Heathers – Bitch Flicks

“You Can’t Sit with Us”: Witchy Girl Gangs and Covens

Underwritten in this claim of selfhood, however, is a larger message. Each of the films and the TV series, to varying degrees, promote individuality over conformity. Eventually, each teaches viewers the importance of being true to yourself and avoiding the pitfalls of group mentality. …Each manifestation of the girl group trope proposes an affirmation of self-esteem, non-conformity, independence, and individuality.

This guest post written by Michelle Mastro appears as part of our theme week on Women in Horror.

The volume of films exploring the hazards of “girl world” is quite robust. Before the comedy Mean Girls there was cult classic Heathers, a darker satirical vision of teenage girl strife. Rounding out the cinematic landscape between these pillars of classic girl-on-girl warfare set in the average American high school are numerous other examples from Never Been Kissed to Jawbreaker. In fact, so hackneyed is the trope of female-centered cliques that if it isn’t treated as part and parcel of teen comedies as a genre, it is almost always at least a minor plot point. Yet horror films and television series grapple with themes inspired by catty drama and gossip as well, only the aesthetics are different to align better with their genre. In these iterations of the girl clique trope, girl gangs become covens, and the power of gossip is transformed into charms and incantations.

Swapping out girl gangs and cliques for covens is as easily done as replacing “witch” with that other not so nice pejorative term for women. In the TV series American Horror Story: Coven, for example, Fiona Goode (Jessica Lange) toys with both words, calling one of the school’s meaner pupils a “little witch bitch.” In that same episode, she takes the band of squabbling girls on a field trip through New Orleans, telling them all beforehand to “wear something black.” The show aired on Wednesdays, prompting fans to coin the phrase, “On Wednesdays we wear black,” another play on words, only this time in reference to Mean Girls. One of the frequently quoted lines from the film includes the “Plastics”’ rules about hump day association and uniformity: “On Wednesdays we wear pink.” The writers of AHS: Coven and fans alike got the joke: girls in groups can be mean — mean like witches.

This, of course, might seem like a sexist reading of girl friendships — and it would be even more understandable to question the show’s depiction of gender given how female sexuality is portrayed and its problematic depiction of race. Yet, given that women, historically, could only maintain their social status through heteronormative marriage — through their connections to men — it would make sense that the young women might begin to view each other as competition. In high school, who dates whom really matters, and thus the high schools of the films are more or less stuck in a time warp. Their cafeterias, the place of social gathering, are where romantic attachments are forged. The dining hall perfectly figures as a sort of Regency court of King George III, where marriages mattered to one’s social superiority. Social status dictated how close courtiers got to sit near the king. Terrifyingly, the king’s friendship could help produce advantageous marriages or dissolve them entirely. Thus, the more popular the girl in Mean Girls, the closer she resides near Regina George. She usually forbids more readily than she grants unions, however, and her despotic rule feeds much of the clique’s cattiness.

Which begs the question: why would these characters hang around each other at all? On the surface, each school clique offers a certain amount of protection. In AHS: Coven’s case, if the girls don’t band together, they will face assaults from outsiders. “If witches don’t fight, we burn,” says Fiona to the students. In Mean Girls (written by Tina Fey), the point of being in the Plastics is somewhat similar, though obviously not nearly as dire. For protagonist Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan), lunchtime at the cafeteria posed as a minefield full of aggressive cliques, and not being a member of any group at first, she found herself the butt of jokes, a social outcast forced to eat alone in a women’s bathroom stall. Better to have fun at the expense of others with the Plastics in their “Burn Book” than get burned oneself. The same conclusion is proposed near the beginning of The Craft and Heathers. Sarah (Robin Tunney) in the former joins her clique more out of necessity than anything else, whereas Veronica (Winona Ryder) in the latter participates in spiteful pranks on fellow students, even though she questions the group’s methods and is quick to claim her own name in a gaggle of Heathers, stridently affirming: “I’m a Veronica.”

In The Craft, when the girls catch a bus together, they all wear dark sun-glasses and nearly identical fashions, precursors of the pink Plastics and black-draped New Orleans witches, not to mention references to the shoulder-pad loving Heathers of the 1980s. Each group of young women has made their own clique, but within each group, conformity is essential. What’s worse, the supposed protection proffered by The Craft’s coven in the form of casting spells is as spiteful as participating in any girl gang gossip. Both hurt and have unforeseen consequences. Sarah learns to be careful about what energy she puts out. “Whatever you send out, you get back threefold,” she is counselled. She casts a spell to get back at football player Chris Hooker (Skeet Ulrich) for spreading lies that the pair had sex. After the spell, he becomes her lapdog, but his obsession quickly turns violent. Apparently, her intention behind the spell was wicked, and the results matched. Although Sarah was right to seek justice, her spell was framed in a way that could only elicit revenge, a much more volatile act that inflicts a cost on both parties, although this in no way means that she deserved nor brought on herself slut-shaming or attempted rape. In AHS: Coven, one of the girls, Madison (Emma Roberts), is gang raped. She uses her magic to kill the boys, but also murders an innocent guy in the process. Her actions will come back to haunt her, as all the witches’ poor decisions inevitably do. Madison becomes more and more heartless as the series progresses, symbolized by an actual heart condition preventing her from ever serving as the coven’s leader. “The only good or bad is in the heart of the witch,” Lirio (Assumpta Serna) tells the girls in The Craft. Cady in Mean Girls arrives at a similar realization. The Burn Book of the Plastics is photocopied and dispersed among the students, and Cady will have to find a way to take back her words. It is too late, of course, just like in Sarah’s case. In The Craft, Lyrio tells her: “When you open a flood gate, how can you undo it? You unleash something with a spell. There is no undoing; it must run its course.” The mistake each of the girls all made was attempting a kind of vigilante justice — really a type of revenge.

The Craft is a cult classic that impacted many women due to its representation and messages of empowerment and “taking back the threat of female power.” In the oral history of The Craft at Entertainment Weekly, producer Douglas Wick said he “was curious about the phenomenon of girls marginalized in a man’s world who suddenly come into their sexuality and have this enormous power.” Actress Robin Tunney said, “Somehow it still speaks to everybody’s inner teenage girl.” In her Vulture article on The Craft‘s legacy, Angelica Jade Bastien writes:

“Witchcraft is more than mere teenage rebellion for these young girls. It’s a means to attain what at first glance appears unattainable: power, control, autonomy, the ability to live beyond the various oppressive forces that govern their lives. […] These girls, each in their own way, is calling out for something women learn early and often is hard to attain: the power to control your own life.”

Yet the girls’ friendship ultimately turns toxic and destructive, demanding conformity over individuality.

Sarah, Veronica, Cady, and the girls from AHS: Coven learn painful lessons. Words and spells cannot be taken back and cannot be undone, and the girls prove more powerful in their individuality. In The Craft, Sarah realizes her friends’ coven is organized more like a petty club and her fellow witches are just as spiteful as the young women and men they sought vengeance against. Veronica realizes she cannot undue the harm she has caused; she cannot bring back the kids she helped to murder. And Cady learns that being “personally victimized by Regina George” does not give her license to become another queen bee. Each of the protagonists find strength in themselves. Sarah is called a natural witch, for unlike the other girls, her “power comes from within.” After Sarah’s coven disperses, all the girls lose their magical powers except Sarah. Veronica and Cady, meanwhile, end their films with the promise of never allowing any future cliques to form in their respective high schools ever again. Or at the very least, they won’t conform to what others say; they will listen to their own moral compass. In AHS: Coven, the ruling mean girls Madison and Fiona have been ousted as well. And the rise of a new headmistress, Cordelia (Sarah Paulson) brings with her the promise of beginning the school afresh. Past mistakes will not be repeated, she informs the press, revealing the school to the world.

In this way, each manifestation of the girl group trope proposes an affirmation of self-esteem, non-conformity, independence, and individuality. The chilling and ominous tales about teenage witches invoke and summon the moral of their comedic cousins, warning female viewers against resentment and revenge, while encouraging them to always “do unto others as they would have done unto them.” What might seem like an allusion to Christian doctrine is, in fact, the basis of many beliefs, even Wiccan practices. “[I]t’s part of a basic spiritual truth. Said in many ways in many faiths,” Lirio says matter-of-factly. Spells, like gossip, will come back “threefold.”

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Girl Gangs Are Mean: Teenage Girl Gang Movies Through the Years

20 Years of The Craft: Why We Needed More of Rochelle

American Horror Story: Coven: Gabourey Sidibe’s Queenie as an Embodiment of the “Strong Black Woman” Stereotype

Exploring Bodily Autonomy on American Horror Story: Coven

I’m a Veronica: Power and Transformation Through Female Friendships in Heathers

Veronica Decides Not to Die — Heathers: The Proto-Mean Girls

How Should a Show about Witches Be?

Michelle Mastro is a graduate student at Indiana University, Bloomington’s English PhD program. She loves all things horror, and to her, autumn is the greatest season not just for Starbucks pumpkin spice but for the availability of horror film marathons on TV — of which she watches plenty.

Why, as an Intersectional Feminist, I Can’t Get Behind the TV Land ‘Heathers’ Reboot

The television reboot will give marginalized people power that they don’t have in real life. As a result, they cast cis straight white people as the oppressed underclass. This misrepresentation of the real world will ultimately work to reinforce the fallacious idea that marginalized groups are “taking over” and gaining power over white, cis, straight, or otherwise privileged people. … I am not at all against a ‘Heathers’ reboot, but I want one that is progressive and intersectional, one that expands on the feminism of the original rather than scaling it back.

This guest post written by Emily Scott appears as part of our theme week on Unpopular Opinions. | Spoilers ahead.

The cult classic status of the 1988 black comedy movie Heathers is firmly cemented in modern culture. The particular combination of high school hierarchy and gallows humor has struck a chord with millions of teenagers throughout the decades. The advent of Netflix has exposed the film to a whole new audience, and its campiness lent itself well to a highly popular Off-Broadway musical adaptation. Maybe most importantly, its portrayal of the power of young women has made it a favorite of many smart and self-aware girls, from its creation to today.

As with most cult classics, Heathers is ripe for a television reboot, and TV Land jumped at the opportunity. The network ordered a pilot for an anthology series based on a script by Jason Micallef and executive produced by Tom Rosenberg and Gary Lucchesi of Lakeshore Entertainment. But those who were hoping for a modern update to a dark, goofy, yet empowering story remain disappointed. The announced concept of the TV series adaptation makes extreme changes to the premise of Heathers, and not in a good way.

The original Heathers follows the top tier of the high school hierarchy, a group of three wealthy girls all named Heather and one girl named Veronica. Veronica (Winona Ryder) is somewhat of an outsider; she likes the benefits and privileges of being popular, but she has conflicted feelings about their treatment of those they consider beneath them. She starts to divulge her disillusionment to J.D. (Christian Slater), a mysterious, trench coat-clad new kid. After a fight with Heather Chandler (Kim Walker), Veronica decides to play a prank on her by serving her a mug of milk and orange juice. But when J.D. pours a mug of liquid drain cleaner, ostensibly as a joke, Veronica accidentally takes it to her instead, inadvertently killing Heather. Panicked, J.D. convinces Veronica to help him stage her suicide by forging a note. Throughout the rest of the film, it begins to become clear to Veronica that J.D. is orchestrating these killings because he feels disenfranchised by the system of power; he is trying to shake up the social hierarchy by destroying everyone in it.

Heathers represents a certain set of feminist ideals that makes it an empowering experience for young women. While the film engages heavily in the “mean girls” trope, the inclusion of the protagonist (Veronica) in the antagonistic group (the Heathers) subverts the standard popular vs. unpopular dichotomy. But even though Veronica originally believes the Heathers to be evil and worthy of punishment, she comes to realize that there is a bigger threat – J.D. The Heathers are mean girls, but they are just that. They don’t deserve to die. In this way, the movie allows Veronica to condemn the practices of the Heathers while still acknowledging their humanity.

Ultimately, the feminism of the film is centered on Veronica’s journey to finding and reclaiming her own power. As Alize Emme discusses in her Bitch Flicks article, Veronica is initially unable to stand up for anyone, even herself, against the Heathers. But at the end of the movie, she literally saves their lives. By the time she finishes with J.D. — the greater evil — Veronica has the strength to denounce the conniving, judgmental ways of the Heathers. She goes on to engage in friendships with Martha Dunnstock (Carrie Lynn) and Betty Finn (Renée Estevez), girls who were considered beneath the Heathers. By saving the Heathers, but rejecting their hierarchy and condescension towards other women, Veronica proves to have grown as both a person and a feminist.

The television adaptation of Heathers, however, presents a set of competing, feminist ideals that, if the show progresses in the way the film does, will send a message of exclusivity and non-intersectionality in feminism. In this new version of Heathers, the TV series will portray a world that does not exist in reality. In the updated Westerburg High School, the popular crowd, including the Heathers, will be made up of marginalized people. The new Heather Chandler (Melanie Field), the queen bee, will be a plus-size woman. The new Heather Duke (Brendan Scannell), the bookish turned diabolical one, will be “Heath,” who identifies as genderqueer. The new Heather McNamara (Jasmine Mathews), the cheerleader, will be a Black lesbian. And if they are the oppressors in this new world, then who will be the oppressed? White, thin, cis, straight people.

In fact, the new Veronica is Grace Victoria Cox, a talented young actress who fits very much within the white, thin, stereotypically feminine beauty ideal of Hollywood. James Scully, the new J.D., looks more like Kurt and Ram, the football players from the original movie, than the murderous high school outcast that Christian Slater once embodied. In the world that the TV series is creating, the diverse members of the Heathers will seek to torment and tear down these vulnerable, pretty white kids, leading them to stage their murders.

While this premise was likely chosen because it seemed edgy, this restructuring of the power dynamic between marginalized people and privileged people is ill-advised and, frankly, irresponsible. The writers and producers (who, notably, all appear to be white men) have used this concept to give marginalized people power that they don’t have in real life. As a result, they cast cis straight white people as the oppressed underclass. This misrepresentation of the real world will ultimately work to reinforce the fallacious idea that marginalized groups are “taking over” and gaining power over white, cis, straight, or otherwise privileged people.

If the television adaptation follows the plot of the original movie, then Veronica and J.D. will be killing and staging the suicide of at least one of the Heathers, as well as other members of the popular crowd. J.D. enacts this plot because he feels oppressed by the high school hierarchy, and he seeks to destroy all those who have power within that system in order to gain power himself. In the original film, which is virtually devoid of identity politics, this notion is extremely troubling, but realistic, as proven by real-life cases of high school shootings. In the world of the TV Land Heathers, this plot makes J.D. into, at best, an internet troll, and at worst, a violent alt-right vigilante. J.D. perceives the Black, queer, non-thin Heathers as having too much power, more than they deserve. His plot to kill them reads as an effort to take them down a notch, to put them in their place as marginalized people, so that he, a privileged white boy, can rise to his rightful place at the top. In the television adaptation of Heathers, J.D. is not just a messed-up kid. He’s a misogynist, homophobic, white supremacist. In a world where such rhetoric is becoming increasingly common, the idea that a purportedly comedic television show would represent such a character is disturbing and endlessly problematic.

Additionally, this restructure of the hierarchy causes Veronica’s journey to become problematic as well. One could argue that J.D.’s implicit racism, sexism, and homophobia will not be an issue, as he is clearly set as the antagonist, and because the protagonist (Veronica) ultimately rejects his ideas and plans. But again, if the plot of the TV adaptation is parallel to the film, Veronica’s rejection of J.D.’s extremism will only result in a more insidious form of white supremacy. As mentioned previously, Veronica ultimately saves the Heathers but rejects their cruelty, choosing instead to befriend the kind but unpopular Martha. In the series adaptation, Veronica’s decision will act as an affirmation of White Feminism. Even as Veronica rejects J.D.’s racism, sexism, and homophobia, her ultimate choice will be to ditch her marginalized friends for the other privileged white kids of the adaptation’s false underclass. Veronica can claim a lack of prejudice because she didn’t want them to die, but she doesn’t want to include them in her personal life. She, like many white feminists, doesn’t seek to understand what they may be going through or how their experiences may have differed from her own. Instead, she decides that she would just rather hang out with people like her — cis, straight, white, and thin. In the original film, her decision to befriend Martha, who’s plus size, was a way of confirming the value of every person, regardless of their outward appearance or social standing. In the adaptation, it will act as an exclusion of marginalized people from Veronica’s conception of worthiness.

When a movie becomes as iconic as Heathers, remakes and revivals are inevitable. Any production company that takes on such a project has a responsibility to take the current sociopolitical climate into account. It appears that TV Land and Lakeshore Entertainment have attempted to do so with the inclusion of people of color, LGBTQ, and plus size characters. But the concept of the Heathers television adaptation uses these characters to give legitimacy to false ideas about the power of minorities and marginalized groups, as well as giving credence to the idea of White Feminism. Though the original Heathers features all white characters and largely avoids commenting on race or sexual orientation (although it does feature the deaths of two homophobic jocks, staged as the suicides of gay lovers), it culminated in a feminist, inclusive shake-up of the social order. But the ill-conceived premise of the TV Land reboot will only serve to reinforce power structures and harmful gender and racial dynamics that already exist everywhere. By restructuring Westerburg High School’s social order, the Heathers series will only solidify the inequality of our social order. The one that sets minorities and marginalized folks beneath cis, straight, white people; the one that perpetuates hate and intolerance; the one we all live with everyday.

While a pilot is currently being filmed, the television adaptation of Heathers has not yet been ordered to series. Hopefully, the studio will take the sociopolitical context into account when choosing whether to continue with the adaptation. I am not at all against a Heathers reboot, but I want one that is progressive and intersectional, one that expands on the feminism of the original rather than scaling it back. Ideally, the ill-advised concept behind the TV Land adaptation will be abandoned, and then the world can have the new, forward-thinking, inclusive Heathers that it deserves. This time, let’s make Veronica a Black lesbian.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

“I’m a Veronica”: Power and Transformation Through Female Friendships in Heathers

Veronica Decides Not to Die — Heathers: The Proto-Mean Girls

Cult Films that Changed Cinematic History

Teenage Girl Gang Movies Through the Years

Emily Scott is an actress, writer, and filmmaker currently living in the Bay Area. In addition to freelance work, she writes regularly for Culturess. You can find her on Twitter @Emascott92 or at http://emily–scott.weebly.com.

Female Friendship: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts for our Female Friendship Theme Week here.

Pretty Little Friendships by Victor Kirksey-Brown

I don’t know if the writers portray this type of friendship and steer away from many of the harmful female friend tropes on purpose, or if it’s just because there’s no way to fit them in with all the other crazy shit that’s going on, but the strong and positive friendship these girls share is one of the reasons I enjoy Pretty Little Liars.

“I’m a Veronica”: Power and Transformation Through Female Friendships in Heathers by Alize Emme

A snappy dark comedy set in a high school bubble, Heathers touches on difficult subjects including murder and suicide, and nonchalantly addresses major social issues like female friendship and power. The friendships we are introduced to steer every aspect of the story as it progresses and bring us into a world where female characters aren’t just cardboard cutouts but multidimensional, seriously flawed, and sinfully interesting young women.

It Takes Two for Friendship by Laura Money

To me, this movie is all about a deep female friendship. Yes, it is a bit narcissistic on the surface – instantly falling in love with someone who looks just like you – but it really captures the essence of friendship, connection, and trust. Alyssa and Amanda realise that they look alike on their first meeting but soon understand that they are also both deeply unsatisfied with particular elements in their lives.

“She’s My Best Friend”: Friendship and the Girls of Teen Wolf by Andrea Taylor

The girls of Beacon Hills, especially Allison and Lydia, are loyal, dedicated friends. They help each other out and they encourage each other. They stand up for each other. They’re best friends with all the complexities that relationship implies. There are better, or at least more consistent, examples in media to turn to, but the perfect moments of female friendship in Teen Wolf mean a lot to me.

You’ll Never Walk Alone: Heavenly Creatures and the Power of Teenage Friendship by Caroline Madden

Peter Jackson shows the girls interacting and playing in these worlds. “The Fourth World” is a beautiful garden. Borvonia is a dark and delightfully wicked world of castle intrigue and courtly love. Seeing the girls in the worlds they’ve created demonstrates the extent of the fantasies and the pleasures their imaginative and playful friendship brings. Pauline and Juliet have an intense friendship; they don’t want anyone to stand in their way of spending time together or stop the joy that it brings for them.

Why This Bitch Loves the B— by Mychael Blinde

I avoided Don’t Trust the B— in Apartment 23 for quite a while; at a cursory Netflix glance it looked like anti-feminist tripe featuring catty women pitted against each other in a false dichotomy of “nice” and “bitch.” Then I watched it.

I could not have been more wrong.

The Queer Female Friendship of Frances Ha by Sarah Smyth

For Frances Ha is not a film where “boy-meets-girl,” and there is definitely no diamond ring. The love story of Frances Ha is between the titular character, Frances (Greta Gerwig) and her best friend, Sophie (Mickey Sumner), and it is precisely this friendship between two women which questions, resists, and challenges the definition of love posed by the (primarily) heterosexual and (almost always) heteronormative romcom genre.

I Married a Monster: Female Friendship in The Other Woman by Chantell Monique

Instead of hating and seeing each other as competition, the women form a bond, increasing their woman-power. Kate decides that she wants to make Mark pay for his unfaithfulness saying, “I want him to have to start over,” but she’s afraid she doesn’t have the killer instincts to do it. Her new friends step in, telling her that she does and that if they work together, they can get their revenge.

In Spite of Mean Girls: The Radical Vision of Pretty Little Liars by Jessica Freeman-Slade

In her bestselling collection ‘Bad Feminist,’ Roxane Gay starts the listicle entitled “How to Be Friends with Another Woman” with this as the very first item: “Abandon the cultural myth that all female friendships must be bitchy, toxic, or competitive. This myth is like heels and purses—pretty but designed to SLOW women down.”

Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion: Bosom Buddies Against The World by Emma Kat Richardson

While there’s quite a bit that’s frivolous about Romy and Michele – the film’s tagline is “The Blonde Leading the Blonde” – there is also, much more importantly, the heartwarming love story at the film’s creamy center. But this love has nothing to do with the complications and disappointments that romantic relationships can bring; rather, it’s what the Greeks called agape, or a deeply spiritual, passionate love between intimate friends.

We’re All for One, We’re One for All in A League of Their Own by Rhianna Shaheen

At the end, many of the league’s players reunite to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Old friendships rekindle and emotions soar. After following these women through what must have been the best time they ever had in their youth it is refreshing to see authentic portrayals of them as older women. It feels like their lives are unfolding before my eyes.

Walking and Talking With Non-Toxic Women Friends by Ren Jender

A short clip at the beginning of writer-director Nicole Holofcener’s first film, 1996’s Walking and Talking, lets us know that Amelia (Catherine Keener) and Laura (Anne Heche) have been friends since adolescence. Both are in their 30s and living in New York City–Laura with her boyfriend Frank, and Amelia alone in the sort of sunlit airy apartment someone with her job, even in a pre-gentrified New York (which, like many films from then and now is also mysteriously bereft of people of color), would never be able to afford.

Practical Magic: Sisters as Friends, Mirrors by Olivia London-Webb

This is why I love this movie. I have two real sisters in my life. One born and one chosen. I have strong powerful women everywhere I look–my friends, my mother, my sister-in-law, and my mother-in-law. I would go through hell for them. They would go through hell for me. What we are more than anything else are each other’s mirrors.

Martyrs: Female Friendships Can Be Bloody Complex by Dierdre Crimmins

Often in feminist criticism female friendships are discussed as a great barometer for the authenticity of the female characters. Strong bonds and healthy interactions serve the dual purpose of highlighting positive female roles and for showing the many dimensions of women as whole persons. I propose that in order to continue the push to show women as well-developed characters we also need representations of flawed female friendships.

St. Trinian’s: Girlish Wiles and Cunning Friendships by Bethany Ainsworth-Cole

Now whilst this seems like an odd collection of friendships, it is an important selection of lessons. It fosters the idea that girls working together will always be better than scheming men, and will always sort things out even if they do need help. Girls are fearless: willing to steal, blow up iron bars, fight back against creeps, and speak out. And most importantly, it’s OK to make mistakes. The girls also enjoy themselves doing it.

Best Frenemies Forever by Emanuela Betti

Can women be friends? Or, most importantly, can two women who share the same man be friends? The depiction of genuinely loving and caring female friends has found its way onto many movies and TV shows, but when it comes to the idea of a more complex situation—the “frenemies”—it’s harder to find characters that do it justice. There is a shallow notion that when two women want the same man, they turn into hair-pulling, catfighting brats.

The First Wives Club and First World “Feminism” by Amanda Lyons

But the focus on “getting everything” was a little hard to stomach from women living in huge condos in the heart of New York with an interior designer on their payroll. Somehow it felt like the message was getting a little lost in the middle of all the high-society hob-nobbing – there was nothing particularly universal about it, and any feminism that was being communicated was certainly of a rarefied kind that most of us wouldn’t be able to access.

Scarlett and Melanie: The Ultimate BFFs by Jennifer Hollie Bowles

Regardless of how psychological or interpretive you want to get with Scarlett and Melanie’s friendship, it serves as an invaluable example for how women can accept, value, and interact with one another.

Seed & Spark: Female Friendship On Screen–Art Imitating Life by Liz Cardenas Franke

But what if I spent my time, instead, helping another female filmmaker make her movie involving female friendship? Wouldn’t that be just as meaningful? And could it perhaps be making an even bigger statement—promoting the “cause,” so to speak?

Homegirls Make Some Noise: Antônia and the Magic of Black Female Friendships by Lisa Bolekaja

Classism, racism, sexism, and colorism are very real in the world of Antônia. But the film shows us a fresh narrative of Black women succeeding despite living in a slum, despite poverty, despite violence and all the ills that pervade real life. For just a moment, I’m able to watch Black women who are free to be themselves. They don’t have to unpack external baggage based on a checklist of intersections involving their skin color, social status, or gender. That is a rare treat. It’s their tight friendship that sustains them. Music is friendship, and friendship is music.

Kamikaze Girls: When a Lolita Meets a Yanki by Jasmine Sanchez

While their connection doesn’t form immediately, especially in Momoko’s case, the two eventually are able to form a close bond. When they first meet they are both taken aback by one another’s exterior–Momoko is horrified to be dealing with a yanki and Ichiko thinks that Momoko is a little girl. Once she finds out they are the same age Ichiko admits to her folly, “I shouldn’t judge by appearances,” which Momoko counters with, “But appearances says everything.” This sets up their dynamic for the rest of the film as Ichiko is willing to look beyond, while Momoko prefers the superficial.

Julia: A Portrait of Heroic Friendship in an Age of Darkness by Rachael Johnson

Although peppered with flashbacks to the women’s childhood and youth, Julia is set during their formative academic and professional years. The film chronicles the women’s personal and political lives in the decade that saw the rise of Fascism. We witness how the fight against those dark forces transforms both friends.

9 to 5: The Necessity of Female Friendships at Work by Deb Rox

Like the three fates, the friends conjure a life-altering force by listening to each other, by laughing, by being friends. The scenes where they envisioned the demise of their “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” of a boss start to play out for real in madcap, accidental, and intentional ways. As the fabric unrolls, each woman experiences being supported by the other two and feels compelled to help her friends. In their confusions, cover-ups, and retribution schemes, Violet, Doralee, and Judy knit together a solid friendship where each character finds strength and support. And manage to avoid getting caught. It’s the little things.

“I Love You More Than My Luggage”: Female Friendships and Fertility by Joanne Bardsley

The implication of the relative richness of the representations of female friendships at either end of the fertile period is that at these times the female is free to explore relationships which are not sexual but during the fertile period the female’s most important relationships are sexual. This is damaging and dangerous as it is a structural reinforcement of the objectification of women. We only see our friendships represented on screen when we are no longer of use to the patriarchy, when we have either yet to serve our function or have already performed our reproductive duties. It is only in the margins that we are free to pursue our own interests.

Making Sure Female Friendship Films Aren’t Forgotten: Take Care of My Cat by Adam Hartzell

The film is about the evolving friendships of five young South Korean women as they step away from their technical high school into a less certain world. Their degrees of closeness shift as they consider their futures in the face of particular restrictions in work and life opportunities due to gender and class discrimination.

Frances Ha: Chasing Sophie by Rachel Wortherly

In my experience, people who have seen this film often mistake Sophie’s actions as abandoning Frances for her boyfriend, Patch. The fact that it happens differently is a breath of fresh air. Rather, it represents an early point in which audiences experience the divide between Frances and Sophie in physical and emotional aspects. Sophie sees the opportunity to move on and fulfill her dreams, while Frances’ dream is fractured. The story of “us” that precedes this action becomes their separate, respective stories: “the story of Frances” and “the story of Sophie.”

Fearless Friendship! Usagi and Rei by Kathryn Diaz

Growing up isn’t cute. At six or 16 or anywhere in between, figuring out who you are and what your place in the world is isn’t sparkly fun-times. The best you can hope for is to have a real friend to muddle through the worst of it with you, someone who is having just as much of a crazy time as you are, who will run to your defense, give you pep talks when you’re about to face the Dark Kingdom, and shamelessly make fun of you for being such a crybaby after you call her a meanie.

What Now and Then Taught Me About Friendship by Kim Hoffman

Summer has always been a magical time where childhood lingers, and every time I get on a swingset again, or have a hankering for a push pop, or throw on my Now and Then soundtrack, I think of my childhood and feel invigorated with that rush of youth. I think of Taylor and Sara, and a time when we were so eager to make our own adventures. I also think of those four girls from the Gaslight Addition; somehow they affected my life by making me appreciate what it means to be and have a true friend in this wild world.

Reality Bites: A Tale of Two Ladies by Beatrix Coles

While a fun exercise, it’s really just as counter-productive to reduce these two women to their Reality Bites character archetypes as it is pointless. But yet, there is something familiar and soothing in these roles. We want the pretty girl who falls from grace punished, just as we want the girl wearing glasses to have a political point of view and to not be too concerned about whether she has a boyfriend.

Feisty and Heisty: Female Friendship in The First Wives Club by Artemis Linhart

The main characters’ friendship goes way back: a flashback shows the group in college, together with their valedictorian and close friend Cynthia. The four of them vow to be friends forever. This, however, turns out to be easier said than done. After graduation, the four of them lose touch and are only reunited years later, with the occasion being Cynthia’s funeral. After her husband took financial advantage of her and then left her for a younger woman, she commits suicide. At a post-funeral get-together, the three women bond over their own failed marriages and spite for their ex-husbands. Their friendship is rekindled as they decide to settle the score with their exploitative exes.

When Friendships Fray: Me Without You, Not Waving But Drowning, and Brokedown Palace by Elizabeth Kiy

Not all friendships are built to last. Teenage friendships are little romances between two people, tiny beautiful, impossibly fragile things that break apart upon touch or close examination. Just as a true romantic relationship between two unformed people rarely lasts, so often we grow out of our early friendships. Because so much of growing up means developing into a person who can live in the world, films about the ends of friendships can be just as satisfying coming of age stories as the typical narratives of beginnings. Each ending after all, is the beginning of something else.

“We Stick Together”: Rebellion, Solidarity, and Girl Crushes in Foxfire by Jenny Lapekas

In the spirit of Boys on the Side, along with a dose of teen angst, Foxfire is perhaps the most bad ass chick flick ever. Many Angelina Jolie fans are not aware of this 1996 phenomenon, where Angie makes a name for herself as a rebellious free spirit who changes the lives of four young women in New York. Based on the Joyce Carol Oates novel by the same name, ‘Foxfire’ is the epitome of girl power and female friendship, a pleasant departure from the competition and spitefulness often portrayed between women characters on the big screen (see Bride Wars and Just Go with It). However, it does seem that Hollywood is catching on as of late, and producing films that cater to a more progressive viewership (see Bridesmaids and The Other Woman). When I first saw Foxfire around 16 years old, I stole the VHS copy from the video store where I worked at the time.

“I’m a Veronica”: Power and Transformation Through Female Friendships in ‘Heathers’

A snappy dark comedy set in a high school bubble, ‘Heathers’ touches on difficult subjects including murder and suicide, and nonchalantly addresses major social issues like female friendship and power. The friendships we are introduced to steer every aspect of the story as it progresses and bring us into a world where female characters aren’t just cardboard cutouts but multidimensional, seriously flawed, and sinfully interesting young women.

This guest post by Alize Emme appears as part of our theme week on Female Friendship.

The 1988 film Heathers, starring Winona Ryder as the hyper-aware, reluctantly popular girl trying to maintain her status with a powerful clique of girls all named Heather, is a cult classic. A snappy dark comedy set in a high school bubble, Heathers touches on difficult subjects including murder and suicide, and nonchalantly addresses major social issues like female friendship and power. The friendships we are introduced to steer every aspect of the story as it progresses and bring us into a world where female characters aren’t just cardboard cutouts but multidimensional, seriously flawed, and sinfully interesting young women.

When we meet Veronica Sawyer (Ryder) she is past the point of enjoying her new popularity and instead is wallowing in painfully self-aware and humorous ramblings in her diary. Her inner monologue serves as an honest look at the cruelty of high school girls, in this case, the clique’s ringleader, Heather Chandler (Kim Walker), with whom she walks a fine frenemy line.

The friendships these characters share are at best a soul-sucking 9-5 job and at worst a dictatorship. For them, being popular is a currency. They use it to inflict pain on unsuspecting peons and to manipulate each other. They are intelligent beyond their years. They relish in the misery of others. They rule the school with an iron fist.

A group of popular mean girls is nothing new, but the one thing Heathers does differently is showcase female power with amazing colors (literally). Specifically, we see female characters displaying traditionally masculine power.

Chandler is a shark. She navigates the power plays of high school like Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) navigates the world of commerce. Perpetually dressed in a crimson shade of red, Chandler makes no apologies for her cutthroat behavior, proudly calling attention to her worshipped status by stating in regard to her peers, “They all want me as a friend or a fuck,” a sentiment relayed by male rap artists J. Cole and Mickey Avalon, and pro wrestler Ric Flair.

The power Chandler displays with Veronica and the other Heathers mirrors that of a macho guy. She tosses around profanity-laced vulgar phrases like an alpha male in a locker room. She’s got the brains and the brawn and the cutthroat mentality of a high-powered man. As other characters rise to power, they adopt the same masculine persona. Women in movies, especially high school movies, are rarely portrayed this way.

After Veronica tosses her cookies at a college party, an embarrassed Chandler vows to make her life hell across their entire Ohio suburb. Fed up with Chandler’s oppressive leadership, Veronica laments to dark and stormy bad-boy new kid Jason “J.D.” Dean (Christian Slater) that she wishes Heather Chandler was dead, rationalizing in a diary entry that it would be a public service to rid the school of such evil.

With slightly less sinister motivation, Veronica and J.D. sneak into the Chandler home and concoct a gag-inducing hangover cure. Veronica balks at J.D.’s suggestion to use liquid drainer but unknowingly serves it to Chandler anyway, killing her instantly. When a stunned Veronica stammers she just murdered her “best friend,” J.D. quips, “and your worst enemy.” Veronica replies, “same difference,” summing up their relationship completely.

Faking Chandler’s suicide comes easy to the morose J.D. and brainy Veronica, who effortlessly forges an eloquent suicide note which skyrockets Chandler’s popularity even higher in death. Veronica’s unsuspecting participation in two additional murders with J.D. drives her to break things off with him and reevaluate her choices.

But it’s the moment Chandler dies that the once-dominating clique experiences a huge power shift. Chandler’s body is in the ground for mere minutes when Heather Duke’s rise to power and eventual takeover of Chandler’s position begins. Duke, played by Shannen Doherty, had been a shy, bookish member of the group, clinging to a copy of Moby Dick in the shadows who in contrast to Chandler’s bright reds, wears green – with envy. She falls to Chandler’s body image pressures and submits herself to be used by Chandler as furniture.

Duke celebrates Chandler’s demise with a huge smile and a bucket of chicken wings, exclaiming, “fuck it,” when Veronica and Heather McNamara (Lisanne Falk) call attention to her sudden hunger. Duke is now hungry for power. When J.D. dangles Chandler’s coveted red scrunchie before her, Duke wastes no time seizing Chandler’s vacated position, promising she can handle the pressure of being a leader.

As Duke’s power grows, pops of red appear in her wardrobe. A red belt here, red shoes there. Until finally, after getting the whole school to sign her prom singer petition, she reclines, covered head to toe in red, with her back arched and feet up, basking in the afternoon sunlight before exclaiming to a perplexed Veronica: “People love me.” Veronica is quick to call Duke out on her sudden transformation and Duke, now embracing her power, demands, “Why are you pulling my dick?” fully adopting that masculine bravado we saw from Chandler. Duke harshly informs Veronica that anyone would want to be popular, no matter the cost.

McNamara, the final Heather, sees her power shift travel in the opposite direction. McNamara’s friendship with Chandler was rooted in control. Chandler’s death relinquishes the hold she had over McNamara but leaves her little ground to stand on. Gone are McNamara’s bright and sunny yellow outfits, replaced with heavy blacks and gray, accessorized only with a single yellow belt or yellow socks. Her turmoil culminates with a failed, but real, suicide attempt. In the film’s rare display of genuine friendship, it is Veronica who saves McNamara from death. It’s a sweet exchange as Veronica offers her shoulder for McNamara to lean on with understanding and solidarity.

The power Chandler and Duke portray is not something to aspire to, Veronica’s inner dialog provides that moral compass, but it is groundbreaking to see female power portrayed in a completely different and masculine light on film.

The girls don’t talk about clothes or boys; McNamara introduces J.D. in a derogatory fashion: “God Veronica, drool much?” making it un-cool that she has a crush. Their resistance to fall to on-screen female friend stereotypes is admirable. At the very least, Heathers succeeds in this area. Whereas other teen high school movies like Clueless (1995) end with finding a boyfriend and the bulk of Mean Girls (2004) conveys one female character taking down another, Heathers ends with Veronica finding and harnessing her power.

Veronica’s transformation springs from her friendship with Chandler. The transition from friend to foe sets off the chain of events for the rest of the film and sparks Veronica’s own journey to owning her power. Veronica is at first reluctantly popular, therefore reluctantly powerful. But her hatred for Chandler leads to her irreversible acts with J.D. and she starts to see herself and her actions with horror.

Veronica continuously returns to the idea that Betty Finn (Renée Esteves) was a true friend who she foolishly ditched for Chandler. But when she invites Betty over to play croquet, a game she played with the Heathers, instead of playing nice, Veronica doesn’t hesitate to be mean for mean’s sake and take the same knockout power shot Chandler did previously. Even Veronica succumbs briefly to power at the cost of her friend. In one of J.D.’s final lines to Veronica he tells her: “You got power, power I didn’t think you had,” a shaky admission to the once reluctant character now able to stand her ground.

Veronica realizes that she can’t allow herself to be used as a pawn in other people’s games, albeit Chandler’s, Duke’s, or J.D.’s. She’s aware that her actions are “teen-angst bullshit.” She takes matters into her own hands and not only does Veronica stop J.D. from blowing up the school, she asserts herself as the “new sheriff in town,” symbolically ripping the red scrunchie from Duke’s head and donning it herself as she struts down the hallway. With her new can’t-mess-with-me power, she vows to do right as the new school leader and offers an olive branch to a previously bullied student, officially clearing the slate for change.

Veronica’s realization that seeking out genuine friendships is more important than popularity is the real takeaway from Heathers. The importance of having female friends that build each other up instead of tear each other down is paramount. We as women should strive to buck the status quo of mainstream movie frienemy friendships and seek out ones that are rooted in respect and support. But as a whole, the message of the film is clear: Don’t be a Heather; find a Betty Finn.

Alize Emme is a writer/director living in Los Angeles. She holds a B.A. in Film & Television from NYU and tweets at @alizeemme.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Check out what we’ve been reading this week–and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!

Hey, Hollywood: Pay Attention to Female War Heroes by Christina Paschyn at Feministing

An Interview with “Saturday Night Live” Writer Katie Rich by Anne McCarthy at Bitch Media

Essie Davis: On Playing A Sexually Liberated ‘Superhero’ Without Apology by Linda Holmes at NPR

The Dollar-And-Cents Case Against Hollywood’s Exclusion of Women by Walt Hickey at FiveThirtyEight

Cate Blanchett Was Right: 5 Reasons The Numbers Are on The Side of Women in Film by Alice Lytton at /bent

The Sexual Evolution is Coming, Thanks in Part to TV by Alicia Lutes at Bustle

MMA Fighter and Action Star Gina Carano On In the Blood and What Makes a Good Heroine by Laura Berger at Women and Hollywood

Hillary Clinton: Media ‘double standard’ on women by Maggie Haberman at Politico

A Million Things We Loved About 10 Things I Hate About You by Kate Dries at Jezebel

Still Very, 25 Years Later: The Bleak Genius of Heathers by Alan Zilberman at The Atlantic

Top 10 women-centric films of Bollywood at India Today

Did a Woman Invent Superheroes? by Molly Freeman at Hollywood

Watch Episode 1 (Series Premiere) Of ‘First’ – New Project from the Ever-Expanding Issa Rae Empire by Karen Marie Mason at Shadow and Act

Women and Hollywood Summer 2014 Preview by Inkoo Kang at Women and Hollywood

What have you been reading/writing this week? Tell us in the comments!

Girl Gangs Are Mean: Teenage Girl Gang Movies Through the Years

While most teen movies revolve around coming-of-age stories, gang movies reveal the extreme side to adolescence—the misfit, criminal, and violent side. Gang movies are rather simple, either focusing on episodes of gang debauchery, or revolving around rivalry and jealousy. Usually the viewpoint is that of the ring leader, or the “new girl,” who is initiated into the gang but is still an outsider. Yet, among the plethora of girl gang movies, every decade has produced stories involving specific issues and specific types of teenage girls.

This guest post by Emanuela Betti appears as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.

One of Roger Corman’s first films, Swamp Women, was a 1955 crime story revolving around a gang of female convicts. There has hardly ever been a lack of female gangs in films — in particular, teenage girl gang movies became increasingly popular starting in the 50s, which led to numerous movies on the subject that span different generations. If there is a genre in which teenage girls have never been lacking representation, it’s gang movies.

Yet, that representation has varied and changed throughout the decades, ranging from high school delinquents to outlaw bikers. While most teen movies revolve around coming-of-age stories, gang movies reveal the extreme side to adolescence — the misfit, criminal, and violent side. Gang movies are rather simple, either focusing on episodes of gang debauchery, or revolving around rivalry and jealousy. Usually the viewpoint is that of the ring leader, or the “new girl,” who is initiated into the gang but is still an outsider. Yet, among the plethora of girl gang movies, every decade has produced stories involving specific issues and specific types of teenage girls.

The 50s and the Rebellious Years

An abundance of films and B-movies related to gangs and juvenile delinquency was released in the 1950s. The films produced at that time reveal a growing anxiety about teen rebellion. While Reefer Madness was a propaganda film about the dangers of marijuana, movies such as The Violent Years and Girl Gang were propaganda films about the threat and danger of rebellious teenage girls, and the dramatic consequences of being part of a female posse. The girls were portrayed as violent criminals, on par with their male counterparts — driven by teen angst and restlessness. Gang movies in the ‘50s were heavily moralistic: films such as The Violent Years and High School Hellcats blamed juvenile delinquency on parental neglect and dysfunctional families, while teenage gang members usually suffered a tragic fate. The Violent Years (written by Ed Wood) was particularly exaggerated in its tragic ending: Paula, leader of the gang, becomes pregnant, is jailed for murder, and finally dies in childbirth — yet, still has the insolence to look at the screen and ask, “So what?”

The 60s and Biker Gangs

Girl gang movies of the ‘50s were particularly judgmental, until the 1960s rolled in with the biker film craze. Three all-female motorcycle gang movies were released in the same year: The Mini-Skirt Mob, She-Devils on Wheels, and The Hellcats in 1968. Compared to ‘50s gang movies, female biker movies of the ‘60s indulged in the gang fantasy rather than pressing moral lessons on the viewer. There are no schools or parents in biker movies—the gang is the family. The girls in biker gangs are a tight-knit posse, led by an Alpha female who bosses and uses men to her liking; the idea of assertive and domineering girls has carried on from the ‘50s, but without judgment. Despite the popularity of the biker genre, the depiction of adolescence in biker films was essentially unrealistic, and indulged in a fantasy rather than a truthful portrayal of teenage girls.

70s and Switchblades

In the 1970s, gangs ditched their motorcycles and stocked up on switchblade knives, moving back into an urban setting instead of the open road. Probably one of the most iconic gang movies, Switchblade Sisters, is about the Dagger Debs, an all-female city gang led by Lace. The story revolves around the arrival of new girl Maggie, who joins the Dagger Debs and slowly begins to take over leadership. For a gang movie, Switchblade Sisters has a complex storyline, filled with power struggles between characters — Lace becomes increasingly jealous of Maggie, Patch is a sly manipulator, and Maggie goes from a quiet girl to a cold-hearted leader. Although the world of Switchblade Sisters is also unrealistic, the political turmoil of the ‘60s and ‘70s is strongly evident in the darker tone of the story and the characters’ actions. At one point, we are introduced to a Black Panther-inspired gang, which we also see in another popular gang movie, The Warriors.

Although The Warriors focuses mainly on male gangs, there is one female gang in the movie known as the Lizzies. They are also armed with switchblades and knives, and they lure gang members by seducing them. Again, female gang members retain the exaggerated image of the Alpha female that they have been given since the ‘50s.

Teenage Royalty

From the 1980s on, “gangs” become high school “cliques” led by the popular girls. We first see high school girl cliques in the Pink Ladies from Grease, which was a throwback to ‘50s teen gang movies. In 1988, Heathers presents us with yet another elite girl clique (the Heathers) who are the most popular and envied girls in school. Although Heathers is a humorous take on teen movies, Veronica (Winona Ryder) is the closest depiction to an “actual” teenage girl since the biker and switchblade girls: she vents her hate for the Heathers on her diary, and has a teen romance with the typical bad boy. Jawbreaker and Mean Girls are both told through the point of view of the new girl. They begins as a socially awkward outsiders but slowly (like Maggie from Switchblade Sisters) take over the spotlight of the original queen bee.

While previous gang movies were driven by gang rivalry and dominance for territory, the modern high school girl gangs are at war for social status. Teen angst is present, but rather than expressing it through vandalism and crime, it’s expressed through different means — they ditch the switchblades, and their weapons are gossip, manipulation, and backstabbing.

Notorious Teens

After a long period of “teenage royalty” girl gangs, in the 2010s, two movies tackled girl gangs in a different light: Spring Breakers and The Bling Ring. The stories still revolve around beautiful and privileged girls, but instead of fighting for high school popularity, they gravitate toward a criminal lifestyle. The girls in Spring Breakers commit armed robbery, while the members of the Bling Ring steal expensive goods from celebrities’ homes. Modern girl gang movies are not indulgent fantasies or exaggerated portrayals of high school life — the new girl gangs embody a sentiment among many teenage girls: the desire for material things, and most of all, notoriety. The girls in Spring Breakers feel entitled to wealth, while The Bling Ring girls follow their desperate obsession for celebrity status.

Emanuela Betti is a part-time writer, occasional astrologer, neurotic pessimist by day and ball-breaking feminist by night. She miraculously graduated with a BA in English and Creative Writing, and writes about music and movies on her blog.

Women and Gender in Cult Films and B-Movies: The Roundup

Check out all of the Women & Gender in Cult Films & B-Movies Theme Week posts here!

Slumber Party Massacre: Deconstructing the Male Gaze by Emanuela Betti

Slumber Party Massacre came up while I was searching for female directors in the exploitation genre. Although it came off as yet another sensationalistic and gory 80s slasher, it stuck out, mainly due to its ridiculous title or the fact that most of the characters were female. Upon viewing it, what shocked me was not so much the gore and violence, but I was surprised by the clever humor, the funny characters, and most of all the incredibly veiled feminist satire.

Fairytale Prostitution in Angel by Elizabeth Kiy

Angel, a 1984 cult film, attempts to be both a melodrama about a teen hooker forced to face her life choices (as the trailer proclaims it “A Very Special Motion Picture”) and a very 80s crime thriller where a tough-talking street kid teams up with a cop to catch a killer, but the resulting film is a mess of clashing tones that seems more campy than hard-hitting.

Luc Besson: Hero of the Feminist Antihero? by Shay Revolver

For the uninitiated, Nikita was the often too realistic story of a drug-addicted young woman who finds herself in jail after a robbery gone horribly wrong. Most filmmakers would have ended there, a cautionary tale of the woman led down the wrong path who ends up punished for her sins. But Besson took the story further; this broken young woman gets turned into an assassin that is used by her government to kill. The killing takes its toll on her, but she values her life and freedom over the other option provided her: death. She meets a guy, falls in love, and at the end of the day Nikita turned out to not be the same story I was used to.

Night of the Living Dead: Early Reception and Gender Performances by Deirdre Crimmins

In terms of gender representations, both men and women are shown as the worst possible version of themselves. Barbra swings back and forth from being near catatonic and unable to communicate, to wild and hysterical. Ben even slaps her at one point to get her to snap out of her state. She is weak and unable to deal with the emotions of seeing her brother attacked. Barbra would have already been killed and reanimated were it not for the über masculine Ben to save her from the perils that lie outside.

A Study in Contrasts: The Hunger by Amanda Civitello and Rebecca Bennett

Perhaps for the movie’s purposes, that doesn’t matter: the story seems to be far more driven by the desire to create an artistic film, rather than an intellectually/ethically/scientifically engaging narrative. The scientific aspect for example—the part of the film I found personally most engaging, that it is possible to tamper with the natural life-cycle, halting the aging process in its tracks—is touched upon but it seems, at least to me, to be more of a plot device for bringing Sarah into Miriam’s life than an attempt to explore an ethically challenging issue. The biology behind Miriam’s present state and the fate of her lovers is similarly irrelevant.

Cult Truth: Why The Raunchy Rocky Horror Picture Show is Hilariously Humanizing by Rachel Redfern

When the movie begins we’re introduced to Brad, a hero (Barry Bostiwck) and Janet, a heroine (Susan Sarandon), two straight-laced representations of the all-American, white middle class Christian boy and girl who are suddenly thrown into a den of loose morals and provocative dancing. At all turns, we’re blatantly reminded of their status as a proxy for a nice boy and a good girl, and it’s reinforced with every cliché possible.

Earth Girls Are Easy and Charming by Libby White

Being set in the Valley in the 80s, the film portrays much of the vapidness and consumerism popular at the time, with two of the film’s songs, “Brand New Girl,” and “’Cause I’m a Blonde,” focusing on changing or criticizing women’s appearances. “’Cause I’m a Blonde” is purposely satirical, however, and really serves more to make fun of the blonde “Valley Girl” stereotype than to support it.

Maude and The Dude: Feminism and Masculinity in The Big Lebowski by Rachael Johnson

Populated by mostly male characters, The Big Lebowski is, to some extent, a tale of male friendship. Nevertheless, the cult comedy should never be interpreted and celebrated as exclusively a guy’s film. The Big Lebowski offers an amusing, subversive portrait of masculinity and features an excellent comic performance by one of the most gifted actresses working today. What’s more, it suggests that the future is matriarchal.

Withnail and I and the Danger of the Feminine Man by Barrett Vann

Consistently, then, femininity in men is dangerous. It may be actively dangerous, as in Uncle Monty, who assaults Marwood whilst in near-drag, or passively dangerous, in that it makes the feminine man a target for harassment, as in the lout at the pub who calls Marwood a perfumed ponce. Ultimately, it is dangerous because it marks the other, and to be other is to be in danger.

The Blood of Carrie by Holly Derr

Most feminist criticism of Stephen King’s Carrie has focused on the male fear of powerful women that the author said inspired the film, with the anti-Carrie camp finding her death at the end to signify the defeat of the “monstrous feminine” and therefore a triumph of sexism. But Stephen King’s honesty about what inspired his 1973 book notwithstanding, Carrie is as much an articulation of a feminist nightmare as it is of a patriarchal one, with neither party coming out on top.

Birth of the Living Dead: Women & Gender in Cult Films & B-Movies by Amanda Rodriguez and Max Thornton

Birth of the Living Dead is Rob Kuhns’ documentary of the making of George Romero’s 1968 cult horror genre game-changer Night of the Living Dead. Bitch Flicks writers Max Thornton and Amanda Rodriguez discuss both the documentary (BOTLD) and the original film itself (NOTLD).

In Boondock Saints, the Men Shoot Gangsters, and the Women Don’t Exist by Deborah Pless

The ethics of the film are one thing, but it says a lot about the world of the movie that it’s able to go nearly two hours without a single important female character showing up on screen. There are no women cops, there are no women in the mob, there are only a couple of wives or passers-by or maybe a drug-addled girlfriend or two. But no one who matters. The acting characters in the film are all overwhelmingly and vocally male.

Even the ethos of the characters, that they will destroy that which is evil, but leave alone the pure and blameless, is inherently sexist. Because when they say pure and blameless, what they mean is the women and children. In this universe, women are not even people enough to do things wrong. We do not have enough agency even to commit evil.

In Clue, the Real Mystery Is the Bechdel Test by Erin K. O’Neill

On any dark and stormy night in the fall, it is a wonderful thing to curl up with a mug of mulled cider and watch Clue. The murder mystery based on the eponymous board game may have been a huge flop when it was released in 1985, but it has gained a passionate cult following in the last 28 years, probably due to its infinitely quotable dialogue and gleeful disregard for the pile of bodies amassed as the movie progresses – as well as being shown on cable about once every two hours.

Fight Club: From Marla Singer’s Viewpoint by Jen Thorpe

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve watched Fight Club. Every time I view it, I end up noticing something new. How did I miss that before? This time, Marla Singer (played by Helena Bonham Carter) captured my attention. What would the situations in the movie look like from her viewpoint?

The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the Pitchfork of Puritanism by Leigh Kolb

The midwestern, puritanical values that American Gothic seems to represent so well win at the end of the film, and quite literally kill difference and sexual and gender subversion. While Riff Raff and Magenta go back to their home planet Transsexual, in the galaxy of Transylvania, Brad, Janet and Dr. Scott are left on the cold ground, crawling and writhing in their fishnets.

Cult Films That Changed Cinematic History by Marcela De Vivo

Here are some game-changing cult classics, divided into handy genre sections. And while we’re looking at the influence of these cult films, why not check out how they portray and treat women? Almost entirely coincidentally, they’re all from the ‘80s. What can I say? It was a culturally rich period.

Friday the 13th: In Defense of Pamela Voorhees by Candice Frederick

So I asked Twitter the following question: “Who’s scarier: Jason or Jason’s mom?” Surprisingly, despite all the movies (12 in total) in which Jason is seen slashing throats and hanging victims, his mom (who’s only alive and running amok in the first film in 1980) is apparently considered the more horrifying killer. But I’ve always had a soft spot for Pamela. Not that I condone the gruesome murders of innocent people (of course not). But, unlike Jason, Pamela committed crimes of passion. Her crazy antics were actually revenge for her young son’s fatal drowning, which she felt was caused by the unjustifiable neglect of the camp counselors who failed to watch him (a longtime rumor has faulted the counselors for being too busy fornicating and not paying attention to Jason’s cries for help).

We’re the Weirdos: Female Power for Good and Evil in The Craft by Kim Hoffman

The Craft presents a lesson that coming-of-age films don’t typically make a point to show. A ballot is cast for prom queen or SAT prep sits on the horizon with college days looming, a girl must get a boy to like her, losing her virginity in the process. But this film is about serving the self—the craft of empowering oneself to surmount the archaic persecutions against women—taking back the threat of female power. But like a genie in a bottle that allows three wishes, this craft must be practiced and understood, respected completely before it can be outwardly used, or else it will perpetuate transgression.

Freaks: Sing the Body Electric by Karina Wilson

Freaks (1932) is a true cult movie, one that’s ridden a rollercoaster of opprobrium and acclaim since its initial release. Tod Browning’s sideshow-set horror-romance destroyed his career (and several others), caused such disgust in early audiences that one woman (allegedly) miscarried, outraged critics and moral guardians, traumatized some of the performers who appeared in it, languished in obscurity after being banned for three decades, resurfaced on the exploitation circuit in the 1960s, and earned a spot in the National Film Registry archives in 1994 before enjoying its current status as a one-of-a-kind classic. It’s been repeated to the point of cliché, but Freaks, once seen, is never forgotten. Love it or hate it, it will stay with you for the rest of your life.

Red, Blue, and Giallo: Dario Argento’s Suspiria by Max Thornton

I was neither a discerning nor an educated viewer, but even so I quickly cottoned on to the fact that certain Italian directors had produced some above-average horror flicks in the 1970s, characterized by a cavalier attitude toward nudity, pervasive Catholic imagery, and lashings of gore. Ignorant of the term giallo, I proceeded to dub this subgenre “spag-horror,” which isn’t actually an awful name for it.

As my initiation into the worlds of sex and violence, many European horror films of the 1970s no doubt occupy a Freudian subspace of my psyche. Probably the Ur-example of this genre and its strange, ambivalent attitude toward women and sexuality is Dario Argento’s 1977 meisterwerk, Suspiria.

Before There Was Orange is the New Black, There Was Roger Corman’s Women in Cages by Leigh Kolb

I found myself wondering about the designation of sexploitation. Female nudity in itself isn’t exploitative. Women fighting and women being abused are things that happen in prison. Are representations of women in these situations inherently exploitative, or are we conditioned to see women’s bodies and women’s actions and think: object? Certainly frame after frame of powerful, complex, awful and good, sympathetic and loathsome women has some kind of effect on the viewer. Since we are conditioned to only really consider the straight white male gaze as the norm, we see these movies as highly sexualized and exploitative.

The Shock of Sleepaway Camp by Carrie Nelson

On the surface, Sleepaway Camp isn’t much different than your average 1980s slasher movie. The comparisons to Friday the 13th can’t be ignored – Sleepaway’s Camp Arawak, much like Friday’s Camp Crystal Lake, is populated by horny teens looking for some summer lovin’, and is the site of a series of gruesome and mysterious murders that threaten to shut down the camp for the whole summer. But unlike Friday the 13th and other slasher films, the twist in Sleepaway Camp isn’t the identity of the murderer, and the final girl isn’t exactly who you’d expect.

Veronica Decides Not To Die–Heathers: The Proto-Mean Girls by Artemis Linhart

Indeed, the social structure of Westerburg High School is unsettling to say the least. Teens there would rather commit actual suicide than “social suicide.” Their alienation from both reality and ethical values is mirrored not only in J.D., Veronica and the Heathers, but also in the rest of the students. Peer pressure and the dream of popularity result in the “Westerburg suicides,” causing a downright suicide craze. Their supposed actions gave the popular kids depth and humanity and made them more popular than ever. When an unpopular girl attempts to kill herself, the new Heather in charge asserts, “Just another case of a geek trying to imitate the popular people of the school and failing miserably.”

Veronica Decides Not To Die – ‘Heathers’: The Proto-‘Mean Girls’

This guest post by Artemis Linhart appears as part of our theme week on Cult Films and B Movies.

If Heathers (1988) has taught us anything, it’s that “it is one thing to want somebody out of your life, it is another thing to serve them a wake-up cup full of liquid drainer.”

In one of the first and foremost films about the chronic struggle of queen bees versus wannabes, Veronica Sawyer is up against a ruthless trio of Heathers. Led by Heather Chandler, they are the most popular clique in school and, being their newest member, Veronica has already had enough – she longs to return to her “geekish” old friends. The three Heathers can be read to represent the uniformity of the queen bees as well as high school structures in general. As Veronica’s boyfriend J.D. argues, they function in much the same way everywhere: “Seven schools in seven states and the only thing different is my locker combination.” The popular girls seem to be interchangeable templates that, in addition, are the same in every school and, most importantly, every teen movie. But high school as a technicolor battleground has just taken on a new opponent.

Fed up with using her smarts “to decide what color gloss to wear,” Veronica is more self confident and not as obsequious as Heather Chandler’s other minions. Having a strong sense for right and wrong, she is reluctant to accept the regime of an individual adolescent in the social fabric of the school. In order to function as the blatant satire that it is, the film works with an array of cliché characters, yet it offers a remarkable complexity of female characters that transcends the “smart girl in need of a makeover vs. the popular airhead” shtick. Moreover, it blends juvenile delinquency with girlhood without making use of the “outrageous” John Waters style badass girl gang trope.

Channeling both James Dean and Jack Nicholson, J.D. remains the driving force behind the murderous madness. However, there is a certain darkness to Veronica’s character that wavers between desperation and spite and contrasts the teenage girl known from the works of John Hughes and the like. Whereas in the 1970s the cinematic image of (pre-)teen girls was defined by a more demonic form of terror in films like Carrie and The Exorcist, a more subtle kind of horror emerged in the decades to come: the everyday kind. Heathers has paved the way for films like Jawbreaker (1999) and Mean Girls (2004), as well as TV series like Gossip Girl (2007-2012), about a bunch of conniving high school girls with cruel intentions and relentless dress codes. We owe this in part to the Waters brothers, who have found a voice to express the fear and loathing popular high school girls can evoke without demonizing the feminine by its very nature. Incidentally, Daniel Waters (the writer of Heathers) and Mark Waters (director of Mean Girls) have recently teamed up for an upcoming film adaptation of the best-selling teenage fantasy novel Vampire Academy.

Frienemies

The effort of negotiating one’s position in high school’s bizarre pecking order is an anguish many teenagers face. The struggle is real. However, in the case of Veronica, it is not an outsider trying to make his or her way into the popular crowd but an insider trying to get out. “Are you a Heather?” J.D. asks Veronica as they first encounter. “No. I’m a Veronica”; she clearly distinguishes herself from the trio and later on explains, “I don’t really like my friends. It’s just like they’re people I work with and our job is being popular and shit.” Popularity came at a price for Veronica. She had to give up her true friends who, by Heathers-standards, are “the scum of the school.” Heather Chandler runs a tight ship. She considers conversing with the “geek squad” to be “social suicide” and forbids Veronica and her other minion Heathers to do so. Veronica feels oppressed and harbors thoughts of deadly revenge: “Tomorrow I’ll be kissing her aerobicised ass, but for tonight, let me dream of a world without Heather – a world where I am free.”

It becomes clear that, similarly to that of the Mean Girls, the Heathers’ friendship is merely a superficial camaraderie based on phony flattery and a feeling of superiority when it comes to fashion choices. And, of course, power.

Power Dangers

From the very start, J.D. takes control of Veronica and her decisions. She describes their unhealthy relationship in her diary, saying, “I’ve got no control over myself when I’m with J.D.” and concludes with, “Are we going to prom or to hell?”

Upon comprehending that her “teen angst bullshit has a body count,” she declares her “Bonnie and Clyde days” to be over and attempts to break up with J.D. As he explains to Veronica that this will not bring back the dead, she responds, “I am not trying to bring anyone back except maybe myself.” Clearly, she has had enough of being bullied by the Heathers as well as her boyfriend and wants to get back in touch with her true self. Moreover, Veronica is well aware of how the mean girl torch is merely being continuously passed on to the next queen bee. In a dream she realizes with distress that “tomorrow someone else is just gonna move into her place,” and, in a worried tone, adds, “That person could be me!”

Within the Heathers, it is Heather Chandler who’s boss. Just like hoop earrings are “Regina’s thing” in Mean Girls, wearing the color red is Heather Chandler’s thing. After her death, the next Heather takes her place and genuinely revels in wearing red. The red scrunchie that we see in the very first shot of the film is passed on from one queen bee to the next and when asked why she is “such a mega bitch,” the new head of the Heathers replies, “Because I can be.”

But as J.D. blackmails her, she goes from controller to controllee and it is once again him who is in charge. The film’s title song, “Que Sera,” stands in great contrast to J.D.’s urge to manipulate those around him and, essentially, “play god.” Eventually, he explains his plans to blow up the entire school by disputing the underlying problems within society itself, his argument being: “The only place different social types can genuinely get along is in heaven.” Basking in his outburst of mansplaining, J.D unmasks high school as a type of societal microcosm and blames it for his own issues as well as structural complications and hierarchies.

In the end, we get a happy ending of the macabre kind. J.D. loses to Veronica’s bravery as she stands up to him and saves the school from a deathly massacre. It is a victory of fairness, feminism, and friendship. Veronica is the new queen bee. While it becomes clear that, on the whole, high school will remain a place dominated by “the cool crowd,” at least Veronica’s authority might allow for a more humane form of leadership.

Artemis Linhart is a freelance writer and film curator with a weakness for escapism.

Cult Films that Changed Cinematic History

This guest post by Marcela De Vivo appears as part of our theme week on Cult Films and B Movies.

What does it mean to change cinematic history? Is it The Wizard of Oz with its use of technicolor? Pulp Fiction with its refreshingly out-of-order timeline? Rashomon with its three POV’s? All of the above, and then some. Here are some game-changing cult classics, divided into handy genre sections. And while we’re looking at the influence of these cult films, why not check out how they portray and treat women? Almost entirely coincidentally, they’re all from the ‘80s. What can I say? It was a culturally rich period.

Film Noir: Blade Runner & Blue Velvet

Almost 70 years after its heydey, film noir is still a popular genre that continues to influence and revolutionize modern cinema. It’s everywhere — from the Keanu Reeves-helmed Matrix series to the femme fatale Black Widow in Joss Whedon’s blockbuster The Avengers. It’s touched many films over the last 70-odd years, including Blade Runner and Blue Velvet.

While at a first glance, Blade Runner seems like something of a misogynist film — two out of the film’s three major female characters die horribly violent and sexualized deaths — upon closer inspection, it reads more as a commentary on the outdated femme fatale trope. All three women in the film embody the femme fatale in some way — Pris convinces J.F. Sebastian to take her in with her sexuality and Zhora is able to disarm Deckard with her naked body before dressing in that infamous post-Star Wars metal bikini and clear rain coat.

Rachael, perhaps, fills the role to the fullest — acting as the morally questionable love interest. And though she’s the only one who makes it out of the film alive, she’s even treated to some violence at the hands of Deckard — their love scene is cringe-worthy: he throws her against the wall, bringing her almost to the point of tears, and orders her around in a sketchily S&M fashion.

While all of these strong women losing their agency to men may seem misogynist, we’re forgetting the setting: completely dystopic 2019. The mistreatment of women instead goes hand in hand with the mise en scéne: a world where a woman can fall through multiple plate glass windows after being brutally shot down in the street and no one bats an eye. Ridley Scott subverts the now-outdated femme fatale trope by making it a part of a post-apocalyptic world.

Blade Runner definitely made its mark on film history; it was one of the harbingers of the cyberpunk genre that emerged in the early 1980s. We can see its influences in everywhere from modern architecture to TV — in fact, it reportedly influenced the cult TV show Battlestar Galactica, and the architecture at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, most recently seen as Starfleet Academy in Star Trek Into Darkness. It was also notably listed as the second most influential visual effects films of all time — if you have an interest in photography or cinematography, you should definitely check this film out.

Blue Velvet, too, is a veritable can of worms when it comes to the treatment of women — it has some pretty serious virgin-whore dichotomy going on. Sandy and Dorothy? Blonde, cheerleader-adjacent daughter of the sheriff vs. French nightclub singer? Come on, Jeffery. However, unlike Blade Runner subverting femme fatale stereotypes all over the place, Blue Velvet has a decidedly more Freudian twist on its gender relationships. Dorothy/Frank/Jeffrey? It’s so creepily Oedipal and sado-masochistic that I don’t even want to go there. That’s not to say the film’s not worth watching; what it does with the concepts of voyeurism is fascinating, and of course, visually it’s spectacular.

Like Blade Runner, this was the work of an ultra-auteur, playing homage to a smorgasbord of genres. Noir, surrealism, horror? Check, check, and check. David Lynch’s famous cinematic style still has an influence on movies — the dreamy, nightmarish quality of his work is still majorly in play today. His famous and groundbreaking TV show Twin Peaks still has a huge influence as well — this mysterious TV show paved the way for shows like Lost and The X-Files.

And now for something completely different…

High School: Pretty in Pink & Heathers

Say what you will about Pretty in Pink — I still think Andie, played by Molly Ringwald, should have ended up with Duckie (Jon Cryer). I mean, that “Try a Little Tenderness” lip-sync? Pure gold. John Hughes’ oeuvre pretty much revolutionized the teen film genre. He was one of the first filmmakers to give the problems of teens actual weight. Instead of creating straight-up comedies and farces, his characters faced real problems, chief among them class. Pretty in Pink’s whole plot revolves around such issues — Andie’s dad has fallen into something of a depression after being left by his wife, and now Andie can barely get him out of bed, let alone to report to a real job. By treating teens like adults, Hughes created a crop of cult classics that teens and adults alike still enjoy nearly 30 years later.

Pretty in Pink was also somewhat ahead of its time in the Strong Female Character department, especially within its genre — Andie Walsh knows what she wants and she’s going to do her best to get it, no matter if she falters along the way. She lines up job interviews with for her dad, rebuffs her friend Duckie’s advances — she’s even not afraid to tell off the school’s resident asshole, Steff and she gets a lot of life advice from her awesome role model/friend/boss/fashion inspiration, Iona. She’s not the perfect character, but her authentic and genuine personality made her a role model to many young girls.

And what about the infamous Heathers? Sociopaths, nihilism, and bombs? Dark stuff. Released in 1988, this film is very much a contemporary of Pretty in Pink, and aside from being set in high schools, they’re about as different as two films could be. Heathers was interesting on many levels — the issues it dealt with in varying degrees of satire are still in play today. Plus, it featured a murderous anti-heroine, Winona Ryder, as Veronica Sawyer, who, at the end of the film, leaves her suicidal, sociopathic boyfriend to die, saving the whole school in the process.

What are your thoughts on the above films? What are some of your favorite cult films? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Marcela De Vivo is a freelance writer from Los Angeles and has written on a wide variety of topics from her favorite films to interior design tips. She loves watching her favorite female empowering films with her young daughter, Izzy, for a great girls’ only movie night and some much needed mom-and-daughter bonding time.