Tag: LGBTQI

2013 Oscar Week: The Brainy Message of ‘ParaNorman’

Guest post written by Natalie Wilson, originally published at Ms. Magazine. Cross-posted with permission.

Got a thing for zombies? Have some tween-age children in your life? Do you like whizz-bang stop-motion animation? Or, perhaps you are one of those types who appreciates a well-developed cast of characters that kicks stereotypes to the curb, features strong women and – can it be true?!?! – has a positively depicted openly gay character. If so, get thee to a theater and see the little-buzzed-about but much deserving ParaNorman–a zombie film not only with brains but a lot of heart. 

Displaying it’s cleverness and attention to detail with tongue-in-cheek nods to horror films in general and zombie mania in particular, ParaNorman, which opens in wide release Friday, offers a number of sly critiques of cultural norms. Soon after meeting the spiky-haired but soft-hearted Norman and his wise-cracking dead grandma, we meet the dad, who is mocked for his stereotypical views of “limp-wristed hippy garbage” and for berating Norman about his supposed abnormalities.

What makes Norman abnormal, from his conservative father’s viewpoint, is his ability to see and converse with dead people; but what makes him wonderfully better-than-normal is the fact that he resists norms, befriends outcasts (both dead and alive) and says things like: “When people get scared they say and do terrible things” and  “They did something awful. That doesn’t mean you should too.” His insight that making others suffer is not the answer to injustice is a key message of the film, along with the equally important emphasis on doing away with preconceived notions about who is “good” and what is “normal.”

Norman Babcock and his family in ParaNorman | (L-R): Grandma Babcock (Elaine Stritch), Sandra (Leslie Mann), Perry (Jeff Garlin), Norman (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Courtney (Anna Kendrick)

Stereotypical expectations are undercut when the annoying older sister, Courtney, turns out to be Norm’s savior. Her insistence that, “You all need to stop trying to kill my brother. You are adults!” nods to yet another point made in the film: that adults don’t necessarily know better, especially “normal” adults or those with authority, like dads, teachers and cops.

While father figures are usually more heroic in children’s films and mothers are either dead or monsters (or both), this time around it’s Norman’s mother who is the non-monstrous parent. However, both parents take sidelined roles to the standout Scooby-gang that saves the day–Norman, his wonderfully quirky friend Neal, the seemingly typical-jock Mitch, sis Courtney and tormented bully Alvin. All of these characters are stock types, yet by the film’s end each character has disproven stereotypes. Most surprisingly, the uber-muscular “dumb jock” turns out to be gay–revealed by the line “You’re gonna like my boyfriend; he’s like a total chick-flick nut.” With his character and others, the film lures us into believing it’s perpetuating stereotypes only to pull them out from under us.

This undercutting of preconceived notions is also made via the fact that the zombies and witches are not sources of evil: The “average citizens” of Blithe Hollow are. As the citizens turn into a zealous lynch mob, they serve as a metaphor for our own cultural tendencies to shout “terrorist” before we have assessed where the real threat/fear is coming from. In fact, the centuries-old “curse” in the film turns out to be one big misunderstanding (a misunderstanding that those in the know about witches will recognize as a clever nod to the way the categorization of “witch” was wielded to denigrate women and Others perceived as a “danger” to the normal patriarchal way of doing things). Yes, just as in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible – but this time in 3D!

Neil (Tucker Albrizzi) and Salma (Hanna Noyes) in ParaNorman

On that note, I must give a shout out to the very smart Salma, a standout secondary character who carries around a book called My First Nuclear Fusion Reactor and asks why witches are always depicted in historically inaccurate ways as hideous with pointy hats. While I wish she had made it into the Scooby-gang, the fact that Norman and Neil look to her as a go-to person for advice is a lovely nod to the notion that intelligence and heroism do not reside in a specific gender.

The film is filled with timely satiric highlights – as when the cop asks the townspeople, “What are you doing firing at civilians? That is for police to do!” The film mocks the hollowness of consumer-crazed Blithe Hollow, a town that trades in the “witch’s curse” and, in so doing, curses itself to consist of zombified consumers who are as ready to kill as they are to eat and shop. Hmmm, remind anyone of…Americans?
Alas, I don’t understand the complaint lodged by Boxoffice that this film is “in no way appropriate for kids.”  Tossing aside the strong anti-bullying and forgiveness-is-good messages of the film, the reviewer warns, “Nightmares and bedwetting are bad. But teaching your kids to take death casually is just bad parenting.” Guess I missed the film’s memo about taking death casually as I was too darn focused on the way prejudice, vengeance and normality are depicted as the true nightmares of Norm’s world – and our own.

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

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

The Feministing Five: Melissa Silverstein and Kathryn Kolbert, Athena Film Festival Co-Founders by Anna Sterling via Feministing

Classic Literature Film Adaptations Week: The Depiction of Women in Three Films Based on the Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen

This is a guest review by Alisande Fitzsimons.
Danish author Hans Christian Andersen is one of those writers whose stories—like those by the Brothers Grimm and Scheherazade (the Persian Queen who spun the stories that make up A Thousand and One Arabian Nights)—are so much a part of our culture that you undoubtedly heard them, and watched film adaptations of them, as a child.
Andersen had an unfortunate habit of falling in love with unobtainable women and later unobtainable men. The theme of lost love, and of the thing we love the most coming to destroy us is repeated throughout his fiction, much of which features a woman or female character in a lead role.
This essay will look at some adaptations of his most famous stories, and examine the role of the female protagonist in them.

Moira Shearer as Vicky in The Red Shoes

The Red Shoes (1948)

The film of the The Red Shoes differs slightly from HCA’s original tale. Rather than using it as a template for the whole film, the story is used as the basis for a fifteen-minute ballet that is performed in the movie. The composing and performing of the ballet is a crucial plot point within the movie.
The film revolves around Vicky (Moira Shearer), a prima ballerina, whose love for dance destroys her, the same way that the girl in HCA’s original story is destroyed by her beloved red shoes which eventually force her to dance herself to death.
The female protagonist Vicky is presented on-screen as flame-haired and beautiful. Less sympathetic though is the character’s passion for dance, and for The Red Shoes ballet in particular. Her obsession with it is such that she leaves her husband so that she can dance it once more, only to realise she’s made a mistake. She follows him to the train station and ends up being injured by an on-coming train, while wearing the red shoes she used to perform in.
Though the girl in HCA’s story is vain and wished for shoes that would let her dance forever, you’re aware that she’s also desperate to get out of the situation. In the film, it is Vicky who is possessed. She’s so obsessed with her career, and in particular the ballet that made her famous, that she cannot pass up a chance to dance it. Even when running after her husband, she does not remove her performance shoes.
It’s basically another film where a woman who’s career-focused is depicted as mentally ill because of it, and duly punished. No wonder it’s one of Courtney Love’s favourite films.

Bridget Fonda’s Snow Queen makes her romantic rivalry with Gerda clear

The Snow Queen (2002)

There have been many adaptations of The Snow Queen over the years (she’s a consistently scary bitch) but I’m talking about the 2002 made-for-TV adaptation starring Bridget Fonda as the eponymous villain of the piece. (It falls on me here, for no reason other than the fact that I’m immature and enjoy this kind of thing that “Bridget” rhymes with “frigid,” and to be frigid is to be icy and so on. Anyway…)
The most striking difference between HCA’s story and the film is that when it was made for TV the producers opted to make the story’s heroine, Gerda, into a love rival for the queen. In the fairy tale, Gerda and Kai—the boy the queen wants to own/seduce depending on the version—are best friends rather than girlfriend and boyfriend.
In the film, they are romantically involved, and so a story about friendship and sacrifice becomes one about a love triangle in which two women fight over a man. So far, so typical a Hollywood adaptation. But bearing in mind that HCA’s original story was about two children, and the sacrifices one was willing to make to save the other’s soul, isn’t that a bit sad?
It’s not just that two women can’t see each other as anything other than rivals for a man (even when one of them is a supernatural being with the power to control winter). By making the story “more accessible to modern audiences,” which producers love to do by reducing women to the sum of our ancestors’ parts (because once-upon-a-time we would have had to fight each other in order to make the best marriage we possibly could) they’ve actually made it a lot more boring. Sigh.

Disney’s Little Mermaid Ariel gets her fairytale ending

Splash (1984) and The Little Mermaid (1989) based on The Little Mermaid

The fact of the matter is that, if you’re looking for an accurate rendering of The Little Mermaid on-screen, you probably won’t find one. The animated Disney version of the story, complete with singing lobsters and a best friend called “Flounder the fish,” sticks closely to the majority of the story but leaves out the fairy tale’s violence, pain and death in favour of a good inter-species marriage at the end.
It’s hard to overstate how violent HCA’s original story is. The mermaid’s tongue is cut out, she dances for the human prince despite being in excruciating pain, having never quite gotten her landlegs, and—after she realizes he will never love her—she has to decide whether or not to shed his blood using a massive knife. It’s no wonder that the man who received this story in the form of a love letter from HCA turned down his affections.
Directed by Ron Howard, Splash is one of the more enjoyable romantic comedies of the eighties, possibly because of the fairy tale elements it contains. Like the little mermaid of the fairy tale, Daryl Hannah’s gorgeous mermaid Madison first catches sight of her prince as a child.
Years later, when she washes up on the shores of Manhattan, the two are re-united and romantic and comedic chaos ensues until he decides he loves her so much that he will follow her to the sea, from where he can never return (although he will live for 300 years which might be some compensation).
Although Splash is very loosely based on HCA’s story The Little Mermaid, the decision of the male protagonist to follow his love into the sea is a direct contradiction of it. For one thing, in HCA’s story the mermaid does not get her man. He marries a more suitable human instead, and the mermaid perishes before becoming a spirit (it’s a bit complicated but very spiritual).

Daryl Hannah as Madison in Splash

I rather like this ending to a film because despite not sticking to the original story, it offers viewers a chance to see something that is still relatively unusual on-screen: a successful male character giving up his life for the woman (mermaid) he loves. He sacrifices everything for her, with no real guarantee that he’ll be happy, and absolutely no way back. In that way, the male lead (Tom Hanks) is more like the little mermaid of HCA’s original story, who gave up her life below the sea for the human she loved, than Daryl Hannah’s character.
Both Splash and Disney’s The Little Mermaid stick to HCA’s premise that once a mermaid is on shore, she will be rendered mute. Feminists have had a field day with this part of the story but bearing in mind HCA’s sexuality, it’s also possible to read their silence as a manifestation of his desperation to be loved.
Rather than forcing his female characters into silence as a nod to the social roles enforced by the patriarchy of the era, might this be HCA’s way of telling his love that he will silence himself for them?

Conclusion

The adaptation of works from previous centuries is, if sometimes undesirable, inevitable. The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, though still accessible to readers today, often shock with the violence and victimization that occurs to his lead characters, many of whom are, yes, female.
What strikes the modern reader, especially in light of what we know about HCA’s sexuality and relationships, is that many of these characters, though written as female are likely to be the writer consciously or unconsciously expressing parts of himself.
It’s curious then to see a character such as the Little Mermaid, who in literature sacrificed everything for the man she loved, pursued by a man who willingly sacrifices everything for her in one film version of the story, and happily married in another.
The film versions of The Red Shoes and The Snow Queen offer up more interesting re-interpretations of HCA and his characters’ psyches. In The Red Shoes, a character is destroyed by her mental illness and vanity—qualities the homophobic are very quick to attribute to gay men.
In the film version of The Snow Queen, the love of a good woman (Gerda) turns the character of Kai from a jealous, spiteful, mean young man (again qualities that homophobes love to attribute to young gay men) into the caring, loving, definitively heterosexual boy the filmmakers want him to be.
While it’s nothing new to argue that books and fairy tales reinforce the heteronormative, it’s interesting to think that HCA might once have been trying to do something quite different, and to imagine what a queer filmmaker might be able to come up with.

———-
Alisande Fitzsimons likes to eat. She blogs regularly at xoJane.co.uk and tweets about it @AlisandeF.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Did We Have a Pro-Woman Golden Globes? by Renee Martin via Womanist Musings 

A Salute to Girl Power in Hollywood by Alessandra Stanley via New York Times

Jodie Foster Coming Out: “This Is Something for Us” by Haviland Stillwell via AutoStraddle

New York Times Says “Female Directors Gain Ground Slowly.” Should We Wait That Long? by Melissa Silverstein via Women and Hollywood

Denzel and Quvenzhane Are the Only Actors of Color Nominated for Oscars by Jorge Rivas via ColorLines

Oscar and the Film Industry: Still a Men’s Club by Rachel Kassenbrock via Ms. Magazine

Kathryn Bigelow Oscar Snub: Does the Academy Hate Female Directors? by Christopher Zara via International Business Times

Parenthood Bravely Tackles Abortion by Willa Paskin via Salon

Why Girls Still Matters in Season 2 by Karensa Cadenas via Women and Hollywood

From M to Hushpuppy: The Best Flawed Female Characters of 2012 by Alyssa Rosenberg via The XX Factor

The Hobbit: Why Are There No Women in Tolkien’s World? by Ruth Davis Konigsberg via Time

Totally Rational Prediction: Women Will Rule Cable TV in 2013 by Alyssa Rosenberg via The XX Factor

Natalie Portman and Kristen Stewart Top Forbes’ List of Most Bankable Actors by Rebecca Pahle via The Mary Sue

The Hobbit: A Gender-Bending Journey by Natalie Wilson via Ms. Magazine

Teen Motherhood: When “Reality TV” Doesn’t Fully Reflect Reality by Avital Norman Nathman via RH Reality Check

Please share what you’ve been reading or writing this week in the comments!

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Megan‘s Picks:
Why ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Is the Best Film of the Year by Christopher Orr via The Atlantic
How Walt Disney’s Women Have Grown Up by Judith Welikala and Emily Dugan via The Independent
She Who Will Not Be Ignored by Melissa Silverstein via Women and Hollywood 

Queer Lead Sophia Swanson Makes MTV’s ‘Underemployed’ Worth Watching by Riese via Autostraddle

Bollywood Joins Public Outrage Against Brutal Gang-Rape in India by Nyay Bhushan via The Hollywood Reporter
BBC Outs Itself for Gay and Lesbian Stereotypes by Stuart Kemp via The Hollywood Reporter
5 Lessons for My Tween from Anne Hathaway by Joanne Bamberger via Babble
What have you been reading this week?? Tell us in the comments!

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Megan‘s Picks:

How to Increase Media Diversity: 3 Lessons from the London Feminist Film Festival by Spectra via Racialicious

Female Trouble: Why Powerful Women Threaten Hollywood by Sasha Stone via Awards Daily

Why Having Only Strong Girl Heroines Is Not Enough by Melissa Silverstein via Women and Hollywood

Matt Lauer Is Gross, Anne Hathaway Kicks Slut-Shaming’s Ass by Jos Truitt via Feministing

Women of Color Talk Back: “Birthday Song” via FAAN Mail

Shonda Rhimes On Why She Has Many Gay Characters on Her Shows by Melissa Silverstein via Women and Hollywood

The Female Pilots Who Were Cut From ‘Return of the Jedi’ and the Future of Star Wars by Alyssa Rosenberg via Think Progress

Why Talking About Character Gender Still Matters (Even Though It Shouldn’t) by Becky Chambers via The Mary Sue

Serena Williams Is Not a Costume by Jessica Luther via Speaker’s Corner in the ATX (scATX )

‘The Mindy Project’: The Best Show You’re Not Watching by Molly McCaffrey via I Will Not Diet

The Censorship of ‘Mean Girls’: What Was MTV Thinking? by Ramou Starr via Hello Giggles

If Women Ran Hollywood… by Karensa Cadenas via Women and Hollywood

What have you read (or written) this week that you’d like to share?

Gay Rights and Gay Times: Gender Commentary in ‘Husbands’

Like most comedy, the web series Husbands relies on common stereotypes in order to make a humorous social commentary. Husbands is the brainchild of Jane Espenson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Brad Bell, and revolves around the drunken, Las Vegas marriage of two prominent gay men: Cheeks (Brad Bell), who is a well-known TV star, and Brady (Sean Hemoen), a famous baseball player. The two decide to maintain their spur-of-the-moment marriage as a show of solidarity for the gay-rights movement, despite the fact that they’ve only been dating for six weeks; naturally, the two grow more in love by navigating the perilous waters of being newlyweds.

While it’s not the first show to center around a gay couple (Modern Family, The New Normal, Will and Grace), it is one of the first web series to take more of an active role in social criticism, rather than utilizing over-done gay jokes just for comedy’s sake; a fact that makes this show “one notch better” (Nussbaum, The New Yorker) than any of the web series rolling around on the internet.

One of the best things about the series is its firm commitment to exposing the sexual double standards displayed in the media. While it is appropriate to show women in fairly suggestive (and ridiculous) situations, homosexual behavior is seen as far more provocative and inappropriate. During the second season, Cheeks posts a photo online of him kissing Brady, resulting in a ‘billion moms’ uproar over its immoral nature. During the resulting discussions about their situation, the TV in the background features clever commercials of two scantily clad women having a pillow fight and a pretty indecent commercial for pizza.

It’s a great point; despite the fact that it’s absolutely normal for exploitive TV shows and commercials featuring women to be shown, it’s inappropriate for a loving same-gender couple to merely kiss. How is it that the blatant double standard regarding appropriate and inappropriate portrayals of sexuality continues to go unaccounted for by the media and it’s audience?

Husbands discusses this dilemma in season 2 as Cheeks and Brady try to develop an acceptable persona for themselves to show to the world. Are they flamboyant harbingers of social revolution? Or do they quietly operate within society’s rules? One character arguing for each viewpoint, asking the question: what produces results? Loud and proud fights? Or working from the inside in order to produce change? It’s an incredibly relevant and thoughtful argument and one that I was surprised to see during an 8-minute webisode.

This is all a part of the show’s award-winning (Telly Awards) charm; the show is an amped up celebration of astute social criticism and campy marriage sitcom. A combination that embraces its cheesy adorable-ness and smart observations, but a combination you don’t mind since it’s obviously intentional.

The show also features cameo performances from Nathan Fillion (Castle, Firefly), Joss Whedon (creator of Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Michael Buckley and other well-known web-series actors. To watch the entire two seasons would take only about an hour, since each season totals no more than a half hour of footage, but make sure to continue watching after the credits (especially in season 2) as that’s when the full footage from their double-standard video expositions is shown.

Unique and snappy (if a bit clichéd in terms of humor) shows like Husbands are wonderfully redemptive examples of positive and intelligent media; the Internet has produced such an amazing opportunity for creative entertainment that isn’t beholden to a corporate studio for their funding. I’m excited to see season 3 and see where Bell and Espensen take the series next, hopefully the show will continue it’s smart gender commentary and continue to expose inequality.

While the show is easily found on Youtube, you can also access the episodes at husbandstheseries, as well as the Husbands comics.

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

Horror Week 2012: The Failure of the Male Gaze in ‘The Vampire Lovers’

The Vampire Lovers | L-R: Carmilla (Ingrid Pitts) and Laura (Pippa Steel)

Guest post written by Lauren Chance.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any fandom, genre or medium must be in want of some lesbians and lo, the so-called ‘lesbian vampire’ genre that exists as a subsidiary to the vampire mythology is here to theoretically do what all lesbian sub-genres inevitably exist for. Horror, to speak generally, is created by men for men and vampires, with their sexual connotations and otherness are arguably the finest example of the masculine expression of the dominant male — one that kills as it penetrates and, as Bram Stoker would have it, infects the mind of the innocent, virtuous and above all else, stupid female.

The lesbian vampire is something of an anomaly though. Rather than being an offshoot of an established genre, it was created alongside the mainstream vampire genre as we know it today. Carmilla, the story upon which The Vampire Lovers (1970) was based, was by no means the first example of vampire fiction, however, it was amongst the very early entries into what was to become an extremely saturated genre. It predates Dracula by twenty-five years and the lyrical ballad from which Le Fanu purportedly took influence was written by Coleridge in 1797… which does predate John Polidori’s The Vampyre — the first established vampire text — by over twenty years.
Which is a roundabout way of saying that the lesbian vampire genre arguably came first in terms of coherent narratives about vampires. But why so much context only to discuss a minor entry into the canon of vampire filmography? Purely because The Vampire Lovers, above all other films with a strong Sapphic vampire plot best embodies the unashamedly sexual aspects of the story and the spirit of intriguing intimacy that Le Fanu put into his text.
Carmilla (Ingrid Pitt) in The Vampire Lovers

In both the novella and The Vampire Lovers, Carmilla exclusively stalks female victims, showing little interest in the male characters as anything other than fodder or a means to an end; Ingrid Pitt’s Carmilla never looks quite as comfortable with the lone male in the film she interacts with in a sexual manner as she does with the various women she seduces and bites. As an acting choice it works wonders towards directing a great deal of the interest and sympathy in the film firmly towards Carmilla, rather than the largely inconsequential male lead who is filmed as a somewhat heroic lead but, as with all of the male characters, is filmed as if we should have no reason to be interested in them: there is no doubt that Ingrid Pitt and Carmilla are the stars of this film, regardless of Peter Cushing’s presence.

The Vampire Lovers was the first of the Karnstein Trilogy and as time went on the lesbian subtext dwindled significantly despite the second film also being based on Carmilla, however, there is a very telling difference between Yutte Stensgaard’s almost indifferent attitude to the other women in the cast and eventually her love for a human man in Lust for a Vampire (1971) and the loving, tender way Ingrid Pitt approaches her three primary victims. Pitt’s Carmilla caresses them in their beds, kisses them with obvious intention, undresses them and gazes adoringly at her chosen prey until it is hers. The girls are shown reclining, receptive, vulnerable, eternally dressed in white at night and pastel colours during the day. Laura is peaches and cream English, perfect and untouched and within the first twenty minutes of the film we see in a microcosm how Carmilla operates. She finds a way into Laura’s home, befriends her, touches her as a lover would and then begins to slowly drain the life out of her: mostly, it has to be noted, by biting her breasts. Their bond is such that the male characters don’t even register that it could be problematic. Laura’s father comments that “Laura seems devoted to her [Carmilla].” At the first grand ball where Carmilla first spots Laura, Karl dismisses his intended’s suggestion that the mysterious woman is interested in him and instead insists “Nonsense, she’s looking at you.” No one ever comments upon why Carmilla is looking at Laura. As Laura deteriorates though her reliance and devotion to Carmilla, or Mircarla as this household know her, begins to cause strife amongst the men, her father and the Doctor are helpless in the face of Laura’s bond with Carmilla.
L-R: Carmilla (Ingrid Pitt) and Laura (Pippa Steel) in The Vampire Lovers
It is interesting that there is no indication that Laura holds any lasting interest for Carmilla. The vampire moves on with her mysterious – and never explained – Aunt/Countess and is soon in place in the household of Laura’s long-distance friend, Emma. Carmilla’s cycle begins again.

L-R: Emma (Madeline Smith) and Marcilla (Ingrid Pitt) in The Vampire Lovers
The film can be neatly cut up into three sections. The first is Laura’s and the final section involves the male characters delving into the Karnstein history and trying to discover Carmilla’s tomb. However, the second section, by far the most engrossing, is very curious in that it could quite easily come from any romance. As with Le Fanu and Carmilla’s predecessor, Coleridge’s Christabel, there are fewer mentions of vampiric activity and Carmilla’s affection for Emma are much more dominant in the narrative than her true nature. What makes The Vampire Lovers such an intensely curious film is that one would imagine the lesbian scenes would be exploitative and, if not crude, then certainly unnecessarily over-the-top. However, this is not the case and I respectfully doff my cap at Hammer Horror and director Roy Baker.
The usual calling cards of Hammer Horror are straightforward: a fairly basic plotline, a “repertory”-esque cast of actors, interchangeably buxom women who meet theoretically grisly but aesthetically titillating ends and the sense that the whole thing is one big joke that everybody, from the actors to the audience are in on. Now, please don’t misunderstand me. This author loves a bit of nonsensical horror romping as much as the next discerning viewer. But there’s no getting around the fact that the Hammer productions were not great works of art; they could in fact be better described as a kind of soft-core horror pornography, filled with fire-engine red blood and more nudity that one would strictly need in a story that was ostensibly about a preying vampire. And yet the two most notably sexual scenarios in the film are directed with a great deal of grace and merit. In both situations Ingrid Pitt has long since lost any clothes she began with (at no point does she ever seemed perturbed about her general state of undress) and Carmilla is preparing to utterly seduce someone.
The Vampire Lovers

The Vampire Lovers

There is a softly lit air of concealment to the first scene and a rather more obvious silhouette to the second, however, it would be difficult to argue that though the scenes are sexual in nature, they aren’t presented through the “male gaze.” These women aren’t entering into carnal pleasures that they inexplicably have every knowledge of already and are therefore able to put on a show for the gratification of others; indeed the appreciation of Carmilla is seen in the faces of the female characters and it is with tentative exploration that they approach the mysterious woman.

Mme. Perrodot (Kate O’Mara) in The Vampire Lovers
Arguably, as with any interpretation of vampire texts, one could say that Carmilla is preying upon victims who simply don’t understand what is happening to them. The taking of blood by an unnatural source from a girl on the cusp of womanhood who, tellingly, has no mother to guide her through puberty is a parallel too obvious to explore at length. But one could argue that when Carmilla kisses Laura, her intended victim perhaps doesn’t notice that there is anything extraordinary in the embrace and thus succumbs to it. On the other hand Emma can have been left in very little doubt of Carmilla’s intentions when the vampire declares her love and insists, “I don’t want anyone to take you away from me.” There is emotion behind Carmilla’s desire for Emma that does not simply extend to the carnal and Pitt and Baker use every opportunity to fill the screen with longing looks and claustrophobic framing of the two women — Emma and Carmilla are never especially far from each other.
Inevitably though Carmilla must die. But, as befitting of The Vampire Lovers, in which a multitude of things regarding Emma and Carmilla’s intimate relationship are allowed to go unsaid and unmentioned by the other characters, there is the clear suggestion that Emma is not entirely rid of Carmilla’s influence. At the moment of the vampire’s final death, Emma is languishing in her bed, having been saved by Karl and despite her safety, she cries out in horror when the final blow is struck.
Emma (Madeline Smith) in The Vampire Lovers
It is very telling that the final moment in the film is a hint that the deep nature of their relationship is something the men cannot sever and neither can they entirely take Emma away from Carmilla now that she has had her. The lesbian vampire sub-genre as we know it today has suffered serious set-backs since The Vampire Lovers, which seems a thoroughly unlikely thing to say when one considers that it was made over forty years ago now. However, there is a single-mindedness to Pitt’s Carmilla that makes her enthralling for the audience and a certain tone of her performance that lifts the character out of being gratuitous with her lusts and desires. She wants Emma and she intends to have her, there is no debate over what the men think of the situation, no snide jokes that are there entirely to belittle the female relationship. In portraying the men as being entirely ignorant, Baker allows the audience to see the relationship from Carmilla and Emma’s perspective. Their touches are not always sexual, but sensual instead, the kisses not entirely chaste but always intimate and above all else the love Carmilla has for Emma is entirely between them with no one else ever being aware of it.
———-
Lauren Chance has a Masters in English Literature and lives in London, carefully avoiding that horrible and impossible moment when one grows tired of the City and existence at the same time. She had written on Daphne du Maurier most recently and a number of other things during her colourful experience at Queen Mary, University of London. She is particularly interested in biopics at the moment and hopes one will shortly be made about Ingrid Pitt. You can follow her tumblr at http://crackalley.tumblr.com/.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

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

Movie Preview: Tomboy

I don’t have much to say about this film: it looks amazing, and I can’t wait to see it. Here’s the movie synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes:
A French family with two daughters, 10-year-old Laure and 6-year-old Jeanne, moves to a new neighborhood during the summer holidays. With her Jean Seberg haircut and tomboy ways, Laure is immediately mistaken for a boy by the local kids and passes herself off as Michael. Filmmaker Céline Sciamma brings a light and charming touch to this drama of childhood gender confusion. Zoe Heran as Laure/Michael and Malonn Levanna as Jeanne are nothing less than brilliant. This is a relationship movie: relationships between children, and the even more complicated one between one’s heart and body. 

It’s gotten wonderful reviews so far, which isn’t surprising since it’s written and directed by Céline Sciamma, who also wrote and directed Water Lilies. The film doesn’t officially start playing (in limited release) until November 16th (I’m so there), but I’ll post the trailer to tide us over until then.