I had never heard anything like this sketch; I was enthralled. The timing. The repetition. The silence. Such gorgeous pauses. In a world where it feels like we need to fill every space with some yammering, to hear someone on stage using silence–to be brave enough to use it–made me take notice of this person Tig. And not just me. ‘The New York Times’ ran a piece about her 13-minute paean to Taylor Dane.
Tig Notaro needs your attention. I fell in love with her work in 2012 when I heard a This American Life sketch while driving down a highway.
[youtube_sc url=”https://youtu.be/jSwzYB545hY”]
I had never heard anything like this sketch; I was enthralled. The timing. The repetition. The silence. Such gorgeous pauses. In a world where it feels like we need to fill every space with some yammering, to hear someone on stage using silence–to be brave enough to use it–made me take notice of this person Tig. And not just me. The New York Timesran a piece about her 13-minute paean to Taylor Dane.
Then a barrage of sadness and struggle came for her. Tig had a life-threatening infection. Her mother died suddenly. Then Tig was diagnosed with breast cancer.
And this all became material for her standup. And the basis for the Netflix documentary Tig.
The set she did after her diagnosis is already the stuff of comedy legend. Comedians in the room that night began to bow at her feet.
Louis C.K. was there and he ended up selling her set on his site.
Directors Kristina Goolsby and Ashley York follow Tig through the aftermath of illness and grief. I particularly appreciate two elements of the documentary: the focus on writing as a craft and the attention to the struggle of fertility issues. Neither seems to get much good attention in films, and Tig offers the reader a look inside the mind of a female writer who wants to mother a child.
It shouldn’t be surprising that Notaro allows the filmmakers to go so deep into her world; she has come to be known a confessional comic after the set heard round the world. The film is heartbreaking and funny, just like Notaro’s standup. At times we flinch with her as she hears a verdict on her one shot at in vitro, the next moment we are cheering for her as she finds love.
Viewers watch her workshopping a bit, practicing it in front of audiences with different rhythms and wording. Rarely do we get to see the hard work of writing in a film (the closest I have seen such work happening is when I watched Fun Homeon Broadway). The awareness that writing is hard, that Notaro is producing work that requires time, honesty, attention, and a little bit of bravado reminds viewers that art is hard. Even though on stage Notaro makes it look easy.
So it was satisfying to me to see that one joke–about her breasts revolting against her body–come to fruition in her HBO special Boyish Girl Interrupted. The special serves as a climax to the story of Tig in that it finishes the joke. When Notaro takes on the persona of her grumpy breasts, she nails the timing and the wording in front of the sold out theater.
And she happens to do half of the set without her shirt on, her smooth chest an affront to all constricting ideas about what “woman” means.
I questioned whether I should even post a still from the HBO special since in many ways it is like stealing one of her punchlines. Should I have offered you, dear reader, a spoiler alert? Am I taking something from her by using this picture to represent her text?
Is taking off her shirt salacious? Provocative? Evocative? Confessional? All of the above. I implore you to watch the set and answer that question for yourself. I can tell you this: you haven’t seen anything like what Notaro is doing in the mainstream media.
But, at the end of the day—at the end of a lot of days—I’m tired of watching these shows and seeing women as props and symbols used to push the hero along his way. I’m tired of watching these shows and seeing the massive chasms between what they present, what they claim to represent, and what their fans insist they represent.
This guest post by Lisa Shininger previously appeared at her site and appears now as part of our theme week on Dystopias. Cross-posted with permission.
Spoilers ahoy.
I’m tired today.
I stayed up too late last night to watch the first season finale of True Detective, the lush, loquacious portrait of Southern decay that held me in thrall all weekend, racing to catch up to the zeitgeist, if not the killer(s). I’m no stranger to late nights—nor to the toll of an extended media binge—but the seemingly endless spin of the HBO Go loading wheel (and the horrified contortions of my face once the show began) were more tiring than I had expected.
More than that, though, this tiredness also stems from choosing for a weekend to almost wholly submerge myself in the barely fictional, humanity-ravaged landscapes of Louisiana. The glimpses we had of the fading memory of a town—of man-made structures being devoured by the march of time and nature—mirror the Rust Belt city I live in, where my drive to work has been carefully mapped around abandoned factories and crumbling facades so the unrelenting misery of impotent nostalgia doesn’t get its claws too deep into me.
There is no escape from Pizzolatto and Fujinaka’s post-apocalyptic vision in the world of True Detective. Rust and Marty end almost where they began, but they will be forever tied to that land that sinks ever further out of sight.
Sometimes it feels like there is no escape in my neck of the woods, either. While no swirling, galactic vortices yawn open above my head, I see hints of humanity’s high-water mark in every rusted fence falling inexorably beneath a new grassy tide.
That’s not entirely why I’m tired today, though.
Sure, I’m tired of driving through familiar post-industrial wastelands, of hearing the echoes of a Springsteenian wail with every mile, both in reality and in fiction.
And I’m tired of the artistic fetishization of decline, of photo essays about the crumbling American industrial civilization with little or no context for the societal forces that precipitated that decline, and those that continue to accelerate it while we avail ourselves of disaster porn.
But, at the end of the day—at the end of a lot of days—I’m tired of watching these shows and seeing women as props and symbols used to push the hero along his way. I’m tired of watching these shows and seeing the massive chasms between what they present, what they claim to represent, and what their fans insist they represent.
I’m tired of watching these shows be widely praised for the quality of their writing, their fully dimensional characters, their gritty and realistic depictions of life—while I’m wondering where the other half of the world is.
In high school, I fell hard for The X-Files. Harder than for any other thing in my life, before or since. It fed my adolescent desire for darkness and the occasional lingering shot of David Duchovny’s fishbelly-pale torso.
The infamous fourth season episode, “Home,” touched on some of the same themes and archetypes revealed through this season of True Detective. The abduction and violation of women. The high American Gothic horror of the backwoods inbred. The willful ignorance of what happens in our communities. The invisible threads of malice and terror that we imagine—and occasionally reveal—crisscross our heartlands.
There, the monsters weren’t just the malignant and malformed Peacock men who roamed the Pennsylvania hills in their classic car to the dulcet tones of a Johnny Mathis sound-alike, in search of new breeding stock and targets for their violent protective urges. The monster was also the literal thing under the bed: the woman who presumably birthed them and continued to give birth to their doomed offspring. The episode hinges on Mulder and Scully seeking her out, to rescue her from her captors, from the horrors they assume she endures. But when Scully engages her, Mrs. Peacock reveals herself to be every bit the horror that her sons are. She is complicit and consenting—by the show’s terms—both in her confinement and in the rampages her sons commit.
We meet her presumable counterpart in the True Detective finale, but when the present-day detectives Gilbough and Papania begin to tell us her role among the evil that surrounds her, Marty Hart tells them to stop. He is as uninterested in her life as he is in that of any of the women who surround him, when their lives aren’t in support of his own. He is as uninterested in her life as the show is in the lives, or deaths, of any of the women we encounter.
From Elastic’s True Detective title sequence pitch, via Art of the Title
The most frequent criticism about this season has been its lack of “well-defined” female characters. This is a misleading statement. That there are no “well-defined” female characters on True Detective is the point.
Is it? Really?
It’s an essential part of the character of Marty, sure. His life outside the job is populated by women he barely knows: his wife, his children, his mistresses. It’s also an essential part of how Rust doesn’t allow himself to make connections with people—he only knows what he can see in service of his work.
But, how does the absence of women in the show—as viewpoint characters, as protagonists, as anything more complex than eyewitnesses and victims—further that point in ways that can’t be done within the narrative?
If the point of having no developed women—outside of Maggie, who I can’t forget never acts on anything unless it is in reaction to Marty—is to illustrate the disregard and disdain the world has for them, isn’t that point made in the way, for decades, dozens of women and children vanish and no one cares enough to pierce the veil of lies hung in their wake?
The question that kept ringing through my head as I mainlined the show was: Why are these always men’s stories? Monsters in myriad guises prey on women and children, but it’s always more men telling us stories about those monsters. Always.
If Pizzolatto’s aim in making this show was to transform the common beats and tropes of the murder story into something that transcended the genre, why do we have eight episodes that retread the most common of tropes: the victimization of passive women?
The inciting point of the entire season is the ritual murder of a woman and the destruction of property, which could arguably be seen as equivalent crimes. We first encounter Dora Lange as a literal object, a doll posed by unknown persons in a tableau that is as dehumanizing as it is unsettling. Greyed by death, frozen in a ritualized pose, crowned with antlers and transformed into a once-living sculpture: she is nothing but a piece of art, for whoever left her there, for Rust, and for us as well. The camera lingers on her naked flesh the way we imagine her killer might have done.
What more do we know about Dora Lange at the end of the season that we didn’t learn in those first scenes in the cane field? Rust tells us she is likely a prostitute, and so we learn she was. She had an ex-husband, who leads us into the mid-season digression into the hyper-macho world of drug dealers and undercover operations. How she came to be married to that man, working in that mobile home brothel, dead in that field, is only explained in the barest of strokes needed to move our heroes around their boards.
By the time we know that the men the show tells us are directly responsible for her murder are themselves dead, even Dora herself has been subsumed: by the detectives’ quest, by the horror visited upon her, by the monsters who set her death in motion, even by the young girl whose image has supplanted hers on Rust’s wall.
These are never stories told by women about how they’re preyed on. About how they try to protect themselves and fail, or how they succeed. About how they choose to be complicit in their own abuse, or how they never had a choice. These stories are never even about women who are preyed on. It’s always about men, and men, and men.
Women aren’t really treated poorly by ‘Silicon Valley,’ but it’s weird that they’re treated as being so different from the male characters on the show. Where the men have recognizable – if exaggerated – human failings, motivations and personality tics, the women are much more inscrutable, like adults who’ve walked into the middle of a children’s game. It’s a pattern that exists outside of just this show, but it’s something that stops women from being full participants in the story even if they now, at least, exist there.
There’s no way that Silicon Valley can win this one, you guys.
“It’s like we’re the Beatles and now we just need Yoko”
Sitrep: Silicon Valley is a comedy on HBO about group of programmers who try to build their own company, only to discover that that’s really fucking hard. Despite being one of the funniest shows on television, it was roundly (and fairly) criticized in its first season for being passively sexist. The core characters are a group of five guys – Richard, the young visionary who comes up with a data compression code that could make him a billionaire; Erlich, the loud entrepreneur who owns a piece of Richard’s company; Gilfoyle and Dinesh, two programmers with an I-secretly-like-you-but-we-fight-cat-and-dog relationship; and Jared, an awkward business management/accounting guy they poached from a rival company.
Of the four supporting characters we meet, three are also guys – Gavin Belson, the head of the evil Hooli corporation; Big Head, Richard’s friend who works for Hooli; and Peter Gregory, an offbeat, socially awkward developer who sees Richard’s potential and invests in his company. That means that, out of the nine characters who regularly appear in season one, one of them is a woman, and she’s Peter Gregory’s assistant. Her name is Monica, she’s a straight man for jokes, and she really believes in Richard.
Aside from Monica, women are invisible in season one, except for a few who make appearances as strippers, professional party guests, and cupcake saleswomen who trick guys into building their aps. This is problematic partly because it’s a missed opportunity to show women working in the STEM fields, and partly because it feels weird against jokes like Big Head’s idea for an ap that points you to women who have erect nipples.
The good news is that it seems like the showrunners took this criticism seriously in season two, and at least made some attempt to show us that women also work in the tech industry. There are now female extras in the crowd shots at Hooli, female programmers and project managers, and women sitting on the company’s board of directors. Monica gets a promotion where she becomes responsible for managing her company’s interest in Richard’s start-up, and Peter Gregory (who sadly had to be replaced due to the actor’s passing) is swapped out for a socially awkward female boss named Laurie. Richard’s company, Pied Piper, even briefly hires a female coder, Carla, to work on the project.
It seems like they actually tried to do things differently. So, how did it turn out?
“It’s sexist, but it’s about friendship”
Not that well.
I don’t feel like Silicon Valley is hostile to women – but I feel like maybe the writers don’t have many female friends (yes, I know a couple of the episodes were actually written by women; maybe they don’t have female friends, either). Where the male characters are all really quirky and specific, the female characters are vaguely competent and bland – they fit into the comedy stereotype that says women have their shit together more than men do, and that means they have to act as a stabilizing influence, buzz-kill, or mom. It’s a stereotype that flatters women in some ways, and usually seems well-meaning, but also leaves us out of the fun.
Theoretically, Monica could have become a part of the core group of characters, through her increased participation in the board meetings. In practice, though, the board meeting comedy was driven by Erlich’s pompous, emotionally immature need to be the centre of attention, and a new character, Russ Hanneman’s need to be the biggest douche that ever was. Because she wasn’t written to have similarly loud and pronounced personality traits, Monica almost may as well not be there, and she fades father into the background as the season goes on.
The second opportunity to add a woman to the group came when Pied Piper hired Carla to help with the programming, but her primary trait was being Smurfette, and her contribution to the comedy was being a thing for the guys to react to in funny ways. She had a little bit more of an edge than Monica, but she was still portrayed as mostly competent and bland – above getting into childish fights with Gilfoyle and Dinesh, and focussed on doing her actual work. She was only in the show for a few episodes before she was written out completely.
Women aren’t really treated poorly by Silicon Valley, but it’s weird that they’re treated as being so different from the male characters on the show. Where the men have recognizable – if exaggerated – human failings, motivations, and personality tics, the women are much more inscrutable, like adults who’ve walked into the middle of a children’s game. It’s a pattern that exists outside of just this show, but it’s something that stops women from being full participants in the story even if they now, at least, exist there.
So, what should Silicon Valley do stop being a show about dudes?
*awkwardly not making eye contact*
Probably nothing.
From a purely pragmatic point of view, we just had a whole season that proved to us that adding women to the show – in the way that the writers are capable of adding women to the show – isn’t going to make much difference. I sincerely appreciate the effort – and it went a long way toward reassuring me that the show has good intentions, but I’m not sure a funny, juvenile, well-integrated female character is really in the cards for Silicon Valley. Melissa McCarthy can only do so many projects at once.
In order to integrate women more into the cast, there would have to be a real desire to do that and an introspective awareness of gender dynamics that hasn’t been present so far.
But, even aside from whether the show can add women, it’s not clear to me that it has to. It would be nice if it did. It would have been outstanding if, when the series was first conceived, someone had pushed it beyond the stereotypes that first come to mind when we think of the real Silicon Valley. But, we don’t have a time machine to go back and tinker with the DNA of the show when it was first created, and, in fairness to the writers, the mix of characters they did end up with works really well. That’s not to say that another mix wouldn’t have worked equally well from a comedy standpoint – just that, if we view its success partly in terms of whether or not it’s funny, Silicon Valley succeeded in being funny.
At this stage, I think that, rather than focusing on what should have been, or could still be different about Silicon Valley, this is a good opportunity to learn some lessons for next time. I think it’s okay for dude shows about dudes to exist – but it should serve as a reminder that we also need more shows about women, and shows about both men and women, together. Silicon Valley wouldn’t be such a sore spot for people if women weren’t underrepresented on TV in the first place and, while I don’t think it’s up to this series to solve that problem, it’s an example that can still play a part in the discussion. What’s striking about women’s invisibility – or women’s later responsible buzz-kill status – on Silicon Valley isn’t anything about the show itself, but the way it fits into a larger pattern.
So, let the dude show be about dudes. But let’s also have shows that aren’t about dudes – or aren’t just about dudes – to balance things out in the end.
Turtle reminds Vince that “the movie is called ‘Aquaman,’ not ‘Aquagirl.'” This line is indicative of the “boys club” that continues to thrive in Hollywood. An actress’s livelihood in the industry is dependent on her co-star.
This guest post by Rachel Wortherley appears as part of our theme week on Masculinity.
“Ultimately, the show’s theme is friendship and family. The characters may have bling, but they’re grounded guys who look out for each other. That’s the backbone of the show. If it was just about fantasy lifestyles, it wouldn’t be relatable” – Doug Ellin, creator and director, Entourage.
The HBO series Entourage (2004-2011) focuses on four men, born and bred in Queens, as they navigate the tough terrain of Hollywood. The show revolves around actor and superstar Vincent Chase. Rounding out his entourage are: Vince’s best friend and manager, Eric “E” Murphy (Kevin Connolly); childhood friend, assistant, and driver Sal “Turtle” Assante (Jerry Ferrara); and Vince’s older half-brother, personal chef, and C-list actor, Johnny “Drama” Chase (Kevin Dillon). The story and characters are inspired by actor Mark Wahlberg, his manager Stephen Levinson, and various members of Wahlberg’s entourage during Wahlberg’s rise to fame. Entourage has often been criticized for its portrayal of male fantasy lifestyles. Their lives consist of buying expensive cars, attending exclusive parties and movie premieres, and hot girls. Ellin’s estimation is correct. Entourage is not a portrayal of the male fantasy. Instead, it reinforces the harsh reality that being a male, especially in Hollywood, equals power.
Each episode appears to end with a satisfying resolution. Seasons one and two consist of the guys finding Vince a new role that will propel him to stardom. In season one, Vince is coming off of a mediocre debut film and now wants a role with substance, while his equal opportunity offender and hardball agent, Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven), wants Vince to take a blockbuster film. At the end of season one, Vince films the indie and season two depicts Eric and Ari through the trials, tribulations, schmoozing, and negotiations of making Vince well-known to director James Cameron.
In season two, episode seven, “The Sundance Kids,” the guys end up fracturing a movie deal with producer Harvey Weingard (Maury Chakin) in the hopes of James Cameron casting Vince as Aquaman. At the end of the episode, when James Cameron leaves the film early, their hopes are dashed. That is, until Vince receives a phone call from James Cameron asking him if he wants to be his Aquaman. It is made clear that at this point, Vince is largely unknown. He fails to reach the superstardom of Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, or Will Smith, yet Cameron is willing to take a chance. In season five, Vince’s film flops at Cannes and he is out of work for the next six months. In the reality of Hollywood, six months is a vacation for male stars, while it is a death sentence for actresses. Despite the rollercoaster of events, Vince and company still manage to stay on top.
Throughout the series, women are disposable. This notion is solidified in the pilot by Turtle when the guys invite Vince’s groupies over for a pool party: “Sweetheart, look around. Vince is gone. So’s your sister and your best friend. Come on, just make out with me, I’ll show you where Vince eats breakfast.” This can be seen as males using women–or “girls” as the guys refer to them—as a source of status and service. However, there is an equality in the leeching that occurs. Women are for consumption and allow themselves to be consumed. The next day, Turtle gives the girl a fresh pair of Vince’s jeans as a gift and all is well.
However, the most telling episode occurs in season two, episode eight, “Oh, Mandy.” After receiving news that actress and singer Mandy Moore has been offered the role of Aquagirl, Ari, the studio, the guys, and Vince’s opinionated and brass publicist, Shauna (Debi Mazar), scramble. Vince’s past romance with Mandy has the potential to hurt the movie. As a result, Vince has to make the decision as to whether or not she stays on the movie or not. Turtle reminds Vince that “the movie is called Aquaman, not Aquagirl.” This line is indicative of the “boys club” that continues to thrive in Hollywood. An actress’s livelihood in the industry is dependent on her co-star.
While there are notable women in the series, they are largely present to elevate the males. For example, the fact that Ari’s wife, Mrs. Ari is referred to as such and it is the character’s name, until the series finale, demonstrates how her identity clings to being the wife of Ari Gold. Yet she is the figure whom we see a different side of Ari through. While she tolerates his adolescent tantrums, Melissa is able to go toe-to-toe with Ari. In the pilot, as a way of solidifying his masculinity over Eric, Ari boasts about sleeping with supermodels. After audiences meet Melissa, they know this is false. As Ari attempts to skip out on his son’s birthday party to reign in Vince, Melissa calls him an “asshole.” His counter argument is to make a laundry list of everything he has provided for her: the means to contribute to charities, go shopping, and support her deadbeat brother. She simply replies, “Hey little agent boy, you better be back here for the cake,” and his only response is “OK.” His dynamic with Melissa, as well as, Lloyd his assistant/whipping boy, saves his character from being completely unsalvageable.
Women are also seen as the saviors when the stakes are high. In season one, one of Vince’s girlfriends provides a weed dealer to an uptight producer whose dealer is dry. As a result, the producer takes a liking to Vince and accepts his casting in the indie Queens Boulevard. In season two, porn stars rush to Vince’s aid when a journalist at comic-con (Rainn Wilson) threatens to ruin Vince and Aquaman before it has been filmed. Shauna—who calls Vince “Vincent”—acts as Vince’s west coast mother who tells him what to wear, how to act, and attempts to talk him off a ledge when his heart is broken by Mandy Moore. In addition to Melissa, the other women of Entourage, Sloan McQuewick (Emmanuelle Chriqui) and Jamie Lynn Sigler (playing herself), allow for the men to mature from boys playing with toys to men—who continue to play with toys, but have responsibility—at least in their romantic lives.
What is fascinating about Entourage is the timing of the premiere. Two months before the premiere, HBO had just come off the wave of the hit series Sex and the City. While it is not fair to compare the two series, there are areas in which they are similar. Each series has four friends who look out for each other and keep each other grounded and we see an air of extravagancy that is not afforded to the average viewer: shoes, homes, cars, etc. While romance and relationships is the focus on Sex and the City, the men of Entourage spend a fair amount of time talking about women. Eric’s relationships with women is usually the point of discussion.
While Eric’s story and character arc is establishing himself as a viable manager, Eric’s growth throughout the series is arguably the most relatable and interesting. The definition of masculinity—money, power, girls, brute strength—is not necessarily synonymous to Eric. If he were to be compared to a Sex and the City character, he is Miranda Hobbes. Miranda is successful, but her style does not eclipse that of Carrie Bradshaw. Miranda is the everywoman. She is career-driven, maintains a healthy relationship (formerly cynical about men and love), and is the practical voice of reason in their circle of friends. Eric, a former Sbarro pizza boy, is not as handsome as Vince, he drives an old car—until Vince gifts him one—and wears his heart on his sleeve. These two characters are likable because they are not the famous writer or movie star. So, is Miranda a male in women’s clothes, or is Eric a female in male’s clothes? The fact that Miranda, a woman, and Eric a male, can be compared concludes that our ideas of masculinity and femininity are not exclusive.
The reality of Entourage is that their environment allows for adolescent and offensive behaviors amongst men. Males are allowed to make power plays against each other and win. If they lose, their next opportunity is around the corner. This is not afforded to women who either need to be sexy and “bangable” while maintaining the visage of the “cool” girl next door to survive. Ellin is correct that the friendship amongst males is the theme of Entourage, but so is the fact that outside of the family dynamic, the “backbone” of their industry calls for males who look out for each other.
Rachel Wortherley earned a Master of Arts degree at Iona College in New Rochelle, New York. Her downtime consists of devouring copious amounts of literature, films, and Netflix. She hopes earn an MFA and become a professional screenwriter.
Boys are judged on their ability to swing a sword or work a trade, criticised for showing weakness, and taught to grow up hard and cold. Doesn’t sound unfamiliar, does it? Masculinity is praised in Westerosi society, as it is in our own.
This guest post by Jess Sanders appears as part of our theme week on Masculinity.
HBO are not my favourite showrunners. They spoil Game of Thrones for me. They use rape as a plot device and women as decoration – I mean, there is a guy working on the show who openly admits to playing “the pervert side of the audience” for god’s sake. Numerous times, I’ve wanted to stop watching out of sheer anger… but I just can’t.
While the presentation of the show is so inherently misogynistic, I am too invested in the characters and the story they’re telling. I love how George R. R. Martin (GRRM) gives us a world we can believe in, and nuanced storylines to read and watch (I just wish the show had been put into better hands to do them justice!).
Game of Thrones is a medieval fantasy. It is set in the kind of world that fairytales and folklore are made of. We’ve got dragons, brave knights, and beautiful maidens – all the components are there. GRRM could have made some easy money writing a romance: the handsome prince rescues the helpless princess; they all live happily ever after, the end. But nobody lives happily ever after in Game of Thrones.
Much like a fairytale, there are plenty of recognisable male tropes: warriors, lotharios, noble heroes. Game of Thrones is a story of rich and powerful patriarchs raising sons to be rightful heirs and trading their daughters in political power-plays. Boys are judged on their ability to swing a sword or work a trade, criticised for showing weakness, and taught to grow up hard and cold. Doesn’t sound unfamiliar, does it? Masculinity is praised in Westerosi society, as it is in our own.
But instead of championing macho ideals, GoT presents a wide range of fully developed male characters who are vulnerable, have real problems and vices, and are not tall, dark, handsome or at all “chiselled.”
My favourite of these is Samwell Tarly, played by John Bradley. I love Sam. He is so much the opposite of any sort of hero stereotype: he’s a fat, pink-faced coward who’s terrified of, well – most things. He’s not strong, he hates fighting, and he’s painfully shy around girls. He just isn’t “masculine” in the traditional sense of the word. But it’s Sam who first kills a White Walker with Dragon Glass. Since then, we haven’t seem him miraculously transformed into a warrior – because he isn’t and doesn’t want to be one – but when the White Walkers finally get to the wall, he might’ve actually saved the day.
Sam finds his courage defending Gilly and Baby Sam against a White Walker.
Tyrion Lannister(Peter Dinklage) is another of my favourite unexpected heroes. He’s probably one of the best-loved characters on the show and, as a dwarf, could easily have had a loveable underdog story. But he’s not an underdog. Tyrion is an arrogant drunk who visits a lot of brothels. And he’s more than capable of being as cruel and calculating as the other Lannisters (just ask Maester Pycelle). On the other hand, he’s done noble things, like respecting Sansa’s wishes about consummating their marriage. He once slapped Joffrey in the face. Tyrion hasn’t become an all-around good guy or a complete “baddie” because his life has been hard, and we never have to feel sorry for or pity him – yeah, we’re on his side, but he’s not perfect and that makes him real.
“Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you. “ – Tyrion Lannister
Then there’s Gwendoline Christie as Brienne of Tarth. I know we were talking about men, but I really couldn’t write an article on masculinity and not mention Brienne could I? I think Brienne might just be my idol. On the surface, she is the typical “Joan of Arc” character: a tall woman in men’s armour, hair cut short, stony faced and over-sincere. Brienne refuses to be outwardly feminine – not just because it isn’t in her nature, but because she’s got too much to prove to show anything that could be considered “weakness.” But even then, she’s not a caricature. Brienne loved Renly Baratheon, so much so that she was willing to die for him – albeit not in a helpless way but in a dies-in-bloody-battle kind of way. She doesn’t want to be anybody’s little wife, but she’s not afraid to feel. Like many of the male characters, she seems to be driven by a strong sense of pride and duty, but for Brienne that’s about doing what’s right – not gaining power or status as her male counterparts have been conditioned to do.
Just Brienne being her usual badass self.
It’s a difficult world to navigate for women. In contrast to Brienne, Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) uses her sexuality to get what she wants. Olenna and Margaery Tyrell (Diana Rigg,Natalie Dormer) work together, using a combination of Olenna’s wisdom and Margaery’s beauty as their weapon, to secure a future for their House. The women of Westeros live all their lives controlled by men – they use any tool available to take some of that power back.
“Tears aren’t a woman’s only weapon, the best one’s between your legs.” – Cersei Lannister
The more I’ve written about masculinity here, the more I could have written about. I feel like I could have done a whole article’s-worth of writing on each of the characters I’ve mentioned and more. I think that’s a testament to the overwhelmingly varied range of diverse and complex characters to be found in the show and books.
George R. R. Martin has presented us a patriarchy that’s falling apart, with men too wrapped up in their power struggles and wars to notice the impending threat of White Walkers, and the arrival of winter. Over the course of writing, I realised how many of the stereotypically masculine characters are now dead, while the thinkers and the “weaker” characters live:
King Robert Baratheon: warrior, womaniser, drunkard – suffered an “unfortunate hunting accident”
It seems that, in Game of Thrones, being “manly” might get you glory, but it might also get you killed. Valar Morghulis, after all.
Jess Sanders is a 22-year-old feminist and writer from “The North” (otherwise known as Yorkshire, England). She can be found tweeting excitedly or angrily at @jsssndrs.
Let me start by saying that the title of this post is a little disingenuous – I’d never tell you how upset to be about the rape plot lines on HBO. You feel how you feel, and you get to make your own decisions about what you do and don’t watch. I do, however, find it interesting that rape’s showing up so often on TV, and I wonder whether that’s a good thing (because we’re finally talking about it) or a bad thing (because we’re slowly getting desensitized to it). I think it’s a little of both.
Let me start by saying that the title of this post is a little disingenuous – I’d never tell you how upset to be about the rape plot lines on HBO. You feel how you feel, and you get to make your own decisions about what you do and don’t watch. I do, however, find it interesting that rape’s showing up so often on TV, and I wonder whether that’s a good thing (because we’re finally talking about it) or a bad thing (because we’re slowly getting desensitized to it). I think it’s a little of both.
I wish I could say something funny, but everything about this is terrible
I remember that, when Game of Thrones first aired, and I watched the first episodes, not really knowing what it was, I was very uncomfortable with the story line where Daenerys gets sold to a warlord who rapes her repeatedly before they suddenly fall in love. I remember thinking (and writing) at that time that I was afraid to live in a world where depictions of rape were so common that they no longer had the power to shock us. I think I likened it to the festering animal corpse we saw in episode one – something that would have really freaked me out when I was younger, but that I barely even noticed on Game of Thrones, since I’m so used to seeing gross stuff on TV.
In the intervening years, I was annoyed that Game of Thrones used rape so often as a way to raise the stakes in a tense situation – during the battle of Blackwater we learn that the noble women have soldiers standing guard to kill them if the city falls, so that they don’t get raped; a bunch of total randoms try to rape Sansa because that’s what they do during riots in Westeros; we know that all the guys stationed at Crastor’s Keep are total fucking dicks because they want to rape every girl they meet; we know that a bunch of other guys in the Night’s Watch are total fucking dicks for the same reason. One of the worst examples is when we spend what feels like hours and hours of season three watching Ramsay Snow torture a male character named Theon, often in sexual ways, apparently just to impress upon us that torture is really bad news.
On the flip side of that, season three also includes the only rape plot line I’d mark as kind of legitimately good. In that plot line, Jaime Lannister slowly becomes friends with the only female knight on the show, Breinne of Tarth. When they’re both captured by mercenaries who try to rape her, the show is very clear in presenting this as a situation in which sexual violence is being used as a way to dehumanize her, punish her for gender non-conformity, and treat her as less than a person. Because Jaime’s come to see Brienne as an equal and a full human being, we see that his perception of rape changes in that moment, and that he starts to appreciate that she’s had to fight a much harder battle than he has, just to receive basic rights. (The show later destroys that character arc by “accidentally” having him rape his sister, but that’s another story.)
For me, the stuff with Brienne worked well because that story didn’t treat rape as something that inevitably follows from being female – it contextualized rape within society, culture, and power relations, showing how rape is used as a tool used to oppress people with lower status. That’s important – and it’s something worth dramatizing in fiction.
The latest rape-related plot line – the one that, weirdly, is the flashpoint for anger over rape on Game of Thrones, after everything else that’s happened – falls somewhere between gratuitous let’s-raise-the-stakes stuff and thoughtful cultural commentary, but much closer to the former. It’s easy to see why people are upset. Sansa is a likable character, Ramsay is a bastard (in every single sense of the word), and watching him viciously attack her on their wedding night doesn’t tell us anything about the characters, the situation, or the dynamics of sexual violence that we didn’t already know. It wasn’t my favourite moment, either. But is this a sign that we’re not taking rape very seriously? I’m not sure.
HBO has a pretty uneven history of using rape story lines – sometimes for good, sometimes for something a bit less than good, and sometimes for something that’s hard to parcel out.
Like this. This is very hard to parcel out.
Back in 1997, HBO launched its first hour-long drama series, Oz – a theatrical, experimental and often scathing indictment of the US prison system. Oz arguably paved the way for the renaissance of HBO original programming that followed, and it introduced a lot of the things we’ve come to expect from premium cable – lots of f-bombs, frontal nudity, graphic sex and violence, people taking drugs, and (of course) people doing crimes. Its thesis, at least in the beginning, was that it’s inhumane to lock people up in a cage and watch them tear each other apart. Its attitude toward rape, at least in the beginning, was that rape is used by dumb people with poor social skills as a way to punish, humiliate and control those they see as their inferiors. The main story arc in the first season asks the audience to identify with a man who’s raped and tortured by a white supremacist, and to watch as he slowly loses his humanity. It’s very uncomfortable, but it’s also a powerful depiction of what’s wrong with something that a lot of people see as being a normal part of prison and have the bad taste to make flippant jokes about.
Oz ran for six seasons, though, and things got weird toward the end. The show seemed to learn the wrong lessons from itself (and from The Sopranos, which launched two years later) about what was successful with viewers and, rather than being a focused piece of cultural commentary, it turned into The Super Gross-Out Everyone Rapes and Stabs Everyone Hour with subplots ripped from the headlines, in which the prisoners became telemarketers and seeing eye dog trainers. Meaning, if we take Oz as a whole, it was both a valuable examination of a serious issue that wasn’t often talked about and a crass attempt at turning sexual violence into a shocking and sometimes titillating spectacle. It didn’t score 100 percent in either category, and many of the premium cable shows that followed have also been a mixture of the two things.
It bears mentioning that a few shows have actually just been a mixture of the worst kinds of things. At the shallow end of the entertainment pool, True Blood scored a hat trick by: a) including gratuitous, shock value rape that served no purpose in the story; b) acting like it’s impossible to rape a man because men are always up for sex; and c) acting like rape can be a funny joke under the right circumstances (for reasons that I don’t understand, those circumstances are: if the victim is promiscuous and if the rapist has a weird personality – WTF?). On Showtime, Shameless has also gone the route of it’s-impossible-to-rape-a-dude-and-it’s-kind-of-funny-if-you-try, and I’m told that the current Starz series, Outlander, is basically built from rape fail of the isn’t-this-sort-of-erotic variety.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Sopranos episode “Employee of the Month” is routinely cited as one of the best in the series, and that’s an hour all about the rage that Tony Soprano’s therapist, Dr. Melfi, feels after the man who rapes her is released on a technicality. She struggles with the ethical decision of whether to use her mafia connections to exact some vigilante justice, and the audience understands how she feels. We can debate whether or not the show “needed” the attack on Dr. Melfi to be rape, or what it means that that was what was chosen so that we could sympathize with her position, but it’s a good piece of television. And it’s a good piece of television from a show that also has no problem setting its scenes in a strip club and using women’s bodies as a backdrop to the action.
In that context, Game of Thrones reads more like Oz and The Sopranos than like True Blood, Shameless, or Outlander, to me. Sometimes it’s contributing something of value; sometimes it’s indulging an ugly desire to see people suffer for our entertainment; sometimes it’s uncritically replicating our conflicted cultural attitudes toward rape – it’s a mixture of all of those things – so, how should we feel about that?
Seriously – “Employee of the Month” it’s one of the best episodes
There was a time, not long ago, when rape was basically Voldemort – you couldn’t say its name without making everyone uncomfortable, or risking that they’d blame you for making them uncomfortable, by speaking the forbidden. When rape was a stigmatized topic and had the power to bring an uncomfortable hush, it arguably seemed like a more serious subject. But, because it brought that hush, and because we didn’t talk about it – because it was shrouded in so much shame and secrecy – we couldn’t have the conversations we’re having now about what consent looks like, and what it is and isn’t OK to expect from a partner. We couldn’t talk about rape culture – we couldn’t talk about the way that rape relates to other forms of violence against women; we couldn’t publicly discuss the systemic reasons why it happens. We couldn’t even say, “It’s a form of misogyny.” It was just shadows peeling out of the dark – a horrible, inexplicable thing that just happened without any explanation, or any way to make it stop.
Now, it’s at the top of our cultural radar. Now, it’s lost some of its power to hush, and we’ve gained more power to speak about it. We’re at a stage where we have to confront rape somehow, and we’re watching that confrontation play out on TV – it’s a confrontation that isn’t over yet. It’s a confrontation that’s really just starting.
The reason there’s so much rape on television now is that we’ve realized the issue is important. It occupies a place in our minds – it’s something that we’re actively struggling with, and that’s good. It’s better than accepting rape as normal; it’s better than treating it as some big mystery thing that nobody can ever talk about or change.
At the same time, when we didn’t talk about rape, we could all sort of silently believe that we agreed with each other about how it worked. Now that it’s holding more space in public discourse, we have more opportunity to encounter ideas about rape that offend us. If the presentation of rape on TV seems schizophrenic – if it seems like it’s this weird, random mixture of insightful observation, crass enjoyment, gross misunderstanding, sympathy, minimization, titillation, gender theory, cultural criticism, ignorance, spitefulness, and confusion – that’s because, culturally, we have a fractured, complicated, self-contradictory relationship with this topic. It’s actually possible for the same person to be kind of turned on and kind of grossed out by rape scenes – it’s possible for the same person to think it’s wrong for men to rape women and that’s there’s nothing you can really do about it because it’s just something that happens. It’s possible for somebody with really good, enlightened, thoughtful views of gender to just not notice sexualized violence against women, because we’re all so used to seeing it.
It’s also possible for someone to be a straight-up misogynist dick bag, and we get some of that, too, but the point is that we’re in the middle of a discussion that it’s worth our time – all our time – to have.
To say the least, it’s absolutely annoying – and, for some people, hurtful and traumatizing – to feel that you can’t watch TV anymore without risking that the story will suddenly turn against you by presenting sexual violence – violence that you may have experienced in real life – as something that’s either Not A Big Deal or is Kind Of Fun To Watch – but it’s also an opportunity for dialogue that we weren’t always able to have.
I would be more disturbed if every depiction of rape on TV were dismissive, normalizing, gratuitous, or uncritical, but we’re fortunate enough that that isn’t the case, and fortunate enough to live in a time when audiences have an unprecedented ability to publicly respond and speak back to what they’ve seen.
It sucks to be reminded that not everyone has a very sophisticated view of how gender and power dynamics influence rape – it sucks to be reminded that there are some people who’ve literally never had to think about this at all, and others who have to live in fear and think about it all the time. But it’s also amazing, because at least now we’re talking about it. Now, no matter how little you usually think about gender, you’ve heard the words “rape culture” before. Now, no matter how little you usually think about TV, you’ve had to ask yourself whether you think it’s right or wrong to have a plot line about rape – and why, and what makes it that way, and what having that plot line says about culture.
It’s up to you to decide how upset you are about any individual plot line on any individual show, but the pattern, I think, is not so discouraging. The pattern shows that this is a subject that’s become important to us – that it’s something we’re trying to understand. That we find it worthy of our attention. The discussion is still really messy, and it includes ideas that are pretty off-putting at times, but I think it’s a positive sign that we’re talking about this at all.
‘Bessie’ is one of the rare mainstream films that shows an unapologetically Black, female and queer protagonist. That alone is groundbreaking in an otherwise straightforward biopic.
See-line woman
Wiggle wiggle
Turn like a cat
Wink at a man
And he wink back
Now child
See-line woman
Empty his pockets
And wreck his days
Make him love her
And she’ll fly away
Writer/director Dee Rees opens the film Bessie with the Nina Simone classic “See-Line Woman” playing as the camera takes in Queen Latifah in close-up, her face drenched in resplendent blue lighting. The color, framing and music told me from jump that the narrative would be coming from a place of womanist Blackness. Nina Simone, the High Priestess of Soul, was signifying musically the proper introduction to Bessie Smith, the woman known in her day as the Empress of the Blues.
The story of Bessie Smith has been a long time coming, and it was quite timely that she should be given her due just a few days after the passing of the Blues legend B.B. King. Most people know very little about Bessie Smith, and it is almost a given that biopics are never truly satisfying, typically following a rise to fame and falling into trouble narrative. All I wanted to know was, would Rees be true to the highly unorthodox life of Smith? Or would we be subjected to a safe narrative that tip-toed around the raunchy, bisexual and profane realness of the Bessie Smith I read about in college?
Rees kept it real. Bessie is one of the rare mainstream films that shows an unapologetically Black, female and queer protagonist. That alone is groundbreaking in an otherwise straightforward biopic. Within ten minutes of the film, we see Bessie fooling around with a male paramour whom she beats up after he gets a little too fresh for her tastes, and then we see her in bed with her longtime female lover, Lucille (the gorgeous Tika Sumpter). It comes off natural, not some forbidden plot device to be used later to create conflict. It is what it is, and Bessie doesn’t waste time fretting over it. When she jumps on a train owned by Ma Rainey (Mo’Nique) to beg for a singing job and observes Ma interacting with her own female lover who prances around comfortably topless, Ma asks her straight out, “Watchu know about it?” Bessie tells her, “Same thing you do.” And that is that.
It was very powerful to see Black queer women openly affectionate with one another, and openly sexual in private spaces, especially for that time period. Black queer women, hardly ever get to see themselves on film without the narrative making them act secretive of fearful. Throughout the viewing, I kept waiting for Bessie’s bisexuality to become a big issue with her family, her band, or even her husband (and many lovers). It didn’t.
Ma Rainey takes Bessie under her wing, teaches her the ropes and how to sing the Blues to make the audience want more. She even teaches Bessie how to dress as a man and enjoy the thrill of smoking and gambling with men dressed that way. It reminded me of the stories I read that told of private clubs where women could be gender fluid and embrace masculine expressions without fear of bodily harm from violent homophobes.
Black love in all forms is front and center, and a new love comes in the form of Jack Gee (Michael Kenneth Williams being fierce and nuanced in this role), a man who sees Bessie perform, and goes to her hotel uninvited. As Bessie lies in bed, still in her nightgown and headscarf, her brother and business partner Clarence (Tory Kittles) watching her back, Jack Gee tells her his personal stats and proclaims without haste, “I’m auditioning to be your man.” He’s bold as brass and Bessie eventually marries him, and keeps her girlfriend Lucille too.
Jack seems very much Bessie’s equal, and they do go toe to toe with their hard loving, hard fighting and hard drinking. It’s a fragile relationship that hinges on Bessie’s Achilles heel, which is a bottomless hunger that stems from the loss of a mother at an early age, and the dysfunctional relationship she has with her older sister Viola (Khandi Alexander). Viola used to lock up food in the family refrigerator and beat on Bessie. This back-story told in flashbacks is the key to Bessie’s insatiable need for more success, more money, more lovers, and more control over her family. She eventually buys a large house without telling Jack, bringing everyone (including her sister Viola and Lucille) under one roof. She ignores her husband’s complaints and forces her will on everyone. She will live the life she felt was denied her, and even brings home a little boy on Thanksgiving to be her and Jack’s son. It’s Bessie’s world and everyone is expected to fall in line and gravitate around her.
The best part of Bessie is how she handles the intrusion of the White Gaze on the storyline. Bessie’s world seems insulated from white intrusion, and this allows us to focus on the Black characters just being themselves without having to focus on the known and ubiquitous racism. Whiteness does seep in through the colorism issues that Bessie encounters with the infamous paper bag test (Black performers, even in Black entertainment spaces of the period, did not hire darker skinned Black women who were not lighter than a paper bag). White intrusion is most prominent in two scenes, one involving the Klan showing up at one of Bessie’s performances, and the other at a prominent white patron’s home.
In the Klan sequence, Bessie simply walks outside and cusses the white men out and chases them away. She doesn’t quake in her boots or shrink behind the protection of Black men. She then turns around and goes back to performing, winning over the respect of the frightened Black men and women who were prepared to run away from White terrorism intruding onto Black space. In the home of Carl Van Vechten (Oliver Platt), a controversial patron of Negro artists whom he finds crude, primitive, and folksy, Bessie turns the White Gaze (and cultural appropriation) on its head by being true to her unfiltered Blackness. When a white woman puts her hands on Bessie in an attempt to hug her and says, “I heard that you were wild,” Bessie pushes her away and says, “Get the fuck off me.” Bessie in one fell swoop refused to let the white woman turn her body into a commodity. She turns on Carl Van Vechten too when he tells her about his book Nigger Heaven. This is a tremendous sequence because Bessie doesn’t allow the White characters to hijack the narrative and center the story on Bessie having to impress Van Vechten to get something from him for her survival. Bessie doesn’t give a fuck about anyone in that room except for herself and the two lovers she brought with her. In fact, Bessie doesn’t even care what Langston Hughes (Jeremie Harris) has to say when he tries to warn her about Van Vechten’s fetishizing of Black culture and Black people.
I found it fascinating watching Hughes take in Bessie’s behavior towards Van Vechten, because Hughes had to depend on White patrons much like Van Vechten to supplement his income in order to write and survive. Bessie didn’t. She had her voice and she had regular working class Black people who came out to see her when she travelled. Eventually she made records, (there’s the hilarious moment where she goes to a Black record company called Black Swan Records and discovers the company isn’t as Black as she thought, and that she is too Black for them), and was able to gain new revenue from vinyl sales. Bessie never had to water down her personality to make White folks feel comfortable. Unfortunately Hughes and other writers of their time (like my favorite Harlem Renaissance writer, Zora Neale Hurston) had to walk a thin line of creating the art they wanted without offending Whites who funded that art. It still happens today. Recently, poet and Buzzfeed Literary Editor Saeed Jones wrote about this same issue with his recent piece Self-Portrait Of The Artist As Ungrateful Black Writer.
Bessie is a good primer movie for people who know nothing about Bessie Smith, and it is a breakthrough performance for Queen Latifah. The cast is flawless and I expect Emmy nods for Queen Latifah, Mo’Nique and Khandi Alexander. (Khandi can do anything and just be dynamite. Period.) It was a pleasure watching unapologetic Black, female, queerness. I hope HBO takes more chances on projects like this. Somebody get Dee Rees financing for a new movie stat. It is maddening to think that she hasn’t had an opportunity since Pariahin 2011 to show us her voice. She has more radical stories to tell. I can feel it.
The film also focuses on the relationship between Smith and Ma Rainey, who mentored Smith and gave her guidance on developing her stagecraft. Mo’Nique portrays Ma Rainey, known as the “Mother of the Blues,” in a rich and layered performance and has so much charisma she steals every scene she’s in.
Queen Latifah was born to play the Empress of the Blues. Queen Latifah stars in Bessie, the new biopic about the early life of legendary blues singer Bessie Smith. The film will premiere Saturday on HBO. Mo’Nique, who has her first stand out role since Precious, reminds us why she won the Oscar in 2010.
Directed by Dee Rees (Pariah) from a screenplay by Rees, Christopher Cleveland, and Bettina Gilois, the story is by Rees and acclaimed playwright Horton Foote, who died in 2009. The film focuses on Smith’s early years as she struggled as a young singer to eventually become one of the most successful recording artists of the 1920’s. She earned $2,000 a week – an unheard of sum – at the height of her career.
The film also focuses on the relationship between Smith and Ma Rainey, who mentored Smith and gave her guidance on developing her stagecraft. Mo’Nique portrays Ma Rainey, known as the “Mother of the Blues,” in a rich and layered performance and has so much charisma she steals every scene she’s in.
Both Queen Latifah and Mo’Nique received Critics Choice nominations the other day and the Golden Globes and other accolades are sure to follow.
The cast includes Michael Kenneth Williams (Boardwalk Empire, 12 Years a Slave) as Bessie’s husband; Khandi Alexander (Scandal) as Bessie’s abusive older sister, Viola; Mike Epps (The Hangover) as the singer’s bootlegger romantic interest; Tory Kittles (True Detective) as Bessie’s older brother Clarence; Tika Sumpter as Lucille, Bessie’s longtime lover.
At the recent premiere at the Museum of Modern Art, nobody worked the red carpet harder than Mo’Nique, who talked to all the journalists clamoring for her attention.
Bessie has many explicit sex scenes and Queen Latifah’s character has a nude scene that’s integral to the story but sure to get audiences talking. Ma Rainey was gay and Bessie Smith was bisexual, and the film doesn’t shy away from showing scenes of their characters having sex with both men and women. A standout is a scene early in the film where Mo’Nique and Queen Latifah dress up in drag, smoke cigars and do a song together to a boisterous audience.
Director Dee Rees
Here’s a red carpet interview with Mo’Nique, who looked terrific in a blue lace gown, and was warm and thoughtful in her replies to all the journalists:
Were gay women who performed on stage more open about their sexuality in the time of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith? (Of course they didn’t have to contend with social media.):
Mo’Nique: I think back then there was a strength that said I’m unwavering about who I was born to be. Don’t we still fight with it today? But figure what she had to walk through then? It was illegal. They got locked up. If you were seen with the same sex so to have that kind of strength back then is absolutely beautiful.
What was the key to finding her character?
Mo’Nique: Her music, (I found it) through her music. If you listen to Ma Rainey you’ll really understand Ma Rainey because she sang from her soul. She sung her truth and that’s how I really got to understand who that woman was because there’s really very little written information about this woman. She’s so hidden and now history, you have to dig really deep to get that little bit…. And she told the truth. And even back then, she was fighting for wage equality, so we’re still having that fight today but definitely she kicked open the doors so we can even go to the meetings to have those discussions.
They were friends. And she was Bessie Smith’s mentor and she was very motherly but she was that type of mother that knew when she had to let go and let that baby fly and go see it for herself. And when the bird flew back home she was right there waiting for her. That’s what that relationship what. And what I so appreciate about her, we don’t often times see those relationships anymore, you don’t see it where two friends go through it, they fall out, but they’re still willing to love each other through it and come back together.
Queen Latifah
What does she see as Ma Rainey’s influence on A&R and jazz?
Mo’Nique: It’s truthful. It’s very honest. It’s very from the soul. When you listen to those singers back then, they couldn’t pretend. They couldn’t fake it because the people would know it and they were those singers that when you sat there, you know how they say music moves you? That was that type of music that moved you and made you make a decision, may it be the right, wrong or indifferent, but when you listen to that music it was like you know what? OK, “I’m gonna finish this darn liquor and I’m gonna make a change.” That’s what that music was back then. Absolutely beautiful!
What were the key factors that made her want to take on the role of Ma Rainey?
Mo’Nique: It was Ma Rainey’s strength. Her integrity. You know when you read that script and you understand that the sacrifices that woman made for little girls like us, and she had no idea that she was doing it, it was just the right thing to do. So when you read those lines, and you understand that that woman is talking to me for me, off the pages, and she’s saying Monique keep pushing. Keep going in the right direction and don’t waver from what you know is right. Look at my story and when you look at that woman’s story it’s not like most of our stories, where we die broke, alone, miserable. When you look at her story she had a very full life.
Before she made her way into the theater, I asked Mo’Nique if she actually sang.
Mo’Nique: All day long!
Later at the after party I asked the 36-year-old director about how she discovered Bessie Smith’s music, she told me it was through her grandmother: “She played Bessie Smith’s records all the time.”
Paula Schwartz is a veteran journalist who worked at the New York Times for three decades. For five years she was the Baguette for the New York Times movie awards blog Carpetbaggers. Before that she worked on the New York Times night life column, Boldface, where she covered the celebrity beat. She endured a poke in the ribs by Elijah Wood’s publicist, was ejected from a party by Michael Douglas’s flak after he didn’t appreciate what she wrote, and endured numerous other indignities to get a story. More happily she interviewed major actors and directors–all of whom were good company and extremely kind–including Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Clint Eastwood, Christopher Plummer, Dustin Hoffman and the hammy pooch “Uggie” from “The Artist.” Her idea of heaven is watching at least three movies in a row with an appreciative audience that’s not texting. Her work has appeared in Moviemaker, more.com, showbiz411 and reelifewithjane.com.
There is, nevertheless, something magical about Bessie’s life and career. How did an impoverished, orphaned Black girl who spent her childhood singing on the streets not only survive but succeed in a land that still lynched its Black citizens? There is something profoundly modern and heroic about the woman herself. An independent woman with attitude and talent, she has to be one of the most charismatic feminist icons of the 20th century.
HBO’s Bessie has to be one of the most exciting offerings on 2015’s cultural calendar. Helmed by Dee Rees and starring Queen Latifah in the title role, the telefilm will recall the extraordinary life of the “Empress of the Blues,” Bessie Smith. It has all the makings of a quality production. Dee Rees impressed us back in 2011 with her well-observed coming-of-age drama, Pariah. An attractive, charismatic presence, Queen Latifah is, equally, an excellent casting choice. But who was Bessie Smith? Although hugely respected by musicians throughout the generations, many of us remain unfamiliar with the entertainer. In anticipation of Bessie, let’s remind ourselves of the exceptional life and career of the “Empress of the Blues.”
Director Dee Rees
Born in Tennessee in 1894, Bessie Smith was one of the greatest Blues singers of the 20s and 30s. Her childhood was marked by poverty and she lost both of her parents by the age of 9. She sang on the streets before performing in touring groups. A dancer, at first, she was a member of the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, the same minstrel show as the great Ma Rainey, another Blues singer, by the way, who deserves her own biopic. Bessie signed a contract with Columbia Records in 1923 and was soon catapulted to fame–and riches. Earning an astonishing $2,000 a week, she became, in fact, the highest-paid Black entertainer of her era. She had her own show and her own railroad car.
Her private life was, by all accounts, pretty lively. Her marriage to husband Jack Gee was turbulent and she was particularly fond of gin. She broke many of the rules of her day. Reportedly bisexual, she had affairs with women during her marriage. Bessie Smith was sexual and successful as well as, of course, immensely gifted. The extraordinary depth and power of her voice is evident from this following clip from the short film, St Louis Blues (1929).
“Downhearted Blues,” “Nobody knows You When You’re Down and Out,” and “Baby, Won’t You Please Come Home” are among some of the songs Bessie recorded. Her popularity waned–music historians cite the Depression and changes in musical taste–but there were, it seems, indications that she was on the verge of a comeback. Tragically, Bessie Smith was killed in a car accident in 1937 at the age of 43.
Queen Latifah
There is, nevertheless, something magical about Bessie’s life and career. How did an impoverished, orphaned Black girl who spent her childhood singing on the streets not only survive but succeed in a land that still lynched its Black citizens? There is something profoundly modern and heroic about the woman herself. An independent woman with attitude and talent, she has to be one of the most charismatic feminist icons of the 20th century.
Another portrait of the “Empress of the Blues” by van Vechten
Bessie is a refreshing, tantalizing prospect. God knows, of course, that dramatizing the lives of female cultural heroines doesn’t seem to be much of a concern to the powers that be. This is particularly the case, let’s face it, with women of color. But that must change. Movie studios and television companies, moreover, need to pay tribute to people who create more instead of offering romanticized, revisionist accounts of snipers. The Empress of the Blues’s commanding voice and pioneering spirit resonate today. Hopefully, Bessie will help restore her to our collective memory. She occupies a unique, vital place in 20th century popular culture.
She’s a toxic political figure, a creator of monumental gaffes and inappropriate situations who doesn’t even have the excuse of good intentions. Her intentions are always self-serving and she treats her staff atrociously, often assigning them the blame for her mistakes.
This repost by Rachel Redfern appears as part of our theme week on Unlikable Women.
Foul-mouthed and frazzled, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (eternally known as Elaine from Seinfeld), stars as United States Vice-President, Selina Meyer, in the Emmy Award-winning HBO political satire, VEEP. The show focuses on Dreyfus’ character, a woman who wants power, but resides in a fairly weak place, politically, having to hide in the shadows of the president and worry about her approval ratings.
There are two Hollywood versions of Washington, D.C.–one where the president is Morgan Freeman and he’s strong, but compassionate, and you feel good about being an American. The other version is something out of a John Grisham novel in which the city is one giant 60 Minutes expose of cynicism and conspiracy (the latter version just makes you sad to be alive). VEEP is the second, minus the conspiracy and snipers and with the addition of obsessive BlackBerry use.
Since the show never features the president, VEEP is free to focus on the more trivial aspects of federal politics, like the clean jobs bill Selina tries to put together, only to have the president close it down and give her obesity instead (not that obesity isn’t a big issue, it just offers a few more humorous situations than Guantanamo Bay). VEEP is interesting though, not because the characters surrounding her are ridiculous, but because Selina, the main character, is ridiculous and unlikable herself. She’s a toxic political figure, a creator of monumental gaffes and inappropriate situations who doesn’t even have the excuse of good intentions. Her intentions are always self-serving and she treats her staff atrociously, often assigning them the blame for her mistakes.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selina Meyer in HBO’s VEEP
Selina’s staff isn’t any bundle of joy either; they’re just as unethical and self-serving as she is. Amy (Anne Chlumsky) is her competent, yet also incompetent chief of staff; Gary (Tony Hale of Arrested Development), is her faithful personal aide who is so loyal he takes a sneeze in the face to save her from being sick, and even breaks up with her boyfriend for her (in a sidenote, this is the second role that has featured him as a mildly obsessed man with an insane devotion to an older woman, a role that is played out as being emasculating and undignified); Sue (Sufe Bradshaw), is her sassy secretary; Mike (Matt Walsh) as the over-the-hill fading director of communications; Dan (Reid Scott) who is politically savvy, but also a social climber of epic proportions; and of course, the weird presidential liaison, Jonah (Timothy Simons), who tries to sleep with Amy.
Selina and her female staff are just as foul-mouthed and unpleasant as their male counterparts, a fact I actually really like about the show. Instead of giving the women a rosy, fictional gloss, they’re painted more as unique players in the political process, rather than just a token show about “Women in Politics.” In that vein, the show does portray the still highly sexualized role of female leaders, which is disturbing, but unfortunately very realistic. Examples of sexual harassment are fairly common on the show, like when Sue is the recipient of some pretty blatant comments from a congressman, which she just shrugs off; the death of a famously lecherous senator is mocked as everyone raves about him publicly, but in private, all the women sarcastically share their stories of his disgusting behavior. It’s sad to think that this situation is probably very common; male political figures lauded as leaders, when in reality they’re abusive perverts. For me though, the most astute and frustrating example of this came when Amy, Selina’s chief of staff, has to negotiate with two congressmen from Arizona; their immediate disdain for her and the patronizing, “sweetheart” she receives when she sits down is so realistic and problematic I wanted her to smack them. And yet, like so many powerful and intelligent women, she just had to take the condescension or risk sounding like an “over-emotional bitch.” This portrayal of randy behavior from the male senators strikes a contrast to the depth of scrutiny that the women on the show receive about their sex life. When Selina has a pregnancy scare, the media goes crazy and many of her interviews after address that very personal topic, rather than larger, national issues.
Humorously though, her cynical staff decide to turn it into a sympathy moment and try publish a story about in a woman’s magazine. It’s one of many instances when Selina’s stance as the loving, but absent mother plays a role in her political success; It’s only when Selina cries on camera about missing her daughter that her approval rating increases. Comedy shines again as the greater revelator of cultural inequality as Selina’s motherhood is constantly called into question (as is her femininity when she’s given the nickname, “Viagra inhibitor”). As is always the case, a male leader’s relationship with his children is less important than his hairline, but a female leader must always appear guilty and remorseful about her position, she must always regret the fact that her ambition has taken her out of the home or risk being perceived as cold-hearted or worse, un-maternal.
In the end, Selina (and even most of her staff) are undeniably unlikable people. Very little (if any) time of the sitcom is spent showing political figures as doing anything to improve the lives of their constituents; rather their days are filled with scheming and backbiting. Despite the fact that the characters aren’t people you would ever want to meet, the show does highlight the selfish and elitist world of the Unites States’ highest political people, and it’s a nice change to have that shown with a female lead.
Aside from the very astute commentary that the show makes about gender and politics, one of it’s greatest strengths is in the area of the gaffe. Oh the political gaffe: Romney and his 47 percent, Akin and his “women have a way to shut that whole thing down,” Vice-President Joe Biden about half the time. While all we see is the unbelievably stupid thing that a public figure has just said on national television, VEEP does an excellent job of leading up to Selina’s gaffes. They give us the background story and the same information that Selina is given so that when the gaffe does occur it’s incredibly funny, but also a bit understandable. It’s an element of the show that serves as a great reminder of the humanity of our politicians; while yes they say stupid things sometimes, we probably would too if we were in their shoes. I mean, I say stupid stuff all the time, I’m just lucky enough that there aren’t any TV cameras around when I say it. At the end of the day, politicians are just people with better hair.
Rachel Redfern has an MA in English literature, where she conducted research on modern American literature and film and its intersection, however she spends most of her time watching HBO shows, traveling, and blogging and reading about feminism.
