Masculine – Bitch Flicks

‘Game of Thrones’ Week: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts from our ‘Game of Thrones’ Theme Week here.

Bowed, Bent, and Broken: Examining the Women of Color on Game of Thrones by Clara Mae

With the women of color being so scarce in the show, it’s just as important to look at the quality of these portrayals. While Game of Thrones does give us some strong women of color, many of them are portrayed problematically in their own ways: either put into subservient roles, exoticized, demonized, or otherwise discarded by the narrative in ways that the white characters aren’t.

Let’s Talk About the Children: War and the Loss of Innocence on Game of Thrones by Amy Woolsey

Children have always figured prominently in Game of Thrones, but their presence seems especially meaningful this [fourth] season, as we get a clearer glimpse of the war’s effect on bystanders, people not entrenched in political intrigue and behind-the-scenes strategizing.

Game of Thrones: Does It Feel Worse to Cheer For or Against Daenerys? by Katherine Murray

It’s hard to ignore that this is a white woman from a foreign nation who feels it’s her birthright to teach a bunch of brown people how they should behave. … On the flip side, watching a woman lose power on Game of Thrones always seems to involve watching her be sexually victimized somehow, which I can’t really get on board with, no matter how awful she is.

Why I Will Miss Ygritte’s Fierce Feminism on Game of Thrones by Jackie Johnson

Ygritte was fierce, she was vibrant, and she didn’t take any shit. Ygritte’s feminism was multi-dimensional, and for me she will always be missed.

When Brienne Met Jaime: The Rom-Com Hiding in Game of Thrones by Victoria Edel

But in that web of gloom, there’s this beautiful shining light: Brienne and Jaime. And while rom-coms are not often praised for their realism, to me, this couple is the most grounded, sensible thing about the show.

Game of Thrones: Catelyn Stark and Motherhood Tropes by Sophie Hall

Catelyn Stark’s main function in the show is to be a mother to Robb Stark, a prominent male character, whereas in the book series, A Song of Ice and Fire, she is so much more than that. … The show creators are here relying on mother tropes in order to set up the characters; Catelyn is now the nag who only cares about her family and nothing else, whereas Ned is now the valiant hero who wants to seek justice.

Game of Thrones: Is Jon Snow Too Feminine for the Masculine World? by Siobhan Denton

Whilst ostensibly male in terms of gender, Jon Snow’s character is arguably definably feminine through his actions, motivations and interactions with both female and male characters. … This is not to suggest that Jon’s character is not masculine; certainly his actions in battle signal him to be a hero in the archetypical sense, but I am suggesting that Jon Snow’s masculinity coexists with a feminine expression…

In Game of Thrones the Mother of Dragons Is Taking Down the Patriarchy by Megan Kearns

While many women orchestrate machinations behind the scenes, no woman is openly a leader, boldly challenging patriarchy to rule. Except for one. Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen.

Another Dead Sex Worker on Game of Thrones by Amanda Rodriguez

Even after the finale of its fourth season, the HBO series Game of Thrones continues its reputation for unpredictability and for subverting our genre expectations. However, a glaring pattern of predictability is emerging: all sex workers with significant roles will die horribly. Think about it.

“Love No One But Your Children”: Cersei Lannister and Motherhood on Game of Thrones by Sophie Hall

Cersei Lannister is cunning, deceitful, jealous and entirely about self-preservation. Yet, her show self seems to tie these exclusively with her relationship with her children… Why is motherhood the go-to in order to flesh out her character? Why can’t she be separate from her children, the same way the father of them, Jaime Lannister, is?

The Occasional Purposeful Nudity on Game of Thrones by Lady T

In fact, the difference between gratuitous nudity and artistic nudity is not that difficult to discern. Even Game of Thrones, the show that puts the word “tit” in “titillation,” occasionally uses nudity in a way that isn’t exploitative and adds to a scene rather than detracting from it.

Controversy is Coming for Game of Thrones by Rachel Redfern

Here’s the thing–for all of its controversy (which isn’t hurting the show’s viewership, I’m sure), people are still connecting to this show and are connecting to the terrible, senseless, often difficult situations that they have to struggle through. Game of Thrones offers us, and its characters, no clear way out of mess, no neatly tied up episode endings, hell, even the most devoted fans can only speculate on the series’ ending. This show hosts both the unknown future and the sadly familiar past of familial dysfunction and bad romantic choices.

Sex Workers Are Disposable on Game of Thrones by Gaayathri Nair

When we are introduced to Ros, she is working in Winterfell but as war approaches she decides to try her luck in King’s Landing expressing the view that if all the men leave for war there is not going to be much for her in Winterfell. Once there she goes from being “just a sex worker” to getting involved in the politics of the realm by becoming the right hand woman of Little Finger and subsequently double crossing him by becoming an agent for Varys. However despite her many interesting qualities and potential for interesting storylines, Ros basically exists for one reason to provide exposition regarding male characters on the show while naked. She is sexposition personified.

Masculinity in Game of Thrones: More Than Fairytale Tropes by Jess Sanders

Boys are judged on their ability to swing a sword or work a trade, criticised for showing weakness, and taught to grow up hard and cold. Doesn’t sound unfamiliar, does it? Masculinity is praised in Westerosi society, as it is in our own.

Game of Thrones: The Meta-Feminist Arc of Daenerys Targaryen by Amanda Rodriguez

The journey of Daenerys Targaryen is a prototype for female liberation, one that charts women’s emancipation over the centuries and encourages us to push harder and dream bigger for even more freedom now.

Here There Be Sexism?: Game of Thrones and Gender by Megan Kearns

I recognize that there’s a difference between displaying sexism because it’s the time period and condoning said sexism. But this IS a fantasy, not history, meaning the writers can imagine any world they wish to create. So why imagine a misogynistic one?

Motherhood in Film & Television: Spawning the World: Motherhood in Game of Thrones by Rachel Redfern

One of the aspects that struck me in the show though, is the portrayal of motherhood. Far from being absent or swept to the side, the film’s mothers are a driving force in the plot development and are some of the most multi-dimensional of the series (credit has to be given to the actresses who play them).

Gratuitous Female Nudity and Complex Female Characters in Game of Thrones by Lady T

Yes, Game of Thrones is a show that loves its nudity. HBO is known for gratuitous displays of naked ladies in many of its show, but Game of Thrones might as well exist on a network called HBOOB.

Game of Thrones Season 2 Trailer: Will Women Fare Better This Season? by Megan Kearns

Luckily, Season 2 will see an influx of new characters, including lots of female roles. Huzzah! The “Red Priestess” Melisandre of Asshai (Carice van Houten), female warrior (!!!!) Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie), noblewoman Lady Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer), Ygritte (Rose Leslie), the Ironborn captain (double !!!!) Yara Greyjoy (Gemma Whelan) named “Asha” in the novels. Wait, a sorceress, warrior and ship captain?? More women in leadership roles?? Sounds promising!

‘Mad Max: Fury Road’: Violence Helps Our Heroines Have a Lovely Day

Furiosa, stabbed and wounded yet still persistent, takes down the main villain Immortan Joe. “Remember me?” Furiosa growls just before ripping his breathing apparatus–and half of his face–clean off. That quip may seem like your average cool one-liner, but for me it is so much more than that. It’s Furiosa, our female protagonist, who takes out the bad guy. Not Max. Not Nux, or any other male character. Her.

This guest post by Sophie Hall appears as part of our theme week on Violent Women.

This article contains spoilers for Mad Max: Fury Road, Avengers: Age of Ultron and Jurassic World.

Is Mad Max: Fury Road the greatest feminist blockbuster of the year? Or is it simply, in the words of Immortan Joe, mediocre? This has been endlessly debated over the past few months since the film’s release in May and though opinions may vary, I feel that this is one of the more successful attempts at female representation in a blockbuster and my favourite of the year so far. This is largely due to how violence and female characters in Fury Road intertwine, like how the characters both embrace violence and reject it.

Furiosa ready for battle

Let’s start with the most obvious character to analyse: Furiosa. What struck me most about violence and her character was how it kept her in the limelight. By that, I mean she didn’t have to teach Max or Nux to fight so that they could save the day. In an article at Black Girl Nerds titled “Strong Characters are Barely Strong and Rarely Characters” (about female characters in general), writer Bijhan Valibeigi states that

“In the first act we meet her and she seems rude and dismissive, saying ‘whatever’ and rolling her eyes. In the second act we are shown that she secretly has a feminine and caring side – almost universally in the process of learning that she secretly cares for the male protagonist, and is too insecure to admit it. In the third act she learns to reconcile her feelings for the protagonist with her tough-as-nails identity and uses some typically ‘for boys’ skills – usually combat, but also often hacking or deductive science – to save the male protagonist… so that he can save the day.”

But in Fury Road, this is more the case for Max than Furiosa; she uses violence for herself and herself alone. Max and Nux’s characters are not blessed with Furiosa’s pearls of violent wisdom so that they can excel and save the day. There’s even a scene in the film that were it given to your everyday Hollywood writer, it would have panned out differently (and disappointingly). When their rig is stuck in the bog, Max’s character is trying and failing to shoot an approaching enemy. This would have been the perfect opportunity for Furiosa to guide Max and let him save the day. She could have given him your typical supportive BS like, “relax,” “just breath,” “we believe in you,” “take your time,” “use the force,” etc. Instead, Furiosa uses Max’s shoulder as an armrest as she hits the target with a single shot.

Furiosa telling Max to sit down

For Furiosa to not let another male character steal the scene with heroic violence but instead to rely on her own self-confidence and do it herself is a breath of fresh air for the audience members, particularly female ones. Furiosa doesn’t have to tell how violent she is; she shows us.

Max’s character is actually a complement to the violent women of the film. He never once treats Furiosa’s violence with disdain over the fact that she’s a woman. He always treats her as his equal. He treats her with hostility when they first meet not because he underestimates her, but because he understands that she’s his physical equal and a threat. There is no condescension. As he is the co-leading protagonist of the film, the way that he perceives Furiosa is vital as it is how the audience will be guided to see her through his gaze.

Furiosa having control and using her own violence is again highlighted in the final showdown of Fury Road. Furiosa, stabbed and wounded yet still persistent, takes down the main villain Immortan Joe. “Remember me?” Furiosa growls just before ripping his breathing apparatus–and half of his face–clean off. That quip may seem like your average cool one-liner, but for me it is so much more than that. It’s Furiosa, our female protagonist, who takes out the bad guy. Not Max. Not Nux, or any other male character. Her. It’s as if she’s saying it directly to the audience as well as at Immortan Joe. Even though the scene is extremely brutal, the violence of it can again be seen as to empower women. Our representation defeats the bad guy!

This gives our female audience members a pleasure that we so far haven’t really experienced this year (granted, Star Wars and Mockingjay Part 2 are still yet to be released). We almost had it in Age of Ultron when Scarlet Witch rips out Ultron’s heart, apart from the fact that his doom was moments away anyway and that Vision’s character was the one to destroy Ultron’s final form. We kind of had it in Jurassic World when Claire’s character releases the T-Rex on the Indominous Rex, but the moment is dampened when she tells her male colleague to “be a man for once in his life” and help her beforehand. Furiosa doesn’t have to discredit her violence in order to use violence to save the day, whereas Claire had to.

Even though Furiosa’s link to violence can be seen as empowering to her gender in Fury Road, one of the more interesting things I found writer/director George Miller doing was having The Wives not be inherently violent. When Furiosa tried to kill Nux in self-defense, The Wives intervene and remind Furiosa that they had agreed to “no unnecessary killing!” Now, Miller could have easily made The Wives bloodthirsty characters with no substance like this years Sand Snakes on Game of Thrones, but Miller did the opposite, giving them more depth and intelligence.

The Wives’ reasoning for sparing Nux was the he’s “kamakrazee,” which means he’s one of Immortan Joe’s war boys. This implies that The Wives know that Nux is just brainwashed by Immortan’s regime and is a victim of his rule. I found this one of the more profound moments of Fury Road, as The Wives have more reason than any to want to inflict violence on others as so much of it has been inflicted on them, yet they do not.

Miller even has a scene where one of The Wives, The Dag, discusses the reasons for violence- with another female character! Yay for no mansplaining! “I thought you girls were above all that,” The Dag says to one of the Many Mothers as she described how she shoots her enemies. Even the topic of violence helps to develop the pairs characters, as the Many Mother entrust The Dag her seeds she’d been keeping to plant one day as she’s dying.

The Dag saying goodbye to one of the Many Mothers

Better still, Miller doesn’t directly state that Furiosa and the Many Mothers’ use of violence are wrong and The Wives’ lack of violence is right. He hints more at that they need to co-exist with one another. For example, as a result of The Wives having Nux spared leads to their survival, as Nux later sacrifices himself to protect them and Furiosa needed to be violent in order to save the day and defeat the bad guy.

The mix of these two stances the women have on violence leads to them creating a peaceful matriarchal society at the end of Fury Road. Which brings me to what I most love about how violence was portrayed in this film: both the traditionally feminine characters against violence and the traditionally masculine characters who use violence are all meant to be treated with respect by the audience–one isn’t right, one isn’t wrong. The violence in Fury Road doesn’t make the women at odds with each other, but helps bind them together.

Sophie Hall is from London and has graduated from university with a degree in Creative Writing. She is currently writing a sci-fi comic book series called White Leopard for the website http://www.wpcomicsltd.com.

Gender, Androgyny, and ‘The Dark Crystal’

The primary theme of ‘The Dark Crystal’ is that there should be no opposites, no dichotomies, no binaries. There cannot be balance when we separate out good and evil, ends and beginnings, cruelty and kindness, male and female. These things are truly one and exist together, inseparable.

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

I’m at it again, reviewing a piece of media from my childhood that powerfully affected me in the hopes of determining what kind of message it imparted to my younger self and how that message helped shape the woman I am today. This time around, it’s Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal. (My blast-from-the-past reviews thus far include: Was Jem and the Holograms a Good Show for Little Girls, Splash: A Feminist Tail Tale?, She-Ra Kinda, Sorta Accidentally Feministy, and “No man may have me”: Red Sonja a Feminist Film in Disguise?) The Dark Crystal, like so many other 80s movies, appealed to me because it was dark, otherworldly, and told a story that was not only unique, but epic in scale. When I look back on The Dark Crystal, what strikes me most is the film’s complicated representation of gender. Most of the film’s characters are overwhelmingly androgynous.

The last gelflings: Jen & Kira — The last Gelflings: Jen and Kira

The heroes of our tale are a pair of Gelflings, the last surviving members of a race the Skeksis genocided to avoid a prophecy foretelling their downfall. In appearance, Gelflings are decidedly androgynous: they are small and child-like with smooth, feminine features and long hair. Both are gentle and soft-spoken; Jen loves to play music on his pipe while Kira sings along. However, being female gives Kira the advantage of flight because female Gelflings have wings.

Kira surprises us by using her wings to rescue Jen

Kira can also speak to animals and plants. Though that is a learned trait from her Podling foster family, women being able to understand creatures of nature is a common trope to denote femininity.

Kira marshals a pair of landstriders to help their quest — Kira marshals a pair of Landstriders to help their quest

Though Kira is physically the least androgynous character in the film, she is brave and sure of herself when Jen is not. Though Jen is the one singled out for destiny and agency with his possession of the crystal shard, he doubts his mission and himself. Kira must spur him to adventure. She also uses her wits and talents to rescue herself when the Skeksis try to drain her essence. Not only that, but in the final scene when the Skeksis are closing in, she sacrifices herself, using her own body to show Jen the path when he is lost. Kira is simply a hero. Her feminine traits don’t make her weak, and her possession of typically coded masculine heroic traits does not make her masculine. At the end of the film when the Skeksis and Mystics are joined together again to form the UrSkeks, one of them says to Jen as he holds Kira’s lifeless form, “She is a part of you.” This is true, especially considering their earlier Dreamfasting scene in which the two touch and share memories. Though Jen is male and Kira is female, their genders do not make them binary. They are stronger together; together they form a single whole. (More on that theme later…)

Kira sacrifices everything to help Jen heal the dark crystal — Kira sacrifices everything to help Jen heal the Dark Crystal

The wise figure of Aughra is also androgynous. She is clearly female with a woman’s voice and large breasts with protruding nipples, but she has a beard and curling ram’s horns along with a removable eye. The companion novel to the film, The World of the Dark Crystal, apparently identifies Aughra as both male and female, the essence and personification of the planet Thra in which our story takes place.

Aughra. Don't mess with her. — Aughra. Don’t mess with her.

Aughra is powerful, ancient, and grotesque. She commands the plants of the earth and holds the crystal shard. She is an astronomer, scientist, and prophetess who can read the future in the stars. She regards the Great Conjunction as “the end of the world…or the beginning,” claiming it’s “all the same.” Like the Gelflings don’t distinguish between self and other when it comes to male and female of their race, Aughra sees ends in beginnings and beginnings in ends. Instead of focusing on how things are different, disparate, and separate, Aughra sees infinite connections, sameness, and harmony in unity.

The entire journey of the film centers around reuniting a sundered shard to make the Dark Crystal whole again. This will reunite the sundered Mystics and Skeksis who were once single beings now separated, embodying binary, dichotomous traits with the Skeksis being evil, selfish, greedy, cruel, and violent while the Mystics are gentle, kind, peaceful, and generous. Interestingly enough, the Mystics and Skeksis are all male, and their combined form continues to be male, but their maleness is not wholly traditionally masculine in its representation.

The Mystics nurture Jen, teaching him the gentle magics of the earth

The Mystics embody more traditionally coded female characteristics: gentleness, nurturing, community building, a connection to the earth: teaching, music, and magic. They’re long-haired and peaceful…the hippies of their planet (one of them even wears a stylin’ do-rag over his hair).

Look at those lovely locks flowing in the wind. Think he conditions?

In many ways, the Skeksis are more overtly masculine in their desire to subjugate others, the grotesque way they eat, their trials by combat, and their quickness to anger and violence. On the other hand, the Skeksis are obsessed with fashion. Their clothing defines them, and the disrobing of our lead Skeksis, Chamberlain, is the height of dishonor and humiliation. They disrobe him before casting him out after he loses the trial-by-stone competition to be emperor.

The Skeksis are serious about their opulent robes.

Chamberlain himself is very androgynous with his high-pitched voice, slight build, and his preference for manipulation over force. The Skeksis are also obsessed with looking youthful. They drain the “essence” of Podlings, turning it into an elixir that they drink in order to temporarily rid themselves of wrinkles. This obsession is reminiscent of our own female-dominated beauty and fashion culture.

A disrobed Chamberlain trying to beguile the naïve Jen

The primary theme of The Dark Crystal is that there should be no opposites, no dichotomies, no binaries. There cannot be balance when we separate out good and evil, ends and beginnings, cruelty and kindness, male and female. These things are truly one and exist together, inseparable. The film’s representations of gender give preference to a more androgynous, non-binary mode of being, insisting that gender and human nature are too rich and complicated to be “this or that,” “one or the other,” “either or.” As a child, this de-coding of masculinity and femininity that allowed characters to be so much more than a simple gender formed a piece of the bedrock of my lifelong questioning of gender roles, gender hierarchy, and the entire binary system of gender. Thanks, Brian Froud and Jim Henson!

Bitch Flicks writer and editor Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.