Motherhood in Film & Television: The Roundup

Here are the pieces for our series on Motherhood in Film and Television–all in one place! Thanks so much to all the writers who contributed reviews.

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Nine Months Forward, Three Centuries Back by Tyler Adams:

Nine Months, contrary to all expectations, is not about pregnancy. It’s about a man coping with a pregnancy. Yes. Here’s a film whose subject absolutely and biologically requires a woman – and it’s still about a man.

However, Nine Months does achieve sex equality of the most dubious sort – it’s insulting to men and women.

In the world of Nine Months, women have already accepted that their value lies primarily in their fecundity and that raising children is the only thing that matters. And now, it’s time for men to learn the same lesson.

Mothers of Anarchy: Power and Control in the Feminine Sphere by Leigh Kolb:

The Mothers of Anarchy, on the surface, have no control. In reality, they have all of the control.

The matriarch “old lady” (the endearing term club members give to their partners) of the California motorcycle club is Gemma (Katey Sagal). She is the Gertrude-inspired character who has married one of the original members of the club, after her husband was killed. Her first husband helped found the Sons of Anarchy motorcycle club after Gemma became pregnant with their son and wanted to settle in Charming, where her parents were from. She may not ride, but her instincts and desires steered the club from its inception. The town’s police chief refers to Gemma as “leaving Charming when she was sixteen and showing up 10 years later with a baby and a biker gang.”

Carrie by Candice Frederick:

On the surface, it’s so easy to criticize Margaret. But there is something so inherently evil yet desperately loving about Laurie’s pitch-perfect performance of the religion-stricken single mother. You know she wants what she thinks is best for her child, like all great mothers do. But she’s too terrified—or terrifying?—to really consider what she’s saying. She wanted Carrie to be God-fearing, like herself. She wanted her to not suffer the tainted feeling of self-disgust with which she was burdened every day. In essence, she wanted her daughter’s life to be better than her own, by not making the same mistakes she did.
But when Mrs. White saw her daughter developing breasts and getting her period, and even receiving interest to attend the prom, her maternal preference overwhelmed her. She had to intervene before her Carrie ended up shameful, deflowered and ungodly like she had become. It was imperative.

Three Generations of Mothering on The Gilmore Girls by Megan Ryland:

For me, no television mother springs to mind faster than Lorelai Gilmore of the long running show The Gilmore Girls. In fact, what is arguably so special about the show is that it offers a popular mainstream venue to focus on mothering, and especially the challenges of mother/daughter relationships. Of course mothers are a constant feature in the media (how else would mothers know how to behave!?) but teenagers are rarely depicted as having a positive relationship with their mother. Rory and Lorelai have a tight bond that remains the central focus of the show despite relationship drama for both mother and daughter. They also bring in the dual roles of mother and daughter when Lorelai interacts with her own mother, Emily.

Rosemary’s Baby by Erin Fenner:

Rosemary’s Baby, the Roman Polanski 1968 adaptation of the novel with the same name, uses minimal effects. While it is a horror story about the mother of Satan’s child, we only briefly glimpse the arm and eyes of the feature’s supposed monster. And, while the plot against Rosemary is conceived by a coven of witches, we don’t see bubbling potions. That is because Rosemary’s Baby is not a horror story about Satan or witchcraft.
Rosemary’s Baby is a horror story about being a woman.
Rosemary, played by the waifish Mia Farrow, is a young woman excited for her role as wife and soon-to-be mother. But, even in her acceptance and celebration of traditional gender roles she is exploited, robbed of autonomy, discounted as hysterical and ultimately must give up all control of herself and her body.
Sound familiar? That’s because her terrors are real ones with just a dash of supernatural motivations.

The Evolution of Margaret White by Carrie Nelson:

I saw the 1976 version of Carrie for the first time nearly five years ago, and it wasn’t until recently that I realized what doesn’t work for me about Laurie’s performance – it’s entirely one-dimensional. It’s cartoonish, even. It’s hard to be frightened by Laurie’s Margaret when she seems so unlike any mother who could realistically exist. But that isn’t how the character has to be. I thought about this in March, when I saw the MCC Theater’s Off-Broadway revival of the Carrie musical. Now, I did not see the original version of the musical, which opened on Broadway in 1988 and closed after only five performances, making it one of the biggest Broadway flops of all time. I cannot speak to that version, but I can speak to the heavily revised revival, in which Marin Mazzie played an unnervingly sympathetic version of Margaret. Though the story is the same, and Margaret is still deeply disturbed and abusive, there is a greater emphasis on Margaret’s inner struggle and the reality that she truly wants to help her daughter. In the second act, Margaret sings, “When There’s No One,” a moving ballad that reveals her intention to murder her daughter and the despair she feels about that decision. Rather than solely seeing Margaret’s evil and rage, in this version we see her rationalization. We see a fully developed character, a person who truly believes she is making the right decision, which makes the decision even more horrifying. There is nothing cartoonish about Mazzie’s Margaret, which made her far more terrifying than Laurie’s Margaret ever could be.

Sherrybaby by Gabriella Apicella:

What is so extraordinary about “Sherrybaby” is the main character is so completely rounded and real that she bursts free from the predictable constraints imposed by stereotypes. The film follows Sherry Swanson, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, as she tries to reconnect with her daughter after being released from prison. Yet although this provides the main motivation for virtually everything she does in the film, writer and director Laurie Collyer has brought to the screen a female character who is not just a passionate mother, not just a recovering addict, not just a victim of abuse, not just a sexually confident woman, not just a sweet primary school teacher, but ALL of these things. 

Spawning the World: Motherhood in Game of Thrones by Rachel Redfern:

Game of Thrones is the buzzword for this season’s TV community: the backbiting, the plotting, the violence, the sex (which everyone is discussing). What horrific plot twist will the Lannisters think of next, we wonder out loud?
So I won’t really talk about those things, because to my mind, those aspects of the show have been reviewed by dozens of worthy reviewers: The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Mary Sue and Bitch Flicks, just to name a few. (If you’re not really sure of the plot or premise of the movie, you should definitely Wikipedia it, as I’m not really going to talk about that here, considering that so many other reviewers and websites have already provided a synopsis for it.)
One of the aspects that struck me in the show though, is the portrayal of motherhood. Far from being absent or swept to the side, the film’s mothers are a driving force in the plot development and are some of the most multi-dimensional of the series (credit has to be given to the actresses who play them).
There are thee instances of motherhood being portrayed here: Cercei and Lady Arryn’s obsessive, spoiling, “my child is a god” kind of motherhood, Lady Stark’s “good mom” style, and lastly, the Dothraki queen Daenerys Targaryen’s pregnancy where she is worshipped by her people.

Phoebe in Wonderland by Stephanie Rogers:

The caretaker role falls exclusively to Hillary. She’s a stay-at-home mom trying to write a book while also attempting to care for two young daughters. While her struggle to play The Good Mom definitely lends sympathy to her character—I mean, honestly, what the hell is a good mom?—I couldn’t help but despise her selfishness and blatant disregard for Phoebe’s needs. Even though both parents decide to (finally) get Phoebe into therapy, it’s Hillary who refuses to accept the doctor’s diagnosis, even going so far as to remove Phoebe from therapy, deliberately hiding the diagnosis from her husband.

The problem here, and where the movie most succeeds, is that Hillary feels alone as a parent. She believes that her children’s struggles will ultimately reflect poorly on her as The Good Mom, and she even says at one point that she doesn’t want her daughter to be “less than.” Obviously, we live in a society that mandates the over-the-top importance of living up to an unattainable standard of proper mothering (see: any celebrity mother and the scrutiny she faces, with barely a mention of celebrity fathers), and Hillary definitely effectively represents that unattainable standard.

The Great Lie by Erin Blackwell:

There are two scenes in The Great Lie that made an indelible impression on my teenage psyche. One involves crossdressing, the other involves food, and both express the anxiety attached to giving birth and the difficulties modern women have integrating this biological imperative into an otherwise blithely artificial lifestyle. But mostly, these two scenes depict powerful moments of emotional intimacy between women in which conventional gender roles go out the window. 

Laurie Petrie of The Dick Van Dyke Show by Caitlin Moran:

Laura and Rob Petrie had one child together, a son named Richie. Because Richie is in elementary school for the whole of the show, Laura’s role as a mother focuses on the challenges of raising a small child. She worries that he might be sick when he refuses a cupcake, and helps Rob explain why Richie’s middle name is Rosebud. (It’s an acronym for the names that their parents and grandparents suggested for the baby. Unsurprisingly, that was Rob’s idea.) In the episode “Girls Will Be Boys,” Richie comes home from school three days in a row with bruises on his face, and admits that a girl has been beating him up. After Rob’s visit to the suspected lady bully’s father turns up empty, Laura goes to the child’s house to get to the bottom of the strange beatings. After the girl’s mother insults and dismisses her, Laura refuses to leave until she’s said her piece. “You may not be the rudest person I’ve ever met,” she declares with her trademark quiver, “but you are certainly in the top two.” Door slam, and our girl storms off with the moral high ground and not a hair out of place in her perfect coif.

Absent Mothers in Urban Fantasy by Paul and Renee

Just because Urban Fantasy is largely produced by women and consumed by women does not mean that it is free of sexism and misogyny. When it comes to motherhood, a role that most women will one day assume, it is hardly surprising that within the genre most examples are highly problematic —  when they appear at all. 
The lack of representation of motherhood is so extreme that the viewer is forced to ask is, “where are the mothers?”. It seems like such an odd question, because you’d expect most characters, like most people, to have a mother lurking around somewhere; especially since most of the heroines in these stories are young women or even teenagers. Search as we might, the mothers are conspicuous by their absence.

Being a Good Mother in Gilmore Girls by Friederike Wunschik:

Lorelai Gilmore is certainly depicted as a non-conventional mother. She has been described as a “disgraced Connecticut Brahmin teen heiress who flees prep school to keep and raise her now teen-aged daughter while estranged from her own parents” (Jennifer Crusie, Coffee at Luke’s, p. 174). But she is not the only mother in the series. Gilmore Girls spends a surprisingly large amount of time focusing on mother-characters, some of which are shown more often and more in-depth than others.

Hey, Let’s Do Some Mommy Issues! (Babies Not Required) by Glosswitch:

The thing is, I wouldn’t mind if characters like Rachel and Catherine were just like all the other characters – ridiculously gorgeous and ace at their jobs, yet somehow flawed and kooky at the same time – while also being mommies, albeit ones whose lives aren’t that much impinged on by having a child. I wouldn’t mind that. It’s just that Rachel and Catherine seem to have MOMMY tattooed in big letters across their botoxed foreheads. You can almost hear the sound of scriptwriters patting themselves on the back. “Hey guys, relax! We’ve done the “mommy issues” bit! Now let’s send everyone off to Central Perk.” This creates an environment in which it no longer seems legitimate to assert that motherhood still doesn’t really exist as a theme in our TV programmes. But by and large it doesn’t. You wouldn’t have to do much. You don’t literally have to show shitty diapers or a woman crying her eyes out at 3am with engorged breasts and a howling newborn. It’s just the little things. Perhaps you have women who aren’t able to go to the bar with colleagues at the drop of a hat. Women who don’t always have childcare issues magically resolved by a grumpy ex who’s half new man, half self-pitying passive aggressive bully. Women who work part-time. Women who are, most of the time, in the company of children, not for one “doing the issues” childcare episode, but all the time. You can still have humor and drama in that. Let’s face it, children can be total lunatics; there’s loads of humor and drama in that.

Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias, Step Mom, and Erin Brockovich by Allison Heard:

Steel Magnolias shows the undying love of mothers and daughters through disagreements, tragedy and happiness. Shelby exemplifies the young woman desiring to become a mother despite unruly and unpredictable circumstances. Her choice to bear children despite her physical limitations shows that all she wanted was motherhood, despite the cost. M’Lynn exemplifies the experienced mother who only wants to protect her daughter from harm. Both Shelby and M’Lynn make the ultimate sacrifice for motherhood, that being a kidney and a life.

Mother by Tatiana Christian:

This quote ultimately summarizes my experience with MOTHER – a film about a mother willing to do whatever it takes to save her child. In many American films, mothers are often portrayed as deranged (such as the biopic Mommy Dearest) or some kind of superhero (based entirely on tropes) mom who does everything for everyone else but nothing for herself (such as I Don’t Know How She Does It, starring Sarah Jessica Parker).

Is Terminator‘s Sarah Connor an Allegory for Single Mothers? by Megan Kearns:

As kickass as she is, Sarah possesses no other identity beyond motherhood. She exists solely to protect her John from assassination or humanity will be wiped out. Every decision, every choice she makes, is to protect her son. In Sarah Connor Chronicles, Cameron tells Sarah that “Without John, your life has no purpose.” Sarah tells her ex-fiancé that she’s not trying to change her fate but change John’s. Even before she becomes a mother in Terminator, her identity is tied to her uterus and her capacity for motherhood.

Now, I realize she’s saving the world, trying to keep her son alive and stop a cyborg onslaught. But the underlying theme — motherhood must consume women — is troublesome. Mothers don’t have to squelch their desires and sacrifice their identity and entire lives in order to be a “good” mother.

The Authentic Portrayal of Mother-Daughter Relationships in Future Weather by Stephanie Rogers:

I recently saw the film Future Weather at the Tribeca Film Festival and was blown away by the honest portrayal of motherhood onscreen. The film captures the ups and downs characteristic of mother-daughter relationships and does so without simplifying the women or relegating them to either/or binaries; there is no exclusively Good Mom or Bad Mom in this film. Not only is it nearly unheard of in films today to watch women interact with one another in ways that don’t involve men, but in typical feature films showcasing mother-daughter relationships, audiences are often subjected to a litany of unrealistic absolutes: Good Moms always love and nurture their daughters, sacrificing their entire adult existences and maintaining some virgin-esque purity while doing so; yet Bad Moms ruin their daughters’ lives through manipulation, neglect, or—conversely—smothering and over-protection, to the point that the audience labels these mothers nothing more than villains—usually mentally unstable villains—with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

But Future Weather avoids these clichés. The women in this film lead hard, complex lives. We know these women. We live with these women. Their interactions remind of us our own multifaceted mother-daughter relationships. And, fortunately—while they’re sometimes messy and often difficult to watch—the women in Future Weather aren’t treated as tropes to merely move a plot forward (no dead ladies/moms for dudes to avenge the deaths of!), and the filmmakers spare the audience from two hours of that cringe-worthy, all-too-familiar “lone woman among a group of complex, likeably awful men” thing. 

Motherhood in Film & Television: The Authentic Portrayal of Mother-Daughter Relationships in ‘Future Weather’

Movie poster for Future Weather

I recently saw the film Future Weather at the Tribeca Film Festival and was blown away by the honest portrayal of motherhood onscreen. The film captures the ups and downs characteristic of mother-daughter relationships and does so without simplifying the women or relegating them to either/or binaries; there is no exclusively Good Mom or Bad Mom in this film. Not only is it nearly unheard of in films today to watch women interact with one another in ways that don’t involve men, but in typical feature films showcasing mother-daughter relationships, audiences are often subjected to a litany of unrealistic absolutes: Good Moms always love and nurture their daughters, sacrificing their entire adult existences and maintaining some virgin-esque purity while doing so; yet Bad Moms ruin their daughters’ lives through manipulation, neglect, or—conversely—smothering and over-protection, to the point that the audience labels these mothers nothing more than villains—usually mentally unstable villains—with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

But Future Weather avoids these clichés. The women in this film lead hard, complex lives. We know these women. We live with these women. Their interactions remind of us our own multifaceted mother-daughter relationships. And, fortunately—while they’re sometimes messy and often difficult to watch—the women in Future Weather aren’t treated as tropes to merely move a plot forward (no dead ladies/moms for dudes to avenge the deaths of!), and the filmmakers spare the audience from two hours of that cringe-worthy, all-too-familiar “lone woman among a group of complex, likeably awful men” thing.

Here is an excerpt from writer/director/producer Jenny Deller’s summary of the film on imdb:
Thirteen-year-old Laduree lives in a trailer tucked away on a beautiful piece of land in rural America. A loner who takes refuge in nature, she’s grown up looking after her mother [Tanya] as she wanders between men and jobs. A few weeks into the 8th grade, Laduree returns home to find a note in the breadbox with a fifty-dollar bill—her mother has taken off to pursue her life-long dream of becoming a make-up artist for the stars. … Laduree reluctantly begins life at her grandmother’s [in] a small house in town where her mother grew up. … As the two struggle to deal with Tanya’s disappearance, they tiptoe toward each other and apart, finding fragile moments of connection and release amid a glut of lies, omissions, and miscommunications. …

Perla Haney-Jardine plays Laduree (called “Ray” for short) brilliantly. Future Weather is a coming-of-age tale, and Ray’s relationship with her absent mother, Tanya (played by Marin Ireland), never feels false; I attribute that to Jardine’s stunning performance in the role. Ray always keeps her guard up, but underneath her feigned tough exterior lies a wounded child who, like many of us, had to take on adult responsibilities at a young age and never experienced the love she needed from her mother. And while Ray’s mother Tanya enjoys traditionally feminine things like experimenting with makeup—she abandons Ray to move to California to become a makeup artist, after all—Ray loves science, a traditionally male pursuit. She’s a tomboy who likes the earth, particularly plant-life, likes getting dirty, and likes swimming in lakes. These differing interests further separate mother and daughter, and neither knows quite how to relate to the other, though it isn’t for lack of trying.

Perla Haney-Jardine as Laduree and Amy Madigan as Greta in Future Weather

In several quiet scenes, often with no dialogue, the director Jenny Deller illustrates this disconnect perfectly, with Ray unsuccessfully trying to show Tanya her scientific discoveries and Tanya trying to bond with her daughter by giving her a makeover. I love this juxtaposition so much. For one, Ray’s love of science works as a metaphor throughout the film. Ray studies plants in her yard, and when she moves to her grandmother’s house, she must uproot her plants (which she’s named and everything) and physically move them to another home. She worries it will kill them, and that speaks to Ray’s own emotional turmoil in being forced to leave the only home she’s ever known. Ray essentially “mothers” (i.e. nurtures) her plants and loves them in a way she doesn’t feel loved by her own mother. 

Basically, since Ray can’t control her home life, which is utterly chaotic, or navigate her grown-up emotions surrounding Tanya’s abandonment, she focuses on the earth and science (a field driven by absolutes and logic), and immerses herself in finding ways to fix what she sees as the failure of humans to take care of—and nurture—their home.
Perla Haney-Jardine as Laduree in Future Weather

One of the criticisms I’ve read repeatedly about Future Weather is that the film includes too much eco-dialogue. Nope! Sure, Ray speaks passionately about the environment throughout, and in another film, one not directed by a woman who understands subtext, perhaps, (how is this Deller’s first film?!), the eco-dialogue critique might make sense. But in this film, particularly in the scene in which Ray flips out on an entire neighborhood of people about littering, excessive purchasing of water bottles, and not caring about the earth in general, the subtext is absolutely clear: people who possess the ability to care for living creatures also possess the responsibility to do so—to nurture and care for the planet because the planet takes care of us, the way mothers, daughters, and families should take care of one another.

Motherhood, specifically the act of mothering, is presented as a layered and complicated job in Future Weather.

Lili Taylor as Ms. Markovi in Future Weather

We see more evidence of this in Ray’s relationship with her science teacher Ms. Markovi (played by Lili Taylor). Ray connects with her for obvious reasons: she sees herself in Ms. Markovi, another female who loves science (gasp!), and she also sees Ms. Markovi as a stand-in mother, someone who understands her and nurtures her interests in ways both Tanya and her grandmother, Greta (played by Amy Madigan), struggle to do effectively. There are reasons for that struggle. Greta, one of my new, absolute favorite onscreen women ever, is fucking tough. She gave birth to Tanya at a young age and raised her alone, and Tanya replicated her mother’s life with Ray.

And guess what? Single motherhood is hard; the film shows us that.

It shows the hardships—and consequences—of trying to raise a child while struggling financially, getting no real support from the man who, you know, helped create the child, and hearing the constant message from society that mothers cease to exist as individuals once they have children. Forget it, moms. Any dreams or life goals you hoped to achieve once—put them on the backburner for a few decades. (Hint: society spares dads that message.)

I won’t give anything else away about the film, as it’s still screening at festivals and waiting for a distributor. (Someone pick up this film!)

But in the end, unlike so many movies about motherhood, Future Weather doesn’t condemn or vilify mothers, or even praise them. It illustrates the difficulties of motherhood, particularly for single moms. Deller, thankfully, doesn’t shy away from showing us the realities—and occasional horrors (ha)—inherent in mother-daughter relationships. We may question the decisions these mothers make, but they’re questioning themselves throughout, too.

The cast and director of Future Weather

Motherhood in Film & Television: Sherrybaby

Maggie Gyllenhall in Sherrybaby

This is a guest review by Gabriella Apicella.
In all areas of our lives, women are neatly packaged into stereotypes that strip us of complexity and personality. Dating back to the original typecasting of Virgin vs Whore, there are other labels that fall along the same trajectory, just as inadequate and inaccurate: Wife, Mother, Slut, Gold-digger, Victim, House-wife, Lesbian, Office Bitch, etc. All of these unhelpful words have been embodied by countless depictions in film, from “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” to “The Devil Wears Prada,” to “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.” So much so, that there appear to be very defined ideas in society of how any one of these characters may or may not behave.

What is so extraordinary about “Sherrybaby” is the main character is so completely rounded and real that she bursts free from the predictable constraints imposed by stereotypes. The film follows Sherry Swanson, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, as she tries to reconnect with her daughter after being released from prison. Yet although this provides the main motivation for virtually everything she does in the film, writer and director Laurie Collyer has brought to the screen a female character who is not just a passionate mother, not just a recovering addict, not just a victim of abuse, not just a sexually confident woman, not just a sweet primary school teacher, but ALL of these things.
Maggie Gyllenhaal in Sherrybaby
Even within my own circle of friends I have had conversations where they have expressed concern about how they should or should not behave now that they have become mothers. This revered state of Motherhood has them calling into question how much they should now drink, have sex, enjoy their careers: clearly something is very wrong if women are feeling that they are not free to be themselves, because they have become a mother. Other friends have confided to losing close friends since having a child – as if they are perceived as not even being the same person anymore!

Flaws within a mother are almost inexcusable by society: how dare they drink, have sex, work, put anyone but their child first 24 hours a day every day for the rest of their lives! Film and society at large have both upheld this unattainable expectation of virtuous behaviour, giving transgressors the harshest of punishments. In film “bad mothers” tend to end up dead, alone or insane, whereas the rates of women being imprisoned is climbing at an extraordinary rate, with nearly two-thirds of the prison population being mothers.
Director Laurie Collyer with Maggie Gyllenhaal
 
Watching the painstaking journey Sherry Swanson takes in “Sherrybaby” is almost unbearably moving at times. Her resolve to be with her child is steadfast throughout, yet as she makes attempts to reconnect with her, the audience is also shown the different sides to her personality; sexual, troubled, playful, over-sensitive, kind, immature, ruthless, Gyllenhaal’s performance is nuanced and raw.
Whilst she explodes into a violent rage at one of the bullying women harassing her in a halfway-house, she maintains her composure and diplomacy with the far more painful handling of a conversation with her sister-in-law, who has instructed Sherry’s daughter to call her Sherry instead of “Mom.” When her child Alexis appears to be scared of her, and is reluctant to spend a day with her, Sherry never loses her patience, and only displays love and tenderness to the child; entirely at odds with her declaration at an interview “I’ll suck your dick if you give me the job I want.”
Director of Sherrybaby, Laurie Collyer
 
There is no straightforward way to describe this character, as all the contrasting facets of Sherry’s personality are evident, and yet she remains consistent. Perhaps this has been the quandary of filmmakers, and the reason for stereotypes: how is it possible to reconcile so many different characteristics into one person? So “Moms” (and let’s face it, Women) are wholesome and good, or crazy and bad. But people are multi-faceted, as are Moms, and the sensationally real depiction of Sherry by Laurie Collyer demonstrates expertly that there is no need for the two-dimensional predictability we are used to from female roles.

Without using over-egged sentimentality, Collyer even affords Sherry the possibility of happiness, showing that despite her drug-taking, sexual misadventures and lack of parenting skills, she deserves a second chance. This compassion is certainly missing from film depictions of women, and is all too often missing from wider society also. Both must change so that women may smash through the stereotypes.
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Gabriella Apicella is a feminist writer and tutor living in London, England. She has a degree in Film and Media from Birkbeck College, University of London, is on the board of Script Development organisation Euroscript, and in 2010 co-founded the UnderWire Festival that aims to recognise the raw filmmaking talent of women. Her writing features women in the central roles, and she has been commissioned to write short films, experimental theatre and prose for independent directors and artists.

Movie Review: How ‘Vamps’ Showcases the Importance of Women Friendships

Movie poster for Vamps
Vamps, the new indie film directed by Amy Heckerling and starring Alicia Silverstone and Krysten Ritter (the upcoming star of the TV show Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23) takes the vampire genre and turns it into a fun, feminist celebration of youth culture and female friendship. The film is part spoof of the recent onslaught of vampire fare, part romantic comedy, part buddy movie—with women!—part history documentary, with some astute political commentary thrown in, and, ultimately, a film about aging, which pays particular attention to the struggles women face within a culture that values youth and beauty above all else.

Jason Buchanan on Rotten Tomatoes effectively captures the plot as follows: “Radiant New York City vampires Goody (Alicia Silverstone) and Stacy (Krysten Ritter) find their immortality in question after learning that love can still smolder in the realm of the undead. Meanwhile, Russian bloodsucker Vadim (Justin Kirk) prowls the streets in search of the next big thrill, and Dr. Van Helsing (Wallace Shawn) seeks to exterminate the creatures of the night as young Joey Van Helsing develops an unusual fixation on Stacy. As ravenous ‘stem’ vampire Ciccerus (Sigourney Weaver) presides over her dark dynasty with the help of her loyal assistant Ivan (Todd Barry), oddball Renfield (Zak Orth) strives to impress Stacy and Goody by any means necessary. Amidst all of the bloodshed and intrigue, nefarious vampire Vlad (Malcolm McDowell) works to perfect his knitting skills.” 


Alicia Silverstone as Goody and Krysten Ritter as Stacy in Vamps
It’s a fun cast of characters for sure, but Silverstone and Ritter shine as the main (women) characters. And for once there’s almost no reason to discuss The Bechdel Test; these two ladies barely talk about men for the first half of the film. Instead, we get to see them playing practical jokes on each other, hanging out in their shared apartment (often texting back and forth while inside their two side-by-side coffins), discussing their fashion choices—which is hilarious, as they struggle to make sure they’re fitting in with the latest 2012 trends (Stacy was first turned into a vampire in the 80s, and Goody lived all the way through the 1800s)—and generally looking out for each other and even (gasp) looking out for other women.

[SPOILER] Case in point: one of my absolute favorite scenes in the film happens early on, when Goody and Stacy head out for their nighttime ritual of club-hopping and imitating the new dance moves of the local youth “Day Walkers” (the term they use to refer to The Living among them). A couple of particularly horrible dude vampires approaches a woman after she bends over, ass in the air, with the word “Juicy” written on her tight pants. The dude vamps merely introduce themselves to her, to which she responds, “I’ll get my coat.” Goody chastises the horrible dude vampires—Goody and Stacy drink only the blood of rodents, not humans—and the dudes respond with, “She’s asking for it,” referring to her “Juicy” attire. It’s a pretty fucking great commentary on the victim-blaming that always accompanies any instance of the rape or sexual assault of women


Stacy and Goody on the computer
Goody walks over to the woman with the goal of getting her to stay away from the vampires, but she ultimately ends up hypnotizing her; in this film, vampires have the power to erase the memories of Day Walkers. At first Goody says something to the woman (paraphrasing), “Listen, you don’t want to leave with them. They’re really bad guys.” The woman says, “I like bad guys.” Goody begins hypnotizing her, repeating, “No, I like nice guys.” The woman walks away, passing the horrible dude vampires, while saying, “I like nice guys. I like guys who listen to me when I say things.” (I laughed out loud at that.)

This scene makes me so happy for a couple of reasons. First, a woman intervening to help another woman avoid getting killed by two horrible dude vampires—an obvious metaphor for rape in this scene, rarely happens in movies. How lovely to see that! Because women looking out for their friends certainly happens in real life—first-hand experience! Second, while I don’t necessarily like the implication that women always go for Bad Boys, I appreciate the acknowledgment that bros like this, who want to harm, abuse, and assault women, definitely exist. 


Stacy, Goody, and Sigourney Weaver as Cisserus in Vamps
Also, get this: I turned 33 six months ago. I still have my crappy 35-dollar Blackberry that my sister’s dog spent an hour chewing on. (There are bite marks on the fucking battery.) Let me just say, I could relate to the commentary about youth culture in this film. Heckerling makes wonderful observations about technology, with constant mentions of Twitter, Facebook, texting (there’s a funny reference to someone being in a “textual relationship” due to lack of real-life communication), and other technological stuff I’m probably forgetting because I don’t know what it is. While the film definitely celebrates youth culture, especially in its appreciation of women’s fashion (which reminded me so much of Heckerling’s famous film Clueless), it also juxtaposes that celebration with a critique of the value our society places on youth. That theme comes into play throughout the film, but the focus on women and aging sharpens with the introduction of the head vampire in charge.

Two words: Sigourney Weaver. Do we not adore her? The Alien films, mainly due to Weaver’s badass role as Ellen Ripley, remain one of the quintessential go-to franchises for getting that much-needed feminist fix that Hollywood movies today seem less willing to provide. (Quick shout out to Hunger Games, though!) And Weaver’s role in Vamps as Cisserus, the head vampire, or “Stem,” as they refer to the few vampires who possess the power to turn people into vampires, displays some feminist qualities—strength, leadership, and ambition, to name a few—but her character isn’t without flaws.

While the other vamps fear Weaver’s character—because she’s In Charge—they mainly fear her because she’s the evil, murderous villain. She obsesses over acquiring the love of young men, and when she doesn’t get it, well, you know, she eats them. In many ways, she reminds me of a vampiric version of Miranda Priestly, Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada. She often summons Goody and Stacy (by psychically speaking to them), and it’s almost always to make them model clothing. (Ha!) See, vampires can’t see themselves in mirrors (invisible!), so Weaver wants to look at these women wearing her very youthful, fashionable clothing so that she can visualize what it possibly looks like on her. Eventually though, Cisserus’ power goes so far to her head that she begins putting the other vampires in danger, and the tagline for the last act of the film basically becomes “This Bitch Needs to Die.” 


Vampires hanging out at the club
A woman-in-charge who becomes an evil, power-hungry bitch who ruins lives? Where have I seen that before? (Clue: EVERYWHERE.) I did get the sense from Vamps, though, that it’s making light of that trope rather than relishing in it, and casting feminist film icon Weaver in that role further pushes it toward satire. An interview with Weaver in Collider sheds a bit more light on that:
Collider: What made you decide to jump into the vampire genre with Vamps?

Weaver: Well, I’m a big Amy Heckerling fan, and I also loved the character. She was so unrepentant … I love playing delicious, evil parts like that.

Collider: How does your character fit into the story?

Weaver: She is the person who turned the girls into vampires. So, they have to do her bidding, and she’s very unreasonable and demanding. I would have to say that the one change I made was that I thought she was not really enjoying herself very much, in the original script. I thought, “What’s not to enjoy?” She’s 2,000 years old, she can have anything, she can have anyone, she can do what she wants, so I wanted her to be totally in-the-moment. So, I talked to Amy about it and she just evolved that way. She’s a really happy vampire. She digs it.

(I have to admit, I can kind of get behind a woman—vampire or not—saying, “Fuck it; I own this town.”)
Most of the descriptions and plot summaries I’ve read of Vamps say things like: “Two female vampires in modern-day New York City are faced with daunting romantic possibilities” … (from imdb). True, but not quite. It’s ridiculous to reduce the film to the status of cheesy rom-com because, while both Stacy and Goody somewhat struggle with their hetero-romantic relationships, Vamps ultimately celebrates the friendship and love between the two lead women. (I will say that I have a feminist critique of the ending, but I can’t give it away YET; the movie only recently got picked up by Anchor Bay Films and will be released in theaters around Halloween.)

Stacy and Goody at the club
Overall, it’s pretty significant that I left the theater feeling that this movie—a vampire movie that follows most of the same vampire tropes as all vampire movies—explores something new. It’s also disappointing that I left with that feeling. Because when I thought about it later, I realized what felt so new to me was the depiction of a female friendship that seemed wonderfully authentic. Their dude problems were fairly secondary; their loyalty to each other trumped all other obstacles. Their friendship, in fact, resembled my real-life friendships with women: we don’t fight over men; we don’t sit around endlessly talking about men; we don’t get together and stuff our faces with entire cakes if a man doesn’t call.

That’s why this close relationship between Goody and Stacy is so important to see on The Big Screen in 2012.

In an interview conducted with the director Amy Heckerling by Women and Hollywood, Melissa Silverstein asks the question, “Do you have any comment on the fact that only 5% of movies are directed by women?” Heckerling’s response? “It’s a disgusting industry. I don’t know what else to say. Especially now. I can’t stomach most of the movies about women. I just saw a movie last night—I don’t want to say the name—but again with the fucking wedding, and the only time women say anything is about men.”

Word.

Guest Writer Wednesday: Room In Rome

Elena Anaya and Natasha Yarovenko in Room In Rome

This is a guest review by Djelloul Marbrook.
 
———-

Room In Rome, the Spanish director Julio Medem’s deft pas de deux with Psyche, is everything Hollywood blockbusters are not.

It consists of three people, a street, a hotel room and a piazza in Rome. By comparison, the animated junk of Hollywood’s sacrifices to Mammon seem gross and tasteless.

Two young women played by Spanish actress Elena Anaya and Russian actress Natasha Yarovenko meet one tipsy night in Rome and share a room whose walls are painted with Renaissance themes. The room becomes the alembic in which their lives are transformed. They discover that they are not the personas they wore when they met.

Few more delicate, lyrical films have ever been made. As the tall Russian girl teaches the Spanish engineer to pronounce her name, emphasized the sha in Natasha, our collective memory of Hollywood extravaganzas becomes white noise and motel paintings. All we want to hear and see is Natasha coaching Alba to say her name, as if the future of the world depends on it.

Reviewers have used words like steamy to describe this film, suggesting the prurience of their own minds; the film is like watching a poem being written, a painting being painted. There is no evil here, no villain, no tragedy, just flowers unfolding, honey drawn, Psyche paid her due.

Alba and Natasha have lives to renew. Alba is involved in a good relationship, Natasha is scheduled to be married the following Saturday. They must depart in the morning, they tell each other they must, and in the morning they do, but only for seconds, as Natasha walks away and then rushes back into Alba’s arms.

I have lived 77 years and seen many films, but only a handful so memorable, so affirming of our power to transcend circumstance and the power of chance encounter to transcend our settled notions. Room In Rome is, not least, about freeing ourselves from the captivity of received ideas.

Room In Rome suggests to us the Wagnerian hyperbole of so many Hollywood productions like John Carter, which, for all their pyrotechnics and spectacular animations, lack the fundamental subtlety and nuance that defines our lives. But there are other kinds of hyperbole to which Room In Rome puts the lie. Wild Things, for example, a 1998 noir film which, in spite of a stellar cast and reasonable budget, had so many plot twists that in the last half hour it becomes painfully embarrassing, inviting the viewer to cry, Oh, come on!

Medem understands and Hollywood, for the most part, rejects, that our everyday transactions are filled with drama and suspense. Life, when lived sensitively, really doesn’t need hyperbole. Our characters don’t need to be overdrawn; they’re quite well drawn when we decide to inhabit them. And that is exactly Room In Rome’s point. Two people, observed humorously and with good will by a singing hotel employee, Enrico Lo Verso, decide to inhabit their lives. They decide to live in accordance with their inmost impulses. They decide to listen to the testament of their intuitions, and neither technical improvisations nor authorial twists provide more suspense or excitement.

By dialing down momentous incident Medem achieves more than by pumping up every available aspect of filmmaking. Room In Rome is not so much minimalist as it is refined and true to what the camera is itself witnessing. Under his direction the plot never imposes itself on the true wont of the characters, or at least it never seems to, and this is surely a hallmark of great direction.

The director, cinematographer Alex Catalan, and composer Jocelyn Pook seem at one with each other and the actors, creating a seamless séance of great beauty and affirmation.

———-

Djelloul Marbrook blogs at www.djelloulmarbrook.com and is the author of two books of poetry (Far from Algiers, Kent State; Brushstrokes and Glances, Deerbrook Editions) and three novellas (Artemisia’s Wolf, Saraceno, and Alice Miller’s Room). A retired newspaper editor, he lives in New York with his wife Marilyn. 

Women & Gender at the 2012 Indie Spirit Awards

(L-R): ‘Pariah’ Producer Nekisa Cooper & Writer/Director Dee Rees, winning John Cassavetes Award

So I groaned the moment I discovered Seth Rogen was hosting the Independent Spirit Awards, which aired last Saturday night on IFC. I mean, after his shitshow appearance at the Golden Globes, making that sexual harassment comment to Kate Beckinsale on-stage, I’m all set with him. When announcer director John Waters (yep, you read that right) said he had “an erection just saying his name,” I thought for sure the show would be a sexist bonanza. Luckily, the Spirit Awards were fairly free of sexism and some interesting gender commentaries emerged.

In Rogen’s opening monologue, he humorously deemed actor Michael Shannon “looking creepy” (ha!) but also went on a “dick” tirade dissecting Michael Fassbender’s full frontal nudity in Shame. Rogen talked about how awards shows unveiled director Brett Ratner’s racism and bigotry, all while criticizing the Grammys for exalting a domestic violence abuser. He said:
“I honestly bet though Ratner really wishes he was organizing the Grammys because they seem much more forgiving than the Oscars altogether. Seriously, you say a few hateful things they don’t let you within a few hundred yards of the Oscars. You could literally beat the shit out of a nominee they ask you to perform twice at the Grammys.”

Now, I love, love, love celebs condemning domestic violence abusers like Chris Brown (keep it up Miranda Lambert!). But I’m all set with DV jokes. However, Rogen’s joke was more of a commentary on the utter ridiculousness of the Grammys glorifying Chris Brown (who mind you, is still on probation for another fucking 2 years! Ugh) rather than exploiting survivors.
There were some other great moments in the show, including presenters Kirsten Dunst and Jonah Hill who were surprisingly silly and funny together (hmmm…did somebody have a few too many cocktails??). But my fave quote of the night came when Rogen talked about his love of Albert Nobbs and Glenn Close’s “fucking awesome” performance:
“They say there’s no good roles left for women. Which is bullshit, there is. You just have to play a man.”

An astute observation on the glaring gender disparity in film.

(L-R): Best Supporting Female & Male Winners Shailene Woodley (‘The Descendants’) & Christopher Plummer (‘Beginners’)

In the Best Supporting Female category, the roles consist of a mother of a cancer-stricken son (Angelica Huston, 50/50), a woman living as a man (Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs), a stay-at-home mother whose husband is struggling with demons (Jessica Chastain, Take Shelter), a transgender woman whose father has returned from prison (Harmony Santana, Gun Hill Road), and a young woman whose mother is dying (Shailene Woodley, The Descendants). Both McTeer and winner Woodley gave phenomenal performances.
Of the Best Female Lead nominees, all of the roles featured were in female-focused films. The characters comprise a “poverty stricken” single mother (Lauren Ambrose, Think of Me), a girl who escapes a cult (Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene), a religious woman bonding with her husband’s illegitimate son (Natural Selection), Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn), and a young lesbian African-American woman exploring her sexuality and finding her identity (Adepero Oduye, Pariah). Sadly, Oduye was the only woman of color nominated in this category.

Best Female Lead Winner Michelle Williams (‘My Week with Marilyn’)

When Michelle Williams won, in her endearing acceptance speech, she talked about being an outcast and finding acceptance. She said:


“I first came to the Independent Spirit Awards 10 years ago and I wore my own clothes which were not very good. And I cut my own hair which was also not very good. I remember, I still remember the feeling in this room, unlike others, that was okay. Possibly even preferred. And what I thought then, and still feel now, it’s because this is a room filled with misfits, outcasts, loners, dreamers, mumblers, delinquents, dropouts, just like me!

“I want to say thank you for supporting me and welcoming me and making me feel at home in this room and in this community all the way back then and now, when the only thing that I own that I’m wearing is my dignity.”

Now, I can’t really picture Williams an outcast or delinquent. But I liked that she talked about individuality and acceptance, as well as a commentary on beauty.
So the nominated performances embodied interesting, complex female characters. But what about the screenplays and films nominated? Did they boast women behind the scenes or female-focused films?
In the Best First Feature category, only 1 film, the strangely intriguing and tragic Another Earth featured a female writer or director (actress Britt Marling co-wrote and co-produced). But 3 of the 5 nominees revolved around female protagonists (Another Earth, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Natural Selection). Yet none of these won. As Molly McCaffrey tweeted:
“Margin Call, a movie about a bunch of Wall Street d-bags, beats Another Earth, a movie about a complicated woman #SHOCKING.”

I couldn’t agree more.
Despite illusions that Hollywood is oh so liberal, films usually depict white, straight characters and couples. But several films nominated for Spirit Award contained LGBTQ themes: Pariah, Beginners, Gun Hill Road, In the Family, Circumstance and the documentary We Were Here. Christopher Plummer won Best Supporting Male for his touching performance as a father coming out of the closet at 75 in Beginners and Harmony Santana became the first trans actress to be nominated for a major Hollywood award.
The Oscars completely overlooked THE best film of 2011, Pariah, an exquisitely beautiful film about a young lesbian woman of color asserting her identity. Thankfully, the Spirit Awards didn’t. Awarded to films with budgets of $500,000 or less, Pariah won the John Cassavetes Award! WOO HOO!!! What’s interesting about this category is that it boasted two nominees written and directed by women with plots focusing on lesbians of color (Pariah, Circumstance). Writer/director Dee Rees made me laugh when she said:
“Any Saturday where you get to wear a sparkly hoodie and drink two whiskeys before noon is fucking awesome.”

Right on! Then she thanked the amazing Adepero Oduye and the other Pariah actors:
“It’s about performance above all else.”

Pariah Producer Nekisa Cooper talked at the Athena Film Festival about the importance of supporting “women in front of the camera and behind the camera” because there aren’t enough women in film. Winning the Cassavetes Award, she said:
“It took a village to make this film.”

Aside from Pariah and the gender designated acting categories, where are the women?
Of the Best Screenplay nominees, all were written by men with movies all revolving around men. At least The Artist had Peppy Miller and Best Screenplay winner The Descendants (based on Kaui Hart Hemmings’ novel) had sisters Alex and Scottie. But even those 2 films still revolved around men. Of the Best First Screenplay nominees, only 1 woman, Britt Marling as co-writer (Another Earth), was nominated. But Will Reiser won for 50/50 won.
Sadly, none of the Best Director nominees were women. Even amongst the Best Documentary nominees, only 1 had a female director (Daniele Anastasion, General Butt Naked) and documentaries usually boast more female filmmakers.
The absolute best part of the night was lady duo Garfunkel and Oates. “Comedy folk singers” Riki Lindhome (Garfunkel) and Kate Micucci (Oates) gave a “morbidly funny” tribute to each of the 5 Best Feature nominees. They summed up all of the nominees with:
“You’ve got the spirit of murders, coma, cancer, schizophrenia, cancer, suicide, independence and dreams.”

 Adorbs, quirky, hilarious…just watch. Trust me, you’ll thank me later.
What Garfunkel and Oates didn’t mention is that you could also sum up all the movies like this…men. All the Best Feature nominees revolved around male characters or were told from a male protagonist’s perspective. Now, I really liked Best Feature winner The Artist. I loved that Peppy Miller (Bernice Bejo) was never rescued…she was the harbinger of her own success and destiny. And of course I adored Uggie the Dog (cute overload!). But even The Artist still ultimately revolved around George Valentin…a man’s dreams, a man’s failures, a man’s perspective.
Announcer John Waters ended the Spirit Awards with this command:
“Now go out there and make your damn movie!”

I love this rousing call to action…that anyone can and should follow their dream of making movies. It got me thinking that more women need to create films. They need to write, direct, film, produce and act. Women need to flood the studios with their creations. But the cynic in me couldn’t help but wonder, what’s the point if the films made by women aren’t even making it to theatres and not being awarded with accolades?
I was happy to see the Spirit Awards weren’t bogged down by sexism. But I erroneously assumed they would award more ladies in film, in front of and behind the camera.  I just wish more women, other than the gendered categories, and female-focused films had won. Hollywood, even amongst indie circles, keeps perpetuating the dude machine.

Indie Spirit Best First Feature Nominee: Martha Marcy May Marlene

Martha Marcy May Marlene is nominated for three Independent Spirit Awards: Best First Feature, Best Female Lead (Elizabeth Olson), and Best Supporting Male (John Hawkes). It has received numerous other nominations and awards.
This review, by Carrie Nelson, first appeared at Bitch Flicks on November 17, 2011.


Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)
Martha Marcy May Marlene is a story told in fragments. Interspersed in the narrative are flashbacks, dreams and hallucinations, so it isn’t always clear what events are happening when, and which ones are actually happening at all. But that’s part of the power of the film – the fragments set an uneasy tone, allowing the viewer to easily slip into the mindset of the heroine as her sense of self and reality slowly unravel.
When we meet Martha (Elizabeth Olsen), she is escaping from a cult in the Catskills. Once she contacts and reunites with her sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson), we learn that she has been out of touch with her family (and ostensibly living with the cult) for two years. The film chronicles Martha’s adjustment to life in a wealthy Connecticut suburb with Lucy and her husband Ted (Hugh Dancy), all while Martha privately reflects on the traumatic experiences she’s left behind.
Through flashbacks, we learn that charismatic leader Patrick (John Hawkes) gave Martha the name Marcy May when she first visits his wilderness compound. At first, Patrick’s home seems like a harmless hippie commune, with rotating chore lists, sustainable gardening and guitar sing-alongs. Soon, though, the façade disappears, and Marcy May is stuck in an ongoing cycle of abuse. At the risk of giving too much away, I will say that one of the more disturbing elements of the film is watching Marcy May transform from the abused to the enabler of abuse. She buys into Patrick’s manipulations so easily that by the time she realizes what’s happened, too much damage has already been done.

Call for Writers — UPDATE!

Last week, we put out a call for writers to submit reviews and character analyses of both the Independent Spirit and Oscar nominees in the best picture and acting categories. We’ve gotten a wonderful response, so I want to give up an update on what’s left. 
All submissions must be received no later than Friday, February 10th. Email us at btchflcks(at)gmail(dot)com if you’d like to contribute a review. We accept original pieces or cross-posts.

If you’d like to submit a piece, you can still choose from the following: 

Movies

Circumstance

Hello Lonesome

The Dynamiter

An African Election

Bill Cunningham New York

The Interrupters

The Redemption of General Butt Naked

We Were Here

A Separation

The Kid With a Bike

Tyranno Saur

In the Family

Natural Selection

A Cat in Paris

Chico & Rita

War Horse

Kung Fu Panda 2

Puss in Boots

Rango

Hell and Back Again

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory

Undefeated

Bullhead

Footnote

In Darkness

Monsieur Lazhar

—–

Character Analysis

Jessica Chastain – Take Shelter

Janet McTeer – Albert Nobbs

Harmony Santana – Gun Hill Road

Lauren Ambrose – Think of Me

Rachael Harris – Natural Selection

Adepero Oduye – Pariah

Elizabeth Olson – Martha Marcy May Marlene

Michelle Williams – My Week With Marilyn

Glenn Close – Albert Nobbs

Viola Davis – The Help

Jessica Chastain – The Help

Octavia Spencer – The Help

Ava DuVernay Wins Directing Award at Sundance Film Festival

Ava DuVernay, director of Middle of Nowhere

From Essence Magazine:

Congratulations are in order for filmmaker Ava DuVernay, who over the weekend became the first African American woman to take home the U.S. directing award at the Sundance Film Festival.

DuVernay received the award for her second feature film, “Middle of Nowhere,” which tells the story of a young woman who struggles to maintain her identity while her husband serves an eight-year prison sentence.

YES!
Here’s a wonderful interview with Ava DuVernay in which she discusses Middle of Nowhere:

Call for Writers: Independent Spirit and Academy Award Nominees

For the past several years leading up to the Academy Awards ceremony, we’ve published reviews of all the nominees for best picture. (Go here for roundups of each series: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011.) However, we’ve decided this year to also include nominees for the Independent Spirit Awards. Why? Because the Oscars are basically a fucking joke. The main reason we give any credence at all to an awards show that recognizes the film contributions of heterosexual white men is because, as we’ve said many times in the past, studying and analyzing pop culture means studying and analyzing what our society currently values as “important.” And let’s face it:  the Academy Awards are The Biggest Deal in the movie industry.
I highly recommend checking out Megan Kearns’ post, “The 2012 Oscar Nominations … a Sea of White Dudes,” in which she discusses this year’s disappointments, and some disappointing facts about the Oscars in general:
The Oscars are a white male bonanza. In 84 years, only 4 women (!!!) have ever been nominated for a Best Director Oscar. Only one, Kathryn Bigelow, ever won. In producing, only 7 women have won the Best Picture award, all as co-producers with men. Only 15 women have won Best Screenplay (7 women for Adapted Screenplay with 1 woman winning twice, 8 women for Original Screenplay). Only 4 women of color have been nominated as screenwriters. No women of color have ever been nominated as a producer or director. These stats are shameful.

Exactly. So this year, we’re highlighting the Independent Spirit Award nominees too. The Oscar ceremony airs Sunday, Feb. 26th, and the Spirit Award ceremony airs the day before. So we’ll publish all reviews two weeks prior, beginning Monday, February 13th.  
BONUS! We’re also accepting character analysis pieces for the women nominated in the acting categories! For an idea of what we mean by “character analysis” definitely read the fabulous (and very popular) piece on Parks & Rec‘s Leslie Knope by Diane Shipley. 
All submissions must be received no later than Friday, February 10th. Email us at btchflcks(at)gmail(dot)com if you’d like to contribute a review. We accept original pieces or cross-posts.
The following list contains a mix of all the nominees in both categories. We’ll be crossing them off as people claim them, so email us right away if you know which film review/character analysis you’d like to contribute.

NOTE: An UPDATED list appears at this link.

2012 Independent Spirit Award Nominees

2012 Film Independent Spirit Awards

Although the Spirit Award nominees were announced some time ago, we haven’t covered them until now. And, since the Academy Awards air the day after the Spirit Awards, I always think of the two in tandem. If the Golden Globes (and the Oscar buzz) are any indication, however, it looks like there might be quite a bit of overlap this year.

What bothers me more than the overlap–in the major categories, at least–is that Seth Rogen will host the show. Especially after his Globes appearance last weekend, I have absolutely zero interest in watching him host the Spirit Awards. How disappointing.

Here are some of the nominees. Visit the Spirit Awards website for the full list of nominees and to watch trailers. The ceremony airs Saturday, February 25th at 10 PM on IFC.

Best Feature:
The Descendants
The Artist
Take Shelter
Drive
Beginners
50/50

Best First Feature:
In the Family
Margin Call
Natural Selection
Another Earth
Martha Marcy May Marlene

Best Documentary:
We Were Here
The Redemption of General Butt Naked
The Interrupters
Bill Cunningham New York
An African Election

Best International Film:
A Separation
Melancholia
Shame
The Kid with a Bike
Tyrannosaur

Best Director:
Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist
Jeff Nichols for Take Shelter
Nicolas Winding Refn for Drive
Alexander Payne for The Descendants
Mike Mills for Beginners

Best Screenplay:
Tom McCarthy for Win Win
Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash for The Descendants
Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist
Joseph Cedar for Footnote
Mike Mills for Beginners

Best First Screenplay:
Patrick deWitt for Terri
Phil Johnston for Cedar Rapids
Mike Cahill & Brit Marling for Another Earth
Will Reiser for 50/50
J.C. Chandor for Margin Call

Best Female Lead:
Elizabeth Olsen in Martha Marcy May Marlene
Michelle Williams in My Week with Marilyn
Lauren Ambrose in Think of Me
Rachael Harris in Natural Selection
Adepero Oduye in Pariah

Best Supporting Female:
Shailene Woodley in The Descendents
Jessica Chastain in Take Shelter
Janet McTeer in Albert Nobbs
Harmony Santana in Gun Hill Road
Anjelica Huston in 50/50

Will you watch the Film Independent Spirit Awards? Any favorite picks?



From the Archive: Tiny Furniture

I’m still in the process of getting my shit together in 2012, so here’s a review I wrote in January 2011. Basically, I loved Tiny Furniture. Check it out if you can — it’s streaming on Netflix.
The film follows Aura (played by writer/director Lena Dunham), a 20-something self-described misanthrope who, after graduating from a film program at a small liberal arts school in Ohio, moves back to New York City to live with her famous-artist mother, Siri (played by Dunham’s real-life mother Laurie Simmons) and her budding-genius sister, highschooler Nadine (played by Dunham’s real-life sister Grace Dunham). The film wants to show that Aura is, in fact, Having a Very, Very Hard Time, as the tagline reveals, and it puts her through the typical hell that’s common in the heterosexual coming-of-age stories of early twenties womanhood: the struggle to find a reasonably paying job, a desire to make that college degree mean something, and, of course, a few random hookups with emotionally unavailable men. 
But more than anything, Tiny Furniture is a film about the relationships among women.
When Aura arrives home from college, she’s immediately confronted with her mother photographing her younger sister among a setup of, literally, tiny furniture. And, while the first indication of sibling rivalry appears, it already seems more refreshing and complicated than the traditional cliched portrayal of sister-hate and woman-on-woman divisiveness. The women converse with one another as if Aura hadn’t been in Ohio for four years; in fact, the casualness of their interaction–her mother barely looking up from her photography, her sister making sarcastic comparisons about her slender legs versus Aura’s heavier frame–suggests a comfort with one another that transcends their almost performed familial coldness. 
Perhaps most intriguingly, the on-screen relationships feel so authentic that the unmentioned absent father is hardly noticeable. Who cares, after all?  Women rock the screen, and, unlike a couple of recent woman-centric films (The Kids Are All Right, Winter’s Bone–both arguably feminist) it has nothing to do with a need to compensate for the failings of the men in their lives. 
Almost immediately when Aura moves back to New York, she meets up with her childhood friend Charlotte (played by Jemima Kirke) at a party. Charlotte is portrayed as a spoiled, drama-craving brat, but Aura clings to her, at one point even referring to Charlotte as her best friend. (Her mother later says sarcastically in response, “After two weeks?”) They hang out in Charlotte’s apartment, getting high together and talking about art, men, joblessness, addiction, their parents–and they flatter each other; the audience is never encouraged to view these women as rivals. The point of their friendship is to illustrate the absolute aloneness of being an aimless twenty-something and not knowing what the hell to do in life. In several hilarious scenes, Charlotte begs Aura not to leave, once going as far as to roll around on her bed saying, “Please stay,” which the audience is meant to find both endearing and pathetic.
And while the relationship between Charlotte and Aura works mainly because of their shared loneliness and need to connect, the onscreen relationship between the two sisters thoughtfully investigates the obstacles inherent in familial relationships. In fact, it didn’t surprise me at all when I discovered that they’re actually real-life sisters because their sibling rapport feels incredibly authentic. While Aura drinks bottle after bottle of her mother’s wine with her friends, Nadine runs on the treadmill, does crunches while reading a book, writes award-winning poetry, and teases Aura about her directionless existence. But the back-and-forth nitpicking between them is perfectly juxtaposed against scenes exhibiting such tenderness as can only occur in close relationships.
One of my favorite scenes in the movie involves Nadine throwing a party while her mother is out, leaving Aura to supervise things. Of course, the party gets out of hand–we’re dealing with a slew of highschoolers railing against Aura-as-Authority-Figure (because, let’s face it, if Aura is anything, Authority Figure isn’t on the list)–and Aura starts to have a panic attack. She does the only thing she can think to do, call Charlotte to come over and help her get the party under control. Which is hilarious. Because Charlotte is more of a disaster than Aura is. So, it isn’t surprising at all when Charlotte starts giving lap dances and Aura starts walking around the party in her underwear.
The screaming match that ensues between Aura and Nadine could’ve been taken from a direct transcript of a real-life sibling fight. I cringed at the truthfulness of Nadine’s accusations as she criticized Aura for craving the attention of high school boys. (Those boys, however, reciprocated by making fun of Aura and dissing her body.) And when Nadine starts smacking Aura with a spatula and storms off, the audience feels sympathy for both sisters; neither is the villain in this film, and Dunham’s navigation of that terrain seems effortless from beginning to end. I won’t spoil the brief make-up scene between Aura and Nadine because the film is worth watching for that moment alone.
Aura spends much of the film, when she isn’t fighting with her sister, thinking of herself as somewhat of an artist/filmmaker, as evidenced by her YouTube videos (where she usually wears only her underwear or a bathing suit). Since Aura isn’t traditionally beautiful, and isn’t a size two like most of the half-naked women we’re used to seeing onscreen, at first it’s almost shocking to watch her walk around barely clothed throughout the film (which further illustrates the level of comfort and intimacy she feels with her mother and sister). But Dunham doesn’t include those scenes merely for shock value. The comments left on her YouTube videos consistently make fun of her weight and her looks. She reads the insulting feedback aloud to Charlotte, and they both try to blow it off, but not without Aura remarking on how difficult it is to put that negativity out of her mind.
For anyone who’s ever browsed the comments on YouTube videos, it’s impossible not to notice the disgusting misogyny and homophobia that plague them. Not only does Dunham subtly comment on that, but she also manages to reinforce the importance of supportive women friendships as a way to help combat the barrage of bullshit women deal with daily, especially when it concerns unattainable beauty ideals. It’s interesting to note, too, that Charlotte is traditionally attractive, and yet their friendship never digresses into any sort of competition, least of all one that involves some stereotypical competition over men.
The film doesn’t completely shy away from the subject of men, though, and the two men Aura meets both basically suck. One spends the first half of the movie mooching off Aura–and she lets him–staying in her house, eating her food, drinking her mother’s wine, but when she tries to take their “friendship” to the next level, he refuses. For Aura to attempt to hook up with such a caricature of a loser further drives home her loneliness and desire for connection. With anyone. So it isn’t surprising either when she goes after the chef she works with, who likes “Asian tentacle rape” pornography–whatever the hell that is–and exploits Aura’s obvious crush on him to get her to give him pills (even though he has a girlfriend).
Watching the film, one can’t avoid thinking, “C’mon, Aura, you know better than this.” But the material is so impossible not to relate to–who hasn’t lusted after the entirely wrong person, and known it?–that one can’t fault her for putting herself through it.
Those interactions with men accompanied by Aura’s reading aloud of her mother’s diary (written during her twenties) give further insight into the relationship Aura has with her mother. In many ways, regardless of how often the two women clash, Aura admires her. She’s a successful artist who’s clearly independent. She’s rich. She has no apparent need for a man in her life. Yet her diary reveals many of her obsessions in her twenties: with body image–she constantly journaled her food choices, with men and their inadequacies, and particularly with feeling like she wasn’t living up to her potential as an artist.
The final scene of the film, with Aura curled up with her mother in her mother’s bed, discussing the diary, openly discussing Aura’s horrid sexual encounter from earlier in the evening (completely absent of judgment from her mother–her only concern is that Aura practices safe sex), discussing Aura’s own fears of failure, which her mother squashes with, “Oh, you’ll be much more successful than I am,” feels so heart-wrenchingly honest it’s almost difficult to watch. And the ending, which features a literal ticking clock that could’ve felt contrived and artificial, totally works. It isn’t that the two women desire to stop time; they just don’t want the obvious reminder of its passing. 
As Aura struggles with all these issues, reading her mother’s diary (and sharing it with the audience) serves to remind us that even though coming-of-age ain’t fun, particularly for young women navigating the patriarchy, it’s still possible to come out on the other end fairly unscathed.