Negative depictions of fat people are the norm throughout all of pop culture. Though fatphobia crosses racial, gender, and class lines, audiences judge women the most harshly. Fat characters are frequently shown as disgusting, sad, or unlovable. In the horror genre, fatness is frequently represented as terrifying and unnatural. In comedies, fat bodies are often the source of humor. Though few and far between, there are a growing number of fat positive representations popping up throughout TV and film.
Our theme week for April 2015 will be Fatphobia/Fat Positivity.
Negative depictions of fat people are the norm throughout all of pop culture. Though fatphobia crosses racial, gender, and class lines, audiences judge women the most harshly. Fat characters are frequently shown as disgusting, sad, or unlovable like Chrissy Metz’s Barbara/”The Fat Lady” in American Horror Story: Freak Show or Darlene Cates’ Bonnie from What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Fat people are often cast as the villains, their bodies being a symbol of excess, shame, and/or nonconformity–examples being Ursula from The Little Mermaid or Miss Trunchbull from Matilda. In the horror genre, fatness is frequently represented as terrifying and unnatural (Slither and Crazy Fat Ethel II). In some cases, fatness is a punishment like in Drop Dead Diva or Mean Girls.
In comedies, fat bodies are often the source of humor, such as Melissa McCarthy’s character Megan in Bridesmaids or pretty much anything starring Chris Farley. The deplorable practice of donning a fatsuit to get some laughs (Shallow Hal, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, and all The Nutty Professor movies) seems to be on the rise.
Though few and far between, there are a growing number of fat positive representations popping up throughout TV and film. Though sometimes problematic, these examples show fat people as multifaceted human beings (Girls), sympathetic (Louie), heroines/heroes (Precious), sexy (The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency), and/or funny because of who they are and not their bodies (Roseanne). Are these samples of fat positivity the beginning of a movement? Are they enough to change the prejudice and fatphobia inherent in Hollywood and our culture?
Feel free to use the examples below to inspire your writing on this subject, or choose your own source material.
We’d like to avoid as much overlap as possible for this theme, so get your proposals in early if you know which film you’d like to write about. We accept both original pieces and cross-posts, and we respond to queries within a week.
Most of our pieces are between 1,000 and 2,000 words, and include links and images. Please send your piece as a Microsoft Word document to btchflcks[at]gmail[dot]com, including links to all images, and include a 2- to 3-sentence bio.
If you have written for us before, please indicate that in your proposal, and if not, send a writing sample if possible.
Please be familiar with our publication and look over recent and popular posts to get an idea of Bitch Flicks’ style and purpose. We encourage writers to use our search function to see if your topic has been written about before, and link when appropriate (hyperlinks to sources are welcome, as well).
The final due date for these submissions is Friday, April 24 by midnight.
For my birthday this year, my partner took me to see the Broadway musical of ‘Matilda,’ which I loved. The cast recording has been in regular rotation on my iPod ever since, and this week I decided to watch the 1996 film again for comparison.
Like many a precocious young bookworm, I counted Roald Dahl’s Matilda among my very favorite books from an early age. Matilda was relatable – her classmates classified her as The Smart One; she adored her teacher; she had found her earliest and best friends among books – but she was also aspirational for me: she was kind and well-liked, she was brave enough to stand up to injustice, and the only time she ever loses her temper in an uncontrollable screaming tantrum it’s in an entirely justifiable, even heroic, confrontation with her evil headmistress. In a way, she was my first role model.
For my birthday this year, my partner took me to see the Broadway musical of Matilda, which I loved. The cast recording has been in regular rotation on my iPod ever since, and this week I decided to watch the 1996 film again for comparison, with a particular eye to the treatment of class. It had been many years since I last saw the movie, and all I really remembered was hating the changed ending, but I conjectured that a transplantation of a very British story to an American context would illuminate some of the differences in UK and US attitudes toward class.
In the book and musical, Matilda’s parents are, regardless of their precise economic status, clearly lower-class, in the “trashiest” way possible. In Britain, the relationship between social class and economic class is complicated: having money doesn’t necessarily make you middle-class (and not everyone wants to be middle-class, as they seem to in the US – working-class pride is strong, while being middle-class is associated with a certain bourgeois pretentiousness). Dahl codes the Wormwoods as insufficiently respectable from a bourgeois perspective: they use “excessive” beauty treatments and wear garish clothes; they play bingo and eat dinner in front of the TV; they have only contempt for literature and education; they are loud, dishonest, and – worst of all! – proud of their loudness and dishonesty.
Most of these markers of the lower classes make the transatlantic leap, but the film takes care to add some new ones for the US audience: junk food, being overweight, kitschy artifacts. The movie Wormwoods live in a nice house full of nice things, but they commit the unforgivable sin of having bad taste. These class markers are important as signifiers that their American dream is a sham, even on the terms of the American dream itself.
By contrast, Miss Honey is the deserving poor, whose economic misfortune does not reflect her character: she values education, doesn’t own a TV set, doesn’t indulge in beauty products, in fact lives ascetically, like the good poor people who don’t waste their money on smartphones and refrigerators… The musical makes the contrast explicit between Mrs. Wormwood’s anthem “Loud” and Miss Honey’s gentle song “My House.” Miss Honey has a roof, a door, a chair, a table, pictures on the wall, lamplight to read by: “It isn’t much, but it is enough for me.” Matilda’s mother, however, recommends “A little less brains, a lot more hair! / A little less head, a lot more derriere!”
“You’ve gotta be loud, loud, LOUD!
You’ve gotta give yourself permission to shine,
To stand out from the crowd, crowd, crowd!”
Like the children at the beginning of the book and musical, Mrs. Wormwood has self-esteem and isn’t ashamed of it. It’s perhaps not surprising that the theme of “people who have self-esteem but shouldn’t” is cut out of the movie. Back in the 90s, long after the era of normalized institutional child abuse in which Dahl grew up but before all of this tedious media handwringing about millennials being thin-skinned and entitled, we tended to think that self-esteem was a good thing. Well, Americans did – it’s always been considered rather déclassé in Britain. So self-confident Mrs. Wormwood is a villain, while modest Matilda and diffident Miss Honey are the heroes.
The movie excises this “self-esteem is bad” message, and instead amplifies the book’s rather weird messages about women. The villainous women are those who do womanhood “wrong.” Miss Trunchbull is too masculine (even played, in the musical, by a man in drag): she’s athletic, strong, violent, not conventionally attractive; she dislikes children, and objects to the “Mrs. D Mrs. I Mrs. FFI” poem by asking, “Why are all these women married?” – indeed, her own female honorific is usually removed so that she becomes “the” Trunchbull, a monstrous hybrid figure of female masculinity. Mrs. Wormwood, meanwhile, errs on the side of too much femininity: she dyes her hair and uses tons of beauty products, overindulging in the artifice and frivolity that comprise femininity in the misogynistic imagination.
(There’s an undercurrent of transmisogyny here, too: the women who are rejected are either too masculine or too artificially feminine, two modes of attack often used to delegitimize trans women’s womanhood.)
Miss Honey, the “good” adult female character, displays neither masculinity nor “artificial” femininity. She is meek, nurturing, softspoken, gentle, conventionally feminine – and, in the film, is deeply emotionally invested in a doll from her childhood. A good woman, it seems, is infantilized in her femininity.
You’re pretty, so you’re doing womanhood right!!
For all its mixed messages about class and about femininity, this is ultimately a story most powerfully about two abuse survivors creating a family and finding healing together. As Miss Honey tells Matilda in the film, “You were born into a family that doesn’t always appreciate you, but one day things are going to be very different.” As the tempered nature of this line suggests (doesn’t always appreciate her? Try doesn’t ever), the abuse theme is here rather downplayed. Mara Wilson brings exactly the sort of presence we wanted from a child protagonist in the mid-90s – precociously delightful without being alienating or smug – but her Matilda is a smart kid, and not much more. Book-Matilda and musical-Matilda have a streak of otherworldliness to them, a dissociative tendency perhaps not uncommon among abuse survivors; whereas when movie-Matilda is getting yelled at by her father, she just kind of gives him the stinkeye and then skips away to scheme without seeming to internalize his abuse. Obviously the theme of child abuse is going to get downplayed in a PG family film directed by Danny DeVito, but it’s explored with such nuance and sensitivity in the book, and especially in the play, that it’s rather a shame the movie chose to steer for a tone of purely magical whimsy, rather than magical whimsy with some depth.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the treatment of Matilda’s telekinesis. In the book, Matilda’s power is something mystical, perhaps dangerous (in one practice session, she zones out entirely and tells Miss Honey, “I was soaring past the stars on silver wings”); in the film, it’s pure whimsy. This, I think, is why it’s narratively necessary and satisfying for the book to end with Matilda losing her power – the book acknowledges that telekinesis is an astounding, paradigm-shifting power, whereas in the film it is but a wizard wheeze.
I don’t think the film of Matilda is terrible, but I don’t find it particularly good either. It’s resolutely child-friendly, softening the sharpest and nastiest edges that helped make Roald Dahl’s books so compelling and enduring, even as they reproduce some of the most problematic tropes of their society.
Go see the musical if you possibly can; it’s wonderful.
____________________________________
Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, tumbles as trans substantial, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax. Believe it or not, he actually cut a bunch of material from earlier drafts of this piece.
Basically, Brave isn’t really that brave of a film. It’s traipsing through a well-established trope that, though positive, is stagnant. Don’t get me wrong; I love all the prepubescent female power fantasy tales I’ve listed, and I’m grateful that they exist and that I could grow up with many of them. However, we can’t pretend that Brave is pushing any boundaries. It sends the message that little girls can be powerful as long as they remain little girls. The dearth of representations of postpubescent heroines who are not objectified, whose sexuality does not rule their interactions, and who are the heroes of their own stories is appalling.
Written by Amanda Rodriguez as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.
I liked Disney Pixar’s Bravewell enough. It’s pretty enough. It’s a story about a mother and daughter, and there was no romance, both of which are nice; though, as I’ll show, neither are as uncommon as they might initially appear. I didn’t find the feminist qualities of this movie to be particularly impressive. Brave is actually situated within a somewhat prolific trope of female prepubescent power fantasy tales. Within this trope, young girls are allowed and even encouraged to be strong, assertive, creative, and heroes of their own stories. I call them “feminism lite” because these characters are only afforded this power because they are girl children who are unthreatening in their prepubescent, pre-sexualized state.
Let’s consider a few examples.
First, we’ve got Matilda, a film based on the eponymous novel by Roald Dahl. This story is about a genius six-year-old girl who realizes she has telekinetic powers. Matilda is brave and kind to those who deserve it and punishes authority figures who take advantage of their positions of power. This story, similar to Brave, is about the budding (surrogate) mother/daughter relationship between Matilda and her kindergarten teacher, Miss Honey. They find idyllic happiness at the end of the film when they adopt each other to form their own little family.
“I can feel the strongness. I feel like I can move almost anything in the world.” – Matilda
Then there’s Harriet the Spy, based on the book by Louise Fitzhugh, about an inquisitive, imaginative girl who learns the power of her voice and how her words affect others. Another potent mother/daughter bond is featured between Harriet and her nanny, Golly.
“You’re an individual, and that makes people nervous. And it’s gonna keep making people nervous for the rest of your life.” – Golly
We can’t forget Pippi Longstocking, based on the book series by Astrid Lindgren. Pippi is independent and adventurous with a slew of fantastical stories. She also has incredible physical strength, exotic pets, and teaches her friends Tommy and Annika that just because the trio are children, doesn’t mean experiences and desires should be denied them.
“I’m Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Longstocking, daughter of Captain Efraim Longstocking, Pippi for short.” – Pippi
There’s also Whale Rider, based on the book by Witi Ihimaera. Pai is a determined young girl who wants to become the chief of her Māori tribe, but that is forbidden because she’s a girl. With wisdom and vision, Pai strives to unite and lead her people into the future. She is dedicated, stubborn and perseveres, showing she has the uncanny spiritual ability to speak with (and ride) whales.
“My name is Paikea Apirana, and I come from a long line of chiefs…I know that our people will keep going forward, all together, with all of our strength.” – Pai
One of my personal favorites is Pan’s Labyrinth (or El Labertino del Fauno meaning “The Labyrinth of the Faun” in Spanish). Interestingly, Pan’s Labyrinth is the first on our list that wasn’t based on a book, as it was written and directed by Guillermo del Toro. The film takes place in post Civil War Spain with young Ofelia as our heroine. She is forced to live with her fascist captain stepfather who hunts down rebels while her mother languishes in a difficult pregnancy. Totally isolated, Ofelia retreats into a dark fantasy world replete with fairies, fauns, and child-eating monsters. In this world (that may or may not truly exist), she is a long-lost immortal underworld princess trying to make her way home. Throughout the tale, Ofelia forms a strong connection with Merecedes, a kitchen maid who is not only secretly a rebel spy, but is brave and crazy badass. Ofelia is intelligent, defiant, loyal, and ultimately self-sacrificing.
“Hello. I am Princess Moanna, and I am not afraid of you.” – Ofelia
All of these stories validate young female agency because all these girls are prepubescent. They are too young and too physically underdeveloped to be objectified or vilified for their sexuality. There are tales that continue to advocate for the empowerment of their slightly older heroines despite their budding sexuality. These are pseudo coming-of-age films. I say “pseudo” here because the main characters don’t actually become sexual beings.
A great contemporary example of a pseudo coming-of-age tale is the action-thriller Hanna, starring the talented Saoirse Ronan as a 14-year-old CIA experiment with enhanced DNA to make her the optimal weapon. She is trained in arctic isolation and is therefore unsocialized and unschooled in the ways of the world. Most of the film centers around her mission to kill Cate Blanchett’s evil CIA agent character, Marissa. However, there is an interlude when Hanna befriends brash young Sophie who is eager to grow up. The two sneak out and go dancing, and a boy kisses Hanna. Our young heroine is at first intrigued and even enraptured by the experience, but she ends up knocking the boy to the ground and nearly breaking his neck. Later, there is also sexual tension between Hanna and Sophie as the two lie next to each other in a tent, falling asleep, but nothing comes of it. These are examples of Hanna’s awakening sexuality, which the film insinuates may ultimately be terrifying in its power and lack of boundaries. Hanna, though, is still young and chooses her father and his indoctrination over her own self-discovery.
“Kissing requires a total of thirty-four facial muscles.” – Hanna
Not to forget Jim Hanson’s classic Labyrinth starring Jennifer Connelly as Sarah, a teenager who is enthralled by the fantasy of the Labyrinth along with its alluring goblin king, Jereth (aka David Bowie in an impressive Tina Turner mullet wig). Sarah withdraws from her family, yearning for adventure and romance while hating her obligation to babysit her “screaming baby” brother, Toby, so she calls on the goblin king to take the boy away. She then spends the rest of the movie trying to get the toddler back. Jareth attempts to seduce her into forgetting the child and being his goblin queen, which is what Sarah initially wanted, but, in the end, she chooses her family and fantastical goblin friends over love, romance, and her sexuality. At the end of the film when she says to her goblin friends, “I need you; I need you all,” she is affirming that she’s not ready for adulthood and wants to remain a child a bit longer. Her intact innocence is what allows her to be uncomplicatedly triumphant, to assert her equality with and independence from Jareth.
“For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great. You have no power over me!” – Sarah
To be empowered, all the aforementioned heroines must remain perpetually young, fixed forever in their prepubescent state within the reels of their films. Once our heroines become sexual teens, their power is overwhelmingly defined by their sexuality, and/or their worth is determined by their body’s objectification. In fact, many of these tales are no longer fantasies, but horror movies (or movies that have horror qualities) that demonize female sexual awakenings. I don’t even want to disgrace the hallowed web pages of Bitch Flicks with an obvious account of the worthless Twilightseries that equates female sexuality with death and advocates teen pregnancy over reproductive rights. However, Bella is a prime example of a young woman whose own self-value is dependent on how the male characters view her. She is the apex of a noxious love triangle, and her desirability defines her, creating the entire basis of the poorly acted, poorly produced saga.
Ginger Snaps clearly fits the mold of the vilification of budding female sexuality. Ginger gets her period for the first time and is therefore attacked by a werewolf. The attack has rape connotations, implying that Ginger wouldn’t have been as enticing to the wolf if she weren’t yet sexual, especially since her mousy sister Brigitte is spared. Ginger goes through a series of changes, becoming sexually aggressive and promiscuous. When she has unprotected sex with a boy, turning him into a werewolf, this further underscores the connection between Ginger’s monstrous lycanthropy and her unchecked sexuality. There’s also a great deal of sexual tension between Ginger and her sister, Brigitte, suggesting that her sexuality is boundless and therefore frightening.
“I get this ache…and I, I thought it was for sex, but it’s to tear everything to fucking pieces.” – Ginger
Lastly, we have the pseudo-feminist film Teethabout a young girl who grows teeth on her vagina (vagina dentata style). Our teenage heroine, Dawn, is in one of those Christian abstinence/purity clubs, and everything is fine until she becomes attracted to and makes out with a boy. The film punishes her for her newfound sexuality and mocks her abstinence vow by having the boy rape her. Dawn’s vagina then bites off his penis. Over the course of the movie, Dawn is essentially sexually assaulted four times. Four times. She is degraded from the beginning of the film to the very end. Her supposedly empowerful teeth-laden vagina is a dubious gift, considering she generally must be raped in order to use it. Instead of focusing on the power of her sexuality and the awesome choice she has of whether or not to wield it, the film victimizes her at every corner, undercutting her potential strength and sexual agency.
“The way [the ring] wraps around your finger, that’s to remind you to keep your gift wrapped until the day you trade it in for that other ring. That gold ring.” – Dawn
Basically, Brave isn’t really that brave of a film. It’s traipsing through a well-established trope that, though positive, is stagnant. Don’t get me wrong; I love all the prepubescent female power fantasy tales I’ve listed, and I’m grateful that they exist and that I could grow up with many of them. However, we can’t pretend that Brave is pushing any boundaries. It sends the message that little girls can be powerful as long as they remain little girls. The dearth of representations of postpubescent heroines who are not objectified, whose sexuality does not rule their interactions, and who are the heroes of their own stories is appalling. There may be exceptions, but my brain has a fairly to moderately comprehensive catalog of films, especially those starring strong female characters. Scanning…scanning…file not found. If I, who actively seek out films that use integrity in their depictions of kickass women, can’t think of many, how is the casual viewer to find them? How is the teenage girl coming into her sexuality while facing negativity and recriminations supposed to see herself portrayed in a light that gives her the opportunity to be nuanced, smart and brave, to be independent or to be a leader?
—————— 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.
I liked Disney Pixar’s Bravewell enough. It’s pretty enough. It’s a story about a mother and daughter, and there was no romance, both of which are nice; though, as I’ll show, neither are as uncommon as they might initially appear. I didn’t find the feminist qualities of this movie to be particularly impressive. Brave is actually situated within a somewhat prolific trope of female prepubescent power fantasy tales. Within this trope, young girls are allowed and even encouraged to be strong, assertive, creative, and heroes of their own stories. I call them “feminism lite” because these characters are only afforded this power because they are girl children who are unthreatening in their prepubescent, pre-sexualized state.
Let’s consider a few examples.
First, we’ve got Matilda, a film based on the eponymous novel by Roald Dahl. This story is about a genius six-year-old girl who realizes she has telekinetic powers. Matilda is brave and kind to those who deserve it and punishes authority figures who take advantage of their positions of power. This story, similar to Brave, is about the budding (surrogate) mother/daughter relationship between Matilda and her kindergarten teacher, Miss Honey. They find idyllic happiness at the end of the film when they adopt each other to form their own little family.
“I can feel the strongness. I feel like I can move almost anything in the world.” – Matilda
Then there’s Harriet the Spy, based on the book by Louise Fitzhugh, about an inquisitive, imaginative girl who learns the power of her voice and how her words affect others. Another potent mother/daughter bond is featured between Harriet and her nanny, Golly.
“You’re an individual, and that makes people nervous. And it’s gonna keep making people nervous for the rest of your life.” – Golly
We can’t forget Pippi Longstocking, based on the book series by Astrid Lindgren. Pippi is independent and adventurous with a slew of fantastical stories. She also has incredible physical strength, exotic pets, and teaches her friends Tommy and Annika that just because the trio are children, doesn’t mean experiences and desires should be denied them.
“I’m Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Longstocking, daughter of Captain Efraim Longstocking, Pippi for short.” – Pippi
There’s also Whale Rider based on the book by Witi Ihimaera. Pai is a determined young girl who wants to become the chief of her Māori tribe, but that is forbidden because she’s a girl. With wisdom and vision, Pai strives to unite and lead her people into the future. She is dedicated, stubborn and perseveres, showing she has the uncanny spiritual ability to speak with (and ride) whales.
“My name is Paikea Apirana, and I come from a long line of chiefs…I know that our people will keep going forward, all together, with all of our strength.” – Pai
One of my personal favorites is Pan’s Labyrinth (or El Labertino del Fauno meaning “The Labyrinth of the Faun” in Spanish). Interestingly, Pan’s Labyrinth is the first on our list that wasn’t based on a book, as it was written and directed by Guillermo del Toro. The film takes place in post Civil War Spain with young Ofelia as our heroine. She is forced to live with her fascist captain stepfather who hunts down rebels while her mother languishes in a difficult pregnancy. Totally isolated, Ofelia retreats into a dark fantasy world replete with fairies, fauns, and child-eating monsters. In this world (that may or may not truly exist), she is a long-lost immortal underworld princess trying to make her way home. Throughout the tale, Ofelia forms a strong connection with Merecedes, a kitchen maid who is not only secretly a rebel spy, but is brave and crazy badass. Ofelia is intelligent, defiant, loyal, and ultimately self-sacrificing.
“Hello. I am Princess Moanna, and I am not afraid of you.” – Ofelia
All of these stories validate young female agency because all these girls are prepubescent. They are too young and too physically underdeveloped to be objectified or vilified for their sexuality. There are tales that continue to advocate for the empowerment of their slightly older heroines despite their budding sexuality. These are pseudo coming-of-age films. I say “pseudo” here because the main characters don’t actually become sexual beings.
A great contemporary example of a pseudo coming-of-age tale is the action-thriller Hanna, starring the talented Saoirse Ronan as a 14-year-old CIA experiment with enhanced DNA to make her the optimal weapon. She is trained in arctic isolation and is therefore unsocialized and unschooled in the ways of the world. Most of the film centers around her mission to kill Cate Blanchett’s evil CIA agent character, Marissa. However, there is an interlude when Hanna befriends brash young Sophie who is eager to grow up. The two sneak out and go dancing, and a boy kisses Hanna. Our young heroine is at first intrigued and even enraptured by the experience, but she ends up knocking the boy to the ground and nearly breaking his neck. Later, there is also sexual tension between Hanna and Sophie as the two lie next to each other in a tent, falling asleep, but nothing comes of it. These are examples of Hanna’s awakening sexuality, which the film insinuates may ultimately be terrifying in its power and lack of boundaries. Hanna, though, is still young and chooses her father and his indoctrination over her own self-discovery.
“Kissing requires a total of thirty-four facial muscles.” – Hanna
Not to forget Jim Hanson’s classic Labyrinth starring Jennifer Connelly as Sarah, a teenager who is enthralled by the fantasy of the Labyrinth along with its alluring goblin king, Jereth (aka David Bowie in an impressive Tina Turner mullet wig). Sarah withdraws from her family, yearning for adventure and romance while hating her obligation to babysit her “screaming baby” brother, Toby, so she calls on the goblin king to take the boy away. She then spends the rest of the movie trying to get the toddler back. Jareth attempts to seduce her into forgetting the child and being his goblin queen, which is what Sarah initially wanted, but, in the end, she chooses her family and fantastical goblin friends over love, romance, and her sexuality. When she says to her goblin friends, “I need you; I need you all,” she is affirming that she’s not ready for adulthood and wants to remain a child a bit longer. Her intact innocence is what allows her to be uncomplicatedly triumphant, to assert her equality with and independence from Jareth.
“For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great. You have no power over me!” – Sarah
To be empowered, all the aforementioned heroines must remain perpetually young, fixed forever in their prepubescent state within the reels of their films. Once our heroines become sexual teens, their power is overwhelmingly defined by their sexuality, and/or their worth is determined by their body’s objectification. In fact, many of these tales are no longer fantasies, but horror movies (or movies that have horror qualities) that demonize female sexual awakenings.
I don’t even want to disgrace the hallowed web pages of Bitch Flicks with an obvious account of the worthless Twilightseries that equates female sexuality with death and advocates teen pregnancy over reproductive rights. However, Bella is a prime example of a young woman whose own self-value is dependent on how the male characters view her. She is the apex of a noxious love triangle, and her desirability defines her, creating the entire basis of the poorly acted, poorly produced saga.
Ginger Snaps clearly fits the mold of the vilification of budding female sexuality. Ginger gets her period for the first time and is therefore attacked by a werewolf. The attack has rape connotations, implying that Ginger wouldn’t have been as enticing to the wolf if she weren’t yet sexual, especially since her mousy sister Brigitte is spared. Ginger goes through a series of changes, becoming sexually aggressive and promiscuous. When she has unprotected sex with a boy, turning him into a werewolf, this further underscores the connection between Ginger’s monstrous lycanthropy and her unchecked sexuality. There’s also a great deal of sexual tension between Ginger and her sister, Brigitte, suggesting that her sexuality is boundless and therefore frightening.
“I get this ache…and I, I thought it was for sex, but it’s to tear everything to fucking pieces.” – Ginger
Lastly, we have the pseudo-feminist film Teethabout a young girl who grows teeth on her vagina (vagina dentata style). Our teenage heroine, Dawn, is in one of those Christian abstinence/purity clubs, and everything is fine until she becomes attracted to and makes out with a boy. The film punishes her for her newfound sexuality and mocks her abstinence vow by having the boy rape her. Dawn’s vagina then bites off his penis. Over the course of the movie, Dawn is essentially sexually assaulted four times. Four times. She is degraded from the beginning of the film to the very end. Her supposedly empowerful teeth-laden vagina is a dubious gift, considering she generally must be raped in order to use it. Instead of focusing on the power of her sexuality and the awesome choice she has of whether or not to wield it, the film victimizes her at every corner, undercutting her potential strength and sexual agency.
“The way [the ring] wraps around your finger, that’s to remind you to keep your gift wrapped until the day you trade it in for that other ring. That gold ring.” – Dawn
Basically, Brave isn’t really that brave of a film. It’s traipsing through a well-established trope that, though positive, is stagnant. Don’t get me wrong; I love all the prepubescent female power fantasy tales I’ve listed, and I’m grateful that they exist and that I could grow up with many of them. However, we can’t pretend that Brave is pushing any boundaries. It sends the message that little girls can be powerful as long as they remain little girls. The dearth of representations of postpubescent heroines who are not objectified, whose sexuality does not rule their interactions, and who are the heroes of their own stories is appalling. There may be exceptions, but my brain has a fairly to moderately comprehensive catalog of films, especially those starring strong female characters. Scanning…scanning…file not found. If I, who actively seek out films that use integrity in their depictions of kickass women, can’t think of many, how is the casual viewer to find them? How is the teenage girl coming into her sexuality while facing negativity and recriminations supposed to see herself portrayed in a light that gives her the opportunity to be nuanced, to be smart and brave, to be independent or to be a leader?
