Mara Gasbarro Tasker – Bitch Flicks

Seed & Spark: The Bad Mamas of Contemporary Cinema

This is not an article that will chronicle empty mother characters. This is for all the badass mamas out there—the honest mother roles that women have nailed. Hopefully this will present a case for why we need a million more. Here’s to the female characters who have outlived the digital revolution and will continue to. Characters that live with us and remain faulted heroes. And here’s to the women who made them so electric.

Badass mom warrior Patricia Arquette in Boyhood — Badass mom warrior Patricia Arquette in *Boyhood*

This is a guest post by Mara Gasbarro Tasker.

Women have been speaking the hell up about gender in Hollywood this year and it’s been an awesome uprising to see. There has been an outpouring of voices across multiple demographics in media getting aggressive about the lack of opportunities available in all of its platforms.
What I find challenging, though, is the near constant focus on scarcity—the highlighting of women missing chances to shape film and media.

Rather than dive into the dark abyss of what feels a regression of women’s roles in the world, I decided to focus this article on what is working. On our successes. It’s much easier to model our creative designs and ourselves after things that we can see. So, if I had a beer right now, I’d pour it all out for my female homies who have trail blazed contemporary cinema. Here’s to the women who are “crushing it” in complex roles, who take every opportunity on screen to serve as their own victory of what can be done.

Last week I went to see this summer’s hot blockbuster Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Now I will fully admit that this black and white, Italian Neorealism nerd fully enjoyed the ride. Much to my surprise, the film actually had me thinking of Shakespeare and Greek tragedy because— in terms of technicalities of story and character structure— they pulled some classic tricks out of the bag and that’s always cool with me. But during the movie there was one note that kept hitting the wrong key. Can someone, anyone, please explain why Keri Russell had only a one line backstory (that she lost her child as the Simian Flu spread) but then was never touched on again in the film? She was prescribed the role of mother, lone survivor, who clings to others and is a surprisingly talented nurse on a whim. But where in the film did she represent what a woman who has lost her child in a bleak new world might actually be like? There was a human being missing in her character.

(Also brief aside, ladies we’re not really going to survive the apocalypse based on the ratio presented in the film. Because, uterus.)

Keri Russell in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes — Keri Russell in *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes* after walking into ape territory

This article is not one that will chronicle those empty characters. This is for all the badass mamas out there—the honest mother roles that women have nailed. Hopefully this will present a case for why we need a million more. Here’s to the female characters who have outlived the digital revolution and will continue to. Characters that live with us and remain faulted heroes. And here’s to the women who made them so electric.

Boyhood is, by logline and poster art, a film about a boy. But I was not alone in walking out of the theater thinking, “Patricia Arquette, you are a baller.” She is undoubtedly the silent hero of the film. From the start, she’s energetic, imperfect, driven, smart (but not genius) and loves her kids even though she wants nothing more from them than to go the hell to bed. She was a single mom who worked hard, got tired, got things moving in her life, and kept on. We’ve seen the foundations of her role a thousand times. (I will hold my comments about any Tyler Perry rendering of real life.) As the film evolved, she made mistakes; her body changed; at times she was involved with her kids and at times she was distant. What to me makes this a successful female role is that if you were to remove the rest of the cast from her, she still has an identity. Motherhood is a part of what she does in the same way that being married or single is a part of what she does. But stripped of supporting cast, she remains a real person with ambitions that grow internally and thoughts that are driven by her own needs and wants.

You see, there was always a storyline that belonged privately to her. She was the master of her own life and the force behind her children’s. When they grew, she grew too. She was very much a mother character AND an individual. It’s roles like these that are needed time and time again in the process of redefining the women we want to see on screen. She is multidimensional and therefore, truthful. (And, yes, I realize the film spans a very real 12 years in the world but even so. ) Kudos to Arquette for rocking the mom jeans like a warrior for 12 years.

Patricia Arquette in Boyhood — Mother and individual: Patricia Arquette in *Boyhood*

Definitely more overbearing but equally complex was Melissa Leo’s character in The Fighter. She was so nuanced. She got violent, volatile, and was packed with emotion. While she was unpleasant at many points in the story and her motivations were often outwardly selfish, she was honest. It was a straightforward portrayal of a mother not wanting to be outdone, even by her own children. She channels her own life through them and while this may not be a method condoned by any parenting books, she was very much alive and outspoken—faulted and capable of deep love. Again, if robbed of the other characters in the story, she was still a complete human being. There was nothing sexy added to her and yet her ferocious state of mind made her enigmatic and inescapable. (We need not bare tons of boob to get people to watch.) Her dynamic portrayal of a woman in a particular region and socioeconomic position, coupled with the hyper masculine surrounding pulls from her a wealth of complex emotions and decisions. And, let us not forget, unlikeable characters can still serve as outstanding representations of the depth of the female mind, soul, and existence. One of the elements ignored by women’s press this year is crowdpleasing. We want more opportunities. In every way. But I don’t care about crowd-pleasing characters. I go to the movies in search of truth. Give me that.

A complicated mother: Melissa Leo in The Fighter — The pistol Melissa Leo in *The Fighter*

Taking it even farther into the realm of complex is Julianne Moore in her disturbingly on point performance as Amber Waves in Boogie Nights. Apart from the fact that the movie itself is genius, much of its success is brought out by the powerful performances of its all-star cast. Moore’s character is particularly wild to follow. She has the softness and natural nurturing quality of a mother who has always wanted to be a mother. She is a soothing source of support but this, in the world of Boogie Nights, of course becomes complicated and perverted by the fact that she is also sexually drawn to the very young Mark Wahlberg. Her attraction to him, their on camera sexploits, and her simultaneous motherly qualities make her immediately full of wonder, questions, and provocations.

Adding to that, she’s an exciting hot mess. The woman likes her cocaine as she proves when doing hearty lines with Heather Graham in the bedroom one fateful afternoon. While in this heightened state, if you will, her inner life comes bubbling out and she emotionally confesses about how much she misses her son. She may be all over the place and her nose miiiiight be white at the end of it but she’s given fair treatment by the filmmaker and audience alike. She is trapped by her history, moves in certain ways because of it and, like any fully formed human being, when in a vulnerable position (or totally f***ed up), her inner demons come out into the world. She misses motherhood and longs for her child. It’s a part of her wiring and yet she continues to live outside of it. A hot mess with a real history—it’s a beautiful, vital performance. She embodies multiple elements of a woman in the world in this time and place and she won’t let you look away from it.

Hot mess of a mother: Julianne Moore in Boogie Nights — Julianne Moore before the infamous coke binge in *Boogie Nights*

Compared to the Hollywood backup female roles we usually passively sit through, not one of these roles and not one of these women has created as a silent, flat, disturbingly calm character. That is an untruthful portrayal in this spectator’s opinion. They came out screaming. Their exuberance breathed into these will written roles the fiery heat of a person with a true life, true purpose and fluid identity. These are the kinds of roles that make more room for women to prove that we thrive in the complex—that we are complex and that we want truth on screen.

Examples of female roles that kick ass exist. Women who will not let their roles become secondary exist. It’s been done since the beginnings of film. Alice Guy Blache’ didn’t take any shit and that was at the turn of the 20^th century. She directed, produced and wrote more than 700 films. She was doing it then, and women behind and in front of the camera have done it ever since. It’s our job now, in 2014, to recreate what we can accomplish based on our current industry model and find ways to make sure that truthful performances enter the marketplace. Hollywood films have always had plenty of fluff roles. But they’ve always had standouts. We are still in this position. We have model characters who broke ceilings once before in storytelling and will again. So…carry the torch and rock on.

In case you need further encouragement: Eva Khatchadourian in We Need to Talk About Kevin, Ofelia from Pan’s Labrynth, Kym from Rachel Getting Married, Nina Sayer from Black Swan. Marnie, Briony Tallis, Thelma Dickinson, Kate “Ma” Barker, Marge Gunderson, Bonnie Parker, Shoshanna Dreyfus, Nikita. Judy Barton/Madeleine Elster, Amelie, Evelyn Mulwray, Blanche Dubois, Betty Elms/Diane Selwyn, Coffy, Mia Wallace, Lisbeth Salander, Jackie Brown, The Bride, Hermione Granger, Clementine Kruczynski and Annie Hall.

Like Costner said in The Untouchables, “Let’s take the fight to them, gentlemen.” (ladies)

Mara Gasbarro Tasker is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She’s currently working as an Associate Producer at Vice Media and has co-created the Chattanooga Film Festival, launching later this spring. She holds a BFA in Film Production from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is directing a grindhouse short in April and is still mourning the end of Breaking Bad.

Seed & Spark: The Effect of Being ‘Taken’: The Commodification of the Female Body

But this to me is the part we should pay attention to. When we don’t get to be headstrong, sexy scientists with daddy issues, we’re locked away. Because evidently we’re worth a lot, which while flattering, also insinuates that we are prizes that can be traded, bought, or stolen. In any film of the above mentioned genres, it’s safe to assume that at some point, the concerned wife, sexy girlfriend, or charming daughter will be kidnapped. When the body is used as a bargaining chip, the images that flood our minds are women tied to chairs, kidnappers holding phones to our crying faces, and makeshifts rag gags in our mouths.

This is a guest post by Mara Gasbarro Tasker.

As much as I would love to have Liam Neeson running around after me all day, I’d rather it not be because I had been abducted and stuck tied to a chair. But this seems to be one of the only ways that we get to see women on screen in today’s high stakes thrillers. In my last post, I talked about the use of rape in storytelling and its commonplace usage as a catalyst in stories. Today, I wanted to shed some light on the use of kidnapping the female body for the purpose of narrative drive.

Women have limited opportunities on screen; we all know this to be true and there are a number of reasons that this is the case. But looking beyond that fact, I think it’s important to examine the effects of these images. I don’t deny that I love fast-cutting action films. But when thinking back to a significant number of action, thriller, and psychological films, it’s challenging to think of some that don’t include the taking of a female body.

Take Blake Lively in Savages, or Penelope Cruz in The Counselor, or Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Dark Knight, or Kristen Rudrud in Fargo, or Maggie Grace in Taken.

Penelope Cruz being stalked in "The Counselor" — Penelope Cruz being stalked in *The Counselor*

Each of these films and many, many more, use the kidnapping of a female character, of the female body, to raise the stakes. It appears we’re worth something valuable to the story. But as pieces, not players.

Blake Lively Savages — Blake Lively in *Savages*

What’s concerning with these roles is that they perpetuate the quiet and commonplace commodification of a woman’s body, and it’s become the main function of our characters on the screen. This technique of taking someone hostage has been employed in well done ways before. Looking back to The Searchers, Natalie Woods’ abduction by the Comanches still plays on classic weaker female characters, while actually bringing about the space in the film for in depth character reveals and an odyssey that exposes many people over the course of 120 minutes. In films like The Dark Knight, it feels excusable to play on classic comic book themes of revenge, taking a female character hostage, and having some heroic and uniquely strong man come to save her. It’s a model Disney employs in many of its cartoons as well.

The problem is that this storytelling device has been overdone and like violence, is now often used as a lazy attempt to raise the stakes and create tension. Everyone who loves anyone knows that losing that person would drive them mad. But does it always have to be the woman?

David Foster Wallace, in his heartbreaking series of shorts in Oblivion, describes all human beings as being comprised of an infinite number of eternities. It’s one of my favorite ways to understand people now. And so I ask, if that’s the case, if we’re all made up of an infinite matrix of capable emotions and therefore reactions, why has film, an art that encompasses so many senses, boiled itself down to simplistic storytelling where the best way to ignite anger or the want of revenge in someone is to “take” his woman?

Kim (Maggie Grace) hiding from her abductors in "Taken" — Kim (Maggie Grace) hiding from her abductors in *Taken*

Let’s take a look at a few more contemporary films to illustrate this point, starting with Taken, and of course its sequels. Round one of Taken dishes up a nice storyline of a young American woman who travels abroad with her best friend, makes one ill-advised move and spends the rest of the film being sold into sex slavery. Meanwhile, her father, who thank god is Liam Neeson and has a very special set of skills (that he’s allowed to have, as male protagonists are), comes to save her. In Taken 2, shock me, shock me, Liam’s wife gets kidnapped. In both films, it’s the stolen woman’s body that gets things moving and that allows this stretch of space on screen for our hero.

Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) and his special skills in "Taken" — Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) and his special skills in *Taken*

In Prisoners, a powerful film with incredible performances, who is it that goes missing? Who is made voiceless? Who is rendered a token of something? While in a film like this it is integral to the reveal of character and mystery, again we should ask – why at the cost of a young woman? Hugh Jackman’s character Keller Dover embarks on a manhunt when his daughter is kidnapped with her friend. Because why not? How many models have we seen where it’s not a female? Man on Fire uses the same technique- a young woman, a young child, taken for sinister reasons because by simply holding on to her, our usual antagonists can cash out and manipulate their adversary, who we’re in turn cheering on to “recapture” the victim.

There are, of course, comedic twists like Fargo, which also happens to be a film I absolutely love. But again here, we have a female role whose purpose, while hilariously treated at times, is to be stolen, missing, and the tool in the story that the plot revolves around.

Enjoying the day's work (Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, & Kristen Rudrud) in "Fargo" — Enjoying the day’s work (Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, and Kristen Rudrud) in *Fargo*

My purpose in highlighting these tropes is that we must pay attention to the trade of the female body. If any characters in the film have a qualm, it is often settled by “taking” the other person’s loved one, and this is more often than not, a woman in their life. Our roles, as reflected back at us on screen, have limited dialogue because there is usually a rag in our faces keeping us from speaking.
We’re fed images of a woman who is made to disappear at some point in the film, left without a voice and made entirely helpless until the male protagonist comes along. This is plot device that is designed to distract from the fact that not enough story has actually been developed.

Remove the woman from this equation. You have character A wanting to get something from character B. There could be any number of mysterious ways to do this. Manipulation, lies, fights, theft, threats, coaxing. There are a thousand ways around the central and overused plot device of the female body. Personally, I think we’ve stop noticing. We’ve stopped paying attention to the fact that we are treated a commodities on screen. Not a far cry from the use of rape as a narrative catalyst, what does constantly kidnapping a woman say about what we are? We have become the stakes.

We have complacently accepted that a crime against a woman is rarely a crime against her. Rather, it’s an indirect attack against her husband, boyfriend, or father. It is a violation of the male character when the female is traded in some illicit way. Even intelligent, scientific, and clearly downplayed but sexy scientist characters somehow still find their way into these traps. We identify these crimes against women as crimes against someone else. This removes us from the responsibility of a committing a heinous crime against a female figure and makes her simply a piece in the malefaction rather than the recipient of the aggression–which she is.

This rids us of human qualities. It rids women of screen time, of dialogue, of control. It once again quietly pushes us from roles as real people in film and in life, to props for narrative mobility. In using women in this way, we visually inform ourselves over and over and over again that our only option is to wait for someone stronger to come. . We’re the thing that they need to get back.

Liam Neeson, come running for me. Anytime you want. But I’d rather it be for love than because I didn’t have enough pepper spray on me to avoid a really shitty day.

*Side note worth mentioning – in trying to find images for this article, it was surprisingly hard to find pictures of the women in their hostage situation. It’s almost like it never happened. Or you find porn.

Seed & Spark: Rape as a MacGuffin: The Hollywood Cop Out

But why are stories of female characters taking aggressive or assertive stances allowed to happen only after they have been victimized? In men’s revenge stories, oftentimes a woman has been killed off and he sets out to even the score. In a female revenge story, more often than not she has been assaulted and wants to get even. In both cases, women are victimized and the female body is used to move the narrative forward.

This is a guest post by Mara Gasbarro Tasker.

MacGuffin: an object or device in a movie or a book that serves merely as a trigger for the plot.

Everyone loves a revenge story. Yet no one mentions the disturbing trend–in both television and film–of victimizing women to kick start the narrative. From modern procedurals like SVU, to older films such as I Spit on your Grave or newer films like Irreversible, women are repeatedly given the Hollywood shaft. I won’t reference SVU much beyond this because I can hardly stomach the show given that every episode I’ve seen features an opening that is 10 minutes of female sexual victimization. Now think of all of the revenge films you have seen in your life. Starring men or women. Think back to what starts the story. A disturbing number of them begin with rape. They use brutal violence against women to get the ball rolling. Let’s look at a few examples.

In both the 1978 version and the 2010 remake of I Spit on your Grave, our young, beautiful and somewhat reclusive female protagonist leaves her worries behind for a summer to focus on writing. But not long before she arrives in her hideaway cabin, she is brutally, violently, and sadistically gang raped in the woods and her rental home. Later in the film she comes back for revenge. But her motive and her actions for the rest of the narrative are all defined by that senseless assault.

In the case of Abel Ferrara’s 1981 B-movie hit Ms. 45, Thana, a mute and beautiful young seamstress is raped on her walk home. Unable to scream, it hardly seems to happen. When she gets home, however, a second intruder breaks into her house and has his way with her. It was a tough day for Thana. These are both “B-Movies” and yes, there is a tendency in this kind of film to exploit violence. But before we write off this brutality to just one less-prevalent genre, let’s look at mainstream cinema.

American Psycho. Patrick Bateman is the world’s weirdest man. A total power player, a stud, a dick. He lures women in and takes pleasure, on screen, in killing them. The infamous chainsaw scene comes to mind. Bateman commits one murder in his bed before spending the next few minutes chasing a second prostitute to her death. It’s an extreme example, but this act of casual violence against women happens again in other forms and its effect is the same. As another example, Gaspar Noe’s powerful film, Irreversible, sets violence into motion from minute one. While it’s led by a male character and mostly affects a male population in the film, we later see that the center of the tale, the very object that put all of this aggression into motion, is the brutal, hate-filled rape of his girlfriend. This film features a male lead on a revenge quest, but it all hinges entirely on the abuse of a woman. We could go on–films like The Skin I Live In and remakes such as Last House on the Left and The Evil Dead all perpetuate the practice of using brutality as a narrative tool.

Rather than harp on the fact that sexual abuse is used frequently in film, let’s pay closer attention to how it’s used. I Spit on your Grave and Ms. 45 are ultimately female revenge stories that feel satisfying, but it’s only after brutal and forced, criminal sexual assaults that these women come into their power and their own violence. The abuse at the start of the story is what sets their lives on screen into motion. I know I was not alone in thinking hell yes! when these women struck back. But why are stories of female characters taking aggressive or assertive stances allowed to happen only after they have been victimized? In men’s revenge stories, oftentimes a woman has been killed off and he sets out to even the score. In a female revenge story, more often than not she has been assaulted and wants to get even. In both cases, women are victimized and the female body is used to move the narrative forward.

Men can seek revenge. Men can become monsters. Walter White can justify his actions because it was driven by the need to earn money for his family in Breaking Bad. Travis Bickle can become a sadistic psychopath in Taxi Driver without being forced into it by trauma. Patrick Bateman can kill for the pleasure of it. Men are given the freedom in film to seek revenge for any perceived slight. But women are only granted that unadulterated kind of freedom, that get-out-of-jail-free card, if they have first been victimized. How many films feature women being assertive or dangerous who don’t have their bodies forcibly violated first?

Storytelling has a responsibility. To the men and women writing any form of media, if it isn’t absolutely necessary to tell a truthful story, I challenge you to find a different reason to seek revenge. Look for a better technique to get your characters moving. Find a better reason for the action to start. Rape is not excusable. If we don’t want to normalize violence against women, we must be smart about what we normalize on screen. When teenage girls sit down at the movies or on their own couches, they’re quietly–if not openly–reminded that they are the “weaker” sex and can be taken and brutalized with ease. It may bring out some interesting male characters, but it comes at the cost of a woman’s body. Rape is not, and should not be, a MacGuffin. Let’s tell a better story.