Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Stephanie‘s Picks:
Study: We Benefit from Seeing Strong Women on TV by Lindsay Abrams via The Atlantic
Hollywood Actresses Fed Up with Fluffy Interview Questions by Feargus O’Sullivan via The National
The Brainy Message of ParaNorman by Natalie Wilson via Ms. Magazine
Megan‘s Picks:
Female Saudi Filmmaker Makes History in Venice by Brian Brooks via Movie|Line
TIFF Preview: The Female Directing Masters Playing at the 2012 Toronto Film Festival by Melissa Silverstein and Kerensa Cadenas via Women and Hollywood
At the Risk of Sounding Angry: On Melissa Harris-Perry’s Eloquent Rage by Crunktastic via The Crunk Feminist Collective
Women Directors Are Way More Successful in the Indie World by Melissa Silverstein via Women and Hollywood 
What have you been reading this week? 

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Stephanie‘s Picks:
Important Nina Simone News by Melissa McEwan via Shakesville
On Marvel, Mandarin, and Marginalization by Marissa Lee via Racebending.com
Jennifer Aniston’s Adventures in Medialand by Hadley Freeman via The Guardian
Megan‘s Picks:
Disney Heroines Take a More Pro-Active Role by LaGina Phillips via Hello Giggles 
How Can Women Gain Influence in Hollywood? by Melissa Silverstein, Martha Coolidge, Martha Lauzen, Brenda Chapman, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Ted Hope, Cathy Schulman and Susan Cartsonis via The New York Times
How Helen Gurley Brown Became a “Militant Feminist” at 65 by Debbie Stoller via Bust Magazine Blog
‘It Was Rape’: A Film We Need to Talk About by Intern Christina via Bust Magazine Blog
The Influence of ‘Parks and Recreation’ by Alyssa Rosenberg via Think Progress 

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

Guest Writer Wednesday: A Feminist Review of ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’

Guest post written by Rachel Redfern originally published at Not Another Wave. Cross-posted with permission.

The fairy tale redux is the latest vogue in Hollywood and poor Snow White has been remixed and redone twice in the past year. I didn’t see the Julia Roberts and Nathan Lane adaptation, about which I heard unpleasant things (I wonder though, can anything with the brilliant Nathan Lane ever be that bad?), but the trailer looked promising, despite the presence of Kristin Stewart.

I’m going to go off on a tangent here about Kristin Stewart: really, Hollywood? You like Kristen Stewart that much that you’ve decided to continue to feed her roles? Can’t you just admit that she’s a horrifically, terrible actress? She has literally one expression she uses: surprised fear. I have stuffed animals with a greater range of displayed emotion.

That tepid, surprised fear bleeds its unfortunate paralysis into the rest of the film, which had an otherwise legitimately promising cast and a script with some real potential. The film, and most notably Stewart, fails to commit to anything. Is Snow White a herald of action hero bad-assery intent on her destiny to kill the wicked witch? Or is she an angelic innocent saint, so pure that her goodness can overcome the queen’s toxic, kingdom-killing evil? Stewart definitely has no idea and so neither do the characters who interact with her, making her role (the title one) the most boring and confusing part of the film.

This leads into one of my main feminist concerns with the film, the fact that Stewart’s Snow White is supposedly only powerful because of her “innocence and purity.” Again we have to go back to ideas of innocence and purity for women, without which, we can apparently accomplish nothing, nor be of any value. This is, of course, in direct opposition to the male characters in the film who are drunk, unethical and constantly killing something. This kind of clichéd, stereotype reinforcing portrayal of the wounded, nasty, albeit powerful warrior, who falls in love with the gentle, sweet maiden (always pure), is without a doubt the most annoying thing ever. 
In a supposedly “enlightened” society, why do we insist upon returning to Victorian ideals of female purity and a demeaning “innocence” (meaning lacking in life experience and child-like)? I am neither pure nor innocent, yet I manage to hold my own in life and (hopefully) do some good. 
However, that doesn’t mean that the film is wholly without any redeeming qualities; the film has a strong focus on the evil queen and gives her a powerful back-story, one that explains her obsession with youth and beauty. The reason she’s so obsessed with beauty? It has been her only means of gaining power and protecting herself from men. This plotline made a great parallel to our own rich and famous and their fascination with cosmetic surgery: in order to stay powerful and current, they must stay young and beautiful or be eviscerated by the media and potentially lose their jobs.

The plotline can be taken even further though. Not only is she conscripted into a life of damaging narcissism because of her beauty, but other women are similarly used. Recognizing that their beauty is both their power and their undoing, we meet a commune of women who have scarred their faces in order to protect themselves from the queen, a plot line that reminded me of the current situation in the Middle East where rules governing women and their clothing have reached new heights. There, some people believe that women should hide their tempting eyes as a way to save men from being forced to ravish them in the streets. 
Instead of exploring that plotline further however, the filmmakers decided to move on to another nonsense scene of Stewart looking scared and confused while running through a field. 
However, the costume design was amazing, the sets inspiring, the music beautiful (I can say with absolutely certainty that the new Florence and the Machine song, “Breath of Life,” which was created for the film, is awesome), and the cinematography inspiring. 
Charlize Theron did a good job as the tortured queen and Sam Spruell as her creepy brother was excellent; their relationship was one of the best parts of the film in my mind. Chris Hemsworth was fairly bland, but nice to look at, so I personally forgive him for being a bit boring.
All in all, the film was a gold mine of good-filmmaking and feminist potential, but which came up short because of it’s inability to either fully embrace its traditional fairy tale values or its modern ones.


Rachel Redfern has an MA in English literature, where she conducted research on modern American literature and film and it’s intersection, however she spends most of her time watching HBO shows, traveling, and blogging and reading about feminism.

Guest Writer Wednesday: Happily Never After: The Sad (and Sexist?) Rush to Cast Some of Our Most Promising Young Actresses as Fairy Tale Princesses

Kristen Stewart as Snow White in Snow White and the Huntsman

This guest post written by Scott Mendelson was originally published July 2011 at Mendelson’s Memos. Cross-posted with permission.

There were a few interesting articles written over the last several months about the unusual amount of ass-kicking (or at least take-charge) young female roles being written into mainstream cinema. Whether it was Chloe Moretz in Kick-Ass, Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit, Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone, or Saoirse Ronan in Hanna, the last 18 months or so has seen a mini-wave of genre pictures where young females were basically the lead characters (or in the case of Kick-Ass the star attraction), ‘strong independent character’ (god, I hate that cliche) who not only could fend for themselves but were not defined in any way, shape, or form by their male love interest (not a one of them had a boyfriend). Yes, I would include Sucker Punch in this category, as it was basically a satiric examination of whether ass-kicking young women in pop culture were automatically sexualized by virtue of the salacious nature of such imagery (stop whining and read THIS). The somewhat negative undercurrent of this trend is that these actresses were generally under 18, often barely passed puberty. Point being, what would become of these actresses once they reached adulthood? If recent developments are any indication, Hollywood has a genuine desire to roll back the progress clock and turn these actresses into fairy tale princesses.

At the moment, we now have two competing variations on Snow White set to be released in the next year. One, pictured below, will star Lily Collins (from The Blind Side and soon to be seen as Taylor Lautner’s token girlfriend in Abduction) as the titular princess, while the other will star Kristen Stewart as the ‘fairest of them all’. Both are claiming to be somewhat revisionist, and for the moment I shall take them at their word. But no matter how much armor and battle-axes you give Snow White, you’re still hiring one of our more talented actresses (say what you will about Twilight, but she absolutely sells Bella Swann and shines in the likes of Adventureland) to play a woman whose primary job is to run away from an evil witch, play house with a bunch of asexual dwarves, then finally bite a poison apple and await rescue from a theoretical Prince Charming. Of course, you could argue that Ms. Collins isn’t one of the ‘great actresses of our time’ yet. But the fact that we have two competing projects based on Snow White is a sad commentary on our times, both as a statement about how obsessed the studios are with any kind of brand recognition as well as the kind of roles available for actresses on the cusp of adulthood.

Lily Collins as Snow White in Mirror, Mirror

And it gets worse. What was Hailee Steinfeld’s reward for earning an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for a film where she was unquestionably the lead? What was her follow-up project for stealing True Grit from Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, and Josh Brolin? She gets to play Sleeping Beauty in (yet again) a revisionist variation on that old-chestnut. And we’ll see who gets to play Princess Aurora in the other competing project, Maleficent (allegedly starring Angelina Jolie as the villain) which was to be directed by Tim Burton before he came to his senses. Worst of all (and the catalyst for this rant) is the news that Emma Watson, who portrayed one of the great feminist icons of recent times, Ms. Hermione Granger herself, is being wooed for the lead role in Guillermo del Toro’s live-action variation of yes, Beauty and the Beast. Never mind that Guillermo del Toro certainly has better things to do with his time. Never mind that we have no real need for a live-action version of “Stockholm Syndrome: The Movie” (even my 3 year old dismissed the Disney version, because she stated that the Beast was mean and a grouch). It is sadly predictable that, as soon as Ms. Watson (a fiery feminist in her own right) was able to basically play adult roles, she would be shoved into the helpless fairy-tale heroine box.

Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried in In Time

And that is really the point. To be fair, it’s not an all-encompassing issue. Chloe Moretz remains fairy tale-free at this point, and Saoirse Ronan has yet to be cast in a theoretical live-action version of The Little Mermaid. She does have a ‘teen girls as hit-women’ caper with Alexis Bledel, Violet and Daisy, that I desperately want to see. And Dakota Fanning has yet to be cast as the token hot girl quite yet. But there remains a disturbing trend that allows young actresses to be vibrant and active in their onscreen fates only until they reach young adulthood. Once they are old enough to be legally sexualized, their worth as empowered heroines is seemingly lost and they end up being tasked with playing the token love interest (SEE Emily Blunt be pulled by the hand by Matt Damon in The Adjustment Bureau!), helpless hostage/potential woman in refrigerator (SEE Blake Lively as the kidnapped girlfriend of both Taylor Kitsch and Aaron Johnson in Oliver Stone’s Savages!), or both (SEE Amanda Seyfried as Justin Timberlake’s hostage who learns to love him in In Time!). It is as if female roles can only be worthwhile when they are too young to be viewed exclusively as sexual objects. Now there is a new category for which to pigeon hole these actresses: perfectly pretty princess. Once they are old enough to be cast in stereotypical female roles, it’s straight to the ‘token’ box, with an occasional diversion in fairy tale theater. Is this new mini-fad simply another variation on tokenism, or a more insidious attempt to keep said young actresses virginal and pure?

It is telling that bloggers and pundits bemoaned Jennifer Lawrence passing on Savages and picking The Hunger Games instead. Maybe, no matter how prestigious an Oliver Stone film might be (because he writes SO well for female characters…), Lawrence chose to be a lead in her own action franchise rather than play a random hottie who is abducted as a pawn in a drug spat involving her dueling boyfriends (on the surface, it seems like a prestige variation on Double Dragon). And it is telling that no one seems to notice or care that a number of our most promising young actresses are being jammed into the ‘girl cage’ just at the age when they would be old enough to play quality adult female roles. Of course, roles such as that are few and far between. For the likes of Watson and Steinfeld, it appears once again that the choice is between no mainstream roles or regressive token roles or playing a live-action Disney princess. Oh well, I’m sure they can find an episodic television series when the time comes. When it comes to quality roles for adult women, for too many actresses, it is television instead of film that is the pathway to happily ever after.


Scott Mendelson is, by hobby, a freelance film critic/pundit who specializes in box office analysis. He blogs primarily at Mendelson’s Memos while syndicating at The Huffington Post and Valley Scene Magazine. He lives in Woodland Hills, CA with his wife and two young kids where he works in a field totally unrelated to his BA in Film Theory/Criticism from Wright State University. 

Guest Writer Wednesday: Snow White and the Huntsman: A Better Role Model?

Snow White’s beautifully coiffed hair, blue, red, and gold gown, and seven trusty sidekicks all have made her one of Disney’s most recognizable princesses. But, is she worthy of the adoration of many young girls worldwide? Many people have argued that no, she is not a good role model, due to her passive nature (“Someday, my prince will come,” she cooed, while sweeping the dwarves’ cottage) and her immediate relegation to strict female gender roles (as seen when she takes it upon herself to clean up and take care of the dwarves she finds in the woods). With the new Snow White and the Huntsman, released on June 1, will the raven-haired heroine be more of a positive influence for young girls?
Kristen Stewart as Snow White in Snow White and the Huntsman

In the upcoming film, Snow White is played by Kristen Stewart of Twilight fame. Unlike the original animated version of the character, Stewart is not a helpless, damsel in distress, but instead is a sword-wielding, armor-wearing warrior that fights her own battles, literally and metaphorically. This is a Snow White that would never wait around for a man to save her “someday.”

Even just looking at the two posters can detail the differences explicitly. The animated Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs original cover shows the princess with the classic Snow White costume: perfect hair, beautiful makeup, a sexy figure, and the adoration of birds, men, and dwarves alike. She’s actually glowing. 

Movie poster for the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

And the cover of Snow White and the Huntsman? This Snow White is shown not in a gown, but in full armor, equipped with a shield and sword. There are no singing birds, her lips are not red as blood, and she is definitely not glowing. In this photo, she is more reminiscent of Joan of Arc than a Disney princess. 

Movie poster for the upcoming Snow White and the Huntsman

In the original Disney classic, Snow White sat idly by and hoped for Prince Charming to find her, all while cooking, cleaning, and showing us her undying love of furry creatures and taking care of men. Not only was she positively perky, she was always beautiful. Her hair never fell out of place and her makeup never smudged. We’re kind of thinking that is not the case for 2012’s Snow White.

While the twist that Snow White and the Huntsman presents is not necessarily a total game changer, it does offer a different side to an all too familiar story. Kristen Stewart as Snow White shows an undeniable strength as she rides her own white horse, fights her own battles, and saves her own life from the evil Queen Ravenna. Snow White’s show of strength and independence in this film help to counterbalance her lack thereof in the previous animated film adaptation of the tale. While something so simple can never completely erase past biases and prejudgments, it does highlight a growth that some films are making in portrayals of women.

We don’t expect Snow White and the Huntsman to be perfect. There is still the story that Snow White is “fairest of them all,” whose beauty causes the Evil Queen major displeasure, and there is sure to be a romantic plotline with Snow White and her Prince Charming, played by Sam Claflin of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. However, we hope that this new movie focuses on the female lead as a passionate woman, capable to defend her own self, with the conviction and need to be strong on her own.

Snow White and the Huntsman is set to hit theaters June 1, 2012, and stars Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, and Bob Hoskins. You can view the trailer here.

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This article was written by Allison Heard of HalloweenCostumes.com. Allison is currently in graduate school for English Studies. She enjoys reading, crocheting, and creepy TV shows.

Trailers for ‘Snow White & the Huntsman’ and ‘Mirror, Mirror’ Perpetuate Stereotypes of Women, Beauty & Aging and Pit Women Against Each Other

Charlize Theron as Queen Ravenna and Kristen Stewart as Snow White in ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’
Woman obsessed with aging fights her fading beauty. Older woman jealous of  younger woman. Younger woman rescued by a prince. Yep, it’s a tale as old as time that Hollywood keeps churning out. With fairy tales ingrained in our collective psyche, it’s no surprise we now have two Snow White films looming on the horizon.

In the hyped Snow White and the Huntsman, the infamous fairy tale transforms into a macabre Lord of the Rings-esqe action-adventure epic. Charlize Theron (love her!), a phenomenal actor who imbues her nuanced characters with depth, based her performance of the obsessive queen on Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Sounds interesting so far, right?

The intriguing trailer focuses heavily on Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron), who narrates or speaks almost exclusively. Okay, I kinda like that. But why doesn’t Snow White (Kristen Stewart) say anything? Why does it seem in every trailer for one of her films (ahem, Twilight series) Stewart’s character mute?? And why the fuck did they have to add “The Huntsman” in the title?! Why couldn’t it have just been “Snow White?” Or “Snow White and the Queen?” Heaven forbid a film focuses on multiple women…without a dude.

In the Snow White fairy tale, the Queen rules the kingdom she stole from heiress Snow White. But as Rebecca Cohen points out, in film versions like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, we never see the Queen actually do anything regarding political machinations other than obsess over maintaining her fading beauty and plot to kill her stepdaughter. She possesses no ambitions beyond eternal beauty. Sadly, this film seems no different.

Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron); ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’
We see the powerful sorceress engage in beauty treatments, like bathing in milk and sucking out the souls of young maidens to rejuvenate her striking appearance. Wait, she’s got all this power and she’s wasting it on looking young?? Oh you know us women; all we care about is our looks! In the trailer, Queen Ravenna says:
“Do you hear that? It’s the sound of battles fought and lives lost. It once pained me to know I am the cause of such despair. But now, their cries give me strength. Beauty is my power.”

Sigh. The defense for every person who thinks feminism is unnecessary. Women aren’t oppressed; they derive power from their beauty and sexuality! Too many films try to prop up this tired myth. Yes, when you feel good about your outer appearance, it can bolster your inner self-confidence. But I’m here to tell you ladies, there is NO power in beauty. It’s a ruse, a sham. No power exists in the objectification of women’s bodies.
 
Not to be outdone, the family-friendly comedy Mirror, Mirror is also tackling Snow White. While Snow White at least speaks in this trailer, Mirror, Mirror again puts the spotlight on the Queen, this time played by Julia Roberts. In this version, the Queen isn’t envisioned as evil, just insecure. All throughout the trailer, Queen Clementianna (Julia Roberts) makes snide comments about Snow White (Lily Collins)’s beauty and how she herself isn’t getting wrinkles but “crinkles.” We see her girdle getting cinched. She uses a love potion on the rich prince, whom she wants to marry to cure her “financial troubles.” So Roberts’ Queen doesn’t even seem faux empowered like Theron. Instead she’s reduced to a shallow, insecure, bitter woman. How funny!

Now, the original Snow White isn’t an enlightened, gender equitable, female empowerment tale. Young woman plays housekeeper, cooking and cleaning for a bunch of dudes after her stepmother banishes her to the woods, who then falls into a coma after eating a poisoned apple by said stepmother, awakened with a kiss by a prince with whom she rides off into the sunset – not exactly screaming feminism. If Hollywood wanted to retell this story, why not put a twist on it?

And that’s what Snow White and the Huntsman attempts to do. In this version, Snow White (Kristen Stewart) is an armor-wearing, sword-wielding badass. Screenwriter Evan Daugherty wanted to update the fairy tale:

“What if, instead of saving Snow White, the Huntsman teaches Snow White to save herself?”

Oooh a warrior Snow White! Potentially promising. And I like the idea of her saving herself. Except that Snow White (Kristen Stewart) is trained by…you guessed it, a dude. The Huntsman, initially ordered by Queen Ravenna to  kill Snow White and cut out her heart so the Queen can consume it and live forever, decides to protect Snow White and train her for combat.

Even Lily Collins plays a perky, fencing Snow White in Mirror, Mirror. In the trailer, she says:
“I’ve read so many stories where the prince saves the princess. It’s time we changed that.”

I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. And I love a badass female warrior as much as the next cinephile. But in both Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror, Mirror, Snow White has no female friends, no maternal figure for guidance, nurturance and support. Women are pitted against each other. It’s all men, men, men.

Snow White may be more of a badass in these retellings. But that doesn’t mean she’s feminist. The trailers for upcoming Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror, Mirror spread a message of women, beauty and aging. They pit women against each other, particularly older women against younger women. They tell us that older women obsess over their looks, forever jealous of innocent younger women’s youth and vitality. They reinforce cattiness and competition, tossing aside the importance of female friendship and camaraderie. Oh silly ladies, you don’t need to rely on other women or even yourself. You just need a strong man to rescue you.

Really, Hollywood, haven’t we seen enough of these tired tropes? How about a truly empowered woman. Or better yet, a film with several strong female characters, who are friends, not foes. Now that, not a woman swinging a sword, would be truly radical.

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Trailers for Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror, Mirror:

 
 

2011 MTV Movie Awards

The 2011 MTV Movie Awards aired last night (Sunday, June 5), and something interesting happened: a lot of young women won awards.
I didn’t watch the ceremony. I’m too old for MTV, and didn’t even realize the show had happened until I came across a mean-spirited article, published last year, unironically lamenting “Why Twilight Ruined the MTV Movie Awards.” Because no other movie with a lousy script ever won an MTV Movie Award? No one would argue that MTV awards are based on high art and excellent filmmaking, but, like most major awards, they’re worth looking at for their cultural significance. And, for some reason, this year’s winners give me something to feel good about.

Here are a selection of the winners (you can see the full list here).

Best Comedic Performance: Emma Stone for Easy A

Best Female Performance: Kristen Stewart for The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Best Scared-As-S**t Performance: Ellen Page for Inception

Best Line from a Movie: Alexys Nycole Sanchez for Grown Ups

MTV Generation Award: Reese Witherspoon

Best Breakout Star: Chloë Grace Moretz for Kick-Ass

Biggest Badass Star: Chloë Grace Moretz for Kick-Ass

Only one of the above categories is gender specific, and though we could endlessly debate The Twilight Problem (Stephanie did just that in her review of New Moon), it’s worth noting that Stewart won the Best Female Performance award for a film geared toward a female audience. If you have nothing at all positive to say about The Twilight Saga, you still have to admit that this film series is wildly popular with and unabashedly made for young (and some not so young) women. This shouldn’t be remarkable, but it is.
Young women are highlighted in these awards for being funny, for being iconic, for breaking out, and for being badass. What other awards are recognizing women–particularly young women–in this way?
I’ll admit that many of the films these actresses won for (the ones I’ve seen, at least) are problematic. I’m not really celebrating that Easy A (which I found virtually unwatchable) won an award, but I am celebrating that a film with a female lead is being recognized as containing a great comedic performance. There was a lot of controversy surrounding Kick-Ass and the way the character Hit Girl was portrayed, but I am thrilled that a teenage girl (who was 12 when she made the film) is being recognized and rewarded as “badass.” 
Even if MTV continues to make us shudder with their programming, they are highlighting young women in film. Hollywood and other awards shows: take notice!

Movie Preview: The Runaways

The Runaways were a 1970s girl rock group, best known for their hit “Cherry Bomb,” but perhaps later best known for rocketing Joan Jett (and, to a slightly lesser extent, Lita Ford) to stardom. The movie is based on Cherie Currie’s memoir, Neon Angel.
This is a movie I want to see in the theatre. I’m often content to wait for DVD, but a female-centered film, written and directed by uber-cool Floria Sigismondi–who formerly directed music videos–has to be good. Even if it’s good in that candy necklace sort of way.

Discussing the sexual politics of the film, Karina Longworth, of The Village Voice, says

When the band turns on Cherie for submitting to a solo soft-core photo shoot, it’s because Joan understands that unless they set the terms of their own sexual empowerment, and its commoditization, then what’s really happening is exploitation. “You could say ‘No,’ ” she tells Cherie. It’s a shock to the blonde; it’s also the thesis of the film.

Any film about teenage girls, rock music, and the requisite sex and drugs that goes along with it will not be without its faults. A director’s feature-length debut will not be without its faults. The border between sexual empowerment and exploitation is a line we’re still trying to negotiate in 2010. I’m pumped to see some gutsy women from the 1970s rock as they come of age.
Opening in limited release tomorrow, and wide release April 9th, The Runaways stars Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett and Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie.