and those elements remained in the film, would we be able to celebrate this classic without embarrassment? Thanks to the efforts of McDaniel, she infused a long-standing stereotype of Mammy with some complicated humor, and she also helped make Gone with the Wind respectable for later generations.

Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel in Gone with the Wind — Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel in *Gone with the Wind*

But this is 2014, and we no longer play to respectability politics. The Civil Rights generation exposed the harsh realities of slavery’s history, with its legacy of racism and white supremacy, through our own felt experiences; the hip-hop generation embraced and poked holes in the n-word with a vengeance; and the millennial generation rightly condemns the nostalgic lies that movies like Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind have fostered about slavery. Those lies are hard to erase, since the big, expansive movie screen, with its elaborate montage in Birth and dreamy technicolor in Wind, solidified these myths. Against these grand narratives, the marginal and enslaved black woman’s story is often silenced.

It took a no-holds-barred black filmmaker like Steve McQueen to not only face the harshness of slavery—as told in Solomon Northup’s 1853 narrative, 12 Years a Slave—but to paint its cruelty in sharp colors, to sparingly use sound to build up dread or emotional release and especially to cast a dark-skinned actress such as Nyong’o who could interject sexuality and emotional depth to a character who might otherwise have been reduced to symbolic black woman victimhood. Instead, she emerged as the emotional center in one of the few slave movies that fully humanizes the slave story.

Lupita Nyong'o in 12 Years a Slave — Lupita Nyong’o in *12 Years a Slave*

Which is why the journey from Mammy to Patsey is a historic big deal. The image of Mammy was deliberately designed by pro-slavery advocates to deny the existence of slave rapes. Her dark skin (now celebrated thanks to Nyong’o’s natural beauty) was loudly negated as an aesthetic ideal. Her big and shapeless body created in the white imagination an image of safety, in which racial mixing did not occur except in the realm of loyal servitude and fierce protectionism. Moreover, her unfeminine, aggressive style made it difficult to view her as victimized by the slave system (imagine how Mammy would look in a scene with Michael Fassbender’s terrifying Edwin Epps).

Mammy was literally the visual opposition to Scarlett O’Hara, someone confined to slavery and sidekick status to the white heroine. Contrast such a pairing with Patsey and Mistress Epps (portrayed icily by Sarah Paulson), two women confined to the same man while one is given the privilege of her class position as wife and the power of whiteness to subjugate Patsey to cruelty and violence—an added insult to the injury of sexual violence that Patsey must endure from her master.

12 Years a Slave removes the masks from Gone with the Wind, and we recognize this through the very different depictions of Mammy and Patsey. As we bask in the afterglow of Lupita Nyong’o’s win—the climax to a whirlwind awards season in which we witnessed Nyongo’s transformation “up from slavery” to red-carpet fashion icon and role model for darker-skinned women everywhere—her Oscar acceptance speech said it best:

“It does not escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else’s, and so I salute the spirit of Patsey.”

How can we, like Nyong’o, salute the spirit of Patsey? It only took 75 years for us to even catch a glimpse into the truth of her life. I would call that cinematic progress, and it’s merely the tip of the iceberg of painful history that technicolor tried to distort and which we can now watch with a bit more realism.

Janell Hobson is an associate professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She is the author of Body as Evidence: Mediating Race, Globalizing Gender (SUNY Press, 2012) and Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture (Routledge, 2005), and a frequent contributor to Ms.

Top 10 Superheroines Who Deserve Their Own Movies

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

Most sane people seem to agree that we desperately need more representations of female superheroes to serve as inspiration and role models for girls and women alike. In truth, there is no shortage of superheroines in the world; we’ve got seriously acclaimed, seriously badass female characters from comic books, TV shows, and video games. Though these women tend to be hypersexualized or relegated to the role of supporting cast member for some dude, we still love them and can’t get enough of them. It still remains that so few superheroines are given their own movies. I’m officially declaring that it’s high time we had more superhero movies starring women. The first in a series of posts, I’m starting with a list of my top 10 picks for super babes who deserve their own flicks.

These are the superheroines I’d choose to get a movie if I ran Hollywood:

1. Batwoman

2. Wonder Woman

The one, the only Wonder Woman — The one, the only, Wonder Woman

3. The Bionic Woman

4. Samus Aran from Metroid

The biggest reveal in Nintendo history: Metroid is a GIRL — The biggest reveal in Nintendo history: Samus is a GIRL

5. Runaways

The young women of "Runaways" — The young women of *Runaways*

Runaways is a comic book series that chronicles the adventures of a group of minors who discover that their parents are supervillains. Not wanting to go down the evil paths of their parents, the kids make a break for it. Now, both boys and girls are part of the gang, but there are more girls than boys, and the women are nuanced, funny and smart. The de facto leader of the rag-tag group is Nico, a goth Japanese-American witch (um…how cool is that??). Then there’s Gertrude who doesn’t have any powers (unless you count her telepathic link to her female raptor), but she’s tough, smart, confident and is a fat-positive representation of a nontraditional female comic book body type. Next, little Molly is a scrapper and a mutant with superhuman strength and great hats who kicks the shit out of Wolverine. Finally, we’ve got the alien Karolina with powers of light and flight who explores her sexuality, realizing she’s a lesbian. Karolina ends up falling in love with the shapeshifting Skrull, Xavin, and the storyline explores transgender themes. Joss Whedon himself was involved for a time in the series, so you know it’s full of humor, darkness and deep connections to the character. There’s so much WIN in Runaways that it’s a crime they haven’t made a movie out of it yet.

6. She-Ra: Princess of Power

She-Ra: Princess of Power. EF yeah. — She-Ra: Princess of Power. EFF yeah.

7. Storm

Storm, aka Ororo Munroe, is one of the most powerful mutants in the X-Men franchise. She is intelligent, well-respected and a leader among her mutant peers and teammates. Storm also flies and controls the fucking weather. Does it get more badass than that? Storm was the very first prominent Black female in either DC or Marvel, and the fanbase for this strong Black woman grows all the time. Though the X-Men film series sprung for the acclaimed Halle Berry to play Storm, her character is habitually underutilized and poorly developed. Enough! Let’s get Lupita Nyong’o to play Storm in her origin story, chronicling her thievery in Cairo, her stint as a worshiped goddess when her powers first emerged and her eventual induction into the X-Men. That, friends, is an epic tale.

8. Xena: Warrior Princess

9. Black Widow

Remarkably life-like Black Widow action figure

10. Codex from The Guild

Codex: a charming nerdgirl with delusions of epicness

Honorable Mention

1. Painkiller Jane

2. Rogue

From the X-Men, Rogue is the complicated and compelling daughter of Mystique with vampire-like powers that make her nearly invulnerable but also render her unable to touch any other living creature.

3. Batgirl

4. Power Girl

Power Girl is another version of Supergirl who, therefore, has the same powers as Superman. She is a leader among other superheroes, a formidable foe, and renowned for being “fresh and fun.”

5. Psylocke

Comic Psylocke and her bit-part film counterpart

It might seem crazy that so many X-Men made this list, but, damn, they got some awesome ladies on the roster. I’m ending with Psylocke, my all-time favorite X-Men character. Elizabeth Braddock is a telepath who can use her telekinesis to create pyschic weapons. Upon her death, she inhabits the body of a Japanese ninja, eventually taking over the body completely so that she adds hardcore martial arts skills to her repertoire.

Sound off in the comments by listing your top female superhero picks to get their own films!

Read also:

Dude Bros and ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’

With a running time of two hours and 11 minutes, audience members are subjected to some thematic repetition, gratuitous gags, and an unnecessarily meandering plot. That said, there’s no shortage of amazing costumes and make-up to bolster a ton of sweet action sequences depicting mutants kicking serious booty. ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past,’ though, is disappointing in its general dearth of female characters and its under-utilization of the ones it does have.

Huh. No ladies are shown on the movie poster for 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' — Huh. No ladies are shown on the movie poster for *X-Men: Days of Future Past*

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

It’s no secret that I’m a tremendous fan of superheroes nor that I am on a mission to expose the ridiculous lack of superheroines on the big screen. The X-Men movie franchise has been relatively so-so with regard to its general quality: some hits, some misses, some overwhelmingly mediocre films. It’s also been pretty hit-or-miss with its representations of female characters. The latest installment, X-Men: Days of Future Past, is no exception. With a running time of two hours and 11 minutes, audience members are subjected to some thematic repetition, gratuitous gags, and an unnecessarily meandering plot. That said, there’s no shortage of amazing costumes and make-up to bolster a ton of sweet action sequences depicting mutants kicking serious booty. X-Men: Days of Future Past, though, is disappointing in its general dearth of female characters and its under-utilization of the ones it does have.

Blink, a member of the future's mutant resistance. — Blink, a member of the future’s mutant resistance.

Despite the film featuring four female characters, X-Men Days of Future Past fails to pass the Bechdel Test. We have Blink (Bingbing Fan), a mutant in the future reality who has the power to teleport and create portals through which others can teleport. I’m not sure if she speaks at all…maybe a single line. Then we have the classic Storm (Halle Berry), who controls the elements via weather. The talents of Berry, an Academy Award-winning actress, aren’t showcased at all what with her having maybe two lines throughout and, much like Blink, zero character development. The “phasing” and walking-through-walls Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) is back with a slightly more substantial role than Storm, but her character is also static with very few lines. Finally, we have Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique/Raven, the shapeshifting martial arts expert who has the most screen time and the most depth of the bunch.

A sentinel gets the drop on a stoic Storm

Despite the fact that these women aren’t given nearly as much airtime as the dudes in the film, it’s no secret that they’re all seriously badass. In fact, the entire plotline revolves around the sheer power of two of these women’s mutant abilities. Kitty Pryde has managed to hone her phasing ability to allow others to pass through consciousness and time much the way she would pass through a wall. It is her ability that allows Wolverine to travel back in time to prevent a dystopian future fraught with mutant genocide and mutant-sympathizer wholesale slaughter. Kitty’s strength holds Wolverine’s mind in two places at once despite physical and emotional trauma that he may suffer while traipsing through time. In the original comic book storyline, Kitty, herself, travels back into her past consciousness in order to avert disaster, which firmly places her in the position of agent and heroine in an epic tale. In the film, however, her power, though vast, is incidental to the real drama of the story: setting a lost and bitter young Charles Xavier back on the path of hope and mutant/human unity.

Kitty Pryde phases Bishop's consciousness into the past — Kitty Pryde phases Bishop’s consciousness into the past

The entire film itself details the chain reaction the decisions and actions of Mystique set off. Her murder of anti-mutant weapons innovator, Dr. Bolivar Trask (performed by Game of Thrones favorite Peter Dinklage), followed by the synthesis of her shapeshifting capabilities into mutant-hunting sentinels, sets the stage for mutant genocide and a post-apocalyptic Matrix-like future. Mystique’s agency is so influential that she defines the future in a single act. Not only that, but her mutant ability is so powerful that it is coveted by the government and used to create an unstoppable weapon.

I'd watch the hell out of a solo Mystique movie — I’d watch the hell out of a solo Mystique movie

Despite the importance of Mystique not only to the plot of the film but also to the fate of mutants as a species and the world as a whole, her agency is full of negative consequences. The choices she would make on her own lead to destruction and despair. This echoes a generalized fear of the power of female agency and the belief that, if left to their own devices, women can’t or won’t make the right choices. That is why we have the two warring patriarchal, paternalistic forces seeking to shape her: Magneto and Professor X. Professor X evokes her familial bond with him and urges her towards unity and peace while Magneto uses their past sexual relationship, the allure of unfettered power, and the rage inspired by the persecution of fellow mutants to appeal to her. Professor X calls her “Raven,” a name that makes her his, while Magneto dubs her “Mystique,” asserting ownership over her identity.

Raven is Professor X's creature, while Mystique is Magneto's. — Raven is Professor X’s creature, while Mystique is Magneto’s.

An either/or dichotomy is formed in which she must choose to be either Raven or Mystique. Charles’ or Eric’s. There is no third option that allows her to be her own person, to make a choice outside of the ones presented to her by these two men. She is nothing but a symbol of the fight between our two great, male adversaries and their disparate philosophies. Yet again, a woman’s body (in that her DNA is pivotal to the extinction or survival of all mutantkind) is the grounds on which a man’s war is fought. Boo.

Mystique kicks serious as but, in the end, is a pawn — Mystique kicks serious ass but, in the end, is a pawn in a male ideology battle

The representations of race also inspired a “What the hell??” in me with Bishop (Omar Sy) being divested of his time traveling role (in the cartoon TV show version, if not the original comic storyline, Bishop travels back in time, not Wolverine) as well as the lotta people of color being killed off. The use of Peter Dinklage, a little person, to play Trask, a man obsessed with the threat mutants pose, to carry out prejudice and the genocide of those who are simply different from him rang a bit hollow as Dinklage/Trask, himself, is part of a marginalized group who likely knows firsthand what oppression looks like.

Trask, an oppressed little person, seeks to kill all mutants because they're different and scary — Trask, an marginalized little person, seeks to kill all mutants because they’re different and scary

It’s a step in the right direction that there are powerful, pivotal women in X-Men: Days of Future Past, but it’s not enough. Why isn’t this a story about Mystique’s internal landscape, her struggles, and how she learns that she’s not only powerful enough to change the world but powerful enough to change her mind? Why is her story a proxy to tell the tale of the men who seek to shape her? I hoped for better from X-Men: Days of Future Past, but I can’t say I’m surprised. Hollywood keeps churning out sub-par superhero movies with shitty plotlines, an over-reliance on explosions and action sequences, and a general all-about-the-dudes vibe. The X-Men franchise places a lot of emphasis on evolution; it’s time to do more than pay lip service to that notion. It’s time to evolve to the point that we’re telling the heroic arc of women and superheroines with the knowledge that that story is every bit as important as those of their male counterparts.

The Many Faces of Catwoman

Who doesn’t love Catwoman? She’s smart, sassy, independent, has her own moral code, and often outfoxes (or maybe outcats) Batman, one of the greatest superheroes of all time. Though I’d be hard-pressed to label her skin-tight, uber-revealing outfit as feminist, Catwoman is a famous sex symbol who uses her sexuality to her own advantage. The figure of Catwoman has gone through dozens of iterations over the years, which goes to show that this iconic figure is a potent anti-heroine or villainess who continues to appeal to audiences throughout the generations. Now I’m answering the question: which of is the most feminist representation?

Spoiler Alert

Who doesn’t love Catwoman? She’s smart, sassy, independent, has her own moral code, and often outfoxes (or maybe outcats) Batman, one of the greatest superheroes of all time. Though I’d be hard-pressed to label her skin-tight, uber-revealing outfit as feminist, Catwoman is a famous sex symbol who uses her sexuality to her own advantage. The figure of Catwoman has gone through dozens of iterations over the years, which goes to show that this iconic figure is a potent anti-heroine or villainess who continues to appeal to audiences throughout the generations. I’ve done a bit of meditating on these incarnations and questioned which of them is the most feminist representation.

Illustrated

First, we’ve got her comic book origin as The Cat in 1940’s Batman #1.

That’s right. Catwoman was birthed alongside the legend of Batman himself. Unfortunately, her creator Bob Kane was a misogynist and sought to portray traits that he coded as feminine:

“I felt that women were more feline creatures and…cats are cool, detached, and unreliable…You always need to keep women at arm’s length. We don’t want anyone taking over our souls, and women have a habit of doing that. So there’s a love-resentment thing with women. I guess women will feel that I’m being chauvinistic to speak this way…”

All I have to say is, “You’re right, Bob: you are a chauvenist,” and, “ew.” That said, Catwoman was designed as an unattainable love interest that personified the aloof and perhaps vindictive qualities her creators saw within female sexuality. Her depiction is more about drumming up some sexual interest and excitement for Batman than creating a nuanced character.

"Honey, if I went straight, you'd never pay any more attention to me." - Catwoman — In her earliest incarnations, Catwoman is an attention-seeking naughty girl type.

Though I’m a bit of a comic book nerd who’s absolutely drawn to strong female characters, I’ve never been interested in reading any graphic novel Catwoman series. Her later depictions always struck me as a lot of tits and ass without substance, which I’m primarily basing on the cover art. Her sexuality is showcased to the extreme where it’s hard to imagine anything else beneath it. (If you’re a reader of Catwoman comics and feel differently, please set me straight in the comments!)

Those are some ridiculously large boobies.

I am, however, intrigued by her more recent, vicious comic book portrayals. Those have grit and make me curious about her.

There are also multiple cartoon renderings of Catwoman that are more or less underwhelming. In Batman: The Animated Series, Catwoman does get to have layers in that she’s a jewel thief, an animal rights activist, and has her alter-ego as Selina Kyle, but her main role continues to be an elusive love interest for Batman as opposed to a compelling character.

Television

Catwoman made her television debut on the Batman series in 1966. Julie Newmar performed perhaps the most memorable version of Catwoman. I was certainly smitten with her. She was lovely, imposing, and “diabolical” (as Batman would say). She was a lone woman who commanded a group of male thugs. Among the great supervillains of the TV Batman mythology, she was the only woman, and she certainly held her own.

Julie Newmar Catwoman alt — The (in)famous Julie Newmar Catwoman

Lee Meriwether was chosen for the film version of the Batman TV show. She, too, was stunning and very similar in appearance to Julie Newmar. Meriwether’s Catwoman also had a faux-alter ego as Miss Kitka, Russian journalist designed to seduce and lure “Comrade Wayne” into supervillain coalition custody to elicit Batman’s rescue attempts. This may have been the first sustained disguise Catwoman ever put on. She was never Selina Kyle in the TV show, which left her somewhat one-dimensional, but none of the other supervillains really had alter egos either.

The last Batman TV show Catwoman is the late, great Eartha Kitt. A magnetic personality who brought more flare to the role than any before, Kitt was the first Black woman to play Catwoman…and, I believe, the first Black woman to prominently feature on the show. Race and inclusivity were and continue to be issues that most media fail to properly address. Eartha Kitt’s Catwoman was much like Nichelle Nichols‘ Uhura on Star Trek: a pioneer, a weather vane showing that times were changing, and a kickass character to boot. If it had been gratifying in Season 1 & 2 to see a solitary woman ordering around a gang of male minions, then it was even more so in Season 3 to see a Black woman calling the shots.

No other Catwoman purred quite like Eartha Kitt

Film

We got to see another talented Black woman, Halle Berry, reprise the role in 2004’s Catwoman. Unfortunately, the flick was universally considered a turd that was really a vehicle to showcase/exploit an Academy Award winning actress’s body with the most revealing catsuit of all time (and that’s saying something). I could really push the envelope to suggest a feminist reading of the film’s beauty industry critique, as Berry’s Patience Phillips struggles to destroy the anti-aging cosmetic corporation that employs her because it is selling a faulty and harmful product, but the fact that her boss (the one who kills her thus turning her into Catwoman) is a woman (Sharon Stone, no less) takes a lot of the steam out of that argument.

Halle Berry's uber-revealing Catwoman costume — Halle Berry’s uber-revealing Catwoman costume

We also have the most recent depiction of Catwoman in Christopher Nolan‘s third installment of his Batman trilogy: The Dark Knight Rises in 2012. Though I’ve never been a fan of Anne Hathaway, I was nonetheless generally impressed with her Catwoman performance. Hathaway’s Selina Kyle was strong, independent, clever, and had a righteous sense of class justice, and in spite of the catsuit, she wasn’t quite as sexualized as earlier film incarnations.

Anne Hathaway's tech-heavy Catwoman — Anne Hathaway’s tech-heavy Catwoman

That said, Hathaway technically isn’t Catwoman. She doesn’t give herself that name nor is she dubbed with it by an opponent or ally. Contrary to the opinion of fellow reviewer Kelsea Stahler, I think taking the title away from her divests her of some of the power, prestige, and legacy that is inherent in her name. Though I did admire Anne Hathaway’s smart-and-ruthless-with-a-smattering-of-conscience characterization, this version of Catwoman ultimately fails my feminist expectations because she ends up with Bruce Wayne in the end. She runs away to France and allows him to domesticate her. Stripping Catwoman of her counter-culture independence and settling her down with a man is tantamount to de-clawing her.

I bet Bruce Wayne will have a hard time housebreaking her

No, in this reviewer’s humble-ish opinion, the most feminist depiction of Catwoman is Michelle Pfeiffer from Tim Burton’s 1992 Batman Returns. Though this Catwoman is oozing sex, she always has her own agenda and is crafty enough to DIY-style make her own iconic cat costume. Pfeiffer’s Selina Kyle is mentally unstable and has periodic breaks with reality, which is a realistic rendering of a woman suffering post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after being attacked and murdered by her boss.

Catwoman mounts Batman and licks his face

The end of Batman Returns has Batman stripping off his mask and asking Catwoman not to kill her boss, but to leave town and come away with him instead. This is the inverse of what happens in The Dark Knight Rises as Hathaway’s Kyle begs Batman to abandon Gotham and run away with her. Pfeiffer’s response as Catwoman is, “Bruce, I would love to live with you in your castle forever just like in a fairy tale. I just couldn’t live with myself, so don’t pretend this is a happy ending!” She then claws Batman’s face and kills her boss, using up all but one of her nine lives to do so. Now, I’m not all about killing or anything, but the point is that Selina Kyle rejects Batman’s idea of who she should be, what her moral code should be, and how she should heal. She acknowledges the appeal of the traditional “fairy tale” conclusion that ends her story with a man and love, but her need for independence and for self-actualization becomes too important for her to sacrifice by relying on romantic love to save her as she once would have before her transformation into Catwoman. Instead, her story continues on, and we can imagine all the possible paths she may have chosen for her life.

All the Catwomen are hyper-sexualized and mysterious. All of them wield power over Batman and Gotham’s underworld. Though Pfeiffer’s Catwoman is my pick as the most feminist of all the iterations I’ve seen, she’s still problematic as are all her Cat sisters. I see the feminist strength and independence in her, but I also see the way sex is her weapon and that she mostly exists as a foil for Batman, a temptation and a lesson on what rampant desires can lead to. Maybe I’m more like Batman than I’d care to admit in that I, too, recognize the appeal of Catwoman as a mixed bag, and I, too, am drawn to her against my better judgement.

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Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

Classic Literature Film Adaptations Week: ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’ by Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston

This is a guest post by Martyna Przybysz.

Hurston’s novel has found a huge following not only amongst African-American readers and writers, such as Alice Walker, but ever since being brought into the spotlight back in the 1970s, it has had a growing female readership. It is not an easy novel to get through – the use of local dialects, and the ever changing narrative styles, make it an almost laborious read. As noted by a Black British writer, Zadie Smith, in the introduction to the novel from 2007 “Hurston rejected the ‘neutral universal’ for her novels – she wrote unapologetically in the black-inflected dialect in which she was raised.””Unapologetic” is the key word here – Zora, as the writer, and a woman, went against the grain, just like her character, Janie. That is what makes the novel compelling and draws the reader in. Similarly so, the character potrayed by Halle Berry is driving the film’s narrative.

Janie and Tea Cake

Janie Crawford is a survivor. In the opening scene of the film, just like in the novel, she has just come back from burying the dead – the only love of her life, a light-hearted slacker, Tea Cake. The first sentence signals the narrative that will later dominate the entire movie. It could be argued that film, being a visual medium, has an advantage over the written word in establishing the mood, and here it does so with the jittery camera movements, and extreme close-ups of Janie’s body. “There’s two things everybody got to find out for theyselves, they got to find out about love, and they got to find out about living” she says, as she stumbles through a village path, in nothing but dirty overalls.

Isn’t it a powerful, universal statement? It is indeed; however, as the film progresses, we lose the sense of identity search that is so prevalent in the novel. We are instead invited to a roller-coaster ride that are Halle Berry’s… wait, Janie Crawford’s romantic endeavours. Because yes, as aptly pointed out by one of the reviewers, “she’s Halle Berry – and the movie never lets you forget it.”

Halle Berry as Janie

Perhaps because I got to watch the film prior to reading the novel, it was easier for me to accept Halle’s interpretation of Janie. I couldn’t, however, shake off the feeling that a multilayered novel has been reduced to a Harlequin-esque epic drama. Having Oprah Winfrey summarise the film in the trailer only made that impression stronger. What the film fails to do is adapt the strong visual imagination of the writer that built a much more complex identity for Janie.

Whilst the novel slowly introduces us to Janie, and goes as far back as her childhood, in the film we are immediately transported back to that unlucky afternoon when her Gran spots her kissing a regular farm boy and decides to give her away to a rich land-owner. Logan Killicks is a non-invasive older man, who places Janie in the role of a housewife. It is by his side that she grows into a woman and realizes that her romantic dreams of love may not be fulfilled. It isn’t long, however, until she meets a handsome gentleman called Joe Starks (played by Ruben Santiago-Hudson) and runs away with him. And here again, the search for her own identity as a female seems rather futile. Janie becomes an accessory and feels restricted by her relationship and the social role (being the Mayor’s wife) that she has to fulfill. “I think it keep us in a kinda strain,” she says. She’s just there to stay by her man’s side and should not have any further expectations, as according to Janie’s granmother “de nigger woman is de mule uh de world.” Janie, however, will not rest until she finds happiness in a relationship.

DVD cover

Without fail, Halle Berry conveys her character’s search with utmost sensitivity and attention to detail – it is all in the small gestures that we learn about Janie and her heart’s desires. She wants to feel and love and share that feeling with the world, but most importantly, she adapts this approach to life and the world in order to find her own sacred place in the arms of a caring man. That, for her, is the destination. As a contemporary woman, I find this concept a beautiful one in itself, but not quite liberating, and based on a presumption that a woman cannot be whole without a man. The search for female identity through the romantic love of a man emanates from the character of Janie throughout the film. She loves nature, and she loves God; she’s curious, and open, and somewhat free and wild. Through the camera work and sentimental music, Their Eyes Were Watching God explores that aspect of Janie’s personality, and when oppressed by her second marriage, she confesses to the audience that she is not “petal-open anymore.” What a striking, if slightly sentimental, analogy that brings to mind one of my favourite quotes from Anais Nin: “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

What the film, as well as the novel, are suggesting is not only that small town mentality is something that Janie has long outgrown, but by building her identity as a female in her own right, she is also going against the stale racial and gender stereotypes that enslave her community. When she finally meets “the love of her life,” Tea Cake (played by Michael Ealy), the passion between the two is undeniable, and so is everyone’s harsh judgment about their romance. But Janie is not a rebel; she simply follows her heart and is not afraid of being herself. Sexuality is an important aspect of her identity as a woman, and she is way ahead of her time with her natural and unconstrained ability to explore it.

However controversial or open-minded its description of sexual scenes was at the time when the novel was published (perhaps less when it was later read and fully acknowledged), Darnell Martin, the director of the TV movie, has made the scenes almost poetically erotic. The main sex scene between Halle and Michael brings us to a finale of the passion that has been building up between their protagonists – Janie looks and acts twenty years younger, just like a woman who has found herself by finding love in another. “I felt for the very first time like I was living my life – I had love, and it was real. Tea Cake gave me the whole world, every day.” That concludes Janie’s search for love, as well as her search for identity.

Although I find it thin and slow in places, I struggle to dislike Darnell Martin’s adaptation of Hurston’s novel. After all, it manages to carry a powerful message, despite it not being in favour of the current feminist perception of gender roles and female identity. Yet remembering that it is set in the early 20th century reality of African-Americans, one has to admit that it does a fair job at depicting a woman who goes beyond her time. Even if it does so not without pretense, and in a more simplistic way than Hurston’s beautiful novel.

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Martyna Przybysz is a Pole who resides in London, UK. She works in film production. This is her blog: http://martynaprzybysz.tumblr.com.

2011 NAACP Image Awards

The 42nd annual NAACP Image Awards

The NAACP Image Awards, honoring people of color in television, recording, literature, motion picture, and writing & directing, took place last weekend. We (and so many others) have decried the consistent whiteness and maleness in Hollywood, both of which were displayed in this year’s Academy Awards.

The Image Awards, on the other hand, are a “multi-cultural awards show from an African-American perspective.” An explanation of the award’s history and necessity emphasizes the importance of images we see and ideas that are reinforced by the media:

Ideas and images create the belief systems that control our individual and societal actions. When it comes to forming ideas, reinforcing stereotypes, establishing norms and shaping our thinking nothing affects us more than the images and concepts delivered into our lives on a daily basis by television, motion picture, recordings and literature. Accordingly, there is ample cause for concern about what does or does not happen in these mediums when there is little or no diversity in either opportunities or the decision making process.

For a complete list of nominees and winners in all categories, visit the official site. Here is a selection of categories in film.

Outstanding Motion Picture:
For Colored Girls – winner
Just Wright
The Book of Eli
The Kids Are All Right
Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too?

It’s noteworthy that only one of these received an Oscar nomination in the Best Picture category–which now features ten films. It’s also worth noting that two of the five are directed by women (Sanaa Hamri for Just Wright and Lisa Cholodenko for The Kids Are All Right), while two of the ten Oscar nominees were directed by women. Finally, I can’t help but mention that this site has reviewed exactly one of them (Kids). Why? One reason must be our own failing–not paying enough attention to films by and about people of color. That’s on us. Another reason is that the culture at large still isn’t paying enough attention to films by and about people of color. Films about women are typically marginalized to the category of “women’s films,” and thus not considered “mainstream” enough to attract wide (read: white male) audiences. Similarly, films about the lives and experiences of people of color are often reduced to “black films,” and not given the cultural and critical attention they deserve. Are these all outstanding films, deserving of mass critical attention? I don’t know–and the not-knowing is a problem. But they’re certainly deserving of an examination of gender politics…which is what we do. Here is the rest of the list, uninterrupted.

Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture:
Halle Berry for Frankie & Alice – winner
Janet Jackson for Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too?
Kerry Washington for Night Catches Us (check out Arielle Loren’s guest post)
Queen Latifah for Just Wright
Zoe Saldana for The Losers

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture:
Anika Noni Rose for For Colored Girls
Kimberly Elise for For Colored Girls – winner
Phylicia Rashad for For Colored Girls
Whoopi Goldberg for For Colored Girls
Jill Scott for Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too?

Outstanding Independent Motion Picture:
Conviction
Frankie & Alice – winner
La Mission
Mother and Child
Night Catches Us

Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture (Theatrical or Television):
Geoffrey Sax for Frankie & Alice
George Tillman, Jr. for Faster
Tanya Hamilton for Night Catches Us
The Hughes Brothers for The Book of Eli
Tyler Perry for For Colored Girls – winner

Be sure to check out all the nominees and winners. Which nominated films have you seen? What do you think of the winners? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Oscar Acceptance Speeches: Honoring Other Women

One of the things I’ve always loved and admired about the award acceptance speeches by women is how often they mention other women. Kate Winslet, accepting her Oscar for The Reader, joked, “I don’t think any of us can believe we’re in a category with Meryl Streep.” And Sandra Bullock, accepting her Oscar for The Blind Side, turned to each of her fellow nominees one by one and congratulated them. It’s something we rarely see from the men who win awards, and I admire that women openly acknowledge the necessity of sisterhood, especially during a male-dominated event (like any awards presentation for film, ever) that so often neglects the contributions of women. Here are a few of my favorites from the past twenty years of Oscar Acceptance Speeches for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress:

1992: Jodie Foster, winning Best Actress for The Silence of the Lambs

This has been such an incredible year. and I’d like to dedicate this award to all of the women who came before me who never had the chances that I’ve had, and the survivors and the pioneers and the outcasts; and my blood, my tradition. And I’d like to thank all of the people in this industry who have respected my choices and who have not been afraid of the power and the dignity that that entitled me to … And thank the Academy for embracing such an incredibly strong and beautiful feminist hero that I am so proud of.

1993: Emma Thompson, winning Best Actress for Howards End

And finally I would like, if I may, to dedicate this Oscar to the heroism and the courage of women, and to hope that it inspires the creation of more true screen heroines to represent them.

1997: Frances McDormand, winning Best Actress for Fargo

It is impossible to maintain one’s composure in this situation. What am I doing here? Especially considering the extraordinary group of women with whom I was nominated. We five women were fortunate to have the choice, not just the opportunity, but the choice, to play such rich, complex female characters. And I congratulate producers like Working Title and Polygram for allowing directors to make autonomous casting decisions based on qualifications and not just market value. And I encourage writers and directors to keep these really interesting female roles coming, and while you’re at it, you can throw in a few for the men as well.

2001: Julia Roberts, winning Best Actress for Erin Brockovich

I would like to start with telling you all how amazing the experience of feeling the sisterhood of being included in a group with Joan Allen and Juliette Binoche and Laura Linney and Ellen Burstyn for these last weeks has been. It’s just felt like such a triumph to me to be in that list. My name starts with “R” so I’m always last, but I still love the list.

2002: Halle Berry, winning Best Actress for Monster’s Ball

This moment is so much bigger than me. This moment is for Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll. It’s for the women that stand beside me, Jada Pinkett, Angela Bassett, Vivica Fox. And it’s for every nameless, faceless woman of color that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened.

2006: Reese Witherspoon, winning Best Actress for Walk the Line

A very special thank you to Jim Mangold who directed the film and also wrote this character who is a real woman who has dignity and honor and fear and courage. And she’s a real woman, and I really appreciate that. It was an incredible gift that you gave me, so thank you … And I want to say that my grandmother was one of the biggest inspirations in my life. She taught me how to be a real woman, to have strength and self-respect, and to never give those things away.

2007: Helen Mirren, winning Best Actress for The Queen

Now, you know for fifty years and more Elizabeth Windsor has maintained her dignity, her sense of duty, and her hairstyle. She’s had her feet planted firmly on the ground, her hat on her head, her handbag on her arm, and she’s weathered many, many storms. And I salute her courage and her consistency, and I thank her, because if it wasn’t for her, I most, most certainly would not be here.

2010: Sandra Bullock, winning Best Actress for The Blind Side(read our review)

I would like to thank the Academy for allowing me in the last month to have the most incredible ride, with rooms full of artists that I see tonight and that I’ve worked with before and I hope to work with in the future, who inspire me and blaze trails for us. Four of them, that I’ve fallen deeply in love with, I share this night with and I share this award with. Gabby, I love you so much. You are exquisite. You are beyond words to me. Carey, your grace and your elegance and your beauty and your talent makes me sick. Helen, I feel like we are family, and I don’t have the words to express what I think of you. And Meryl, you know what I think of you, and you are such a good kisser …

But there’s so many people to thank, not enough time. So I would like to thank what this film was about for me, which are the moms that take care of the babies and the children no matter where they come from. Those moms and parents never get thanked. I, in particular, failed to thank one. So, if I can take this moment to thank Helga B. for not letting me ride in cars with boys till I was eighteen, ’cause she was right; I would’ve done what she said I was gonna do. For making me practice every day when I got home, piano, ballet, whatever it is I wanted to be. She said to be an artist you had to practice every day. And for reminding her daughters that there’s no race, no religion, no class system, no color, nothing, no sexual orientation, that makes us better than anyone else. We are all deserving of love.

So, to that trailblazer who allowed me to have that, and this [referring to the Oscar], and this, I thank you so much for this opportunity that I share with these extraordinary women, and my lover Meryl Streep. Thank you.

2010: Mo’Nique, winning Best Supporting Actress for Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (read our review)

First, I would like to thank the Academy for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics. I want to thank Miss Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she had to so that I wouldn’t have to.

Oscar Acceptance Speeches, 2002

Leading up to the 2011 Oscars, we’ll showcase the past twenty years of Oscar Acceptance Speeches by Best Actress winners and Best Supporting Actress winners. (Note: In most cases, you’ll have to click through to YouTube in order to watch the speeches, as embedding has been disabled at the request of copyright owners.)

Best Actress Nominees: 2002

Halle Berry, Monster’s Ball

Judi Dench, Iris

Nicole Kidman, Moulin Rouge!

Sissy Spacek, In The Bedroom

Renée Zellweger, Bridget Jones’s Diary

Best Supporting Actress Nominees: 2002

Jennifer Connelly, A Beautiful Mind

Helen Mirren, Gosford Park

Maggie Smith, Gosford Park

Marisa Tomei, In The Bedroom

Kate Winslet, Iris

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Halle Berry (transcript only) wins Best Actress for her role in Monster’s Ball.

Jennifer Connelly wins Best Supporting Actress for her role in A Beautiful Mind.

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See nominees and winners in previous years: 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001