‘Rosemary’s Baby,’ ‘Prevenge,’ and the Evils of the Trump Administration

Alice Lowe’s ‘Prevenge’ is in some ways a modernized version of ‘Rosemary’s Baby.’ … Throughout the course of history, and especially in Trump’s America, baby always comes first. Our government cares more about fetuses than it does about living, breathing women. This chills me to the core more than a scary movie ever could.

Rosemarys Baby and Prevenge

This guest post written by Lindsay Pugh appears as part of our theme week on Women in Horror. | Spoilers ahead.

[Trigger warning: discussion of rape and sexual assault]


Whether completely alone or with a partner standing by, pregnancy is one of the most terrifying and bizarre events to happen in real life. Of course, women are expected to handle it with aplomb and joy. “Oh, you mean my entire body is going to change and then if all goes well, another human being is going to rip through my vagina, hopefully only causing minimal tearing? Fantastic! Sign me up!”

As a woman in 2017, there’s plenty to be afraid of: increased attacks on abortion, unrelenting attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, rape culture and the normalization of sexual assault (“Grab ‘em by the pussy.”), etc. The litany of bullshit is horrific and interminable. How can anyone make a horror film that will scare women when real life has turned into a waking nightmare? Easy. Throw pregnancy into the mix; take all those standard fears and concerns and amplify them. Two films that do a great job portraying these atrocities are Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and Alice Lowe’s Prevenge (2016).

I hate to give Polanski, creepy Keebler Elf and sexual predator extraordinaire, credit, but Rosemary’s Baby is one of my all-time favorite horror films and feminist as fuck. It makes me feel a little better to know that his screenplay is nearly identical to Ira Levin’s novel, so it’s not like Polanski is responsible for any of the genius plotting or characterizations.

Rosemarys Baby calendar

In order to truly grasp the brilliance of Rosemary’s Baby, let’s quickly review the atrocities Rosemary (Mia Farrow) has to endure, from the sex before conception to her post-birth satanic cult discovery. First, it’s important to note that Rosemary’s pregnancy is the product of rape. Even though she’s been drugged c/o Minnie’s (Ruth Gordon) chocolate mousse, Rosemary is cognizant enough to realize, “This is no dream! This is really happening.” (Although even if she wasn’t cognizant, the fact is she was unable to consent.) The morning after her rape, Guy (John Cassavetes) tries to gaslight Rosemary by apologizing for the scratches on her body and telling her they only had sex when she was blacked out because he didn’t want to miss “baby night.” Rosemary is tense and suspicious for days, but those feelings are eventually eclipsed when a phone call from her doctor confirms her pregnancy. Instead of focusing on the traumatic conception, Rosemary diverts her attention to scheduling doctor’s appointments and spreading the joyous news.

Unfortunately, Rosemary’s happiness wanes when her body begins to change. In order to combat her feelings of unease, Guy, Minnie, and Roman (Sidney Blackmer) concoct a plan to ensure that no matter how bad her symptoms become, Rosemary never believes they’re abnormal. Dr. Sapirstein (Ralph Bellamy) tells Rosemary not to ask any questions or listen to advice from friends or books. Instead of taking vitamins, she’s to drink one of Minnie’s herbal concoctions every day. Rosemary wants what’s best for her baby, so she listens to the doctor, even as she becomes scarily gaunt. She knows something is wrong, but the people closest to her have done a great job of convincing her she’s paranoid and can’t trust her own instincts.

Throughout the film, Rosemary vacillates between trusting her intuition and dismissing it because she wants what’s best for the baby and doesn’t always trust herself to provide it. At several points, she tries to take control of her situation, but external forces usually convince her she’s made the wrong call. By effectively gaslighting her, Guy and the Castevets have ensured that Rosemary no longer trusts her own body or motherly intuition. At the end of the film, when Rosemary decides to embrace her role even though her child is a fucking demon, it’s a total act of rebellion. These people have taken away her sanity, her health, and nine months of her life, but they won’t take away her baby. Even though this situation isn’t what she signed up for, she’s on board for lack of a better option.

Rosemary's Baby

Even with a wanted baby, pregnancy can be a terrifying situation full of unknown elements. Alice Lowe had this in mind, that “pregnancy is an alien experience,” while making Prevenge. Without the power to ask questions and make informed decisions, a beautiful, exciting life event could easily turn into a waking nightmare full of anxiety and dread. The Trump administration wants to make Rosemary’s Baby a reality. Something is wrong with your pregnancy and you need to terminate it in order to avoid a lifetime of pain for yourself and your child? Too bad. You must carry the pregnancy to term and deal with the ramifications alone. Your pregnancy is the result of rape and you’re unable to deal with the psychological trauma? Or you simply don’t want to be pregnant? I hope you have the time, money, patience, and strength to deal with abortion restrictions like mandatory waiting periods, forced ultrasounds, TRAP laws, personhood lawsinsurance and funding limitations, 20-week bansforced counseling, and ideological shaming that you’re likely to encounter depending your state. And restrictions to abortion access disproportionately impact women in poverty, women of color, and women living in rural areas.

Rosemary’s Baby is as relevant today as it was forty-nine years ago. Like Guy Woodhouse, the Trump administration uses women as pawns and attempts to stave off rebellion by gaslighting, discrediting, isolating, and emotionally manipulating them.

Prevenge

Prevenge is in some ways a modernized version of Rosemary’s Baby. Ruth (Alice Lowe) is a widow, convinced something is wrong with her pregnancy but told by her midwife (Jo Hartley) that she needs to stay positive and listen to her instincts. The midwife tells Ruth, “Baby knows what to do. Baby will tell you what to do.” The only problem is that Ruth’s baby tells her to kill people, not to relax and eat some Cheetos dipped in clam chowder. With influences ranging from the Greek Furies, to American Psycho and Taxi Driver, Lowe “wanted to show a powerful pregnant woman,” which counters how pregnant women are traditionally depicted or viewed as frail.

During her pregnancy, Ruth is even more isolated than Rosemary. She lives out of hotel rooms, has no friends, and only interacts with her midwife and people she plans on killing. The bond with her unborn baby is the sole one we’re privy to and it’s obviously very twisted. Even when we finally see a flashback of her deceased husband, it’s of his death and not their time together.

While we often hear the midwife voice concern for the baby, we never hear her ask Ruth how she’s doing. Even after she looks through Ruth’s paperwork and realizes that her partner is dead, she doesn’t feign sympathy. She essentially tells Ruth to suck it up and remain positive because her negative energy won’t do anything to help the baby. This is the conversation she has with Ruth after realizing she’s a single mother:

Midwife: It’s very important to let the past stay in the past. It’s just nature’s way.
Ruth: I think nature’s a bit of a cunt, though, don’t you?
Midwife: Oh, negativity’s not good for the baby’s spirit, really.
Ruth: Do you think?
Midwife: Yes. I think it’s good to try to stay positive.

Ruth is clearly struggling with mental health issues and needs someone to step in and help her, but no one gives a shit about her problems; her job is to serve the baby and as long as she’s following through, there’s no cause for concern. As soon as Ruth becomes a mother, her grief and depression are non-issues to those around her because the baby comes first. Throughout the course of history, and especially in Trump’s America, baby always comes first. Our government cares more about fetuses than it does about living, breathing women. This chills me to the core more than a scary movie ever could.

Prevenge red dress

Ruth and Rosemary both try to do what they think is best, but are swayed by outside influence. Ruth’s midwife tells her to listen to the baby; Dr. Sapirstein tells Rosemary to listen to him. No one tells either of these women to listen to themselves — to trust their bodies, experience, or intuition. Women are not to be trusted in any capacity, in any situation. Ruth knows that something isn’t right, that her pregnancy and mental state are abnormal. But she squashes these feelings, listens to her “baby,” and continues to kill people. Rosemary fights like hell at the end of the movie and tries to tell anyone who will listen that there’s a conspiracy against her, but she’s branded as “crazy” and immediately dismissed.

This Halloween, what’s keeping me up at night isn’t fiction; it’s real life. It’s the possibility of a 20-week abortion ban and the knowledge that I live in a country where women aren’t valued or trusted — where a majority of white women would rather have Donald Trump represent their interests than Hillary Clinton. I watch films like Prevenge and Rosemary’s Baby because I want to remind myself to stay vigilant. In 1979, Loretta Lynn said, “We’ve come a long way, baby,” but these films remind me we haven’t come far enough.


See also at Bitch Flicks:

Rosemary’s Baby: Marriage Can Be Terrifying

The “Blurred Lines” of Body Horror and Rape Culture 

Rosemary’s Baby: Who Possesses the Pregnant Woman’s Body


Recommended Reading:

Woman in Revolt on Prevenge

Refinery29’s Interview with Alice Lowe: The Pregnant Serial Killer Movie Taking a Knife to Stereotypes on Film

The Most Cursed Hit Movie Ever Made by Rosemary Counter 


Lindsay Pugh runs Woman in Revolt, an intersectional feminist film blog that focuses on female directors in television and film. She is a self-described militant feminist and can be found wandering the streets of Ann Arbor wearing a leather jacket adorned with “Fuck Paul Ryan” pins and shaking her fist at the patriarchy.


All the Rage: Women-Led and Women-Centric Horror Film Festivals

“They just assume I’m an actress. They would never assume that I directed it or made the film myself.” That’s the assumption that women-centric horror film festivals intend to quash. They’re also, as Women in Horror Film Festival (WIHFF) co-director and filmmaker Samantha Kolesnik said, a growing platform for “equal representation” in all aspects of film production.

Women horror film fests

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


“What film are you with?” If you ever find yourself at an independent horror film festival, this is a question you will likely be asked by fellow attendees. At least, this is the question you want to be asked. But, as many women mentioned at the first annual Women in Horror Film Festival (WIHFF) in Peachtree City, Georgia last September, when you attend a general horror film festival as a woman, you’re more likely to be asked, “What part do you play?” Producer-writer-director and Sick Chick Flicks Film Festival founder Christine Parker told me, “They just assume I’m an actress. They would never assume that I directed it or made the film myself.”

That’s the assumption that women-centric horror film festivals intend to quash. They’re also, as WIHFF co-director and filmmaker Samantha Kolesnik said, a growing platform for “equal representation” in all aspects of film production. The Women in Horror Film Festival is just one of a handful of film festivals devoted to women in horror film production that has sprung up in the last few years in the wake of Women in Horror Month, an initiative founded in 2010 by Hannah Neurotica of the Ax Wound Film Festival. WIHFF, unlike many other film festivals, accepts films helmed by men as long as there are women in three or more creative roles: producer, director, writer, lead talent, composer, SFX artist, editor, production designer, and/or cinematography. This is because, as Kolesnik and WIHFF co-founder and filmmaker Vanessa Ionta Wright point out, the festival strives to shed light on the role of women across all areas of horror film production.

WIHFF 2017 award winners

Some of the WIHFF award winners pose with festival directors Samantha Kolesnik and Vanessa Ionta Wright (bottom row, first and fourth from left).

Indeed, WIHFF showcased tons of incredible shorts and features from women directors across the globe, such as Norma Vila’s Jules D. (Spain), Aislínn Clarke’s Childer (Ireland), and Mia’kate Russell’s Liz Drives (Australia). Canadian directing-duo Jen and Sylvia Soska were also in attendance as invited guests, sharing tips and dropping hints about their upcoming remake of David Cronenberg’s Rabid. But among the non-director stars of the festival were Melissa Lyons, who penned and co-produced Alfred J. Hemlock, Jennifer Trudrung, who wrote/produced/starred in audience favorite Unbearing, and Ruin Me editor/producer/co-writer Trysta Bissett. The primary goal of WIHFF, as Kolesnik and Wright made clear, is to offer inclusive networking for women and their male allies in horror while showcasing the impressive work they are already undertaking.

This latter goal is shared by a handful of other festivals around the world. Neurotica, who co-runs the Ax Wound Film Festival with Ashlee Blackwell (who also founded Graveyard Shift Sisters, a site devoted to Black women in horror) and Miki Hickel, is very vocal about the importance of seeing other women in horror film production for budding filmmakers. The upcoming festival, which will feature film screenings, panels, and workshops (including a workshop on crowdfunding led by filmmaker Christina Raia), strives to get more horror-inclined women behind the camera. Neurotica is firm on the non-competitive atmosphere of the film festival, describing the mission of Ax Wound as one of collaboration and support. As a result, Ax Wound does not give awards. “There is so much competition among women in this field. It’s brutal,” Neurotica wrote. “The only way we can change that is by working together, hiring each other, and networking. Ax Wound provides a safe space which we hope brings women together rather than set up hierarchies.”

Ax Wound Film Fest 2016

Ax Wound Film Festival’s 2016 Filmmaker Panel Hosted by Jay Kay of Horror Happens Radio

The Sick Chick Flicks Film Festival (October 28-29) was developed by Christine Parker alongside her production company of the same name with the underlying intention of making it clear to women that they can make films too. As director/writer/producer Lynne Hansen (whose zombie-comedy Chomp has played at dozens of film festivals, including WIHFF) told me, it was not until she saw another woman direct a film that she realized (“way too late”) she could do it too. Film festivals play a large role in getting female filmmakers in the public eye and, in turn, inspiring other women to make their own films. Through her production company, Parker strives to teach women filmmakers the nitty-gritty aspects of filmmaking, to “foster and show them how to do lights and how to do sound,” so they can go on to make their own films. Sick Chick Flicks Film Festival is, in turn, a platform to get these films to audiences.

Sick Chicks Film Fest director 2016

Sick Chick Flicks Film Festival director Christine Parker stands in front of the marquee for the 2016 festival.

In addition to WIHFF, Ax Wound, and Sick Chick Flicks, North America is home to several other film festivals featuring the work of women in horror production, while the international scene is no less rich. These festivals include:

    • Etheria Film Night, which takes place in June, is an annual one-night event in Hollywood organized by Heidi Honeycutt, Stacy Pippi Hammon, and Kayley Viteo.
    • The Bloody Mary Film Festival, focused on Canadian female-helmed films and organized by Laura DiGirolamo and Krista Dzialoszynski, will hold its second festival from November 30-December 1st in Toronto.
    • Stranger With My Face, an annual festival founded in 2012 by Briony Kidd and Rebecca Thomson, takes place in Hobart, Tasmania. Stranger With My Face is celebrated as a leading genre event and also hosts the 48-hour Tasploitation Challenge and the Tasmanian Gothic Short Script Challenge.
    • The Final Girls Berlin Film Festival, founded by Elinor Lewy, Lara Mandelbrot, and Sara Neidorf, saw its second year in June 2017.
    • Scream Queen Filmfest Tokyo, founded in 2013 by Mai Nakanishi who programs and runs “the only female-centric genre film festival in Asia.”

 

The sheer number, not to mention the raging success, of women-centric horror film festivals demonstrates the ongoing momentum of women in horror film production and the opportunities that these festivals offer to them. What makes these festivals fundamentally different from genre film festivals at large? “I would dare anybody to look up different festivals’ past winners and finalists and tally up the statistics – see how many of these films are directed by women, written by women, how many have special effects artists that were women and how many times there was just one woman on the team,” Kolesnik said. It’s about showcasing the impressive work that women are doing in the genre, offering collaboration opportunities, and ensuring that the presence of women in horror filmmaking remains strong. Visibility, equal opportunity, and demonstrating the grit women bring to horror are what these film festivals are all about.


First image features film stills from Paralysis, Ruin Me, Chomp, and Unbearing. Second image courtesy of Women in Horror Film Festival. Third image courtesy of Ax Wound Film Festival. Fourth image courtesy of Sick Chicks Flicks Film Festival.


Sonia Lupher is originally from the Pacific Northwest, but moved east to pursue a doctoral degree in the Film Studies program at the University of Pittsburgh. She is fulfilling her lifelong dream of watching movies for a living, and especially loves horror movies directed by women. You can follow her on Twitter @SoniaLupher.


‘Raw’ and Coming of Age via Cannibalism

What writer/director Julia Ducournau does with ‘Raw’ is use the traditional tropes of body horror to tell the story of one young woman’s awakening. … It’s frightening and disturbing, as coming of age often is. … By filtering this all-too-common struggle through the extreme lens of cannibalism, Ducournau highlights the absurdity inherent in how women’s bodies and desires are policed.

Raw

This guest post written by Lee Jutton appears as part of our theme week on Women in Horror. | Spoilers ahead.


Women are constantly fighting for control of their bodies. This is not an exaggeration, however extreme it may sound. One’s body is the most personal and precious possession one has — literally the only one we are born with — and yet, if you are a woman, it is also the most policed. Society tells us that women’s bodies must remain pure and virginal in order to be deemed desirable. Men in government aspire to limit our access to healthcare despite expecting our bodies to constantly churn out babies; they want to take away our birth control, but they also don’t want us to get abortions. We’re shamed into starving ourselves to get in shape for bikini season while men’s beer-bellied “dad bods” are glorified in the same media that shove those unattainable ideals down our throats.

In a world where women’s urges are so obsessively monitored and shamed by society, it’s no surprise that in pop culture, there is no shortage of stories of women rebelling against these attempts at control — often in extreme ways. In Han Kang’s Man Booker International Prize-winning novella The Vegetarian, a South Korean housewife is so traumatized by a bloody nightmare that she abruptly stops eating meat. Despite being shamed (and subject to abusive attempts at force-feeding) by her family and treated like an outcast by society, Yeong-hye holds fast to her desires and refuses to eat meat. Even when she is hospitalized and appears to be wasting away to those around her, she is more at peace and in control of her body than she ever had been previously. Why does a woman like Yeong-hye have to essentially cast off her human body in order to prevent others from telling her what to do with it? Why do women need to go to such lengths to prove their autonomy?

In her debut feature film, French writer-director Julia Ducournau covers themes similar to those in The Vegetarian, but reverse-engineers them for maximum shock and awe. Instead of telling the story of a woman deciding to give up meat, Raw chronicles what happens when a lifelong vegetarian discovers an animalistic desire to consume raw meat during a hazing ritual at veterinary school. What follows is an intensely visceral, gore-filled saga of one young woman taking control of her body and her urges, however unacceptable they may seem to the rest of the world. In an interview with Women and Hollywood, Ducournau said she “wanted the audience to feel empathy for a character that is becoming a monster in their eyes.” While you might not be able to comprehend the nature of protagonist Justine’s desires, you cannot help but sympathize with her struggle to balance what her body wants with what is expected of it by others.

Raw

Justine, played by the suitably wide-eyed and coltish young actress Garance Marillier, comes from a family of strict vegetarian veterinarians. She plans to follow in the family tradition by joining her older sister, Alexia (Ella Rumpf), at the same veterinary school that their parents both attended. While Alexia is a bit of a wild child, Justine is a quiet, albeit passionate, prodigy. She comes to the vet school more prepared for her studies than the vast majority of the students around her, including her roommate Adrien (Rabah Naït Oufella). What Justine isn’t prepared for, however, are the extreme hazing rituals forced upon the “rookies” by the older students, including Alexia. These include being forced to sing along with strange songs, having buckets of blood poured over them for a class photo, and — in the moment that changes everything for Justine — being pressured into eating raw rabbit kidneys. Justine initially refuses, citing her family’s vegetarianism and asking Alexia to back her up. When Alexia denies her claims and eats one of the kidneys right in front of her, Justine doesn’t feel as though she has any choice but to follow suit or be shunned by the rest of the school. She’s nearly sick, but she does it nonetheless.

Soon, Justine finds herself plagued with a raw red rash on most of her body. The school doctor chalks it up to food poisoning, despite Justine mentioning that she also feels ravenously hungry all the time. Justine takes the cream prescribed by the doctor; she also starts stealing hamburgers from the cafeteria and eating late-night shawarma with Adrien. But these seemingly normal cravings — which could be chalked up to a girl discovering that once she is free from her parents’ overwhelming and possibly stifling influence, she actually likes different things than them — turn extreme quickly; gnawing on raw chicken in the middle of the night extreme; lusting after the body of her gay roommate until she gets a nosebleed extreme. But all of this pales in comparison to the moment when Alexia accidentally cuts off part of her finger in a freak scissors accident and Justine picks it up and starts eating it.

Raw

This incredibly unsettling scene is skillfully played for maximum impact by Ducournau, from the frantic and electric turn that Jim Williams’ musical score takes to Marillier’s intense performance, in which one can see her visibly struggling with her desire to taste human flesh and her knowledge that what she wants to do is wrong. The scene then takes a delightful yet disturbing comic turn when Alexia wakes up from her faint to stare agape at her younger sister as she nibbles on a part of her body. You can’t help but laugh, both as an attempt to ease discomfort with what is happening and also because what’s happening is pretty damn funny.

It turns out Alexia is subject to the same strange urges as Justine, going so far as to cause a car crash on a deserted road just to provide both sisters with a couple of corpses to feast on. In her own twisted way, this is Alexia’s idea of being a supportive and understanding sister. Yet while Alexia has no qualms about wanting to eat human flesh, Justine flees, unable to come to terms with what her body wants. As the film progresses, Justine continues to struggle, vacillating between allowing herself to succumb to her desires while also fighting to contain them. In no scene is this better visualized than when Justine’s overwhelming lust for Adrien results in her losing her virginity to him and, when she climaxes, sinking her teeth into her own arm after Adrien refuses to let her bite him. As blood oozes out, Justine grows visibly relaxed. Tasting flesh, even her own, seems more satisfying than sex for her.

Raw

By the end of the film, Alexia’s uninhibited actions have resulted in tragedy and she’s hospitalized, after which Justine learns from her father that their mother is subject to the same urges. “You’ll find a way to control it,” her father says in an attempt to comfort Justine about this distressing family trait, but his words elicit only deep choking sobs from his youngest daughter. In the end, who is more free? Is it Alexia, trapped in an institution but with nothing left to hide, or Justine, out in the real world but forced to keep such a large part of herself a secret?

As Justine starts giving in to her desires, gobbling raw meat and ogling Adrien’s shirtless torso, she becomes more confident. The quiet, meek student who seemed to be trying to disappear into her oversized sweaters starts projecting an aura of boldness. Donning her sister’s slinky cocktail dress to writhe in front of her bedroom mirror and smear lipstick seductively across her mouth, Justine is vastly more comfortable with her body as a cannibal than she was as a virginal vegetarian.

In showing us Justine starting to blossom, is Ducournau condoning cannibalism and condemning vegetarianism? Absolutely not. What she does with Raw is use the traditional tropes of body horror to tell the story of one young woman’s awakening. The obvious youth of her lead actress (Marillier was born in 1998) makes her message hit all the harder. It’s frightening and disturbing, as coming of age often is. Watching your body change and awaken to new desires is scary enough; dealing with the constant messages from society that everything you’re dealing with is somehow wrong is even worse. By filtering this all-too-common struggle through the extreme lens of cannibalism, Ducournau highlights the absurdity inherent in how women’s bodies and desires are policed.


Lee Jutton has directed short films starring a killer toaster, a killer Christmas tree, and a not-killer leopard. Currently a staff writer at Film Inquiry, her writing has also appeared in publications such as Bitch FlicksBitch: A Feminist Response to Pop CultureTV Fanatic, and Just Press Play. You can follow her on Twitter @leiladaisyj for more opinions on movies, pictures of cats, and ramblings on German soccer. 


Call for Writers: Women in Horror

Our theme week for October 2017 will be Women in Horror. Horror films have long been analyzed and critiqued for both their feminist and misogynist themes… With so many women protagonists and explorations of primal emotions, there is a lot to unpack regarding gender and horror.

Call for Writers

Our theme week for October 2017 will be Women in Horror.

Evelyn Wang at Broadly declared that we are currently in a “golden age of women-directed horror,” what with the recent releases of films such as Raw, Prevenge, The Love Witch, The LureXXThe Babadook, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Honeymoon, and The InvitationRolling Stone‘s Phoebe Reilly discussed “the rise of the modern female horror filmmaker” and Vogue‘s Taylor Antrim wrote about “the rise of the women-only horror films.” Women have directed horror films for decades, not to mention written horror novels and short stories, but we are certainly seeing more attention paid to women directors of horror lately. Women directors bring their unique perspectives and experiences to the lens of the horror genre. While women have certainly made tremendous strides in horror, we would love to see even more women-directed films, as well as more horror films directed by women of color and queer women.

The film industry as a whole suffers from a lack of gender parity both on- and off-screen. Only 32% of speaking film characters are women in the top 100 domestic grossing films in 2015. Critics, scholars, and writers use these statistics and the Bechdel-Wallace Test to measure the systemic inequality of women in film. But in horror films, we not only see many women directors but more women characters as well. Beth Younger reported that “horror is the only film genre where women appear and speak as often as men.” In horror, women are both victims and survivors. We hope this trend continues and more horror films (and films in all genres) feature more complex women characters and protagonists, especially more women of color, queer women, and women with disabilities.

Horror films have long been analyzed and critiqued for both their feminist and misogynist themes: strong female characters; gender roles; female sexuality; violence; the “male gaze,” coined by Laura Mulvey; violence against women; the “monstrous-feminine,” coined by Barbara Creed; and tropes such as the femme fatale, the damsel in distress, and the “final girl,” coined by Carol J. Clover. With so many women protagonists and explorations of primal emotions, there is a lot to unpack regarding gender and horror.

For this month’s theme week, we want you to explore the role of women in horror films. How does the film (or films) portray women? Why do you love (or not love) women in horror films? What gender norms and tropes are reinforced or challenged? How does the film’s depiction of gender intersect with its depiction of race, sexual orientation, class, age, and disability? How are people of color, LGBTQ characters, older characters, and characters with disabilities portrayed? How do the messages in many horror films reinforce or subvert notions of femininity and masculinity? How does the film exploit and objectify or empower their female characters? Are the film’s female characters allowed their own narrative arcs? How do the women in horror films assert their agency? What are your thoughts on the horror genre’s themes such as fear, survival, bodily autonomy, reproduction, possession, and revenge? Why are we now seeing a surge of women-centric and women-directed horror films? How can we encourage and support more women filmmakers in horror?

Feel free to use the examples below to inspire your writing on this subject, or choose your own source material.

We accept both original pieces and cross-posts. Most of our pieces are between 1,000 and 2,000 words, and include links and images. Please send your piece as a Microsoft Word document to btchflcks[at]gmail[dot]com, including links to all images, and include a 2- to 3-sentence bio.

If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, please send a writing sample if possible.

Please be familiar with our publication and look over recent and popular posts to get an idea of Bitch Flicks’ style and purpose. We encourage writers to use our search function to see if your topic has been written about before, and link when appropriate (hyperlinks to sources are welcome, as well).

The final due date for submissions is Sunday, October 29, 2017 by midnight Eastern Time. 


XX

Carrie

Halloween

Alien

The Invitation

Get Out

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Ginger Snaps

The Girl with All the Gifts

The Love Witch

Trouble Every Day

It Follows

The Headless Woman

Pet Semetary

The Craft

Silent House

The Cabin in the Woods

Vamp

Goodnight, Mommy

A Nightmare on Elm Street

The Hitch-Hiker

28 Days Later

The Babadook

Da Sweet Blood of Jesus

Near Dark

The Exorcist

Jennifer’s Body

Raw

The Descent

Bride of Frankenstein

Crimson Peak

AVP: Alien vs. Predator

Night of the Living Dead

Friday the 13th

Carnival of Souls

It Comes at Night

The Shining

American Mary

The Witch

Honeymoon

Scream

The Lure

You’re Next

The Ring

Prevenge

The Slumber Party Massacre


“You Are Who You Eat”: Digging in to Antonia Bird’s ‘Ravenous’

In ‘Ravenous,’ the primary meat and potatoes of the terror the audience feels isn’t provided by novel sights on the screen. While the visuals are gorgeous, its true potency comes from its sense of self-confidence. … Director Antonia Bird is unafraid of long silences; she trusts her skills to communicate plot and character visually without the need for exposition. … It makes for a moody, evocative, distinctive, and extremely memorable personal style.

Ravenous

This guest post written by Lochlan Sudarshan appears as part of our theme week on Women Directors, Part 2.


In cinema, the further back you go, the more restrictive the rules regarding what you’re allowed to show on-screen (until you hit Pre-Code Hollywood films that is). This is especially true involving subjects considered taboo, such as LGBTQ characters and graphic violence. One of the items seldom depicted in the films of the era was the ultimate taboo: cannibalism.

With two women-directed horror films released this year that feature characters who are cannibals, Raw and The Bad Batch, not to mention Hannibal which ran for a full (albeit too brief) three seasons on prime-time network television, it’s easy not to think of the subject as shocking. This wasn’t always the case.

In Ravenous, the primary meat and potatoes of the terror the audience feels isn’t provided by novel sights on the screen. While the visuals are gorgeous, its true potency comes from its sense of self-confidence.

From the very beginning, director Antonia Bird puts us right into the head of protagonist Boyd (Guy Pearce) as he sits at a table being served steak with the rest of his platoon. He appears nervous, ill-at-ease, and sick. Immediately, the film’s persistent attention to detail is on display. The flag displayed during the dinner has 28 stars on it, the correct amount given that the story takes place during the Mexican-American war. It’s a small facet, but it’s such an easy one to get wrong; noticing it makes the viewer immediately feel like the other small details of everyday life for a soldier of the period will be attended to in similar detail. For example, it was often difficult to maintain fresh meat on the battlefield, so Boyd’s apprehension at what is likely the first steak dinner he’s seen in some time already piques the audience’s interest.

He looks so uncomfortable that even a dyed-in-the-wool carnivore will find themselves feeling queasy after the lingering close-up of bloody steak overlaid with Boyd’s heavy breathing.

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We soon learn through quick, wordless cuts that Boyd survived a skirmish by feigning death on the battlefield and was transported by Mexican troops to a mass grave of his fellow soldiers. While in the pile of corpses, the blood of his commanding officer runs down into his mouth. Without a word of exposition or dialogue spoken, we understand why Boyd is so ill-at-ease. This is one of the forms the film’s primary strength of confidence takes: Bird is unafraid of long silences; she trusts her skills to communicate plot and character visually without the need for exposition.

Boyd’s commander, General Slauson (John Spencer) finds himself unable to discharge Boyd since while behind enemy lines, he snuck out of the grave and took control of an enemy command point. Despite this, Slauson is disgusted by Boyd’s cowardice on the field and assigns him to a remote fort out in the Sierra Nevadas. Throughout their conversation, again through the use of quick cuts to the flashback of Boyd on the battlefield, we see him stagger from the pile of corpses and break an enemy soldier’s neck without exerting any real force. This surreal moment keeps us on our toes for later in the film.

At the fort, Boyd is introduced to his new commanding officer, Colonel Hart (Jeffrey Jones, yes, the principal from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). Hart paints a bleak picture of the sort of life Boyd can expect here, and seems resigned to it himself. This decompression of the narrative allows the audience to settle in and get a good idea of what routine is like at the camp. Hart tells Boyd that Knox (Stephen Spinella), their doctor, used to be a vet and cautions him “don’t get sick.” Cleaves (David Arquette), the cook, is characterized as similarly incompetent, but Hart acknowledges that he can’t exactly tell Boyd not to eat. The two of them share a drink together, and once more, there isn’t anything more that needs to be said in dialogue. Their uncomfortable, long silence expresses clearly that Fort Spencer is a dumping ground for the army’s undesirables.

It isn’t long before a stranger stumbles through the snow to Fort Spencer. Colqhoun (Robert Carlyle) collapses outside and the soldiers quickly take him in and warm him up in a bath. Here, Bird’s eye stands out. The scene focuses on Colqhoun and his peril of freezing to death rather than how this unexpected situation makes Boyd feel.

Ravenous

Manpain” is a topic that’s well understood in feminist spheres. When something terrible happens to the male hero’s girlfriend or wife, the narrative will often focus on how it makes him feel rather than her, the actual victim. Gender aside, part of the reason this is so prevalent is the way main characters tower above everyone else thematically in the story, even if within the actual situation, people’s attention would be elsewhere. For this reason, something like “manpain,” or call it “mainpain,” can be on display even when both characters are of the same gender: think of any movie where the main character’s police partner or superhero sidekick is injured by the antagonist; the emphasis is seldom on the victim. Like their narrative role as a whole, their suffering really only exists as a platform for us to learn about the protagonist, so the camera usually puts our eye there, even if they aren’t the one speaking.

Bird’s avoidance of this is noteworthy for several reasons. First, it allows us to immerse ourselves in the scene she sets and to find ourselves in the same headspace as the rest of the soldiers: who is Colqhoun? How did he get here? Where did he come from? Additionally, it illuminates another facet of “manpain” (or “mainpain” in this instance). Aside from it being a lazy trope to avoid giving the spotlight to women (or secondary characters), it’s got another hidden function that’s often used unconsciously by creators.

Men in film are seldom allowed to cry or feel fear for their own welfare. A man can be afraid kidnappers will harm his family or cry for a wounded or dead loved one, but when was the last time you saw an action hero get shot and then cry for his own sake because it hurt? For example, in the 1996 action movie Eraser, when Arnold Schwarzenegger pulls an I-beam out of his thigh, he grimaces in pain, but he’s not upset on his own behalf, nor is he fearful he will be outgunned by the bad guys. His sole goal is to protect Vanessa Williams’ character. Colqhoun shows this rare vulnerability during the scene where he tells the soldiers how he came to the fort. He is a survivor from a doomed expedition that set to cut through the Rockies on their journey west. Under the command of the incompetent Colonel Ives, they had to take refuge in a cave when a blizzard trapped them. As time wore on, the party resorted to cannibalism until Colqhoun fled for fear that he would be eaten next. He admits this nakedly and is forthcoming about how he felt afraid. He cries out of shame for his shameful behavior and fear of the fate he narrowly avoided. If Colqhoun’s story sounds familiar, it’s because it is based on real historical figures. Screenwriter Ted Griffin was inspired by the Donner Party and their ill-fated attempts to go west as well as Alferd Packer who went to prison for cannibalism.

Bird’s perspective as a woman has, I think, something important to do with this scene. When Colqhoun is upset about the terrible things that happened to him and cries, we’re not supposed to think he’s effeminate or unmasculine, as these acts are often coded. He’s allowed to express this vulnerability and draw our own conclusions and feel bad for him.

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When Colqhoun awakens and tells everyone how he got here, he briefly rises from the tub nude and is seen in a full shot from behind. Unlike one of Carlyle’s prior films, there isn’t any jeering from the characters in the scene and the camera itself doesn’t ask the audience to find Carlyle’s nudity inherently funny because he’s male. Unusually for film, he’s even briefly embarrassed and after he gains his bearings, he quickly dresses and moves on. Being a woman director allows Bird to sidestep the Male Gaze, nearly ubiquitous in film. Most movies operate under the unspoken assertion that the camera operates like a heterosexual man, so scenes of female nudity are coded as desirable and alluring, while male nudity is either played for laughs, like with mooning, or the audience is expected to be repulsed. The scene doesn’t read either of these ways, and sex is the furthest thing from any character’s mind during it. Due to Bird’s balanced and unbiased camera work, the audience’s focus is on Colqhoun’s story rather than his body as well.

After hearing his story, the soldiers decide to look in the cave for any more survivors.  Before heading out, however, George (Joseph Running Fox), an Ojibwe member of the fort’s staff, tells Boyd when a person consumes human flesh and blood, they turn into a Wendigo, gaining preternatural strength and healing powers. Boyd finally has a name for what happened to him on the battlefield, but like with the other scenes, he keeps his emotions to himself in order to avoid giving himself away.

Despite being the lead, Pearce has very few lines in a film that’s already light on dialogue. A great deal of his character’s reactions to the situation around him are conveyed by his uncomfortable silences and attempts to mask his reactions. Bird’s steady close-ups of Pearce do a great deal to help us understand Boyd that may have been lost if the camera work were more traditional and used a lot of medium or wide shots of an ensemble cast.

Boyd investigates the cave to look for survivors with Reich (Neal McDonough) who gives a comfortably unhinged performance. The score is incredible; the bells and gongs keep the audience feeling off-balance. When Reich goes into the cave, just like with Boyd’s distaste for steak after his traumatic experience, we feel the creeping terror with him. While the film is sometimes classified as a satire or black comedy, and Bird herself has discussed the humor in the film, I don’t personally use either style descriptor. There is a great deal of humor in the movie, but it’s organic to the situation. It’s not gallows humor for its own sake, so the label doesn’t quite fit. If forced to categorize it, I would say it’s a survival horror film.

Ravenous

As with the earlier scene where Boyd talks to Slauson and we see scenes of Boyd in battle, this agonizing exploration of the cave is intercut with Colqhoun’s menacing behavior outside the cave. He has slipped his bonds and begins tutting at the men outside. Reich and Boyd discover Colqhoun has lied and has killed everyone in his wagon train himself.

They are forced to give chase after. Outside, Colqhoun has killed the rest of their group. Again, the music is very unusual for a scene like this, feeling almost whimsical. The dissonance created between playful music and gruesome imagery has the opposite of the usual effect of pairing a score to complement a scene. This makes the viewer think about each component separately, like the infamous bawdy song “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” from Game of Thrones and its accompanying scene of brutality.

This dissonance reinforces what’s going on in the scene thematically, even though it seemingly clashes with it visually. While the soldiers are frightened as Colqhoun picks them off, he’s gleeful and even silly as he chases them through the woods. Characters in the same scene can experience it two different ways, and that’s one of the takeaways in this sequence. Running over the rugged terrain, none of them look graceful or heroic, something that the film is judicious about. During the acts of violence, the camera lingers on how awkward the movements are, which gives them a great deal more dramatic heft.

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Instead of sword fighting Colqhoun at the edge of a mountaintop or engaging in a prolonged fist fight with him in the riverbed, he surprises the soldiers with his attack. They had thought of him as a victim and for him to switch gears so abruptly causes them to falter for a moment, which is unfortunately all Colqhoun needs thanks to his Wendigo puissance. More importantly, the scene itself is not glamorous narratively: Colqhoun is killing these men who stopped him from freezing to death, so that’s how the violence is depicted as well to reinforce this theme. The same way Colqhoun was allowed to be depicted as fearful for his own safety earlier on (even if he was just acting), so too are the soldiers as he kills them. This realism does a great deal to ground the scene and the film as a whole.

On that note, the effects for peoples’ wounds in the film are all done practically, which makes a great deal of difference when it comes to visceral horror. Instead of stylized gore or special effects added in post-production, practical effects help the wounds look more like actual meat, an important motif in the story. Being forced to get up close and personal to the blood as an audience helps to immerse ourselves in the situation like the characters.

They ultimately catch up with Calqhoun, but he forces Reich off a cliff. Boyd wounds him in the shoulder, but also falls off the cliff, breaking his leg. While he struggles with his decision, ultimately, he is forced to eat Reich’s flesh in order to recuperate in time before Calqhoun finds him. The passage of this time is denoted by the changing phases of the moon and the gradual decomposition of Reich’s corpse. Once more, the scene is largely allowing the silence to highlight an uncomfortable, tense moment, letting the audience draw their own conclusions.

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Boyd gets back to Fort Spencer and attempts to explain the situation to Slauson, who does not believe him. Colqhoun himself, revealed to be Colonel Ives, is there waiting for him. Boyd tries to explain that he is in fact Colqhoun and demands Ives remove his shirt to display his wound. Ives acquiesces. But his shoulders are bare due to his recuperative powers. Again, the film is comfortable with Carlyle’s nudity and the purpose of the scene, to build tension, is never lost as he disrobes. The characters are on edge because of Boyd’s seemingly deteriorating mental state, but not because Ives is undressing in front of them.

Later, there is an unbearably tense scene where all the remaining players sit in the log cabin at the fort as a blizzard rages outside reading, playing chess, or in Boyd’s case, keeping an eye on Ives. Watching this scene, it feels like a definite tonal and thematic touchstone for Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. Beyond the superficial similarities of set dressing and costume (though Tim Roth’s character in the film bears a striking resemblance to Carlyle as Colqhoun here) this scene also deals with simmering tensions and characters not being who they say they are, all having secrets to keep. Ives shutting his book causes Boyd to pounce toward him, and for Martha and Cleaves to lunge toward Boyd. With tensions running high, Ives suggests they go to bed and excuses himself outside for a cigarette. The camera lingers on Ives as he goes outside with nothing to immediately draw the eye around him as he does this. It lets the tension surrounding Boyd’s inevitable attack build.

Ives explains he, too, is aware of the legend of the Wendigo and has taken advantage of its powers. He reveals how it cured his tuberculosis and depression. He plans to take over the fort to pick off travelers once the spring thaw sets in, and would like Boyd as a fellow Wendigo to join him.

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This scene and the surrounding themes are why I classify this as a vampire film when discussing it and recommending it to people. Though the powers possessed by the main characters don’t exactly line up, the themes dealt with and the choices Boyd has to make, whether he will kill for his own sake, are the same as the ones faced in other films like Interview with the Vampire. More than coincidence, this connection seems deliberate on Bird’s part. During the scene where Ives propositions Boyd, his coat is turned up and the light frames him so he resembles classic depictions of vampires, such as Bela Lugosi’s Dracula.

The ultimate contrast between the two Wendigos is their attitude toward their condition. Ives views it as an opportunity for what he views as the survival of the fittest; it’s an opportunity for him to use his strength to gain supremacy over others. Boyd views it as a shameful quirk of fate that he keeps being forced to use to save his own life. Though he is reluctant to murder to preserve his own life, every time up until now when he has been forced to choose between eating and dying, he has always chosen eating.

The final sequence of Ravenous is heavily predicated on things it’s far better to see firsthand, but as with the film throughout, Bird’s comfort with allowing the visuals and music to do much of the heavy lifting in scenes is clearly on display. It makes for a moody, evocative, distinctive, and extremely memorable personal style. For all the bloodstains in this movie, the one that stands out the most in the end is certainly Bird’s thumbprint.


Lochlan Sudarshan is a writer, teacher, and tabletop roleplaying enthusiast who excels at knowing the name of that one actor and talks about books, movies, and TV on Twitter. You can follow him on Twitter @Lochlan_S and on his blog.


‘The Love Witch’ Looks Familiar but Feels Remarkably Fresh

Yet behind the eye-catching homage to Technicolor cinematography, the retro-glamorous hair and makeup, and the stylized performances of the pitch-perfect cast [Anna Biller’s ‘The Love Witch’] is a sharp-eyed satire of how society views female sexuality as simultaneously desirable and dangerous. …It is a remarkable look at the way our modern world views and values women  —  a serious statement about sexual politics wrapped up in a cocoon of cats-eye liner and cake, making it all the more dangerously potent.

The Love Witch

This guest post written by Lee Jutton originally appeared at Medium and appears here as part of our theme week on Women Directors. It is cross-posted with permission.


On the surface, director Anna Biller’s sophomore feature, The Love Witch, might look like a grab-bag of filmmaking tropes from the 1960’s and 70’s, a contemporary film designed to play on audience nostalgia for cinematic eras gone by (a recurring theme at theaters this winter; see: La La Land). Yet behind the eye-catching homage to Technicolor cinematography, the retro-glamorous hair and makeup, and the stylized performances of the pitch-perfect cast is a sharp-eyed satire of how society views female sexuality as simultaneously desirable and dangerous.

We first meet Elaine Parks (Samantha Robinson) as she drives along a quintessentially Hitchcockian rear projection of the Northern California coast in her cherry-red convertible. She devours cigarette after cigarette, continuously stubbing them out in her car’s ashtray; her long dark hair is made even longer by a shiny synthetic wig, and her eye makeup is heavy and hypnotic. She’s the ultimate honey trap, with everything about her look and attitude designed to project maximum glamour and sensuality. Through voice-over, Elaine informs us that she’s leaving her old life in San Francisco behind after the death of her ex-husband, Jerry, to move to the small town of Eureka and start anew. After Jerry left her, Elaine sought solace in the arms of a coven of witches, and is now a master (better, mistress) of love and sex spells. Obsessed with obtaining the love that Jerry always held at arm’s length, Elaine is determined to do whatever it takes to make a man fall for her, and when not actively pursuing love herself, she constantly urges her friend Trish (Laura Waddell) to do whatever she can to make her own husband happy  —  even at the expense of her own wants and desires. Elaine strives to embody all of men’s fantasies about the ideal woman  —  she cooks delicious meals, performs spontaneous stripteases in sexy lingerie, and coos words of comfort every time one of them starts feeling insecure (which is often). She both literally and figuratively casts a spell over nearly every man that crosses her path. Yet Elaine’s spells start to seem more like curses when the men she targets start meeting rather unpleasant ends.

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Elaine’s coven, led by the creepy Gahan (Jared Sanford) and his partner, Barbara (Jennifer Ingrum), spends a substantial amount of time camped out in a burlesque club; dancing is how Elaine first met Barbara and was introduced to the world of witchcraft. Gahan and Barbara teach new recruits how to use dance to manipulate the male gaze, and how to embrace their sexuality as a source of power just as potent as magic. During one scene, set against the backdrop of a burlesque performance, Gahan and Barbara lecture two girls on how the history of witchcraft has been eternally tied to women’s sexuality. Women are supposed to be sensual and available, but never too aggressively  —  never too much. Then, men feel threatened by them, afraid that they’ll lose control of themselves (and naturally, this lack of self-control is always the woman’s fault, never the man’s). The Love Witch explores these conflicting feelings and then some, examining the ways men view women  —  not to mention, the ways other women view women, too. Biller fills her film with close-ups of her casts’ eyes and mouths, lingering over their heavy false eyelashes, glossy lips, and frequently imperfect teeth as though daring you to succumb to them.

Biller, a multitalented artist who also wrote, produced, edited, scored and designed the costumes and sets of The Love Witch, is clearly a dedicated scholar of the pulp fiction and thrillers of the 60’s and 70’s. The film, despite taking place in the modern day, thoroughly sticks to its retro conceit, right down to being one of the last films to cut an original camera negative on 35 millimeter film. The campy tone and stylized performances are so spot-on in regards to mid-century, low-budget horror that I kept expecting icon of the era Udo Kier to pop up at any moment. It is lovingly made down to the last detail, from the frilly and frothy Victorian tea room that the women of Eureka frequent to the jewel-toned paintings of pentagrams that decorate Elaine’s apartment. So many modern films are shot to be dark and dour; The Love Witch, by pleasant contrast, dazzles with its delightful use of color and light.

The Love Witch is lovely to look at, but like Elaine herself, it’s so much more than just a pretty face. (Speaking of Elaine: Samantha Robinson’s performance is an absolute stunner; her shy, breathy voice and fluttering eyelashes create a picture-perfect facade of feminine fragility that barely masks the seething anger and disappointment within.) It’s laugh-out-loud funny, cartoonishly violent, and so, so smart. It might look and feel like a film from the past, but at its heart, it is a remarkable look at the way our modern world views and values women  —  a serious statement about sexual politics wrapped up in a cocoon of cats-eye liner and cake, making it all the more dangerously potent.


Lee Jutton has directed short films starring a killer toaster, a killer Christmas tree, and a not-killer leopard. She previously reviewed new DVD and theatrical releases as a staff writer for Just Press Play and currently reviews television shows as a staff writer for TV Fanatic. You can follow her on Medium for more film reviews and on Twitter for an excessive amount of opinions on German soccer.

‘A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night’: A Vampire with No Name

Enter The Girl, a mostly silent observer to the rotting underbelly of Bad City. She shares a kinship with the likes of Shane and The Man with No Name — a hero with mysterious origins and questionable morality who ultimately defends those who cannot help themselves. … Once The Girl arrives, it’s essentially Amirpour’s playground as she honors and subverts Westerns and horror films.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night 5

This guest post written by Samantha Cross appears as part of our theme week on Women Directors.


The vampire as metaphor has had a fascinating staying power since Bram Stoker’s Dracula turned Eastern European folklore into a gothic tale of sexual repression and liberation. At times, vampires are feral beasts of horror or sexy, brooding heroes tortured by their own immortality. Or… Twilight. The point is that vampires, while we may associate them with certain traits, can be as powerful, vulnerable, and insightful as the narrative allows. Their monstrosity is subjective, giving storytellers ample room to explore the nature of vampires and the worlds they inhabit. In A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, writer/director Ana Lily Amirpour crafts a vampire that is neither virtuous nor villain, but somewhere in between. Though she is what we would typically classify as a “monster,” it becomes clear that Bad City has more than its fair share of demons.

Billed as “the first Iranian vampire Western,” A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night exists in a deliberately nebulous space, keeping it open to interpretation. One can view it through a feminist lens as The Girl (Sheila Vand) primarily attacks men who bully and exert their own power on others, mainly coming to the defense of a sex worker, Atti (Mozhan Marnò), who’s connected to both Saeed (Dominic Rains) the local drug dealer and Arash’s (Arash Marandi) father who struggles with addiction, Hossein (Marshall Manesh). There’s also commentary to be gleaned from the frequent shots of oil rigs, the open, almost casual display of dead bodies in a ditch, and the stagnant feel of Bad City that appears to be stuck in several time periods as the director’s feelings on Iran and the country’s culture. Amirpour, however, finds the interpretation to be more reflective of the interpreter. As for her own view on the themes in her film, she told the Los Angeles Times:

“In this case, it’s really about loneliness. A vampire is the loneliest, most isolated cut-off type of creature. She also has something very bad to hide about who she is and it’s a brilliant disguise. It becomes a way to stay under the radar and underestimated. There are a million ways to read it. It will tell you more about you than it does about me.”

Upon a second viewing of the film, through my most critical eye (the left one), I think Amirpour’s ideas of loneliness, coupled with the elements of disguise and isolation, fit in perfectly with what should be called an “industrial” Western. Like John Ford, Amirpour uses her wide shots to establish the vast landscape of the film’s world, but instead of lush valleys and sweeping canyons we get a flat, barren desert where oil rigs have replaced the painted hills. We’re not meant to look upon Bad City and its surroundings with awe. We’re meant to understand how singular it is, a mirage of a vibrant city filled with vagrants and criminals who prey upon the less fortunate; a place where everyone who can is trying to get out of Dodge by any means necessary. Basic setup for your Magnificent Sevens, Silverados, or Unforgivens, right?

Enter The Girl, a mostly silent observer to the rotting underbelly of Bad City. She shares a kinship with the likes of Shane and The Man with No Name — a hero with mysterious origins and questionable morality who ultimately defends those who cannot help themselves. It’s a slow buildup to her first appearance in the movie, roughly fifteen minutes, but Amirpour devotes that time to crafting the right circumstances for The Girl to enter and sets up how one decision leads the rest of the film onward.

One such means of exploration is through a tried-and-true staple of Westerns: the standoff. The highlight of many films, it can be as simple as a duel at high noon or as action-packed as a ragtag group of hired guns staring down another group of hired guns for possession of a small town. It’s a moment of tension designed to make the payoff, ya know, killing someone, that much more intense. Amirpour flips the script, so to speak, using the standoff for the deliberate purpose of taunting The Girl’s potential victims as well as the audience. She establishes a pattern early on: observe, follow, and strike. The cover of night adds to the horror element and the heightened sound makes her footsteps audible, but The Girl stays far enough away that her marks are unnerved just enough by her presence. I’m especially fond of her shadow game with Hossein. It’s humorous but still cut with the right amount of suspicion over how it will play out given her previous encounter with Saeed earlier in the film. It’s only when she’s ready to strike that the gap closes and the standoff ends. The kill becomes an intimate yet feral moment because, unlike her male counterparts who brandish guns at a distance, The Girl’s sole weapon is her own body.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night 8

The standoff within A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night also applies to Amirpour’s use of close-ups. A lot of time is spent in keeping the tension as tight as possible, especially once we know The Girl’s game and how she executes her brand of “justice.” Because The Girl is a taciturn character, the emotional beats and her contemplative nature have to be seen up close, which, in turn, heightens the anxiety of the scene even more. The intimacy of the shots between The Girl and Arash are rife with romantic tension, but there’s a similar feeling of dread as the camera cuts back and forth. Her proximity may very well mean death for the second party. It’s a standoff created by the camera, somewhat reminiscent of Sergio Leone, but Amirpour relies more on letting the takes breathe instead of intensive cutting, letting Vand and Marandi’s eyes convey far more than the dialogue.

In many ways, The Girl resembles a comic book vigilante as much as a cowboy anti-hero. I mean, come on; a silent avenger of the night draped in black who inspires as much fear as the monsters she fights? Where have I seen that before? Batman, obviously. The heroic element was not lost on Amirpour either, though her inspiration came more from The Girl’s choice of costume:

“In Iran, I have had to wear a hijab [headscarf], and personally I find it completely suffocating. I don’t want to be covered up in all that cloth. But there was something about the chador though. It’s made of a different fabric. It’s soft and silky and it catches the air. When I put it on, I felt supernatural. But I also get to take it off.”

The themes of disguise and concealment are as endemic to Westerns as they are to superheroes. Cinematic cowboys are always running from something — the law, their past — so remaking themselves and hiding from their previous actions requires some measure of disguise, whether it’s a new name or a handy little domino mask. Either way, the conclusion is the same: you can never truly escape who you are. The Girl goes through a similar struggle. Atti asks The Girl, after a very strange conversation, “What are you?” Amirpour then cuts to The Girl back on the streets, seemingly contemplating this question, as she slowly approaches and feeds on a homeless man. It’s not the subtlest piece of character development, but it serves to address the supposed virtue of the The Girl. Stalking the villains of Bad City is easy enough, but what’s a vampire to do when they’re not readily available?

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night 7

The Girl, for all intents and purposes, is hiding from herself. The chador acts as her cape and cowl but it’s also a line of demarcation. When she walks the streets of Bad City, she’s a shadow, a spectre haunting the less than savory elements of the city. When she takes off the chador, she’s a seemingly young woman who finds solace in sad songs and dances to synth-pop surrounded by musical icons. Her hunger and the nature of that hunger are never addressed until it begins to conflict with the small yet complicated entanglements known as human relationships. As a side note, when The Girl and Arash meet and speak to each other for the first time, Arash – high as a kite – is wearing a Dracula costume from a party. It’s a brilliant juxtaposition that the two begin to form their romance when both are essentially in disguise. And it’s probably my favorite scene in the movie.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, is still well worth your time if you have any interest in the work of upcoming directors like Amirpour or desire something more substantial from your vampire-themed entertainment. There are also two issues of a comic book written by Amirpour available for purchase that give you some background on The Girl.


See also at Bitch Flicks:

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and Scares Us

Feminist Fangs: The Activist Symbolism of Violent Vampire Women

10 Women-Directed Films for Halloween


Samantha “Sam” Cross is best described as a poly-geek, soaking up as much information as possible to better appreciate the things she loves. An archivist by trade, she’s also a fan of comic books, movies, music, and television, never shying away from talking about or analyzing pop culture minutiae. You can listen to her as the host of That Girl with the Curls podcast where she chats about her pop culture obsession in the company of friends or with special guests. Follow her @darling_sammy on Twitter.

“What’s Next for Horror” Panel and More at C2E2

One message reinforced in panels throughout the day — including the “Gender Identity: Understanding Through Art” panel earlier that morning — was best articulated by filmmaker Kellee Terrell: the need for diversity in film. The revelation of ‘Get Out’ sparked a conversation on representation, universal experiences, and relating to what’s on-screen.

Get Out

This guest post is written by Josephine Maria Yanasak-Leszczynski.


Saturday, April 22nd at Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) was the most crowded day yet. Crown Champions of Cosplay hopefuls showed up in their most creative and best, and those hoping to attend panels and shop the floor arrived early.

In recent years, both the “big two” comic book publishers (DC and Marvel) have removed all floor presence, meaning that while they host panels, they have no representation on the floors beyond third-party vendors — a noticeable shift from big market branding to more independent vendors.

There was little floor presence for film and television, besides celebrity autographing sessions and merchandise by third parties. Weta Workshop did host a booth and held a special effects demo on Sunday of the convention. The effects company is famous for a number of films, including the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Like any good vendor, they have merchandise for sale, including impressively rendered models of some of their most famous creations. Their presence at the convention is more than just filling floor space, however. Staff is available to chat about their creations, and even about special effect techniques in film. It’s an unexpected resource for filmmakers at a convention that is traditionally centered on comic books.

At the Crown Champions of Cosplay, cosplayers compete with each other for the crown. Judged by special effects professionals and cosplay celebrities, their entries were judged for craftsmanship and then their performance on-stage. While timing makes it impossible for some people to attend the competition, the celebration lasts all day with entrants and others joining in with their best costumes on the floor and in panels.

C2E2 2017 Cosplay

“Reinventing Horror: What’s Next for Horror in Comics & Film?” Panel

The “Reinventing Horror: What’s Next for Horror in Comics & Film?” panel, moderated by Ain’t It Cool News’ M.L. Miller provided the highlight of the day. Filmmaker Kellee Terrell, cover artist Jenny Frison, writer Brian Level, and director Dorian Weinzimmer shared their thoughts on recent horror, where they want to see the genre go next, and how to get there.

One message reinforced in panels throughout the day — including the “Gender Identity: Understanding Through Art” panel earlier that morning — was best articulated by Kellee Terrell: the need for diversity in film. The revelation of Get Out sparked a conversation on representation, universal experiences, and relating to what’s on-screen.

“When we talk about what’s universal, as a Black woman, Hollywood is not geared toward me,” Terrell explained. “Besides Get Out, I cannot name that many movies with people like me… I want to create movies that have people that look like me, but you can still relate to them.”

The panelists agreed that having films with diverse casting or character elements does not exclude audiences. In fact, Terrell expanded, “The more you see people that don’t look like you, it enhances who you are.” Frison shared her own experience with seeing herself in movies, explaining that she never had a problem seeing herself in action films. Or so she thought:

“I didn’t know what I was missing until I saw [Mad Max:] Fury Road… Now I can really be a badass.”

Level agreed that more diversity is needed in the industry, both indie and Hollywood, citing that some of his favorite films that have come out recently were written and directed by women. “And I want to see more of that,” he said to many head nods in the audience. Later he elaborated, “I get so excited to see things I have never seen before from viewpoints I cannot have.”

Weinzimmer also added that it’s important to get to a point in narrative filmmaking where we can have diverse characters that are not defined by the fact that they’re different from the status quo: “And have the focus not be on them, but on who they are as characters.” “I want us to be really careful when we talk about that,” Terrell cautioned. She reiterated that when depicting personal experience to draw on a universal one, we cannot erase what makes those experiences personal. Weinzimmer agreed.

The panelists also explored what drew them to the horror genre in the first place. Some cited their beginnings in horror to the video store. Some were attracted to the cover art, others to the thrill of picking out an R-rated movie as a minor. Like so many, their introduction to their current favorite genre seems to be tied to format. There is nothing like picking out a movie in a video store, an experience that is largely missing with the rise of Netflix.

C2E2 2017

While not discussed in depth at the panel, this was a fitting parallel to the generations of experiences attending C2E2. A convention mostly about comics, the attendees have vastly different experiences with comics themselves. While there are still plenty of independent shops on the floor, few are local. Mostly gone are the collectors selling off their dusty boxes of garage kept trades. The experience at conventions like these have changed significantly, even in just the last few years. The move to digital undoubtedly has something to do with it. This doesn’t necessarily mean that there is a decrease in quality of content, but it is a shift, and the truth is that people getting into film and television now are building a very different nostalgic base for genre. That being said, some forms of media delivery are not dead.

While fans pressed actress Danielle Panabaker at a celebrity spotlight session for clues as to what might happen in the next five episodes of the CW’s The Flash, where she is poised to become the villain Killer Frost, she gave nothing away. It was clear that while audiences are now used to binge watching entire seasons of shows on online streaming services, they are also willing to wait for what comes next in something they truly enjoy.

The best moment of the con so far was incited when the “What’s Next for Horror” panel ran over time to answer one last fan question. While it had been a friendly experience up to that point with some honest discussion, this fan was ready to take on the big problems in film. It’s hard to remember his actual question, but his statements implied that diversity creates a lack of reality in film. Citing the recent Ghostbusters film as an example, he said that the female protagonists’ reactions to the ghosts in the films were inaccurate and displayed a “false level of badassery.”

The panelists disagreed, explaining that the film was about ectoplasm and absurd spirits with a heavy comedic element. They collectively pointed out that the same conversation would not be had if the rebooted Ghostbusters starred men, which Weinzimmer expanded on. “When they go into the library… I would have been running out of there!” he said of the realism of badass Ghostbusters.

As the Ghostbusters attempted to draw out the conversation, Terrell finally put an end to the discussion saying firmly, “No, I don’t agree with you.”

The panelists all lined up, there was applause, and now I have a phrase for a T-shirt for next year’s C2E2.


All C2E2 2017 photos taken by Josephine Maria Yanasak-Leszczynski.


Links:

Kellee Terrell’s Vimeo

Revival comic book series (cover art done by Jenny Frison)


Josephine Maria Yanasak-Leszczynski is a museum educator by day (and often night), and a freelance writer every other time she manages to make a deadline. She can be found on Twitter @JMYaLes.

‘The Transfiguration’ Offers Insights into Vampirism and How Our Experiences Shape Us

The point of the story is that, like so many vampires, he’s been transformed against his will into a creature he can’t quite make peace with. It’s an insight into vampires – backed by what seems to be an encyclopedic knowledge of how they have been portrayed in film – but just as interestingly, and perhaps more importantly, it’s an insight into how our experiences shape us; how early the die can be cast on the type of people we grow up to be.

transfiguration

Written by Katherine Murray.


I have a confession to make: I am so taken with the idea of being a literal vampire that it completely escaped my notice that Michael O’Shea’s film, The Transfiguration, may not be about literal vampires.

The film, which premiered at Cannes last year and opens in limited release this month, follows Milo (Eric Ruffin), a teenager who’s even more obsessed with vampires than I am. Milo, who we learn early on has been seeing a counselor about his violent impulses, gets beat up by local gang members during the day and stalks the streets at night, cutting his victims with a knife and drinking their blood. He keeps detailed journals explaining the “rules” of vampirism as he’s learned to understand them and he never socializes with anyone except his older brother and, as the film progresses, a neighbor girl named Sophie (Chloe Levine). Sophie has a much more casual, romantic interest in vampires, preferring popular works like Twilight and True Blood over Milo’s darker, more refined tastes – Let the Right One In, a Swedish film that shares more than a couple of plot points with The Transfiguration, is his favorite.

As Milo starts to care for Sophie, he also starts to see himself through her eyes and to question some of the choices he’s made, as well as some of the rules he’s learned about vampires. He also starts to reflect on how he became a vampire in the first place, an origin story that has less to do with being bitten by a stranger and more to do with witnessing his mother’s suicide. Eventually, like the sun setting over the course of a month, a heavy existential question settles over the film: if this is what Milo’s experiences have already made him, what comes next?

The Transfiguration is a slow-moving but confident film that uses the idea of vampires in a way I haven’t seen before – which is saying something, considering how omnipresent vampires were just a few years ago. As many other critics have pointed out (to me), it’s never entirely clear whether Milo has literally become a vampire, or if he’s just a messed-up kid who kills people and drinks their blood – and it doesn’t need to be clear. The point of the story is that, like so many vampires, he’s been transformed against his will into a creature he can’t quite make peace with. It’s an insight into vampires – backed by what seems to be an encyclopedic knowledge of how they have been portrayed in film – but just as interestingly, and perhaps more importantly, it’s an insight into how our experiences shape us; how early the die can be cast on the type of people we grow up to be.

The Transfiguration

Shot “guerrilla-style” by a first-time filmmaker, it’s impressive that The Transfiguration even exists, and that O’Shea and his director of photography, Sung Rae Cho, were able to create an unconventional horror film that can stand side by side with indie and art house offerings at festivals around the world. The understated performance from the two young leads, Eric Ruffin and Chloe Levine, also helps to maintain the difficult balancing act between the real and the supernatural. That said, The Transfiguration is better at asking existential questions than it is at answering them and the film’s final act is a bit of a downer.

In that respect, it reminds me of another weird movie with a problematic ending: Sony’s 2012 sci-fi film, Looper. Although I liked Looper a lot, the movie’s resolution, and its message [spoiler] that its main character should kill himself so that he doesn’t ruin someone else’s life, rubbed me the wrong way. Like The Transfiguration, Looper is a complicated story about destiny, the role of formative experiences, and the question of whether someone who has internalized a very deep trauma and lashes out in violent ways has any possible path toward redemption. That question is not academic to some people; it’s something they struggle with in real life, and I hope they will not conclude that the answer is “Once a monster, always a monster.”

The Transfiguration is less glib about this question than Looper is, but it definitely seems to take the position that, after life has placed you on a particular path, you walk it until you die.

For me, the most interesting character in The Transfiguration is actually Milo’s taciturn brother, Lewis (Aaron Moten). What we know of him, we only know from a single scene late in the film, but he was, apparently, a part of the neighborhood gang before withdrawing for unspecified reasons. He served in the military for some period of time and saw people get blown to pieces overseas. And, in the single scene where he talks for more than five seconds, he soberly and surely tells Milo that, no matter how bad he feels for whatever he’s been doing, there are people all over the world doing something a million times worse. This is a moral philosophy that’s both true and incomplete, but it’s fascinating because it’s about how you go on living – and that’s something we only do when we haven’t given up on ourselves as being a lost cause.

By contrast, the least interesting characters are the undifferentiated clump of gang members who apparently have nothing better to do than to terrorize middle school kids. Nothing about them feels particularly real to me, and it seems like they exist only to fulfill a plot purpose and to serve as a vague reminder that young men with histories like Milo’s can grow up to be killers even without getting weird and vampiric about it.

The Transfiguration is an uneven film with an uncomfortably pessimistic ending, but it’s rescued by its insight into Vampire as monster and the way it leverages that insight to examine the human condition.


Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies, TV and video games on her blog.

Alienated Women: The Terror in Mica Levi’s Scores for ‘Under the Skin’ and ‘Jackie’

Jackie’s deeply emotional outbursts may stand in stark contrast to the alien’s lack of empathy, but both women share a troubling alienation from the people around them. Mica Levi’s scores make this alienation audible, the grim discomfort of her music allowing the audience to feel, even for 90 minutes, the terror of such a solitude.

Under the Skin and Jackie

This guest post written by Zoë Goodall originally appeared at Cause a Cine. It is cross-posted with permission.


When I saw the trailer for Pablo Larraín’s Jackie (2016), my first thought was, “Why do I feel so afraid?” I was unsurprised then, to discover that the woman behind the music was Mica Levi, who composed the score to Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin (2013). After seeing Jackie, it occurred to me the two films that Levi has composed music for have more in common than it initially appears. Under the Skin is a sci-fi angle on the femme fatale, where Scarlett Johansson plays an alien who seduces and kills men in Scotland. Jackie is the Oscar-ready biopic of Jackie Kennedy, centered on a masterfully emotive performance by Natalie Portman. Yet both films feature women who are lost, distanced from others and profoundly alone. Those around them cannot understand them, and so they are alienated. It is the haunted feeling of such alienation that Levi’s scores illuminate.

Johansson’s alien in Under the Skin is of course the more literal embodiment of alienation. She blankly visits human settings such as shopping centers and nightclubs, never sure of how to arrange her face to fit in with those around her. She lacks human empathy, illustrated starkly in a scene where she leaves a baby on a beach with a tide coming in. When she experiences sex with a human man, she is so overwhelmed that she flees. Levi’s score is fittingly otherworldly, pulsing with unidentifiable noises, the viola screeching like a wounded animal. It’s utterly unlike other film scores, giving the audience no easy emotional cues. The nails-on-chalkboard discomfort it conjures makes audible the colossal distance between the alien and humanity. One cannot relax when listening to the score, instead feeling a constant sense of dread at what this unknowable creature might do next.

Under the Skin 6

This constant dread, this grim unease, are present also in Levi’s Oscar-nominated score for Jackie. Jackie, in contrast to the alien, is utterly, familiarly human. Her grief and trauma over her husband’s death is the bedrock of the narrative. The audience knows how she feels, due to Portman’s highly expressive face. Jackie is also privileged, famous, and powerful. But as the narrative demonstrates how quickly Jackie loses her power, Levi’s score highlights the instability of Jackie’s world in the aftermath of her husband’s death. The score is more lush and regal than the score for Under the Skin, in part because there’s an orchestra and in part to reflect the high-class American world that Jackie inhabits. But the discomfort that Levi brought to Under the Skin is present in Jackie, too. Many times when the score begins, it sounds light, almost cheerful, before being undercut by low, ominous strings that lurk obtrusively in the background. The result is a feeling of disturbance, that something familiar and romantic has been polluted by a grim terror.

Just as Under the Skin showed how Scotland was a completely foreign world to the alien, Jackie displays how the First Lady losing her title and home throws her into a world that’s entirely unfamiliar. Visually, this is represented through particular, subtle moments: the look of shock on Jackie’s face when Lyndon B. Johnson is greeted as “Mr President” hours after JFK’s death; the camera lingering on Lady Bird Johnson picking out new White House curtains while Jackie watches, unseen. Jackie is constantly filmed on her own, without even the presence of bodyguards or servants to lessen the impression of her alienation. Her friendship with her assistant, Nancy, is shown to be of great value to her, but the film’s repeated shots of a solitary Jackie make clear that she feels cut off from everyone around her. In the film’s final minutes, a happy sequence of her playing on the beach with her children is concluded with a close-up of her grief-stricken face, and her children out of the frame. Then, she sits alone on the couch while the Life interviewer talks on the phone. Then, at the burial of JFK, she stands starkly apart from everyone else. The final shot is of her dancing at a party in JFK’s arms, placing her feelings of joy and belonging firmly in the past.

Jackie movie 2

Angelica Jade Bastién writes that Jackie uses horror movie techniques to illustrate Jackie’s grief. Levi’s score is an integral part of this, the relentless, ominous strings suggesting that life has changed for Jackie in a most terrifying way. When she finally returns to the White House from Dallas, the score is fundamentally eerie, sadness undercut with grim foreboding. It’s a score suited to a dangerous expedition into unknown territory, rather than a return home. Levi’s score communicates what doesn’t need to be said through dialogue; the White House isn’t home anymore, and Jackie’s power has disappeared with her First Lady title. The terror of being cut off from a familiar world, and the subsequent alienation, are made salient in Levi’s grim, uncomfortable music.

The alien in Under the Skin has no possessions apart from her classic predator’s white van, and the outfit she chooses to resemble the common woman. Although dressed in the finest of outfits, Jackie finds herself similarly dispossessed, telling the Life reporter that the White House and her current house never belonged to her. “Nothing’s mine, not for keeps anyway,” she tells him. Separated from the home planet or the White House, both women are anchorless, adrift. Even when surrounded by revellers in metropolitan Glasgow, or watched by thousands at her husband’s funeral, the alien and Jackie remain fundamentally alone. Haunted by their inability to connect with others, to slot in to this world, they stand lost and detached. Jackie’s deeply emotional outbursts may stand in stark contrast to the alien’s lack of empathy, but both women share a troubling alienation from the people around them. Levi’s scores make this alienation audible, the grim discomfort of her music allowing the audience to feel, even for 90 minutes, the terror of such a solitude.


Zoë Goodall is currently an Honours student and Media Coordinator for an Australian not-for-profit organization. She likes feminist film analysis, dogs, and reading Batwoman comics. She lives in Melbourne, Australia.

‘Penny Dreadful’: Departure from Heroine

We do not see the warrior that we have come to know and love, for her ability to not just fight battles, but to align others to fight against their darkest selves and moments for a better world. … Her death becomes a part of their story and creates an allegory of her character; she is not a woman anymore, but a figure to them, something they now own.

Penny Dreadful finale

This guest post is written by Cassandra A. Clarke. | Spoilers ahead.


In battles, there’s an importance not just on the victor but on the amount of effort given by both sides. Perhaps this is why it’s the longest boxing matches that we remember, not for the score, but for the sake of the perseverance in those who step into the ring; that’s what we remember. It is no wonder that Penny Dreadfuls season three finale (and unexpected series finale) left viewers with a bitter aftertaste in their mouth.

“The Blessed Dark” episode was framed as the show’s last battle (including an epic slow motion shot of the team assembling on their way to face Dracula in his Gothic hideout in the dregs of the city), one that viewers had been waiting for since the series’ introduction of Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), as the doomed to be cleverest person in the room, facing an eternal battle against the Devil and Dracula, both vying for her soul and flesh. Yet, we received a forfeit: a bequest to finish with all of the battle, with all of the effort, in exchange for calm; or, in more literal terms, she asks Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett) to kill her in order for her to find redemption in heaven and leave this earth. Vanessa, the same woman who punched the Devil in the face, who fought for her soul back, relinquishes her life.

In an interview with Variety, Penny Dreadful creator/showrunner John Logan and Showtime president David Nevins, claimed that this ending for Vanessa was actually a message of empowerment for the audience. In Logan’s words, he said Vanessa Ives “owns her death.” While it’s true that Vanessa did ask for her death, the two are missing a bigger point about the show’s view of agency. The series does a marvelous job at toying with the idea of possession to make us question the view of agency for the characters: Are they acting like themselves or another? Are we imagining them to be better than they are? In Vanessa’s last moment, it’s unclear whether or not her agency is fully there or not as moments before she is shot, she tells Ethan, “Vanessa is long gone.” This begs the audience to wonder whether or not her death was something she truly wanted or the desire of her darker parts inside herself and we received no answer. The moment is too brief to provide more clues to her state of mind and wishes; it ends with someone taking her life in their hands and ending it in order to prevent her from having to be hurt (or have others hurt) to survive.

Penny Dreadful finale 3

Even if Penny Dreadful is saying that this death, this kind of redemption from her life, is what she sought after, there is still another question that goes unanswered: Why did Vanessa’s death come so easily? In the finale, we see no battle with Vanessa, no decision to harm the creatures that have harmed her. Although she has leveled up to be the Queen of Darkness, we do not see her actually wield her power nor use it to take advantage of Dracula. We are led to believe that she is seduced by him and not of herself, and yet, we see her escape the clutches of this darkness to ask Ethan for help? All of her battle happens under the surface and off-screen, so that we as a audience cannot actually see any of Vanessa’s planning or will or desire, and that is where her death failed us. We do not see the warrior that we have come to know and love, for her ability to not just fight battles, but to align others to fight against their darkest selves and moments for a better world. She has no team to lead, no mission to complete.

The team exists, but we do not see Vanessa lead them like she has in the past to help defeat witches, demons, and toxic people. Her team is almost completely destroyed by the hands of the creatures of the night and they have no real power in which to defeat Dracula without her assistance. Instead of her power, we see a docile, white-dressed maiden, asking to be sent back to her creator. This feels so wrong because the series tended to show us how sometimes the darkest parts of ourselves can be aligned with good intentions and used for something more. We see that motif exercised plentifully through Ethan, who is able to kill an entire bar of people and yet is still shown to struggle emotionally, returning to London for the good fight. Yet, we do not get a chance to really see Vanessa struggle in and through her darkness. And this also begs another uncomfortable question to ask that the show avoids of her darkness: Did she do enough to win back her God’s faith? Because we don’t see her fight and do see Dracula flee back into the night, we’re left wondering if she earned her redemption. Did she do enough good?

The series carefully avoids answering that question by putting us into a hazy London where we can only imagine the thousands of deaths that Vanessa caused. We do not see her confront that. We see her choose to join Dracula and then hear of her casualties but we do not see Vanessa reconcile these consequences. We do not see her team assemble to do everything they can for her. Instead, we are left with an ending of her friends gathering at her grave, talking about what they learned from her. They are all given a second life to live, post-Vanessa, and she has taught them how to be more wicked than good. Her death becomes a part of their story and creates an allegory of her character; she is not a woman anymore, but a figure to them, something they now own.

Penny Dreadful finale 2

Although Logan says this is a “shocking” ending for a show in 2016, as it shows a woman dying for what she believes in, it is not at all shocking to me. Plenty of women characters have been used as a prop to tell other men’s stories, to be their emblem of hope and fear. Penny Dreadful perpetuates the idea that in order to be strong and overcome the life that you were born into, even if it’s unfair, even if it’s theoretically doomed to cause you pain over and over again, it’s more worthy and noble to sacrifice yourself for others as opposed to learning how to channel your efforts into creating a stronger world. Each of the male characters who create monsters literally and kill innocents (including their children and siblings) are able to gain a chance at a new life, but Vanessa was never granted this option.

Logan argues that the only two choices that Vanessa had were eternal Hell on earth or Heaven. I think that is where the show ultimately failed Vanessa and us, because there was no thought to a third alternative for her, to a last battle, or, dare I say, the vanquishing of both evil male-oriented forces in her life. Could we imagine in 2016 a woman who was able to defeat the evils and traumas that plagued her and while changed, becomes stronger? Could we even further imagine a world in which she is not quite all innocent and certainly not eternally good, but a force to be reckoned with and one that could be called upon for future battles of good and evil, thereby earning redemption?

I imagine the Penny Dreadful showrunners heckling, “But you can’t defeat evil!” Yes, Vanessa living through her darkness would be hard. And the forces that seek to control her will always be there, but that’s where her will gets to come in and thrive. Vanessa is the kind of woman who believes that while fighting is harder than succumbing to temptation, it is the more interesting choice to court the impossible for the sake of friendship. If Penny Dreadful aims to thematically tackle oppressive forces, why use her freedom of choice to leave the story? If the show is willing to reanimate a corpse to fight the patriarchy, it could have let Vanessa live to rebuild herself. Yes, oppression will always persist, but that is why her life’s work as an ally to and against evil would offer more power for her and others.


See also at Bitch Flicks:

Sex and the Penny Dreadful

A Feminist Guide to Horror: Torture Porn TV


Cassandra A. Clarke’s work’s been previously published in Electric Literature, Word Riot, Entropy, and other speculative places. She has an MFA in Fiction from Emerson College and is the Editor in Chief of the new-weird literary magazine, Spectator & Spooks.

‘The Faculty’: Gender, Dialogue, and Naked Alien Space Monsters

How did these male filmmakers make a movie marketed to men full of female characters who actually get the majority of the dialogue? I’m about to crack the code and share the secret — are you ready to become enlightened? Here’s how they did it: They included female characters and gave them lines. WHAT. Yes, it’s that simple.

The Faculty

Written by Mychael Elaine.


Do you love feminism and space monsters? This essay is for you!

A note to my non-binary readers: This essay takes a super reductive approach to gender. In order to address systemic sexism in the film industry, I’m using charts that graph dialogue spoken by characters listed either as “Male” or “Female,” and I’m using language like “men” and “women” as though there were nothing outside of that binary. It is not my intent to erase you. It is my hope that soon we will experience such a proliferation of non-binary representation that graphs like these become outdated because they don’t include you.

A note to my binary readers: Are you wondering what this “non-binary” thing is all about? Here are some links to resources that will help you understand what it means and why it’s important.

Delilah and Casey hide from teacher-space monsters in a closet

In The Faculty, six teens grapple with angst and aliens at their small town high school. The film was released in 1998, way before smartphones, when movie-teen research happened in makeshift garage labs and movie-teen scientific conclusions were drawn from classic works of literature. (#oldmillennial #oregontrailgeneration)

Eighteen years later, women are shattering glass ceilings all over the place, but men still talk way more than women, at work and in films. From a Time article titled “Why Women Talk Less Than Men at Work” published last month:

“Study after study has shown that women are interrupted (by both genders) more than men; that men speak significantly more in meetings than women do (one study found they account for 75% of conversation); that even when women speak less they are perceived to have spoken more…”

Here’s how this all plays out in the dialogue breakdown of high-grossing, blockbuster films:

Polygraph - Film Dialogue Broken Down by Gender and Age

Data courtesy of Polygraph — click here to visit the site and explore their data.
I’ve made slight modifications to my screenshot of Polygraph’s site for clarity.

Like the Bechdel Test, Polygraph’s analysis brings beautiful, cold, hard data to aid in discussions about representations of gender in popular culture. It isn’t surprising to look at this data and see how much men obviously dominate film dialogue, but boy is it depressing. So how do we fight against it?

Enter the space monsters.

A quick glance at The Faculty might lead you to believe that male characters speak the majority of lines in the film. Here are three reasons why:

The Faculty Movie Posters

  1. The Faculty’s key creators are men: director, Robert Rodriguez; story, David Wechter and Bruce Kimmel; screenplay, Kevin Williamson.
  2. The cover of the DVD and the movie poster both feature male characters most prominently.
  3. There isn’t much dialogue in the trailer, but the three people who speak are all men. (A woman gets to scream, though! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAREPRESENTATIONAAAAAA!!!!)

 

All signs point to a film made by men, for men. (Of course, ostensibly the film was made for all genders. Thank you, patriarchy!)

But look at where The Faculty lives on this graph:

Polygraph - Film Dialogue Broken Down by Gender - The Faculty Dialogue

I’ve made slight modifications to my screenshot of Polygraph’s site for clarity.

How did these male filmmakers make a movie marketed to men full of female characters who actually get the majority of the dialogue?

I’m about to crack the code and share the secret — are you ready to become enlightened? Here’s how they did it:

They included female characters and gave them lines.

WHAT.

Yes, it’s that simple.

There’s a scene in the film where the teens are wondering why on earth aliens would be on earth in their little town in Ohio:

Stan (mocking): Alright Casey… let’s go alien for a second… Why here? Why Ohio?

Casey: If you were going to take over the world, would you blow up the White
House, Independence Day style, or sneak in through the back door?

Women don’t speak in The Faculty’s trailer and aren’t featured prominently in the movie’s promotional materials – instead, they sneak in through the film’s back door.

Am I arguing that we should purposefully exclude women from promotional materials to “trick” men into watching films filled with ladies? Absolutely not. But in 1998, women couldn’t blow up the cinematic White House, Ghostbusters 2016 style.

Ghostbusters reboot

And let’s face it, it’s 2016 and this happened…

In a perfect world, men would never fall prey to the mindset that if a story is about women then it is exclusively for women, but they still do. And they’re still being raised to do so. One tactic to combat the disparity in women’s representation in films is to make like a parasitic alien and get sneaky.

How do women infiltrate this movie? The Faculty makes it look easy.

First of all, there are lots of great lady side characters: Salma Hayek as Nurse Harper, Bebe Neuwirth as Principal Drake, Famke Janssen as Ms. Burke, Piper Laurie as Mrs. Olson.

Women of the Faculty

Then, of the six main characters, three are women and three are men. And, as an added bonus, the women aren’t damsels in distress – they are afforded agency and impact on the film’s plot.

Delilah (Jordana Brewster) is confident and competent and takes no shit:

Delilah

Stokely (Clea DuVall) is intelligent and insightful and brave:

Stokely

Stokely also takes no shit

Mary Beth Louise Hutchinson (Laura Harris) is charismatic to the max and also the powerful evil space alien intent on taking over the planet:

Mary Beth

Ah yes, Mary Beth Louise Hutchinson. We’ve talked about gender and dialogue, now let’s get to the naked space alien.

Some might argue that this is yet another needlessly exploitative display of the female body in film, perpetuated by yet another group of male filmmakers. And those who would argue this are not wrong – women’s bodies are exploited pretty much everywhere and all the time.

But here’s why I dig Mary Beth’s naked alien scene. Naked women in horror films are often victims of horrible atrocities. This time it’s the naked woman who wields all the terrifying power. When tough-guy Zeke first sees her in the locker room walking around naked, the teenage boy is not filled with lust, but with fear. You can hear the horror in his voice when he asks, “Mary Beth…why are you naked?”

Her nudity is terrifying: her nakedness is out of place; she is out of place – she is a powerful and dangerous adversary. And even though ultimately she morphs into a giant worm-blob and Casey smashes her with gym bleachers, this moment — the scary naked woman moment — is a subversion I always enjoy.

Despite all of the above, The Faculty is not perfect. Here are a few issues:

Lack of Diversity: The DVD and poster might lead you to believe that Usher is the only character of color in the film. Other than Salma Hayek, this is pretty much true. This movie is full of white people. White people space aliens.

Don’t invest time in this movie if you are looking for characters of color, characters with disabilities, or queer characters. (Stokely is briefly identified as a lesbian, but it turns out she’s faking it to make people stay away from her, so…)

Yucky Masculinity: The film suffers from some pretty standard icky representations of men. It glorifies the asshole with a heart of gold (Zeke loves science!) and romanticizes the Nice Guy ™ (Casey loves Delilah!).

Zeke and Casey

Plus What’s With the Ending? I can’t wrap my head around it. Everyone is coupled up all happily and heterosexually, like it’s the end of a Shakespeare comedy and time for everyone to get married. Zeke is on the football team? He and Ms. Burke are a… couple? Stokely is wearing lavender?!

Maybe the message is that only when you defeat naked parasitic space aliens will you achieve self-actualization. But part of me wants to believe that there’s something more sinister going on here. Does the teens’ conformity to societal norms mirror the conformity of those infected by aliens? Are socio-cultural expectations the true mind-controlling parasite?

Probably not.

Anyway, here’s my conclusion: The Faculty isn’t a feminist masterpiece, but it proves that it is possible for men sell a film to a male audience and fill it full of women who get to take up time and space. Women should get to take up space. All marginalized people should get to take up space.

We need to pay attention to who gets to speak, and how often they speak, and for how long. We need to be cognizant of the disproportionate allocation of dialogue to men and to women, to white people and to people of color, to the privileged and the oppressed. We need to make space for all minority groups, on our movie screens and at our places of employment. We can’t do that if we don’t pay attention to who gets to speak.


Mychael Elaine is a Bitch Flicks staff writer and writes about representations of gender in horror films at Vagina Dentwata