Joss Whedon – Bitch Flicks

The Chameleon Woman in ‘Dollhouse’ and ‘iZombie’: Personality Swapping and Agency

The problem presented by both ‘Dollhouse’ and ‘iZombie’ is that of the “Chameleon Woman.” Both Echo and Liv carry the metaphor of the expectation that women adapt based on the needs and desires of others. However, both TV series point to this societal issue with two very different takes.

Guest post written by Audrey T. Carroll.

“Would you like a treatment?” This phrase is repeated throughout the course of Joss Whedon’s television series Dollhouse, meant to cue the “Actives” or “Dolls” — people, mostly women, whose personalities have been stripped from them — to let the in-house scientist imprint them with a personality, memories, or skills that someone pays for them to have. After the client encounters, they are again wiped of their memories and personalities. The “Dollhouse,” one of approximately 20 facilities that rents out Dolls, is a human trafficking ring. The Dolls are meant to fulfill the expectations of others, especially (though admittedly not exclusively) male clients and often in a sexual or sexually enticing capacity. For example, in season one episode two “The Target,” the show’s protagonist, Echo (Eliza Dushku), is sent on a date with a man who loves outdoor activities. She is clearly hired in an arousal capacity, which takes a turn for the worst when the guy starts to hunt her.

Echo changes every week. We’re supposed to root for her because she’s the protagonist and Eliza Dushku does a wonderful job infusing the character with as much sympathy as possible. Of course we feel bad for her because of her situation. However, it can be difficult to connect to a character who has to change in accordance with each situation. Echo, in a lot of ways, embodies an ideal of “the chameleon woman.” She changes depending on the needs of the partner who paid for her, a sickening representation of the expectation that women exist solely to service the needs of others, most commonly men — if they like the outdoors, then so must she; if they need a doting wife or neighbor, then she must fit that description; if they need someone cold and calculating, then that’s what she becomes.

Why, out of all of the Dolls in the House, do we predominantly follow Echo? Because Echo is unique in that she has a “defect”: she has the ability to retain some semblance of self and she becomes more self-aware. Because of this, we can root for her as an audience; it gives us some sort of personality continuity that we can connect to emotionally. But the characters in power — scientist Topher (Fran Kanz); Adelle, (Olivia Williams) who runs the Dollhouse; Echo’s handler, Boyd (Harry Lennix) — make it clear that this is a defect, not something impressive or victorious as the audience might perceive it. In fact, this can land Echo in a lot of trouble. Specifically, she can end up in “the Attic,” which serves as a punishment of permanent entrapment and mental torment for Dolls who are “broken” or “defective” (in the view of the Dollhouse).

Echo’s unique skill doesn’t help her to not be stripped of her agency the vast majority of the time. She has no say in what personalities she gets imprinted with, or who her clients are, or even the most basic “yes or no” consent. Even before she was a Doll, when she was Caroline, the head of the Dollhouse essentially backed her against the wall, making Caroline’s agreement to be a doll in the first place ethically compromised even beyond the basic premise of “humans used as shells for the pleasure of people who pay for them.” It was hardly a choice at all. And for some other characters — namely Sierra (Dichen Lachman), who was institutionalized by a man after she rejected him and then involuntarily sent to the Dollhouse — there was literally no choice at all.

Based on the comic books, the TV series iZombie, created by Diane Ruggiero-Wright and Rob Thomas, focuses on the crime-solving medical examiner and pseudo-psychic Olivia “Liv” Moore (Rose McIver). Liv helps Detective Clive Babineaux (Malcolm Goodwin) with homicide cases. She’s able to do this because, in the process of eating the brains that come down to the medical examiner’s office to keep herself as human as possible, she takes on the memories and personalities of the deceased. This can lead to visions that give Liv clues for Clive to identify the killers he needs to put away. Because of the way that eating brains affects Liv, she changes personalities every week — a dominatrix one week, a frat boy the next.

Liv is able to help in the pursuit of justice, albeit in a highly unconventional way, and she’s able to develop meaningful and consistent relationships not solely centered on sex or her sexual appeal. She has no sexual history nor, as far as the show presents, sexual engagement with most of the other characters: Ravi (Rahul Kohli), her fellow medical examiner; Peyton (Aly Michalka), her best friend; and Clive. It could be argued that Clive benefits from what Liv can do, but he is friends with her outside of her abilities and, while he can be very determined and dedicated, he’s never forced or coerced Liv into a situation or actions that morally compromise her.

Echo’s defect is that she maintains a semblance of self; Liv’s is that she can deviate from her true self. When Liv eats the brains of a deceased hitman, she almost lets Ravi get eaten by a much more monstrous “Romero zombie.” When she’s on vigilante brains, she almost gets herself killed. When she’s on nymphomaniac brains, she cheats on her boyfriend. But most of the time, Liv is still Liv, just with some goofy quirks and moments of zoning out when she sees someone else’s memories. At first, Liv’s voice-over narration in the show reflects her thoughts and demonstrates that she’s still herself. Later, the writers let Rose McIver’s acting and her consistent chemistry with the other actors do the heavy lifting of demonstrating that Liv is always Liv, and that this Liv is who her friends connect to and care about.

Liv is also not robbed of her agency. She chooses to eat the brains of murder victims for many reasons tied to her character, probably the two foremost being that the person is already dead and she wants to help find their killer. She also turns down the “brain mush” from the company Fillmore-Graves, which would give her the sustenance she needs without imbuing her with the personalities or memories of the deceased. Liv chooses to help others, to accept the drawbacks of her current feeding situation so that being a zombie — a state of being that was beyond her control — becomes something that benefits the greater good. Liv is able to make the choice to not let what she is control who she is — zombie Liv is different from human Liv, but she is still at her core Liv.

The problem presented by both Dollhouse and iZombie is that of the “Chameleon Woman.” Both Echo and Liv carry the metaphor of the expectation that women adapt based on the needs and desires of others. However, both TV series point to this societal issue with two very different takes. In Dollhouse, women (who comprise most of the recurring named Dolls) are commodities waiting to have a skin put on them. The framing can make it difficult to create emotional connection to Echo, and all of the non-Dolls are morally compromised because they are either actively involved in the actions of the Dollhouse or otherwise complicit in its continued existence.

The argument could be made that Dollhouse is about women struggling to regain agency. However, there is the example of Alpha (Alan Tudyk), a Doll who escaped and became homicidal because he, like Echo, was remembering personalities that the Dollhouse gave him. He can theoretically be read as a warning for Echo not to be anything more than the childlike drone she is when between personalities. This is to say nothing of the constantly looming threat of “The Attic.” Whether Echo retaining her memories and sense of self is a positive quality is much more ambiguous and comes with a much greater sense of personal danger for the protagonist than is presented on iZombie.

In iZombie, situations can happen to a person that they can’t control but they can still make choices about how to move forward and, in this way, maintain agency. It’s not a flaw; letting the adopted personality control you is the failing. Liv’s zombie boyfriend Justin (Tongayi Chirisa) even tells her, when she cheats on him while on nymphomaniac brains, “I’ve eaten brains before, Liv, and you can fight them if you really want to.” At the end of the day, Dolls are Dolls; they can function as objects or they can be made to disappear. Zombies can become monsters, either the ilk of serial killer criminal bosses like Blaine (David Anders) or mindless and violent “Romero zombies.” But zombies do not have to choose to be monsters.

Both TV series are all about choice, and this becomes colored a certain way with female protagonists. Women are too often robbed of choice, or are presented with choices that range from bad to worse. The struggle for women’s agency seems inextricably linked to the struggle for women’s choices. Examining what women do with choice is a natural extension of this effort. At the end of the day, Dollhouse is about what a woman does with a lack of choice; iZombie is about what a woman does within her realm of choices.

Audrey T. Carroll is a Queens, NYC native currently pursuing her English PhD at the University of Rhode Island. Her obsessions include kittens, coffee, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Queen of Pentacles, her debut poetry collection, is available from Choose the Sword Press, and she can be found at http://audreytcarrollwrites.weebly.com and @AudreyTCarroll on Twitter.

‘Firefly’: Mixed Messages on Inara’s Sexuality

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See also at Bitch Flicks:

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

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

Scarlet Witch and Kitty Pryde: Erased Jewish Superheroines

Not only is erasing Judaism a disservice to both Scarlet Witch and Captain America, it’s also disrespectful to the Jewish writers who invested so much in making a statement about Jewish resistance in their artistic expression. … What’s aggravating about the omission of Kitty Pryde’s faith is the fact that the filmmakers didn’t do this to Magneto’s character…

This guest post written by Sophie Hall appears as part of our theme week on Superheroines.

Captain America: Civil War was released earlier this month, marking it as Marvel’s 13th feature film and it satisfied critics and audiences alike. Not only did it pass the billion dollar gross mark, it passed the DuVernay test, having not two but three Black superheroes (Falcon, War Machine, and introducing Black Panther), making it one of the few superhero films to do so.

Sadly though, the film was let down by its superheroines (and I’m not just talking about it failing the Bechdel test.) The two female superheroes we are presented with are Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff and Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff; don’t get me wrong, both are distinguished heroines in a film overstuffed with testosterone, with the filmmakers taking their time with them in establishing their flaws, strengths, vulnerabilities and powers. The problem, then? The pair are similar in race and religious ambiguity — and they shouldn’t be. While Black Widow’s portrayal remains true to her comic book origin, Scarlet Witch’s does not, as her comic book counterpart is Romani and Jewish.

In a featurette for the film Avengers: Age of Ultron, actress Elizabeth Olsen who portrays Scarlet Witch states that writer/director Joss Whedon “is really interested in creating another female character that is strong” for his sequel. This is understandable; Black Widow had been the only prominent female character thus far to receive any sort of a storyline outside of being a love interest or revolving solely around a man.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33dnL_TSP5k”]

However, given the fact that the whole team (at this point), including Black Widow are white and religiously ambiguous, why did Whedon feel that Judaism and a ‘strong female character’ were mutually exclusive? Whedon could have used Scarlet Witch’s Romani heritage as a visual and cultural exploration of her powers, benefiting her character as on the whole.

Not only does Whedon erase Scarlet Witch’s religion in his portrayal — he has her go against it. When the audience is first introduced to Scarlet Witch’s character in Age of Ultron, we discover that she and her twin brother Quicksilver have willingly volunteered to be experimented on for the Nazi organization Hydra to gain powers. Their motivation for this was so that they could seek revenge on Iron Man/Tony Stark, whom they feel is responsible for the death of their parents — but does the end of this narrative choice justify the means? Because that’s a huge creative license to reconcile with the superheroine’s comic book origins.

Some may see keeping Scarlet Witch’s Jewish heritage as not only a duty, but a necessity, if she is to be an Avenger under Captain America’s leadership. In an article on Captain America’s character conception, Jessica Plummer at Panels writes:

“He was famously depicted punching out Adolf Hitler on the cover of his first appearance, in Captain America Comics #1 — which hit stands in December 1940, a full year before Pearl Harbor and before the United States joined World War II, making that cover a bold political statement. […]

“Like most of the biggest names in the Golden Age of comics, they [Captain America creators] were Jewish. They had family and friends back in Europe who were losing their homes, their freedom, and eventually their lives to the Holocaust. The creation of Captain America was deeply personal and deeply political.”

Not only is erasing Judaism a disservice to both Scarlet Witch and Captain America, it’s also disrespectful to the Jewish writers who invested so much in making a statement about Jewish resistance in their artistic expression. With these brave Jewish writers using their art to combat anti-Semitism, respect and inclusion of the religion should always outweigh a filmmaker’s personal creative preference.

Similarly to Scarlet Witch, another superheroine whose Judaism has been erased in their cinematic portrayal is Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat of the X-Men universe. In the comics, Kitty Pryde is a feisty, spirited, and proudly Jewish member of the X-Men. Yet disappointingly in her 2006 big screen debut in X-Men: The Last Stand, her religion is never mentioned and she’s part of a love triangle designed to progress the character of Bobby Drake/Iceman.

What’s aggravating about the omission of Kitty Pryde’s faith is the fact that the filmmakers didn’t do this to Magneto’s character (who ironically is Scarlet Witch’s father in the comics.) The Jewish faith was necessary for them to progress a male character’s storyline but not for a female character. Supervillains can keep their faith whereas superheroines can’t.

Kitty Pryde and Scarlet Witch went on to have another screen outing each, but their faith was still nowhere to be seen. Civil War did a great job at progressing Scarlet Witch’s character (read Maddie Webb’s brilliant Bitch Flicks article). However, without her faith, she is just another white superheroine alongside Black Widow and Sharon Carter, adding nothing new for viewers to take in.

Where Scarlet Witch was blessed with complexity, Kitty Pryde was cursed with none in her on-screen follow up, X-Men: Days of Future Past. In the comic book storyline on which the film is based, it is Kitty who travels back in time to stop the sentinels from creating an apocalyptic-like future in wiping out not only mutants, but most of humanity. The film adaptation? Of course it was Wolverine sent back, a reliable character for a box office draw. Not only was this a missed opportunity for a superheroine to truly shine on the big screen, but the filmmakers missed out on a more poignant story. Kitty Pryde would have faced what her ancestors faced generations ago; where they were targeted for their religion, Kitty was now being targeted for her mutation. The story would have showcased a seemingly endless cycle that this heroine actively fights to end.

More troubling still was who replaced Kitty Pryde as the female lead in X-Men: Days of Future Past; the blonde haired, blue eyed (and occasionally blued skinned) Mystique, played by global superstar Jennifer Lawrence. Critic Helen O’Hara at Digital Spy highlights the inconsistency of making Mystique the leading superheroine of the recent X-Men films:

“It’s a sea change for the character. In the entire history of the comics she joined the X-Men precisely once, only to betray them almost immediately and reveal herself as a double-agent. During the comics’ Age Of Apocalypse saga, she at least didn’t work against them, but she was basically a war profiteer, ferrying mutants to safety in return if they could afford the price.”

Likewise with Wolverine taking Kitty’s role in the film, it’s easy to see why Mystique would be given center stage over her character. Jennifer Lawrence has an Oscar and the Hunger Games franchise under her belt, proving that she too is reliable in filling seats in a cinema. Still, the studio replacing a pivotal Jewish heroine with two reliable crowd pleasers goes to show how easily they will forgo significant storytelling for easy money.

Given the overall treatment of Scarlet Witch and Kitty Pryde, will we ever see diversity progress for superheroines? In the newest X-Men entry, X-Men: Apocalypse, the front and center superheroine is again Mystique, with Jean Grey appearing as her ally. However, the film poises the two women of color (Storm and Psyclocke) as the antagonists; seeing as the white western heroines are the heroes, you can guess who will most likely dominate the screen-time. The female characters who are minorities get sidelined while the white superheroines shine.

For Disney owning two franchises, they are much slower with female diversity in Marvel than with Star Wars. Granted, the heroines in The Force Awakens were white, but the follow-up Episode 8 will have another female lead played by Asian-American actress Kelly Marie Tran. That will be Disney’s third Star Wars feature, whereas Marvel still only has white women as lead and supporting characters in their 13th feature, which is why Scarlet Witch’s Jewish identity was missed more than ever.

On the other hand, Lupita Nyong’o has been cast in an unspecified (but hopefully badass) role in the upcoming Black Panther film. The character of Valkyrie will be played by the talented Tessa Thompson in the upcoming Thor sequel (presumably due to the backlash of Tilda Swinton’s casting in the upcoming Doctor Strange film). However, I still can’t help but feel a bit bittersweet about this; we should already be basking in the afterglow of diverse heroines, instead of playing what seems like a never-ending waiting game.

See also at Bitch Flicks: Why Scarlet Witch May Be the Future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Sophie Hall is from London and has graduated with a degree in Creative Writing. She is currently writing a sci-fi comic book series called White Leopard for Wasteland Paradise Comics. Her previous articles for Bitch Flicks were on Mad Max: Fury Road, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, director Andrea Arnold and Game of Thrones. You can follow her on Twitter at @sophiesuzhall.

Top 10 Superheroines Who Deserve Their Own Movies

So few superheroines are given their own movies. I’m officially declaring that it’s high time we had more superhero movies starring women. The first in a series of posts, I’m starting with a list of my top 10 picks for super babes who deserve their own flicks.

This repost written by Amanda Rodriguez appears as part of our theme week on Superheroines. | Editor’s note: Since this article’s original posting in June 2014, solo films have been announced for Wonder Woman, Painkiller Jane, and Black Widow.

Most rational people seem to agree that we desperately need more representations of female superheroes to serve as inspiration and role models for girls and women alike. In truth, there is no shortage of superheroines in the world; we’ve got seriously acclaimed, seriously badass female characters from comic books, TV shows, and video games. Though these women tend to be hypersexualized or relegated to the role of supporting cast member for some dude, we still love them and can’t get enough of them. It still remains that so few superheroines are given their own movies. I’m officially declaring that it’s high time we had more superhero movies starring women. The first in a series of posts, I’m starting with a list of my top 10 picks for super babes who deserve their own flicks.

These are the superheroines I’d choose to get a movie if I ran Hollywood:

1. Batwoman

Not to be confused with Batgirl, the DC character Batwoman is the highest profile lesbian character in comic book history. A wealthy military brat who was expelled from West Point Academy due to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Batwoman is a defiant, tattooed socialite by day and a crime asskicker by night. With compelling, topical social themes (particularly with regard to queer culture), amazing action sequences and a lush, lurid and darkly magical underbelly of Gotham that we never saw with Batman, Batwoman has so much to offer audiences.

2. Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman is practically a goddess; she’s an Amazon princess with superhuman strength and agility raised only among women on the concealed Paradise Island. With her superior physical prowess and training, she constantly saves the day and her love interest, Steve Trevor. Not only that, but she also has cool gadgets like her invisible plane, Lasso of Truth, and her bullet deflecting bracelets (Wolverine’s adamantium bones ain’t got nothing on Wonder Woman’s gauntlets). The world has been clamoring for and drumming up rumors of a Wonder Woman movie for at least a decade. She’s as steeped in history as Superman, as iconic as Batman, as patriotic as Captain America, as strong as Hulk and way sexier than Ironman, and yet Superman, Batman, and Hulk have all had their own movie series AND their own series’ reboots while the rights to Wonder Woman languish on the shelf. Hell, the 70s were more progressive than today because they recognized the need and market for female superheroes when they created the beloved Wonder Woman TV series starring Lynda Carter that ran for four years. Give the woman a movie already, damn it!

3. The Bionic Woman

Speaking of the 70s and their penchant for female-driven TV shows, Jaime Sommers, aka The Bionic Woman, first had her own TV series in 1976, which was then rebooted in 2007 as Bionic Woman. After an accident nearly kills her, Jaime is retrofitted with a bionic ear, arm, and legs, giving her superhuman strength and speed in those limbs as well as acute hearing that she uses in her secret agenting. Though Jaime Sommers was imagined as a spin-off to the male-driven series The Six Million Dollar Man, she was successful in her own right and expanded the horizons of little girls in the 70s. I want Jaime to get a real movie, not just some piddly made-for-TV deal. My only requirement for said movie is that it keep the super sweet 70s sound effects for when she uses her bionic powers.

4. Samus Aran from Metroid

Samus Aran is a space bounty hunter who destroys evil Metroids in the Nintendo video game (you guessed it) Metroid. Because of Samus’ androgynous power suit, game players assumed she was a man until the big reveal at the end of the original 1986 game when she takes off her helmet. Gamers loved it. Not only that, but Metroid was and continues to be one of Nintendo’s most lucrative and popular game series, such that the latest installment of the game (Metroid: Other M) came out as recently as 2010. With ever-expanding plotlines and character development, Samus has proven that she is compelling enough to carry a series for over two and a half decades. Instead of making another crappy Resident Evil movie, I say we give Samus a chance.

5. Runaways

Runaways is a comic book series that chronicles the adventures of a group of minors who discover that their parents are supervillains. Not wanting to go down the evil paths of their parents, the kids make a break for it. Now, both boys and girls are part of the gang, but there are more girls than boys, and the women are nuanced, funny and smart. The de facto leader of the rag-tag group is Nico, a goth Japanese-American witch (um…how cool is that??). Then there’s Gertrude who doesn’t have any powers (unless you count her telepathic link to her female raptor), but she’s tough, smart, confident and is a fat-positive representation of a nontraditional female comic book body type. Next, little Molly is a scrapper and a mutant with superhuman strength and great hats who kicks the shit out of Wolverine. Finally, we’ve got the alien Karolina with powers of light and flight who explores her sexuality, realizing she’s a lesbian. Karolina ends up falling in love with the shapeshifting Skrull, Xavin, and the storyline explores transgender themes. Joss Whedon himself was involved for a time in the series, so you know it’s full of humor, darkness, and deep connections to the character. There’s so much WIN in Runaways that it’s a crime they haven’t made a movie out of it yet.

6. She-Ra: Princess of Power

She-Ra is the twin sister (and spin-off) of He-Man. Possessing incredible strength, a healing touch, an ability to communicate with animals, and a power sword that transforms into anything she wants, She-Ra is, frankly, the shit. Ever since I was a bitty thing, I always loved She-Ra, and I’d contend that with her organizing of a 99.9% female force to fight the evil Horde, She-Ra and her powerful lady friends are busting up the patriarchy. Though 1985 saw the feature length animated film introducing She-Ra’s origin story through the eyes of her brother in The Secret of the Sword, it’s time for She-Ra to have her own live action film. I mean, He-Man got his chance on the big screen with Masters of the Universe, starring Dolph Lundgren. Though I love Lundren’s mush-mouth rendition of the most powerful man in the universe, it’s universally regarded as a steaming pile of Cringer crap. I’m sure She-Ra can easily top reviews like that, especially with her women-powered “Great Rebellion.”

7. Storm

Storm, aka Ororo Munroe, is one of the most powerful mutants in the X-Men franchise. She is intelligent, well-respected, and a leader among her mutant peers and teammates. Storm also flies and controls the fucking weather. Does it get more badass than that? Storm was the very first prominent Black female in either DC or Marvel, and the fanbase for this strong Black woman grows all the time. Though the X-Men film series sprung for the acclaimed Halle Berry to play Storm, her character is habitually underutilized and poorly developed. Enough! Let’s get Lupita Nyong’o to play Storm in her origin story, chronicling her thievery in Cairo, her stint as a worshiped goddess when her powers first emerged, and her eventual induction into the X-Men. That, friends, is an epic tale.

8. Xena: Warrior Princess

Xena: Warrior Princess is a TV series that ran for six years about a couple of women traveling and fighting their way across the world, their stories weaving in and out of ancient Western mythology. Xena herself is a complex character, full of strength and skill in combat, while battling her own past and demons. Her companion Gabriel, though also quite skilled at martial arts, is the gentler of the two, always advocating compassion and reason. Together, the pair formed a powerful duo with pronounced lesbionic undertones that has appealed to queer audiences for nearly 20 years. I suspect the statuesque Lucy Lawless could even be convinced to reprise her role as this fierce female warrior who stood up to gods and men alike.

9. Black Widow

Black Widow, aka Natalia Alianovna “Natasha” Romanova, began as a Russian spy. With impressive martial arts abilities and wily womanly charms, Black Widow is renowned as one of the deadliest assassins in the Marvel universe. In an attempt to redeem her past, Black Widow joins the S.H.I.E.L.D agency and the Avengers, adding her considerable skills (that she has cultivated without the aid of magical abilities) to the team. Though I’m not, personally, the biggest fan of Black Widow, I’m impressed by her universal appeal. She’s appeared in a handful of comic book movie adaptations, most notably The Avengers, and people go ga-ga for her. Even those who care little for the rallying cry for greater female on-screen representation and even less for feminism are all about Black Widow starring in her own film. Hell, she even has a remarkably life-like action figure…proof positive that this gal has made it to the big-time.

10. Codex from The Guild

The Guild is a web series with short episodes that focuses on Codex, aka Cyd Sherman, an introvert with an addiction to massive multi-player online roleplaying games (MMORPG). In her online guild, Cyd is the powerful priestess Codex. Reality and her online personae collide when members of the guild begin to meet in real life. This is a fun and quirky web series written and created by its female star, the talented Felicia Day. Not all superheroines need to have superpowers and save the day. In fact, some superheroines just have to give it all they’ve got to make it through the day. With powers of humor and authenticity, Codex would make a welcome addition to the superhero film family.

Honorable Mention

1. Painkiller Jane

Queer Painkiller Jane has rapid healing powers like those of Wolverine, but she tends to be far grittier and darker, even facing off against the Terminator in a particularly bloody installment. She briefly had her own craptastic television series starring Kristanna Loken before it was wisely canceled.

2. Rogue

From the X-Men, Rogue is the complicated and compelling daughter of Mystique with vampire-like powers that make her nearly invulnerable but also render her unable to touch any other living creature.

3. Batgirl

Batgirl has had many permutations throughout the ages, beginning as a sidekick to Batman and Robin in comics, TV as well as film and ending with several different versions of her own comic series, including her incarnation as Oracle, the paraplegic command center for the Birds of Prey comic and disappointing TV series.

4. Power Girl

Power Girl is another version of Supergirl who, therefore, has the same powers as Superman. She is a leader among other superheroes, a formidable foe, and renowned for being “fresh and fun.”

5. Psylocke

It might seem ridiculous that so many X-Men made this list, but, damn, they have got some awesome ladies on the roster. I’m ending with Psylocke, my all-time favorite X-Men character. Elizabeth Braddock is a telepath who can use her telekinesis to create pyschic weapons. Upon her death, she inhabits the body of a Japanese ninja, eventually taking over the body completely so that she adds hardcore martial arts skills to her repertoire.

I know I missed a bunch of amazing superheroines. That’s a good thing because it means there are so many badass super babes out there that I can’t possibly name them all. Now we’ve just got to get a bunch of those ladies up on the big screen to show us reflections of ourselves and to inspire us to be more.

Sound off in the comments by listing your top female superhero picks to get their own films!

Take a look at the rest of my Top 10 installments: Top 10 Villainesses Who Deserve Their Own Movies, Top 10 Superheroine Movies That Need a Reboot, and Top 10 Superheroes Who Are Betters as Superheroines.

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

Shishihokodan: The Destructive Female Gaze of YA Supernatural Action Romantic Comedy

This repost by Brigit McCone appears as part of our theme week on The Female Gaze.

YA Supernatural Action Romantic Comedy (SARCom) was created in 1987 by the manga artist Rumiko Takahashi’s Ranma 1/2. Her mixture of kung-fu demon-of-the-week fights, romance and comedy, with a supernaturally strong heroine, dual shapeshifting supernaturally strong love interests and sarcastically quipping sidekicks, was then a completely unique format and rapidly became popular in the West and Japan. Takahashi’s creative control as visual and story artist (particularly after the success of the slapstick Urusei Yatsura) meant that the aesthetics of SARCom were shaped by the female gaze from the outset. Among its innovations, Ranma 1/2 introduces an Ice Prince/Wolf love rivalry between the hero Ranma and his rival Ryoga, a trope Takahashi would develop in her next SARCom Inuyasha. Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer popularized the SARCom in mainstream Western culture, developing its own Ice Prince/Wolf rivalry with the characters Angel and Spike. The Ice Prince/Wolf dynamic now dominates teen girl cinema, after Catherine Hardwicke’s Twilight set a new record for commercially successful female directors.

Hardwicke’s camera continually privileges Kristen Stewart’s female gaze as Bella Swan, moving with her and focusing on her lip-biting lustful reactions, while offering Robert Pattinson’s Edward Cullen as erotic spectacle, the camera panning over him lovingly. Twilight also almost fails a reverse-Bechdel through the intense Bellacentrism of all its characters. Male viewers react with defensive ridicule to the uncomfortable sensation that they are supposed to be lustful fourteen-year-old girls when watching this film. In this moment, they have a brief sensation of what it is to be the female spectator of 90% of Hollywood films, uncomfortably reminded by the Male Gaze that you are somehow supposed to have the reactions and expectations of a heterosexual man. Their unfamiliarity with the mechanics of the female gaze became obvious when Hardwicke was replaced in Twilight sequels by male directors, who fumbled uncomfortably to recapture her intensity. Not only excluded as unintended spectator, the male viewer of SARCom is more likely to identify with the always defeated “Wolf” (sexual pursuer, equivalent to female “Whore”), the vulnerable, openly desiring rival. The victory of the unrealistic “Ice Prince” (sexual resistor, equivalent to female “Madonna”) is therefore destructive to the male viewer’s ego, often provoking a hostility barely concealed under sneering ridicule, just as the Male Gaze’s Madonna/Whore logic has always been destructive to the female ego. So what, actually, is going on?

Celebrating Celibacy: The “Ice Prince” Archetype

The defining characteristic of the “Ice Prince” is his combination of emotional fidelity and sexual unavailability, which amplifies gazing female desire and sexual frustration simultaneously, and is generally accompanied by his emphasized superiority and/or physical threat. That is, his sexual unavailability becomes a symptom of his overall domination. Ranma, the hero of Ranma 1/2, not only rivals the heroine Akane in martial arts, but periodically transforms into a girl more sexually attractive than she is. This tantalizing superiority enhances the character’s sexual unavailability; the world of Ranma 1/2 plays with gender but is strictly heteronormative with biological sex. Ranma 1/2 occupies an intermediate position between the shounen (boys’ manga) harem plot of Takahashi’s previous Urusei Yatsura and the love rivalries of her later Inuyasha: as a shounen hero, Ranma is the center of a harem of sex-crazed women, but as a shoujo (girls’ manga) hero, he must be sexually attracted to none of them. The sexual friction from these conflicting genre demands seems to have accidentally invented the “ice prince” archetype.

Inuyasha tames its threateningly feral hero, while maintaining his sexual unavailability, by making him frustratingly in love with a previous incarnation of the heroine Kagome – thus, he loves Kagome as a reincarnation, but cannot consummate this love due to his frustrating fidelity to her original.

The most extreme “Ice Prince” archetype in Takahashi’s work is Sesshomaru, the haughty, aristocratic pureblood demon introduced as a villain, accompanied by a sycophantic toady, who is attempting to cheat his socially inferior, half-brother Inuyasha out of his inheritance; that is, almost exactly the set-up of Fitzwilliam Darcy in Pride & Prejudice. She may have intended to create a villain, but Takahashi falls into Austen’s tried and tested Darcy arc: Sesshomaru meets an open-hearted, mischievous and unintimidated girl whom he struggles to scorn as inferior; his flaws are contextualized by introducing his controlling, snobbish mother; finally, he risk everything to rescue the redeemer-girl. Introducing a poison-clawed Demon Dog Darcy, with the power to raise the dead and blast his enemies to hell as a supporting character, unbalances Inuyasha: Sesshomaru’s well-written redemption arc commences just as Inuyasha’s own arc grinds to a halt, spending a hundred chapters randomly upgrading his sword while the fandom sways toward the narratively marginalized Sesshomaru. Demon Dog Darcy is then forced to hand his emotionally-earned powers over to Inuyasha in an exasperatingly contrived plot twist. But Sesshomaru’s very marginalization in Inuyasha‘s narrative, and total detachment from the main heroine, function to intensify fangirl emotional and sexual frustration: the ultimate aim of any Ice Prince. Although Demon Dog Darcy progressively thaws emotionally, the character’s sexual unavailability is emphasized by spiked armor encircling his chest and maintained by filling the “Elizabeth Bennet” role with a pre-pubescent girl.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel loves and saves Buffy but is made sexually unavailable by a curse that he will lose his soul if he has sex with her. This loss of soul also allows the intensification of Angel’s dominating physical threat and sadism, while permitting the “real” Angel to remain a dutiful lover. Twilight likewise presents Edward Cullen as a deeply loving and loyal “Ice Prince” who threatens Bella repeatedly by mentioning his urge to devour her and, of course, is sexually unavailable through his fear of ‘losing control’. All these narrative devices intensify friction, rather than satisfaction. However, since a female viewer can never fulfil her own sexual desires for a fictional construct, her experience of frustrated sexual tension is most satisfyingly expressed by sexual tension within the narrative. Also, because society constructs men as permanent sexual pursuers, a woman is relieved of her need to resist, and able to fully and extravagantly express her lust in a safer space, when the male is reimagined as loving resistor.

Demon-in-Distress: The “Wolf” Archetype

The defining characteristic of the “Wolf,” the eternally rejected sexual pursuer, is his combination of desperate emotional and sexual availability with repeatedly emphasized vulnerability and animalism. The most exaggeratedly vulnerable is Ranma 1/2‘s Ryoga, a little boy lost in the literal sense that he farcically lacks any sense of direction. The fanged, impulsive Ryoga’s regular transformations into a small, cute piglet add to his vulnerability. His inability to tell the heroine Akane of his true nature and feelings, out of fear of losing his privileged access as her pet pig, forms a near-perfect satire of the “Friendzone” phenomenon.

Inuyasha‘s impulsive, hotheaded Koga is a wolf-demon. In contrast to the elusive, emotionally conflicted hero Inuyasha, Koga falls for the heroine Kagome almost immediately and pursues her consistently. The manga is notable for constantly placing Koga in helpless “demon-in-distress” situations requiring rescue, and for counterbalancing Sesshomaru’s spiked, hug-repellent armor and Inuyasha’s loose robes with Koga’s skimpy armor and furred micro-miniskirt, concealing his crotch only by careful choice of viewing angle. This ogling display of male flesh is characteristic of the Wolf, maximizing the friction between his overt desirability and the need to resist him.

Although Buffy‘s Spike is a vampire, theoretically an “ice prince” archetype, the character bears a dog’s name and typical “wolf” impulsiveness and romantic vulnerability. In his second season introduction, he is confined to a wheelchair and forced to watch his beloved Drusilla seduced by ‘Ice Prince’ rival Angel. In the third season, he’s pathetically dumped and weeping. In the fourth, he’s neutered by a brain chip that zaps him for attacking, so “he doesn’t chase the other puppies anymore.” In the fifth, the trope of Spike’s muscular nakedness is introduced as vulnerability; he bares his chest to Buffy’s stake and confesses his love. This sequence is revealed as Spike’s dream; he is stripped and Buffy is fully clothed even in his own sexual fantasies. Spike is also stripped and tortured for love of Buffy by the dominant, female deity Glory in this season. In the sixth, after their first sexual encounter, Buffy is again fully clothed, abusing Spike verbally while he sprawls naked and defenseless. She repeatedly violates his sexual boundaries from a position of dominance; his attempt to force himself on her is presented as a crime of pathetic desperation. Though ‘Ice Prince’ Angel wishes to torment and kill Buffy when he is soulless, Spike’s soulless state is no obstacle to his love – the emotional dependence of the “Wolf” knows no bounds.

Twilight’s Jacob Black is another wolf defined by constant loyalty, before attempting to force himself onto Bella in an act portrayed as pathetic desperation. Where Edward’s brief moment of toplessness is a dramatic, suicidal act that will dazzle a watching crowd, Jacob’s muscular toplessness and skimpy attire are chronic, underlining his tantalizing availability and maximizing mental friction in the female spectators, as the heroine resists.

Shishihokodan! Or, Why Team Jacob Loses

Comparing the fandom of all four series reveals an interesting trend: fangirls are roughly equally divided between Team Jacob and Team Edward, Team Spike and Team Angel, Team Ryoga and Team Ranma, Team Koga and Team Inuyasha; nonetheless, the “Ice Prince” always gets the girl. It would be easy to blame the creators. Yet, Stephenie Meyer claims to be “Team Jacob.” Both Marti Noxon and Jane Espenson, Buffy‘s major female writer/directors, have made statements in support of the Buffy/Spike (“Spuffy”) romance. Rumiko Takahashi’s writings in the romcom genre, Maison Ikkoku and One Pound Gospel, also reward and root for heroes in the vulnerable “Wolf” mode, and it is Takahashi who provides a structural explanation for ‘ice prince’ triumph with Ranma 1/2‘s Shishihokodan arc.

The “Shishihokodan” is a blast of energy which enables perpetual loser Ryoga to defeat the hero Ranma by harnessing his own heartbreak. Ranma attempts to defeat the all-powerful Shishihokodan with a confidence-blast, but can only triumph by giving Ryoga momentary hope of sexual opportunity. In other words, Ryoga loses not because he is inferior, but because losing is the paradoxical source of his power. Any woman attracted to the “Wolf'” archetype is inherently drawn to vulnerability; her attraction is intensified by the wolf’s heartbroken rejection, her frustration intensified by the heroine’s resistance. Any woman attracted to the “Ice Prince” is inherently drawn to dominance; her attraction would be reduced by his loss of mastery if he were defeated. As such, pursuing the resistant hero, and resisting the pursuing hero, create positively and negatively charged polarities to an explosive battery of sexual tension; a narrative trap which dooms the “wolf,” as Takahashi showed herself sympathetically aware with the Shishihokodan arc.

The wolf is difficult to dispose of: any alternative love interest would undermine his painful availability, thus one could only be introduced with unsatisfactory suddenness at the last minute to make a weak consolation price. The sudden arrival of a pig-fetishist marks Ryoga’s sidelining in Ranma 1/2; a wolf-girl for Koga is a last-minute addition to the Inuyasha anime, while Koga simply loses his previously foolhardy fighting spirit, forgets his long-established vengeance vendetta and slinks out of the original manga after admitting that Kagome should be with Inuyasha. Abandoning pursuit annihilates a Wolf’s narrative role. Most disturbingly, the newly arrived love interest for Jacob Black is literally newly-arrived as a newborn; his obsessive need to psychologically groom an infant into a future bride doesn’t bother the infant’s parents, presumably merely relieved that the wolf has been disposed of. More satisfyingly, rather than slinking away Koga-style, Spike’s acceptance that Buffy can’t love him “but thanks for saying” allows him to destroy the Hellmouth and be redeemed, incinerating himself in a spectacular blast of purest self-destructive Shishihokodan.

Recognizing the function of Ice Prince/Wolf in YA SARCom implies the continual defeat of the Whore as structural necessity in male writings also – as a pursuing character she must be resisted to generate sexual tension, regardless of whether the male author is Team Madonna or Team Whore. The destructive impact on the self-image of female viewers is pure collateral damage, just as our SARCom is poisonously emasculating for male viewers. In fact, mankind’s Whore is generally more empowered than womankind’s Wolf, probably because culture sees male sexuality as common weakness but female sexuality as social rebellion. It is the female gaze’s model of dominant-resistor/submissive-pursuer that aligns the rivalry dynamic of triumphant dominant with the love dynamic of triumphant resistor in a perfect feedback loop, structurally maximizing sexual tension (hence the squealing). But the collateral damage for a male viewer is the destruction of the character he most identifies with, in a blast of purest Shishihokodan. As women well know, it sucks to be the unintended spectator.

Brigit McCone is unapologetically Team Wolf, writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and making weird Pride and Prejudice analogies.

Misogyny Demons and Wesley’s Tortured Masculinity in Joss Whedon’s ‘Angel’

Not only does the characterization of this violent misogyny as “primordial” imply that violence toward women is the natural state of men, it also implies that gender itself is an essential and natural state of being. Men are men and women are women. In a universe that generally operates in gray areas, such a distinction is uncharacteristically black and white.

This guest post by Stephanie Brown appears as part of our theme week on Masculinity.

In their DVD commnetary on the season three Angel (1999-2004) episode “Billy” (3.6), writers Jeffrey Bell and Tim Minear explain that the episode has been both “widely acclaimed” and “much loathed.” Admittedly, my opinion of the episode changes almost every time I watch it. During the summer of 2012 when I binge-watched nearly all of Joss Whedon’s oevre, this particular episode stuck out to me with its oddly in-your-face treatment of misogyny, gender, and gendered violence. While such topics are generally treated with nuance and complexity in the Whedonverse, “Billy” ditches the usual complexity in favor of portraying the show’s good guys, namely Wesley, channeling their base (and as the episode seems to argue, natural), violent instincts. Not only do the episode’s final scenes resemble The Shining, with Wesley trying to kill Fred (a character he has had unrequited feelings for) with an ax, they also seems to take a dark pleasure in “allowing” him to act out in such a violently misogynistic way.

Evil Billy, in all his demon smarminess.

In case you haven’t seen this particular episode, the plot revolves around Billy, a demon from a rich and powerful family who has recently escaped from the hell dimension in which he was imprisoned. While Billy himself causes no physical destruction, he “infects” men who come into contact with him with violent misogyny. After handling Billy’s blood, Wesley becomes infected and tries to chase down and kill Fred. Though Fred ultimately forgives him, Wesley fears that Billy revealed a very real and violent part of his masculininty. The incident also sends Wesley’s character down a road of brooding intropsection, acting as a turning point in his series long character arc from a buffoonish Watcher (on Buffy The Vampire Slayer) to a troubled, interesting and complex character at the end of Angel’s run. In my humble opinoin, Wesley’s evolution is one of the most fascinating and masterful character arcs on television, and this episode is a key part of that arc.

Critics of “Billy” may see it as yet another instance of Angel’s problematic treatment of female characters, as this particular episode brings questions of gender and morality to the forefront in an especially unsettling manner. Billy, as Lilah puts it, brings out in men “a primordial misogyny” that causes them to react violently toward the women around them. Not only does the characterization of this violent misogyny as “primordial” imply that violence toward women is the natural state of men, it also implies that gender itself is an essential and natural state of being. Men are men and women are women. In a universe that generally operates in gray areas, such a distinction is uncharacteristically black and white.

“Billy,” of course, isn’t the only episode Angel to be critiqued for its treatment of women and gender more generally. While Whedon’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer is, as you likely well know, frequently heralded as feminist or is at least the topic of much feminist-based discussion (even meriting a theme week from this very site), some critics regard Angel as much more problematic in its portrayal of women. Though to be fair, just as Buffy is often an exploration of the complexities of feminity, Angel can be seen as a similar exploration of the complexities of masculinity, perhaps at times at the expense of its female characters. For instance, every major female character in the Angelverse dies by the series’ end, with Cordelia and Fred both being stripped of their identities and then killed by demon possession (in season four’s “Shiny Happy People” and season five’s “A Hole In The World”.

And while this episode and Billy’s character can be read as a reinforcement of masculinity as both essential and naturally violent, I think Billy’s character can also be read as a device through which the episode demonstrates how essentialist notions of masculinity can be dangerous. As I noted earlier, one of Whedon’s signatures is that he works in gray rather than black and white, and this applies to his villains as well as his heroes. Billy, though, is a notable exception and is one of a few villains that fall short of Whedon’s usual character complexity.

Rather than a fully formed character, Billy acts as an extreme symbol of the The Patriarchy with a capital P, who forces our flawed heroes to rexamine and start to grapple with their underlying ideas about gender and mascunilinty throughout the episode. For instance, the episode opens with a scene in which Angel is teaching Cordelia to fight. In her former life on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cordelia used to rely on handsome, strong men to protect her from the various demons of Sunnydale, but she is now ready to fend for herself. She faces, however, some resistance from Angel, as evidenced in their exchange about the reason for her defense training.

Angel: Then – just keep moving the line. You’ll be able to keep an attacker busy until, you know.

Cordelia: What? Until he dies of old age or until you swoop in to save me? Angel, I didn’t
ask you to train me so I could stave. I already know how to stave; now I need to learn how to fight!

Angel: You don’t think that I would?

Cordelia: Would what?

Angel: Save you.

Cordelia: Men-folk not always around to protect the women-folk, you know?

Angel is willing to give Cordelia the training she needs to stay alive, but he is more reluctant to give up his role as protector and savior. While this attitude may come from a place of caring, Cordelia rightly mocks him for his antiquated view of gender relations. Throughout much of the episode, Cordelia pushes back against both Wesley and Angel’s paternal concerns about her ability as a women both to fight and handle the violence that comes along with the job. Wes and Angel are both “good guys,” but they nevertheless struggle with predefined notions of what consitutes proper mascunilinty and femininity. While Angel and Wesley come from a place of concern; however, they still tend to treat Cordelia as inferior, unable to give up what they see as their masculine duty to protect her.

More troubling than Angel’s reluctance to trust Cordelia with full demon fighting responsibilities, though, is the ‘infection’ of Wesley by Billy’s misogyny-infused blood. Because Wesley is not only a white man from a wealthy family but also former member of the highly patriarchal Watcher’s Council, he’s prone to inner turmoil about gender, masculinity, and power.

The Watchers Council: Mostly Old White Men

Billy’s demonhood brings these latent issues violently to the forefront as Wes spends the final two acts of the episode first sexually harassing and then lashing out violently against Fred. As his generally affable, fatherly demeanor morphs into that of a terrifying, calculated killer, his once sweet crush on Fred is warped into a violently perverse sexual attraction. In this transformation we can see how seemingly benign characteristics of traditional masculinity and Billy’s twisted misogyny often fall under the same patriarchal umbrella. While they lie on opposite ends of the spectrum, they’re nevertheless symptoms of the same oppressive system.

While Wes is of course not actually a homicidal misogynist, his actions while under Billy’s spell do force him to face his inner demons (pardon the pun) and fundamentally change his relationship with both Fred and the rest of Angel Investigations. In the final scene of the episode, Wes sits alone in his dark apartment, staring at the wall when Fred comes to see him.

Wes: Fred, I tried to kill you.

Fred: That wasn’t you.

Wes: How can you know that? Something inside me was forced to the surface. Something primal, something…

Fred: Do you wanna kill me?

Wes: Oh, God, no.

Fred: It wasn’t something in you, Wesley. It was something that was done to you.

Wes: I don’t know what kind of man I am anymore.

Even though he was posessed by Billy, Wes nevertheless saw something of himself in his actions that he feels he must come to terms with. Wes of course is not only a victim of Billy’s, but also of the patriarchal definitions of masculinity that he was taught both by his father and by the Watcher’s Council. It’s these unresolved issues that Wes is now being forced to face.

Wesley and Fred talk after he is no longer possessed.

At the close of the episode, Fred seems relatively unaffected by the fact that her friend and boss nearly hacked her into little pieces, while Wes sits broken and weeping. His dejection shows us that while we tend to focus on the harm that befalls those who define themselves as feminine within a patriarchal society, rigid gender roles and misogny are just as harmful to those who define themselves as masculine.

Stephanie Brown is a television, comedy, and podcast enthusiast working on her doctorate in media studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. You can follow her on Twitter or Medium @stephbrown.

#iamnotavessel: Joss Whedon’s Romantic Reproductive Coercion

Whedon and director Jeunet thus systematically demolish Ridley Scott’s original metaphor by consistently representing Ripley’s experience of forced maternity as akin to both chosen motherhood and loss of self, and essentially different from the forced impregnation and reproductive coercion of the male characters.

Ripley, loving her "beautiful, beautiful little baby" — Ripley, loving her “beautiful, beautiful little baby”

Written by Brigit McCone.

The Alien saga offers some of the most powerful images of bodily violation in pop culture, from the metaphorical rape of the facehuggers to the victim’s resulting fatal impregnation. Ridley “Thelma and Louise“ Scott* fostered male empathy by casting John Hurt as the victim of this violation, while Sigourney Weaver’s badass Ellen Ripley defeated the monster. The sequel, Aliens, saw Ripley voluntarily assume maternal responsibility for a young girl, Newt, and fight an iconic battle against the Alien Queen to save her adopted child. In Alien3, Ripley realized she had been impregnated with an Alien Queen, and made a conscious decision to destroy herself and it. Then, in 1997, celebrated male feminist Joss Whedon scripted a fourth film in the series, Alien: Resurrection, which revived Ripley as an Alien/human hybrid clone.

When her identity is challenged, Ripley/Alien smiles, “I’m the monster’s mother,” equating motherhood with forced cloning in a lab. Realizing that Aliens have escaped, Ripley/Alien grins, later clarifying, “I’m finding a lot of things funny lately, but I don’t think they are.” Merging with the Alien has rendered her emotional responses irrational. As Ripley/Alien is anguished at being forced to destroy a room full of fellow clones, Ron Perlman’s pirate snorts “must be a chick thing”, in a franchise founded on transgressive gender-bending. Ripley/Alien weeps openly at the death of the Newborn, an Alien/human hybrid which has already devoured the brains of two people (including the film’s final person of color), which Brad Dourif’s scientist described as her “beautiful, beautiful little baby.” Whedon and director Jeunet thus systematically demolish Ridley Scott’s original metaphor by consistently representing Ripley’s experience of forced maternity as akin to both chosen motherhood and loss of self, and essentially different from the forced impregnation and reproductive coercion of the male characters.

Maternity may be forced, but motherhood is always voluntary. An adopted mother is a true mother, as Ripley is to Newt. An egg donor, a surrogate or a clone is not automatically a mother, as Ripley is not to the Newborn. Reducing the complexity of motherhood to automatic biology also implies that bad mothers are unnatural, rather than flawed humans, which aspiring writers may wish to explore in this Theme Week. As for Alien: Resurrection, Whedon’s ending was changed and he claims “they said the lines…mostly…but they said them all wrong. And they cast it wrong. And they designed it wrong. And they scored it wrong. They did everything wrong that they could possibly do.” However, three aspects of Whedon’s role as author of Alien: Resurrection still deserve scrutiny. Firstly, that it consistently rewrites and undermines the original feminist purpose of Ridley Scott’s Alien. Secondly, that it is only one of numerous dehumanizing portraits of forced maternity in the work of Joss Whedon. Thirdly, that Whedon’s status as a vocal male feminist does not restrain him from perpetuating this trope.

Sixteen percent of pregnant women surveyed by Lindsay Clark M.D. had been subjected to reproductive coercion (the sabotaging of birth control or the use of threat by male partners to force pregnancy). In a survey of women using family planning services, fully 35 percent of those who experienced partner violence had also been subjected to reproductive coercion. Glenn Close’s Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction is an iconic representation of terrifying reproductive coercion, but I can think of no equivalent portrayal of reproductive coercion by male characters targeting women, despite its staggering frequency in reality. Nobody wants to confront the possibility that a child might be unwanted, especially by their own mother. However, if we can’t admit that an acid-spitting, brain-eating Alien-child might ever, possibly, be unwanted, our denial has become dehumanizing. Male-authored horror, focusing disproportionately on women as victims of supernatural possession, almost invariably implies that women can be drained of selfhood and controlled by reproductive coercion, supporting the ideology of real-life abusers.

In The Omen, Gregory Peck’s father must confront and attempt to destroy his demon spawn while, in Rosemary’s Baby, Mia Farrow’s mother gently rocks her demon spawn’s cradle with a tender smile. Paternity is an emotional bond mediated by rational judgment, while maternity inevitably entails loss of the rational self. Some female directors have challenged this trope. In Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk About Kevin, a mother’s love is alienated by her child’s sadism, joining the conflicted but humanized mothers of Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook, and Kimberley Peirce’s reimagined Carrie. Meanwhile, Roman “Rosemary’s Baby” Polanski, self-confessed rapist, has stated publicly that the birth control Pill “chases away the romance from our lives.” While celebrated male feminist Joss Whedon probably wouldn’t endorse that statement, his romanticized reproductive coercion nevertheless reflects that ideology.

Sady Doyle has praised Whedon’s Dollhouse for its exploration of the sinister implications of reducing women to manipulable male fantasy. As Doyle argues, Dollhouse can even be read as an interrogation of Whedon’s own role, as a writer who converts living actresses into creations of his fantasy. However, Doyle also highlights problems with the second season episode “Instinct,” which suggests that Echo’s being forcibly imprinted, to believe herself a mother, produces a biological response that cannot be erased, even though the woman’s entire personality can be erased, “because the Maternal Instinct has magical science-defying powers of undying devotion which are purely biological and not at all circumstantial” (Doyle’s words). Although the show’s entire point is the essential creepiness of depriving a human of consent, ‘Instinct’ suggests that the maternal instinct is capable of converting forced maternity into a positive experience. Nor is Dollhouse the only example of this.

Dawn, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is conceived by monks reprogramming the characters’ memories and emotions, echoing Dollhouse‘s premise. Since Dawn is an innocent and vulnerable being, Buffy’s decision to protect her is consistent with her established character as a natural rescuer, akin to Ripley’s decision to protect Newt at any cost. However, the show barely allows Buffy five minutes of outrage over the monks’ traumatic violation of her memories and emotional self (without even considering the implications of her fake robot pregnancy in the comics, or Black Widow’s becoming “monster” by sterilization because… dude). Like Echo’s positive experience of forced maternity, Buffy’s maternal instinct towards Dawn effectively cancels out the violation of Dawn’s conception. In the third season of Whedon’s Angel, the evil Darla’s entire personality alters through pregnancy, as she becomes mysteriously infected by the soul of her Prophecyfetus, recalling Ripley’s personality shift through Alien impregnation. Not only is Darla/Prophecyfetus redeemed by an explicitly unwanted pregnancy, but expresses her redemption through self-annihilation, staking herself to allow her baby’s birth.

Self-annihilation is likewise the ultimate expression of Buffy’s maternal instinct, the heroine killing herself for Dawn, her corpse bathed in the hopeful light of a new dawn (subtle). I can’t recall any comparable example of voluntary, fatherly self-annihilation as redemptive in the work of celebrated male feminist Joss Whedon (and even Michael Bay gave us Armageddon). Simon’s sacrifices, as adopted father-figure (and safeword-wielding controller) of sister River Tam, are rewarded with Kaylee’s love in Serenity, while Angel heroically chooses to wipe his son’s memory when paternity becomes too troublesome, and Giles dramatically rejects Buffy when she becomes too independent. Sure, there are complex undercurrents of male self-loathing and idolized female sacrifice going on here, but I can’t see how that actually empowers Whedon’s (routinely mind-controlled) women. As Angel points out in Angel‘s fourth season: “our fate has to be our own, or we’re nothing.” By this measure, Whedon’s women are constantly reduced to “nothing” by maternity.

When it comes to reproductive coercion, nothing beats the treatment of Cordelia Chase on Angel. Already forcibly impregnated by mind-controlling demon spawn in the first season’s “Expecting,” Cordelia agrees in “Birthday” to become half-demon herself, as an act of self-sacrifice to spare Angel from head-splitting visions. She eventually “transcends love” to become an omniscient “higher being” of pure light, but finds herself “so bored” by this power, echoing the vocal dissatisfaction of Whedon’s Ripley, Call, Buffy, Willow, Faith, and River Tam. If Whedon’s superstrong women didn’t all commiserate with each other about the terrible burden of power, they’d barely pass a Bechdel. In Season Four’s opener, Angel is trapped at the bottom of the sea, hallucinating visions of happiness with Cordelia. In one vision, Cordelia pledges her love as self-annihilation, foreshadowing the amnesia inflicted on her when she rejoins Angel, “I can’t remember what it was like, not knowing you”, before Angel vamps and drains her blood. At another vision’s cheerful feast, Cordelia exclaims “kill me now before my stomach explodes,” foreshadowing her next demon pregnancy, in which Cordy’s mind will be possessed yet again by the soul of her Doomfetus, just as Darla/Prophecyfetus and Ripley/Alien were.

Jasmine, the possessing being, forces Cordelia to seduce Angel’s son, Connor, primarily to provoke conflict between the male heroes, but also to conceive Jasmine’s Doomfetus vessel. Appearing in a vision, as the maternal mouthpiece of The Powers That Be, a reproductively purified and ex-evil Darla informs her son, Connor, that the fate of the world now depends on his choice, since Cordelia’s agency has been reproductively annihilated (Darla merely implies that last part). Cordelia is then forced into a coma by the birth of her demon spawn, just as Darla was dusted while giving birth, or Whedon’s Alien Queen decapitated by her Newborn. Meanwhile, Cordelia/Doomfetus has found time to bring forth a Doomsday Beast to destroy the sun (women are great at multitasking), forcing our hero, Angel, to lose his soul for various complex reasons, but mainly to confirm Cordy’s boundless power as mindless maternal mouthpiece. Powerful as she is, Cordelia’s lack of agency nevertheless reduces her, by Angel’s own logic, to “nothing.” Incidentally, Whedon’s treatment of actress Charisma Carpenter did nothing to dispel this impression.

Unmarried, pregnant Cordelia Chase is literally demonized

This feels familiar to an Irish viewer. Our feminine ideal, the “Wild Irish Woman,” gave us warrior goddesses, but never prevented pregnant girls being institutionalized as slave labor (a cultural demonizing of unmarried mothers criticized by Dorothy Macardle and Mairéad Ní Ghráda, before Peter Mullan’s The Magdalene Sisters and Stephen Frears’ Philomena drew international attention). Our pirate queen got her nationalist anthem, but our women had their pelvises broken by crippling symphysiotomy until the 1980s without anesthetic, for fear caesareans would encourage use of birth control. We boast history’s second female minister in government, army officer Constance Markievicz, but just last year, a woman raped by the murderers of people close to her underwent forced hydration (she was on hunger strike, becoming suicidal after five months pleading for an abortion) before a coerced C-section (her visa status prevented travel). Believe us, there is no connection whatsoever between celebrating women’s warrior spirit and respecting their reproductive rights. I’m a fan of Buffy. I also understand that teams of writers are involved, though Joss Whedon is ultimately responsible for the content of his television shows. I hate his portraits of reproductive coercion because this ideology repeatedly tortures and kills the most vulnerable women in my country. It’s nothing personal. Images of late-term abortions are commodified by Ireland’s forced maternity lobby, while the faces of suicidal rape victims and the corpses of women who died, denied medically necessary abortions, cannot be shown, ironically out of respect for their personhood; this is why fictional images of forced maternity become a battleground for hearts and minds. Ultimately, this torture of Ireland’s most vulnerable women is also the end goal of America’s forced maternity lobby.

* Yes, I know the rape scene in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is problematic. It’s not like the rapid rise in ass-kicking heroines was matched by a rise in female authorship. Time for a “Microscope on Male Feminists” feature?

Brigit McCone writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling, ducking and covering in anticipation of Whedonite backlash.

Do Black Widow and Scarlet Witch Bring Female Power to ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’?

The scene with her blazing after Ultron on a motorcycle was one of the highlights of the film for me (though I could have done without the “I am always having to pick up after you boys” joke when she grabs Captain America’s shield from the road). Regarding action, super-hero skills, and the ability to banter (an aspect of the film many reviewers like the most), there is not much of a gender differential. The inclusion of a “rape joke” and the perpetuation of the infertile-women-as-monstrous trope detract from this more egalitarian super-hero world, however.

This guest post by Natalie Wilson previously appeared at Skirt Collective and is cross-posted with permission.

Black Widow has far more clothing than Wonder Woman. The fact that this seems worthy of noting is not the greatest recommendation for super-heroes as a vehicle for feminism. Yet, Wonder Woman was created by a feminist – and envisioned AS a feminist super-hero (as documented in Jill Lepore’s book, The Secret History of Wonder Woman).

Are Black Widow and Scarlet Witch feminist heroes as well? In my book, yes. However, some of their fellow super-heroes (and the actors who play them) don’t make the feminist cut due to their propensity for “rape jokes” and slut-shaming (Tony Stark is guilty of the former, while Jeremy Renner and Chris Evans of the latter, as discussed here and here).

As discussed in “An Open Letter to Joss Whedon from a Disappointed Feminist Fan After Watching ‘Age of Ultron,’” Whedon has “maintained, loudly and publicly, that you were on the side of making that world a better, more welcoming, more nuanced place for women — as fictional characters, and as viewers.” Yet, as the post documents, Black Widow’s story arc is disappointing from a feminist perspective while Black Widow’s powers ally with those “dreamed up by men who are terrified of women.”

Alas, while I went in fully expecting to start itching to leave early, Avengers: Age of Ultron kept me hooked until the end. A large part of this is thanks to Black Widow and Scarlet Witch, and, yes, as much as I was NOT a fan of the Iron Man sequels and feel Tony Stark is a high-octane-asshole, I still have a soft spot for Robert Downey Jr. I blame the 80s.

Age of Ultron may suffer from a bit of Smurfette Syndrome, but Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow is a complex character with a rich backstory, not just a sidekick. In this film, she is shown to be friends with Laura Barton, is called Auntie by the Barton/Hawkeye children, and interacts with Dr. Helen Cho, Maria Hill, and Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch all in ways NOT about romance with a man, making the film pass the Bechdel Test several times over.

Yet, thankfully, one of the additions to the Avengers team – Wanda Maximoff/Scarlett Witch – gives Black Widow another woman to fight the good fight with. Like another female associated with red and witchery, Carrie White, Wanda’s primary skills are mind manipulation and telekinesis. In one scene, as she stops a train with her mind, her hands emit enough bright red to rival Carrie’s scarlet-hued infamy.

I gotta admit super-hero films are not my favorite genre – not by a long-shot. That I stayed until the credits means the film kept me engrossed, providing enough story arcs to keep me interested– especially the Black Widow/Hulk romance theme. Ironically, this sub-plot irked me the most.

On the one hand, I enjoyed it, which made me feel like a bad feminist. Why? Because when films/genres that need not bring romance into the plot do so in overt ways, I feel as if we are back to the “women are only good as lovers/girlfriends/wives” meme. I like romance as much as any normal human does that lives in a culture such as ours, but need we pair off the entire planet hetero-monogomous style EVEN in our super-hero movies? (Please, SOMEONE, make a queer-positive Batwoman film!)

On the other hand, I also loathed it for its May/December connotations. Johansson is 30, Ruffalo 47. Imagine if Natasha was instead paired with someone near her own age? GASP. What a concept.

Further, the scenes where Black Widow takes Hulk’s huge hand to calm him back into his nice-guy-Bruce- Banner-self are too redolent of Beauty taming the Beast. And, given as the Hulk is presented as the MOST monstrous, so monstrous it is not safe for him to be around civilians, should it bother us that Natasha pines for the Green Guy? Sure, Bruce is a nice guy, but his “alter ego” has a wee bit of an anger management issue.

Hulk is, I must admit, a better choice than Iron Man/Tony Stark, he of wealth-amassed-via-militarism. With lines like “I see a suit of armor around the world,” the film itself nods to his pro-weapon-douchery. Further, the super-hero twins were orphaned due to a weapon labeled “Stark,” a point Wanda emphasizes. Later, she points out Ultron’s earth-destroying impulses come from the person who designed him, Tony Stark:

“Ultron can’t tell the difference between saving the world and destroying it…where do you think he gets that?”

Thus Tony, in my book, is horrible partner material (a fact that escapes the naïve Bruce Banner). He jokes about reinstating “Prima Nocta” (which sanctions rape), creates yet another world-destroying weapon via Ultron, and even scolds Natasha, “you and Banner better not be playing hide the zucchini” (ha ha, so funny to think about the BIG green man and the Black Widow boning… thank goodness the joke didn’t use a “black hole” reference as well…) Nevertheless, as I will admit, Downey is great in the role. He makes Tony the guy you love to hate.

Speaking of hate, I full on HATED the fact Black Widow cries when she reveals she was sterilized. As this post so clearly elucidates, in so doing, she equates “infertility with inhumanity.”

Finally, despite the seat-gripping special effects and a good mix of action, dialogue, and character building, I found it very hard to watch so much realistically rendered destruction due to current real world events. Buildings being demolished, the mass destruction of cities, police in riot gear, terrified humans running for their lives, stony-faced armed militia, and a long-closing arc that brings earthquakes to mind are all a bit too close to contemporary realities. Of course, this is what the super-hero genre is all about – I get it –imagining how fictional heroes could save us from tragedy. Nevertheless, it was hard to get into super-hero-cheering mode, even with Whedon’s masterful world-building. This, coupled with Black Widow’s “monstrous” infertility and Tony-Stark-douchery, made the film less enjoyable from a feminist perspective than the bulk of Whedon’s oeuvre.

Feminism insists “the personal is political” and that fictional media has a powerful role in our interactions with the real world – and, while the filmmakers could not have known the release of the movie would come shortly after a devastating earthquake, they do know that such tragic events are common place. As such, why not at least nod to how these very personalized super-heroes could serve as conduits for thinking about solving real world problems or condemn them for the problems they perpetuate – such as the “ha, ha, ha, rape is so funny” attitude.

The 3-D world that surrounds us could really use some more feminist super-hero powers – maybe next time Whedon wants to dust off his WMST degree before making his final cut?

Natalie Wilson teaches women’s studies and literature at California State University, San Marcos. She is the author of Seduced by Twilight and blogs for Ms., Girl with Pen and Bitch Flicks.

‘Age of Ultron’s Black Widow Blunders

‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ succeeds in all the places you’d expect it to fail, but while Joss Whedon was tiptoeing around all the expected pitfalls of a major franchise sequel, he stumbled over a cliff when it came to the one character I would have most trusted him to get right: Scarlet Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff, or Black Widow.

Scarlet Johansson as Black Widow in 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' — Scarlet Johansson as Black Widow in *Avengers: Age of Ultron*

I liked Avengers: Age of Ultron. A lot. What follows is going to read like a very negative review. If I could selectively switch off my feminism, I could write you the most thumbs-uppiest of glowing reviews for Age of Ultron. But I cannot, and this is why my dad would say “it’s hard to be Robin.” But if you’re a regular Bitch Flicks reader, it is also probably hard to be you (that’s sort of why we exist). And you also will probably walk away from this movie with some serious reservations.

Age of Ultron succeeds in all the places you’d expect it to fail: the new characters are compelling; the amped-up battle sequences manage to be as coherent as they are thrilling; and for a movie with 17 actors listed on its poster, it somehow manages to not feel that overstuffed. But while Joss Whedon was tiptoeing around all the expected pitfalls of a major franchise sequel, he stumbled over a cliff when it came to the one character I would have most trusted him to get right: Scarlet Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff, or Black Widow.

Spoilers from here on out, friends.

When Black Widow was introduced in Iron Man 2 (a sequel which DID fail in all the predictable ways), her character was so fully entrenched in the male gaze it was kind of gross. We’re first introduced to her cover identity, Natalie Rushman: a submissive secretary who modeled in Japan and suggestively asks, “is that dirty enough for you” after leaning over to present her boss Tony Stark with a martini. But what’s even hotter Natalie Rushman? Natasha Romanoff pretending to be meek and accommodating while in fact being a badass superspy who can take out fifteen guys, hack computers, and save the day without mussing her flowing red curls (one of the worst wigs in the history of cinema, but that’s just a personal bugaboo of mine). This kind of sarcastic-quotation-marks “strong female character” is a dime a dozen in action movies and not someone I’d beg to see a standalone movie about.

Black Widow beating people up in a terrible wig in 'Iron Man 2' — Black Widow beating people up in a terrible wig in *Iron Man 2*

But then came The Avengers, where Black Widow was so much more than the Fighting Fucktoy. She was still a sexy badass, but she also got to be wickedly clever, dryly funny, warm and loyal to her friends, and in what was probably the biggest revelation for a Strong Female Character: fearful of scary things. This more solid characterization carried over to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, where we continued to see Natasha’s rare moments of emotional vulnerability alongside her intellectual and physical competence.

In 'Avengers' and 'Captain America 2', Black Widow was more than eye candy — In *Avengers* and *Captain America 2*, Black Widow was more than eye candy

Black Widow had become a character I loved. And I would have given a lot of credit for that to Joss Whedon. But then he went and did this all this to her.

AoU‘s first sin against Natasha is awkwardly shoehorning her into a romantic subplot with Bruce Banner, of all people. Maybe I’d be less disgruntled about Natasha in lurve if the pairing worked better for me? But it felt pretty out of left field, and lacking in chemistry. Like they crossed off the crossed off the characters who already had love interests and flipped a coin to settle on Bruce.

Now, one of the benefits of being a well-rounded character should be the chance for a love interest. The rest of the core six all have their sweeties! But note how all of them had outside characters as their love interest. Usually our male Avengers have their own movie or movies to make space for that character, but Hawkeye’s previously-unseen wife was given screen time in Age of Ultron. It is unthinkable for Natasha to have a similar surprise husband, because “doting pregnant wife” is a complete female character as far as Hollywood is concerned. A side character male love interest is much harder for Hollywood to handle, because they see “man” and think “center of the story.”

Natasha is responsible for de-Hulking Bruce with a "lullaby" — Natasha is responsible for de-Hulking Bruce with a “lullaby”

So Natasha had to be connected to another main character, and it happened to be Bruce, and even if that didn’t feel as random to you as it did to me, it brings about some problems. First, I wasn’t crazy about Natasha having the role of soothing Bruce out of Hulk form with their”lullaby” ritual to begin with, but adding romantic overtones makes it even more skeevy. There are unavoidable allusions to domestic violence inherent to the Hulk. Having his romantic partner hold the responsibility for talking him down from his rage state, and portraying this as part of their bond, underscores this in an unpleasant way.

Scarlet Witch induces a vision of Black Widow's past — Scarlet Witch induces a vision of Black Widow’s past

Worse, Natasha’s arc in Age of Ultron got completely wrapped up in her feelings for Banner, even though we finally—finally! In her fourth appearance in a Marvel movie—got to see Natasha’s backstory, her childhood training/brainwashing into superspyness by the sinister Red Room. (Granted, we see it in a dream-like flashback that’s only long enough for you to go, “Hey, is that Julie Delpy?”).

Natasha’s history gets rolled over into her romantic subplot in the most bizarre, uncomfortable—let’s just say worst—scene in the film. Bruce is giving Natasha the speech about how she could have no future with him, gesturing around to the child’s room they are in. She tearfully reveals that she can’t have children either, because she was sterilized as part of her “graduation” from the Red Room. She speculates the forced sterilization was to avoid problems, attachments, and that “It made everything easier, even killing.” And then she calls herself a monster.

RECORD SCRATCH. Wait, a woman who can’t get pregnant is A MONSTER? On a level comparable to a dude who turns into an actual unstoppable force of destruction we had just seen level a city? What… I just… what? What!!!!????? The idea that anyone—*cough* Joss Whedon *cough*—would think infertility makes a woman something less than human is extremely gross, but it’s even worse to see Natasha internalize such warped misogyny and biological essentialism.

And I haven’t even mentioned the part where Black Widow gets kidnapped by the bad guy and locked in a dungeon. That really happens. For real for real. I assume this was to accommodate Scarlett Johansson’s pregnancy during filming, but there are plenty of ways to write her out of the story for a little while without making her a damsel in distress (send her on a side mission, any side mission, DON’T LOCK BLACK WIDOW IN A DUNGEON). And thinking about how Johansson was pregnant at the time somehow manages to make that horrible sterilization confession scene even more unpleasant.

Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch in 'Age of Ultron' — Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch in *Age of Ultron*

The only good news when it comes to Black Widow in Age of Ultron is that she’s no longer saddled with being the Smurfette, as Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch provides us with a Sassette Smurf of sorts. Cobie Smulders is also back as Maria Hill, but she doesn’t have much to do. Claudia Kim plays Dr. Helen Cho, who does things that are important for the plot but gets less character development than Hawkeye’s wife, who might as well be listed in the credits as “Hawkeye’s wife.” But even though Natasha isn’t the only woman in Age of Ultron, she’s still the one nearest and dearest to the audience, and it is heartbreaking to see her utilized so poorly.

Robin Hitchcock is a writer based in Pittsburgh who has never been pregnant. Is she, too, a monster!?

Not Exactly the New ‘Buffy’: The Many Failings of ‘Supernatural’

The simplistic machismo of ‘Supernatural’ is particularly frustrating because there is so much potential for the show to challenge the norms of conventional masculinity – and yet it just doesn’t.

Written by Max Thornton.

Early in my embarrassingly emotional addiction to Supernatural, a friend pointed out that Supernatural picks up right where Buffy the Vampire Slayer left off – not only chronologically, having begun just two years after Buffy ended, but also in terms of the characters’ ages and stages in life. The Buffy gang took us demon-slaying through high school and college, while the Supernatural boys launch us on a quarter-life-crisis monster hunt as a career.

Both shows use a campy sensibility to explore questions of family, loyalty, and identity through monster metaphors. Both were resurrected after a self-contained five-season run to flounder a bit in seeking direction for continuing. Both have passionate fanbases who love to overanalyze every detail of the show.

Unfortunately, the major distinction between them arguably reflects a disturbing turn in US society at large: from the ongoing war on reproductive agency to the escalating violence against trans women, misogyny seems to be on the uptick.

It would, of course, be disingenuous to claim that the Joss Whedon brand of feminism is above reproach. We’ve covered the issues here at Bitch Flicks many times before, but the fact is, everything we criticize Whedon for – his failings with respect to race, sexuality, gender – is dialed up to 11 in Supernatural.

On the upside, they're really really pretty — On the upside, they’re really really pretty

There’s a certain charmingly riot-grrrl sensibility about the fabled origin of the concept for Buffy, Whedon’s well-documented desire to subvert the horror-movie cliché of the petite blonde victim by turning her into the superhero who punches monsters and stabs vamps. Ongoing critique of the whole “strong female character” trope problematizes the simplicity of this image, but only the most determined of naysayers could deny that Buffy Summers is a truly well-rounded, three-dimensional female character.

Supernatural, by contrast, has absolutely no feminist ambitions whatsoever. It’s a show about two estranged brothers reuniting to spend (at least) a decade working through their vast and multitudinous daddy issues by hunting and killing demons. The hunter substratum in which Dean and Sam Winchester operate is pretty traditionally macho, featuring a lot of roadtripping around the lower 48 in a ’67 Chevy Impala, listening to classic rock, being emotionally unavailable to an identikit parade of conventionally attractive women, and bottling up secrets from each other until they emerge at the most inconvenient possible moment for a melodramatic climax of raw fraternal honesty and man-tears.

The simplistic machismo of Supernatural is particularly frustrating because there is so much potential for the show to challenge the norms of conventional masculinity – and yet it just doesn’t.

After its first few seasons, which were more broadly monster-centered, Supernatural has turned its focus heavenward, to the metaphysical ministries of angels and demons. Now, a show that poaches so liberally from every belief system it’s ever met should be able to have some fun here with sexuality and gender. Angels in much of Christian tradition are ungendered beings of pure spirit, so it would make sense for the show’s angels to routinely transgress gender norms in the human bodies they take on as their vessels. It would be a great way to portray the angels’ non-humanity, showing them unwittingly and uncomprehendingly steamrolling over human gender roles because they simply do not know or care about this petty aspect of human life.

Alas, the show takes the lazy way out, adhering to the most narrowly patriarchal interpretation of angel gender. Most of the important angels are male, the female ones are seductive temptresses, and there’s no crossing or blurring of gender boundaries.

This is especially egregious, because the UST between Dean Winchester and the angel Castiel is off the charts. “Destiel” is Tumblr’s favorite romantic pairing, and it’s not hard to see why.

"NO HOMO" -- The CW — “NO HOMO” — The CW

The chemistry between actors Jensen Ackles and Misha Collins could lay the foundation for corroboration of Dean’s obvious yet canonically unacknowledged bisexuality, for an in-depth exploration of angelic nature, for a thorough dismantling of the gender binary… but of course absolutely none of that has happened. Instead, the show has taunted fans with an ongoing equilibrium of cynical queerbaiting, while acting as though a handful of episodes featuring a nerdy redheaded lesbian femme constitutes sufficient compensation.

Supernatural‘s other greatest sin is its wanton murder of female characters. Buffy may have come under a lot of criticism for fridging a beloved female character, but Supernatural winkingly lampshades its tendency to fridge women as if that somehow makes it okay.

I won’t pretend I don’t love Supernatural – I’m the middle of three brothers, so it always had me on that count alone – but I also can’t pretend that it’s not a profoundly, epically, perhaps fatally flawed show. I’ll watch the forthcoming tenth season, and I’ll hope that it gets better, but I know better than to hold my breath.

_______________________________________

Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, tumbles as trans substantial, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax. He wishes he knew how to quit Supernatural.

Top 10 Superheroines Who Deserve Their Own Movies

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

Most sane people seem to agree that we desperately need more representations of female superheroes to serve as inspiration and role models for girls and women alike. In truth, there is no shortage of superheroines in the world; we’ve got seriously acclaimed, seriously badass female characters from comic books, TV shows, and video games. Though these women tend to be hypersexualized or relegated to the role of supporting cast member for some dude, we still love them and can’t get enough of them. It still remains that so few superheroines are given their own movies. I’m officially declaring that it’s high time we had more superhero movies starring women. The first in a series of posts, I’m starting with a list of my top 10 picks for super babes who deserve their own flicks.

These are the superheroines I’d choose to get a movie if I ran Hollywood:

1. Batwoman

2. Wonder Woman

The one, the only Wonder Woman — The one, the only, Wonder Woman

3. The Bionic Woman

4. Samus Aran from Metroid

The biggest reveal in Nintendo history: Metroid is a GIRL — The biggest reveal in Nintendo history: Samus is a GIRL

5. Runaways

The young women of "Runaways" — The young women of *Runaways*

Runaways is a comic book series that chronicles the adventures of a group of minors who discover that their parents are supervillains. Not wanting to go down the evil paths of their parents, the kids make a break for it. Now, both boys and girls are part of the gang, but there are more girls than boys, and the women are nuanced, funny and smart. The de facto leader of the rag-tag group is Nico, a goth Japanese-American witch (um…how cool is that??). Then there’s Gertrude who doesn’t have any powers (unless you count her telepathic link to her female raptor), but she’s tough, smart, confident and is a fat-positive representation of a nontraditional female comic book body type. Next, little Molly is a scrapper and a mutant with superhuman strength and great hats who kicks the shit out of Wolverine. Finally, we’ve got the alien Karolina with powers of light and flight who explores her sexuality, realizing she’s a lesbian. Karolina ends up falling in love with the shapeshifting Skrull, Xavin, and the storyline explores transgender themes. Joss Whedon himself was involved for a time in the series, so you know it’s full of humor, darkness and deep connections to the character. There’s so much WIN in Runaways that it’s a crime they haven’t made a movie out of it yet.

6. She-Ra: Princess of Power

She-Ra: Princess of Power. EF yeah. — She-Ra: Princess of Power. EFF yeah.

7. Storm

Storm, aka Ororo Munroe, is one of the most powerful mutants in the X-Men franchise. She is intelligent, well-respected and a leader among her mutant peers and teammates. Storm also flies and controls the fucking weather. Does it get more badass than that? Storm was the very first prominent Black female in either DC or Marvel, and the fanbase for this strong Black woman grows all the time. Though the X-Men film series sprung for the acclaimed Halle Berry to play Storm, her character is habitually underutilized and poorly developed. Enough! Let’s get Lupita Nyong’o to play Storm in her origin story, chronicling her thievery in Cairo, her stint as a worshiped goddess when her powers first emerged and her eventual induction into the X-Men. That, friends, is an epic tale.

8. Xena: Warrior Princess

9. Black Widow

Remarkably life-like Black Widow action figure

10. Codex from The Guild

Codex: a charming nerdgirl with delusions of epicness

Honorable Mention

1. Painkiller Jane

2. Rogue

From the X-Men, Rogue is the complicated and compelling daughter of Mystique with vampire-like powers that make her nearly invulnerable but also render her unable to touch any other living creature.

3. Batgirl

4. Power Girl

Power Girl is another version of Supergirl who, therefore, has the same powers as Superman. She is a leader among other superheroes, a formidable foe, and renowned for being “fresh and fun.”

5. Psylocke

Comic Psylocke and her bit-part film counterpart

It might seem crazy that so many X-Men made this list, but, damn, they got some awesome ladies on the roster. I’m ending with Psylocke, my all-time favorite X-Men character. Elizabeth Braddock is a telepath who can use her telekinesis to create pyschic weapons. Upon her death, she inhabits the body of a Japanese ninja, eventually taking over the body completely so that she adds hardcore martial arts skills to her repertoire.

Sound off in the comments by listing your top female superhero picks to get their own films!

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Joss Whedon’s Indie Film ‘In Your Eyes’ Disappoints

Though beautifully shot with surprising and genuine performances, Joss Whedon’s ‘In Your Eyes’ disappoints with its lazy storytelling and ultimately trite plotline.

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

As a dedicated fan of much of writer/director Joss Whedon‘s work (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Cabin in the Woods, and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog to name a few), I looked forward to watching Whedon’s latest film: Vimeo’s video on demand indie flick In Your Eyes. The film is a supernatural love story, featuring a man (Dylan) and woman (Becky) who live on opposite sides of the country and discover they’ve been psychically linked since adolescence when Becky had a sledding accident.

Sledding — Young Becky steels herself to face a fearful, snowy descent on her sled

In Your Eyes is beautifully shot with rich colors that starkly contrast Dylan’s arid New Mexico home with Becky’s snowy New Hampshire location. Not only that, but I enjoyed the hip, indie soundtrack, featuring songs from Iron & Wine, Santigold, and The Lumineers (among others). The concept of having a couple telepathically fall in love when separated by great distances poses unique challenges to filming, and those were all handled surprisingly well: mainly the conceit of the characters seeming to carry on conversations with and by themselves while evincing chemistry and a growing affection. This is the equivalent of green screen acting where the performers can’t feed the scene with one another’s delivery or energy. Unlike, say, the new Star Wars trilogy where all the acting was wooden (in part) because of the green screen challenge, In Your Eyes managed to convey a warmth and liveliness to Becky and Dylan’s interactions that are missing from the flatness of their real-life encounters with others in their day-to-day lives.

Through Dylan's eyes, Becky watches a breathtaking New Mexico sunset. — Through Dylan’s eyes, Becky watches a breathtaking New Mexico sunset.

Interestingly, the vibrancy of Becky and Dylan’s love brings these two oft misunderstood loners together but further isolates them from the outside world. Though both characters evolve as a result of this new intimacy, we find them even further withdrawing from the potential for interdependency in aspects of their “real” lives like work, marriage, and social interactions. Neither of them are happy with their lives, but using a secret, long-distance romance and fantasies of escape as lifelines are not particularly healthy or sustainable solutions. As a writer, I also find this to be lazy storytelling. So many scenes are of our lead characters alone in rooms talking to themselves. Not only that, but the more interesting story is what life looks like once Becky and Dylan don’t have the obstacles of distance and unhappy lives between them. Do they integrate better into the world as a unit? Do they continue to feel compelled to speak to each other telepathically all day, every day if they see each other daily? Is this connection all it really takes to heal each other them? We’ll never know.

Dylan sabotages a date as he telepathically communicates with Becky — Dylan sabotages a date because he’s busy telepathically communicating with Becky

Speaking of lazy storytelling, the psychic premise of In Your Eyes is never fully explored. Why are these two linked? Does this make them soulmates? Do they have other yet undiscovered abilities? Are there others like them in the world? Even the boundaries of their telepathic link are haphazardly explained. For example, we learn that they can hear, smell, and feel things in each other’s environments (as evinced in an awkward mutual masturbation session), but can they physically control things in each other’s environments, too? Does distance matter, i.e. does their communication get stronger when they’re closer and fainter when they’re further apart? Not only that, but Dylan and Becky are simply not that curious for answers. If I discovered a psychic link between myself and a stranger across the country, you can bet your ass I’d be obsessed with understanding the why and how of it.

Becky's piss-poor friend thinks her isolation is due to an affair — Becky’s piss-poor friend thinks her isolation is due to an affair

My final and greatest critique of In Your Eyes is how damned trite the story is at its core. When you take away the gimmick of the unexplained and unexplored psychic connection, we have a pretty tame hetero, long-distance love story about two white people who conform to traditional gender roles. Dylan actually hops a plane and ends up in a standard car chase with the cops because he’s white knight’ing it up, on a mission to rescue Becky, the imprisoned/institutionalized damsel in distress. Frankly, that’s boring and uninspired. Simply reversing the gender roles, making Becky the ex-con and Dylan the kept trophy spouse, would have made this story more compelling. I’ve come to expect a lot more from Joss Whedon. At the very least, I expect him to have a more racially diverse cast, amazing dialogue that delights, plotlines that subvert expectations, and, most importantly, empowered female characters.