‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes:’ My Dear Forgotten Cornelia

‘Dawn’ lacks strong female characters. How much more interesting the story could have been if Ellie had taken the lead in negotiating with Caesar and restoring the dam! Likewise, a fighting female ape could have provided interesting contrast while either avoiding or spotlighting appearance-based tropes about violent women.

Written by Andé Morgan.
Release poster.
Release poster.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) is an artful and visually appealing summer blockbuster, and it almost makes up for Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014). Unfortunately, like that movie and almost every other recent film in its genre, Dawn has a dearth of significant female characters.
Dawn was directed by Matt Reeves and written by Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. It is the sequel to Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011).
Featuring much less James Franco (thank you, Noodly One) than RiseDawn stars Andy-Serkis-in-a-digital-monkey-suit as Caesar, Gary Oldman as Dreyfuss, leader of the surviving humans, and Jason Clarke as Malcolm, an utterly unmemorable white male lead. Keri Russell plays Ellie, a former CDC doctor and Malcolm’s companion.
Andy Serkis as Caesar.
Andy Serkis as Caesar.
The introductory news montage dovetails with the end of Rise. The Simian Flu, unleashed by Franco’s character, has killed almost everybody. A clutch of genetically-immune humans has outlasted the violent first 10 years of the apocalypse. Like characters in a late ’70s sitcom, they’re scraping by and doing the best they can in the bottom of a San Francisco high-rise.
In contrast the apes, led into the Muir Woods by Caesar in the previous film, have built a cellulose utopia. No cages, no electricity, no artisanal cat videos, no bullshit. Reeves and company do an excellent job of establishing a believable community, and of illustrating the depth of the inter-ape relationships. The father-son drama between Caesar and Blue Eyes is particularly well done, both in movement and in dialogue (such as it is), and was my favorite element of the film.
Malcolm and Ellie form a post-apocolyptic nuclear family with Malcolm’s son, Alexander (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Malcolm leads them and a small group of stock characters into the Muir Woods to locate and renovate a hydroelectric dam so that the survivors can power their peripherals. This quest precipitates the inevitable confrontation between the humans and the apes.
That's Ellie in the back.
That’s Ellie in the back.
Did I mention less James Franco? Also, the visual elements were excellent. Filming took place on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and Reeves and Michael Seresin (cinematographer) really sell the lush rain forests of the Pacific Northwest. The scenery works well with the CGI and motion capture techniques, and the scenes where Caesar and family hunt and fish are beautiful and seamless.
If only the humans could have been apes. I know the film was really about the apes, anyway, but it was hard to identify with the human characters enough to care about their fate. Speaking of humans and unsympathetic characters, Gary Oldman was woefully miscast as a former military special operations badass. Judging by his stilted and unenthusiastic delivery, he wasn’t sure what he doing there, either.
Also, dystopia, again. I know, the whole series is about the fruits of war and hubris, but I’m just feeling saturated. Lately, it seems like every wide release can’t wait to tell me about how humanity is so over. What’s more, the dystopia in Dawn is not dystopic enough (if it sounds like I’m complaining out of both sides of mouth, I am). It’s too shiny, and the humans are too happy and well fed. The survivors’ colony looks more like a saturday morning farmers’ market than the last remnant of humanity. Post-tribuation San Fransico actually looks more livable covered in vegetation and sans traffic.
Similarly, the ape community is shown as a bit too idyllic (at first, anyway), and initially conveyed a subtle look-at-the-happy-natives vibe.
The movie so badly wanted to be taken seriously, but the score did not help. It alternated between ineffective back ground movie muzak and hokey homage to the cheesiest riffs of the original films. The film was best in its dark moments, and it should’ve gone darker instead of relying on poorly-aged instrumentals and noble savage tropes.
As Kyle Buchanan notesDawn’s dystopia is similar to its contemporaries in one important way: women need not apply. Of the many female survivors depicted, only Ellie has any lines. Almost all of which constitute her comments on or validation of the acts of Malcolm and Alexander. For example, Sam Adams references a scene where Ellie marks Malcolm’s development by saying, “That was a brave thing you did.” What little we see of her trails off to nothing in the third act as Malcolm goes adventuring solo, as a man should, apparently.
The Muir Woods don’t fare any better. It’s a bit more difficult to tell, but I reckon that the only female ape shown on screen was Caesar’s spouse, Cornelia (Judy Greer). We meet her as she gives birth (it’s a boy!) in the first act. She spends almost the entire remainder of the film in the same place, suffering and shivering from an infection contracted during the birth. As a device designed to humanize Caesar and to foster a bond between the survivors and the apes, I guess she works. As a well developed, depthful character, not so much. In fact, no one even addresses her directly — you won’t even know her name unless you stay for the credits.
Maurice, a male orangutan and Caesar’s confidant, was played by female actor Karin Konoval (she also played Mrs. Peacock in the infamous X-Files episode Home). Unlike the other male apes, Maurice doesn’t seem particularly conflict-oriented. While he acknowledges that his experience as a circus ape exposed him to the bad side of humanity, he seems to understand Caesar’s sympathy for the survivors. In one of the best scenes of the film, Alexander looks up from reading a graphic novel in his tent to see an observant Maurice quietly sitting outside. He goes to Maurice, and they read together.
Karin Konoval as Maurice.
Karin Konoval as Maurice.
Dawn was sorely missing a strong female character. How much more interesting the story would have been if Ellie had taken the lead in negotiating with Caesar and getting the dam up and running! Similarly, a fighting female ape could have provided interesting contrast while either avoiding or spotlighting appearance-based tropes about violent women.
Some critics have posited that Dawn’s lack of female characters was justified due to the film’s supposed focus on “primal urges.” Primal usually means essential or original, but apparently primal means violent when we’re talking about hominids. And women, and stereotypically feminine values like empathy and non-violence, just aren’t primal. Except that they are. Indeed, even modern male apes aren’t universally violent or paternalistic. I wonder, where were the Bonobos?
Regardless, Dawn isn’t about primal urges. Instead, it is about the physical and mental frailty of humankind. Like most other contemporary blockbusters, it reflects our modern anxieties, including our feelings of helplessness and discord — feelings held by men and women alike.
Also on Bitch Flicks: Depictions of dystopias in television and film.

Andé Morgan lives in Tucson, Arizona, where they write about film, television, and current events. Follow them @andemorgan.

Girls, Consent, and Sex in ‘Palo Alto’ and ‘I Believe In Unicorns’

Films set in high school are often about boys; films which feature high school girl characters complex enough to surprise an audience (one measure of good screenwriting) are relatively rare–‘Say Anything’, ‘Mean Girls,’ ‘Clueless’ and from earlier this year ‘It Felt Like Love.’ ‘Palo Alto,’ the first film directed by Gia Coppola (niece of Sofia and granddaughter of Francis), who also wrote the script (based on the stories of James Franco) focuses on several main characters in high school, including April (‘American Horror Story’s’ Emma Roberts, whose auburn hair and dark eyebrows recall her Aunt Julia’s). We see her as she plays soccer, babysits, goes to boozy parties and is alone in her room.

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Films set in high school are often about boys; films which feature high school girl characters complex enough to surprise an audience (one measure of good screenwriting) are relatively rare–Say Anything, Mean Girls, Clueless and from earlier this year, It Felt Like Love. Palo Alto, the first film directed by Gia Coppola (niece of Sofia and granddaughter of Francis), who also wrote the script (based on the stories of James Franco) focuses on several main characters in high school, including April (American Horror Story’s Emma Roberts, whose auburn hair and dark eyebrows recall her Aunt Julia’s). We see her as she plays soccer, babysits, goes to boozy parties, and is alone in her room.

April’s mother and stepfather, like some of the other parents we see later in the film are perfectly pleasant to April but seem to have never grown up themselves. April’s mother interrupts her constant kitchen cell phone conversation with “Jamal” to coo at her daugher and make her the occasional meal. April’s stepfather (a nearly unrecognizable Val Kilmer) holes away in a separate part of the house, drinks from a mug that has his own photo on it and rewrites April’s term paper even though she asked him to merely look it over. Neither one ever asks April where she’s been or when she’s coming home; “cool” parenting becomes a study in benign neglect.

Disaffected, wealthy young people aren’t new subjects for a film, but perhaps because Coppola is not far from the age (and background) of her characters some of the details resonate: the way “friends” pour alcohol down the throat of one of the main characters who is late to a party so he can be as drunk (or drunker) than they are, the game of “I Have Never” at the party which becomes an opportunity to reveal others’ secrets told in confidence, the banter between girl athletes who think their coach is cute (“What do you think his o-face looks like?”), the bedroom of Emily (Zoe Levin)–whom the others call “blow job queen,” a label she does her best to live up to–full of little-girl knick knacks and stuffed animals.

Palo Alto is based on the book of short stories of the same name by James Franco (who plays April’s coach, Mr. B.; she babysits his young son). Franco also helped get financing for the film. No one should confuse Palo Alto with one of Franco’s many projects that would elicit zero curiosity from the public if his name weren’t attached, and I haven’t read the book, which may be to blame, but in spite of how much time we spend with April, and in spite of Roberts, who radiates intelligence and wariness in the role, I didn’t have much emotional investment in the character.

Mr B and April
Mr. B. and April

The storyline about April and her coach is initially a promising one. He’s relatively young and good-looking and pays special attention to her, very like some of the real life scenarios in which teachers have sex with high school students. But April doesn’t seem ditzy or desperate enough to think sex with her teacher is a good idea, and he doesn’t seem smooth or clever enough to work through the natural resistance of a student with a stable (if lax) home life and a thoughtful nature. In the late 70s and early 80s when I went to high school, all of us suspected one of the girls in my class was having an inappropriate relationship with the biology teacher–the sexual tension between them was apparent from 50 feet away, even when they were just talking to one another in the hall. Teachers and students today would have to be more discreet, and the lack of depth in Franco and Roberts’ connection fits with later developments in their story, but we never get the feeling much is at stake when they fuck (which we don’t see) let alone when they find themselves attracted to one another–even though he’s endangering his job, abusing his position and breaking the law, and she is putting herself in the position to be hurt, exploited or both (and could also easily turn him in to the authorities).

Coppola does a better job of verisimilitude with Emily who seems surprised that her many hookups with boys don’t turn into relationships or even into friendship. At one point she has sex with a boy, Fred (Nat Wolff) she’s hooked up with before, and he invites other boys to also have sex with her; whether the sex Emily has with them is consensual is unclear. Coppola has Fred tell the story in voiceover without showing any of the action (or even the lead-up to it), an intriguing choice that keeps a possibly nonconsensual encounter from titillating the audience–and keeps the audience from deciding for ourselves whether the sex seems consensual or not.

Perhaps because of the sex scenes, Emily is played by an adult, as is April, who nevertheless makes a convincing teen in her yellow sweatshirt and skeleton hoodie. But when we see the travails of Teddy (Jack Kilmer, Val’s son with Joanne Walley) in the film, the two actresses’ relative maturity stands in stark contrast to Kilmer’s tender face touched with vestiges of baby fat–he is 18, not just playing a teenager, and the difference between him and the other actors takes us out of the movie. Seeing the other actors share scenes with Kilmer reminds me of an English stage actress who wondered, when she was a very young woman, why she couldn’t get larger roles playing against the older women in the company. “I didn’t realize (a thirty-something actress) could play a teenager on stage and it would work–unless you put a real teenager right next to her.”

Kilmer has been described as “androgynous” but “amorphous” is a better descriptor, and, much like a similarly soft and young-looking Gina Piersanti in It Felt Like Love, his being the age of the character is an essential element of what makes him so good in the part. Teddy is a teenager we’ve known and maybe even been, but one we don’t often see onscreen. He is sensitive and artistic, but afraid of being ridiculed by his best friend, Fred. So Teddy is unable to say “no” to Fred even when he knows he will end up getting in trouble (and maybe even end up in court) because of him. We see that he genuinely cares for April, but that he lets a jealous Fred drag him away from her more than once. Palo Alto is a film in which we often dread what teens will do next, so at the end, when Teddy finally does the right thing, and, in her own way, so does Emily, we breathe a sigh of relief.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7Q3oeHsIj0″]

Writer-director Leah Meyerhoff’s I Believe In Unicorns is a much more minor film than Palo Alto but has some similarities–a high school girl has her first sexual relationship with an older man. The main character, Davina (Natalia Dyer), lives with and cares for her mother who uses a wheelchair and also doesn’t have full use of her hands (Meyerhoff’s own mother, Toni Meyerhoff,  plays the part. She has multiple sclerosis and Meyerhoff cared for her when she was growing up).

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Davina spends a lot of her time awash in  fantasies that seem like those of a much younger girl (her room is also like a younger girl’s); one sequence involves fireworks (it evokes a similar scene in Beasts of the Southern Wild) and others involve a stop-motion animated unicorn and dragon in a forest. Meyerhoff’s talent as the director of experimental shorts is apparent in these scenes, but her script does not come close to equaling it. The mother is nearly silent (which may be because of her disability), and we don’t get a sense of what happens to her when her daughter runs away to be with a man/boy who has already graduated, Sterling (Peter Vack)– even though the mother seems to have no one else to help care for her.

Sterling and Davina
Sterling and Davina

We see brief glimpses of what the film could have been: the kiss Davina exchanges with her friend Clara (Amy Seimetz) when asked how Sterling kisses, Davina squatting down and spitting up after performing oral sex on Sterling for the first time and Davina and Sterling’s encounters which alternate between the two of them feasting on each other’s mouths teenager-style to rough sex that is sometimes just under and sometimes over Davina’s line of consent. Sterling alternately abuses Davina and cries in fear that he will abandon her and Dyer’s presence is lovely and vulnerable throughout the film. “Do you really like me or is this just temporary,” she asks him in a heartbreaking moment. Although Vack is a competent performer, he looks distractingly like a male model (he could have come from the cover of a romance novel), which makes the “real” sequences seem just a dystopian continuation of the fantasy ones, a problem not helped by the two of them never seeming to completely run out of money and having clean, shiny, flawless hair after living out of a car for an unspecified period of time. We also don’t know for sure until toward the end of the film that Sterling is an adult (although an emotionally stunted one). Vack is obviously an adult: his height and muscled body threaten to overwhelm the petite Dyer (who was 17 when the film was shot) in their scenes together, but because so many films put adults in high school roles we don’t realize how creepy Sterling is from the beginning. He not only has sex with a girl who is not yet an adult, but also chooses one who looks even younger than she is–and she’s still enough of a kid to place animal miniatures on the dashboard of his car.

In the question and answer period after the film, Meyerhoff explained how difficult casting Davina was and how the filmmaking team went through hundreds of actresses before they found Dyer. It’s a familiar story (similar to Hittman’s casting of  Piersanti in It Felt Like Love). I wish this writer-director had put that same effort into writing a coherent script for her talented actors.

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Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing has appeared in The Toast, xoJane, and the Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender.

Not Another Teenaged Drama: A Review of ‘Palo Alto’

Palo Alto is what would happen if Mean Girls had a major collision with American Beauty. The picturesque neighborhoods with the homes of the screwed up parents of the main characters was entirely reminiscent of American Beauty. The parents’ self-absorption was stunning at times. And every time April’s high school girl classmates talked, it was like nails on a chalkboard (cue: Mean Girls’ Regina George, Gretchen Weiners, Karen Smith WITHOUT the comedy).

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This is a guest post by Atima Omara-Alwala.

The next generation of directing Coppolas has come of age in Gia Coppola’s (granddaughter of renowned director Francis Ford Coppola) teenage angst drama featured in the American suburbs. Palo Alto is from a collection of short stories by actor James Franco (who knew he was a writer?), who stars in the film himself.

The main focus is around teenaged April (played by Emma Roberts, daughter of actor Eric Roberts) and Teddy (Jack Kilmer, Val Kilmer’s son) and their parallel existences with occasional touches on the lives of their fellow high school classmates who are obsessed with sex, substances, and suicide. The link between April and Teddy is that April likes Teddy, Teddy likes April–but because they’re teenagers, they never get around to saying it until much later into the film. In between this, April has a short-lived fling with her soccer coach, Mr. B (a very smarmy James Franco), and Teddy has a fling with Emily (Zoe Levin) (read: random fellatio at a house party). Also, Emily has a fling with Teddy’s best friend Fred (Nat Wolff), an all-star sociopathic misogynist.

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Indeed, it is a tad heartbreaking to see how quickly Fred jumps back into his jeans after bedding Emily and callously views her deflated face afterwards or, in another scene, how he pushes Emily down to her knees for some oral attention–all the while demanding she tell him what an amazing guy he is. Emily is that girl you knew in high school who you A) thought was cool because she seemed outwardly confident, and sexually precocious (when you didn’t have a clue) and B) was being endlessly slut shamed for it by all the jealous “mean girls”–which, of course, happens in this film.

For all her outward confidence, Emily is really looking to be valued and validated. So it’s even more painfully awkward as a viewer when Emily keeps going back to Fred until finally, in a major pivotal scene, she’s had enough of his verbal and emotional abuse. Meanwhile, April is trying to figure out her “relationship” with Mr. B and her feelings for Teddy. It is hinted that the relationship April has with Mr. B is perhaps due to the lack of attention at home from a less-than-interested mother and an eccentric stepfather (played by Val Kilmer).

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This is Gia Coppola’s first movie and not bad all around, but it was not revolutionary, and it is a story line that has been done more times than is necessary already: Y’know, the white middle-class to upper middle-class privileged kids who are bored and reckless–and who have no idea why they are so bored and reckless.

Palo Alto is what would happen if Mean Girls had a major collision with American Beauty. The picturesque neighborhoods with the homes of the screwed up parents of the main characters was entirely reminiscent of American Beauty. The parents’ self-absorption was stunning at times. And every time April’s high school girl classmates talked, it was like nails on a chalkboard (cue: Mean Girls’ Regina George, Gretchen Weiners, Karen Smith WITHOUT the comedy). There was very little diversity, no people of color except one or two as extras (which is often the case in a lot of suburbs anyway), and the only discussion of LGBT issues was Emily (who is already tagged as a whore) admitting to having done a girl-on-girl thing in a spirited game of “Never Have I Ever” (great).

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If you went to high school in the suburbs and want a nowhere near humorous and somewhat awkward reminder of the whole experience, Palo Alto is your film.

 


 

Atima Omara-Alwala is a political strategist and activist of 10 years who has served as staff on 8 federal and local political campaigns and other progressive causes. Atima’s work has had a particular focus on women’s political empowerment & leadership, reproductive justice, health care, communities of color and how gender and race is reflected in pop culture. Her writings on the topics have also been featured at Ms. Magazine, Women’s Enews, and RH Reality Check.

 

 

Travel Films Week: ‘Spring Breakers’ Forever

This is a guest review by Marcia Herring.
Movie poster for Spring Breakers
In a lifetime, how many chances are we granted to truly reinvent ourselves? Growing up, I would often daydream about taking a trip: leaving my conservative duds, Midwestern accent, and semi-closeted life behind me. I would wake up and magically be able to fill the shoes of an exaggerated version of myself. I could experience life on the other side without the backlash of disapproving parents, poisonous social norms, and my own fear of change. 

Many viewers may not consider the 2013 film Spring Breakers a discussion of how a little change of location can open the doors wide for reinvention — after all it is easy to get distracted by the bright lights and dubstep of Harmony Korine’s portrait of excess and meaninglessness. The plot of Spring Breakers centers around four girls; daydreaming their way through a semester at college in their Kentucky hometown, they become driven by the idea that they might escape and finally have some fun — or discover themselves, depending on which girl you asked. 
Being typical college students, Faith, Candy, Brit and Cotty are broke. How, then, will they get away from the copy-of-a-copy existence they lead? The idea comes — a strange bubble of a thing — to rob a convenience store. It goes down without Faith’s knowledge; she is busy singing half-hearted worship songs at a Christian campus group, and would never approve anyway. Cotty plays getaway driver while Candy and Brit don ski masks and water guns and terrorize their way into enough money to get all four girls to Florida. 
Once there, the freedom proves heady. The girls overindulge in drugs, late-night scooter rides, flirtations, and alcohol. St. Petersburg is already full to the brim of people just like them — here for the week and ready to party, their “real” selves be damned. 
Of course, the hedonistic bliss cannot last long. After all, spring break isn’t forever. Spring Break is not some magical concept that, although it certainly feels like it, exists separate from the rest of the world. The girls get caught. They spend the night in jail, miserable and worried. A judge passes their (relatively tame) sentence, and the girls are rescued from having to call their parents by local “businessman” named Alien (James Franco, in the role he must have been born to play). Conversation with Alien quickly reveals that he is far from the lifeless folk the girls are used to encountering. Alien has his hands in the drug trade of St. Pete, engages in petty crime for entertainment, and even has a rival (Gucci Mane). Alien’s dream is the American Dream, the dream of more, better stuff … and he wants to share that dream with the girls. 
Alien (James Franco) and his girls (l to r: Rachel Korine, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, and Vanessa Hudgens)
The film, which stars Selena Gomez (Wizards of Waverly Place) as Faith, a sheltered good girl gone bad, Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical) as Candy, Ashley Benson (Pretty Little Liars) as Brit, and Rachel Korine (known mostly as director Korine’s much-younger wife) as Cotty, would be easy to read as exploitative. After all, three of the four female stars are known for their roles in relatively-wholesome entertainment. Both Hudgens and Gomez have been a major part of the Disney generation of girls (including Miley Cyrus). Upon reaching late adolescence and the chance to become “real” stars, they have taken career moves that bared skin. They’ve also been subjected to sexual scandals. Is this casting intentional? I don’t doubt it! Does it play into our culture’s obsession with the graduation of young girls into women by subjugating them to a particular brand of role? Yes — in a way. 
Caveat: I am certainly not an advocate for the nudity = mature film career movement; I wanted to touch on a few of the ways Spring Breakers might, depending on how you view the thing, do this a little better than most. For one, none of the “Disney girls” is ever shown nude. The sex scene that focuses on Brit and Candy is much less explicit than the earlier scene where the camera is on Alien. The only top-billed nudity comes from Korine, who is quite a bit older than the other girls — and as director Korine’s wife, I’m sure she had a voice in how to appear in the film. Rachel Korine also spoke to Vice Magazine about being a mentor to the other girls. Many party scenes featured a large number of extras, and Gomez had some hesitance about being in such a mob. Korine physically protected Gomez, and announced that any inappropriate behavior toward Selena would not go unpunished. End caveat! 
I don’t think that Spring Breakers, despite its perpetually-bikini-clad bodies, is an addition to the list of ways these young female bodies have been exploited. Instead, Spring Breakers turns that sexualizing gaze back onto the audience members who may have been enticed to see the film based on the promise of nubile bodies. The opening scene — a montage of spring breakers partying hard set to dubstep — is full of drunk white kids, many of the girls flashing their breasts in true Girls Gone Wild fashion. On a small scale, this may have been titillating, but Korine returns to the theme of careless youth partying with a regularity and focus that not only de-sensitizes the flash of nudity, but eventually makes us grimace. This is a generation partaking in activities they’ll regret because they are bored and aimless. The nudity and partying have no meaning, no purpose, because life for these co-eds has no meaning, no purpose. Korine notes that the film “is more music-based than cinema-based. Music now is mostly loop and sample-based … ” — not even the music of this generation is original. We rely on copies of copies for entertainment. Nothing is real. And when nothing is real, nothing matters. 
Here lies the generational gap when it comes to perception of the film. I went to see Spring Breakers on opening night with my little sister, who happens to be the age of the protagonists. Because she grew up with me for a sister, someone who is constantly looking at media as a reflection of society, my sister could appreciate the self-examination of her generation — after all, a few years ago she was just as lost and aimless as many in the film. A quick look at twitter reviews, however, suggest that many other teens — who were lured in with the promise of a party flick — left the theater frustrated and angry. They keep doing the same things, saying the same lines, these viewers critique, unable or unwilling to look at their own lives, their own twitter accounts and see that cyclical action and speech is indicative of an entire movement of youth. (Oddly enough, if viewers were familiar with Harmony Korine’s previous work, they would be surprised by the strength of the narrative plot in Spring Breakers!) 
That narrative plot is purposefully left open to interpretation. Korine himself has said that just about any interpretation of the film is a valid one. I’ve written previously about the economic implications of the world Korine shows us, but Spring Breakers is also rich with discussion of the female body (as evidenced above!), sexuality, and female power. 

The key for my enjoyment and promotion of this film is that, unlike many other woman-centric narratives, the women make choices and are not unduly punished for them. [The rest of this review contains specific spoilers for the film. Read with caution.] Faith chooses, despite her (ahem) faith, to explore herself with drugs and sexual behavior. She “finds herself” but when threatened with real life consequences, she chooses to return to Kentucky. The other characters are sad to see her go, but never shame her for making this decision. Cotty parties hard, strips down, and flirts with sexual situations. She is not raped — the fact that I was expecting her to be raped really says something about our culture and media depictions of our culture — and when she is shot during a street showdown, it is a wake-up call. Cotty’s wound is directly related to hanging out with a known criminal, not her sexual choices. Again, when she returns home, she is not shamed. 
Brit (Ashley Benson) and Candy (Vanessa Hudgens) dress the part

Brit and Candy are in the film for the longest time, so it makes sense that their story has the most to say about women. Early in the film, they are shown using drugs and not caring about school. They flirt with each other but don’t appear to have a romantic history. Spring break is, for them, not an escape from reality, but a new reality in which they can truly come to life. Something awakens in them when Brit and Candy rob the convenience store — something tied in this narrative with sexuality, violence, and self-awareness. Different readings of the film can boil this awakening down to any one of these aspects, but again, the key for me is that Brit and Candy are not punished for their choices. At first, they seem to need Alien’s presence and permission to embark on these new levels of claiming power through violence and sexual attraction, but as the film unwinds, Brit and Candy leave Alien behind. 
Alien’s own weirdness — he feels, and sometimes acts, like an alien in his own surroundings — lay the groundwork for Brit and Candy to feel safe enough to explore what they want. And what do they want? They want weapons, and the skills to use them well. They want sex, with each other, with someone who loves them. They want to have agency in relationships. They want to flip traditional gender roles around, listening while Alien gets sentimental about Britney Spears, holding the gun Alien simulates fellatio on, committing violent acts without motive or feeling. They want freedom — to display their bodies how they want, to claim power and use it in all aspects of life, to live the life they choose and not one that has been prescribed for them by a culture obsessed with non-reality. True, the extreme new lives of Brit and Candy are also laced with non-reality, but how much of that is because our culture refuses to let this sort of narrative be real? None of these things is granted to women in media, or, for the most part, in life. 
Spring Breakers brings something new to the discussion of women in film. Young female characters with agency populate this critique of youth culture, and young female characters with agency walk away from the narrative unscathed. For some, spring break may be a break from reality. I, for one, hope it is the new normal. 

Marcia Herring is a writer from Missouri. She is still working on her graduate degree, has a day job in retail, and writes freelance for the Lesbrary. She spends most of her free time watching television and movies. She wrote an analysis of Degrassi, Teens and Rape Apologism, contributed a review of X-Men First Class, V/H/S, and reviewed Atonement, Imagine Me & You and The Yellow Wallpaper for Bitch Flicks

Guest Writer Wednesday: ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ Rekindles the Notion that Women Are Wicked

Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)

Guest post written by Natalie Wilson. Originally published at Ms. Magazine blog . Cross-posted with permission.
Dorothy Gale—the girl who went to Oz—has been called the first true feminist hero in American children’s literature. Indeed, she was condemned by many readers, including children’s librarians, for daring to have opinions and act on them.
My grandmother introduced me to the Oz books as a child, and I have always seen her as a real-life Dorothy of sorts. Born in 1908, she loved travel and speaking her mind and–gasp–she preferred to read and write poetry than do dishes and cook. As a young woman, she did not take like a duck to the water of motherhood, and indeed seemed not to have liked it at all. To this day, she is referred to by the wider family as “abandoning” her two sons in favor of books and travel, though in fact her only abandonment was that of the traditional domestic role.
My grandmother was, in some ways, the “anti-mother” or “wicked witch” detailed so brilliantly in Crafting the Witch: Gendering Magic in Medieval and Early Modern England. That book, written by California State University at San Marcos’ associate professor of literature and writing Heidi Breuer, explores how magical, positive female figures such as Morgan le Fey morphed into the Wicked Witches that now dominate depictions of magical, powerful women—including those in the current film Oz the Great and Powerful.
The new Oz film does not include the brave and self-reliant Dorothy, nor any other character that I would identify as having my grandmother’s feminist spirit. The film speaks neither to the many strong female characters that populated L. Frank Baum’s books nor to the feminist, progressive leanings of its author. Instead, it trades in the notion that women are indeed wicked—especially those women not “tamed” by a male love interest or father figure, as well as (horror of horrors!) those women who lack nurturing, motherly characteristics.
In the film, Oscar Diggs is the one who journeys to Oz, not Dorothy, and this provides the basis for a much more traditional, or should I say regressive, story. Rather than, as in the original Oz book, having a female save many men and prove the male leader to be an ineffectual fraud, this time around we have an oafish male functioning as the love interest for various characters, transforming from ineffectual Oscar to the great and powerful Wizard and leader of Oz.
At the outset of the film, Oscar is a circus con-man/magician, readily admitting he is not a good man. Though he is framed as an unscrupulous, womanizing cad, he is also depicted as truly sweet and likable underneath—a sort of prince disguised as a beast. When Annie (Michelle Williams) tells him she is going to marry another man, the audience is meant to feel for poor Oscar—because Annie is framed as his “real love.” But by the close of the movie they are happily reunited, not as Oscar and Annie but as Oz the Wizard and Glinda the Good Witch. (This ending, by the way, and the romance threaded throughout the film, breaks a sacred belief of Baum’s that romance should not be featured in children’s tales.)
Baum’s continued insistence, both in his real life and his writing, that females are strong, capable, courageous and intelligent—and that tolerance, understanding and courage should guide one along life’s journey—are scuttled in favor of a movie heavy on special effects and light on character development, let alone any feminist or progressive message.
In contrast, the Oz books are full of intelligent, enterprising, courageous and self-reliant females. There are benevolent female rulers, such as Ozma and Lurline, as well as both good and bad witches. As noted at Bitch Flicks,
Dorothy, Ozma and Glinda serve significant leadership positions in Oz. Princess Ozma is the true hereditary ruler of Oz—her position having been usurped by The Wizard. Glinda is by far the most powerful sorceress in Oz, and both Dorothy and Ozma often defer to her wisdom. Dorothy, of course, is the plucky orphan outsider who combines resourcefulness and bravery.

Illustration of Dorothy and Toto from
L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel.

Indeed, the books would pass the Bechdel test with flying colors. Strong friendships between women, as well as women helping other women (and various and sundry other creatures, men included), run through the 14 original books. (Some current readings posit these relationships as more than friendship, as with the queer readings of the Dorothy/Ozma relationship, but that’s another story.) There are wicked women, but they are not wicked to the extent they are in the film iterations, the current one included, nor are the wicked/bad characters very powerful. In fact, the Wicked Witch of the first Oz book fears the Cowardly Lion and the dark, and is destroyed by an angry Dorothy with a bucket of water. Before dying she concedes, “I have been wicked in my day, but I never thought a little girl like you would be able to melt me and end my wicked deeds.” The Wicked Witch in Baum’s book did not have green skin or wear an imposing outfit; instead she is a rather funny-looking figure with one eye, three braids and a raincoat.

In Baum’s version of Oz, females were allowed to have power and show anger without being castigated—something rare in books from Baum’s era. Also rare were female protagonists in children’s books, which is why, according to one scholar, “The Wizard of Oz is now almost universally acknowledged to be the earliest truly feminist American children’s book, because of spunky and tenacious Dorothy.” Baum’s work even hinted at the instability of gender—as when Ozma is first introduced as a boy named Tip. Traditionally masculine in many respects after her turn to female, Ozma’s gender is thus represented as not only about physical characteristics or appearance, but as far more complicated. Quite postmodern and queer for a children’s book from the early 1900s!
In addition to these feminist characters and depictions of gender, the books also consistently celebrate tolerance and diversity and maintain what Alison Lurie calls an “anti-colonial attitude.” This is no coincidence; rather, as documented in the BBC’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: The True Story, “When L. Frank Baum wrote the Wonderful Wizard of Oz book, his choice of heroine was heavily influenced by the battle for women’s rights.” He was married to Maud Gage, the daughter of Matilda Joslyn Gage, the pioneering feminist and co-founder of the National Woman Suffrage Association.
While some still question feminism’s influence on Baum (as here), and it is often wrongly claimed that he and his feminist mother-in-law did not get along (as in The Dreamer of Oz), Baum’s faith in feminism never wavered. He supported feminism both within his own home (Maud ran the finances and his mother-in-law stayed with them six months out of every year) and in his writings (not only in the Oz books but in his journalistic work). Moreover, Baum thought men who did not support feminist aspirations were “selfish, opinionated, conceited or unjust—and perhaps all four combined,” and he argued that, ”The tender husband, the considerate father, the loving brother, will be found invariably championing the cause of women.” (One wonders what he would make of director Sam Raimi and his decidedly un-feminist new depiction of Oz!)
Baum’s feminist biography aside, many aspects of the books stand on their own as fictional feminist tracts. For example, the second book of the series, The Marvelous Land of Oz, features a fictional suffrage movement led by Jinjur, the female general of an all-girl army (their key weapon is knitting needles). At one point, Jinjur offers the rallying cry, “Friends, fellow-citizens and girls … we are about to begin our great Revolt against the men of Oz!” As a New York Times‘ reviewer quipped, it is too bad this female army “didn’t storm Disney next.”
Symphony rehearses live performance of
1939 Wizard of Oz soundtrack.

In contrast to the consistently anti-feminist Disney, Baum’s books can be viewed as children’s stories with distinctly feminist and progressive messages. Given that they were akin to the Harry Potter books of their day in terms of popularity and sales, this is hugely significant. Today, however, the books’ undercurrents of feminism and progressive politics have been overshadowed by the less-feminist 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz, and the many subsequent de-politicized adaptations.

In Oz the Great and Powerful, perhaps the most anti-feminist adaptation, Dorothy—the plucky and powerful girl from Kansas—is supplanted by a series of Oscar’s romantic interests, and this focus does not shift after a mighty storm transplants us from Kansas to Oz. There, Oscar quickly meets Theodora (Mila Kunis), who tells him of the prophecy that he is destined be the leader of Oz. However, she warns him, “You only become king after you defeat the Wicked Witch.” Metaphorically, for men like Oscar to achieve greatness they need to destroy powerful women. And, significantly, in order to destroy the witch Oscar must not kill her but destroy her wand—in other words, destroy her (phallic) power, destroy what makes her “like a man.” (I imagine Baum turning over in his grave).
Oscar, like the audience, does not yet know who this Wicked Witch is—a mystery that the film’s publicists went to pains to protect before it was released. This mystery suggests any female could be the Wicked Witch or, more broadly, that all women are or have the potential to be wicked.
When Oscar first meets Theodora, the audience is encouraged to view her as kind, helpful and beautiful. She, like the women from Kansas, seems taken by his charms. In contrast, her sister Evanora refers to Oscar as a “a weak, selfish and egotistical fibber.” Evanora’s fury, as well as her witchy get-up, encourages the audience to think she is the Wicked Witch. When Theodora insists Oscar is the wizard, Evanora’s caustic response—“’The wizard, or so he says. He may be an imposter. Sent here to kill us”—furthers the suspicion.
Then, when Evanora says “Maybe it’s you I’ve underestimated. Have you finally joined her side, sister?” the audience is once again encouraged to question who the “her” is. Theodora protests, “I am on no one’s side. I simply want peace. He’s a good man,” suggesting she is not on the Wicked Witch’s side. But Evanora retorts, “’Deep down you are wicked!’
Theodora then throws a ball of fire across the room, prompting the audience to once again question who the real Wicked Witch is. The mystery continues when Oz, his monkey sidekick Finley and the China Girl (a porcelain doll) spy a witchy-looking figure in the dark forest. But the scary figure turns out to be Glinda, who is quickly identified as a “good witch” not only through the ensuing dialogue but via her blonde hair and white dress.
This delaying of the true identity of the Wicked Witch and the suggestion that even good women can be, or at least appear to be, wicked, goes along with the fear of female wickedness that shaped not only the Renaissance era and its infamous witch hunts but continues to be a key trope in our own times. Sadly, the new film reifies messages contained in so many stories of the witch–that females not tied to or interested in men/family are jealous, duplicitous, vengeful and must be destroyed (or domesticated). The good females in the film function as a mother/daughter pair, both of whom, by film’s end, are tied to Oz as their patriarch.
The film can also be read as yet another story about how men are destined to lead while women are destined to mother. This goes directly against the original author’s beliefs; as his grand-daughter notes, “He was a big supporter of women getting out into the marketplace and men connecting with the children and spending time at home.” In direct contrast, the film punishes female entrepreneurial spirit and pluck and never suggests that any of Oscar’s greatness comes from his desire to spend time at home. Instead, he is ultimately rewarded by becoming the “great and powerful” man the title refers to, and the female characters are either punished for refusing the maternal role (Evanora and Theodora) or rewarded for placing primacy on family (Glinda and the China Girl).
As wonderfully put in the New York Times review of the film, Oz the Great and Powerful “has such backward ideas about female characters that it makes the 1939 Wizard of Oz look like a suffragist classic.” While the 1939 film was decidedly less feminist than the book on which it was based, it nevertheless was far more feminist friendly than this current iteration.
That a book published in 1900 and a film that came out in 1939 are each more feminist than a 2013 film is troubling. The NPR review agrees, but then claims that what this indicates is “that chivalry (or perhaps feminism) of the sort that Judy Garland could count on is not only merely dead, it’s really most sincerely dead.” Simplistic reading of chivalry aside, the suggestion that feminism is dead has perhaps never been more wrong than it is now. Sure, we still have our wicked witches to face (I am talking to you, Ann Coulter), but we also have a plethora of Dorothys and Ozmas and Jinjuras—not to mention L. Frank Baums.
It is particularly disappointing that films aimed at children and families continue to be not only un-feminist but devoutly anti-feminist, and they do so by drawing on the stereotypical witch figure of centuries ago—used, as Breuer puts it, to “frighten women back into domestic roles.”
Alas, just as the 1939 film reflected the economic realities of its time, turning Baum’s story into a call for women to return to the home (as in, “There’s no place like home”), so too does this 2013 version speak to the current economic crisis. Times of economic downturn are predictably accompanied by sexist backlash—a sort of knee-jerk “Let’s blame it on the women that steal our jobs, refuse to do their duties (mothering, cleaning, etc.) and threaten the stability of family, of church, of the very nation.” Currently, this backlash is evident on many fronts–from the attacks against women’s reproductive freedoms, to the vitriol aimed at women who dare seek independence or even the right to report rape, to the hyperfocus on romance, sexuality and appearance as the only things that truly matter to women.
The message of the original book was that possibilities for a liberated world of tolerance and female equality was not merely a dream but a real place we could move to if we only had the courage (and the heart and the brain). The message of the 1939 film was that women can have some power, but home and family was still the best place for them (and liberation was merely a dream caused by a bad bump on the head). The message of Oz the Great and Powerful is that only men can save women and only men can save Oz; in other words, what we need to save us from falling off the economic cliff is not Dorothy, not Glinda, not the China Girl, but a gold-digging con man who is adept at smoke-and-mirrors politics but has about as much substance or real conviction as, well, many of our current world leaders. These frauds are apparently still better than any woman though—be she good, wicked, or made of porcelain.
Illustration of Dorothy and Toto by W.W. Denslow, from Wikimedia Commons
Image of 1939 film from Flickr user Jason Weinberger, under license from Creative Commons


Natalie Wilson, PhD is a literature and women’s studies scholar, blogger, and author. She teaches at Cal State San Marcos and specializes in areas of gender studies, feminism, feminist theory, girl studies, militarism, body studies, boy culture and masculinity, contemporary literature, and popular culture. She is author of the blogs Professor, what if …? and Seduced by Twilight. She is a proud feminist mom of two feminist kids (one daughter, one son) and is an admitted pop-culture junkie. Her favorite food is chocolate.

The Oz Series & The Power of Women

Oz: The Great and Powerful Poster (Source: firstshowing.net)

Today, I’m going to rant about a film that hasn’t even come out yet. Most of you are probably aware that a prequel to The Wizard of Oz entitled Oz The Great and Powerful will be coming out this spring. James Franco has reunited with the original Spider-Man trilogy’s director Sam Raimi to play Oscar Diggs, the future Wizard of Oz. Those who have seen the 1939 film (and I’d wager just about everyone has) know that The Wizard is a fraud who has been flim-flamming the residents of Oz with illusions, pyrotechnics and some serious fast-talking.
Now, the trailer is beautiful. I thought it was really clever how the journey from Kansas to Oz gradually transitioned from black & white fullscreen to full colour widescreen. (Though if this is a prequel to the 1939 canon that’s a continuity error – The Wizard is from Nebraska, not Kansas) Danny Elfman is likely to deliver a good score. The cast is excellent too – the three Witches are played by Rachel Weisz, Mila Kunis and Michelle Williams, and James Franco amuses me. It’s nice to see him playing something besides the stoner James Dean bit he’s been doing since his Freaks & Geeks days (not counting 127 Hours). The film’s visuals are beautiful, and quite obviously inspired by Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland, which looked great…but was a shitty film.
I’m probably going to see Oz The Great and Powerful since I love fantasy movies and have loved the Oz series all my life…but I’m pissed. And all it took was one line in the trailer:
“Are you the great man we’ve been waiting for?” 
Glinda of Oz Novel Cover (Source: Wikipedia)
The Oz series, at least while still written by L. Frank Baum, has always been partly about the power and strength of women. Most significantly, Dorothy Gale, Princess Ozma and the four Witches of the cardinal directions (Glinda especially) are the ones who solve all the problems (obviously not counting the evil ones) and wield all the power. Baum still balances the gender dynamics by having well-written male characters as well. There have been dozens of unofficial sequels (Baum himself wrote 14 Oz books altogether before he died), not even counting revisionist/alternate universe media like Wicked. This film appears to be based on an original story (not one of the novels) and inspired by the 1939 film, and I can tell. The Wicked Witch of the West’s green skin is a dead giveaway, as well as Glinda being blonde and the Witch of the North. In the original novels, the Witch of the West did not have green skin, and Glinda was the redheaded Witch of the South. The 1939 film combined the Witch of the North (who ultimately wasn’t a significant character in the books anyway) and Glinda into one character. Actually, Glinda’s being blonde in this adaptation is telling me that they’re borrowing more than a little bit from Wicked.
Dorothy, Ozma and Glinda serve significant leadership positions in Oz. Princess Ozma is the true hereditary ruler of Oz – her position having been usurped by The Wizard. Glinda is by far the most powerful sorceress in Oz, and both Dorothy and Ozma often defer to her wisdom. Dorothy, of course, is the plucky orphan outsider who combines resourcefulness and bravery. She and Ozma are extremely close best friends – so close, in fact, that many people have done a queer reading of their relationship. It is not just my interpretation of the series that makes it subtextually feminist, L. Frank Baum deliberately wrote it as such. He is the son-in-law of Matilda Gage, a prominent 19th century suffragette. Although the biographic adaptation of Baum’s life, The Dreamer of Oz, painted their relationship as strained and antagonistic (and even implied she was the inspiration for the Witch of the West), he actually deeply admired her for her feminist political beliefs and was directly involved in the women’s suffrage movement as an advocate. Nice attempt at trying to make Gage a Straw Feminist, huh? Dorothy also serves as a memorial to his niece who died in infancy; his wife Maud was so distraught at Dorothy’s death (as she’d always wanted a daughter) Baum named his book’s heroine after her – and it is quite easy to interpret Oz as a symbolic heaven.
Princess Ozma (Source: Wikipedia)
Despite Princess Ozma being one of the most important characters in the entire Oz series, I can only recall two adaptations that even acknowledge she exists (and I’ve seen so many Oz adaptations I can’t remember them all) – cult classic Return To Oz and the 80s anime TV series The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Return To Oz makes her a kind of damsel in distress imprisoned by Princess Mombi, but at least makes the strong friendship between Ozma and Dorothy very clear. The anime TV series has one of the more unusual interpretations of Ozma. As in the original novels, Ozma had been transformed by Mombi (who is a minor witch, not a princess) into a boy named Tip so that no one could ever recognize her. After Glinda reveals who she really is and transforms her back, Ozma remains distinctly tomboyish – suggesting that Ozma’s life as a boy was a lot more absolute than just a physical transformation.
Since Oz The Great and Powerful is a prequel, I doubt they’ll even mention Ozma (never mind Dorothy), especially since they’re apparently going to make Diggs a heroic protagonist. I can’t even put The Wizard’s narrative role into words – he’s not a hero as he’s a fraud and an usurper, but he’s not a villain as he is mostly benevolent. Anti-Villain? I dunno. I don’t want to start talking like a TV Tropes page. What the trailer has implied, however, is that the Witches are going to defer to his authority and apparently prophesied power. What kind of bullshit is that?
Kristen Chenoweth & Idina Menzel in Wicked (Source: last.fm)

If we had to get an Oz prequel adaptation, why did we get this instead of Wicked? Wicked has its flaws, but the musical version echoes the main themes of the original books by making it about a strong friendship between girls/women. What we’ve seemingly got here is a story where three incredibly powerful sorceresses are unable to solve Oz’s problems on their own, and are waiting for a man to save them. A man who is a fraud. Two of the Witches inevitably will become part of the problem – the brunettes in the dark clothing, of course, not the pretty blonde in the pastels. The trailer also suggests that at least one of the Witches (it looks like Mila Kunis) will have a romance with Diggs, cause of course we can’t have women in a story without at least one of them wanting to bang the hero.
I hope the trailer is just being deceptive for marketing purposes. I hope the story isn’t really about powerful women waiting for a man to save them. But I’m not optimistic. The 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz remains one of my favourite movies of all time, and it retains one of Baum’s feminist themes – the women had the power all along. But it’s really distressing me how much this upcoming film relies on the canon of the 1939 adaptation, and doesn’t seem to have considered L. Frank Baum’s novels at all. With fourteen Oz books written by him and dozens of other adaptations/sequels/whatevers out there taking advantage of the Oz series being public domain, why did we need yet another original Oz story? And why, why, why did we need one that heavily implies that three powerful sorceresses need an ordinary man to rescue them? As an Oz series fan…that’s a load of humbug.

Myrna Waldron is a feminist writer/blogger with a particular emphasis on all things nerdy. She lives in Toronto and has studied English and Film at York University. Myrna has a particular interest in the animation medium, having written extensively on American, Canadian and Japanese animation. She also has a passion for Sci-Fi & Fantasy literature, pop culture literature such as cartoons/comics, and the gaming subculture. She maintains a personal collection of blog posts, rants, essays and musings at The Soapboxing Geek, and tweets with reckless pottymouthed abandon at @SoapboxingGeek.

Best Picture Nominee Review Series: 127 Hours

 
I didn’t go into 127 Hours expecting to see any women in the film.  After all, it’s about a man who goes out for a day of canyoneering fun, doesn’t tell anyone where he’s going, bikes through some amazing scenery while occasionally performing random, impressive athletic moves for no reason, decides to do some hiking, and ultimately falls off (and into) a cliff-type structure that becomes a trap. Basically, he smashes his right arm between a giant rock and the wall of a canyon. And gets stuck. I mean stuck.
We know what’s in store for us–at least an hour of watching this guy attempt to get the hell out of there (and, as it turns out in the end, by any means necessary). I immediately caught myself thinking, “Where can the filmmakers possibly go with this? You mean I’m going to have to sit here and watch this d-bag James Franco chip away at a boulder with a dull knife for an hour? While he makes jokes about his shitty Made-in-China adventure-equipment and urges us to Buy American?” Well, yes. And no. While the film certainly has its problems, especially in its presentation of women (and there are only, like, two, so it’s disheartening that they manage to still fuck that up), dare I say I walked away kind of loving it? With a renewed respect for James Franco?
Ha. Well. First, let’s talk about Danny Boyle. I had the same problems with Slumdog Millionaire that every film-goer with a set of critical thinking skills had. So walking into 127 Hours, I was already all “meh.” But damn did he manage to make some bike riding exciting.  Seriously. After ten minutes of watching Franco pedal across the horizon accompanied by A. R. Rahman’s soundtrack of tribal drums with violin and brass combo beats, I wanted to leave the theater and go buy a mountain bike.  That feeling lasted all the way up until the first two women were introduced three seconds later.  
They’re lost.  And they need Franco to help them navigate the terrain.  He does.  Franco hangs with them for a while and they do some canyon-climbing and they record themselves swimming and they splash around and they flirt a little bit and it’s actually pretty fun to watch.  This scene, which doesn’t seem like it has much of a point at first, becomes essential, especially considering it’s one of only a handful of real-time scenes that exists outside of his entrapment.  We get to know him here, and the truth is, it’s difficult not to fall in love with him.  He plays Ralston as a full-of-life, thrill-seeking sweetheart who’s hellbent on having as much fun as possible before the day ends. So when he and the women part ways, and his new friends invite him to a party later, it’s impossible not to experience a little unease.  We like him now.  And we know there’s no fucking way he’s making it to that party.

The rest of the movie takes place in the canyon–a claustrophobic nightmare that only works because Franco is apparently an amazing actor–and inside Franco’s mind, through flashbacks of his super hot  (gasp) blond ex-girlfriend and the phone calls from his mom and sister that he clearly stupidly ignored prior to his departure.  He also hallucinates some crazy shit, like a giant Scooby-Doo blowup doll that’s soundtracked to that ghoulish laughter reminiscent of the last few seconds of Thriller.  Yeah!  And though it sounds absolutely insane, it’s why the film works.  Boyle takes a narrative about a guy struggling to get out of a hole and turns it into an action film, a radio show, a documentary, a commercial, a disaster movie, a cartoon, and a comedy.  About a guy struggling to get out of a hole.

Not that there aren’t a few impossible-to-deal-with moments. The final scene, which is poignant enough on its own, insists on beating the audience over the head with its call to EXPERIENCE EMOTION, courtesy of this ridiculous Dido & A.R. Rahman song. And I still can’t quite figure out how the closeup shots of ice-encased Gatorade and Mountain Dew add anything more than advertising revenue, as much as I’d like to argue that, “If I were trapped in a cave, about to die, drinking my own urine, toying with the idea of amputating a limb, I’d totally hallucinate all these brand-name beverages from Pepsico.”

And yes, god, seriously, The Women.  I know this is a movie about Ralston’s journey.  I respect that and enjoyed watching the innovative ways Boyle used split screens, reverse zooms, fantastical elements, warped focus, and speed variations to tell Ralston’s story in a way I can’t imagine another director successfully telling it.  That doesn’t mean I could ignore my own cringing every time a woman entered the frame.  The ex-girlfriend clearly serves as a vehicle to show Ralston’s loner-ness; see, he pushed her away all cliche-like. We know this because she says Very Important Things to him. “You’re going to be so lonely,” she yells, after he silently (but with his eyes!) asks her to leave a sporting event they’re attending.  (I want to say hockey?)

His hallucinations suck, too.  His sister shows up in a wedding dress.  His sister showing up in a wedding dress clearly serves as a vehicle to make us feel bad that he’ll be missing Very Important Life Events if he dies, like his sister’s wedding.  More pointlessly, the hallucinated sister, who might have one speaking line if I’m being generous, is played by Lizzy Caplan, an actress who’s had large roles in True Blood, Party Down, Hot Tub Time Machine, Cloverfield, and Mean Girls.  Instead of engaging with the film, I found myself taken completely out of it, as I wondered why they would cast an actress who’s clearly got more skills than standing in a wedding dress, looking sullen and disappointed, to stand in a wedding dress looking sullen and disappointed.

So, the first two women (the lost ones) show Ralston’s carefree coolness.  The ex-girlfriend illustrates Ralston’s darkness and his need for independence–as do the voicemails he ignores from his mother and sister, which are played in flashback.  His sister reminds the audience that Ralston has Things to Live For.  Hell, Ralston even tries to console his mother in advance (when he records his deathbed goodbye with his video cam) by saying things like, “Don’t feel bad about buying me such cheap, crappy mountain climbing equipment Mom … I mean, how were you supposed to know this would happen!”  Hehe.  What? Apparently it’s easier to use every possible cliche ever of how men and women interact (as a way to reveal information about the hero’s personality and psyche) than it is to, I don’t know, show him interacting with some guys? Have him flashback-interact with Dad? Nope, we get Lost Women in Need, Wedding Dresses, and Mommy Blaming.  And I haven’t even gotten to the masturbation scene yet.

[This is your Spoiler Alert.]

I struggled with the masturbation scene.  Because it’s a failed masturbation scene.  I mean, it’s a scene where masturbation is attempted unsuccessfully. I didn’t like that he took out his video camera and freeze-framed and zoomed in on a woman’s breasts from earlier–as far as I’m concerned, there’s no other way to look at that than as classic Objectification (and dismemberment) of Women.  (Also, the audience laughed, and I was taken out of the film yet again.) But at the same time … whoa. Ralston knows he’s about to die.  He’s out of water.  He’s got no hope of being rescued. Ultimately, masturbation for him is an act of desperation, the desire to feel something that his body has already let go of.  Yes–it’s powerful stuff. Watching Ralston’s body betray him shows his imminent physical death.

But it felt too much like The Ultimate Betrayal.  As much as I sympathized with Ralston–and Franco is brilliant in this scene–I don’t want to let the film off the hook entirely.  I mean, what’s with men and their dicks?  If I’m trapped down there, I’m thinking, “A little less masturbation, a little more amputation.” Honestly. The scene played too much like a metaphor for his final loss of power (read: masculinity), as impotence usually does on-screen.  In that moment, I no longer identified with the film’s initial overarching theme of hope and possible redemption; I just thought, “Oh man, he can’t get  it up it. SNAP.”  I guess I’m just wondering if the film really needed to go there …

So, aside from the women “characters” being cliched, pointless, slightly offensive insertions used  only to further our understanding of Ralston, 127 Hours is a fabulous film.  I’m not even being sarcastic. I’ve never been much of a Franco fan–I mean, apparently he’s teaching a class about himself now?–but this performance is a game-changer for James and me.  Boyle certainly showed his directing chops, too; this movie goes places a viewer would never expect–in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.  I cried. I eye-rolled. I looked away (often). And I laughed.  Especially at the end of the film, when the woman behind me said, “Wait.  You  mean that shit was a true story?!”