The Academy’s White Noise: Silencing the Lions

I said that I had hoped this year would be different. However, when the Academy announced its nominations, I was not surprised.

Black men and women, organized by character type, who have won Academy Awards. This is an updated infographic after Nyong'o's win last year. We won't get to add "Historical Civil Rights Icon" as a category in 2015. Click to enlarge. — Black men and women, organized by character type, who have won Academy Awards. This is an updated infographic after Nyong’o’s win last year. We won’t get to add “Historical Civil Rights Icon” as a category in 2015. *Click to enlarge*.

Written by Leigh Kolb as part of our theme week on the Academy Awards.

Two years ago, after Django Unchained was largely snubbed at the Oscars (compared to the Golden Globes), I looked at the history of the Black actors/characters who were awarded by the Academy over the years. Last year, I revisited that history as 12 Years a Slave dominated the awards circuit.

It’s fairly clear what roles Hollywood is most comfortable with: for Black characters, passivity, tired stereotypes, and villainy get the highest awards. Complex, powerful Black characters–especially those who appear threatening to white supremacy in some way–typically get passed over.

I hoped this year would be different. This year, institutionalized, implicit American racism seeped out of the pores of American cities and psyches post-Ferguson. This year, Ava DuVernay directed Selma, 5o years after the Selma to Montgomery march that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. The film is brilliant in its own right–DuVernay’s direction and David Oyelowo’s portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr. are incredible. Certainly the power of the film within the historical context would make the Academy sit upright and give credit where credit is due.

Instead, we got more of the same. Selma was recognized widely in Golden Globe nominations–best picture, best director, best actor, best original song (John Legend and Common’s “Glory,” which took home the award). And then, as always, the Academy turned up its white nose. While it’s up for best picture and and original song, DuVernay and Oyelowo were passed over.

At Rolling Stone, Peter Travers said,

“Why am I calling this year’s Oscars, on February 22nd, the ‘Caucasian Consensus,’ when Selma is one of the eight nominees for Best Picture? Because that landmark film about Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1965 civil-rights march has only one other nomination, for Best Song. Not one person of color appears among the 20 nominees for acting. Apparently, the Academy thought it gave last year when it awarded 12 Years a Slave the gold. The message from white voters? Don’t get uppity.”

Not one person of color.

I said that I had hoped this year would be different. However, when the Academy announced its nominations, I was not surprised.

I had to drive over an hour to watch Selma on the big screen, because none of the theaters in the small towns around me screened it (and they still haven’t).

This happened 20 minutes from my home.

The Voting Rights Act was gutted in 2013.

Writers had to defend DuVernay’s portrayal of an imperfect L.B.J.

In an interview, late author Chinua Achebe quoted the following proverb: “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” This proverb perfectly, painfully illustrates Hollywood’s–and America’s–hegemonic forces at work.

The hunters write history. The hunters glorify themselves. The hunters’ history infiltrates itself into the very fabric of our cultural narrative, so we’re only comfortable with seeing the complexities of the hunters, and the simplicity of the lions.

Selma challenged that narrative. Oyelowo–who felt destined to play King–and DuVernay dared to glorified the lions.

And the hunters simply wouldn’t hear of it.

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

‘Through a Lens Darkly’: Toward a More Beautiful Family Album

For example, in 1840–just one year after photography was invented in France–Jules Lion (an African American man) opened a daguerrotype studio in New Orleans. Ten years later, Louis Agassiz, a scientist from Harvard, worked with a daguerreian in South Carolina to capture images of slaves. The contrast of a free Black photographer and the “specimen”-like treatment of the slaves (and the fact that both were largely forgotten or lost) is, at its core, the contrast–the double consciousness–of the imagery of Black America.

Written by Leigh Kolb.

Many of the images in Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People that are most familiar are the horrifying caricatures of African Americans in advertising and the photos–that were often shared as postcards–of lynchings.

Of course, those images are not what Through a Lens Darkly–the beautiful documentary about the history of both the literal and figurative African American family album, and groundbreaking Black photographers throughout history–focuses on. Those images are ingrained into our visual and cultural psyche, burning feelings of contempt, pity, disgust, and denial into white viewers’ eyes and hearts. The lens that America looks through is white. The subject of America’s family album is white. When Black Americans have been the subject in photography, too often these images have been distorted to fit a racist, white supremacist narrative.

James Baldwin said in 1963,

“Every Negro boy and every Negro girl born in this country until this present moment undergoes the agony of trying to find in the body politic, in the body social, outside himself/herself, some image of himself or herself which is not demeaning.”

Filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris digs into his own family album and reflects on the images of African Americans throughout history as well as the African American image-makers throughout history to find those images. It’s a stunning documentary, and does an incredible job showing the impact that photography has had and still has in our culture. Harris says that he was trying to “reconcile two conflicting legacies”–“self affirmation vs. negation.” “Our salvation of a people, of a culture,” he says, “depends on salvaging our images.” This, he says, would be the true “American family album.”

Harris, with a poster featuring his grandparents. — Harris, with a poster featuring his grandparents

Deborah Willis‘ groundbreaking Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers from 1840 to the Present inspired Harris, and her extensive research (the project took more than 30 years) uncovered those image-makers and images that went forgotten for too long.

The photo of Gordon, the escaped slave-turned Union solider, and his brutally whipped back was used in Harper’s to display the “transformation of slave to warrior,” and his courage and patriotism. Over time, it turned in to a photo of victimization. The film points out that photos of the Black soldiers in the Civil War (nearly 200,000 fought) are often absent. When we see those photos, Robin D.G. Kelley points out, we see the reality that slaves freed themselves. If we don’t see those images, we stay swept up in the myth that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. Kelley says, “We’re torn between the stories we’ve been told, and the truths we see reflected in these images.”

The photos of everyday African Americans during the Reconstruction era show, as the film points out, “The best American democracy has to offer.” The hope, the humanity, and the freedom that those years promised was all too often hidden or violently thwarted, with the establishment of Black Codes and Jim Crow laws.

And then Birth of a Nation. Images of the “Black brute” dominated; advertisements with caricatures of Black people, and staged photographs with Black men committing petty crimes became popular. The images were terrifying and terrorizing to Black Americans (by design), and the narrative of white supremacy was clear. As white families would send each other postcards of photos of lynchings, the American family album was clearly a segregated, exclusive set of images. Black Americans have consistently had to fight to find themselves remembered and represented accurately.

Just as Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass knew that their photographed images were essential to their reputations, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois also worked to highlight images of successful Black Americans. From the 1900 Paris Exposition to the cover of The Crisis magazine, complex, beautiful, humanizing photographs of Black Americans showcased that they were a “rising” people, far exceeding the savage, brutish images that audiences were used to.

It is powerful that the parts of the film that show the painful images that white Americans were responsible for are relatively short. It’s not a film about white Americans; it’s a film about finding and creating a complex, complete family album that belongs to and features African Americans. And as important as it is to know and be faced with the horrors that white Americans created, that’s not what Harris dwells on. Not because these images aren’t powerful and tragic, but because this isn’t a film about white people. That’s important.

Another noteworthy part of the film is the driving force of women’s voices in the documentary itself, women’s talent, and the historical context of women photographers (Louise Jefferson, Winifred Hall Allen, Vera Jackson, Ella Watson, Florestine Perrault Collins, and others are discussed as pioneering photographers and business-owners).

Carrie Mae Weems: from The Kitchen Table Series. — Carrie Mae Weems: from The Kitchen Table Series

Renée Cox: Yo Mama's Pieta — Renée Cox: Yo Mama’s Pieta

Through interviews with photographers and historians, Harris weaves together a history lesson and a gallery of images, highlighting the image-makers and the audiences–those creating the album, and those in the album. There is so much in this relatively short documentary, but it’s also just the beginning. We find ourselves wanting to research more, and to be surrounded by the photographs of Carrie Mae Weems, Renée Cox, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Gordon Parks, Ernest Withers, Roy DeCarva, James VanDerZee, and Hank Willis Thomas.

We want the images of Black Civil War and WWI soldiers to be more familiar than the images of racist caricatures. We want Gordon’s back to symbolize him as a slave-turned-warrior, not a victim to be forgotten. We want to swipe a copy of The Sweet Flypaper of Life. We want a new American family album.

Toward the end of the film, Weems asks how she can “get you to love me back.” This inquiry is reminiscent of the Langston Hughes’ poem, “I, Too”:

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody’ll dare

Say to me,

“Eat in the kitchen,”

Then.

Besides,

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

Through a Lens Darkly takes photographs and photographers and places them in a more true, complete, and beautiful American family album–one that should be at all of our tables. We see how beautiful it is.

A First Run Features film, Through a Lens Darkly is available on iTunes and DVD, and will be on Netflix Feb. 17. The film premiers Feb. 16 on PBS Independent Lens.

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

‘Concerning Violence,’ Concerning Ferguson

Chinua Achebe said, “There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”
Reading Fanon, listening to Malcolm X, watching ‘Concerning Violence’–these are just a few ways to hear the lions. When the hunter listens, though, he sees a lion roaring, jaws open wide to bite and kill. The fear sets in. Oppressive control digs its heels back in.

“We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe.” – Frantz Fanon

Written by Leigh Kolb.

I saw Concerning Violence six months before Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown. It was six months before white people started wringing their hands to a chorus of “The answer to violence isn’t more violence!” “Look at them destroying property and looting!” “What would Martin Luther King, Jr. say?”

Nine months before the announcement that Darren Wilson was not indicted, white audience members–in Missouri–squirmed in their seat after screening Concerning Violence: “But violence should never be the answer.”

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/ohoiW9HrXkc”]

Concerning Violence is a remarkable documentary. Directed by Göran Hugo Olsson (The Black Power Mixtape 1967 – 1975), it weaves together archival footage of African colonization and anti-colonial liberation revolts from the 1960s – 1980s with the words of Frantz Fanon‘s The Wretched of the Earth (1961). The text–read by Lauryn Hill–often appears on screen as she narrates. Technically, the documentary is brilliant. It’s almost as if we cannot feel the director’s presence, because the power of the archival footage and Fanon’s language is woven together so powerfully and without any added commentary (nor does there need to be). Instead, we are assaulted with a perspective we never feel: that of the colonized-as-heroes, by any means necessary.

The stunning, disturbing footage is presented in such a way that we must realize how pertinent it is to America in 2014. The film opens with images of armed men in helicopters shooting and killing a field full of cattle. As Keith Uhlich describes at A.V. Club:

“One animal takes a particularly long time to die, and, with each bullet that doesn’t kill it, convulses in what can only be described, anthropomorphically, as pure fear. The more horrifying implication is that there’s no true word for what the beast is going through, and it’s impossible, by the end of the scene, to not imagine a human being in the same terrible situation.”

From far away, a literal and figurative position hundreds of feet higher than those on the ground, these powerful colonizing forces shoot with savage impunity. The privilege and power are palpable, and this sets the stage for the rest of the film (or, more accurately, for our history). Colonize, control, instill fear, kill, in perpetuity.

Missionaries in Tanzania, watching Tanzanians dig a site to build a church. They say that maybe after the church, they’ll build schools and hospitals.

I can’t stress this enough: watch this film, and research the various “anti-imperialistic self-defense” histories that you likely never learned about in school.

What is overwhelming to me is the complete cognitive dissonance in white Americans decrying violent revolution. The same utterance of “violence is never the answer!” about protests contrasts with celebrating American history. This isn’t a new dichotomy, of course. In “The Ballot or the Bullet,” Malcolm X said,

“When this country here was first being founded, there were thirteen colonies. The whites were colonized. They were fed up with this taxation without representation. So some of them stood up and said, ‘Liberty or death!’ I went to a white school over here in Mason, Michigan. The white man made the mistake of letting me read his history books. He made the mistake of teaching me that Patrick Henry was a patriot, and George Washington – wasn’t nothing non-violent about ol’ Pat, or George Washington. ‘Liberty or death’ is was what brought about the freedom of whites in this country from the English.”

The word “or” is important here. Just as the American Revolution we celebrate with fireworks (even though there was plenty of looting and a high death toll) was built upon this notion of “liberty or death,” so also are calls to anti-colonial violence in self-defense.

“If you do not liberate us, we must liberate ourselves.” How is this not logical? And if the historical precedence of “liberation” is through violent means, how can we, with a straight face, say that the answer to violence is not more violence? It’s always been white America’s answer.

In the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO), founded in 1962, men and women fight as equals.

When we learn about Nat Turner and Malcolm X in school (if we do), it’s in hushed tones. That‘s not the way to get freedom (if you are African American, at least). We know that we receive our history, literature, and film primary from one voice: the white male. Chinua Achebe said, “There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”

Reading Fanon, listening to Malcolm X, watching Concerning Violence–these are just a few ways to hear the lions. When the hunter listens, though, he sees a lion roaring, jaws open wide to bite and kill. The fear sets in. Oppressive control digs its heels back in.

One of the aspects of Concerning Violence‘s archival footage that makes it powerful is that so much of it is in color. We tend to think that the fiercest acts of colonialism and imperialism happened long ago and far away. It’s so important to see a world that looks like our world now, with the weapons and machinery of modernity that colonize now, not 100 years ago. Concerning Violence is historical, but it’s not history. It forces us to be uncomfortable with the world we’re living in, which is the first step to changing it.

Violence is presented as the or. Instead of desiring or justifying violence from the oppressor or the oppressed, we need to consider changing the structure. If people riot and respond to oppression with violence, how can we think that’s unheard of, uncalled for, or without historical precedent? If we do react that way, then we need to drastically change how we teach and understand our own history. If violent revolution is abhorrent, make that clear–even when white men do it.

From the Al Jazeera review of Concerning Violence:

“In her spoken preface to Concerning Violence, renowned Columbia University professor Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak explains that in ‘reading between the lines’ of The Wretched of the Earth, one sees that Fanon does not in fact endorse violence but rather ‘insists that the tragedy is that the very poor is reduced to violence, because there is no other response possible to an absolute absence of response and an absolute exercise of legitimised violence from the colonisers’. Spivak goes on to make a telling comparison regarding the earth’s ‘wretched’: ‘Their lives count as nothing against the death of the colonisers: unacknowledged Hiroshimas against sentimentalised 9/11s.'”

Violence is the or. If the oppressed, the colonized, are not treated as human beings, and are subjected to institutional racism and injustice, thinkers such as Fanon and Malcolm X see the or as revolutionary self-defense. This kind of violence is part of a long history of the oppressed overcoming oppression. That’s why it’s so terrifying to colonial powers and their rhetoric is censored, shut down, and shrouded in fear.

Perhaps that is what is most frightening to those who focus on how abhorrent rioting in the face of injustice and brutality is: they know, deep down, that rioting makes sense. White Americans know–consciously or subconsciously–that Black Americans have reason to respond to violence from the “colonizers.” And that is a terrifying reality.

In Ferguson and the protests that have swept the nation, small pockets of violent and destructive reactions have occurred–almost never by the organized protesters themselves. Even so, one image on the news media of a burned business or vehicle makes many white Americans shut down and refuse to see any legitimacy in wider protests.

White Americans, at the very least, can strive to understand why–in a world bought and won by violence–an oppressed group might see violence as self-defense and justifiable. This is not to encourage violence, to desire violence, or to act violently. This is to pause, take a step back, and just for a moment, listen to the lions. Listen to them roar.

Two of the most prominent messages during the protests against police brutality and inequality in Ferguson and elsewhere have been “Black Lives Matter” and “I/We Can’t Breathe” (after Eric Garner’s final words). These sentiments, and the response from both the judicial system and many white Americans, bear a chilling resemblance to the words Fanon wrote about colonialism.

See also:

“Ferguson: In Defense of Rioting,” by Darlena Cunha at TIME; “If Assata is a terrorist, then Timothy Loehman, Daniel Pantaleo, & Sean Williams are terrorists,” by Shaun King at Daily Kos; “When Are Violent Protests Justified?” by Taylor Adams at The New York Times

Review: ‘Concerning Violence’ Visualizes Frantz Fanon’s ‘Wretched of the Earth’, by Zeba Blay at Shadow and Act; ‘Concerning Violence’: Fanon lives on, by Belen Fernandez at Al Jazeera; “Film of the week: Concerning Violence,” by Ashley Clark at BFI; “Living at the Movies: Concerning Violence,” by Jeremy Martin at Good; What’s Happening Now in Ferguson and ‘The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975,’ by Ren Jender at Bitch Flicks

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

‘Sons of Anarchy’: Female Violence, Feminist Care

At the end of season 6, Gemma violently clashes the spheres of power. She’s in the kitchen. She’s using an iron, and a carving fork. Using tools of the feminine sphere, she brutally murders Tara, because she fears that Tara is about to take control and dismantle the club—the life, the style of mothering and living—that she brought home with her so many years ago.

Mothers of Anarchy

This post by Leigh Kolb originally appeared at And Philosophy and is cross-posted with permission.

Sons of Anarchy revolves around the chaotic yet highly methodical world of a motorcycle club and the forces around them—from law enforcement and crooked cops to gangs and organized crime rings. The entire series focuses on politics, power, violence, and authority in incredibly masculine spaces.

However, these are sons. And to be a son is not only to be a son of a father—the cornerstone for so many monomyths in Western literature—but also to be a son of a mother. While Sons of Anarchy was ostensibly about Jax’s atonement with his dead father and monstrous father figure (thus the countless accurate comparisons to Hamlet), who really is “anarchy” in this world?

If we look at the definition of anarchy— “a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority”—and focus in on the word “nonrecognition,” we can think about how throughout Sons of Anarchy, Gemma has been an authority figure in the domestic sphere—”fiercely” mothering her biological and nonbiological sons (she references wanting to have had a dozen sons in the final season, and really, she managed to do so through the MC), cooking meals, managing paperwork, and tending to children, all in the feminine sphere. Though she cannot ride, she and is seen as the ultimate “old lady.” She has power, and the men of SAMCRO, on some level, fear her.

Gemma’s violence

Her true authority, however, is not recognized. From the beginning, we understand her power in Charming. She ran off when she was a teenager, and, as Wayne Unser says, came back “ten years later with a baby and a motorcycle club.” There is implied ownership here; the club is Gemma’s. In reality, Gemma herself can be seen as embodying and perpetuating anarchy—in that she is an authority figure, but not recognized as such. The masculine sphere—the bikes, the guns, the gavel, the long table (hello, phalluses)—is seen as powerful. Violence, politics, gun deals, drug deals, more violence: masculine. Powerful.

Anarchy is then truly unleashed; both parts of the definition resound throughout the final season. Jax’s authority is misguided (some might say absent) as he leads the club down a path of disorder and destruction. Because no one—not Jax, not Unser, not Sheriff Jarry—could recognize Gemma’s capabilities for brutality., Her authority, or rather her control of the situation, is left unchecked for most of the season. Had Abel not overheard her confess, she may well have gotten away with it. The Sons all underestimate the capabilities of women.

Tara cannot escape Gemma

In “Anarchism: The Feminist Connection,” Peggy Kornegger points out that

“Anarchism has been maligned and misinterpreted for so long that maybe the most important thing to begin with is an explanation of what it is and isn’t. Probably the most prevalent stereotype of the anarchist is a malevolent-looking man hiding a lighted bomb beneath a black cape, ready to destroy or assassinate everything and everybody in his path. This image engenders fear and revulsion in most people, regardless of their politics; consequently, anarchism is dismissed as ugly, violent, and extreme. Another misconception is the anarchist as impractical idealist, dealing in useless, Utopian abstractions and out of touch with concrete reality. The result: anarchism is once again dismissed, this time as an ‘impossible dream.’”

This anarchy dichotomy is at the heart of the central conflict of Sons of Anarchy: the “malevolent” club that Clay and Gemma wanted versus the “impossible dream” club that John Teller and Jax wanted. We now know that John Teller’s death was at his own hand (albeit somewhat forced), when he realized that the former was the fate of SAMCRO. As Jax rose up the ranks of SAMCRO leadership, he wasn’t just fighting Clay’s philosophy of anarchy—he was also fighting Gemma’s. After Jax killed Clay, the fight wasn’t over, even though he initially thought it was. But the club wasn’t his. Anarchy was his mother.

As Tara plots and schemes to get herself and her sons away from the world Gemma had created and helped sustain, Gemma sees her as a threat, and resorts to fully embodying that destructive, violent anarchy that could uphold the status quo.

Because she has operated within this culture of masculine violence, Gemma adopts the patriarchal problem-solver of violent destruction. Since Tara is a threat to the malevolent anarchy that Clay and Gemma desired, she—in Gemma’s mind—had to be eliminated. Whereas Tara worked with other women as she was trying to make her plans to escape Charming with Abel and Thomas, Gemma consistently alienated herself from other women.

In “Socialism, Anarchism And Feminism,” by Carol Ehrlich, she says that the “debate over ‘strong women’” is closely related to leadership, and summarizes radical feminists’ position to include the following:

“1. Women have been kept down because they are isolated from each other and are paired off with men in relationships of dominance and submission. 2. Men will not liberate women; women must liberate themselves. This cannot happen if each woman tries to liberate herself alone. Thus, women must work together on a model of mutual aid. 3. ‘Sisterhood is powerful,’ but women cannot be sisters if they recapitulate masculine patterns of dominance and submission.”

Tara could have checked off all of those goals easily; she was of a new generation of old ladies. Gemma, on the other hand, isolates herself, acts alone, and in attempting to be dominant and in control, adopts masculine ways of doing so. Clay, as a harbinger of evil, wanted Tara dead. But the other Sons accepted and respected her. Her role wasn’t club mother, it was club healer. The power that she held—that she could and did save Sons’ lives (and Abel’s life in the series pilot)—was a restorative power that ran counter to what Gemma offered. And the more Tara worked with other women, the more of a threat she became to Gemma and the club.

Gemma embodies Sigmund Freud’s “masculinity complex,” which posits that girls identify with their fathers but eventually must assume female social roles. Gemma’s mother, Rose, died of the same heart defect that Gemma has and that her son Thomas died from. Gemma remembers Rose in a conflicted way, and says in season 7 that she thinks Rose had never wanted to be a mother. Gemma, by contrast, says that all she ever wanted to do was to be a mother (to sons).

Her father, Nate, was a pastor. She speaks of him with love and admiration, and one can easily see (just as easily as critics have seen the Oedipal parallels with Jax and Gemma) her own Electra complex—the Jungian theory that girls identify with and have a fixation with their fathers. While Nate leads a church and congregants, Gemma leads an outlaw club and outlaws—her dozen sons are different kinds of apostles.

In Sigmund Freud’s lecture, “Femininity,” he says,

“A mother is only brought unlimited satisfaction by her relationship to a son; this is altogether the most perfect, the most free from ambivalence of all human relationships. A mother can transfer to her son the ambition which she has been obliged to suppress in herself, and she can expect from him the satisfaction of all that has been left over in her of her masculinity complex.”

In making Jax believe the Chinese killed Tara, Gemma is both preserving herself and continuing—whether consciously or not—the legacy that Clay would have wanted: destruction, violence, and chaos. She wants her son to live out her ambitions, to fully give himself up to the anarchy of her rebellious desires.

Tara’s rebellion—that Gemma could not seem to get over—is the antithesis of Gemma’s. Tara left Charming as a teenager, leaving Jax and the club because she wanted to escape. She became a talented doctor, and later returned to Charming. When she wanted to “transfer to her son(s) the ambition which she has been obliged to suppress in herself”—escaping Charming and the grasp of SAMCRO, Gemma sees this desire as running counter to her own ambition for her son and grandsons: to stay in Charming, and to stay in the MC.

Wendy and Tara collaborate

Both Tara and Gemma are underestimated by the men, in terms of the lengths they will go to in order to preserve their desires for their lives and their sons. Because women aren’t included in the ultra-violent, masculine club scene (and are instead relegated to being porn stars, escorts, or old ladies—all very “private” roles), Tara’s plots shock Jax. Gemma brutally killing Tara is out of the realm of possibility for feminine force.

Freud added in the aforementioned lecture:

“There is one particularly constant relation between femininity and instinctual life which we do not want to overlook. Suppression of women’s aggressiveness which is prescribed for them constitutionally and imposed on them socially favors the development of powerful masochistic impulses, which succeed, as we know, in binding erotically the destructive trends which have been divested inwards. Thus masochism, as people say, is truly feminine.”

Gemma almost got away with murder because the expectation of women is that they are nonviolent and are not aggressive. Specifically, the brutal way she killed Tara was, according to law enforcement and Jax, in keeping with gang violence because it was so horrifying and malicious. When Gemma and Juice convince Jax that it was one of Lin’s men who killed Tara, Jax kills him in the same way Tara was killed, thinking he was enacting just revenge. He was, instead, simply doing as his mother taught him.

Showrunner Kurt Sutter said, “This is a story about the queen and the prince.” It seemed as if Jax had been trying to reconcile with his father and father figure all of these years; instead, we realize he needs to reconcile with his mother. When he finally realizes this, it’s too late—Gemma has killed Tara, Juice killed Eli to protect her, and they lied and set off a series of massacres and gang violence. Everyone immediately believed Lin’s crew was responsible for Tara’s death, because it looked like brutal gang violence—certainly not something a woman could do. There was no Mayhem vote for Gemma, because she isn’t at the table. However, even in her final moments, Gemma gives Jax permission to kill her, because she knows it must be done. She’s mothering—and controlling—until the very end.

As Hannah Arendt points out in On Violence, “Violence can always destroy power. Out of the barrel of a gun grows the most effective command, resulting in the most instant and perfect obedience. What never can grow out of it is power.” As soon as Gemma kills Tara, her power starts rapidly declining. A conglomeration of Gertrude and Lady Macbeth, Gemma vacillates between justifying her actions and apologizing for them (but mostly justifying). As soon as she sets the stage for Jax to enact revenge upon the Chinese, his rage and misplaced revenge—without the understanding or agreement of the club—makes him less and less powerful. In the last episode, as he ties up all of his loose ends (see: killing everyone), he is losing power. By the end, he gives up himself, and his power—just like his father did—and commits suicide. Violence robs Gemma and Jax both of their power, their dignity, and their lives.

So who—and what—wins in this modern Shakespearean tale? Certainly not those who rely on a sense of vengeful justice and violence to ride through this life. In a patriarchal framework of understanding, these actions are seen as desirable and just. Instead, we must work toward a feminist ethic of care. Feminist psychologist and philosopher Carol Gilligan defines a feminist ethic of care as

“an ethic of resistance to the injustices inherent in patriarchy (the association of care and caring with women rather than with humans, the feminization of care work, the rendering of care as subsidiary to justice—a matter of special obligations or interpersonal relationships). A feminist ethic of care guides the historic struggle to free democracy from patriarchy; it is the ethic of a democratic society, it transcends the gender binaries and hierarchies that structure patriarchal institutions and cultures. An ethics of care is key to human survival and also to the realization of a global society.”

Gilligan’s research has shown that traditionally “feminine” approaches to care are about more than the individual—connectedness and care override a sense of individualism and justice. In Sons of Anarchy, the characters who most exemplify this care ethic are Nero and Wendy, who, at the end, are riding together to parent their children—biological and non—far away from Charming. They are friends, not lovers, and their goals are not for themselves, but for the safety of one another and their sons—sons who they desperately want to keep away from the individualistic, vengeful anarchy they were coming to know. Nero and Wendy are coincidentally both recovering addicts. In their recovery—from the literal and figurative drugs of their past—they care more deeply about one another and those around them than they care about their individual desires.

Wendy’s eventual ethic of care

Tara desired this kind of care for her sons, but couldn’t attain it in her lifetime because of the pull of Gemma and Jax’s patriarchal anarchy. After Gemma’s death, Jax is freed to fulfill Tara’s wishes, and legally makes Wendy the boys’ mother. As in so many Shakespearean dramas, women must die so that men will learn. However, what remains constant throughout Sons of Anarchy is that when the masculine ideals dissolve, and individuals cry, love, and care (exemplified in Tig and Venus’s powerful love scene in “Faith and Despondency”), intimacy and growth are possible.

Wendy and Nero escape with their sons, embodying the feminist ethic of care

As Nero and Wendy leave Charming, it’s clear that this, then, is the preferred way to ride—not “all alone,” as Jax does—but all together. Gemma stands by her way of mothering until the end. She’s distrustful and dismissive of teachers and school (whereas Wendy is passionate about Abel attending school), and she covertly gives Abel his grandfather’s SON ring, which he wears at the end of the finale. Jax, however, sees the dire need for care, not anarchy. “It’s not too late for my boys,” he says. “They will never know this life of chaos.” Ultimately, Jax is a tragic hero because he realizes that care, not justice, will heal and raise his children.

The feminism of Sons of Anarchy has been not only its complex, three-dimensional female characters and Gemma’s role as the rare female antihero, but also its tragic depiction of the end game of violent, individualistic patriarchy. Wrapped up in the tragedy of masculine justice and violent revenge, Sons of Anarchy lifts up of the feminist ethic of care.

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Leigh Kolb is an instructor at a community college in rural Missouri, where she teaches composition, journalism, and literature. She wrote “Mothers of Anarchy: Power, Control, and Care in the Feminine Sphere,” for Sons of Anarchy and Philosophy, and recapped the final season of Sons of Anarchy at Vulture. She is an editor and staff writer at Bitch Flicks, where she has written about the feminism of Sons of Anarchy.

As Goes Missouri, So Goes the Nation: ‘The Pruitt-Igoe Myth,’ ‘Rich Hill,’ and ‘Spanish Lake’

Rural poverty and urban poverty are not the same. Individual racism and institutional racism are not the same. However, these forces are woven together as they are fiercely kept separate in our common mythologies of what America means. We avoid difficult stories that disrupt the narratives we’ve come to understand.

Written by Leigh Kolb.

For over a century, Missouri was known as a bellwether state; a politically split swing state (blue urban Kansas City and St. Louis bookend red rural communities), the state’s presidential vote almost always reflected the outcome of the presidential election. In the Civil War, Missourians fought for both sides. Demographically, economically, socially, and politically, Missouri has often been seen as a microcosm of America as a whole.

In an NPR article, the term “bellwether” is defined:

“You might be wondering where the word ‘bellwether’ comes from. Just think about Mary and her little lamb… she’d tie a bell around the neck of a wether (a castrated male sheep) who would lead the little lamb and the rest of the flock around until Mary came back. And when she returned, the bell signaled the flock’s location.”

The bell around Missouri’s neck has been sounding, tuning a nation in to the economic and divisive realities of a nation divided, economically and racially. Three recent documentaries paint a portrait of tragic desperation that is not isolated to middle America; it’s the struggle of a nation faced with the staggering reality of deep divides in class and race.

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The Pruitt-Igoe Myth

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, directed by Chad Freidrichs and released in 2012, tells a more complex version of a modern myth. Pruitt-Igoe was a public housing development in St. Louis, built to be a shiny clean alternative to the tenements of the city. It was designed with the goal of “lifting residents out of poverty,” and was built using federal funding after the Housing Act of 1949. The documentary, which succeeds greatly in its usage of historical footage and current interviews with past tenants, paints a picture of a development full of hope. Those interviewed remembered Pruitt-Igoe as an “oasis in a desert,” and their time there had been incredibly exciting and happy. There was also fear, though. A complex portrait is drawn that leaves the viewer wondering, “What happened?”

The complex was segregated. Public housing was racially segregated until 1956; after that, many areas remained or became increasingly segregated due to redlining and “white flight” as suburbs became attractive options and were also subsidized heavily by government funding. Against the backdrop of a post-war economy that was not growing as expected, and the deep racism that permeated the country as schools were desegregated, Pruitt-Igoe was a socialist penthouse built on a racist, shaky free market.

Twenty years after its completion, it was fully demolished. The mythology that has surrounded its failure typically stigmatizes public housing and the residents; however, the real story has much more to do with the lack of maintenance and support, welfare policies that broke apart families, and decaying conditions coupled with increasing rent. While the government built the complex, the maintenance and upkeep was to be paid for with tenants’ rent. This model relied on a vibrant, growing city and economy.

That’s not what happened.

The government was also committed to pro-suburb housing policies, where middle class and working class whites went to live. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth does an excellent job outlining the history of economic decline and housing and zoning laws that were often unfriendly to poor and working class African Americans.

Another reality that the film reveals is the “control” that the welfare department had over those in the apartments who received aid, including the anti-family “man in the house” rule, which dictated that if an “able-bodied” man lived in the home, the family couldn’t receive assistance. For some of the interviewees in the film, that meant that their fathers had to leave the state, or hide when agents came to check and see if a man was living in the house. (And just a few decades later, conservatives decry the breakdown of the family as the cause of poverty and crime.) The rules were restrictive–telephones and televisions were not allowed. The theme of “control” runs through many of the former tenants’ narratives–the control that the housing authority attempted to have over them, and the lack of control they felt in their deteriorating living conditions.

Instead of fixing and maintaining the units, authorities made everything “indestructible” (caging in light bulbs for example). One former tenant said that that “made you want to destroy things.” While The Pruitt-Igoe Myth is ostensibly about a housing project, it is also about segregation, masculinity, poverty, distrust of law enforcement, racism, the decline of the American city, and whites’ deep fears of Black poverty and crime (the mythology of Pruitt-Igoe became a scapegoat to uphold those fears).

This iconic footage of Pruitt-Igoe being destroyed was used in the film Koyaanisqatsi. "Koyaanisgatsi" is a Hopi Indian word, and means "life out of balance." — This iconic footage of Pruitt-Igoe being destroyed was used in the film *Koyaanisqatsi*. “Koyaanisgatsi” is a Hopi Indian word, and means “life out of balance.”

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Rich Hill

On the other side of Missouri is Rich Hill, a rural town with a population of just over 1,000. A former coal mining town, the economy of Rich Hill has declined rapidly in the last few decades, and its inhabitants are faced with poverty and a lack of employment opportunities.

Filmmakers Tracy Droz Tragos and Andrew Droz Palermo (who are cousins), grew up visiting family in Rich Hill. They stress the importance of showing poverty in America, and that we cannot keep those living in poverty “at arm’s length.” They directed Rich Hill, a beautiful documentary that focuses deeply on the lives of three young teenage boys who are up against a world that seems hopeless.

Between 2000 and 2010, poverty rates in Missouri doubled, at a rate 3.5 times the national average. Rural areas have been hit by declining manufacturing opportunities. The three boys chronicled in Rich Hill are all faced with devastating family situations. Andrew is good-looking and charming, and seems optimistic amid the chaos of his life–a father who does odd jobs, sings country music, and moves his family around constantly. Appachey lives in rage, and chain smokes at age 12. His mother had him when she was a teenager, and his father left when he was 6. Harley’s mother is in prison because she tried to kill his stepfather after his stepfather had raped him, and the cops did nothing. Harley lives with his grandmother. “I don’t need an education,” he tells us. “I just need my family.”

The film spans a year, and it’s punctuated by Fourth of July celebrations. Toward the end, the fireworks are juxtaposed with scenes of Andrew and his father arm wrestling, and the town chanting “USA!” in celebration. These scenes are stunningly beautiful and deeply sad.

Andrew says, “I keep praying. Nothing’s came yet, but I keep trying…”

Tragos said that in making the film, they were trusted because they had their grandparents’ name. She explains that this was “less of a nostalgia piece than for an urgent piece about these kids’ lives.” It’s clear that the filmmakers were pulled in to these boys’ lives (their website features updates and fundraising links for the boys and other organizations).

The plight of the mothers and grandmothers is overwhelming. It’s difficult to watch the one father who is in the picture; he has delusions of grandeur, and we can see Andrew following in those charismatic, aimless footsteps (although most viewers are completely charmed and heartened by Andrew’s grinning confidence). The boys are all smart and funny, yet they are faced with a system–whether it be the juvenile system, or a free-falling economy–that is completely against them and their families.

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Spanish Lake

Spanish Lake is an unincorporated township north of St. Louis eight miles away from Ferguson. Filmmaker Philip Andrew Morton lived there until he was 18. When he returned 10 years later, his childhood home and elementary school were abandoned, and he wanted to explore the phenomenon of “white flight” that occurred in St. Louis in the last half century.

He made Spanish Lake, which centers mostly on the white people who left Spanish Lake as they reflect upon the past. While these interviews make up the majority of the film, there is a bit of history that gives some context to the demographic shift. Spanish Lake was kept unincorporated due to anti-government sentiment, which led to a lack of social services and the building of Section 8 apartments, where many impoverished African Americans moved after housing developments like Pruitt-Igoe were destroyed. Realtors redlined neighborhoods, pushing whites in and out strategically. White people–fueled by racism and the lack of what had been strong, unionized labor opportunities–fled to other suburbs or rural areas.

In Spanish Lake, Morton captures a reunion of “Lakers”–former residents of Spanish Lake who have a reunion at Spanish Lake and drink beer while reminiscing about the past. Morton’s motivation in making Spanish Lake was his own nostalgia, as he remembers his childhood in Spanish Lake with a sense of pain and loss. While there’s no doubt that he also has a social awareness (that was certainly heightened as the timing of his film coincided with Ferguson making waves around the world, as Ferguson’s demographic shift has been similar to Spanish Lake’s), the overriding tone of the documentary is nostalgic, peppered with just enough history to give some context.

White former residents talk about the fights, and getting beaten up by “sisters,” and laugh about shooting a Black Santa off a new resident’s roof. The pain in these former residents’ comments is palpable, but it’s left unexamined. The documentary plays for more than 30 minutes before a Black person speaks. There are short clips of Black apartment residents thanking the local police force and their new (white) landlords.

Had Spanish Lake existed in a vacuum, it would have been a fine piece of nostalgic film that briefly illuminated a modern history of segregation and deeply entrenched racism and a decaying middle class as labor and manufacturing opportunities dissolved.

If viewers are looking for a nuanced commentary on “how Ferguson became Ferguson,” Spanish Lake is not enough. The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, full of authentic voices that speak to the fear and trauma of growing up in poverty and institutional racism, should be required viewing.

However, Spanish Lake itself does capture how many white Americans react and speak about a recent history of demographic changes, housing segregation, and school desegregation. It’s uncomfortable to hear their voices, but those voices are familiar and loud, all across America.

There’s a lot of talking, but not a lot of critical thinking. And when it comes to talking about race and class in America, that’s a painfully accurate representation.

White voices dominate Spanish Lake — White voices dominate *Spanish Lake*

We don’t want to hear how, in so many ways, Pruitt-Igoe was set up for failure, and fit into a narrative that it was the residents themselves who were failures. We don’t want to listen to the young Black man who was a boy in Pruitt-Igoe, who loved quietly watching insects in a field before he saw his brother brutally murdered–then all he could think about was killing.

We don’t want to hear about rural poverty, and how the economy has gutted middle America and left in the rubble children who are failed by their parents, their schools, and the legal system. One audience member at a Rich Hill screening praised Andrew for his faith and encouraged him to keep praying, as if his optimism and charming smile would someday pay the bills.

We don’t want to hear the racism of former residents of a “nice area,” who can’t see that their own anti-government stance helped usher in low-income housing, which they were also against. Then there weren’t social services available–because they were against centralized government–and that lack of social services harmed everyone. In so many ways, Spanish Lake represents an entire nation of people who vote and scream against their own interests without any sense of introspection. What makes Spanish Lake jarring is the modernity of the footage. In The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, the footage of residents and officials of Black Jack, another township north of St. Louis who wanted to keep a certain “element” out of their neighborhoods is in black and white, grainy news reels of a time that seems so long ago. But it wasn’t. In Spanish Lake, former residents make the same arguments in broad daylight in high-definition.

We want to believe that it’s all simple. Segregated housing policies are a thing of the past, and we’re in a “post-racial” society. Poverty is due to laziness. People should just choose to live in better conditions and pull up their bootstraps, and ignore history. We want to ignore history.

That is the American mythology that has a chokehold on us all.

But the chain is tightening around Missouri’s neck, and the bell is sounding. We must leave the mythology in the past and deal with reality.

Because Missouri–its segregation, its poverty, and its denial–is America.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7RwwkNzF68″]

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/QNp0AuPiZ3Y”]

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw38xwWu3r4″]

See also: “Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the American City”; “St. Louis: A city divided” at Al Jazeera America; For its poverty rate, Missouri should be placed on child neglect registry. at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

The Terror of Little Girls: Social Anxiety About Women in Horrifying Girlhood

Horror films hold a mirror up to these ideals, distorting the images and terrifying viewers in the process. The terror that society feels while looking at these little girls echoes the terror it feels when confronted with changing gender norms and female power.

This repost by Leigh Kolb appears as part of our theme week on The Terror of Little Girls.

Horror films have a long-standing tradition of commenting on the social fears and anxieties of their time.

Another universally recognized truth of horror is that scary children are terrifying–especially little girls.

While an analysis of “creepy children” in horror films usually proclaims that they are providing commentary on a loss of innocence, and it would make sense that a little girl is the “ultimate” in innocence, it can’t be that simple. We wouldn’t be so shaken to the core by possessed, haunted, violent little girls if we were simply supposed to be longing for innocent times of yesteryear.

Instead, these little girls embody society’s growing fears of female power and independence. Fearing a young girl is the antithesis of what we are taught–stories of missing, kidnapped or sexually abused girls (at least white girls) get far more news coverage and mass sympathy than stories of boy victims. Little girls are innocent victims and need protection.

In the Victorian era, the ideal female was supposed to be pale, fainting-prone and home-bound. Feminist literary icons Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar write about this nineteenth-century ideal in The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women:

“At its most extreme, this nineteenth-century ideal of the frail, even sickly female ultimately led to the glorification of the dead or dying woman. The most fruitful subject for literature, announced the American romancer Edgar Allan Poe in 1846, is ‘the death… of a beautiful woman’… But while dead women were fascinating, dying girl-children were even more enthralling… These episodes seem to bring to the surface an extraordinary imperative that underlay much of the nineteenth-century ideology of femininity: in one way or another, woman must be ‘killed’ into passivity for her to acquiesce in what Rousseau and others considered her duty of self-abnegation ‘relative to men.'”

The feminine “ideal” (and its relation to literature) coincided with women beginning the long fight for suffrage and individual rights. It’s no surprise, then, that men wanted to symbolically kill off the woman so she could fulfill her ultimate passive role. There was something comforting about this to audiences.

Rhoda Penmark will not lose to a boy. Or anyone else.

Fast forward to the 1950s and 60s, and the modern horror genre as we know it emerged and began evolving into something that provided social commentary while playing on audiences’ deepest fears (the “other,” invasion, demonic possession, nuclear mutations and the end of the world).

We know that horror films have always been rife with puritanical punishment/reward for promiscuous women/virgins (the “Final Girl” trope), and violence toward women or women needing to be rescued are common themes. These themes comfort audiences, and confirm their need to keep women subjugated in their proper place. It’s no coincidence that the 50s and 60s were seeing sweeping social change in America (the Pill, changing divorce laws, resurgence of the ERA, a lead-up to Roe v. Wade).

Terrifying little girls also make their debut in this era. Their mere presence in these films spoke not only to audiences’ fears of children losing innocence, but also the intense fear that little girls–not yet even women–would have the power to overthrow men. These girl children of a generation of women beginning a new fight for rights were terrifying–these girls would grow up knowing they could have power.

The Bad Seed‘s Rhoda Penmark (played by Patty McCormack in the 1956 film), genetically predisposed to be a sociopath, murders a classmate and the janitor who suspects her. Her classmate–a boy–beats her in a penmanship contest, and she beats him to death with her tap shoes. A little girl, in competition with a boy, loses, and kills. While in the novel Rhoda gets away with her crimes, the Hays Code commanded that the film version “punished” her for her crimes and she’s struck by lightning. It’s revealed that Rhoda’s sociopathic tendencies come from her maternal grandmother, a serial killer. This notion of female murderous rage, passed down through generations and claiming boys/men as its victim, certainly reflects social fear at the time.

In 1968, Night of the Living Dead premiered on big screens and has been seen as commenting on racism/the Civil Rights movement, Cold War-era politics and critiquing America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. However, little Karen Cooper’s (Kyra Schon) iconic scene has long disturbed audiences the most. Infected by zombies, she eats her father and impales her mother with a trowel. A horror twist to an Oedipal tale, one could see Karen as living out the gravest fears of those against the women’s movement/second-wave feminism. Possessed by a demon, she eats her father (consumes the patriarchy) and kills her mother (overtaking her mother’s generation with masculine force).

Little Karen Cooper consumes patriarchy and overtakes her mother.

Five years later, Roe v. Wade had been decided (giving women the right to legal first-trimester abortions), the Pill was legal, no-fault divorce was more acceptable and women began flooding the workforce.

Meanwhile, on the big screen, sweet little Regan MacNeil–the daughter of an over-worked, atheist mother–becomes possessed by the devil.

The Exorcist was based on a novel, which itself was based on the exorcism case of a little boy. Of course, the novelist and filmmakers wanted audiences to be disturbed and terrified, so the sex of the possessed protagonist changed (would it be as unsettling if it was a little boy?).

Chris MacNeil, Regan’s mother, goes to great lengths to help her daughter, and resorts to Catholicism when all else has failed. Regan reacts violently to religious symbols, lashes out and kills priests, speaks in a masculine voice and masturbates with a crucifix. This certainly isn’t simply a “demonic possession” horror film, especially since it was written and made into a film at the height of the fight for women’s rights (the Catholic church being an adamant foe to reproductive rights). Only after Regan releases her demon, which possesses a priest (who flings himself out of a window to commit suicide), does she regain her innocence and girlhood.

Tied and bound, Regan haunts and kills men, and reacts violently to religious images.

What her mother and her culture are embracing–atheism, working women, reproductive rights, sexual aggressiveness–can be seen as the “demons” that overcome the innocent girl and kill men (and traditional religion).

These films are have terrified audiences for decades, and for good reason. The musical scores, the direction, the jarring and shocking images–however, they also play to society’s deepest fears about women and feminism. For little girls to be possessed is the ultimate fall.

In 1980, The Shining was released. Yet another film adaptation of a novel (Stanley Kubrick’s treatment of Stephen King’s novel), this film contains two of the creepiest little girls in film history–the Grady girls. The Shining shines a light on crises of masculinity. Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson, is a recovering alcoholic who has hurt his son, Danny, in the past. When he takes his wife, Wendy, and son with him to be caretakers of a hotel over a winter, his descent into madness quickly begins. Danny has telepathic abilities, and sees and experiences the hotel’s violent past. As he rides his Big Wheel through the hotel, he stops when he sees two little girls begging him to “Come play with us Danny. Forever.” These girls–dead daughters of Grady, a previous caretaker who killed his family and himself–are trying to pull Danny into their world. Danny sees images of them murdered brutally, and flees in fear. Meanwhile, Jack is struggling with his alcoholism, violence and lack of control of himself and his sensitive wife and child. When he sees Grady, Grady advises him:

“My girls, sir, they didn’t care for the Overlook at first. One of them actually stole a pack of matches, and tried to burn it down. But I ‘corrected’ them sir. And when my wife tried to prevent me from doing my duty, I ‘corrected’ her.”

Danny is confronted with the horror of what men are capable of.

In this aftermath of the women’s movement, Jack (a weak man, resistant to authority) is being haunted and guided by a forceful, dominating masculinity of the past. He’s stuck between the two worlds, and succumbs to violent, domineering alcoholism.

But he loses. Wendy and Danny win.

While his predecessor succeeded in “correcting” his wife and daughters, that time has past.

Here, the flashing memories of the ghosts of the past are terrifying. The Grady girls provide a look into what it is to be “corrected” and dominated.

“Come play with us Danny,” the girls beg, haunting him with the realities of masculine force and dominance.

Starting with the late-70s and 80s slasher films (and the growing Religious Right/Moral Majority in politics), the “Final Girl” reigned supreme, and the promiscuous young woman would perish first. Masculinity (characterized with “monstrous” violence and strength) and femininity became natural enemies. These fights on the big screen mirrored the fights in reality. The Equal Rights Amendment was pushed out of favor and was never ratified, and a growing surge of conservatism and family values began dominating American rhetoric.

In the late 90s and early 2000s, we see a resurgence of the terrifying little girl. This time, she is serving as a warning to single/working/independent/adoptive mothers.

In The Ring (the 2002 American adaptation of a 1998 Japanese film), Rachel Keller (played by Naomi Watts) is a journalist and a single mother. She unknowingly risks her son and his father’s lives by showing them a cursed videotape. A critic noted:

“If she had never entered the public sphere and viewed the cassette in the first place, she would not have inadvertently caused Noah’s death, nor would she have to potentially cause the death of another. Rachel would, perhaps, have been better off staying at home.”

Single motherhood has often been the driving force behind horror plots.

In her investigation into the video, she discovers the twisted, dark past of the video’s subject, Samara, a young girl who started life troubled (her birthmother tried to drown her). She was adopted by a couple, but her adoptive mother suffered from visions and haunting events due to Samara’s powers. They attempted to institutionalize Samara, but eventually the adoptive mother drowns her in a well after Samara cannot be cured of her psychosis. Her adoptive father, Rachel finds, locked Samara in an attic of their barn, and Samara left a clue of the well’s location behind wallpaper. (Bitch Flicks ran an excellent analysis of the yellow wallpaper and the themes of women’s stories in The Ring.)

Samara’s life was punctuated by drowning, which has throughout history been a way for women to commit suicide or be killed (symbolizing both the suffocation of women’s roles and the return to the life-giving waters that women are often associated with). While Rachel “saves” Samara’s corpse and gives her a proper burial, Samara didn’t want that. She rejected Rachel’s motherhood and infects Rachel’s son. Rachel–in her attempts to mother–cannot seem to win.

Rachel “saves” Samara from her watery grave, but she still cannot succeed.

The ambiguous ending suggests that Rachel may indeed save her son, but will have to harm another to do so. This idea of motherly self-sacrifice portrays the one way that Rachel–single, working mother Rachel–can redeem herself. However, the parallel narrative of the dangers of silencing and “locking up” women is loud and clear.

And in 2009’s Orphan, Esther is a violent, overtly sexual orphan from Russia who is adopted by an American family. Esther is “not nearly as innocent as she claims to be,” says the IMDb description. This story certainly plays on the fear of the “other” in adopted little girls (much like The Ring) and how that is realized in the mothers. In this film, Esther is actually an adult “trapped” in a child’s body. The clash of a childish yet adult female (as culturally, little girls are somehow expected to embody adult sexuality and yet be innocent and naïve) again reiterates this fear of little girls with unnatural and unnerving power. The drowning death of Esther, as her adoptive mother and sister flee, shows that Esther must be killed to be subdued. The power of mother is highlighted, yet the film still plays on cultural fears of mothering through international adoptions and the deep, disturbing duality of childhood and adulthood that girls are supposed to embody.

Like Samara, Esther is a deeply disturbed daughter, capable of demonic violence.

In the last 60 years, American culture has seen remarkable change and resistance to that change. Horror films–which portray the very core of society’s fears and anxieties–have reflected the fears of women’s social movements through the faces of terrifying little girls.

While nineteenth-century literature comforted audiences with the trope of a dead, beautiful woman, thus making her passive and frail (of course, we still do this), twentieth and twenty-first century horror films force audiences to come face to face with murderous, demonic, murdered and psychotic little girls to parallel fears of women having economic, reproductive, parenting and marital (or single) power.

Little girls are supposed to be the epitome of all we hold dear–innocent, sweet, submissive and gentle. The Victorian Cult of Girlhood and Womanhood bleeds into the twenty-first century anti-feminist movements, and these qualities are still revered.

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Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

The Stronger ‘Vessel’

Written by Leigh Kolb.

Dear Women on Waves,

I’m not married and am pregnant. I cannot have a baby.

I heard you can drink bleach, but I’m scared it will kill me.

My sister told me about your ship. Can you help me?

– Amina, Morocco

This plea opens Vessel, the documentary about the abortion-rights organization Women on Waves (and Women on Web), led by Dutch doctor Rebecca Gomperts. Women on Waves was launched in 1999, when Gomperts realized that if a Dutch ship sailed to international waters adjacent to countries with abortion restrictions, she could legally help women to have a safe abortion.

Directed by Diana Whitten, Vessel examines how, as Whitten says, “a woman had to leave one realm of sovereignty to reclaim her own.” Gomperts—who has been an artist, Greenpeace activist, doctor, and mother, all roles that inspire her work with Women on Waves—is dynamic on camera. The scenes of her deftly dealing with protesters and pundits show us the power and strength necessary to do the work that she’s doing—providing safe abortions and reproductive education to the women in places least likely to receive those services.

The original aim of Women on Waves was to sail their mobile clinic (contained in a shipping container) to countries where women most needed their services. They would get the women on board, sail 12 miles off-shore, and administer the medical abortion. Their maiden voyage was to Ireland, where they were met with harsh press, angry protesters, and legal setbacks.

When a journalist presses Gomperts and asks if she’s had an abortion, she shoots back:

“It’s a frequent medical procedure. Just because it’s women, because it’s invisible… no one fucking knows. Are you going to ask someone who works with Amnesty International if they’ve been tortured?”

One of the most powerful aspects of the documentary is the inclusion of the actual women’s words (and women in need call and email constantly). Gomperts is right: abortion is frequent and necessary. The fact that it is about women’s autonomy and choice makes it invisible, and in countries where abortion is restricted, this is incredibly dangerous. The words and voices of these women drive the documentary forward.

When they arrive in Poland, Women on Waves is contacted by a desperate young woman. She was raped, and is seven weeks pregnant. “Welcome Nazis,” male protesters scream at them as they dock their ship. This juxtaposition—the desperate woman, the vicious protestors—underscores the larger issues at play in activism surrounding abortion rights. It’s about male control.

The Portuguese government sends warships to stop their ship from sailing into international waters. The masculine image of a warship up against a small, feminine vessel built to liberate women, is dramatic. The ocean—so often symbolizing femininity—is full of possibility, and full of limitations. Through all of the gorgeous shots of the water, it’s hard to not think about Virginia Woolf or Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. The femininity of the water is liberating and stifling, and Gomperts and her amazing crew feel that when faced with each new obstacle. “I’m sure we’ll come up with something,” she says.

“We decided if women couldn’t get to the ship, we could help the women get the pills,” Gomperts says, and she announces on air on a Portuguese talk show exactly how women can self-medicate with just Misoprostol to give themselves abortion. She quickly and aggressively gives the prescription as the host nods and the smug male pundit looks stunned.

Immediately afterward, she announces her pregnancy. “If it’s wanted, it’s delicious,” she says. She stresses that she wants to show that side—that you can be pregnant, a mother, and be supportive of abortion rights. This evolution of her ethos goes hand in hand with the evolution of her activism.

A volunteer says that they get more and more emails from women who want to get the pill. There’s a plea for help from a woman in the US military in Afghanistan. “Every story of the women who write is different,” the volunteer says. “It’s hard to generalize because abortions are so common.”

The power of the Internet gives the women a new wave to ride on. They field emails and calls, and created their sister organization, the website Women on Web. It may be illegal to give women the pills, but giving information on how and when to take the pills isn’t illegal. So education—via trainings and hotlines—became their new voyage.

The power of female solidarity in Vessel is overwhelming. These women seem tireless in their goals of empowering women all over the globe—from educational workshops in Tanzania to draping “Tu Decision” with their phone number on the La Virgin del Panecillo in Quito, Ecuador (my favorite scene).

p1010060.jpg(mediaclass-base-page-main.d2c518cc99acd7f6b176d3cced63a653791dedb3) — “Your Decision,” “Safe Abortion” at the feet of the Virgin at El Panecillo in Ecuador

In 2012, Women on Web responded to more than 100,000 emails from 135 countries requesting information about abortion with pills. They point out that in some countries, abortion may be legal, but not accessible to women. The United States of America is one of those countries.

We are often so focused on changing laws that we don’t realize the power in giving women the right tools and education to empower themselves “despite the laws.” Through their campaigns—across the sea and across the web—Women on Waves and Women on Web do it all, effecting change in legislation and in women’s personal lives.

The documentary is understated and beautiful, and we are left with a sense of hope. The images of women celebrating in spite of men screaming and yelling, and the images of a fearless older woman with bruises on her arms from fighting with police who ransacked their ship remind us what power we truly have.

While the virgin-in-chains turned abortion-activist was my favorite image in the film, the most emotional moment was during an email exchange with a woman from Nairobi. She kisses the pills when she gets them, and a raw, personal email exchange follows as she goes through the process. When it’s over, she requests the name of the volunteer who was emailing her. A Women on Web volunteer responds that they are a collective, working as a team, so she couldn’t give the specific name—a beautiful and poignant reminder of the power of both individual stories and collective support.

“Women will make it happen.”

* * *

Vessel, Diana Whitten’s first feature film, won the Audience Award in the Documentary Competition and the Special Jury Award for Political Courage at South by Southwest.

Vessel will be shown during DOC NYC on Saturday, Nov. 15.

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Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

The Trauma of ‘Private Violence’

It is absolutely clear that throughout ‘Private Violence,’ Hill allowed Gruelle to take her into a world that she felt compelled to share with the public. That trust, that “wide-eyed curiosity” (as Gruelle said of Hill’s directing technique), created a documentary that not only pays homage to the strength and tragedy of women whose lives are torn apart by male partner violence, but also serves as a wake-up call that the system–law enforcement, news media, medical professionals, local and federal court systems–are not serving victims the way they should. ‘Private Violence’ is a public testament to the horror of domestic assault.

Written by Leigh Kolb.

Gloria Steinem said,

“The most dangerous place for a woman statistically speaking is not in the street. It’s in her own home. She’s most likely to be attacked by a man with whom she lives. It’s the trauma of it we’re just beginning to realize.”

This “private,” not public, violence, is the subject of the documentary Private Violence, which premiers Oct. 21 on HBO. (Steinem is an executive producer of the film.) Cynthia Hill directs the documentary, which focuses in on Kit Gruelle, an advocate and survivor, and Deanna Walters, a survivor who is navigating the court system. Other women’s stories are woven throughout, but the individual stories of these women offer a stunning, jarring inside look on what goes on behind closed doors and how “Why didn’t she just leave?” is not a question we should ever ask.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf_zvbMwhHo&list=UUbKo3HsaBOPhdRpgzqtRnqA”]

“It’s not your job to fix broken men.”

Statistics surrounding domestic violence in the US are stunning, even to those who are immersed in following women’s issues in the news–perhaps because the news media too often keeps these stories of assault, stalking, and murder in the private sphere. During the University of Missouri – Columbia’s Journalism School and True/False Film Festival collaboration, Based on a True Story: The Intersection of Documentary Film and Journalism last February, Hill and Gruelle participated in a panel discussion entitled “Telling Stories About Trauma.” Gruelle pointed out that in one of the cases she was advocating for, the local news refused to air graphic photos of a victim, but later that night, “the channel ran TV dramas about violence against women for profit–we can deal with the fantasy.”

The reality is this:

• One in four women (22.3 percent) has been the victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner

• One in six women (15.2 percent) has been stalked during her lifetime

• Thirty percent of female homicide victims are murdered by their intimate partners

Private Violence does not, as some social-issue documentaries do, continuously slam us in the face with these statistics. Instead, the film takes us inside, takes us behind closed doors, to come face-to-face with victims, families, and advocates. The news media may not show us photos of brutalized women, but Private Violence does. We hear–and see–Walters, as she tries to escape and get some kind of justice (and how difficult it is). In an incredible opening, Candy tries to escape from William (who didn’t even care if they used the scene). The intimate, heartbreaking look into these women’s lives turns a mirror onto a society that has historically been far too complacent about violence against women.

During the aforementioned panel discussion, Hill said that she was approached by Gruelle, who wanted to work on a project about the history of domestic violence advocacy work. “Her intention wasn’t to be the subject of the film,” Hill said. “I wanted to turn my camera in her direction… she already had access and intimacy. A historical film became a cinema verité film.” Hill’s decision to turn the camera on Gruelle was brilliant. Gruelle is a passionate advocate who works hard and speaks loudly about domestic violence in our culture. Hill invited her to speak up during the panel discussion, and Gruelle pointed out that “It’s never just about the abusers. It’s about patriarchal systems that are quick to blame her.”

The crux of Gruelle’s message to audiences, to not ask “Why doesn’t she just leave?” is amplified by focusing on these individuals’ stories. It was difficult to hear that when the film was shown at the True/False Film Festival, Candy had gone back to William. Seeing faces somehow makes that knee-jerk reaction of “Just leave!” creep up, even if we know better. “Leaving an abuser isn’t an event,” Gruelle said. “It’s a process.” The process isn’t incredibly fulfilling to watch in Private Violence, nor should it be. The system fails women far too often, and Private Violence shows that in painful detail.

Before the film screened at True/False (to an overflowing, sold-out crowd), Hill told the audience that the ultimate goal is “to make women and children safe in their own homes.” Because we know that as it stands, they are not.

It is absolutely clear that throughout Private Violence, Hill allowed Gruelle to take her into a world that she felt compelled to share with the public. That trust, that “wide-eyed curiosity” (as Gruelle said of Hill’s directing technique), created a documentary that not only pays homage to the strength and tragedy of women whose lives are torn apart by male partner violence, but also serves as a wake-up call that the system–law enforcement, news media, medical professionals, local and federal court systems–are not serving victims the way they should. Private Violence is a public testament to the horror of domestic assault.

During the Q&A after the screening, Walters appeared on stage with Hill and Gruelle. She said that her participation in the film–and how she laid herself bare–is “my way of helping people.” Gruelle pleaded with the crowd to “go back to your communities and pop the hood,” ensuring that victims got the justice they deserved (but first we must keep their stories out of the shadows).

Gruelle, left, and Watson. — Kit Gruelle, left, and Deanna Walters.

Hill’s direction is remarkable in its effortlessness; she knows to follow, to absorb, to tell the story. When she was asked during the panel discussion about her decision to include upsetting audio in the film, she said, “Well, this is what happens. People need to know what happens.”

Private Violence shows what does–and doesn’t–happen behind closed doors and within a system we’re taught to trust. May audiences be moved to lift the veil in their own communities, to listen to women’s stories, and to effect change in a patriarchal system that is far too brutal to its female citizens.

Private Violence airs on HBO at 9 p.m. Eastern on Oct. 20. In 2015, Private Violence will be available for educational distribution through Women Make Movies.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJxFP43nNik&list=UUbKo3HsaBOPhdRpgzqtRnqA”]

Recommended reading: Interview with Private Violence Director Cynthia Hill, by Danielle Lurie at Filmmaker Magazine; A Brief History of Sexual Violence Activism in the U.S., by Caroline Heldman and Baillee Brown at Ms. blog; Till Death Do Us Part, by Doug Pardue, Glenn Smith, Jennifer Berry Hawes, and Natalie Caula Hauff at The Post and Courier; Prosecutors Claim South Carolina’s Stand Your Ground Law Doesn’t Apply to Domestic Violence Survivors at Ms. blog; Why You Need to Watch this HBO Film on Domestic Abuse, by Hilary White at Pop Sugar; Sundance Film Review: Private Violence, by Dennis Harvey at Variety

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Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

20 Years Later: Powerful Realism and Nostalgia in ‘My So-Called Life’

Twenty years later, we need more of what My So-Called Life gave us a taste of. We need teenage girl protagonists to be sexual, not sexy. We need honest portrayals of what it is to be a teenager–not only for teenagers who need to see themselves in faithful mirrors, but also for adults who are still trying to figure themselves out.

: My So-Called Life

This repost by Leigh Kolb appears as My So-Called Life turns 20.

Our teenage years are often unfulfilled and disappointing. We relentlessly try to find ourselves, to make things good, but those short years are over quickly, and we don’t truly get it until much later.

These years are much like the short-lived My So-Called Life, which aired from 1994 to early 1995, and was canceled after just one season. The protagonist of My So-Called Life, Angela Chase (Claire Danes), is a powerful representation of those short teenage years. She is self-centered, horny, and emotional. She is pulled from every direction, trying to separate from her parents and evolve with new friends. She has high expectations and deep disappointments. Angela and her friends are painfully accurate portrayals of what it is to be a teenager.

As sad and unjust as it is that the show only lasted one season, there’s something poignant about how it was short and open-ended, yet packed such intensity into 19 episodes. My So-Called Life is, essentially, a mirror image of adolescence not only in narrative, but also in format.

: Angela Chase

My So-Called Life is a gold mine for feminist analysis–the show includes many thoughtful critiques of what it means to be a young woman in our culture, what it means to be a wife and mother, what it means to be a man, and what it means to be gay. Topics typically reserved for superficial after-school specials (sexuality, drug use, abuse, coming out) are treated with an intensely real humanity that many critics have argued completely changed the genre of adolescent and family dramas.

Being a teenage girl in our culture is fraught with cultural expectations and disappointments. Angela–along with girlfriends Rayanne and Sharon–are portrayed not as caricatures, not as virgins or whores, not as good girls or bad girls. They are complex and sexual; they are selfish and confused; they are wonderful and awful.

Teenagers are typically–biologically–self-centered and sexual, and the power of nostalgia drives us to consider and reconsider our teen years (in them and after them). My So-Called Life stands the test of time because it deals with these issues through characters and plot lines that reflect reality.

Self-Centered

Early in the season, the writers frame most episodes with lessons that the students are learning in school. Kafka’s Metamorphosis is juxtaposed with Angela changing her looks (dying her hair red) and feeling misunderstood by her parents. Angela sits in a class about JFK’s assassination, and says she’s “jealous” that she hasn’t had that defining moment in life that she’ll always remember where she was when it happened. Malcolm X’s words are turned into a lament about a zit. Students flirt and make out, ignoring the art on a field trip to the art museum.

On the surface, these woven-together stories seem jarring–we watch Angela turn everything into an insignificant comparison to her own life. But this is exactly what we do in adolescence. We pout that nothing important has happened in our lifetime without understanding the weight of history because we think that we are the center of history. There is scientific proof that teenagers’ brains function differently–it’s important to remind ourselves of that.

My So-Called Life, specifically through Angela’s narrative, portrays that era of life perfectly. Creator/writer/producer Winnie Holzman said, “I just went back to what it was like to be a teenager for me. Sure, Angela’s me. But at the risk of sounding. . . whatever, all the characters were me.” Holzman researched further by teaching at a high school for a couple of days, and realized that teenagers were “exactly the same” as they always had been (which is perhaps why the show still seems so real).

: The unending journey to define “self”

This selfishness is not presented with judgment or disdain, though. All of the characters–teens and adults alike–have human motivations, which we sometimes like, and sometimes don’t. Their selfishness is examined through the consequences and normality of being self-centered as a teenager, and how that looks and feels different when one is a parent or teacher. Angela worrying about a zit over Malcolm X’s words seems off-putting, but it’s painfully real.

Angela’s relationships with her friends–Rayanne, Rickie, Brian, and Sharon–also highlight the inflated sense of self that navigates us through those formative years.

Horny

One of my favorite aspects of the show is the way young female sexuality is portrayed. Angela is horny as hell. Those fresh, out-of-control adolescent sexual urges are clear and accurate throughout the series, and the writers deal with teenage sexuality with truth and nuance that is too rare in portrayals of teenage sexuality (especially teenage girls’ sexuality). Angela’s inner monologues about–and eventual makeouts with–Jordan Catalano reveal that intensity.

: Intense

Angela is clearly sexual, but also struggles with the disappointing reality of teenage male sexuality when Jordan tongue-attacks her with a terrible, awkward kiss, or expects sex before she’s ready. She wants him so much, but the expectations and imbalance of sexual power are crushing. Angela is never anti-sex, but she is nervous. She speaks with her doctor about protection, and opens up to Sharon. Her reasons for not being quite ready don’t have to do with her parents or religion–it’s about her. And that’s just how it should be.

Meanwhile, straight-laced Sharon is getting it on constantly. She shares with Angela that the expectations that disregard female agency are problematic, but she enthusiastically enjoys sex. While Sharon seems the most judgmental and prudish, she has a fulfilling and active sex life. Angela realizes–as do we–that sexual acts don’t define a person, but sexuality is an important part of who we are.

Rayanne is known by her peers as promiscuous and “slutty,” but we are also challenged to look beyond that. She wants to define herself, and that’s the label that has stuck–so she decides to be proud of the designation (she and Sharon share sub-plots about their sexual reputations). Her sexual experiences–the drunken night with Jordan being the only time we know she has sex–don’t seem to be healthy or for her. All of the characters needed more seasons to have their stories fully realized, but Rayanne especially needed more than 19 episodes to be explored.

My So-Called Life turns the virgin-whore dichotomy on its head. Young women’s sexuality–the intensity, the confusion, the expectations–is presented realistically, and the message that when it’s good, it’s good, is loud and clear.

: INTENSE

Angela and Jordan’s makeout scenes are, well, amazing, and the female gaze is often catered to. When Angela is skipping geometry study sessions to go make out with Jordan in the boiler room, we understand why she’s doing it. That episode has some excellent commentary on young women’s educational motivations, especially mathematics. When an instructor laments that it’s “so sad” when these smart girls don’t try, another instructor says that it’s because of their low self-esteem.

While that’s not an untrue assessment, it’s also important to recognize that in Angela’s case, she was horny as hell. We brush off boys’ behavior–the idea that they can’t stop thinking about sex in their teen years–but girls are right there, too.

As Angela tells a confused Brian, “Boys don’t have the monopoly on thinking about it.”

My So-Called Life reiterates that idea, which is heartbreakingly rare in depictions of teenage girl protagonists.

: Commentary on the pressures that teenage girls face is woven throughout the show.

Nostalgic

The Greek roots of the word nostalgia are to return (home) with pain. We often think of nostalgia as telling stories with old friends, or looking through old yearbooks as we reminisce. But it’s much more than that.

Angela says, “I mean, this whole thing with yearbook — it’s like, everybody’s in this big hurry to make this book, to supposedly remember what happened. Because if you made a book of what really happened, it’d be a really upsetting book.”

My So-Called Life ends with Angela stepping into a car with Jordan and driving away. Jordan has just met her mother, Patty, and the two sit and visit. Patty has been waiting for her old high-school love interest to stop by for a drink (and a business conversation), but he doesn’t show up. Patty and Jordan share a fairly intimate conversation, and both seem to understand something they hadn’t before.

Jordan comes outside, asks Angela to come along with him, and says that her mom says it’s OK. In understanding her own trajectory from teenager to adult, Patty has released Angela.

It’s sudden, it’s unclear, and it’s vague. It–the show, and adolescence–goes by so quickly, and we can’t fully understand it until we look back at the literal and figurative pictures of our life. Not just the smiling yearbook photos, but those things that remain inside.

We don’t know exactly where Angela is going at the end of My So-Called Life, and neither does she. The restraints and possibilities of adolescence can be overwhelming, and as life changes into adulthood, the restraints and possibilities both tighten and grow. By looking back–in all of its pleasure and pain–into those years of intense growth and confusion, we can better know ourselves.

: Angela rides away with Jordan at the end.

When My So-Called Life originally aired, I was in middle school. Our antenna didn’t pick up ABC, so I wasn’t able to watch it in real time. I knew, however, from the occasional Sassy magazine that I wanted to be Angela Chase, and I wanted Jordan Catalano. Years later, after living through almost all of the plot lines of the show, I watched the entire series. And then again, years after that. I’m struck by how much I can still feel what I felt at 15 by listening to Angela’s internal monologue. Good television, like good literature, can do that–take us, through fiction, back to times and places. Whether those times and places are crushing or celebratory, there is a distinct pain in going back–that nostalgia that shapes us and creates our realities.

: Imagine the power in seeing this ad as a teenage girl: “Yes, I DO know how it feels!”

Twenty years later, we need more of what My So-Called Life gave us a taste of. We need teenage girl protagonists to be sexual, not sexy. We need honest portrayals of what it is to be a teenager–not only for teenagers who need to see themselves in faithful mirrors, but also for adults who are still trying to figure themselves out.

That season of our lives is fleeting, open-ended, and ends abruptly. It’s meaningful but unfortunate that My So-Called Life so accurately portrayed those particular aspects of adolescence.

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

What’s in a Soundtrack? The Sweet Sounds of ‘Romeo + Juliet’

Zeffirelli’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is one told by the older generation. Luhrmann’s ‘Romeo + Juliet’ is one told by “unfaded” youth. When Des’ree was singing “Kissing You” as Romeo and Juliet kiss (and oh, how they kiss), she is singing with deep longing and pain. When Glen Weston sings “What is a Youth?” he sings at Romeo and Juliet, about how youth–and female virginity–fades.

William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet: Music From the Motion Picture (this CD was--OK is--one of my greatest treasures) — *William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet*: Music From the Motion Picture

Written by Leigh Kolb as part of our theme week on Movie Soundtracks.

When you are 14, your senses are heightened–music permeates every part of you, a brush of a hand sends shock waves through your body, and the smell of someone’s shampoo and chewing gum is enough to evoke lust. It’s no surprise that for adolescents, music is a powerful, integral part of their self-identity and emotional expression.

I’m thankful that I was 14 in the mid-90s. I know it’s easy to be nostalgic and believe that the moment we came of age was the best moment in the history of the world (“When I was that age…”), but I’m confident in saying that 1996 was really an epic year for being 14.

Riot grrrl was hanging in the air. Female musicians were featured on the airwaves, many male rockers were feminist, and teen films featured complex female protagonists. I was saturated in feminist media. We were riding an idealistic wave of feminism–a new generation of daughters whose mothers had lived through the women’s movement, who lived in a world where Title IX and Roe v. Wade always existed.

When I was 14, Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet was released, and the play that has been speaking to and about teens for 400 years awakened my already heightened senses. As someone who identified more with Wuthering Heights than Pride and Prejudice as a teenager, this intense angst really spoke to me. And the music that accompanied the film was woven into the fiber of my life–I imagined it as my soundtrack, not just the film’s soundtrack.

I’ve written before about how I see the film (and Shakespeare‘s text) as challenging patriarchal social orders and revealing the toxicity of masculinity. Luhrmann’s version highlights this, certainly more so than Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 version.

Zeffirelli’s soundtrack featured a score by Nino Rota and its “Love Theme” is known in two versions–“What is Youth?” and “A Time for Us.” “What is a Youth?” is included in the score, and features the lyrics that are sung on screen during the Capulet party when Romeo and Juliet meet. The lyrics to this version focus on how “cupid rules us all,” and that “youth” and the “fairest maid” all fade. In contrast, the lyrics to “A Time for Us” are more hopeful: “…some day there’ll be a new world / a world of shining hope for you and me.” Romeo and Juliet as a text can be read in both ways, of course. It’s important to think about Zeffirelli’s version in the context of the “youth” movement of the 1960s–anti-war rebellion, women’s rights activism, rising counterculture–and what Romeo and Juliet tells us about the utter ignorance and destruction of adults’ decisions.

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

Luhrmann also pulls Romeo and Juliet into the context of an era dominated by youth culture (see aforementioned links and 1,000 Buzzfeed posts about how rad the 90s were). However, this Romeo + Juliet is marked with much more poignant commentary on gender and culture. The “Love Theme” from Romeo + Juliet is sung by Des’ree, a Black woman (she performs on screen at the Capulet party, a nod to the Zeffirelli version). “Kissing You” is a more abstract look at love: “Pride can stand a thousand trials / The strong will never fall / But watching stars without you / My soul cries… Touch me deep, pure and true.” The entire scene, and the song itself, is a more intimate and moving addition to the party scene.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7eH9qnH8TM”]

Luhrmann’s soundtrack (he is, after all, known not only for his showy films but also for his curated soundtracks) was the soundtrack to my teen years. If I want to really feel those 14-year-old feelings, I just need to listen to Romeo + Juliet. The choices of popular musical artists of the time (Des’ree, Garbage, The Cardigans, Radiohead, Butthole Surfers, Everclear, etc.) related the story of Romeo and Juliet through their own eyes, not those of a stodgy old narrator. And the diversity of the artists–male, female, Black, white–also reflects the progressive nature of youth culture.

Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet is one told by the older generation. When Glen Weston sings “What is a Youth?” he sings at Romeo and Juliet, about how youth–and female virginity (eye roll)–fades. Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet is one told by “unfaded” youth. When Des’ree sings “Kissing You” as Romeo and Juliet kiss (and oh, how they kiss), she is singing with deep longing and pain.

Luhrmann’s soundtrack, then, does what we imagine Shakespeare aimed to do with this play–forces us to look critically at love and life through the eyes of youth to critique the patriarchal social orders that cause the tragedy.

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is often read in school when students are freshmen in high school. I would imagine the framers of this curricular choice were thinking that Romeo and Juliet is a cautionary tale against rebellion and teen lust. Instead, Romeo and Juliet really is about the absurdity and destructive nature of society’s bullshit norms and rules.

The songs in Romeo + Juliet aren’t just for backdrop; instead, these songs are characters–edgy, angry, beautiful, and poppy representations of the sweeping emotions of youth, love, anger, and rebellion.

Just listen, and be transported to a youth that won’t fade:

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4xPXlneCGs”]

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJbXjIEP6rM”]

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkXdeUjM1pc”]

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JNb93N3-ek”]

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU6i_JhbVsc”]

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIbiG04X3ws”]

See also at Bitch Flicks: The Tragedy of Masculinity in Romeo + Juliet

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Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

The Joyful Feminist Killjoy

I get tired of constantly pointing out that something is Problematic From a Feminist Perspective™; I want to enjoy, not eviscerate. I want to laugh.

Written by Leigh Kolb.

Being an angry feminist is hard sometimes.

I mean, I had some breakthrough spotting on Monday, and I think it’s because my uterus was protesting the SCOTUS Hobby Lobby decision.

The life of a Feminist Killjoy is an intense one.

One of the most difficult arenas to navigate while feminist is comedy. Misogynist, male-centric comedies are a dime a dozen. I think back to the comedies of my youth–Dumb and Dumber, American Pie, anything with Adam Sandler or Jim Carrey–and while some of those films may have seemed funny at the time, revisiting them through a feminist lens is pretty horrifying.

I hadn’t seen There’s Something About Mary for well over a decade, and I stumbled across it last weekend. Holy shit. When Woogie–who stalked Mary in college so severely that she had to change her name and move–spits out at her at the end, “Shut up, cocktease,” it was all I could do to keep my head from spinning and short-circuiting while screaming “RAPE CULTURE,” “MISOGYNY,” “PATRIARCHY,” “MALE GAZE,” “LAURA MULVEY SAVE ME.”

Watching while feminist is exhausting. The Onion points this out in their satirical “Woman Takes Short Half-Hour Break From Being Feminist To Enjoy TV Show,” and I’m sure most of us can relate.

I get tired of constantly pointing out that something is Problematic From a Feminist Perspective™; I want to enjoy, not eviscerate. I want to laugh.

So I’ve been writhing around in feminist television and film lately, and damn, does it feel good. These are popular and critically acclaimed comedies and they are feminist as fuck. I love it. I can’t get enough of it. As we watch, I frequently look at my significant other with a shit-eating grin on my face as if to say, “Can you even believe that this exists?”

Broad City–starring Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer–debuted on Comedy Central in January and was quickly picked up for a second season. The pair started Broad City as a web series, and Amy Poehler took them under her (feminist superstar) wing and produced the TV show.

As many feminist commentators have already pointed out, this show is great. The writing, the acting, the story lines… I simply can’t get enough (really–I’ve seen all of the episodes multiple times). Abbi and Illana love sex, weed, and more than anything, one another. They also love themselves. It’s incredibly refreshing to see young women on screen who are so comfortable, even in their most uncomfortable moments.

Abbi and Ilana identify as feminists, and care deeply about diversity in media (which the show reflects in an organic way). In her Bitch article about Broad City, Andi Zeisler says,

“…Broad City‘s feminism isn’t so much sneak-attack as baked-in, with an emphasis on the ‘baked’: Ilana and Abbi are as aimless, goofy, boring, and entitled as any guy of their generation. And they’re striking a blow for equality just by subverting the image of the striving young woman who, well, sees her every move as a blow for equality. “

It’s hilarious, it’s relatable, and it’s inspirational–I’m inspired to be more confident by watching them, and I was inspired by their interior design to finally buy that Urban Outfitters quilt that I’d been lusting after (I understand this is a Problematic From a Feminist Perspective™ company, but I really wanted that quilt).

Sometimes watching young 20-somethings in the city (when I’m a 30-something in the country) can make me feel wistful, or bitter, or jealous, or judgmental, or any other cocktail of quarter-life psychoses. Broad City doesn’t evoke any emotion but joy. And maybe it’s because I can relate to a few of the story lines, but more likely it’s because it’s a universally great show.

Broad City–somewhat shockingly–isn’t the lone feminist wolf on Comedy Central (a station not known for progressive, feminist comedy).

We don’t have network or cable TV, so I sometimes have no idea what’s going on on stations I don’t frequent. Algorithms on Netflix and Amazon Prime probably have me pegged as a clear Feminist Killjoy, and avoid recommending comedies to me (“Feminist Killjoy logging in. Suggest ‘Obscure Dark Foreign Female-Centric Dramas'”).

After falling in love with Broad City, I thought we should try that Amy Schumer show I’d vaguely heard about, Inside Amy Schumer. It didn’t look like something I’d like, and if I’ve learned anything in my almost 32 years, it’s to always judge a book by its cover.

However, what I got was an onslaught of hilarious, biting feminist commentary.

When I was waxing poetic about it to a friend, she admitted that she was a fan but didn’t think that I would like it at all, seeing signs of it being, perhaps, Problematic From a Feminist Perspective™. I explained that I loved it, and what makes satire work for me is self-awareness. I can understand why it might be confusing that I hate on-screen gender essentialism, but cannot stop watching and quoting the parody commercial for SandraGel.

As Willa Paskin writes at Slate,

“In its second season, Inside Amy Schumer has become the most consistently feminist show on television, a sketch comedy series in which nearly every bit is devoted in some capacity to gender politics. But Schumer channels her perspective through an onscreen persona that is insecure, self-proclaimedly slutty, crass, selfish, glossy—onscreen, Amy Schumer thinks feminism is the ultimate F word… This pairing is extremely canny. Schumer hides her intellect in artifice and lip gloss—that’s how she performs femininity. By wrapping her ideas in a ditzy, sexy, slutty, self-hating shtick, her message goes down easy—and only then, like the alien, sticks its opinionated teeth in you.”

In “I’m So Bad” and “Compliments,” Schumer parodies stereotypical female behavior (connecting morality to food and being self-deprecating, respectively). The message, however, isn’t “Aren’t these bitches crazy?” Schumer’s comedy sketches show the insidious social construction of these ultimately ridiculous and self-destructive behaviors.

Certainly one could watch these sketches through a different lens, and think instead about the possible audience perception. If a Tosh.0 fan tunes in to Inside Amy Schumer, I’m not confident that he/she will understand the commentary in the comedy.

But I do. And I love it. Being able to laugh at ourselves and the ridiculous behaviors and norms that we are socialized to embody is powerful.

And in the Upper Northwest, Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen parody feminism in their “Feminist Bookstore” sketches on Portlandia. Portlandia turns a hilarious mirror on a certain segment of American society in front of the backdrop and personality of Portland, Oregon. In the bookstore sketches, Toni (Brownstein) and Candace (Armisen) run Women and Women First (which is based off Portland’s In Other Words, a feminist community center).

They are absolute caricatures of radical feminists, and it’s glorious. They are not mean-spirited in their depictions (in fact, they have a working relationship with In Other Words, which manned–I mean womanned–Portlandia‘s Twitter feed to live-tweet the Oscars and the Super Bowl).

Watching Portlandia gives me ample opportunity to laugh at myself. When we were contemplating putting an NPR sticker on our new used Subaru, I realized that my life is pretty much filled with Portlandia sketches that would be too boring to air. I recognize many of Toni and Candace’s scenes as extreme versions of my own thoughts and conversations. The blurring of lines between fiction and reality was clear when Toni and Candace met with gender studies professors to “debate” feminism; they brought irreverence and comedy to an otherwise serious, analytical conversation.

Contemplating blatantly satirizing women and feminism is enough to make most of us prickle a bit, and be validly concerned about further marginalization of issues that affect our lives. Laughing about the effects of estrogen on our emotions might feel dangerous when we have Supreme Court justices who don’t understand how contraception works. Hearing women repeatedly align feminism with man-hating might make chuckling at Toni and Candace feel depressing.

However, it feels empowering to laugh in the face of adversity, and put ourselves–as women and as feminists–on the line for good comedy. There’s a clear difference between comedy aimed at feminists and comedy created by feminists, and I’m so thankful that I can bask in the latter. These shows are aimed at wide audiences full of men and women, and they lift women up and laugh at them without tearing them down.

Pure joy.

I’ve been rolling around in a lot of other TV and film that’s getting me all stunk up with feminism: Obvious Child shows how incredibly moving and entertaining women’s lives are; Orange is the New Black overwhelms me with so many women’s stories, such diversity, such power; House of Cards shows that feminist media isn’t always what we think it is; and Parks and Recreation is a consistent delight.

It’s easy to get caught up in all of the terrible, misogynist bullshit that infiltrates our screens and sound waves. Seeing just the trailer for Seth McFarlane’s A Million Ways to Die in the West almost unwound the hours and hours of feminist film and television that I’d stocked up as a defense. The Feminist Killjoy rises again and again–and she’s an important voice–but damn if sometimes it doesn’t feel good to just revel in the excellence of feminist comedy.

___________________________

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

Celebrating ‘Sesame Street’

So what does idealistic, feminist children’s television look like? It looks like ‘Sesame Street,’ which over the course of its 45-year run has won more than 120 Emmy Awards. ‘Sesame Street’s frank and honest treatment of race, women’s rights, adoption, breastfeeding, death, childbirth, incarceration, divorce, HIV, health, bilingualism, and poverty throughout the years has added a dimension of social understanding to a show that also deals with teaching children their ABC’s and 123’s.

Written by Leigh Kolb as part of our theme week on Children’s Television.

Until I was in kindergarten, the only channel I ever saw was PBS. For all I knew, it was the only channel that existed. I was an only child on a small farm, and in addition to the woods and barns, Sesame Street was my playground.

The diversity and multiculturalism that the show has prioritized since it debuted in 1969–45 years ago this year–not only exposed me to a world outside of my rural homogeneous upbringing, but it also certainly shaped who I would become.

Sesame Street‘s roots–as progressive, authentic, research-based, educational television for children–transformed the way generations saw television, education, and themselves.

With a background in education and journalism, Joan Ganz Cooney set out in 1967 to study how television could be used to educate children. Seeing a need for education–academic and social–she penned “The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education” after traveling the US and interviewing teachers, child psychologists, child development experts, and children’s TV producers. From the study, she created the Children’s Television Workshop to produce a “new kind of children’s program” (one whose format would be influenced by Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In and commercials). She wanted to create a show that “would hold children’s interests, its characters would become their friends, and it would teach.”

Ganz Cooney’s resume and influence have made her an incredible force–she’s a woman whose name we should know. A self-described feminist and idealist, she was one of the first female television executives in America. She was CEO and chair of the Children’s Television Workshop until 1990, and continuously has served on nonprofit boards and worked toward literacy and education advancement for children.

So what does idealistic, feminist children’s television look like? It looks like Sesame Street, which over the course of its 45-year run has won more than 120 Emmy Awards. Sesame Street‘s frank and honest treatment of race, women’s rights, adoption, breastfeeding, death, childbirth, incarceration, divorce, HIV, health, bilingualism, and poverty throughout the years has added a dimension of social understanding to a show that also deals with teaching children their ABC’s and 123’s. A recent study showed that children who watched Sesame Street have GPA’s that are 16 percent higher than those who don’t; perform better in math, English, and science; read books for pleasure more often (and read better in kindergarten); and express “less aggressive attitudes.” Jim Henson’s Muppets and a cavalcade of guest stars over the years have helped make Sesame Street a popular, groundbreaking children’s television show.

Idealistic, feminist children’s television looks pretty good.

In its first year on air, Sesame Street landed three Emmys, a Peabody, and a TIME cover. — In its first year on air, *Sesame Street* landed three Emmys, a Peabody, and a *TIME* cover.

Of course, as a child of the 80s, I’m most familiar with the “classic” Sesame Street format and episodes. Recent years have shown growth with the times–a larger web presence, apps, streaming services, online games, and online activities have given Sesame Street a much larger network to educate and influence young minds. Over the last 45 years, Sesame Street has built an empire with the goal of not just entertaining children, but giving them a broader perspective on life and education.

Here are some highlights:

“Women Can Be”

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpjmeyI2pfI”]

Buffy Sainte-Marie (who was a series regular in the late 70s and early 80s) Breastfeeding

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2RwZW2j3-U”]

Roosevelt Franklin’s “The Skin I’m In”

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax2mf9IDvno”]

Nina Simone’s “To Be Young, Gifted and Black”

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-f3PYJT5mU”]

“Goodbye, Mr. Hooper”

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxlj4Tk83xQ”]

“I Love My Hair”

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A-BHkoWV0g”]

Maya Angelou’s “My Name”

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhTK0LM39ZU”]

Gordon’s “If I Had a Kid Like You” (Gordon and Susan would later adopt)

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFzPXurun5M”]

“Change the World”

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHOgHPBt8oQ”]

“Feeling Good/Feeling Bad”

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgYiJWVf1EY”]

“I Love Every Part of You”

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as0rHfgeuvg”]

Sonia Sotomayor: “Princess is Not a Career”

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHICz5MYxNQ&feature=player_embedded”]

“We All Sing the Same Song”

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

I still am moved by the touching and transformative Sesame Street segments that powerfully show that we are both unique and not alone in this world. We need more of this kind of media for children (and for adults).

___________________________

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.