Marriage – Bitch Flicks

Sisters in ‘Downton Abbey’ and ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ and the Slow March Toward Equality

The narratives surrounding the television series ‘Downton Abbey’ and the musical film ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ are about change and more specifically, how the daughters within both families represent the small, but important contributions that these characters make to modern feminist narratives. … In both ‘Downton Abbey’ and ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ each trio of sisters takes a step in determining her own fate.

This guest post written by Adina Bernstein appears as part of our theme week on Sisterhood. | Spoilers ahead.

Progression, especially for women, is often a slow march toward equality. It’s easy for this generation of women to take for granted some of the rights we have: K-12 education, the opportunities for a fulfilling career, and — for cis straight people — the right to marry or not marry and choose a spouse. Although we still have a long way to go as we still contend with barriers to justice, such as abortion restrictions, wage inequality, police brutality, lack of healthcare for trans people, and only last year did the government pass nationwide marriage equality for same-sex couples.

While many modern women don’t think twice about some of these rights, there was a time in history, not too long ago, when these questions coming from women were unthinkable. Women were supposed to marry by a certain age, bring children (and by children, I mean boys) into the world, take care of the home, and ensure that their husband was happy; that was the extent of a woman’s life (except for poor women and women of color who worked outside the home).

Modern feminism often refers to the term “glass ceiling,” which represents the barriers and boundaries that have prohibited women (as well as people of color, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities) from advancing in their careers the same as men have. It’s sometimes easier to see the larger cracks in the glass ceiling (represented by Hillary Clinton accepting the Democratic nomination for President, for example). But while we cheer on the larger victories, we must also pay attention to the smaller achievements as well.

In the early 20th century, some women may have been content to live out the lives pre-planned for them, fulfilling the traditional roles of marriage and motherhood. But some women did question if it was right or fair that a woman was forced to live a life with rigid parameters while her husband or brother was given freedoms that seemed out of reach.

The storylines and themes in the television series Downton Abbey and the musical film Fiddler on the Roof are about change and more specifically, how the daughters within both families represent the small, but important contributions that these characters make to modern feminist narratives.

Downton Abbey starts in 1912 in an aristocratic estate in Yorkshire, England. Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville), the Earl of Grantham and his American-born wife, Cora (Elizabeth McGovern), the Countess of Grantham, have three daughters: Mary, Edith, and Sybil. As they have no son, this poses a problem as the title and Robert’s fortune will not pass to his daughters. An unbreakable entail was set up years ago. Without a son, the title of the Earl of Grantham and the money tied to the estate must go to the closest male relative. Robert’s cousin and heir is dead, he is among those who did not survive the sinking of the Titanic. The closest living male relative is a distant cousin, Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), a middle-class lawyer who is shocked to find out that he will one day be a member of the aristocracy.

Adapted from the Broadway musical, Fiddler on the Roof is set in 1905 during the Russian Empire. Tevye (Chaim Topol), a poor Jewish milkman and his wife, Golde (Norma Crane), have five daughters — three of whom push the narrative forward: Tzeitel, Hodel, and Chava — and no sons. In that community at that time, young people did not choose their spouse. A match was arranged by the town matchmaker and if the marriage was agreeable to the parents (and the father, specifically), then the couple would wed. Tevye agreed to betroth his eldest daughter, Tzeitel (Rosalind Harris) to the town butcher, Lazar Wolf (Paul Mann). But there is a major hitch to the plan: Tzeitel wants to marry her childhood sweetheart, Motel (Leonard Frey), the tailor.

In both Downton Abbey and Fiddler on the Roof, each trio of sisters takes a step in determining her own fate. While the decisions these girls make may seem innocuous, these steps represent the larger cultural and societal fate that will impact future generations of women.

Mary/Tzeitel: At the outset of both stories, the eldest of the sisters know what their lives will look like: marry, have children, and generally live out the same lives that their mothers and grandmothers lived. Mary (Michelle Dockery) understands her status and value as an earl’s daughter, but as she’s stubborn and opinionated, she will not take the first man that comes her way. Mary initially rejects Matthew as an interloper when he is announced as her father’s new heir; it’s not the greatest start to what would become one of the great TV relationships of this era. But over time, Mary Crawley will prove herself to be much more capable than just being an earl’s daughter, as she eventually becomes a widow, a single mother, and a savvy agent of the estate.

Tzeitel is very much her mother’s daughter. Strong, outspoken, and very smart, she makes the world-shattering decision to ask her father for permission to marry Motel; not an easy feat in that community and time period. Her father balks, knowing that not only does her request break with tradition, but also fractures the verbal contract he already made with the much older butcher. Tevye finally agrees, putting his daughter’s happiness above the accepted practice of allowing the matchmaker to present a future spouse to the young person’s parents. Not only do Tzeitel’s actions pave the way for her sister’s choices, but they also encourage her future husband to achieve his goals.

Edith/Hodel: Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael) is the classic middle child and creator Julian Fellowes’ answer to Jan Brady. Caught in between her beautiful elder sister and her independent younger sister, Edith starts out the series as a mean spirited, angry young woman, especially towards Mary as the two share a rivalry. She begins to find her purpose at the beginning of season two during the changes that World War I brings. After Edith is dumped at the alter by her fiancé, she finds her purpose in life in unconventional ways that would have been unthinkable for the daughter of the aristocracy a generation before. She becomes a journalist and a magazine editor. She starts a romantic relationship with her editor Michael Gregson (Charles Edwards), becoming pregnant. After finding out that Michael is dead and after many emotional hurdles, she eventually makes the decision to openly raise her child. Edith finally finds marital happiness with Bertie Pelham (Harry Hadden-Paton), the newly titled Marquess of Hexham. Surprising everyone, including herself, Edith now ranks above her father and her entire family in terms of aristocratic rank and social standing.

While Hodel (Michele Marsh) is not writer Sholem Aleichem’s answer to Jan Brady, Hodel experiences a similarly unconventional story arc to Edith. Like her older sister, Hodel knows that she must marry. Her choice of husband in the beginning of the film, if she had one, is the rabbi’s son. But like any society, there is a social hierarchy. The daughter of a poor milkman is unlikely to marry the rabbi’s son. Hodel will marry Perchik (Michael Glaser), a traveling teacher with radical ideas that do not sit well with the denizens of Anatevka. When Perchik is arrested in Kiev at a protest and sent to Siberia, Hodel makes the unconventional decision to follow her fiancé to Sibera. Traveling alone to meet up with her fiancé, Hodel makes the brave choice to leave her family and everything she knows behind, not knowing when she will see them again.

Sybil/Chava: If one were to look the definition of rebellious in the dictionary, one might see a picture of Lady Sybil Crawley (Jessica Brown Findlay). The youngest of Robert and Cora’s three daughters, Sybil not only gets along with her two older sisters due to her kind spirit, but she’s also unafraid to step away from a traditional life. Whether she attends dinner wearing blue harem pants or her passionate political activism, she charts her own course. While attending a political rally, Sybil is knocked unconscious during a riot. Finally, she shocks her family with her marriage to Irish socialist chauffeur, Tom Branson (Allen Leech). Sybil dies in season three, leaving a grieving husband, a newborn daughter who would never know her mother, and a devastated family. In the end, Sybil’s legacy of love, independence, and acceptance that change was a good thing would forever leave a mark on her family.

If Tzeitel and Hodel made small steps outside of a traditional life, Chava (Neva Small) jumped across the boundary of tradition. Her marriage to Fyedka (Raymond Lovelock), a Christian boy, breaks all the rules. By marrying out of her faith and converting to her husband’s religion, she does not even think twice about asking for permission the way her elder sisters had; she just goes for it by eloping. Her parents and her father especially, are extremely upset and Tevye disowns her. In the end, Chava and Fyedka receive a reluctant blessing from Tevye as the Jewish denizens of Anatevka are forced out of their homes.

Looking back, the cracks in the glass ceiling that these women made may seem small and insignificant, but in the long run, the cracks are substantial. This generation, the great-granddaughters of the young women who lived in that era, owe a huge debt to our great-grandmothers who lived in the early 1900s. Without the bold and unconventional choices they made, we would not have the rights and opportunities that many of us take for granted today.

Adina Bernstein is a Brooklyn-born and raised writer who finds pleasure and release in writing. You can find her on Twitter @Writergurlny and on her blog at writergurlny.wordpress.com.

‘The Theory of Everything’: A “Great Man” From The First Wife’s Point of View

Do great women exist? The film industry still hasn’t decided. We had ‘Frida’ a dozen years ago and that bio-pic about Margaret Thatcher (like ‘Frida,’ directed by a woman) from a few years back–which won Meryl Streep an Oscar, but tepid reviews along with a completely irredeemable main character kept me from seeing it. Usually the women in the “great man” films are great only by osmosis, because they married or otherwise provide emotional–and other–support to great men. The actresses who play these roles win Oscars too: they make the “supporting” category a literal one. ‘The Theory of Everything,’ the new bio-pic about astrophysicist (and best-selling author) Stephen Hawking seemed like it might be different since it’s based on the book written by the great man’s first wife, Jane.

Like a lot of women, I’m impatient with the “great man” films that invade theaters every year just in time for Oscar consideration. The main character is always a man whose name we all know, played by an actor who really wants an Academy Award. We see his earliest struggles then later, his triumphs. The addition of some failures never succeeds in making the film more interesting, just longer.

Do great women exist? The film industry still hasn’t decided. We had Frida a dozen years ago and that bio-pic about Margaret Thatcher (like Frida, directed by a woman) from a few years back–which won Meryl Streep an Oscar, but tepid reviews along with a completely irredeemable main character kept me from seeing it. Usually the women in the “great man” films are great only by osmosis, because they married or otherwise provide emotional–and other–support to great men. The actresses who play these roles win Oscars too; they make the “supporting” category a literal one. The Theory of Everything, the new bio-pic about astrophysicist (and best-selling author) Stephen Hawking, seemed like it might be different since it’s based on the book written by the great man’s first wife, Jane.

But the movie begins by focusing on him (Eddie Redmayne) not her, as he rides a bike, attends classes as a Ph.D. student in the early 1960s at Cambridge and acts as a coxswain (complete with megaphone) for the crew rowing on the river. Hawking meets Jane (Felicity Jones) at a student mixer and they become a couple. Hawking’s physical awkwardness could pass for that of any geeky man who considers his body merely a container for his brain, but we know what’s coming before the characters do when we see scenes in which Hawking trips and falls in a train station or his hand folds in on itself as he writes equations on a blackboard. When he has a fall in the yard he receives his diagnosis, ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease), along with the news “Life expectancy is two years.”

At first he avoids Jane and holes up in his room, but after she finds out from his friends about his illness, in a scene we’ve all watched in countless other films, she marches into his room and declares, “I want us to be together for as long as we’ve got.” Stephen resumes his studies and for his thesis topic chooses “time.” He and Jane get married and start to have children soon after.

What follows is a portrait of a marriage that combines all the elements of pre-second-wave feminism at once: Jane has to set aside her studies not just to care for her very young children, to make all the meals and clean the house, but also to care for her husband, whose mobility is rapidly deteriorating, even though he’s still a relatively young adult. At the point where he can walk only with the assistance of two canes and can maneuver the stairs in his house only by lying flat on his back and grasping with his few remaining functional fingers the railing to pull himself up or down, we see Stephen hand in a typed dissertation with a barely legible shaky signature; I couldn’t help wondering if the person who typed it was Jane, since he seems unlikely to have been able to do so himself–and so many wives in that era were also their husbands’ de facto secretaries. We’re also seeing an era in which care for disabled family members was often left to a wife or mother (as opposed to paid staff, unless the family was very wealthy), and no one, not Hawking’s family nor Jane’s, ever thinks of taking over his care for even a few hours at a time to give Jane some respite. On the drive back from a dinner at his family’s hillside cottage in the country, a teary Jane tells Hawking she needs help, but he cuts off any further discussion.

TheoryBed — Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking and Felicity Jones as Jane Hawking

Later Jane’s mother can see how stressed she is and (instead of offering to help) suggests she join a church choir (Jane is a regular churchgoer, a contrast to her outspoken, atheist husband). She then meets the handsome choirmaster, Jonathan (Charlie Cox) who becomes a family friend and also helps with Stephen’s care. Stephen seems to see the spark between his wife and Jonathan from the beginning and lets her know in an indirect way that she is free to pursue the relationship. Here the film is at its most interesting: too many “great man” films seem to sum up the wife or girlfriend character struggle of living with the great man as “she was a saint” without considering that she might have needs of her own. Jane’s situation also parallels many others of the 50s and 60s when women got married in their early 20s and found in their 30s and 40s their marriages did not fulfill their own expectations and ambitions. Jane remains devoted to Stephen but is at her happiest when she spends time with Jonathan. The closeness of their relationship invites the scrutiny of others at the christening of her third child, when her mother-in-law follows her into the kitchen and declares the family has a “right to know” whether the child is Jonathan’s. Jane replies that the child’s father could not be anyone but Stephen.

When Stephen has the health crisis that robs him of the ability to talk without assistance, Jonathan steps back and nurses come into the home to help Stephen, along with a man who designs a device through which Stephen can talk again, by slowly “typing” (actually clicking a monitor to choose letters and phrases) and having an electronic voice read the words. Stephen becomes very close to one nurse in particular, Elaine (Maxine Peake), who even helps him to look through the copies of Penthouse that come to his office. He eventually leaves Jane for her. An end title tells us that Jane eventually got her Ph.D., married Jonathan, and that she and Stephen are still friends.

EverythingSpeaks — Jane watches Stephen “speak” through a device while the woman who will be his second wife looks on.

What the film leaves out are the most interesting parts of the story–not just Hawking’s scientific work (we get explanations that are so oversimplified they don’t make much sense), but also that the nurse Stephen lived with (and eventually married and divorced) was the wife of the man who created his speaking device–and that she was also investigated after other caregivers alleged she physically abused Stephen (during their relationship he had unexplained bruises, broken bones and burns). When Jane did publicity for a previous movie based on her and Stephen’s relationship, she said she couldn’t comment on Elaine (who was still married to Stephen then) for legal reasons. She did admit during interviews that she was friends with Stephen mainly for the sake of the children. And she and Stephen weren’t a couple when he was diagnosed, their romance blossomed afterward, which Jane described as being in keeping with the great optimism of the early 1960s that ran parallel with the belief that nuclear war between the super powers could, at any moment, wipe out the world.

Redmayne does a credible job as Hawking (whose character in the film is much more sympathetic than Jane and news sources have portrayed him; this Hawking never runs over anyone’s toes “accidentally” with his electric wheelchair), especially in the later scenes where we see a certain impishness in his face (very like the real-life Hawking’s), while most of his features remain immobile. Jones as Jane does a serviceable job too, but I wish she had been allowed to look and dress less like Jean Shrimpton (the British supermodel popular in the era when the film begins). At least Redmayne (who is also more conventionally pretty than the person he plays) gets to mess up his hair and wear unflattering glasses; Jones, for much of the film, until she starts wearing a crappy short wig and half-assed “aging” makeup, looks like she could have stepped out of a stodgy, British clothing catalogue, even when Jane has three kids and a disabled husband to take care of, and, as Jane points out in her book, and is briefly referenced in the film, very little money. The filmmakers (screenwriter Anthony McCarten and director James Marsh) didn’t seem to think any of these details were worth including. The Theory of Everything is a good, if very conventional, film, but the real story it’s based on could have been made into a great one.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8QYUgO-tZo”]

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Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing. besides appearing every week on Bitch Flicks, has also been published in The Toast, RH Reality Check, xoJane and the Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender

The Invocation of Inner Demons in Andrzej Żuławski’s ‘Possession’

Mark’s doppelgänger reflects Anna’s fascination with Heinrich’s persona: narcissism, religion, imagination, and his sexual freedom. Anna’s doppelgänger, Helen, is a pure, calm, and collected woman. That’s precisely what Mark wants–the opposite of Anna.

This guest post by Giselle Defares appears as part of our theme week on Demon and Spirit Possession.

Possession in horror is often linked to the control of a person by a demon or spirit. It’s an impending revelation of an evil outside one’s self. Why are we so enthralled with this concept in horror? If you follow the “Beast Within” approach, Joseph Grixti argues that horror stories evoke a certain catharsis as an important mechanism to give a place to deep psychoanalytic and suppressed desires. He believes that “human beings are worried at the core.” In other words: the catharsis within the horror genre can in this way serve as a safety measure. Is that not precisely what Aristotle said on tragedy: “Catharsis through tragedy accounts for the transformation of what would be painful in real life to what is deeply enjoyable when embodied in the structure of a work of art. ” Possession (1981) is often shelved with the other classic horror movies of the 1970s and ‘80s–think of The Exorcist (1973) or The Amityville Horror (1979)–but the horror genre doesn’t fully reflect the intricacies of the movie. Possession is a cult-drama-psychological-thriller- horror to the max.

The Polish director Andrzej Żuławski left his homeland after his second movie, The Devil (1972), was banned. He moved to France and his project Possession got financial backing from a French production studio and was shot in West Germany. His success in France gave Żuławski the opportunity to move back to Poland and work on a project of his own choice. Unfortunately, the Ministry of Cultural Affairs halted the production of his movie On The Silver Globe (1988).

Possession is inspired by real life events (well, sort of). Żuławski penned the script after his marriage to Malgorzata Braunek (Polish star of his first movies) crumbled down and he was left with the care of their son Xawery– who is now a celebrated director in his own right. After its release, the film was heavily cut in the US and banned in Britain, until an uncut VHS release in 1999. Isabelle Adjani received accolades for her role and she won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival, and vowed that she would never play a similar role again.

Possession takes place in gloomy, washed out Berlin. Mark (Sam Neill) comes back from a duty journey–as an international spy does–to his wife and young son, and finds that in his home nothing is as it seems. The opening scene of Possession is focused on the end of a marriage. Anna (Adjani) tells Mark that she feels that she has to leave him. Although she doesn’t quite understand why, she laments “Maybe all couples go through this..?” The tone is set in the first three minutes, and the unraveling of the marriage begins. Anna shows disruptive behavior, becomes unhinged, and sneaks off to her unseen lover. While Mark was away, she had a relationship with Heinrich (Heinz Bennent), who is a kung fu practicing psychiatrist and apparently sexually superior to Mark. Slowly the “family” drama is unfolding.

Possession gives us a marriage where the protagonists are conjuring the demons that we have within ourselves. It was interesting to see Mark decompose himself when Anna asks for a divorce. You slowly see him breaking down, rocking back and forth on his bed, the fear and despair seeping out of his pores. He can’t hold on to his idyllic image he created of Anna. He has to let go, but he can’t. The first half of the film focuses on the dissipation between Mark and Anna. We are voyeurs in their claustrophobic apartment. The second half has a sudden psychedelic and macabre feel. The events are more in the open and all the craziness bursts out. Mark hires a private detective to check on Anna’s whereabouts. She’s been living in an abandoned apartment where she–literally–can hide her monster. Slowly we see the monster evolving and his appearance becomes more human while Mark and Anna fall into despair, violence, and hysteria. The apocalypse is coming.

The movie is filled with metaphors. In one of their numerous shouting matches, Żuławski directly puts a car crash into the shot. Every action in Possession has a double meaning. Whether it’s the location (divided Berlin), or Anna’s hysteria, which is countered by Mark, who remains stiff and stoic. There’s a lot of excess in the movie, whether it be bodily fluids such as vomit, blood, milk, mucus, or the over spilling of emotions from Mark and Anna. While emotions run high, we’re introduced to the presence of the couple’s doppelgängers. Mark’s doppelgänger reflects Anna’s fascination with Heinrich’s persona: narcissism, religion, imagination, and his sexual freedom. Anna’s doppelgänger, Helen, is a pure, calm, and collected woman. That’s precisely what Mark wants–the opposite of Anna. Helen exclaims she comes “from a place where evil seems easier to pinpoint because you can see it in the flesh.” Alright.

“What I miscarried there was Sister Faith and what was left was Sister Chance.”

The relationships are complex. Anna is depicted as the hysterical one in the relationship. Their son Bob functions as their bridge. Bob is the sole reason Anna keeps being lured back into Mark’s arms. Bob spends a lot of time underwater, while practicing his “world record in tub diving.” Anna is driven by a primal instinct, which is repressed by Marks’s cold conservatism. Mark proclaims “God is evil” and succumbs to adultery and abuse. Throughout the film there’s a shot of him gripping his wife and son’s torso, a way to out his dominance and control their body. After the infamous subway passage scene, Anna is finally able to let go of her inner evil and embraces it.

Żuławski’s directorial style is electric yet graceful. The DOP, Bruno Nuytten, uses imaginative camerawork. In various points, he shifts from handheld and shaky camerawork to fluid, kinetic shots while following the couple around. The music by Andrzej Korzunski gives the movie an extra layer of uneasiness while we see the interwoven lives of Mark and Anna unravel and we’re speeding alongside them crashing to a forceful split. Neill and Adjani’s performances are mesmerizing, and they completely submerge themselves in the unfolding hysteria. The FX master Carlo Rambaldi’s humanoid-tentacled-sex-quid monster is mainly shown in dark, shadowy shots which amps the level of gore (Rambaldi is also responsible for giving us the cuddliest of aliens E.T. The Extra- Terrestrial).

It almost seems redundant to mention it, but the comparison is easily made. Possession was the inspiration for Lars von Trier to make Antichrist (2009). Both directors use the horror genre to capture marital strife; the scenes are sexually explicit, and show self-mutilation and gruesome gore.

Żuławski kept the atmosphere dense with subcutaneous tension throughout the film. Possession is a two-hour rollercoaster of emotions and wailing, screaming, violence, sex, and bodily fluids. It shows the complexity of human relationships. Żuławski doesn’t give you the answers. The film is open to interpretation. The demons are not an outside force, but sleep in the hidden depths of our being. At least it will give you some food for thought on your intimate relationships.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWbJbOu9Nxc”]

Giselle Defares enjoys Googling random things, late night conversations, and can’t stray far from the impulse to write it all down. She writes on fashion, film and pop culture here.

Family, Friendship, and Getting By: The Two Mrs. Harts of ‘Reba’

Like many of us, I’m a child of divorce, and I saw firsthand the lasting effects of infidelity and separation. For years, I’ve turned on ‘Reba’ because I find it comforting; everything from the stills of the cluttered kitchen to Reba’s adorable southern twang make me feel very tranquil as I clean or type on my laptop. I detect similarities to my own experiences, such as living in close proximity to a parent’s ex or a father who seems to abandon his former life for a newer, shinier one. ‘Reba’ normalizes these experiences and reminds viewers that every family has its issues.

Written by Jenny Lapekas.

Like many of us, I’m a child of divorce, and I saw firsthand the lasting effects of infidelity and separation. For years, I’ve turned on Reba because I find it comforting; everything from the stills of the cluttered kitchen to Reba’s adorable southern twang make me feel very tranquil as I clean or type on my laptop. I detect similarities to my own experiences, such as living in close proximity to a parent’s ex or a father who seems to abandon his former life for a newer, shinier one. Reba normalizes these experiences and reminds viewers that every family has its issues.

Reba McEntire herself is a sort of meta presence on the show since she plays herself, in a sense–her character’s name is Reba Hart, she sings the theme song at the beginning of each show (“I’m a Survivor”), and her own values seem to be infused into the show’s script and episodes. The character of Reba also seems to be a direct reflection of Reba the person and musician: genuine, caring, and down-to-earth. We enjoy her interactions with Barbra Jean, whether they’re volatile or pleasant. We like it when they bond and get along (not just for the family but because they are true friends), but we also like it when the two fight or when Reba expresses her annoyance at the tall blonde’s routine antic behavior. Certainly, the show’s plot is unrealistic, but I’d argue that it’s still worthwhile to explore this unique friendship shared by two very different women who discover they indeed have more in common than Brock.

It took Reba several seasons to warm up to BJ's manic energy. — It took Reba several seasons to warm up to BJ’s manic energy.

The impossibility of the “new wife” (and former mistress) and ex-wife becoming best friends is at the forefront of this implausibility. Brock is a good father and still “visits” as if he never moved out. Rather than focus on the unbelievable nature of this female friendship, I’d suggest we turn our attention to the healthy post-divorce relationship we see between Reba and Brock. Sure, it’s fantastical and silly, a departure from reality, a pleasant vision of what could be, but also an image of maturity and sophisticated understanding amongst adults–although Kyra usually ends up being the only “adult” when familial conflict arises. The show’s framework suggests not that this type of female friendship is possible (especially involving rivalry and “sharing” a man, in some sense), but that families function even when they don’t function, that hostility and resentment are normal and even healthy components of any family unit.

BJ and Reba in a 'Single White Female' moment. — BJ and Reba in a *Single White Female* moment.

When Reba’s friend asks her, “How can you even let that woman in your house?!” Reba calmly explains that the kids need to see their father and BJ (go ahead and giggle) is now “part of the package.” However, the relationship between the two Mrs. Harts grows into something more complicated than that: Reba genuinely likes BJ. Contrary to the fear that she may be seen as a powerless doormat, Reba displays incredible strength, patience, and maturity by inevitably becoming BJ’s best friend, despite Reba’s best attempts to prevent the pair’s apparent non-relationship from evolving into anything greater. Viewers may interpret this move as a decision to lay down and endure Brock’s adultery; however, the friendship the women share is an acknowledgment of forgiveness, a radical surrender that frames the world as one that keeps spinning in the face of conflict. There is in fact life after divorce.

BJ represents a very negative stereotype and a cliche: the mistress who ruined a marriage by having an affair with another woman’s husband. However, BJ challenges this stereotype we long to hate so much; she is a larger than life presence, a walking, breathing caricature that we come to adore. As the family celebrates Jake’s birthday party, Kyra eloquently explains that it’s not enough for BJ to plan or attend the party, she is the party. She substitutes the ogre we imagine her to be, the “type of woman” who breaks up a marriage, who sleeps with a married man. BJ humanizes the typecast role assigned to her–she’s charming, she longs to help those around her, and she’s a genuinely good person. Reba explains, “This hasn’t been easy for me, Barbra Jean,” and BJ retorts, “It has just been a freaking picnic for me!” As BJ explains that she’s the “other woman” and is affected by the gossip and phoniness that surround her as well, we’re allowed a glimpse of what it’s like to be blamed for destroying a marriage. Deep down, all BJ wants is to be liked and accepted. In fact, sometimes it seems that she’s willing to forfeit her marriage with Brock in favor of taking on Reba as a permanent partner instead.

The pair attend a women's self-defense class, but inevitably beat up each other. — The pair attend a women’s self-defense class, but inevitably beat up each other.

When an elderly babysitter proves incapable of managing the kids and the household in Reba’s absence, BJ steps in, cooking delicious meals, organizing the kitchen, and even pouring Reba a glass of wine to help her relax after a long day. Inevitably, Jake hugs BJ and calls her “Mommy,” and Reba is left bitter and horrified. During “girl talk,” Brock wanders in and asks BJ if she’s ever coming home, and BJ informs him that she didn’t make enough food to include him in dinner. Thrilled with BJ’s domestic skills, Reba tells Brock, “I’m starting to see why you left me for her,” and Brock says, “You’re the one with the new wife.” As a result, the house becomes a venue to celebrate this pseudo lesbian relationship, where the needs of the kids are put first, and yes, Brock is still a guest. Although none of the characters realize it, this short-lived partnership is one of great power, demonstrating household productivity and childcare at its zenith.

At times, the trio also seems to mimic a polygamous relationship, such as when Reba tries to repair Brock and BJ’s rocky marriage by counseling them and even offering tips on how to improve their sex life. Much of Reba’s advice is comically common sense, such as instructing Brock to tell BJ that he reversed his vasectomy or telling BJ not to have an emotional affair with the OnStar guy inside the couple’s car. Despite Brock’s past indiscretions, Reba’s priority is the wellness of her family, which includes a successful second marriage for her kids’ father. It’s no mistake the family’s last name is Hart; Reba is clearly the heart of the family, the force around which the others gather, the light BJ finds herself so drawn to.

BJ is eager to exploit Reba's temporary blindness in order to gain her trust. — BJ is eager to exploit Reba’s temporary blindness in order to gain her trust.

Even if mine isn’t a popular assessment of BJ’s character, we must admit that we need BJ’s wacky shenanigans to counterbalance Reba’s responsibility, earnestness, and sophistication; there’s no denying that the women’s joint energy creates a dynamic force that carries much of the show. BJ’s character challenges our assumptions about the labels we quickly and often unfairly place on women both real and fictional: home-wrecker, whore, gold-digger, etc. While Reba offers guidance to the naive BJ, the nutty blonde often includes Reba in her misadventures, such as setting up Reba on a blind date or caring for the stubborn redhead after undergoing corrective eye surgery. Regardless of how we feel about the plot of Reba, BJ bursting through the door unannounced and uninvited, along with Brock freely coming and going in a house he no longer lives in draws not an image of turmoil but one of family. BJ’s involvement as a stepmother doesn’t spell dysfunction; rather, the relationships we see on the ABC Family show are nothing if not healthy and honest. In fact, the unlikelihood of the Hart clan’s situation may be exactly why Reba has had such success. My advice: Let the marital stuff go; sit back and enjoy the fact that we’ve been drugged by a witty script, inspiring messages, and a variety of comedic personalities who easily suspend disbelief, all on one lovely show.

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Jenny holds a Master of Arts in English, and she is a part-time instructor at a community college in Pennsylvania. Her areas of scholarship include women’s literature, menstrual literacy, and rape-revenge cinema. She lives with two naughty chihuahuas. You can find her on WordPress and Pinterest.

Older Women Week: You Don’t Own Me: ‘The First Wives Club’ and Feminism

Movie poster for The First Wives Club

This guest post by Mia Steinle previously appeared at Canonball and is cross-posted with permission.

In the late nineties, as I was entering early teenagerdom and as a group of marketers was inventing the term “tween,” my favorite movie was about a group of middle-aged divorcees waging war on their self-centered ex-husbands. The First Wives Club had come out in 1996, and it’s possible — nay, likely — that my parents rented it from our local Blockbuster shortly thereafter, but it wasn’t until some years later, at the dawn of a new millennium, that I was treated to this quintessentially 90s nugget of female empowerment, over and over again on my friend’s VCR.

Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, and Bette Midler in The First Wives Club

We admired Bette Midler as ballsy, street-smart Brenda, who is incensed that her ex-husband Morty has the gall to bring his girlfriend (Sarah Jessica Parker) to their son’s bar mitzvah. We laughed at Goldie Hawn as Elise, a habitually drunk, botoxed actress, whose producer ex-husband has just taken up with an even younger actress (Elizabeth Berkeley, whose performance makes SJP look like a comedic genius). And, while the other ladies are fun and glamorous, I think we were most touched by the neurotic realism of Diane Keaton as Annie, an anxious, eager-to-please, but ready-to-burst housewife whose husband (played by the Rev. Eric Camden, aka Stephen Collins) leaves her for their therapist.

After the suicide of a mutual friend — a woman who gave the best years of her life, and her self-esteem, to a man who then left her for a younger woman — the ladies band together to get back at their exes. As Annie explains, it’s a matter of justice; they made life easy for their ex-husbands for years, only to be discarded in middle-age — that time of life when society tries to force women into invisibility: sexually, romantically and professionally.

The ladies set to work destroying their exes, using a combination of cunning and, perhaps most unconventionally, financial savvy. Their greatest successes aren’t born of cat fights with second wives, but of their ability to read tax returns (Morty cheated on his), rig auctions (Annie uses her winnings to buy ownership of her ex-husband’s advertising firm) and do simple arithmetic (turns out Elise’s ex-husband’s new girlfriend is only 16). And their accomplices, on the surface, are the types of characters who don’t usually get to be clever, the types of characters we’re supposed to laugh at. But Maggie Smith as a wealthy socialite, Jennifer Dundas as Annie’s lesbian and feminist daughter and Bronson Pinchot as an interior decorator of vague foreign origin, are just as smart and savvy as the first wives. Not being male, not being young and not being straight aren’t liabilities for these characters.

As a 12-year-old, my life bore little resemblance to theirs, but The First Wives Club gave me one of my first, delicious glimpses into womanhood — a womanhood that includes sassy retorts and getting drunk at lunch and hanging out with your best friends (and also with Bronson Pinchot and Gloria Steinem). It’s a version of womanhood where we know that Maggie Smith, no matter how old, is always cooler than Sarah Jessica Parker. Where finding out that your daughter is a lesbian is no big thing. (“Lesbians are great nowadays!” Annie remarks after hearing the news.) Where female empowerment isn’t just a nebulous buzzword, but something you achieve and celebrate.

When I sat down this week to watch the movie with fellow Canonball editor Lindsay (who had never seen it before — by contrast, our contributor James owns two copies), I wondered how it had weathered the 15 years since its release. But, really, aside from a few instances of characters exclaiming, “It’s the nineties!” the movie holds up surprisingly well. In a way, it’s almost more progressive than a lot of today’s female-led comedies. Spoiler: while we’re left to assume that Brenda and Morty are going to get back together, neither attention-seeking Elise nor insecure Annie take back their ex-husbands. As Annie explains:

He wants to come home again and he feels emotionally ready to recommit to an equitable and caring relationship. I told him to drop dead.

Because at its core, The First Wives Club isn’t a story about romance or marriage. It’s a story about finding the bravery to stand up for yourself — especially when “yourself” is a woman, and not the young, pretty kind either. And seeing Keaton’s Annie transform from the nervous wreck that I so deeply identify with, to the kind of woman who can tell the dad from 7th Heaven to drop dead, is like a breath of fresh air.

Mia Steinle is a journalist living in Washington, D.C. Her work has appeared in Huffington Post, Columbia Journalism Review, and POLITICO, among others.

Wedding Week: The Roundup

Father of the Bride Values Relationships With Women by Mab Ryan

Father of the Bride (1991) is aptly named, as its focus is not on the wedding itself or the couple involved but on the titular character’s neuroses and journey to maturity. The wedding is the backdrop and the incident that provokes growth in the main character; it follows the wedding script in toto, so if you’re unfamiliar with any of the conventions of a traditional US wedding, this movie is a great primer. It’s an outrageously expensive, white wedding for thin, wealthy, white folks. People of color and gay men exist as support staff and magical queers. But the movie’s take on gender roles is constructive. Despite its focus on a male character, the movie is really about the affection a father feels for his daughter. He’s always recognized her as an individual person; now he must recognize her as an individual adult person.

Coming to America and Coming to Terms with New Marriage Traditions by Leigh Kolb

The plot is pretty predictable. Female subservience is challenged, but standards of female beauty aren’t. The characters aren’t remarkably complex, but their motives are clear and almost always understandable. That said, this is a romantic comedy. I don’t mean to demean the genre as a whole, but I think it’s safe to say most blockbuster romantic comedies are pretty damn problematic, so to have a romantic comedy that subverts the notion of valuing wives who are simply beautiful and submissive while featuring a predominantly black cast and depicting Africa positively, I’d say that’s a win.

Do or Do Not by Emily Campbell

And this is where the real problem comes in. We’re clearly supposed to feel bad for Jack’s plight and the DOMA-fueled injustice being heaped on him. But as things escalate and Jack suddenly falls for Spanish architect Mano (Maurice Compte), the casual viewer is more likely to feel bad for Ali, who has to deal with him gallivanting all over the place and not even trying to make their relationship seem remotely realistic. Her future is on the line right along with Jack’s, but Jack never seems to have an inkling of just how big of a risk they’re taking for his sake.

The Top Hollywood Wedding Scenes by Marcela De Vivo

Weddings in the movies and in television always seem to be more elaborate than those we experience in reality. Fictional characters with traditionally low-paying jobs somehow find a way to have a wedding that would cost literally a million dollars in the real world. They’re often over-the-top with hundreds of guests, extravagant meals and elaborate ice sculptures–you know, fluff.

Another Indie Wedding … And Breakup in Save the Date by Rachel Redfern

This is the second time I’ve seen Lizzy Caplan in her easy portrayal of the emotionally damaged wild child, the first being in Bachelorette where similarly, the wedding brings up all of her feelings about past relationships and a surprise pregnancy. It’s a character I like, one that while not original, is also not the most common of characters (similar to Natalie Portman in Friends With Benefits, Charlize Theron in Sweet November). But I like the character; it’s one where, rather than neurotic, and desperately searching for love and marriage, she’s the opposite–skittish and non-committal, frustrating and sexy.

Bride Wars: When Weddings Drive a Bitch Crazy by Alisande Fitzsimons

No, in Bride Wars that brand of madness is entirely female. This says nothing good or particularly realistic about the state of mind of the modern adult female. I mean, yes, we get hurt and pissed off when our friends do something that seems designed to cause pain to us, but how many of us who are not mentally ill follow them around, actively trying to ruin one of the most significant and expensive days of their lives?

Why We All Need to See Bridesmaids by Molly McCaffrey

Kristen Wiig’s character goes through the same kinds of ordeals we all go through—the kind that make us question who we are and what life is about. And her struggles are so frustrating and so moving that I found myself actually sobbing through the middle of the movie. The crazy thing about it is that while I was sobbing, I also started laughing. I’ve laughed and cried in a movie, but I’ve never before done both at the same time, and I did both while watching this movie more than once. I always tell my students that over-the-top comedy only works if it is paired with real, honest emotion, and my response proves that is something Bridesmaids does really well.

Shrek: Happily Ever After Gets a Green Makeover by Megan Wright

Fiona’s self-loathing over her ogre self goes extremely deep. When she confesses that she’s an ogre to Donkey, she says that no one would want to marry a beast like her. Shrek overhears this, and believes she’s talking about him. When he confronts her about it, and throws her words back in her face, she immediately assumes he’s talking about her. Fiona has overheard Shrek make comments about his identity as an ogre and the issues that come with it, so it wouldn’t be a huge leap for her to consider the possibility that Shrek overheard her and thought she was talking about him. But Fiona’s self loathing runs so deep that she doesn’t even consider the possibility.

Sex and the City: The Movie We Hate to Love by Amanda Morris

Revisiting this film five years later (as a happily paired person once again), I find myself chafing against the film even as I enjoy the drama. The choices and mistakes that Carrie make from the time that she and Big decide to marry to the moment he leaves her at the altar about a third of the way through the story are the choices and mistakes that many modern American women make: ignore the man and his wishes, allow friends to convince you that you need a fancier dress, venue, event, and become more enamored with the grandeur and history of a luxurious location over the real fears and concerns your partner has about a large, intimidating, and ostentatious event.

My Best Friend’s Wedding Is a Right-Wing Nightmare Interpretation of Women by Mab Ryan

To make matters more homophobic, in a move that makes absolutely no sense, George is press-ganged into playing the part of Julianne’s fiancé. It’s really gross to watch a gay man forced to play beard to a straight woman, shoved into a closet to suit her conniving privilege. Kimmy hyperventilates in relief that Julianne is apparently no longer her competition, because nothing promises a more stable marriage than making sure there are no hot women around to tempt your man. George gets his revenge by telling apocryphal stories about meeting Julianne in a mental institution where she was receiving shock therapy, because we might as well add mocking the mentally ill to this movie’s list of sins.

Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing and the Wedding That Wasn’t by Lady T

Leonato’s denunciation of Hero is the most disturbing moment of the film, as it should be. Verbal and physical abuse at the hand of a lover or boyfriend is traumatizing and life-altering, but there is something profoundly and uniquely painful in suffering at the hands of a parent. The casting of Clark Gregg, aka everyone’s favorite Agent Coulson from The Avengers, is a particularly brilliant move; any fan of Joss Whedon’s is conditioned to see Gregg as a good guy, and the moment of betrayal feels particularly pointed when coming from the mouth of such a likable actor.

Bigger Than Big: Marriage and Female Bonding in Sex and the City: The Movie by Jenny Lapekas

So, is this a feminist film? Well, I think it highlights the significance of female friendship, but Carrie falling comatose when she’s jilted at the altar seems a bit much. While Carrie hires an assistant to organize her life, romantic love seems to be the ultimate goal. Meanwhile, Carrie bonds with the separated Miranda by telling her that she’s “not alone,” she reaches an understanding with the anti-marriage Samantha, and she celebrates Charlotte’s baby-bliss, even as she mourns her relationship, which has not actually ended. The film has its moments, and Carrie overcomes her obstacles without the direction or approval of any man. However, the film’s bigoted lines and treatment of Louise as a modern-day slave leave a bad taste in my mouth.

The HitchDied Guide to Wedding Movies by Robin Hitchcock

Even though I had fun with it, I have to say if you are engaged, you should probably limit your exposure to wedding movies. Because so many of them end with broken engagements or dramatic jiltings at the altar, you’ll start seeing potential wedding saboteurs in all your friends, family, and hired wedding professionals. You’ll see the obviously doomed engagements at the start of those movies and worry that if those characters could be so deluded, are you and your partner as well? You’ll think spending thousands of dollars renting chairs is ok because at least you didn’t invite random strangers from your mother’s past for an ABBA-scored paternity-off.

You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You: Muriel’s Wedding and the Promise of Bridal Transformation by Jessica Freeman-Slade

Muriel’s Wedding is basically a cautionary tale about valuing status and reputation over real connection. Muriel knows that she’s happy with Rhonda in Sydney, but by fulfilling her fantasies of beauty, wealth, and romantic achievement, she forgets her real strength: her honesty, decency, and kindness. These strengths were all there in her mother, Betty, whose cruel fate turns the movie from a girly romp into something much more meditative. She is talked over, pushed around, and utterly ignored, invisible even in her own home. Betty barely gets a moment of self-determination before she commits suicide, and her presence is felt most deeply in the frightening image of the Heslop backyard: a swath of literally scorched earth, where nothing can grow if nothing is tended and cared for.

“You Were Dead Until Now”: A Review of Bride Wars by Ece Okar

Jumping the Broom Addresses Racial Hangups While Marrying Ancestral Tradition by Janyce Denise Glasper

Jumping the Broom focuses on two strong customs — one being jumping the broom that has predated slavery, which Jason’s mother Pamela strongly supports, and saving sex for marriage. Sabrina and Jason obviously have strong physical desires for one another, but they’re willing to postpone physical intercourse and are continuing to know each other on various intimate levels — emotional primarily. This isn’t essentially common in most romantic films, especially an African American centric film.

Four Weddings and a Funeral: 20 Years Later and Still So Far to Go by Myrna Waldron

Twenty years after Four Weddings and a Funeral, it strikes me that very little has changed. If this film were made today, Gareth and Matthew could enter into a formal civil partnership, but regardless, Charles may not have realized just how deep and committed their relationship had been all along. It’s still very bitter and chilling that it was the committed gay couple that was separated by death. The real theme of this film isn’t weddings and marriage, it’s commitment. Twenty years later, there’s still so little representation of disabled people in films. I honestly can’t think of another film I’ve seen with a deaf-mute character. There should have been more racial minorities in the cast, even in minor roles, instead of just one 5-second shot of a black extra at the funeral. And as comparatively progressive as this film is, all it does is make me think how ridiculous American films look. A film made in a country with a fraction of the US population is more representative of minorities than most films made in a country with 316 million goddamn people.

Sixteen Candles, Rape Culture, and the Anti-Woman Politics of 2013 by Stephanie Rogers

People who claim to believe films and TV and pop culture moments like this are somehow disconnected from perpetuating rape need to take a step back and really think about the message this sends. I refuse to accept that a person could watch this scene from an iconic John Hughes film—where, after a party, a drunk woman is literally passed around by two men and photographed—and not see the connection between the Steubenville rape—where, after a party, a woman was literally passed around by two men and photographed.

These posts about wedding films previously appeared at Bitch Flicks:

Movie Review: Rachel Getting Married by Stephanie Rogers

Rachel Getting Married: A Response by Amber Leab

Documentary Preview: Arusi Persian Wedding by Amber Leab

Review in Conversation: Sex and the City: The Movie by Stephanie Rogers and Amber Leab

Bachelorette Proves Bad People Can Make Great Characters by Robin Hitchcock

Feminism in Aiyyaa and Why It Ain’t Such a Bad Movie by Rhea Daniel

Realistic Depictions of Women and Female Friendship in Muriel’s Wedding by Libby White

Romantic Comedy (and Female Friendship) Arranged Marriage Style by Rachel Redfern

Movie Review: Something Borrowed by Megan Kearns

Movie Review: Melancholia by Olivia Bernal

The Five-Year Engagement: Exploration of Gender Roles & Lovable Actors Can’t Save Rom-Com’s Subtly Anti-Feminist Message by Megan Kearns

Bros Before Hoes, or How Kidnapping Makes for Great Dance Numbers: On Seven Brides for Seven Brothers by Jessica Freeman-Slade

Movie Review: Melancholia by Hannah Reck

Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids by Janyce Denise Glasper

“Love” Is “Actually” All Around Us (and Other Not-So-Deep Sentiments) by Lady T

Everything You Need to Know About Space: 10 Reasons to Watch (and Love!) Imagine Me & You by Marcia Herring

The Reception of Corpse Bride by Myrna Waldron

Movie Review: Room In Rome by Djelloul Marbrook

Movie Review: 500 Days of Summer by Stephanie Rogers

(95) Minutes of Pure Torture: 500 Days of Summer by Deborah Nadler

Gay Rights and Gay Times: Gender Commentary in Husbands by Rachel Redfern

Bridesmaids: Brunch, Brazilian Food, Baking, and Best Friends by Laura A. Shamas

The Flattening of Celine: How ‘Before Midnight’ Reduces a Feminist Icon

This is a guest post by Molly McCaffrey.

Before Midnight movie poster

There are numerous reasons why Before Midnight—the third film in the Richard Linklater Before Sunrise/Before Sunset trilogy—is an important film.

Jesse and Celine in Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight

It’s an important film first and foremost because it’s a film about grown-ups doing grown-up things. The main characters—Celine (played by Julie Delpy) and Jesse (played by Ethan Hawke)—are in their forties raising two kids together, so the film revolves around the kind of issues such people face: how to be good parents, how to balance the needs of their careers, how to keep the spark alive in their relationship, how to deal with the aging process, etc.

Celine, Jesse, and daughters in the car

Thankfully the film doesn’t ever give into the gross-out humor that seems to almost be a requirement now for other movies about middle-age—This Is 40, Funny People, and Bridesmaids come to mind (as if moviegoers won’t see a movie that doesn’t have at least one fart joke or an explosion).

Movie poster for This Is 40

Before Midnight—like its predecessors—is also important because of its focus on character development, writing, and acting. This is because, thankfully, the major players and co-writers—Linklater, Delpy, and Hawke—believe in creating art that is both realistic and thoughtful. It seems obvious that the three of them want viewers to walk out of the theater asking relevant philosophical questions about both themselves and the characters, a goal which on its own makes these films admirable.

Jesse and Celine holding hands

Further demonstrating its importance is the fact that, unlike almost every other movie made today, the characters in this film look real. Sure, when the first film in the trilogy—Before Sunrise—came out, these actors had movie star faces and bodies:

Jesse and Celine in Before Sunrise

But by now they look like regular people:

Jesse and Celine in Before Midnight

Celine has fleshy arms, big hips, thick thighs, and a bit of a stomach while Jesse’s age shows in his drawn face, his lined forehead, and the countless wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. Neither of these actors is likely to be cast in the part of the leading woman or man in a Hollywood film, but it’s their so-called flaws that make them so interesting and, in the case of Celine, so beautiful and such an inspiration. If more actresses looked like Celine, then maybe American women would finally learn to give up the notion that they must be thin to be attractive.

Jesse and Celine in Before Midnight

But for all of its accomplishments, there is a major problem at the heart of Before Midnight, and that problem is that Celine’s character is no longer believable or even entirely empathetic. This is in contrast to Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, where both Celine and Jesse are depicted as the most likeable and well-rounded liberals on the planet.

Celine and Jesse

In all three of the films, Celine’s feminism is a central focus of the story: she talks to Jesse about her desire to have her own life, her own ideas, and to not be defined by a man. And in Before Sunset and Before Sunrise, she expresses a desire to fall in love and share her life with a man in a committed relationship. In that way, Celine is a wonderful depiction of a modern heterosexual feminist, something we don’t see often enough on the big (or little) screen.

Celine and Jesse arguing in the car

But in Before Midnight, Celine’s feminism pushes her to behave in ways we’ve not seen her do before—she seems much more hostile and much less empathetic toward Jesse even though he has supported her values and her career throughout their nine-year relationship.

Celine and daughters

This is especially surprising given that in the first two films, Celine and Jesse agree about gender roles and feminist issues. But in Before Midnight they fight about it from start to finish—even though Jesse agrees with all of Celine’s ideals, making Celine’s depiction unrealistic and troubling.

This problem manifests itself in the following ways: *SPOILERS AHEAD*

1) Celine demonstrates no empathy for Jesse when he expresses regret after they drop off his son at the airport at the end of the summer so he can return home to his mother in the U.S.

Later Celine claims that Jesse is always moody after his son leaves, so it’s surprising that she isn’t more empathetic in this situation. Isn’t that what people do in a healthy relationship? Anticipate each other’s struggles and help them through it? This is just the first example of the ways that Celine acts as if they are in an unhealthy or unhappy relationship even though there are no other signs that they are.

2) Instead of being empathetic in that moment, Celine picks a fight with Jesse, insisting that he wants her to give up her career and move to the States even though he doesn’t ever say that he does.

It would have been so much more interesting for them to have a real discussion about this issue since that’s what healthy couples usually do in these types of impossible situations—acknowledge the difficulty of it, weigh the pros and cons over a period of time, and then make a decision. But Celine seems to see Jesse as incapable of compromising or working with her even though he has evidently done so in the past.

3) She won’t consider moving to the U.S., so Jesse can live near his son even though he moved to France so she could be near her mother when giving birth to their twin daughters.

Not only won’t she move, she doesn’t even want to talk about moving. Her resistance to merely discussing the idea seems strange simply because he has moved for her in the past, and again a healthy relationship between two intelligent adults often requires both of them to put the other’s career first at different times.

4) Celine brings up their problems in front of others at dinner.

There’s not much to say about this except that it’s such an immature move that it doesn’t fit at all with what we already know about Celine, a successful, intelligent, confident woman.

5) She offers little support when Jesse’s grandmother dies.

Not only does she change the subject pretty quickly, but she also declines to go to the funeral when he asks her to do so.

6) Celine implies Jesse was only drawn to her for superficial reasons.

At one point Celine asks Jesse if he would still want her to spend the day with him if he saw her on a train today. It’s a ridiculous question considering how beautiful and intelligent Celine is, especially given that Jesse hasn’t aged as well as she has, a fact acknowledged by Jesse when he says, “The real question is would you want to get off the train with me.” As a result, her question seems to imply that he—and all men by extension—are only attracted to young women and could not possibly find a forty-year-old woman attractive, an idea that may be believable in Hollywood but doesn’t hold water in the world Linklater has created for Celine and Jesse.

7) She resents his career and does so while simultaneously asking him to respect hers.

This resentment is demonstrated when she complains about their trip to Greece to spend time with another author, when she is reluctant to autograph Jesse’s books for a fan in their hotel (even though the books are about her), and when she insists he is never allowed to write about her again. It’s hard to believe that a true feminist—like the Celine we have come to know and love in the earlier films—would indulge in this kind of hypocritical behavior.

8) She holds Jesse responsible for all of her problems with men and the patriarchal society we live in.

She does this even though he’s proven he’s not that kind of guy and understands she’s not the kind of woman who would put up with that kind of man, explaining, “You could never be submissive to anybody.”

9) Finally, this problem comes to an ugly head when Celine tells Jesse—at the height of their argument about their future—that she doesn’t think she loves him anymore and then walks out on him.

It’s a cruel thing to say even if she does mean it, but the fact that Jesse doesn’t take it seriously and they make up leads the viewer to believe that she doesn’t even mean it and has possibly even said—or insinuated it—before. In that sense, it feels like she is playing a game with him, a dangerous childish game that is the adult equivalent of sticking your tongue out at someone. It’s a moment when Celine shows no respect for Jesse’s feelings, and viewers are left to wonder how she can expect him to respect her if she doesn’t do the same for him.

******

Because other aspects of this film—including acting and characterization—are so strong, I can only conclude that these problems with Celine are the result of bad writing. It’s certainly true that the writing in Before Midnight lacks the subtlety and complexity evident in the first two films.

Good writing demands well-rounded characters, but Celine seems more flat and one-dimensional in this film than she ever has before. Jesse’s flaws are rather ordinary—he doesn’t like to clean the house, and he has stubbornly held onto his slacker facial hair. But Celine’s flaws are the opposite of ordinary—rather than being average, they are so extreme in the third film that they don’t even seem believable given what else we know about her character. If she’s an educated, intelligent, confident, and strong woman, why doesn’t she trust the man who loves these things about her?

Though they haven’t done it before, Linklater, Delpy, and Hawke fall back on stereotypical ideas about what it means to be a feminist when writing Celine’s dialogue for this film. They make her seem harsh and narrow-minded—even irrational at times—rather than thoughtful and open-minded. In this way, the film harkens back to another well-known “talky” film about a heterosexual couple discussing important issues, 1978’s Same Time, Next Year.

Movie poster for Same Time, Next Year

Unfortunately it feels like Before Midnight also co-opted that film’s take on intelligent couples by merely showing them in constant disagreement. It’s a depiction that feels outdated given what we know by now about communication in healthy, equitable relationships.

This seems to be an honest mistake, but it’s a disappointing one nonetheless, especially since it’s so hard to find movies about strong feminists and because the two previous films sidestepped these landmines so well by making Celine both willful and caring.

In fact, by depicting strong, intelligent women as incapable of compromise and empathy, Before Midnight reinforces all of the ugly stereotypes about feminists and sends the message that you can’t be a good feminist if you stay home with the kids or sew curtains or move for your spouse. When in reality, feminists—female and male alike—can do all of the above since feminism isn’t about acting a certain way but rather about embracing equality.

This misrepresentation is alluded to when Celine says to Jesse, “I feel close to you… But sometimes, I don’t know? I feel like you’re breathing helium and I’m breathing oxygen.”

It’s this comment that best sums up the problems with the film because it implies that men and women are reduced simply to their differences and that they are, in fact, so different that they cannot possibly relate, agree, compromise, or even get along past a certain point in their relationship. It’s a rehashing of the old men-are-from-Mars-women-are-from-Venus idea that is anti-feminist and unbelievable as well as being one that this viewer found very difficult to relate to.

Molly McCaffrey is the author of the short story collection How to Survive Graduate School & Other Disasters, the co-editor of Commutability: Stories about the Journey from Here to There, and the founder of I Will Not Diet, a blog devoted to healthy living and body acceptance. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati and has worked with Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple and World War Z author, Max Brooks. Currently she teaches at Western Kentucky University and designs books for Steel Toe Books. She has just finished work on her first memoir, You Belong to Us, which tells the story of McCaffrey meeting her biological family.

Wedding Week: "Jumping The Broom" Addresses Racial Hangups While Marrying Ancestral Tradition

Jumping the Broom poster.

Written by Janyce Denise Glasper

Uh oh!

Sabrina Watson has done it again!

“I promise you, God, if you get me out of this situation, I’ll only share my cookies with the man I marry,” she exclaims subconsciously.

Jumping the Broom is Arlene Gibbs first screenwriting credit.

Jumping The Broom, co-written by two women — Arlene Gibbs and Elizabeth Hunter (Beauty Shop and Abducted: The Carlina White Story), beats up tired stereotypes, plays religious poker, and opens up a can of scandalous worms at a wedding for two successful African American lovebirds who’ve only known each other for six months- Sabrina Watson and Jason Taylor.

Exciting, smart, and worldly, Sabrina is a formerly licentious woman seeking to change her approach in regards to relationships and calls on the Lord Almighty for aide; promising to stop fooling around with unworthy men. Salvation arrives in the form of Jason. After she accidentally hits him with her car, she apologizes profusely and makes it up to him by introducing refined, cultured sides of life- theaters, opera, and art galleries all while vowing celibacy. He certainly doesn’t mind waiting for the latter and enjoys the pain free newness she brings to his life.

By month five, Sabrina has received an opportunity of a lifetime — a promotion in China. Jason doesn’t appear thrilled; saying that he can’t be in a long distance relationship. This breaks Sabrina’s heart in an awkward scene. She gives him back gifted red rose, stares sideways at him, teary eyed, looking for validation and a singer’s serenade grows louder as quiet tension builds between the couple.

Jason (Laz Alonso) springs on the ultimate surprise for Sabrina (Paula Patton).

But alas, Jason proposes, wants to marry immediately, and move with Sabrina to China! A man willing to change lifestyle habits, possibly career, and fly around the world for a woman? Yes!

Opening credits roll with black and white montage celebrating happily wedded blissful couples still carrying on a tradition used in weddings today.

Jumping the Broom focuses on two strong customs — one being jumping the broom that has predated slavery, which Jason’s mother Pamela strongly supports, and saving sex for marriage. Sabrina and Jason obviously have strong physical desires for one another, but they’re willing to postpone physical intercourse and are continuing to know each other on various intimate levels- emotional primarily. This isn’t essentially common in most romantic films, especially an African American centric film.

Jumping the Broom co writer, Elizabeth Hunter.

Yes. The introduction reveals Sabrina to be a bit promiscuous, but she seems to always be regretful and ashamed by one night “cookie” stands. She commits to moralistic goals in ironclad obligation; having to even “fight” Jason off with a few kisses and eloquent French tongued whispers to temporarily dampen his arousing impatience.

The opinions that run amok between Sabrina’s and Jason’s prospective parties include many stereotypes in ideas of rushed marriage. Some believe that Jason has gotten Sabrina pregnant including Claudine, Sabrina’s overbearing mother. It brings about this peculiar lifelong notion that if both parents are unionized into marriage sanctity, the unborn child would be protected from the “sin” of being born on the wrong side of the blanket. The added plus is that the woman would be a wife and “saved” from “Baby’s Mama” label. Others, the ones who know that Sabrina and Jason haven’t slept together, believe that Jason is either cheating or being on the “down low.” This is also particularly disturbing. It’s incredibly mind-boggling that a man who can refrain from sex must be unfaithful or gay! When Jason confesses that he can hold out longer- a few weeks, but still, it just suggests that patience truly exists in the world. He was probably a monk in his past life.

Lauren (Tenisha Davis), Sabrina (Paula Patton), and Blythe (Meagan Good) have pre-wedding girl talk.

The filmmakers are validating these society extremes and addressing that Sabrina and Jason’s friends should not incite intrusive gossip without honest facts and have a lot to learn about real love and integrity.

However, “jumping the broom!” is one tradition that Sabrina and Jason are dead set against and this infuriates Anger Management attendee Pamela to a heated rage.

It’s the formalistic Capulets versus the Montagues reincarnated as angry spiritual working class black lady verses the high cultured, fluent French speaking mother who- gasps- has traced her roots to her family actually owning slaves and says this in a boast filled breath.

Shondra (Tasha Smith) and Pamela (Loretta Devine) at the post office discussing Jason’s wedding.

At first, aristocratic Claudine Watson looks to be a cold, frozen wave of upper crust vile, but is instead a misunderstood, determined, intelligent woman bottling emotionally layered scars underneath sarcastic exterior. She believes her husband, Greg is cheating on her, has a severely strained relationship with her sister, Geneva, and doesn’t take well to the “ghetto” presence Jason’s family brings to the eloquent Watson Estate on Martha’s Vineyard. However, the shocking fact that her infertility, an unbearably complex subject matter to address, is revealed in a gutturally delivered slap that is just as painful sounding as the back palmed hand that delivers it.

And Pamela Taylor hears all the soapy juiciness. Now there’s a reason she wasn’t invited to the brunch held a month prior to the wedding date. It wasn’t because she works as a loud, outspoken, and rude post office worker. She has apparently ruined every relationship Jason’s ever had. Upset that Jason doesn’t want to carry on the family tradition and that ignorance is definitely not bliss when the Watsons have an angry French tirade about her “backward”comments, Pamela nastily destroys Sabrina’s perfect upbringing in front of everyone. It’s kind of pathetic that she can be hurtful, cling to Bible like a shield, and believe her actions are just. This allows Jason to finally give her an ultimatum- she has to change (as in be a mother figure to him) or not be in his life.

Sabrina (Paula Patton) with the woman who raised her, Claudine (Angela Bassett).

After brutal climax, Geneva tells runaway bride Sabrina the bitter truth about her parentage- she’s the product of an affair Geneva had at age sixteen with a married man in France. With the hefty amount of French the Watsons kept speaking, it’s safe to say that Paris is definitely the new Las Vegas. Except well, what happened in Paris didn’t exactly stay there, but at least the infertile Claudine and Greg got to love Sabrina from the start. Geneva gave Sabrina to Claudine because she was married which comes back to stereotypes of children born out of wedlock. Two parents are not only better than one, but a much stronger unit, especially married and this message cannot be implanted enough. Geneva may have been from a rich family, but Claudine had the motherly instincts she didn’t have at the time and it’s been quite obvious that Geneva was making up for that.

Jason (Laz Alonso) and his mother, Pamela (Loretta Devine).

Although the Watsons are not seen reading Bibles as much as Pamela is, the holy presence is stressed so strongly that it binds these two families like an invisible cord.

Gibbs and Hunter’s story also shed light on contradictions that sadly still exist. Julie Bowen’s character Amy plays the white servant who mutters ignorant racial fodder- “why is she so light” when seeing Claudine’s sister, she impermissibly touches Shonda’s braids like she was at a petting zoo, and complains about the chef who sees Jason’s family as being “chicken folk.” Funnily enough, Jason’s immature and equally ignorant cousin, Malcolm says comments such as “you’re pretty for a dark skinned girl” (the ugliest and most hurtful insult to a colored woman) and has a white people hate complex, but winds up being the one to dance with Amy. Maybe both of their prejudices are supposed to cancel each other out?

Before committing fully to Jason once more, Sabrina understands her family and accepts the truth.

Differences become swept aside. Claudine’s marriage isn’t as heartless as originally appeared and Pamela sets forth to live in the present. Other ladies find unintentional romance post nuptials. Stylish, sophisticated, Blythe- the best friend/maid of honor, fell for a poetic, complimentary sampling chef while charming, free-spirited, Shonda- joyously soaking in the Vineyard getaway and fighting hard against a younger cougar worshiping college man finally succumbed to his lips. Even Geneva lets her guard down a bit and dances with Uncle Willie- a man of slithery pick up lines and unlikable wisdom.

Sabrina (Paula Patton) and Jason (Laz Alonso) are married and will have cookies later!

At the wedding, however, Sabrina and Jason may have started off with their own traditions, but the moment they jumped over the broom and smiled hard at Pamela, the couple gave an appreciative nod towards history and fulfilled the screenplay’s destiny.

Jumping the Broom may borderline on containing too many preachy sanctimonious moments, but it teaches spiritual lessons that symbolize the “something old” wedding gift. It doesn’t matter where a person comes from. Whether it’s from the ghetto or the suburbs, one must value themselves first and then create personal hierarchy of what matters most- partners, family, friends, and successes. For Sabrina, she just wanted to be in love and share her cookies with a good man worthy enough to marry.

And that she did.

Wedding Week: "You Were Dead Until Now": A Review of ‘Bride Wars’

Bride Wars movie poster

This is a guest post by Ece Okar.

This movie is a chick flick that plays on horrible female stereotypes, and I can easily say it’s one of the most sexist chick flicks ever produced. Usually when I think of these types of films, I think of a romantic comedy about a couple that slowly falls in love. There will be some problems of course, to keep the movie enticing, but in the end everyone lives happily ever after. Bride Wars takes two best friends that grew up together and turns them into feral enemies when they both have their wedding dates accidentally scheduled on the same day. Don’t get me wrong–I love chick flicks as much as the next person–but a majority of the time this movie just made me cringe. As I watched, I thought, “I hope that society doesn’t think we, as women, are this shallow and materialistic to rage out on our close friends like this.”

The movie’s opening scene is when Liv (Kate Hudson) and Emma (Anna Hathaway) are young kids pretending to get married. Emma plays the groom, the masculine role, and Liv plays the pretty, feminine bride. Emma asks when she can pretend to be the bride, and Liv replies she will always play the bride, and Emma should remember that. This first scene immediately exposes which character is stronger and which is weaker. As the movie progresses, there are more signs to show Liv’s strengths and Emma’s weaknesses. It is very evident when we first see them in their respective careers: Liv is in a board room discussing with many male lawyers that they need to take the aggressive approach and expose the other parties’ weakness and do whatever to win their case. And then we see Emma as a sweet middle-school teacher who gets walked all over by her co-workers. These scenes foreshadow how Liv and Emma do everything they can to take down a best friend that they’ve known for 20 years because, I mean, who wouldn’t fuck up a 20-year relationship because of one “important” day that society has ingrained in every little girl’s head.

Bride Wars movie poster (Anne Hathaway)

As the movie progresses both characters are molding into their respective roles–Liv as the tyrant and Emma as the doormat. One interesting point is that since their days of playing dress up they have switched roles. Emma became soft-hearted lady who thinks about others, and Liv went from being the pretty, dainty bride to an aggressive and persistent woman; these characteristics are unfortunately always described as masculine traits. The day comes when Liv finds a Tiffany blue box, and both friends freak out and celebrate. Liv tries to act happy, but it’s clearly evident that she is mad, and Emma–being the rug everyone walks on–says sorry…sorry for getting proposed to first. Liv, of course, being the aggressive and impatient character, immediately goes to her boyfriend’s work and confronts him about not proposing. Yay, now both best friends are engaged to their significant others! Planning goes well for a few scenes; they are actually happy and supportive of each other, but then the notorious wedding planner explains to them her secretary made a mistake and scheduled both their weddings on the same day. At this point they are still a team, let me remind you, but when they can’t get another bride (who happens to be one of the film’s writers…I wouldn’t put this movie on my resume) to change her date, things start to go awry.

Bride Wars movie poster (Kate Hudson)

Their first fight is at a party with mutual friends, and they have a big nasty spat. They start reminding each other of their fat and loser days as a way to compete with who is the better person. It’s detrimental that these are the ways that the two women fight with each other–exploiting their eating habits and social skills to make the other feel bad. Now they start sabotaging each other; Emma sends sweets to Liv to get her fat so she won’t fit into her dress (because as they say in the movie “Vera Wang doesn’t alter for you, you alter yourself for Vera Wang”), and they undermine tanning sessions and haircuts as they both prepare for their nuptials. All of these treacheries are skin deep, illustrating how horrible these two characters are. They put so much emphasis on how they should look, and no significance on how they should treat each other with respect, that it’s just killing any feminist ideal that has ever been thought before this movie. One of the worst lines in this movie, and there are plenty to choose from–but this one will make you grit your teeth from anger–is when the well-known wedding planner tells them, “A wedding marks the first day of the rest of your life; you have been dead until now.” This line probably sums up the movie as a whole, illustrating how ludicrous these women are acting by putting so much emphasis on the idea of being a bride rather than their more important accomplishments. I hope when adolescent girls finish watching this film, they know that who they are as a person is far more important than what society, significant others, and friends think.

Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson in Bride Wars

There aren’t many characters to like in this movie. Even the friends are annoying. Whenever they hear their friends are engaged, or that positive things are happening for their friends, they each deal with it in a negative way–reaching for pills, binge-eating ice cream, and even fighting with their new husband. Is this how we should celebrate our friends’ happiness? I certainly hope not. I understand humans are innately competitive, but these are much exaggerated examples. I mean, when an exciting thing happens for a friend, one should celebrate by their friend’s side–not seethe with jealousy behind their friend’s back.

There is one redeeming quality in this movie, and that is when Emma–who is a people pleaser for much of the movie–eventually starts to grow a backbone, while Liv–who is pushy and determined–softens up by the end. I’m hoping that the audience can take from these character shifts that women can be both determined and compassionate and that it is not disadvantageous to be both. I do love when Emma gets upset at her fiancé over how he thinks Liv is uncontrollable, indicating that she is not a person that can be dominated. If Emma had laughed it off, I probably would have turned this movie off immediately.

Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson in Bride Wars

This movie came out in 2009, and there were definitely many horrible reviews, especially about Anne Hathaway ruining her Oscar chances by being in this movie. There is a great quote from USA Today that says, “Bride Wars is about as funny as a cringingly awkward wedding toast. On top of a noticeable lack of humor, it’s absurdly sexist and mired in retro stereotypes. It might as well proclaim up front that all young woman care about is landing their MRS.” And Richard Roeper, a film critic for The Chicago Sun Times and Gene Siskel’s replacement, explains this movie very well:

This is the wrong film for the wrong times. Sure, folks like to go to the cinema to escape their troubles. (Think of all the musicals and frothy comedies that were released during the Great Depression.) But in these dark economic times, watching two gorgeous, skinny, screeching young women battle over their insanely lavish weddings–no thanks. This stuff would have seem tired and sexist 40 years ago, let alone in 2009.

And on IMDB.com, customer reviewers are having discussions on how horribly this movie portrays women, so not everyone in our society believes women act this way in reality. I think this movie should come with a caution sign stating that all characters are exaggerated and should not be reenacted by young girls … so they don’t think afterward that where or when she has her wedding is more important than lifelong friendships.

Ece Okar currently lives in Asheville, NC. She is working part time at a local community college as well as Helpmate, a great nonprofit where domestic violence victims can turn to for counseling, education, and shelter. She is working toward going back to school to get her MSW so she can help people suffering with mental health and substance abuse issues.

Wedding Week: Bigger Than Big: Marriage and Female Bonding in ‘Sex and the City: The Movie’

This is a guest post by Jenny Lapekas.

For those of us who followed the girls on the hit HBO series, Sex and the City: The Movie, directed by Michael Patrick King, was a hotly anticipated film by the time it was released in 2008. We are familiar with Carrie as an avid writer, a New York fashionista, and an independent woman who consistently shies away from marriage. Certainly, Carrie’s disinterest in marriage throughout the show’s run can be interpreted as feminist by audiences. However, Carrie is quickly swept up in pre-matrimonial hysteria such as her designer dress and guest list. Big tells Carrie repeatedly throughout the film, “I want you,” as opposed to the desire for an extravagant wedding, but this sentiment seems to fall on deaf ears. The underlying message–and it’s a feminist one–seems to be this: smart girls don’t fall in love, smart girls love themselves. We meet Carrie as a woman who is attempting to negotiate these two philosophies, and by the end of the film, Carrie successfully marries Big but also prioritizes herself. In fact, her talk of marriage with Big originates from her drive for self-preservation. In reference to their swanky new apartment, she tells Big, “I want it to be…ours,” rather than his.

Carrie marks her territory at “Heaven on Fifth,” as she calls it.

“I wouldn’t mind being married to you. Would you mind being married to me?” Big casually questions as the pair prepare dinner. Carrie requests a “really big closet” in lieu of a diamond ring, a somewhat radical move that breaks with tradition as well as the stereotype that many women are “gold diggers” who equate a man’s commitment to the size of the rock he offers her. Rather, Carrie is financially equipped to find and purchase a diamond herself if she decides she’d like one. Carrie neither supports nor challenges the concept of marriage; throughout six seasons of Sex and the City on HBO, Carrie finds that marriage doesn’t suit her and she’d rather not play the role of wife. She tells Samantha, “There’s no cliché, romantic, kneeling on one knee, it’s just two grown-ups making a decision about spending their lives together.” However, Big does kneel down on one knee to formally propose inside “Heaven on Fifth’s” walk-in closet. In this space he builds, Big is “making room” for his bride, and this act of creation is at once romantic and understated. For Carrie, this gift is paramount in Big demonstrating his commitment to her, but hasn’t he already done so in a multitude of other ways?

Contrary to Charlotte’s engagement party toast, Big remains grounded in reality as Carrie is the one “Carried away.”

When Carrie sternly tells Big, “Wedding before contractor,” as a mother may dictate to a child, Big is unresponsive. Understandably, Big calls Carrie’s wedding preparations a “circus” after learning that their guest list has reached 200. Big is not invested in the wedding but in Carrie, and she fails to see this. When Big jilts her on their would-be wedding day, it signals a downward spiral for Carrie, but also the regenerative process of reexamining who she is without Big while also engaging in some serious girl bonding with Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha. Later, on Valentine’s Day, wallowing in self-regret, Carrie tells Miranda, “I let the wedding get bigger than Big.”

Charlotte is a spokesperson for the joys and functionality of marriage within a heteronormative lifestyle, complete with the nuclear family by the film’s conclusion.

When Steve comes to the couple’s engagement party to talk to Miranda about his infidelity, Miranda tells him, “I changed who I was for you.” When we first meet Miranda on the television series, like Carrie, she is generally opposed to taking on the roles of wife and mother, but Steve’s character changes all that. Steve’s cheating, then, is a thankless move in Miranda’s eyes, a sign that Steve does not really see his wife, her sacrifices, and her dramatic transformation from a single lawyer to a maternal figure. While Miranda is depicted as a somewhat cold, hyper-logical woman, her relationship with Steve and the child they have together cause her to become nurturing and selfless, perhaps shifting the archetype of the modern woman in New York. Fueled by anger, Miranda tells Big at his and Carrie’s engagement party, “You two are crazy to get married. Marriage ruins everything.” Preoccupied with planning for the big day, Carrie is ignorant to the chord this strikes within the already twice-divorced Big. Miranda is then wracked with guilt and believes that she is responsible for Big’s inability to get out of his car and enter the library to marry Carrie.

It’s not marriage that can “ruin everything,” but over-the-top weddings: rituals that become more significant than the love, support, and sacrifice they symbolize.

When Samantha tells Carrie that she can cancel her honeymoon by claiming that there was a death, Carrie replies, “Wasn’t there?” This response signals to us that Carrie and Big are already united as one and she feels incomplete without him. Cliche? Yes, but we find comfort in the fact that Carrie finds a way to actualize herself before her reunion with Big; the only drawback is that this path to discovery is incited by the absence of romance.

Bringing the gang on her honeymoon is a decidedly feminist move on Carrie’s part; they are her support system and her surrogate lovers while she and Big are separated. Samantha even spoon-feeds her in bed as Carrie’s being “jilted” at the altar effectively infantilizes her while in Mexico. When audiences observe this pathetic and uncomfortable scene, we are confronted with the notion that, along with Miranda, Samantha has transformed into a maternal character while Carrie grieves. This is undoubtedly the closest Samantha will ever come to motherhood. “Will I ever laugh again?” Carrie asks, and of course, it’s when Charlotte shits her pants. The girls are a reliable source of Carrie’s happiness and stability, a reflection of who she is rather than who she wants to be. Unlike the second movie, in which the gang travels to Abu Dhabi, Samantha is more invested in her friend’s wellbeing than having sex with random men.

Samantha happily mothers Carrie at her low point, and even winks at her as she stirs her food.

The bonding that takes place in Mexico on Carrie’s “honeymoon” is essential to her narrative as a “single and fabulous” New York woman who transitions into wifehood. Carrie has finally come to the realization that marriage does not make her any less fabulous, exciting, sexual, or charismatic. Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda collectively serve as an anchor as Carrie sifts through her feelings of abandonment after Big fails to show up on their wedding day. A tipsy Carrie tells her girlfriends, “If I met me now, I wouldn’t know me.”

When Carrie returns from Mexico, she takes on an assistant, and it becomes noticeable that Louise (Jennifer Hudson) is the only black character in the film, a surprising detail given that the setting is New York City. In fact, when searching for a new apartment with her son and nanny, Miranda excitedly says, “Look! White guy with a baby! Wherever he’s going, that’s where we need to be.” Is it me or is this line inextricably offensive? A white man carrying a child is highly symbolic of traditional heteronormative values. Together, these alarming observations render the film both racist and classist. Miranda’s in search of an upscale, and thus white, neighborhood that’s safe for her son.

Although Louise’s character helps Carrie to cope with Big’s temporary absence, the women’s class discrepancy is glaring. For Christmas, Carrie gives Louise an authentic Louis Vuitton purse and smilingly exclaims, “No more rental for you!” as if Louise should be grateful to this altruistic, upper-class white woman who’s had it so tough since her rich boyfriend left; it’s difficult to not interpret this scene as one of charity and self-fulfillment.

The poor colored girl from St. Louis is new to the luxury of owning as opposed to renting.

On Halloween, Charlotte suggests to her adopted Chinese daughter, Lily, that she can be Mulan for Halloween, but Lily instead chooses to be Cinderella. Even at her young age, Lily embraces whiteness as a beauty ideal and is more stimulated by the glamour of ball gowns and being rescued by a handsome prince than battle armor and the spoils of war. Seemingly, the fantastical princess narrative trumps a feminist warrior’s tale, at least for a girl young enough to still believe in “happily ever after.”

The laughably mismatched trick-or-treat crew serves as comic relief amidst scenes of loneliness and heartache.

The theme of forgiveness is consistent throughout the film. In an idle taxi cab, Carrie lectures Miranda about how she must forgive Steve for cheating after Miranda pleads, “You have to forgive me.” Once Carrie and Miranda revive their friendship, Miranda agrees to seek marriage counseling, and she reunites with Steve on Brooklyn Bridge, an obvious metaphor for the human condition as flawed but perpetually negotiable.

The meter is literally running on the pair’s friendship as Miranda’s confrontation of Carrie serves as a reflection of her own personal and marital flaws.

It is only once Carrie has made peace with Miranda that she can move forward to reconcile with Big. “There is no right time to tell me that you ruined my marriage,” she spits at Miranda on Valentine’s Day. In fact, there is no marriage to destroy since Big failed to show up. However, the marriage and harmonizing of the four friends is climactic within the film’s plot while Carrie’s marriage to Big takes place almost as an afterthought, part of the film’s resolution.

Carrie’s narrative is one of distress, respite, and absolution; she discovers the true power of forgiveness and grows tremendously as a person without the help of Big. Her “engagement ring” comes to her in the form of expensive shoes she has bought herself but which Big place lovingly on her feet. While Miranda takes her husband back on a bridge–a very public space, symbolic of paths, connections, and journeys–Carrie and Big find each other in a closet–a private space, symbolic of secrets, baggage, and memories. In this way, we understand that the couple’s relationship and marriage are not for public viewing. Because she has only until 6 o’clock to retrieve her shoes, she is again likened to Cinderella. If she arrives too late, though, her prince remains, and he could care less if she shows up in rags or Prada.

We are given the elusive image of Carrie barefoot, sans designer stilettos.

Jenny Lapekas has a Master of Arts degree in English, and she teaches Composition at Alvernia University in Pennsylvania. Her areas of scholarship include women’s literature, menstrual literacy, and rape-revenge cinema.

Wedding Week: Joss Whedon’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ and the Wedding That Wasn’t

Benedick (Alexis Denisof) and Beatrice (Amy Acker) in Much Ado About Nothing

Written by Lady T.

Joss Whedon’s adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing is soaked in sex, languidness, and alcohol, as any decent adaptation of a Shakespeare comedy should be. It’s not a “wedding movie” in the traditional sense: there are no Bridezilla jokes, montages of wedding planning going hilariously wrong, or subplots about in-laws fighting each other.

But Much Ado About Nothing does have more than one wedding scene, and the film does employ the classic “left at the alatr” plot point. Claudio (Fran Kranz), in love with Hero (Jillian Morgese), abandons her on their wedding day. What follows is not the typical “wacky wedding hijinx” story, but a story that exposes the true nature of the characters involved in the ceremony, where several male characters reveal disturbing attitudes toward women, and one surprises us by being a little more enlightened than we expected.

Beatrice and Hero react to the behavior of the men around them.

Claudio doesn’t have cold feet because he’s nervous about marriage. At the beginning of the film, there’s nothing he wants more than to go to the chapel and get ma-a-a-a-aried. In fact, he wants to marry Hero the day after she accepts his proposal, prompting her father Leonato (Clark Gregg) to tell him to put on the brakes because he’s not quite ready to transfer ownership of his daughter to a husband…I mean, er, “watch his little girl grow up.”

Then the villain Don John (Sean Maher) tricks Claudio and Don Pedro (Reed Diamond) into believing that Hero is unfaithful to him. Don John stages a moment where his cohort Borachio (Spencer Treat Clark) seduces Hero’s lady-in-waiting, Margaret (Ashley Johnson), in Hero’s bedroom. Claudio and Don Pedro witness two shadowy figures going at it behind a curtain, and believe that Hero is disloyal. She is, as Don John puts it, “your Hero, Leonato’s Hero, every man’s Hero.” (Keep away from that Runaround Sue.)

So, naturally, Claudio and Don Pedro a) forget that Don John is the same villain who was in handcuffs at the beginning of the film for trying to stage a coup against Don Pedro, and b) decide that two shadowy figures in his fiance’s bedroom is concrete proof that Hero is cheating on him. They believe this because someone wrote “gullible” on every ceiling in every building they’ve ever been in.

Dumbass.

Feeling betrayed and resentful, Claudio doesn’t simply call off the wedding or privately ask Hero for an explanation. He manhandles her at the ceremony, shoves her back into her father’s arms, calls her a whore, and refuses to marry her. Don Pedro joins in on the slut-shaming, and once they’re done humiliating Hero in front of her friends and relatives, they stalk off with Don John (who hilariously steals a cupcake from the dessert platter before leaving the ceremony).

The scene is mostly played as serious; Whedon even eliminates Benedick’s Captain Obvious moment where he comments, “This is not a nuptial.” The film focuses on the horrifying behavior of Leonato, the previously affectionate father, who wishes for his daughter’s death after hearing the prince declare that she is nothing more than a “common stale.” Some of his exact words: “Let her die.”

“Spoiler alert–I’m going to call my daughter a whore in half an hour!”

Meanwhile, only two men present at the ceremony believe Hero’s (accurate) version of the story without question. One man is a priest, who is not so much a character as a plot device, serving the same purpose as Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet and coming up with the always brilliant “hey, let’s pretend the girl is dead!’ scheme.

The other man who immediately believes Hero is Benedick.

Remember Benedick? The man in the beginning of the play who proudly proclaimed his eternal bachelorhood to anyone who asked his opinion (and those who didn’t?). The man who only ever referred to Hero as “Leonato’s short daughter”? The man who, when pressed to think of a compliment for a woman, could only say, “That a woman conceived me, I thank her”?

He’s the only male character of note who takes Hero’s word.

Granted, Benedick did not witness Don John’s display of shadow puppet porn theater on Hero’s balcony–but then again, neither did Leonato, who immediately believes the accusations against his beloved daughter. Benedick also knows better than to trust anything that comes from Don John’s mouth.

But even though he believes Hero, he’s not willing to engage Claudio in a fight. He puts the blame on Don John. His position seems to be that even though Claudio and Don Pedro were wrong, they were tricked, and not entirely to blame.

After his conversation with Beatrice, however, Benedick changes his tune. He agrees to challenge Claudio.

Beatrice and Benedick shortly after he challenges Claudio

This is a complete role reversal from the beginning of the film. Claudio, the professed lover, and Don Pedro, seemingly a friend to women, think nothing of denouncing and humiliating a woman in public. Benedick, the proud bachelor and misogynist, prioritizes the woman he loves over his closest friends.

What can we learn about misogyny from the Much Ado wedding that wasn’t?

To put it in the most cliched terms, we can learn that actions speak louder than words. Claudio’s sweet professions of love mean nothing when compared to his behavior towards Hero, and Benedick’s rants against women and marriage are redeemed when he defends one woman on behalf of another woman he loves.

Or, to put it another way–the guy who says a lot of sweet things and seems genuine might turn out to be a gullible asshole with a lot of internalized misogyny, and the mostly-decent guy who stands up for you will still need to make a lot of sexist jokes for the sake of appearances and male ego.

Yay?

(Go see this movie immediately.)

Lady T is a writer with two novels, a screenplay, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at www.theresabasile.com.

Wedding Week: ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ Is a Right-Wing Nightmare Interpretation of Women

Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding

This is a guest post by Mab Ryan.

I saw My Best Friend’s Wedding when it premiered in 1997. At the time, I thought it was an interesting reversal of the rom-com convention that the leading lady always gets her man. Instead, the leading lady was the villain, while her competition won the happy-ever-after. I remember being disturbed that my friend really wanted Julia Roberts’ character to win the man’s affections. Watching it again now, I have moved past disturbed into nauseated. If Julia Roberts plays the villain, who is the heroine? There are no good options because both main female characters are terrible examples of womanhood.

To get us into the wedding spirit, the credits open over a pink background with four women singing and dancing to Dusty Springfield’s “Wishin’ and Hopin’.” A white woman dons a bridal gown, with three women (two white and one of indeterminate race) in bridesmaid’s dresses. The woman of color is wearing a different color/style gown than the others, for no apparent reason. Enjoy her, because she’s the closest thing to a POC character in this movie. The dance portrays the gist of the US wedding fantasy: cooing over a sparkling diamond ring, tossing a bouquet, pulling at a white glove with one’s teeth, etc. The song ends with the bridesmaid’s genuflecting at the bride’s feet, the bride looking up at a white glow washing over her, like an angel. Good girls follow the proper gender script and have perfect weddings.

Someone nicely made a collage of all this.

Julianne (Julia Roberts) is a restaurant critic. Tuck that fact away because it’s the only indication you’ll get that she has any kind of life outside of the sudden obsession that erupts for the course of the movie. Best friend and former lover Michael (Dermot Mulroney) calls while she’s working, prompting a stream of expositionary nostalgia, and damn if she didn’t just remember the half-assed pact they once made that if they were both still single at 28 (that magical age) they would just give up and marry each other. Too bad he just found someone else now that she’s decided she’s ready to settle for him.

Michael is marrying Kimmy (Cameron Diaz), and they want Julianne to be maid of honor. Julianne falls off the bed on hearing this, cluing us in that we can expect to see more of the Cute Clumsy Girl trope. The wedding is in four days. Yeah, she’s been on a book tour for the past month, but you couldn’t reach her on that foot-long cell phone? The second Julianne hears about the nuptials she decides to break up the marriage and steal the groom. Say what? She had zero romantic interest in this guy until now. “This is my whole life’s happiness. I have to be ruthless.” Aim high, sister!

This character embodies the worst stereotypes of feminists. We’re told she rarely cries, never wears pink, and hates romance and public displays of affection. She’s had no prior interest in monogamy, preferring to enjoy sexual encounters with a series of men. Rather than this being empowering, the movie depicts her in the way any right-wing radio host would expect: a bitter, jealous hag, disillusioned with the single, career-focused life, bent on destroying other women in pursuit of marriage.

Her competitor isn’t a great feminist role model either. Kimmy is the daughter of a rich man who owns . . . something about baseball. Ebert’s review refers to him as a “sports owner,” so we’ll go with that. She’s eight years Michael’s junior and about to forgo her senior year in college (as an architecture major) to travel with her sports writer husband-to-be. Several times, she expresses her preference to finish school and have a life of her own—but but but if it means losing Michael (it does) she will give it all up.

Kimmy is direct with Julianne, stating that she feels inadequate compared to the pedestal that Michael has put his old friend on. “I thought I was like you and proud to be, until I met Michael and found out I was a sentimental schmuck like all those flighty nitwits I’d always pitied.” Yikes. She also explains that she hasn’t chosen one of her cousin/bridesmaids to be maid of honor because they’re “basically vengeful sluts.” This movie does not have a high opinion of women.

Michael walks in on Julianne in her underwear like it ain’t no thang. He is the signal tower for mixed messages, and I’ve no doubt he knows exactly how he’s playing both of these women. But he’s just a garden variety asshole next to Julianne’s maliciousness. At a karaoke bar, Kimmy is conspicuously terrified, but Michael needles her to perform. Julianne takes the mic on the pretense of saving Kimmy, but instead forces her into performing, a feat that backfires when Kimmy’s tone deaf, but her brave performance wins the audience’s admiration and applause. Sadly, this is the most inventive ploy in a plot that has Julianne trying on the wedding ring and getting it stuck on her finger. Wacky!

Julianne cruelly forces a terrified Kimmy into singing karaoke.

Now’s as good a time as any talk about George. No wedding movie is complete without the Gay Best Friend™ played here by gay actor Rupert Everett. His sexuality is actually referenced rather than implied, so that’s progress I guess. But he’s never shown in a romantic situation with a man. And though he does host dinner parties and attend erotic book readings, these are callously interrupted by phone calls from the disturbed Julianne. He hates to fly, but does so (twice!) to come to Julianne’s rescue and offer her the sage counsel that her attempts to sabotage this wedding are doomed and she needs to get over herself. In so many words.

“It’s amazing the clarity that comes with psychotic jealousy,” George says to Julianne.

Julianne’s meddling turns criminal when she fraudulently uses Kimmy’s father’s email account to send a message that will make Michael want to call off the wedding. The scheme works for about five whole minutes, but Michael decides to go through with the wedding after all. The denouement occurs when Julianne admits her love for Michael and plants a big smooch on him at the wedding brunch, in sight of the bride-to-be. Kimmy runs off crying, Michael runs after Kimmy, Julianne runs after Michael, and no one runs after Julianne because, no joke, she is terrible. She admits this in a lady’s room showdown with Kimmy, while a racially mixed group of women surround them, calling for a cat fight. “I’ve done nothing but underhanded, despicable, not even terribly imaginative things since I got here.” That’s okay movie writers! Acceptance is the first step to improvement.

Kimmy confronts Julianne in the ladies room where we are reminded that POC do exist.

Michael and Kimmy somehow make up, which is great for them if you don’ t mind that he’s a self-important jerk who will probably end up screwing Julianne/other women on business trips in years to come, or that Kimmy has no self-esteem and is counting on this guy to be her EVERYTHING. Julianne knows that she has lost, and now that it is a solid two hours later and she’s no longer a threat, she’s able to perform her duties as maid of honor and offer the happy couple a toast. Mozel tov. It’ll probably be at least a day before Julianne gets arrested for tampering with a company computer and committing fraud (we can only hope).

George makes that second flight to be at the reception to provide solace for Julianne. I was 14 when this movie debuted and still part of the homophobic evangelical culture I was raised in. I remember thinking it would be nice if these two could now hook up, because I knew that George was gay, but I figured he could “reform.” I’m pleased to say the movie does nothing to encourage this interpretation. He states outright that he has no romantic intentions toward her. And sure, it’s great to have a friend who will drop everything and pamper you even when you have just proven to be a soulless nightmare, but let’s quit using the magical queer, huh?

The takeaway: gay men exist to render aid to straight ladies. Lesbians do not exist. Fat people do not exist. People of color exist only in sports stadium restrooms. Mental disabilities are funny! Women who pursue independence are terrible, and they really just want marriage. Women who pursue marriage by sacrificing their own desires and goals are good girls who are rewarded with husbands. Straight white men, just keep doing what you do, because in the end, you’ll get some girl or other.

Mab Ryan is a fat, geeky, queerish, rainbow-haired feminist currently studying Art and Creative Writing at Roanoke College.