Heteronormativity – Bitch Flicks

Catherine Tramell in ‘Basic Instinct’ Is a Subversive Anti-Hero

The notion of Catherine as a subversive anti-hero develops when you view the film not as a story about the supposed protagonist Detective Nick Curran but as Catherine’s journey from mind games to almost domestic bliss but always returning to her basic instincts which threatens the Hollywood happy ending of established heteronormativity.

This guest post written by Alexandra West appears as part of our theme week on Unpopular Opinions.

What happens when we love something problematic? What happens when in the middle of something problematic there’s something unique, interesting, and incredibly refreshing? How do we as audience members look for the potentially progressive nuggets that drive a filmic narrative forward in new and interesting ways while also understanding that nugget can come wrapped in a basket of deplorable politics? One such case worthy of examination is Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) as a progressive anti-hero in Paul Verhoeven’s blockbuster erotic thriller Basic Instinct (1992). The notion of Catherine as a subversive anti-hero develops when you view the film not as a story about the supposed protagonist Detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) but as Catherine’s journey from mind games to almost domestic bliss but always returning to her basic instincts which threatens the Hollywood happy ending of established heteronormativity.

Set in San Francisco, notably one of the most queer-positive cities in North America, Basic Instinct centers on the murders of men possibly committed by Catherine, a beautiful, wealthy, murder mystery author with a degree in psychology. The murders all mirror crime scenes directly from her books and homicide detective Nick Curran becomes entangled in the crimes and obsessed with Catherine. Nick can’t decide if Catherine is behind the murders or if he’s in love with her or both.

Throughout the film, Catherine’s bisexuality is at the forefront of her character which marks her as transgressive to the hetro-male oriented police force while the other female characters in the film are also implied or explicitly coded as bisexual or lesbian. Any subtly or nuance in regards to the queer experience in a mainstream blockbuster is wiped away in favor of brash eroticism and the ultimate objectives of Nick who imposes his heteronormativity on his relationships, particularly with Catherine. Nick’s hope is that he’ll be enough for Catherine to settle down for. Catherine is framed in contradistinction to Nick’s almost girlfriend Beth (Jeanne Tripplehorn) a police therapist who plays the typical “good girl” with a maybe sinister past. Nick (and the film) can’t help but conflate both Catherine and Beth in his mind through the lens of the virgin or the whore. Ultimately, Nick’s desire to render Catherine as his own private virgin drives the film towards a mainstream conclusion.

But what of Catherine, the object and prize of the film? Through all the gross biphobia, homophobia, and misogyny of Basic Instinct, Catherine remains an enigma. Her role in the film as foil to Nick’s heteronormative dream is what’s most subversive about her as a character. Her alluring presence confounds those around her; her placement in the film is a clear nod to the femme fatale role, but Catherine occupies the role of narrative driver. The ultimate satisfaction of Basic Instinct in subsequent viewings stems from watching her manipulate the narrative and those around her, watching protagonist Nick succumb to her charms and power. Catherine continually and enjoyably plays with Nick prodding him towards his reckless ways of drinking, drugging, and indiscriminate sex. However, instead of attempting to create husband material out of Nick, Catherine utilizes him for her own purposes of her new book. Her means to an end finishes with her book, her creation, her narrative – not wedded bliss. Catherine’s role as an author is posited by the film as a potential red herring when in fact it actually marks her as the maker of meaning, conducting research through her own means.

It is her manipulation which allows Nick to reflect, grow and change throughout the film for better and for worse allowing him to be the hero he thinks he is. Nick completes the narrative she constructs for him. If he did not play along with her suggestions and supposed whims the film could have had a very different outcome but as Basic Instinct stands, Catherine developed Nick’s narrative of one of toxic masculinity viewing everything other as a threat which in its dark ending suggests that Nick’s white-picket fence goals are as unfounded as the film’s dangerous portrayals of homosexuality. As Nick views Catherine as a prize, she views him as a character in one of her books and just as disposable. Ultimately, Nick needs Catherine more than she needs him.

While Catherine does inhabit the role of the Dangerous Woman (a seemingly modern version of the film noir femme fatale character) cliché and the Murderous Bisexual Women trope, it’s important to acknowledge what is unique and perhaps even progressive about her. She is both the architect of the narrative and her own destruction as she struggles against giving up her agency in favor of a “normal” life. In order to act as a good mother or wife, she’d have to give up the things that made her interesting and alluring in the first place, illuminating the flaws of the patriarchal “happy ending” and ultimately mocking the very thing the film attempts to confirm as an “acceptable” way of life. The role she never gives up on is that of author and creator; her sexuality, identity, and motives are all fluid based on the situation but her God-like power in the film is unmistakable. The film even flirts with a near happy ending for Nick and Catherine which is where the film would have ended if Nick was the true protagonist but instead, the film ends with the vantage point of Catherine’s true intention.

Stone would go on to reprise the role of Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct 2 (2006) as the only holdover from the previous film. Stone has had a problematic relationship with the original film herself, decrying that the infamous leg-crossing shot was achieved and exhibited without her consent which in essence is the film doubling-down on its problematic nature. Watching the film in this day and age, its troubling and problematic elements ring through clearer than church bells, but the film is also a hugely important cultural touchstone for 1992 as it was the 4th highest grossing film of 1992. The film is marked by Verhoeven and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas’ penchant for creating watchable chaos and mayhem (see also Showgirls) with the film perpetually creating a new audience for itself based on the film’s taboo-inclined nature. Looking back at Basic Instinct as a piece of media that was so widely and readily consumed, its façade is still marred by biphobia, homophobia, and misogyny, yet it’s satisfying to know that Catherine still remains at large, a threat to everything Hollywood deemed acceptable.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

The Trope of the Murderous Bisexual Woman

Biphobia in Basic Instinct

Alexandra West is a freelance horror journalist and playwright who lives, works, and survives in Toronto. Her work has appeared in the Toronto Star, Rue Morgue, Post City Magazine and Offscreen Film Journal. She is a regular contributor to Famous Monsters of Filmland and a columnist forDiabolique with “The Devil Made Us Watch It.” In December 2012, West co-founded the Faculty of Horror podcast with fellow writer Andrea Subissati, which explores the analytical side of horror films and the darkest recesses of academia.

‘Firefly’: Mixed Messages on Inara’s Sexuality

In ‘Firefly,’ women can be strong, they can be independent, they can be respected, but they are still fetishized for their sexual choices. Inara’s queerness is less a way to incorporate diverse sexuality into the show and more to stoke a fantasy of women for the consumption of heterosexual men.

This guest post written by A Little Tiefling appears as part of our theme week on Bisexual Representation.

Previous articles have discussed the less-than-egalitarian portrayal of Inara Serra on Joss Whedon’s cult television series, Firefly, in her role as respected sex worker. But the framing of her sexuality is also far more traditionally heteronormative than it first appears.

Inara Serra (Morena Baccarin) is a Companion: more than a high-class escort, she has been trained in Tantric mysticism, the arts, etiquette etc. Companions are so respected that they can select their clients and command huge sums. They can also afford to reject clients, unlike their lower class counterparts who have far less freedom to turn down income. All this suggests Companions choose clients based on personal preferences, including sexual ones.

Inara selects patrons with whom she shares chemistry. In the episode “Shindig,” she rejects a timid male suitor and selects Atherton Wing (Edward Atterton), a confident and attractive man. Thus the show establishes Inara exercising control over her partners. It should be noted that in the same episode, two women can be seen among Inara’s potential clients, but she has no further interactions with them and even rejects one before speaking to her.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKVqNcRj_sY”]

Inara’s clients are overwhelmingly male. She says it herself to her one on-screen female client. This can only partly be chalked up to the seediness of Serenity’s crew and shipping routes. Inara has a large measure of freedom, being able to pilot her shuttle to more cosmopolitan ports than what her traveling companions can access. And yet, the female client with whom Inara seems to have a strong affection is never seen again. She’s never mentioned again. Their brief sexual encounter lasts a short time, but there are many lingering moments of heterosexual sex. Inara never interacts with another woman in the same intimate and sexual manner, though in theory she has the complete freedom to. She’s even portrayed to have a close platonic friendship with engineer Kaylee (Jewel Staite).

The show could have evolved their friendship into something more romantic or at least give the women time to discuss their closeness. There is some subtextual support that Kaylee has romantic feelings for Inara. They spend at least one scene grooming each other’s hair and discussing love and sex. However, Kaylee, who is just as openly sexual as Inara, pines for a man, while Inara has conflicted feelings for Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion). This is where the show undercuts Inara’s sexual freedom further. Inara’s interactions with other women, whether openly sexual or hinted, are used primarily to antagonize Mal into more open declarations of his own feelings.

In the episode “War Stories,” there’s a scene of Inara engaging with a female client whom she clearly deeply likes. She spends time worrying about the state of Serenity and discusses the woman in intimate terms, as “a very private person.” The scene suggests friendship as well as desire, based on the women’s body language and interactions. They hold a lingering smile and walk side by side, rather than The Councilor (Katherine Kendall) leading Inara. This isn’t a client Inara considers a one-off, but someone she’s met before and enjoys the company of.

A later intimate scene shows Inara giving the woman a massage, helping her to relax and in turn relaxing herself. Inara’s sexuality is clear from the way she is at ease around the councilor. She sought out a female client, alone, not as part of an MFF threesome or because she needed the money. This should have demonstrated Inara acting on her sexual preferences. However, the scene is undercut by the heteronormative tone of the bulk of the show.

Upon learning that Inara has been engaged by a female client, Jayne (Adam Baldwin), Mal, and Kaylee all express some form of arousal, and in Book (Ron Glass)’s case, shock. This grossly inappropriate behavior serves to fetishize Inara’s relationship with a woman. To rub salt in the wound, rather than behave as the flashy Atherton, who flaunts his assignations with Inara, the female client is “private” and desires to meet Inara in secret; as though she is ashamed.

Inara is not a queer woman with the autonomy to choose her clients, as the show tells us. Inara’s requests for respect and privacy with the female councillor go ignored. Instead, the show fetishizes her relationship, mirroring the in-universe delight demonstrated by the observers. Inara’s behavior isn’t her private choice, but meant to be publicly consumed for the titillation of both Mal and Jayne and the audience of the show.

In the episode “Our Mrs. Reynolds,” Mal is both fascinated and smug about Inara’s supposed kiss with Saffron (Christina Hendricks). Inara herself recognizes Saffron’s strategy of seduction and tries to turn it back on her, unsuccessfully. It’s Saffron’s open seduction that makes Inara suspect the con-artist had Companion training. This suggests less that Companions are allowed and encouraged to pursue same-sex relationships and more that they are trained for same-sex flirtation, that all Companions are “gay for pay” and not queer because they follow the human spectrum of sexualities. “War Stories” demonstrates that “gay for pay” attitude extends to the crew. The music of the scene, the over-the-top shock and delight expressed by the observers, all suggest that Inara’s taking a female client is new, faintly ridiculous, or something to be fantasized about but not pursued in depth.

This fetishization of Inara’s (and Kaylee’s, and Saffron’s) queerness further undermines the supposed egalitarian nature of Whedon’s universe. Women can be strong, they can be independent, they can be respected, but they are still fetishized for their sexual choices. Inara’s queerness is less a way to incorporate diverse sexuality into the show and more to stoke a fantasy of women for the consumption of heterosexual men. This is not a progressive view, especially of bisexuality, which is one of the least-portrayed of human sexualities in film and television, while one of the most misrepresented and fetishized. Firefly did not have the time to develop human relationships as fully as it could have, had it not been cancelled after one season. But the relationships that are developed are overwhelmingly heterosexual or heteronormative. Inara may be bisexual, but her queerness is fleeting and fetishized. Her primary role on the show is of teasing love interest. Even her queerness is less about her own autonomy and more about her objectification and sexualized image.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

Inara Serra and the Future of Sex Work
The Strong, Intelligent and Diverse Women of Firefly and Serenity

A Little Tiefling is a mild-mannered library worker by day and tarantula-loving guinea pig herder by night. Like all tieflings, this one is interested in writing on matters of sex, desire and the odder things in life.

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of Forced Heteronormativity

Irene Adler never needed Sherlock Holmes or any man (including the Czech King who hired Sherlock to face her in the first place), and when she finds love (with a man who is neither the king nor Holmes), it’s on her terms. Irene Adler only appears in one of Conan Doyle’s stories because she has her own life, and it does not rotate around nor even involve Sherlock Holmes. She is a clever, intelligent, resourceful, sex-positive woman in control of her own life, her own body, and her own destiny, and deserves not only a writer to do her justice, but a series to completely center her and all her fantastic escapades.

Trigger Warning for the sexual assault, physical abuse, and murder of female characters.

The BBC will soon be releasing its Sherlock Christmas special called Sherlock: The Abominable Bride, and I know I’m not the only person tired of women in Sherlock being portrayed as “abominable,” less-than Sherlock and the other male characters in the show, and forcibly subjugated – often reduced to tears. Sure, the male characters on the show are often shown as far from Sherlock’s intellectual equal, but the female characters are treated far worse story-wise than the men are. However, the BBC’s Sherlock is far from the only Sherlock Holmes adaptation to treat its female characters badly, often far worse than the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories. Not only are women subjugated to make the men look better, women are used as props to heteronormatize Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. But women are human beings, just like men, not objects. And Sherlock Holmes has been adapted so many times, while I’m still waiting for a series on the fabulously infamous Irene Adler, one of the only people to ever “outwit” him.

Sherlock Holmes is one of the most frequently portrayed fictional characters of all time, though most often played by heterosexual White British cismen and anthropomorphic animals, with Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking and the upcoming sHerlock being rare exceptions. Conan Doyle’s famous detective can easily be read as any sexuality, mostly because he prioritizes work over everything else, and therefore has practically no love life whatsoever. Story-wise (ignoring Conan Doyle’s excuses for Sherlock’s singlehood), he could very well be asexual, and indeed he is a hero for the asexual community. He could also be bisexual, homosexual, heterosexual, or any other sexuality, and could be any combination of those with any romantic orientation – aromantic, biromantic, homoromantic, heteroromantic, etc. Collectively, most of the adaptations of Sherlock Holmes result in erasure of sexual and romantic orientations that are not heteronormative. This is particularly damaging to the asexual community, due to their strong identification with Sherlock Holmes and what they see as his queerplatonic relationship with Dr. John Watson.

Whether Holmes’ relationship with Watson is queerplatonic, romantic and/or sexual, or more traditionally platonic is up to speculation or interpretation. However, nearly every adaptation forces heteronormativity onto the character one way or another, usually with female characters, and even while sometimes simultaneously queerbaiting the audience, seemingly for both humor and fanservice. This is particularly evident in BBC’s Sherlock (see Erin Tatum’s amazing Bitch Flicks post), Sherlock Holmes (2009), and Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows (so much queerbaiting, including a lovely choreographed waltz). Meanwhile, in numerous adaptations of Sherlock Holmes canon, including those directly listed above, female characters mainly or only exist to heteronormatize Sherlock Holmes and his friend (or possible “friend”) Dr. John Watson. Occasionally, and more in the past than in the present, Watson’s importance to the narrative is even minimized to make room for Sherlock to have a romance, such as in Sherlock Holmes (1922) starring John Barrymore as the title role, though also in House M.D. (played by Hugh Laurie), to an extent.

In They Might Be Giants (George C. Scott as Holmes/Justin and Joanne Woodward as Watson) and Elementary (Jonny Lee Miller as Holmes and Lucy Liu as Watson), the roles of Watson and the heteronormatizing woman are combined, as a female Watson to a male Holmes ensures that any close feelings between Holmes and Watson can be read as heteronormatively romantic. This is albeit, thanks to good writing and acting, done in a way in which Watson does have some agency, especially in Elementary, as written about in Robin Hitchcock’s post for Bitch Flicks.

Despite female adaptations of Watson becoming more popular, Irene Adler, though having only ever appeared in one of Conan Doyle’s stories, “A Scandal in Bohemia,” and briefly mentioned in a few more of them, is most often used when Hollywood or the BBC desires to heterosexualize the detective. Indeed, Irene Adler is often portrayed as the Catwoman to Sherlock Holmes’ Batman, particularly in Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), played by Rachel McAdams to Robert Downey Jr.’s Holmes. However, women are often objectified in Sherlock Holmes adaptations to the point that they are often damsels in distress (such what Irene Adler was reduced to in the BBC’s Sherlock, played by Lara Pulver to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Holmes) or women in refrigerators, to which Irene is also not immune. In Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Irene Adler is (infuriatingly!) fridged in order to make Holmes sad and revengeful and oh so heterosexual amidst all the homoeroticism he has with Jude Law’s “Hotson” (as if the detective couldn’t possibly be bisexual…). She is then soon replaced in his (somewhat) heteronormatized heart by a racist depiction of a Roma woman, played by Noomi Rapace.

However, Irene Adler is not the only choice for fridging. For example, in Chris Columbus’ Young Sherlock Holmes, Holmes’ love interest Elizabeth (played by Sophie Ward to Nicholas Rowe’s Holmes) survives until the very end of the film, thereby fridging her for motivational and heteronormative purposes less within the prequel film itself and moreover in the larger Sherlock Holmes storyline. By killing off Elizabeth, this adaptation also seeks to justify Holmes’ singlehood throughout the rest of his life (as Elizabeth was shown to be his one-true-love), as well as to heighten his nemesistic relationship with Moriarty (as he was responsible for Elizabeth’s death).

While usually the focus of heteronormatizing in these adaptations is Holmes, Watson can alternatively be the focus, usually by Watson’s marriage to Mary Morstan, such as in the BBC’s Sherlock (played by Amanda Abbington) and in Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (played by Kelly Reilly). This often serves the dual purpose of heteronormatizing the Holmes/Watson relationship and showing Holmes as lonely and more sympathetic. This is particularly emphasized in the 2002 TV film Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking (starring Rupert Everett), though in this case Watson (Ian Hart) marries a sex-positive feminist American psychoanalyst named Mrs. Jenny Vandeluer (Helen McCrory).

As producer Elinor Day pointed out in the DVD commentary, a sequel in which the three of them were a team – Sherlock, Jenny, and John – would be amazing (though it sadly seems unlikely to happen now). Though the BBC’s Sherlock gets a similar trio-dynamic with the introduction of Mary, Mary is subjugated and ashamed, while Jenny openly defies Sherlock’s misogyny and heartlessness, and he would not have been able to solve his case at all without her. Sadly, though Jenny is an amazing character, Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking falls short of being a feminist film. Under the guise of critiquing rape culture, the film in many ways fetishizes the physical and sexual abuse of young women and girls, emphasized by the camera movements and the focus on the helpless sounds the girls make while they are being gagged and suffocated.

Though the upcoming sHERlock, starring Helen Davies in the title role, is certainly exciting, I personally think that instead of the message being “women can fill Sherlock’s shoes” (which they most certainly can), the message could be “women don’t need Sherlock, and are awesome on their own,” especially when it comes to Irene Adler. Irene Adler’s character has been tweaked and even completely reimagined numerous times to fit male-contrived adaptations of the (admittedly male-contrived) Sherlock Holmes canon, sadly often coming short of her original depiction – though also not free from its problems. Irene Adler deserves her own series, whatever the story may be, and whatever part of her life is the focus.

‘Family Guy’ and Sex Positivity…or Lack Thereof

So the only difference between Meg and Lois is that while Lois is forthcoming about her sexuality, she is attractive so it’s OK to see and hear about it because the audience (and creators) can shame her for it later, whereas Meg is presented as ugly/unattractive and therefore we don’t even want to hear or see her in any sexual way unless it’s making fun of her.

This is a guest post by Belle Artiquez.

Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy is a massive hit show that has gained popularity over the course of its ten odd seasons. Even with this immense following, the show portrays the idea of sex positivity in a solely masculine light. It passively portrays a kind of controversial sexism that appears as a joke, but still perpetuates existing problematic topics of concern for women and the Queer community. A Public Display of Misogyny is one that is sometimes done in a playful manner, but with full intention of insulting women, while at the same time making it look like said women can’t handle a simple joke. When in reality, women are quite simply fed up with the constant sexism that is rampant in today’s society but considered less than important. Other times it is done to look sexy: often seen in advertisements or music videos where women are seen in a suggestive pose surrounded by more than one half naked man. These are the kinds of misogyny that Family Guy hurls out in nearly every episode. The creators of the show attempt to normalize this behaviour and make it appear acceptable, because again, it is done in a comical, whimsical light, so… where’s the harm?

Quagmire, a character who’s only ever portrayed as a pervert, kidnapper, sexual abuser and quite frankly disgusting human being (to those of us sane enough not to laugh at the jokes associated with his behaviour) is presented in a humorous way, an outrageous and exaggerated way, but for comedic effect all the same. Even this kind of repulsive sexuality is considered acceptable to MacFarlane, because it’s funny. Female sex positivity and anything Seth MacFarlane creates do not mesh, they don’t belong, and that’s due to MacFarlane’s hyper masculine idea of sexuality being something only (straight) men can truly own and have agency in. Any depiction of male sex, no matter how perverse, is set in a positive way; this is why Quagmire is saved from serving actual jail time for his (hundreds of) sex crimes in the episode “Quagmire’s Mom.” The one episode where viewers thought that finally there was going to be some retribution for his despicable behaviour–but we couldn’t even have that, he gets away scot-free–and continues with his extremely violent sexual assaults even blaming his behaviour on his promiscuous mother (because its always the mother’s fault!) but it’s OK, because it’s all fun and cartoons. So Quagmire can really do no wrong, he won’t lose his friends when they see half naked Asian women run from the boot of his car, he won’t be reported to the police when he blatantly date rapes a woman, his sexuality is accepted in Quahog because he is a straight male.

We see women in Quagmire’s trunk numerous times throughout the show before they run for their lives.

With female sexuality and sex positivity though we have a total different story. Lois Griffin is portrayed as the extremely attractive married woman, but she is completely sexualized and fetishized throughout the show. It’s almost her only characterization, other than the nagging wife. We see her multiple times in the role of dominatrix, a few times with Peter, and once even with her own son Stewie. She is often very aggressively sexual, and some might argue that this is due to her owning her sexuality which is totally sex positive and body positive too, but I see it differently. When we see her in these roles it’s played for laughs, for shock value, that a mother and wife would have such a sexual history and violent fantasies. And this is all connected to the idea that she is presented as the Bad Mother archetype. We see her in this role quite a lot, but most often (in nearly every episode) when it comes to Meg, her daughter. She is only ever presented in this light, and it’s not hard to see why she fits this bad Mother role; she constantly laughs at meg and belittles her, she diminishes Megs sexual experiences and laughs them off, she literally steals one of Meg’s Boyfriends, insults Meg (and her appearance) and is constantly trying to control Meg’s love life, and those are just the examples that involve Meg. These are not the qualities of a mother who loves her children. So, I’m not saying that I disagree with Lois being so open about her previous and on-going sex life, or even that I have problem with her being into BDSM, I don’t think Lois is a “slut,” as she has affectionately been called on many Family Guy forums; however, I do have a very serious problem with the way in which her sexuality is directly presented to make her look bad, to make her look like a horrible woman/mother/wife.

This is not the only time her sexuality is presented in a negative light. “Mind Over Murder” is an episode that sees Peter opening up a bar in his basement. After Lois ends up singing one night, she finds that she really enjoys it so decides to make a regular appearance singing and dancing giving a jazzy feel to the bar, she feels confident and sexy but more importantly she is happy. Peter on the other hand finds the attention she gets from his male friends too much to handle and demands she stop, because it’s her fault the men don’t know how to control themselves around a woman showing a bit of skin. But also, how dare she be in control of her own sexuality. It’s fine for her husband, Quagmire, and even her son Stewie to place her in a sexual role, but for her to put herself there is outright unacceptable. She refuses to stop, giving a middle finger to slut shaming, and continues, enjoying the spotlight and attention (since she gets neither in her marriage). Her happiness does not last long, and again her sexuality, with which she is in control of, is depicted in a negative light. Soon the women of the town have a problem with her too, seeing her as a threat to their relationships with their husbands. This entire idea is meant to say that it’s a woman’s fault for men looking at her, Lois is put down, belittled and slut shamed, all because these women’s husbands don’t know how to respect women. Peter doesn’t want anybody seeing her as a sexual being because once you are married you should lose all sexual appeal to other people. That’s not sex positivity, that’s female sexual oppression and it’s extremely unfair.

Lois Griffin is extremely sexualized to the point of it being nearly her only consistent characteristic.

And that’s with a character that is considered conventionally attractive. Poor Meg is depicted as the eternal joke purely because of her appearance. Because she is frumpy, she should never have a boyfriend, she should never, ever marry an attractive boy (even though she had to lie about being pregnant in order to get down the aisle), and most of all she should never be in control of her sexual experiences. We see her in one episode making out with a guy who turns out to be Chris in a closet at Halloween, and she is depicted as so desperate for any sort of sexual attention that she will even wonder if he is going to text her the following day, she also ends up making out with Brian, a dog, but even he doesn’t want her, then another extreme, becoming obsessed with a married Joe. All these scenarios have one thing in common: they all make her out to be so starved of male attention that she will literally kiss a dog, try to take a married man or even want a sexual relationship with her own brother, so we have bestiality, incest and delusional husband stealing. These most certainly are not sex positive experiences. What’s even more infuriating is MacFarlane could have actually made a positive statement with Meg’s character; there are many teenagers who feel neglected, isolated, unattractive and ignored, who wholeheartedly understand what Meg goes through, and yet the fact that her feelings and experiences are invalidated with a simple “Shut up Meg” by the very people who are supposed to want her to be happy, turns her into another punching bag for the sake of it. It turns all of these teenagers isolation into nothing more than a joke. Meg has so much boy trouble and is even turned into a transgender man purely as a joke that she is not feminine, not attractive and not wanted. This transgender issue isn’t even explored in the show, it’s a one off joke…it the she’s not feminine, so she must want to be a man hetero-biased argument that is extremely offensive.

This basically sums up Meg’s life. Always the physical and metaphorical punching bag for her family.

This is all based on heteronormative sexuality, and as anybody who watches Family Guy knows, there are a lot of representations of the LGBT community in the show. But does MacFarlane depict these in positive ways? Absolutely not. The presentations of queer sexuality are deeply stereotypical: gay men are extremely feminine and lesbian women are masculine. One episode that really stands out, but is not even nearly the only episode, concerning this issue is “Quagmire’s Dad” (I feel like Quagmire and his family are the centerpiece of sex misrepresentation in the show). Quagmire’s father, a war hero veteran, comes to town to visit his son, and very suddenly characters are remarking on how “gay” he appears, because he drinks cosmopolitans and his voice isn’t the low masculine they expected of a war hero. Stereotyping, it appears, is rampant when it comes to the discussion of gender identity. As it turns out, Quagmire’s father is not gay, but transgender–he wants to transition into a woman. He describes wanting to change his future his future not his past and how he has dealt with these feelings for a long time, this so far is not a negative portrayal of trans folk and their experiences, but the sympathetic portrayal ends there. In the hospital for his operation, Lois refers to the entire thing as a “circus,” the conversation revolves around the chopping off of his penis and there is basically no actual support for this man who is about to go through a life changing transition.

Stewie showing how transphobic the characters (and show) are.

After the transition, Quagmire’s father, now known as Ida, is treated with contempt by everyone, Lois throws out a pie Ida makes and Peter asks inappropriate questions about Ida’s breasts and lack of penis. Everyone is wholly unaccepting of Ida, until Brian meets her at a pub, and instantly falls for her. They end up spending the night together and Brian is absolutely smitten with this wonderful woman he met the night before. That is until he finds out who she is , then he vomits everywhere, forgets about the “wonderful” woman he met the night before and is totally focused on the fact that she was a man. It’s important to note that Brian is used on numerous occasions to highlight the “sexually unwanted” aspect of numerous characters. It’s the “not even a dog would have you” theme. Unfortunately for Ida, her sexuality is thus seen as something wrong, disgusting and unpleasant. Yet again Family Guy fails to interpret very real experiences in a way that is not exploitative. And that’s just one transphobic episode that seemed dedicated to being just that, unaccepting and a massive joke. There are plenty of transphobic references throughout the show, one recurring joke includes Stewie, who is presented as increasingly Bisexual (since he appears to have relationships with girls, loves dressing as a woman, hits on gay men, and has sexual fantasies of his teddy bear Rupert) as the show progresses. His sexual identity is as confusing as a cat that barks: we know that he has to be gay, in the very least, as he enjoys seeing the male body, relaxing in gay bars etc. However, on numerous occasions we see him either date or kiss girls (also babies just in case you were wondering) which could either be Stewie trying to fight his homosexual nature, which just doesn’t seem plausible because he appears to be quite open about it, or he is in fact bisexual. Whichever it is, this is played for laughs, and is not in any way an accurate representation of a child growing up under the spotlight that is patriarchy’s hatred of anything but hetersexuality. Instead we have cheap laughs at Stewie dressed as a woman, acting as a stereotypical gay or even spying on unsuspecting men in the shower (similar to Quagmire’s behaviour).

Stewie often dresses as a woman, and enjoys the occasional relaxing night at a gay bar.

So MacFarlane’s definitely not sex positive when it comes to women or anybody of the LGBT community, but is somehow accepting of a hyper-masculine rapist/pervert’s sexuality! Logical? No not at all. Offensive? Absolutely. And hey, that’s all Family Guy strives for–to be as offensive as possible regardless of how it portrays its sexual minorities.

Belle Artiquez graduated from film and Literature studies in Dublin and since has continued her analysis and critique of film, TV, and literature (mainly in the area of gender politics and representations) as well as cultural and societal critiques on such blog spots as Hubpages and WordPress.

Robin and Patriarchy in ‘Teen Titans’

However, not all of its episodes are comedic, and the show contains a number of adult themes, addressing serious issues both directly and metaphorically. Villains Slade, Brother Blood, and Trigon are patriarchal figures who physically, psychologically, and often (metaphorically) sexually attack, abuse, and assault the Teen Titans, causing them severe and often long-lasting psychological trauma.

Trigger warning for physical abuse and sexual assault.

DC’s comic book superhero team Teen Titans has been adapted and readapted as an animated series in recent years, and has a live action TV pilot in the making. The team gained newfound popularity due to Cartoon Network’s animated series Teen Titans (2003-2007), created by Glen Murakami. The show is rated TV-Y7 (for children aged 7 and up), and contains a lot of silly and, well, cartoonish humor. However, not all of its episodes are comedic, and the show contains a number of adult themes, addressing serious issues both directly and metaphorically. Villains Slade, Brother Blood, and Trigon are patriarchal figures who physically, psychologically, and often (metaphorically) sexually attack, abuse, and assault the Teen Titans, causing them severe and often long-lasting psychological trauma.

(Left to right) Beast Boy, Starfire, Robin, Cyborg, and Raven

The protagonists often internalize this trauma, thereby hurting themselves, and externalize this trauma by lashing out at and causing harm to each other. An example of this is in the episode “Haunted” in which Robin, metaphorically suffering from PTSD and having hallucinations of the villain Slade, yells at his love interest Starfire and hurts her arm. Trauma due to patriarchal figures is also experienced by the villainess Blackfire and anti-heroine Terra, who internalize the abuse, and try to find stability, success, and happiness by taking on patriarchal roles themselves. Blackfire, as queen of a planet and people looked down upon and, as evidenced in “Troq,” called racial slurs by the rest of the galaxy, attempts to force her sister into an arranged marriage for political reasons in “Betrothed.” When Starfire refuses to go along with the marriage, Blackfire physically attacks her. Starfire, and other female characters, realistically face abuse and oppression from male characters, whether strangers, enemies, friends, family, or love interests, as well as abuse and oppression from fellow female characters. It is then no wonder that this abuse is often internalized, such as when Starfire needlessly apologizes to Robin at the end of the first season for having “doubted” him.

Robin, Cyborg, and Beast Boy struggle to define their own masculinity after experiencing patriarchal abuse for themselves, but particularly upon witnessing patriarchal abuse of their female teammates. This is especially true of Robin and Beast Boy after recognizing their own abusive behavior toward Starfire and Raven, respectively, and apologizing for it. As Robin is the team’s leader and is arguably the main character, his character arc is one of the most developed, and much of the show’s commentary on patriarchy is done through Robin’s storylines, which most often put him in opposition to Slade, especially in the first season.

Before Slade, Brother Blood, and Trigon, another patriarchal figure affected the five Teen Titans, due to having trained their leader. Batman is often alluded to in the story, though never mentioned by name. Robin, who is White, male, and able-bodied, has privilege over the other superheroes in the show due to Batman having taken him under his (bat)wing. Though Robin would still have been talented without Batman’s help, Batman provided him with a level of intense training and real world experience in crime fighting that his other teammates lack. This extra training and experience made Robin the most qualified of the team to be its leader, and he becomes a patriarch due to the privilege afforded him by a patriarch.

Starfire, Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Raven dressed up as Robin.

Robin struggles with this patriarchal identity, and as the team becomes more experienced and Robin learns to deal with his control issues, the team becomes more of an ensemble with less of a hierarchy. This change in Robin’s leadership role and his relationship to the rest of the team is particularly examined in the episode “The Quest,” in which Robin feels confident enough in the team’s abilities to leave them for a time while he goes on a personal mission. While he is gone, all four remaining team members dress up in Robin’s extra uniforms and act out their envy of Robin’s “cool” position as their leader, taking turns on his motorcycle and referring to each other as “Robin.” When Robin returns and catches them in the act, they at first fear punishment, but Robin instead sits down and joins them in eating pizza together, which greatly surprises them.

In the first episodes of the series, Robin doesn’t give the team enough leeway or support, sometimes treating them more as tools or his own personal soldiers, as opposed to individual people. The team needs Robin’s leadership, due to his training and experience, as evidenced in “Final Exam,” when the team thinks they have lost him. However, it is Robin’s over-controlling personality and his emotional distance that almost leads members of his team to quit. In order to keep Cyborg, his second-in-command, from leaving the team in “Divide and Conquer,” Robin has to apologize for his actions and relinquish some of his patriarchal (and White supremacist, as Cyborg is Black/Biracial Black and White) control. In the next episode, entitled “Sisters,” Robin has to show respect for Starfire, an orange-skinned immigrant from the planet Tamaran, in order to keep her on the team, connecting with her on an emotional and personal level. Due to these changes in Robin’s leadership style, the team becomes more cohesive and functional in their crime fighting, and more supportive of each other as friends. The show continues to promote integrationist values throughout the rest of its run, sometimes challenging White supremacist capitalist patriarchy, but often supporting heteronormativity.

Later in the first season, particularly in the episodes “Masks,” “Apprentice Part 1,” and “Apprentice Part 2,” it is clear that Robin still struggles with arrogance and a lust for power, control, and independence, often feeling that the team holds him back from reaching his full potential. The villain Slade taps into these desires and weaknesses for his own gain. Slade, an adult man with an army of robots, immense resources, and incredible influence and privilege, tells Robin that he sees his “potential,” and offers Robin the position of his “apprentice,” claiming he will be “like a father” to him. Robin responds that he’s “not interested,” as it would mean betraying his friends and siding with a known villain. However, when Slade threatens to kill Robin’s friends/teammates by putting his destructive “probes inside their bodies,” Robin is forced to accept Slade’s offer.

Many of the scenes between Slade and Robin have a distinctly sexual and predatory vibe, with Robin being metaphorically raped by Slade and then internalizing the trauma due to Slade insisting that Robin “enjoy[s]” the abuse. In battle, Robin lowers his stun gun when Starfire confronts him. This angers Slade, who tortures her and the rest of the team with his “probes inside their bodies” until Robin physically harms her himself. Thus, a patriarchal figure forces a patriarch-in-training to enact violence against a young woman, who is arguably coded as a Woman of Color. Enacting this violence shows Robin’s loyalty to Slade/patriarchy, and Starfire becomes “the ball” in what media critic Anita Sarkeesian has said is “the game of patriarchy.”

In order to defeat Slade, Robin claims he will find a way to “get [the] controller” of the “probes” away from Slade. This shows Robin’s desire to have control and power, as he does not want to destroy the controller, but to own it himself. Much to Robin’s chagrin, Slade notices this, and points out his and Robin’s patriarchal similarities. Robin eventually realizes that the only way to save his teammates from torture and eventual death is to give up the protection, privilege, and power over others that he has under Slade. Robin puts the same torture devices that are inside the rest of the team inside himself, and Slade is forced to stop the torturing of everyone in order to spare Robin, whom he calls “ungrateful.” The Teen Titans then, for the most part, defeat Slade as a team. The episode ends with Robin admitting that he and Slade are “a lot alike,” though, unlike Slade, who is “alone,” Robin is happy and thankful that he has friends. Though this arc reinforces heteronormativity, often through Robin’s budding relationship with Starfire, it also addresses capitalist patriarchy and its view of people as obstacles, tools, and possessions, a subject which the rest of the show’s seasons continue to address.

While Robin, a White male character, was offered a position of power and privilege by Slade, Slade does not show the same respect to other characters, even including his second apprentice, Terra. Terra, who debuts in the second season in the episode aptly titled “Terra,” is a skinny White girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. While Slade referred to Robin by name, he often addresses Terra by her position of “Apprentice,” especially in “Aftershock Part 2.” This shows how Slade ignores her identity and personhood, even though he empathized with Robin’s. The episode also creates an even clearer metaphor for sexual assault than the show did earlier with Robin. When Terra learns that the uniform Slade gave her allows him to control her body with his own body, causing her pain and controlling her movements, she tries to rip it off, and starts to cry when she can’t. When Beast Boy finds her like this, he asks Slade what he did to Terra, and Slade claims that he didn’t do anything to her that she didn’t “want [him] to.” In a particularly disturbing moment, Slade lifts a seemingly unconscious Terra by her breastplate.

Slade only respecting fellow White men is a trait he shares with other villains. In the third season, Cyborg, who is Black/Biracial, is seen as a “machine” and not a “man” by the villain Brother Blood, who is White. In the fourth season, the demon Trigon sees his daughter Raven as a “vessel” and not a human being. In the fifth and final season, the team faces the villain The Brain and his Brotherhood of Evil, who see everyone as tools, or pieces in a game of chess. Robin learns to respect and support his teammates throughout these storylines, and develops an especially close friendship with Raven, who can arguably be interpreted as being coded as a Woman of Color. The series’ strongest metaphor for sexual assault occurs in the fourth season in the episode “Birthmark,” in which Slade, who is revealed to be working for Trigon, rips off Raven’s cloak and much of her clothing. Robin, a fellow survivor of assault from Slade, supports Raven, and keeps the rest of the team from asking her invasive questions.

This storyline breaks down many barriers in media. Two fellow survivors of rape and assault support each other. A male rape survivor is shown and not shamed. A close platonic friendship between a young man and woman is also incredibly rare. A White young man is also being respectful of a (coded) Woman of Color, supporting her on her own terms, allowing her agency in what she feels she does and does not want to tell him and the rest of the team. Whiteness, maleness, and heteronormativity are still praised and privileged in Teen Titans, but hopefully future media, especially the coming pilot of the live action Teen Titans, continue to address patriarchy and the issues that the animated Teen Titans addressed.

‘Ouran High School Host Club’: Haruhi, Heteronormativity, and the Gender Binary

At its heart, ‘Ouran’ is about gender and, for better or worse, how it is perceived and performed. Though often praised and adored for its challenges to heteronormativity and gender roles through its range of characters, especially its protagonist, it ends up reinforcing heteronormativity and the gender binary to a large extent.

Written by Jackson Adler as part of our theme week on Asian Womanhood in Pop Culture.

Trigger Warning for sexual harassment and assault.

The anime/manga/(and, yes, there’s even a live action adaptation) Ouran High School Host Club is a satire of shoujo (girls’) manga and anime, which often have strong romantic elements to them, and the stereotypes and clichés usually found within them. An example of this is how the story’s protagonist Haruhi, who was assigned female at birth and for whom I am using gender neutral pronouns in this post, is far from the romantic and bashful “heroine” often found in these stories, and rarely appreciates the romantic gestures of the boys who fawn over them.

At its heart, Ouran is about gender and, for better or worse, how it is perceived and performed. Though often praised and adored for its challenges to heteronormativity and gender roles through its range of characters, especially its protagonist, it ends up reinforcing heteronormativity and the gender binary to a large extent.

The Ouran High School Host Club, with Haruhi center.

Real world host clubs have a bit of scandal and infamy attached to them. Traditionally, a host club is a place for rich men (and sometimes women) to talk with pretty young women who are hired to flirt with them, though there are a few host clubs with attractive young men who cater to rich women (and sometimes men). The idea of a high school host club turned many would-be readers off to the manga at first, as evidenced by the write-ins published in the manga, before the readers realized how tame the story is. Leading man Tamaki decided to create a host club of attractive young men (himself included) to cater to female students at his elitist high school because it seemed like a fun idea for a bored rich boy (and also because he has mommy issues).

The host and client interactions in the story are generally limited to hand holding, complimenting, and overall flirtatiousness. Haruhi attends Ouran High School on a merit scholarship, for which they applied due to the favorable academic environment, since they want to become a lawyer, like their late mother before them. By an accidental breaking of an expensive vase, Haruhi joins the host club, taking on the identity of a cisboy, in order to pay off the debt. This fate was largely decided for them, leading to financial abuse, and starting the beginning of a trend of the cismale characters to ignore Haruhi’s own autonomy. Haruhi is largely indifferent to how others perceive their gender, and, in Japanese, usually uses a gender neutral pronoun to refer to themselves. Haruhi does not seem to care much for labels, being largely apathetic to which pronouns are used by others for them, so whether the character, in English, could be interpreted to be genderqueer, agender, bigender, genderfluid, or even a transboy, what’s most important is that Haruhi identifies as Haruhi. However, most of the main characters see Haruhi as a girl, and treat them as such.

A number of the characters put Haruhi in situations in which they did not choose to be, and pressure them to wear feminine clothes when not working. Haruhi often shrugs off this ill treatment of them, and yet even when they call the their male schoolmates out on their sexual harassment of them, the boys ignore Haruhi’s protests. This is incredibly disturbing, since, while sexual harassment is still rampant in America, there are fewer laws against it in Japan, and there are no laws at all against sexual harassment in the workplace. Though the host club is in many ways a student club, it is clearly also a business, and those in the host club are coworkers. Haruhi is the newest host in the club, with most of the hosts being older than themselves, so it is mainly their superiors and bosses who harass them. This behavior includes forcefully holding Haruhi in unwanted and prolonged embraces, something often done by Tamaki while saying how “cute” Haruhi is. Ouran is popular in America, with the American dub and English subtitled version available on Netflix, and the show’s frequent displays of Haruhi being pressured into wearing dresses and the male characters stating how cute and adorable they are plays into the American stereotype of the Asian girl/woman as an object, a “China Doll,” to be looked at, admired, and eroticized. This is all the more emphasized by Tamaki being drawn in the anime to have blonde hair and blue eyes, highlighting the character’s whiteness (and his therefore racialized abuse of Haruhi) before it is even revealed that his mother was a blonde Frenchwoman and only his father Japanese.

Kyouya, Tamaki’s cofounder of the club and the main person running it, takes sexual harassment of Haruhi to a new level in the eighth episode, in English called “The Sun, The Sea, and the Host Club!” This episode is deeply flawed, and much can be and has been written about it. In the anime, while the host club and its female clients enjoy a day at a private beach, two drunken young men sneak onto it and start harassing and assaulting three of the girls. Haruhi confronts the young men, and one of the girl successfully runs away to get help. Haruhi is thrown off a cliff by one of the young men, and is rescued by Tamaki while the rest of the host club confronts the young men and sends all the girls in attendance home. Haruhi did everything right, and though they could have been seriously hurt or killed, the outcome could have been much worse for everyone. The host club and the anime itself does not see Haruhi as in the right, and the story takes a terrible turn.

This storyline is present in the manga, the anime, and the live action, and at some point one would have hoped it would have been altered, but sadly and infuriatingly, that is not the case. The host club reprimands Haruhi for not recognizing their weaknesses “as a girl,” stating that Haruhi should have called for help themselves before even attempting to confront the perpetrators and stop an assault from taking place. They imply that Haruhi could have been raped or killed, and when Haruhi becomes upset that Tamaki is so angry and possessive about it, the club asks Haruhi to apologize for upsetting him by attempting to stop the assault of the girls in the first place. After Haruhi apologizes in private to Kyouya about worrying everyone, Kyouya takes it upon himself to drive home the sexist message of the episode, and even goes further with it. In a scene full of rapeculture and victim-blaming, Kyouya pretends that he is going to rape Haruhi in order to point out how helpless they, “as a girl,” really are.

Kyouya seriously abusing his power over Haruhi.

After Haruhi gives in to pressure and needlessly apologizes, though in private and only to Kyouya, Kyoua points out how much money had to be spent to send the girls home early and to give them flower bouquets in an attempt to make up for it. He says that the money will be added to the debt Haruhi owes the club, and when Haruhi wonders how they’ll achieve paying it off, Kyouya responds that they can pay him back “with [their] body,” then throws a surprised and fearful Haruhi onto a bed and climbs on top of them. In this way, he is abusive as a superior in the workplace, financially abusive, and physically and sexually abusive. In the manga and the live action, he even holds down her wrists, while in the anime he only positions himself over her. He then points out, via verbal abuse, how weak they are “as a girl,” how much stronger he is as a man, and, in an excellent example of victim blaming, saying how they should be more careful (because how dare a “woman” trust a friend and coworker with their safety?). Haruhi then states that “[he] won’t do it” because he has nothing to gain by raping them (what?), and he backs off, laughing, and says that they’re “an interesting young woman.” They then thank him (no, really) for the valuable lesson, and says what a nice guy he is.

The original story was written by a female author/mangaka, and the scene is meant to be sexy and a rape fantasy. However, the messages within this storyline are incredibly harmful, not to mention triggering. They are bad enough for an American audience, especially due to America’s fetishization and objectification of Asian women. However, as Japanese feminist Chizuoka Ueno points out, sexual harassment and the gender wage gap are important issues in Japan, with not only no laws against sexual harassment in the workplace, but very few laws against gender discrimination in regards to wages, with women making 70% of what their male counterparts make. Kyouya and Haruhi had just started becoming friends, despite the differences in privilege is position, age, and wealth between them. Kyouya took advantage of his privilege and abused his power by scaring Haruhi, and while having (sort of) good intentions, reinforced rapeculture, rape myths, and victim-blaming, and lead Haruhi to further internalize misogyny. Sadly, this is just one example of a host club member’s misguided attempt to help or protect Haruhi.

The host club, and other characters, are often incredibly possessive of Haruhi, claiming they are being “protective” of them while disregarding Haruhi’s own desires and autonomy. When Hikaru, a character in Haruhi’s own grade level, meets a former classmate of Haruhi’s from her previous school and who had once asked them out on a date, he is first cold and brooding, and then loud and angry, vehemently insisting that “We are [Haruhi’s] friends!” While the message is clear that Hikaru should not be so upset at Haruhi having friends outside of the club, possessiveness of Haruhi is supported by other scenes and storylines. The boys of the club feel it necessary to “protect” Haruhi from lesbian students, particularly ones from the all girls’ school Lobelia, to which the girls wouldn’t mind Haruhi transferring. The three and only lesbian characters we meet are all highly stereotyped. They spew man-hate and make overt sexual advancements on Haruhi.

While at first the girls from Lobelia encourage Haruhi to make their own choices, and condemn the host club for trying to control Haruhi, the girls also become possessive of Haruhi, even kidnapping them at one point. When the host club realizes that Haruhi might be happier at Lobelia than at Ouran, instead of respecting Haruhi’s wishes, the club dresses in drag in an attempt to make Haruhi feel more at home with them. This misguided attempt only brings laughter to Haruhi, who insists that they are remaining at co-ed Ouran, though not because of the club, but because they feel it is a better school academically. When the host club attempts to “rescue” Haruhi after they are kidnapped, they don’t so much as help Haruhi as defend their own egos and revel in the chance to put down the Lobelia students. Through storylines such as the ones involving the Lobelia girls, the story is assertive in its message that heteronormativity is the most desirable and correct way to live.

Through Haruhi and other characters, including Haruhi’s parents, the show does imply that sexuality and gender identity are not choices. However, it does encourage people who are bisexual to enter heterosexual relationships, and encourages those with a more fluid or non-conforming gender identity to choose to wear clothes and adopt habits that fit into the binary and are heteronormative. Haruhi often speaks and dresses as they want, but is most praised, even by their surviving parental figure, when they fit into the binary. The anime ends with Tamaki’s and Kyouya’s fathers debating which of their sons Haruhi will eventually marry, the manga ends with Tamaki and Haruhi engaged to be married, and the live action ends with an “accidental” kiss and implies romantic feelings between Haruhi and Tamaki. Haruhi is never stereotypically female, and is allowed some room to be themselves, but only within certain limitations largely set by the cismen in their lives.

Playing with Fire: “Compulsory Heterosexuality” in ‘The Hunger Games’

While my conversations with my friends’ 12-year-old daughters about the trilogy always began with “Team Peeta!” or “Team Gale!” our conversations in the classroom focused on the scholarship of female collectives and violent resistance; we didn’t need Gale and Peeta as fodder for conversation. But on the last day of class, I introduced Adrienne Rich’s idea of compulsory heterosexuality to complicate the larger conversation in which readers—and viewers—find themselves forced to choose a camp, just as Katniss is forced to do.

This guest post by Colleen Clemens appears as part of our theme week on Reality TV.

I taught Suzanne Collins’s novel The Hunger Games as the culminating text for my Women and Violence in Literature course this semester. Almost all of us had read the book already, but to look at Katniss through the lens of the female protagonists that had come before her in the semester—The Bride, Firdaus, Aileen Wuornos, Legs, Lisbeth Salander, Malli, Phoolan, Sihem—meant we could consider the work Katniss is doing in popular culture. So while we had read the book before, we hadn’t read it the way that we read it together.

Much conversation focused on subverting gender norms, yet we talked little about the focus of the love interests until our final discussion. While my conversations with my friends’ 12-year-old daughters about the trilogy always began with “Team Peeta!” or “Team Gale!” our conversations in the classroom focused on the scholarship of female collectives and violent resistance; we didn’t need Gale and Peeta as fodder for conversation. But on the last day of class, I introduced Adrienne Rich’s idea of compulsory heterosexuality to complicate the larger conversation in which readers—and viewers—find themselves forced to choose a camp, just as Katniss is forced to do.

Of course, the filmic versions of the novels rely on the love triangle between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale as a way to include the most viewers, including the 16 or so people who saw the films without having read the trilogy. In a perhaps unintended meta-moment, Caeser smiles to the adoring crowd and calls a surviving Peeta and Katniss “the star-crossed lovers from District 12” from a set that looks uncannily like one from American Idol or The Voice.

Within the context of the Hunger Games and the arena, The Capitol, just like Hollywood, gives the audience what it wants: a forced—or let’s borrow Rich’s term “compulsory”—heterosexual relationship that Katniss barely tolerates in the novels. However, Katniss co-opts the Capitol’s compulsion, her only opportunity to ensure the survival of both herself and Peeta, and uses it to resist the Capitol and disrupt their narrative of what the Hunger Games should accomplish—passivity—and instead incites the fire of revolution.

After Katniss becomes District 12’s first volunteer in an attempt to spare her sister Prim, whose odds were clearly not in her favor, the former is whisked to the Capitol where she must become what the audience wants: the picture of femininity as a clean, waxed, young lady, a female object that must win the affection of the wealthy sponsors who hold her life in their hands. In the clinical setting of the Remake Center, her team—after a required second round of cleaning–transforms her body from that of a ragged, hard coal-mining daughter to that of a smooth, soft Capitol woman where femininity means manipulation of one’s body, often to the point of disfigurement (as happens to Tigris in Mockingjay). Haymitch reminds Katniss that she needs to be “nicer” to win the attention of the viewers.

Once the tributes are in the arena—the Capitol’s entrancement with the Hunger Games relying on bloodlust, the Districts’ on fear—Katniss and Peeta separate. After many, many deaths of children in a PG-13 film, the Gamemaker announces a change of rule after his menacing conversation with President Snow: two winners can emerge from the same District. As Gale watches the Games, his jealous sidelong glance casting toward the television, the rest of the Capitol can now root for love in the reality death match.

The Capitol viewers—and the Hollywood viewers—are then treated to the scene they have been waiting for. All of us feel relieved there is a chance for the heterosexual love to live; the edict seems to good to be true! We get the love scene that confirms their relationship, and Katniss’s performance makes it easy for all of us to forget that this relationship is forced, that Katniss and Peeta have both come to realize that their best chance of surviving is by feigning heterosexual desire. They press together in the cave. Haymitch sends medicine with a note reminding Katniss what she must do: “You call that a kiss?”

In talking about Kathleen Barry’s work, Rich reminds readers in her 1980 essay “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” that “[t]he ideology of heterosexual romance, beamed at her from childhood out of fairy tales, television, films, advertising, popular songs, wedding pageantry, is a tool ready to the procurer’s hand and one which he does not hesitate to use.” The viewer requires a fairy tale—Katniss and Peeta’s lives depend on this fairy tale. In an infection-induced fog, Peeta dreamily recounts watching Katniss go home, “Every day. Every day.” We are led to believe she has been the object of his love without her awareness. We can hear the viewers in the Capitol swooning—and lining up to help. And we see Gale leering at the screen as his love goes to another man.

This feigned relationship is in fact their only option for survival, one that they will play up later in this film as they dress like Prince Charming and Cinderella…

and (spoiler alert) in Catching Fire with their acceptance of the sad fact that the Capitol’s desire for their heterosexual relationship to carry on means that they must marry in order to survive…

and (super spoiler alert) by Katniss’s resignation in the epilogue of Mockingjay in which she succumbs to Peeta’s desire to have children with him.

In the final scene of the Games, Katniss is mocked by another girl for trying to save her “lover boy.” We see the Capitol watching the love story. The command center grows quiet while the men and a few women controlling the couple’s environment watch during a rare moment of stillness; even they are captivated by the story they have created. Katniss and Peeta are the finale. The audience must know: Will their (heterosexual) love survive?

Panem holds its breath. The desire for compulsory heterosexuality is the pair’s shield—though it puts them at risk, it is the only way for the two of them to survive. They are in a bind of expectations others put on them in order to endure in this system of oppression called Panem and its games. And instead of choosing herself–“We both go down and you win”—she sends Cato to the dogs, saving her life and Peeta’s (and in a moment of gender essentialism, fires a mercy shot to spare Cato an even more horrible death).

They hug. Everyone relaxes. A crescendo of anxiety is released for a moment when we think they will both live: Heterosexual normativity can persist.

And then the previous provision is revoked. Peeta and Katniss stand at the cornucopia, the ultimate symbol of hearth and home reflecting the audience’s desires for heterosexual normativity, and recognize that their attempt at playing into the Capitol’s desires for a heterosexual relationship to flourish even in the face of terrible odds did not work. One of them must kill the other.

Katniss takes control of the situation. We see the districts watch them hold the poisoned berries to each other. The thought of losing both lovers becomes unbearable, and the games are called to an end. They are the “winners,” a moniker few of the surviving tributes accept. Katniss and Peeta hug again.

Rich argues that “[h]eterosexuality has been both forcibly and subliminally imposed on women, yet everywhere women have resisted it, often at the cost of physical torture, imprisonment, psychosurgery, social ostracism, and extreme poverty.” The Capitol has done just this: imposed the narrative of heterosexuality onto the lovers, and then used it to attempt to kill them. However, when Katniss takes the Capitol’s desire and pushes it to its limit—to the star crossed lover, the Romeo and Juliet, the Pyramus and Thisbe, the dangerous hyper-heterosexual narrative of “if my partner is dead, I can no longer bear to live” story—and thereby breaks the games. By encouraging co-suicide, she makes the story so much more than the viewers can bear (whilst they have no problem bearing the awfulness of watching children die) that she takes the Capitol’s desire and exploits it to save their own lives—though it relegates her to a life of living a lie to maintain the ruse that saves her life.

In their final interview, the fairy tale couple, “the star crossed lovers from District 12,” sits onstage as the audience swoons. Caesar feeds them the story they are to parrot: “You were so in love with this boy that the thought of not being with him was unthinkable.”

Katniss plays into the audience’s desire, though we know she is not in love with Peeta: “I felt like the happiest person in the the world. I couldn’t imagine life without him.”

And finally, “We saved each other.” The audience practically faints with joy.

But forcing herself into the ruse of heterosexuality puts her at more risk, not less. Katniss is trapped: she cannot “win.” Playing into the deception draws the attention of the Capitol’s leaders, while not playing into the narrative means she may have been dead in the arena.

The last shot of the film focuses on Snow watching the “lovers” hold hands overhead. Menacing music plays as he walks off. The image of their heterosexual coupling is not enough for him. Katniss will be at risk for the rest of the trilogy because of her subversion. Rich ends her essay with a call to the reader to consider the damage that occurs to women within the framework of compulsory heterosexuality:

“Within the institution exist, of course, qualitative differences of experience; but the absence of choice remains the great unacknowledged reality, and in the absence of choice, women will remain dependent upon the chance or luck of particular relationships and will have no collective power to determine the meaning and place of sexuality in their lives. As we address the institution itself, moreover, we begin to perceive a history of female resistance which has never fully understood itself because it has been so fragmented, miscalled, erased. It will require a courageous grasp of the politics and economics, as well as the cultural propaganda, of heterosexuality to carry us beyond individual cases or diversified group situations into the complex kind of overview needed to undo the power men everywhere wield over women, power which has become a model for every other form of exploitation and illegitimate control.”

Katniss spends the rest of the trilogy grappling with the material consequences of her decision to co-opt heterosexuality to save her life in the arena. Her experience echoes in Rich’s words: “absence of choice,” “cultural propaganda,” “the power men everywhere wield over women.” Catching Fire and Mockingjay find their roots in her struggle to come to terms with her need to feign a heterosexual relationship with Peeta. We will have to wait to see how the filmmakers decide to construct the rest of their “love story.” Because Katniss and Peeta never really have a choice.

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

“We Stick Together”: Rebellion, Female Solidarity, and Girl Crushes in ‘Foxfire’

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.

This post by Jenny Lapekas appears as part of our theme week on Female Friendship.

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.

Angelina Jolie’s shaggy hair and tomboy style in the film, along with her portrayal of the rebellious Legs Sadovsky, play with gender expectations, challenging our assumptions pertaining to clothing, gait, etc. Legs’ biker boots and leather jacket highlight the general heteronormative tendency to find discomfort in these roles and depictions. An androgynous drifter, Legs oozes sex appeal and promotes the questioning of authority. She teaches the girls to own their happiness, to correct the injustices they encounter, and to assert themselves to the men who think themselves superior to women. Legs’ appearance in Foxfire is paramount; she’s even mistaken for a boy when she breaks into the local high school. A security guard yells, “Young man, stop when I’m talking to you.” We see this confusion repeat itself when Goldie’s mother tells her daughter, “There’s a girl…or whatever…here to see you.”

How can we resist developing a girl crush on Angie in this role?

The film’s subplot involves a romance of sorts between artist Maddy and Legs, the mysterious stranger, while Maddy feels a large distance growing between her and her boyfriend (a young Peter Facinelli from the Twilight saga). The intensity of the “girl-crush” shared between Maddy and Legs is akin to that of Thelma and Louise; while we come to understand that Legs is gay, Maddy’s platonic love is enough for the troubled runaway. Legs also assures Maddy after sleeping on her floor one rainy night, “Don’t worry, you’re not my type.” Similar to my discussion of the reunion between Miranda and Steve in Sex and the City: the Movie, the two young women coming together on a bridge is heavy with symbolism, especially when Legs climbs to the top and dances while Maddy looks on in horror and professes that she’s afraid of heights: a nice precursor for the unfolding narrative, which centers on Legs guiding the girls and easing their fears, especially those associated with female adolescence and gaining new insight into their surroundings and how they fit into their environment.

This scene may not be aware of itself as being set up as another Romeo and Juliet visual, but we realize perhaps Legs is a better suitor than Maddy’s boyfriend, whose male privilege hinders his understanding of what Maddy needs. — While this scene may not be aware of itself as being set up as a nice Romeo and Juliet visual, we realize perhaps Legs is a better suitor than Maddy’s boyfriend, whose male privilege hinders his understanding of what Maddy needs.

In a somber and almost zen-like scene involving Maddy and Legs, they profess their love for one another outside the abandoned home the gang has claimed as their own. Maddy says, “If I told you I loved you, would you take it the wrong way?” Obviously, while Maddy doesn’t want Legs to think she’s in love with her, she wants to make clear that the two have bonded for life and are now inextricably linked in sisterhood. Maddy indirectly asks if Legs would take her with when she decides to move on, and Legs hints that Maddy may not be prepared for her nomadic lifestyle. The platonic romance shared by both young women culminates in tears and heartache when Legs must inevitably leave.

Almost as if to kiss Legs, Maddy tenderly touches her face atop the gang’s house.

Legs is the glue that binds these young women, and she literally appears from nowhere. Her entrances are consistently memorable: she initially meets Maddy as she’s trespassing on school property, she climbs to Maddy’s window asking for refuge from the rain (another Romeo and Juliet moment), and eventually takes off for nowhere, leaving the girls stupefied and yet more lucid than ever. Legs is something that happens to these girls, a force of nature, a breath of fresh air. When she tells Maddy that she was thrown out of her old school “for thinking for herself,” we can safely assume it was just that–refusing to conform to the standards of others. The unlikely friendship that forms amongst this diverse group of girls clarifies the idea that this gang dynamic has found them, not the other way around; the pressed need for the collective feminine is what brings the girls together, rather than some vendetta against men.

Although Legs tattoos each of the girls in honor of their time together, they know they won't need scars to remember Legs. — Although Legs tattoos each of the girls in honor of their time together, they know they won’t need scars to remember Legs.

Legs sports a tattoo that reads “Audrey”: her mother, who was killed in a drunk driving accident, and we clearly see in the film’s final scenes that Legs suffers from some serious daddy issues, when she angrily announces that “fathers mean nothing.” Delving briefly into Legs’ painful past, we discover that she never knew her father. The quickly maturing Rita explains to Legs, “This isn’t about you.” Each of the girls has their own set of issues within the film: Rita is being sexually molested by her scumbag biology teacher, Mr. Buttinger, Goldie is a drug addict whose father beats her, Violet is dubbed a “slut,” by the school’s stuck-up cheerleaders, and Maddy struggles to balance school, her photography, and her boyfriend, who is dumbfounded by Legs’ influence on his typically well-behaved girlfriend.

After the girls beat up Buttinger, Legs warns him to think before inappropriately touching any more female students.

In an especially significant scene, the football players from school who continually harass the girls attempt to abduct Maddy by forcing her into a van. The confrontations between the groups progressively escalate throughout the movie, and climax after Coach Buttinger is apparently fired for sexually harassing several female students. Legs shows up donning a switchblade and orders the boys to let her friend go. Of course, the pair steal the van and pick up their girlfriends on a high speed cruise to nowhere, which ends in an exciting police chase and Legs losing control and crashing, a metaphor for the gang’s imminent downfall. The threat of sexual assault dissolved by a female ally, followed by police pursuit and a car crash has a lovely Thelma & Louise quality, as well. The motivation here is to avoid being swept up in a misogynistic culture of victim-blaming. What’s interesting about this scene is that another girl from school, who’s in cahoots with these sleazy guys, actually lures Maddy to the waiting group of boys, knowing what’s to come. Meanwhile, Maddy tells Cyndi that she’d escort any girl somewhere who doesn’t feel safe, highlighting the betrayal at work here. Cyndi, the outsider, exploits Maddy’s feminist sensibilities, her unspoken drive for female solidarity and the resistance of male violence to fulfill a violent, misogynist agenda and put Maddy in harm’s way. Later, in the van, Goldie excitedly yells, “Maddy almost got raped, and we just stole this car!” as if this is a source of exhilaration or a mark of resiliency. Perhaps we’d correct her by shifting the blame from the “almost-victim” to her attacker: “Dana and his boys almost raped Maddy.”

Legs says, “Let her out, you stupid fuck.”

Obviously, these are young women just blossoming in their feminist ideals, on the path to realization, and just beginning to question the patriarchal agenda they find themselves a part of in this awkward stage of young adulthood. It’s in this queer in-between state, straddling womanhood and adolescence, that we find Maddy, Legs, Violet, Goldie, and Rita, on the cusp of articulating their justified outrage. We may also question, how does one almost get raped? While the girls of Foxfire are young and somewhat inexperienced, with Legs’ help, they quickly obtain this sort of unpleasant, universal knowledge that males can perpetrate sexual violence in order to “put women in their place.” Dana announces, “You girls are getting a little big for yourselves.” We can’t have that. Women who grow, gain confidence, and challenge sexist and oppressive norms can make waves and upset lots of people. While the girls are initially hesitant in trying to find their way and make sense of their lives, Legs is the powerful catalyst for this transition from the young and feminine to the wise and feminist. While the high school jocks attempt to reclaim the power they feel has been threatened or stolen by this group of girls, Legs continues to challenge gender expectations by utilizing violence as well.

As she hitches a ride, Legs tearfully says, “You’re my heart, Maddy.”

Not only does this film pass the Bechdel Test with flying colors, it almost feels as if it’s a joke when the girls do manage to discuss men–like the topic is not something they take seriously or that boys rest only on the periphery of their lives. While Maddy suffers silently in terms of her artistic prowess and boyfriend drama, Rita–seemingly the prudest and most sheltered of the gang–talks casually about masturbation and penis size. However, it’s important to note that when men do make their way into the conversation, it’s at rare, lighthearted moments when the girls are not guarded or suspicious of the tyrannical and predatory men who seem to surround them. The penis-size discussion between Rita and Violet, we must admit, is also quite self-serving and objectifying. Rather than obsess over their appearances or the approval of boys, the girls’ most ecstatic moment is when Violet receives an anonymous note from a younger girl at school, another student Buttinger was harassing who is thankful for what the gang did. The fact that Violet is so pleased that she could help a friendly stranger who was also a target of the same perverted teacher says a lot about the gang’s goals and identity.

Thanks to Legs, Maddy overcomes her fear of heights.

Maddy and Legs recognize something in one another, and although theirs is not a sexual relationship, it is no doubt intimate and meaningful. With an amazing soundtrack that includes Wild Strawberries, L7 (wanna fling tampons, anyone?), and Luscious Jackson, and boasting a cast that includes Angelina Jolie and Hedy Burress, Foxfire is undeniably feminist in its message and narrative. With the help of Legs, the girls find agency, and with it, each other. Although most of the girls have been failed by men in some way, Legs offers hope in female friendship and lets her sisters know that male-perpetrated violence can be combated with a switchblade and a swift kick to the balls. Legs arrives like a whirlwind in Maddy’s life and leaves her changed forever. The lovely ladies of Foxfire will make you want to form a girl gang, dangle off bridges, and break into your old high school’s art room just to stick it to the man.

_____________________________

Jenny holds a Master of Arts degree in English, and she is a part-time instructor at a community college in Pennsylvania. Her areas of scholarship include women’s literature, menstrual literacy, and rape-revenge cinema. She lives with two naughty chihuahuas. You can find her on WordPress and Pinterest.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Rosario Dawson Gives Some Real Talk on the Reality for Actresses by Kerensa Cadenas via Women and Hollywood

Why I Wrote a ‘Mad Men’ Episode with Negroes by Erika Alexander via Racialicious

Spotlight on Women Directors at Tribeca Film Festival by Paula Schwartz via Reel Life with Jane

Women in Film Talk Why There Are So Few Women in Film by Jill Pantozzi via The Mary Sue

Tribeca Film Festival Will Honor Nora Ephron with an Annual Award to a Woman Filmmaker by Alyssa Rosenberg via Double X

The 6 Best Women Filmmaker Quotes from Chapman University: ‘There’s No Guy’s Name Up There” by Tim Appelo via The Hollywood Reporter

Some Depressing Stats about Female Comedy Directors by Diana Wright via Women and Hollywood

The Heteronormativity of How the Media Talks about Sexual Identity by Jessica Luther via Power Forward

An Amusing ‘Game of Thrones’ Derails with Visceral Sexual Assaults by Alex Cranz via FemPop

‘Game of Thrones’ is an Excellent Lesson in Patriarchy, Sex, and Power by Erica Aisha Charves via Bitch Media

From ‘Nashville’ to ‘Call the Midwife,’ What Can We Tell TV Stories About Other Than Rape and Murder by Alyssa Rosenberg via ThinkProgress

Top of the Lake: A Non-Watered Down Depiction of Rape Culture by Natalie Wilson via Ms. Magazine’s Blog

‘The Good Wife’ Gives a Crash Course on Radical Justice in “Rape: A Modern Perspective” by Alex Cranz via FemPop

On Self-Esteem and the Struggle, Or Why I’m Not Into that Dove Ad by Kaye Toal via Big Fat Feminist

‘Bridesmaids’ Director Paul Feig on Feminism, Rebel Wilson & More by Anna Klassen via The Daily Beast

And the Final Tally for the ‘Veronica Mars’ Movie Kickstarter Is… by Jill Pantozzi via The Mary Sue

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

‘Gigli’ and the Male Fantasy of the Lesbian Turned Straight

Written by Amanda Rodriguez

Gigli, the abomination masquerading as a film, is generally regarded as a pretty dang terrible movie. Plot? Action? Character development? Pathos? Entertainment? Nah, Gigli does away with those archaic devices and goes straight for the…boredom, offensiveness, unlikeable characters, and bad, bad, badness. How Christopher Walken and Al Pacino were coerced into cameos must’ve involved black magic or scandalous photo documentation. We won’t even get into the fact that two supposedly trained “contractors” (contractors for what exactly? poorly delivered dialogue?) are hired to watch Brian, a hostage who is differently abled, apparently suffering from “brain damage,” and Larry Gigli (Ben Slimeball-Face Affleck) constantly ridicules, yells at, and name-calls Brian due to his condition. Instead let’s focus on the hallowed converted-lesbian trope that Hollywood loves so well.

Celebrate by NOT watching this atrocity.

Yes, Hollywood loves to take lesbian characters, introduce them to men who are just so irresistible that aforementioned lesbian sees the penis…er…light, and changes her lesbionic ways. A few examples of this are Chasing Amy (starring Ben Affleck yet again, what a shocker) and the inexplicably critically acclaimed The Kids Are All Right, Puccini for Beginners, and Prey for Rock & Roll starring Gina Gershon of Bound fame. We get into some murky territory with many of these films because sexuality is fluid, and I am certainly not in the business of defining anyone’s sexuality for them. However, Gigli is a cut-and-dry case of the hetero disbelief that sex and, in particular, female sexuality can exist without the involvement of a penis.

Only he isn’t a “sissy gangster’; he’s a fuck-up with very few legitimate feelings in need of expression.

Jennifer Lopez’s Ricki is a sexay lesbian “contractor” on a job with the devoid-of-redeeming-qualities Larry Gigli. They mostly hang out in his dumb apartment (budget constraints perhaps) and share his bed at night. Ricki consistently baits Gigli with her unattainable sexuality, leaving him in a frenzy of sexual frustration. With much eloquence, he says:

“I got this fucking beautiful-sexy-gorgeous-hearthrob-o-rama-fucking-smart-amazing-bombshell-17-on a fucking 10 scale-girl sleeping in a bed right next to me and you know what? She’s a stone cold dyke. A fucking untouchable, unhave-able, unattainable brick wall fucking dyke-a-saurus rexi. So it’s sad.”

Can you believe her panties didn’t catch on fire at those Cyrano words of wooing? I guess we’re supposed be like, “Yeah, buddy, that’s rough…it sucks when a woman wants to not give her vagina to you.” Not only that, but Gigli attempts to seduce Ricki by flexing and showing off his bad tattoos after yelling at her that he’s the bull in their relationship and she’s the cow. A real charmer, eh?

A long sexay yoga scene replete with a monologue about the vagina.

We also meet Ricki’s insecure, paranoid, stalker girlfriend, Robin, who proceeds to slit her wrists for effect when Ricki breaks up with her. After a trip to the emergency room, maybe the uncouth Gigli is looking a little more appealing? It’s hard to see this over-the-top interaction as anything other than hyperbolic stereotyping implying that lesbian relationships are nothing but drama.Inevitably (why it is inevitable I don’t know), Ricki and Gigli do the nasty, and boy is it nasty. It’s hard to imagine they dated in real life because their sex scene is awkward at best and more accurately described as “just plain gross.”

I never, ever want to see Ben Affleck mounting anyone ever, ever again.

Ricki initiates the foreplay and asks Gigli to perform cunnilingus on her by saying, “It’s turkey time. Gobble, gobble.” More alluring words were never spoken on the silver screen. He hems and haws and never actually gives her what she asks for, which is the film’s way of subverting female desire and reasserting the supremacy of not only male desire but of the penis-vagina interface as the only true form of sexual fulfillment.

What Gigli is trying to say as a film eludes me. However, what the film is actually saying is blatantly obvious. Ben Affleck is so unlikeable that the movie only serves to show that lesbians will be turned straight by being in the company of any man, no matter what a piece of shit he may be. This is conservative heteronormative dogma (Dogma – yet another Ben Affleck flick). Luckily, Gigli is universally thought to suck, and hopefully some measure of that perceived suckitude has to do with the inane, unrealistic, chemistry-free romance between a hot lesbian and the King of the Jackasses.

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

Gigli and the Male Fantasy of the Lesbian Turned Straight

Written by Amanda Rodriguez

Celebrate by NOT watching this atrocity.

Only he isn’t a “sissy gangster’; he’s a fuck-up with very few legitimate feelings in need of expression.

“I got this fucking beautiful-sexy-gorgeous-hearthrob-o-rama-fucking-smart-amazing-bombshell-17-on a fucking 10 scale-girl sleeping in a bed right next to me and you know what? She’s a stone cold dyke. A fucking untouchable, unhave-able, unattainable brick wall fucking dyke-a-saurus rexi. So it’s sad.”

A long sexay yoga scene replete with a monologue about the vagina.

Inevitably (why it is inevitable I don’t know), Ricki and Gigli do the nasty, and boy is it nasty. It’s hard to imagine they dated in real life because their sex scene is awkward at best and more accurately described as “just plain gross.”

I never, ever want to see Ben Affleck mounting anyone ever, ever again.

——

Women and Gender in Musicals Week: ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ and the Pitchfork of Puritanism

The lips in the opening sequence–the biting action has sexual and fearful connotations.

The cult classic film The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which was based off a British play of the same name, was released in 1975. At that point in American history, audiences (young audiences especially) were eager to have their boundaries pushed and revel in the debauchery that Rocky Horror provided. Whether it was the after-glow of the sexual revolution of the 60s and early 70s or a preemptive strike back to still-noisy social conservativism, Rocky Horror dealt with issues of gender and sexuality in a way that can resonate with viewers almost 40 years later. Buried beneath the campy music and bustiers is strong commentary on religion, gender and sexual norms, social customs and puritanical morality.

After the opening sequence (in which the famous red lips–belonging to Patricia Quinn, who plays Magenta–lip sync to Richard O’Brien, who plays Riff Raff and wrote the original play and screenplay, singing “Science Fiction/Double Feature”), the first shot of the movie is a cross atop a church steeple. The camera pauses, making the audience absorb the contrast between a clearly sexual (and even fearful), disembodied mouth and Christianity.

As the camera pans down, a wedding party and guests burst through the doors of the church. Outside of the church doors, a solemn-looking Tim Curry appears as the pastor, and Quinn and O’Brien flank him in the style of the American Gothic painting by Grant Wood.

We will see this image again. It will never really leave us.

The actors who will appear later as Magenta and Riff Raff play American Gothic in the first scene at the church.

According to the Art Institute of Chicago, “American Gothic is an image that epitomizes the Puritan ethic and virtues that he [Wood] believed dignified the Midwestern character.” Puritanical “virtues” are on display in this opening sequence.

As American culture reminds us, when these virtues are imbedded in a society, often the only option for sexual expression is at the extremes of the virgin/whore dichotomy. Suppression and purity on one end of the spectrum, complete surrender to earthly pleasure, no matter the cost, on the other. These extremes are shown throughout the film.

As the wedding comes to an end (and after Janet, played by Susan Sarandon, has caught the bouquet), a car pulls up to take away the bride and groom. Sloppily written on the side of the car is, “Wait till tonight, she got hers now he’ll get his.” The heteronormativity of this scene is clear. Women (including Janet) are eager for marriage, men want to “get theirs” after the wedding is over. Janet’s boyfriend, Brad (Barry Bostwick), does quickly propose to her after they discuss marriage in the church cemetery as a storm brews overhead. A billboard with a heart and the motto “Denton – The Home of Happiness” looms above them. The marriage ritual and social expectations surrounding it are, on the surface, celebrated in this scene (“Dammit, Janet, I love you!” sings Brad as they rollick around the church). However, the symbolism of the cemetery, the pending storm, and the fact that the American Gothic characters are preparing the church for a funeral as they wheel in a casket is not lost on the discerning viewer.

The two set off on a road trip to announce their engagement to a professor they’d had in college (they met and fell in love in his class). On the way, as they drive through a thunderstorm while listening to Nixon’s resignation speech on the radio (perhaps a nod to moral failure), they blow a tire. They end up at a foreboding castle (one used in many “Hammer Horror” movies that Rocky Horror parodies), and motorcycles pass them on the road going to the same destination. Brad says of the biker with judgment, “Life’s pretty cheap for that type.” An “Enter at Your Own Risk” sign invites the couple into the castle grounds, and they do.

After Riff Raff lets them in, they’re quickly initiated into the party that’s being held–the “Annual Transylvanian Convention.” They stand, innocent and wide-eyed, as guests (all dressed in gender-neutral tuxedos) dance the “Time Warp” and thrust their pelvises. The American Gothic painting, as well as the Mona Lisa, both appear on the walls of the castle.

Riff Raff welcomes Brad and Janet to the castle; the American Gothic painting looms behind him.

PBS art commentator Sister Wendy Beckett says, “You can recycle the Mona Lisa any way you like. Back to front, upside down, it remains instantly recognizable. That’s the ultimate compliment and it’s been paid to Grant Wood’s American Gothic. Somehow it seems to speak to the American psyche, though what it actually says isn’t as simple as it might seem.” The coyness of these particular works of art mirror what lies beneath The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Brad and Janet are visibly uncomfortable in this world (it seems “unhealthy,” Janet says). They, and the audience, which has seen the action from their naïve perspective, are then introduced to Dr. Frank-N-Furter, played by Curry. The camera pans up his fishnet-clad legs, reminiscent of the gratuitous male gaze present in so many other films. However, this time the object of that gaze is a “sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania,” as he introduces himself in song.

Dr. Frank-N-Furter introduces himself to Brad and Janet.

He invites the couple up to his lab to “see what’s on the slab.” They are stripped to their underwear by Riff Raff and Magenta (“We’ll play along for now,” says Brad). On their way up to the lab, Janet asks Magenta if Frank-N-Furter is her husband. She laughs, and Riff Raff exclaims that he’ll probably never marry (again, marriage is slighted). Frank-N-Furter has changed into a scrubs-style dress (with a pink triangle on the chest) in the lab. He flirts with Brad, calling him a “force of manhood, so dominant,” and Janet begins to giggle and seem less uncomfortable in this new setting. Being stripped of their clothes leaves them almost naked and vulnerable, yet opens them up to sexual possibilities that explore gender and dominance.

Frank-N-Furter, seated, flanked by (from left) Columbia, Magenta and Riff Raff–all of whom he as used for his gain.

Frank-N-Furter announces that “My beautiful creature is destined to be born!” and the references to Frankenstein throughout the film thus far are fully realized. He climbs above the tank that is holding his “creature,” and drops in rainbow-colored liquid, leaving the creature awash in the rainbow. (In 1975, the rainbow flag had not yet been formally adopted as the LGBT banner, but rainbow flags were commonly used for similar liberal causes starting as early as the late 1960s.)

After his creature is born–a muscular, blonde, tan god–Frank-N-Furter ogles and gawks at his creation, chasing and crawling after him, scrambling to even kiss his foot. Rocky (his creature) doesn’t seem interested at all, as he sings about feeling the sword of Damocles above him. As history (and science fiction, like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein) has repeatedly shown us, when we create a system in which others are to be subservient–whether via imperialism, slavery or patriarchy–the outcome is only good for those in power, and even then the reward is short-lived.

But for now, Frank-N-Furter appears to be getting his way (after ridding himself of Eddie, played by Meat Loaf, who we find out was an ex-lover of Frank-N-Furter and Columbia, played by Little Nell). Masculinity is magnified in this scene as Frank-N-Furter sings about making Rocky a “man” through intense physical workouts and bodybuilding routines, and Eddie’s display of hyped-up violent masculinity (motorcycle, leather jacket, rock and roll). But who is the dominant one in these relationships? Frank-N-Furter, in his fishnets and heels. As heteronormative as the opening scene of the film was, at this point almost all of the lines have been or are beginning to be subverted and blurred.

Frank-N-Furter and Rocky walk out of the lab arm in arm as the wedding march plays and his guests shower them with confetti. The curtain is drawn as they embrace, and the audience expects that they will consummate this “marriage” immediately.

In the middle of the night, Rocky escapes the wrath of Riff Raff and Magenta (he has chains on his ankles as he attempts to flee).

Janet and Brad have been put in separate rooms, of course, so they may retain their pre-marital chastity.

While his creation attempts to escape, Frank-N-Furter visits Janet. He acts like he’s Brad, and she welcomes his embrace and sexual advances. When she figures out it is Frank-N-Furter, she kicks him off: “I was saving myself!” she cried out. After a moment of rough persuasion, she lies back. “Promise you won’t tell Brad?” she says, and laughs as Frank-N-Furter descends upon her.

Afterward, “Janet” visits Brad, and he also welcomes the embrace until he realizes it’s Frank-N-Furter. The scene plays out exactly as it does with Janet–persistent refusal and then “You promise you won’t tell?” Again, Frank-N-Furter moves downward on Brad.

These scenes are poignant in that they are exactly the same–from the strict puritanical refusal to the “secretive” consent to the oral sex act itself–yet the sex of the participants is fluid. Frank-N-Furter is on top, but he’s adamant that the two give themselves “over to pleasure,” which he delivers.

(It’s also worth noting that during the sex scenes others in the house–Riff Raff, Magenta and Columbia–can watch via monitors that display live feed from the rooms. Voyeurism isn’t off-limits, either. Like most issues in this film, there is vast gray area in regard to consent that we are challenged to think about.)

By the next morning, Janet is crying and feeling immense guilt about betraying Brad. However, she happens upon a monitor showing him smoking a cigarette on the edge of his bed, which Frank-N-Furter is lying in. She then spots the injured Rocky, and tends to him. He touches her hand, and she smiles a smile that indicates she has found within herself power and passion.

Janet then bursts into her climactic song, “Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me,” a sex-positive female power anthem if there ever was one. She decries her years of avoiding “heavy petting,” since she thought it would only lead to “trouble and seat wetting.” While the narrator says that Janet was “its slave,” it’s more clear that she is sexually dominant in this scene.

After a lustful night with Frank-N-Furter, Janet embraces her sexuality with Rocky (she places his hands on her breasts).

Even in her critique of the woman’s stray curl in American Gothic, Sister Wendy senses something beyond the surface: “Some see the stray curl at the nape of her neck as related to the snake plant in the background, each one symbolizing a sharp-tongued ‘old maid.’ Sister Wendy sees in the curl, however, a sign that she is not as repressed as her buttoned-up exterior might indicate.” Nothing is quite as it seems.

After a cannibalistic dinner (insert corny pun about Meat Loaf here), everything seems to be falling apart. Eddie’s uncle–the Dr. Scott who Janet and Brad were trying to visit in the first place–comes to the castle (he’s both looking for his nephew and doing research on alien life forms). Dr. Frank-N-Furter, seeing everything he’s built to serve himself revolt (Riff Raff, the “handyman,” and Magenta, the “domestic,” are getting antsy to leave to go home to Transsexual; Columbia screams at him for just taking from people–first her, then Eddie, then Rocky, etc.–and Rocky isn’t working out as he planned), clings on to whatever power he can. He mocks Janet and her sexual inadequacy–“Your apple pie don’t taste too nice”–and turns all except for Riff Raff and Magenta into stone via his Medusa switch (the mythology echoing that of Damocles’s sword and what happens when one demands too much).

“It’s not easy having a good time,” Frank-N-Furter laments.

The floor show that follows is a spectacle of gender and sexuality. The stone figures are “de-Medusafied” one by one, and all are wearing kabuki face makeup and Frank-N-Furter-style fishnets, heels, garters and bustiers. They each sing a stanza exploring their current state of drug dependence, uncontrolled libido and freedom in “Rose Tint My World.”

Columbia, Rocky, Janet and Brad have all reawakened in Frank-N-Furter’s gender-bending image for the floor show.

As Frank-N-Furter begins “Don’t Dream It, Be It,” he asks, “Whatever happened to Fay Wray? / That delicate satin draped frame / As it clung to her thigh, how I started to cry / Cause I wanted to be dressed just the same…” Here we see him stripped of his over-exaggerated power as he indicates that he struggled with gender, presumably when he was young. He’s been searching for how and where he fits, and “absolute pleasure” and “sins of the flesh” have been where he looked for fulfillment.

Frank-N-Furter jumps into an on-stage pool, and shot from above he’s floating on a life saver between God and man in Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam. The religious imagery present in the opening scenes is re-visited here, inviting the audience to consider the juxtaposition of “giving in to absolute pleasure” and the church, which is the very institution that dictates much of what we consider gender and sexual norms.

Frank-N-Furter floats in the pool, meticulously placed above Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam.

Janet, Brad, Rocky and Columbia all jump into the pool, and as they lustfully sing “Don’t dream it, be it,” there is a wet conglomeration of fishnets, limbs, tongues and strokes in the pool over the image of the Creation. Janet breathlessly sings, “God bless Lili St. Cyr.” She’s embracing her newfound sexuality by referencing a burlesque dancer/stripper/lingerie designer from the 1940s and 50s.

In the midst of this dream-like pseudo-orgy, Magenta and Riff Raff violently storm into the room. Dressed in other-worldly attire (yet gender-neutral), Riff Raff is holding a pitchfork-like weapon (American Gothic, of course), and threatens Frank-N-Furter and the group. “Your lifestyle is too extreme,” Riff Raff scolds, and says he’s subverting the power and will now be the master. For all of this time, Riff Raff and Magenta have been the “help,” and saw the need for an uprising. This also supports the subversive power roles within the film. Also worth noting is that Riff Raff and Magenta are lovers and brother and sister (the American Gothic painting is said to feature a brother and sister or father and daughter, not a husband and wife like many viewers imagine). Relationships, and our expectations and discomfort levels throughout, are meant to be examined.

Riff Raff and Magenta appear again as a futuristic American Gothic; his laser pitchfork will kill those whose “lifestyle” is too extreme.

Riff Raff proceeds to kill Columbia and Frank-N-Furter with his laser pitchfork. Rocky is more difficult to kill, and while he cries and mourns over Frank-N-Furter, he throws him on his back and tries to climb the RKO radio tower on stage. Frank-N-Furter so badly wanted to feel like Fay Wray in his life, and he finally got to after he died. However, Rocky’s plan doesn’t work and the two fall backward into the pool, buried in the very source of life.

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.

The narrator closes the film with the words: “And crawling, on the planet’s face, some insects, called the human race. Lost in time, and lost in space… and meaning.”

We are, the narrator suggests, quite meaningless in our earthly struggles. We blindly grasp on to expectations and norms, whether it be social constructs, gender or sexuality, and if we wander outside of those norms it will very well ruin us because of the deeply ingrained expectations we have in regard to these issues of morality.

Of course, we aren’t supposed to walk away from a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show feeling utterly meaningless. O’Brien himself self-identifies as transgender, and has been outspoken about how society should not “dictate” gender roles. He said in a recent interview, “If society allowed you to grow up feeling it was normal to be what you are, there wouldn’t be a problem. I don’t think the term ‘transvestite’ or ‘transsexual’ would exist: you’d just be another human being.” He also has said, in terms of Rocky Horror’s significance, “Well in our western world, England, Australia and the United States etc, there are still strongholds of dinosaur thinking. But, you know, I am a trans myself and I know it’s easier for me now. I can be wherever I want, whatever I want and however I want. And I suppose to some extent, a very small extent, my attitudes in Rocky Horror have helped make the climate a little warmer for people who have been marginalised, so that’s definitely not a bad thing.”

No it’s not. And for all its campy fun, great music and dance moves (and how ironic that the Time Warp lives on at wedding receptions across America), The Rocky Horror Picture Show also provides forceful commentary on religion, gender roles, sexual agency, control and the foreboding power that the pitchfork of puritanism holds over us all still.