In this witty, hilarious, and bittersweet dramedy, Theron plays Mavis Gary, an author of young adult books living in Minneapolis. Mavis’ life is a hot mess. She’s divorced, drinks her life away, and the book series she writes is coming to an end. She was the popular mean girl in high school who escaped to the big city. Mavis returns to her small hometown in Minnesota full of Taco Bells and KFCs intending to reclaim her old glory days and her ex-boyfriend, who’s happily married with a new baby. As she fucks up, she eventually questions what she wants out of life.
This repost by Megan Kearns appears as part of our theme week on Unlikable Women.
We so often see men as wayward fuck-ups. Ben Stiller in Greenberg, Zach Braff in Garden State, Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets all fill this role. Selfish asshats who do the wrong thing, lack ambition, or screw someone over for their own selfish needs. And yet they’re somehow loveable and charming. You champion them, hoping they’ll succeed and grow…just a little. Audiences want female leads nice, amiable, and likable. Not messy, complicated, complex, and certainly not unlikable. Heaven forbid! But that’s precisely the role Charlize Theron steps into in Young Adult.
In this witty, hilarious, and bittersweet dramedy, Theron plays Mavis Gary, an author of young adult books living in Minneapolis. Mavis’ life is a hot mess. She’s divorced, drinks her life away, and the book series she writes is coming to an end. She was the popular mean girl in high school who escaped to the big city. Mavis returns to her small hometown in Minnesota full of Taco Bells and KFCs intending to reclaim her old glory days and her ex-boyfriend, who’s happily married with a new baby. As she fucks up, she eventually questions what she wants out of life.
Young Adult is a fantastic film, the best I’ve seen all year. I seriously can’t say enough good things about it. Diablo Cody’s feminist lens and sharply funny dialogue fuse with Jason Reitman’s knack for bittersweet direction, buoyed by stellar portrayals.
A force of nature, Theron gives both a subtly nuanced and bravura performance. In her Golden Globe-nominated role, she makes a flawed, cranky, bitchy, selfish, alcoholic charismatic and likable. When she’s doing something despicable (which happens all too often), I found myself cringing yet simultaneously rooting for her. That’s not easy to do. Theron, who’s been called a transformational chameleon, particularly for her award-winning role in Monster, melts into this role. She imbues Mavis with depth, caustic wit, raw anger and vulnerability. It’s hard to see the boundaries where Theron begins and Mavis ends.
Suffering from depression, Mavis tries to drown her sorrows, unleashing a destructive tornado of chaos. Even though Mavis fled her small town, she’s haunted by the prime of her youth. Most of us have moved on from high school. But Mavis hasn’t grown up yet. With unwavering determination and delusion, she thinks if she can recapture the past, all her problems will be solved.
With her popular girl swagger, you can picture how she sashayed down the halls in high school (and probably shoved people into lockers or hurled insults). That same bravado fools her into thinking she can bend the world to her will.
She finds an unlikely ally and confidante in nerdy, sarcastic yet tender Matt (Patton Oswalt), a former bullied classmate in an achingly touching performance. Some of the best scenes contain Mavis and Matt volleying their biting banter.
What made the film brutally funny is Mavis tosses retorts people think but would never dream of actually saying. She says hilariously wrong things. Matt asks her if she moved back to town, she replies, “Ewww, gross.” She shamelessly throws herself at a married man. When Matt reminds her Buddy has a baby, she retorts, “Babies are boring!” And trust me. I’m not doing Theron’s comic abilities justice.
Uncomfortably funny, hilariously heartbreaking, Young Adult passes the Bechdel Test several times. In one scene, the bandmates in the all-female group Nipple Confusion (love that name!), who also happen to be Mavis’ former high school classmates, briefly debate Mavis and her dubious intentions. Mavis confronts compassionate Beth (Elizabeth Reaser), her ex-boyfriend Buddy (Patrick Wilson)’s wife and the object of Mavis’s vitriolic hatred. Also, Mavis confides in Matt’s sister Sandra (Collette Wolfe), who desperately wants to escape small-town life, about the course her life has taken.
I felt a sigh of relief while watching this film. It felt fantastic to have a woman quip snarky comments that maybe she shouldn’t say but she does anyway. Because Mavis doesn’t give a shit what people think. She doesn’t conform to other people’s standards of who she should be. Most movies suppress women’s rage. Not this one. As the awesome Melissa Silverstein at Women and Hollywood wrote:
This film is a fucking bitchy breath of fresh air.
Besides the fabulous Kristen Wiig in the hilarious Bridesmaids, Lena Dunham in Tiny Furniture and Julia Roberts in the god-awful My Best Friend’s Wedding (which Young Adult strangely parallels – both contain selfish female protagonists struggling to recapture the past, hoping to break up a wedding/marriage), there really aren’t many examples of women in this kind of unlikable or flawed role.
The idea of a cold, unlikeable woman or a woman who is not in control of herself is genuinely frightening to people because it threatens civilization itself or threatens the American family. But I don’t know why people are always willing to accept and even like flawed male characters. We’ve seen so many loveable anti-heroes who are curmudgeons or addicts or bad fathers and a lot of those characters have become beloved icons and I don’t see women allowed to play the same parts. So it was really important to me to try and turn that around.
Young Adult is entirely told from Mavis’ perspective. As Mavis scribes the last book in Waverly Prep, a Young Adult series, her writing mirrors events and feelings in her own life. It could have easily veered off course to examine how Mavis’ inappropriate flirting (or rather throwing herself at him) affected Buddy. But the film astutely anchors itself to Mavis, a unique female voice.
I often lament the lack of female-centric films as most either feature men in the spotlight or have women as merely secondary characters. If we want more diverse films, including those where women are front and center, we need to support those films by voting with our dollars and going to the box office.
At first, it seems Young Adult might succumb to the same fate as so many other films and end up revolving around Mavis finding love. Men go on quests and emotional journeys. They learn. They grow. Women often stagnate. Or more common, their lives revolve around men. They wait around for love, seek love, find love, and turn themselves inside out for love…and ultimately a man. We don’t often see them doing things for themselves.
That’s the rare beauty of Young Adult. It’s not really about Mavis finding love. It’s about confronting your mistakes, letting go of the past and growing up. Too many movies reinforce the notion careers and friends don’t count. It’s only your love life that matters. Only love can save you. But sometimes, you can save yourself.
Life is messy, complicated, and difficult. Women can be too. It’s about time we see more roles reflecting that on-screen.
This year’s Oscars lacked racial diversity with all 20 acting nominees being white. The overwhelming whiteness of the Oscars, which hasn’t been this egregious in nominating people of color since 1998, spurred a Twitter boycott and the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite created by April Reign. In addition to racial diversity, once again the Oscars lacked gender diversity. No women were nominated for director, screenplay (adapted or original), original score or cinematography. The snub of Ava DuVernay especially stung.
I usually eagerly anticipate the Oscars. As a huge cinephile, I love seeing films, actors, and filmmakers celebrated. But this year, I dreaded them.
This year’s Oscars lacked racial diversity with all 20 acting nominees being white. The overwhelming whiteness of the Oscars, which hasn’t been this egregious in nominating people of color since 1998, spurred a Twitter boycott and the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite created by April Reign. In addition to racial diversity, once again the Oscars lacked gender diversity. No women were nominated for director, screenplay (adapted or original), original score or cinematography. The snub of Ava DuVernay especially stung.
The Oscars may be the most visible celebration of filmmaking in the U.S. and possibly the world. This is why they matter. Whether we agree or not, they signify what films are collectively deemed important in our society.
The Oscars often overlook female filmmakers — only four women (no women of color) have ever been nominated for Best Director, only one has won (Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker) — and women-centric films. It was disappointing to see that all eight of the Best Picture nominees were written and directed by men, except for Selma, which was directed and co-written by Ava DuVernay, a woman of color. Each of the films revolves around men as the protagonists. However, Selma is a notable exception for spotlighting not only Martin Luther King Jr. but the vigilance and dedication of Black women and Black men in the fight for equality.
Lack of diversity amongst the nominations disappointed, and racism and sexism often tainted the evening. Yet powerful moments emerged during the awards ceremony.
Labeled as “the most feminist moment” of the night by many writers and those on Twitter, Patricia Arquette advocated for equal pay and women’s rights during her acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress for Boyhood:
“To every woman who give birth to a taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s rights. It’s our time to have wage equality, once and for all. And equal rights for women in the United States of America.”
Yes, yes, a thousand times YES. Patricia Arquette’s speech was a powerful feminist declaration condemning the gender pay gap and the need for wage equality. Women earn 78 percent less than men for the same job. But women of color earn far less. Black women earn 64 percent less, Indigenous women earn 59 percent less and Latina women earn 54 percent less than white men. Hearing the words “wage equality” and “women’s rights” uttered on a national broadcast delights me. Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez excitedly cheering in the audience was the icing on the cake.
Arquette elaborated backstage, mentioning the ageism comingled with sexism that women actors face: “The truth of it is the older an actress gets, the less money she makes.” She is absolutely right. Male actors earn more than women. After the age of 34, women actors earn far less than their male colleagues. But unfortunately, here’s where Arquette’s speech unravels:
“It’s time for all the women in America and all the men who love women and all the gay people and all the people of color that we’ve fought for, to fight for us now.”
Sigh. Why couldn’t she have just stopped? My initial excitement faded to disappointment, irritation, and anger.
Her statement implies that LGBT people and people of color have achieved equality. They haven’t. LGBT justice and racial justice still have far to go. It blatantly ignores coalition building that has happened across movements. Arquette excludes women of color and queer women with her statement. Women have multiple, intersecting identities. To ignore that fact erases many women’s existence. When feminists talk about women’s rights, we should not be claiming, either overtly or covertly, “women” equals straight, white, cis women. We white women need to do a much better job to make feminism an intersectional, inclusive movement.
Julianne Moore and Eddie Redmayne won Best Actress and Best Actor for playing people with disabilities. Each actor mention ALS and Alzheimer’s in their acceptance speeches. Moore said: “I’m thrilled we were able to shine a light on this disease. … “Movies make us feel seen and not alone.” However, The Theory of Everything has been accused of being guilty of “inspiration porn” and using a person with a disability as “Oscar bait.”
Julianne Moore was absolutely outstanding in Still Alice. A chameleon, she melted into the complex, nuanced role. It was also great to see a woman win for a film revolving around a female protagonist. Considering the ageism of Hollywood and the Oscars, I appreciated seeing a woman over the age of 50 win. We need more roles for women in general but particularly women of color, queer women, older women, and women with disabilities.
Suicide was discussed in two acceptance speeches. Dana Perry, the co-director of Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 which won for Best Documentary Short, shared the tragedy about her son who committed suicide:“We should talk about suicide out loud.” Best Screenplay winner Graham Moore (The Imitation Game) revealed his own suicide attempt:
“When I was 16 years old, I tried to kill myself because I felt weird, and I felt different, and I felt like I did not belong. … So I would like for this moment to be for that kid out there who feels she’s weird, or she’s different or she doesn’t fit in anywhere. Yes, you do. I promise you do. Stay weird, stay different.”
Not only did these two heartbreaking speeches illuminate suicide, but they ultimately gave a positive message, that for people suffering, you are not alone.
Selma may not have been honored with all the awards it deserved. But a tribute to the film and to racial justice was depicted in Common and John Legend’s powerful performance of “Glory” from Selma. Accompanying the uplifting yet searing lyrics, they visually recreated the march in Selma onstage. In their passionate acceptance speech for Best Song, Common spoke about the historic bridge in Selma where the civil rights march took place.
“This bridge was once a landmark of a divided nation. But now it’s a symbol for change. The spirit of this bridge transcends race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, social status. … This bridge was built on hope, welded with compassion, and elevated by love for all human beings.”
John Legend highlighted institutional racism, incarceration of Black men and the prison industrial complex.
“Nina Simone said it’s an artist’s duty to reflect the times in which we live. … Selma is now because the struggle for justice is right now. We live in the most incarcerated country in the world. There are more Black men under correctional control today than were under slavery in 1850.”
Selma may be a biopic of an iconic civil rights leader. Yet as legend says, it remains extremely relevant, a reflection of the racism and white supremacy happening currently with the harrowing murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, and the activism in Ferguson and with #BlackLivesMatter. It was crucial to hear Legend discuss the pernicious racism of our criminal justice system. Sadly, the lack of applause for his statements by an audience often deemed liberal was extremely disconcerting.
But perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised at the audience’s reaction, especially as many in Hollywood look the other way when it comes to racism and abuse of women. I cannot fully express my disgust at seeing Sean Penn, an abuser of women, as a presenter onstage. He made a racist joke when announcing Birdman, directed by Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu, as the Best Picture winner: “Who gave this son of a bitch his green card?” How lovely to see racism and xenophobia at the end of the Oscars. Sigh. Unfortunately the racism didn’t stop there.
Within the first few minutes of the show, Neil Patrick Harris said, “Tonight we celebrate tonight’s best and whitest, oh I mean brightest.” Here’s the thing: I love when a celebrity shines a light on inequality or injustice. But the “joke” felt more like a way to acknowledge the Academy’s glaring racism rather than actually calling them out and holding them accountable. It lets Hollywood off the hook for not taking measures to increase diversity. Harris also tokenized accents, did a “joke” where Black actor David Oyelowo read a denouncement of the Annie remake starring Quvenzhané Wallis and had Octavia Spencer “watch” his ballot predictions box as if she was his servant.
Thankfully, Iñárritu took the opportunity in his acceptance speech to counter Penn’s racism advocating for immigrant justice. He dedicated his Oscar for Best Picture to his “fellow Mexicans” and Mexican immigrants. He is the second Latino to win Best Director and the first Latino to win as producer for Best Picture. Iñárritu spoke of the need to build a new government in Mexico and for the need for rights for immigrants:
“…I just pray they can be treated with the same dignity and respect of the ones who came before and built this incredible immigrant nation.”
What this disjointed awards show accentuated to me is the need for an intersectional lens in everything we do: our daily lives, activism, making media and consuming media. We can’t truly claim a milestone a victory if it only benefits wealthy, white, straight, cis, able-bodied women. We can’t call truly call ourselves feminists if we ignore the plight of those more marginalized or oppressed than ourselves.
Equal pay for women (along with highlighting the need for intersectional feminism), racial justice, mass incarceration, suicide, rights for people with disabilities and immigrant rights – all of these took center stage. Now if only the Academy had been so radical and the Oscar nominees had reflected such diversity.
I wish I could say that ‘Gone Girl’ is a subversive feminist film exposing myriad gender biases and generating a much-needed dialogue on rape and domestic violence. Yet it reinforces dangerous myths rather than shattering them.
This repost by Megan Kearns appears as part of our theme week on the Academy Awards.
WARNING: LOTS OF SPOILERS AHEAD! | TRIGGER WARNING: DISCUSSION OF RAPE AND INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE
Is Gone Girl a misandry fest, a subversive feminist masterpiece, or a misogynistic mess? All of the above?
I loved Gone Girl. It intrigued me with its labyrinthine plot, complex characters and noir motif. It simultaneously enthralled and enraged me. There is so much to unpack regarding gender. While a whodunit mystery revolving around the disappearance of Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike), and whether or not her husband Nick (Ben Affleck) is the culprit, the crux of the film is the dissolution and destructive unraveling of a marriage. It begs the question: Do you ever really know the person you marry?
Deftly written by Gillian Flynn (who wrote the novel as well) and expertly directed by David Fincher, it’s an uncomfortable film that boldly examines the underbelly of love and marriage and how the media shapes perception. Told from the perspectives of both Amy (often through her diary) and Nick, Gone Girl cracks wide open and shines a spotlight on the often gendered expectations within a heteronormative marriage. Society pressures women to be flawless, never wavering in an aura of perfection. Gone Girl takes a sledge hammer to that.
In an outstanding and riveting performance by Rosamund Pike, Amy is a fascinating character. She’s brilliant, pragmatic and narcissistic. We watch her shift effortlessly from a devoted and then fearful wife to a calculating and fearlessly manipulative villain. A ruthless, Machiavellian anti-hero, Amy morphs into whatever persona she needs to don to obtain her objective. She wears personalities like a cloak, shrouding her true nature and intentions. Filled with rage, she discards the role of the docile wife. She’s not going to live on her husband’s or any man’s terms. She refuses to fulfill society’s expectations.
Amy uses her femininity to achieve her diabolical goals. She uses her sexuality, wielding it as a weapon. They are tools in her arsenal to ensnare and punish men. But just as she readily adopts stereotypical feminine traits when she needs them, she also utilizes stereotypical masculine traits of anger and violence. Her gender informs her actions and the way she perceives the world. However, Amy despises gender norms and doesn’t want to be constrained by them. She doesn’t want to be a satellite to a man. She wants to do whatever she pleases, regardless of the consequences.
I have to applaud Amy’s rage and defiance. Although I’m horrified by her disturbing, sociopathic and misogynist tactics. This is why I relish Amy’s notorious “Cool Girl” speech. “The cool girl. The cool girl is hot. Cool girl doesn’t get angry. … And she presents her mouth for fucking.” This is a scathing commentary on how men see women as objects, as vessels, as accessories, not as entities unto themselves. I couldn’t help but say, “FUCK YEAH,” while Amy recited it. Her speech succinctly encapsulates the Male Gaze and hetero men’s expectations of women, while shattering the illusion that women are never angry and that women merely orbit men, suffocating their own needs and desires. Amy’s speech illustrates that society tells women to contort themselves to seek men’s approval.
As much as I cheer for the astute and searing commentary in the “Cool Girl” speech, Amy also condemns women complicit in this charade. She despises how women fall into their prescribed roles, all for the enjoyment of men. When Amy recites this speech, she’s driving in a car, gazing at myriad women passing by. As David Haglund points out, director David Fincher chose the images, not of men but of women, to coincide with Amy’s words. So while the words condemn men, the corresponding images implicate women, making everyone culpable. It becomes a condemnation of women themselves, that they shouldn’t fall into the trap of pantomiming this performance.
What could have potentially been a feminist manifesto mutates into something ripped out of a misogynist’s or Men’s Rights Activist (MRA)’s warped fantasy.
The biggest problem with Gone Girl lies in the tactics Amy utilizes to punish men — by faking intimate partner violence and rape. Amy ties her wrists with rope, squeezing and tightening them while turning her wrists and she hits her face with a hammer to simulate abuse. She repeatedly shoves a wine bottle up her vagina to simulate the bruising and tearing from rape. Amy falsely accuses men of rape, stalking and abuse, all for her own ends. Amy convincingly plays the role of an abuse survivor. It’s scary because this is the kind of bullshit people believe — that women lie and make shit up to wreak vengeance on men.
Author/screenwriter Gillian Flynn said that Amy “knows all the tropes” and she can “play any role that she wants.” But therein lies the problem. Abuse victims and survivors are not merely “tropes” or “roles.” Amy pretends she is being abused in order to frame Nick by writing in her diary that she fears for her life and worries that her husband might kill her. She says she feels “disposable,” something that could be “jettisoned.” Women murdered at the hands of abusive partners are typically treated as disposable in our society. People tell victims/survivors that they should have known better, they must have provoked their abuse. People question why victims/survivors stay with abusive partners. People put the onus on women to prevent rape. These are the myths that films, TV series and news media reinforce. It’s extremely problematic to equate Amy playing “the role” of an abused rape victim with actual women abused and raped.
We also see victim-blaming underscored in the film from Amy’s neighbor Greta. When they first meet, Greta comments on the bruise on Amy’s face saying, “Well, we have the same taste in men.” Yet when the two women are watching a news program on Amy’s disappearance and how the leading cause of death for pregnant women is homicide (it is), Greta calls on-screen Amy (feigning ignorance that the real Amy is right next to her) a “spoiled,” “rich bitch.” She goes on to say, “While she doesn’t deserve it, there are consequences.” While this is a commentary on privilege and Greta has survived abuse too, this also amounts to victim-blaming 101.
But the victim-blaming doesn’t stop there. One of Amy’s exes talks to Nick and tells him how she falsely accused him of rape and had a restraining order placed on him. He tells Nick that when he saw her on the news missing, “I thought there’s Amy. She’s gone from being raped to being murdered.” Again this underscores the myth that women lie about rape and abuse. But the numbers are so low for reports of false rape and domestic violence that they are almost non-existent.
Victim-blaming myths permeate every facet of our society. Janay Rice’s abuse and the resulting #WhyIStayed conversation recently highlighted the myriad myths people believe about intimate partner violence, particularly when it comes to women of color. People feel they need “proof” to verify or corroborate a victim/survivor’s trauma. Society perpetually places the onus on women for their abuse rather than on where it belongs: with the abuser. As we’ve seen with Marissa Alexander, the legal system doesn’t reward but rather punishes domestic violence survivors. This happens again and again, over and over. Women are not believed. And it’s dangerous to keep feeding this narrative.
Rape is “an epidemic.” Violence against women is an epidemic. We live in a rape culture that inculcates the abuse and objectification of women and dismisses violence against women. Society makes every excuse for abusers while it unilaterally shames and blames victims and survivors of intimate partner violence, rape and sexual assault.
Some might try to assuage Gone Girl’s misogyny by declaring Amy’s misandry or by underscoring that there are two female characters – Detective Rhonda Boney and Margo Dunne – who are onto Amy’s game. But it doesn’t. When you have a protagonist doing despicable things, the film/TV series often straddles a fine line between condemnation and glorification. However, there is a way for a film/TV series to delineate their message: by the comments and perspectives of ancillary characters. Breaking Bad illustrates this beautifully. Despite what many fanboys got wrong, we are NOT supposed to identify with power-hungry, abusive, rapist Walter White. We may be fascinated by Walter’s fierce intelligence. But we are supposed to identify with Jesse and Skyler, both of whom are the heart and conscience of the show. They are the ones telling us the audience, both overtly and covertly, that Walter’s actions are despicable and monstrous.
In Gone Girl, almost every character condemns and despises Amy. They loathe her for her manipulations and how she has framed Nick. But no character comments on how Amy’s actions reinforce rape culture. Not one. Rhonda could have easily mentioned the stats for women reporting rape or domestic abuse, how few rape and abuse cases are brought to trial and even fewer convicted because of victim-blaming biases. Nick’s sister Margo could have said how horrible Amy’s schemes are not only for her brother but the implications for other women too. But everyone in the film only focuses on how Amy’s actions impact Nick. Nick even says at one point in the film, “I’m so sick of being picked apart by women.” (Boo hoo, poor Nick. Isn’t that every misogynist’s anthem??) So when Nick slams Amy’s head into the wall and calls her a “cunt” towards the end of the film — despite his abusive actions and misogynist language — we the audience are supposed to sympathize with him because he just wants to be a good dad, because he’s the one victimized by this manipulative shrew.
I wish I could love this film without reservations. I wish I could say that Gone Girl is a subversive feminist film exposing myriad gender biases and generating a much-needed dialogue on rape and domestic violence. Yet it reinforces dangerous myths rather than shattering them. The embedded “Cool Girl” speech rails against the patriarchal notion that women serve as nothing more than accessories and sexual objects to men. But the film falters by playing into a victim-blaming narrative reinforcing rape culture.
We need more complex female protagonists. We need more female anti-heroes and villains. If only we could have one in a film that doesn’t simultaneously perpetuate the misogynist notion that women lie about rape and abuse.
The slut, the virgin, the bitch, the girl next door, the mother, the creepy old lady, the evil little girl, and the final/survivor girl. Female archetypes and stock characters within the horror genre are rampant and well known. From a movie poster alone, we can often times figure out exactly what a woman’s place and purpose is in a horror film. However, there’s another “type” of woman that we frequently see in horror films that no one seems to want to talk about.
This guest post by BJ Colangelo previously appeared at her blog Day of the Woman and is cross-posted with permission.
The slut, the virgin, the bitch, the girl next door, the mother, the creepy old lady, the evil little girl, and the final/survivor girl. Female archetypes and stock characters within the horror genre are rampant and well known. From a movie poster alone, we can often times figure out exactly what a woman’s place and purpose is in a horror film. However, there’s another “type” of woman that we frequently see in horror films that no one seems to want to talk about.
Physically, sensory, or mentally disabled women have been popping up in horror films from the very beginning. The Man Who Laughs is often regarded as the first horror film, and the female lead was a beautiful, blind woman. From the very beginning of the horror genre, the damsel in distress character was the quickest way to write a story. “Girl needs saving from someone or something, man saves girl from someone or something, girl is indebted to man and thanks him by kisses or marriage, the end.” Whether it was because male writers needed to make their female characters SUPER vulnerable or whether they needed an excuse to make a woman “weaker,” adding a physical/mental/sensory disability to a woman became a quick way to differentiate female characters from the usual damsel in distress. The beginnings showcased disabilities as a major reason for the demise of female characters. 1959’s The Tingler had a creature that could only be killed by screaming. The death in the film that acts as the catalyst for the entire movie was centered around a woman who was a deaf/mute, and therefore, could not “scream for her life.” We can’t have a woman be brave enough not to scream when frightened, so we must make her mute.
Physical disabilities appear in many films as a way to hinder otherwise “strong” female leads. The 1979 midnight movie The Visitor showcases a woman forced into a wheelchair by her evil daughter in order to prevent her ability to escape her child, and to make her a weaker target for her boyfriend to impregnate her. More recently, we’ve been exposed to a protagonist who uses a wheelchair in Curse of Chucky, who also plays the only character with any sort of intellect and moral compass. Putting a character in a wheelchair completely raises the stakes. Stairs are out of the question, speed is a major concern, the ability to hide is greatly reduced, and the fact someone could easily come behind and control the movement and direction of a character is horrifying. However, throwing a wheelchair on a character immediately develops a sympathetic relationship between the character and the audience. We immediately understand the difficulties that can be present for being in a wheelchair, and before anything happens, we immediately feel for her. This concept presents itself regardless of the age of the woman in the wheelchair. Would You Rather contains an elderly woman in a wheelchair and from the very beginning of the film; she is immediately the character the victims of the game of “Would You Rather?” want to protect.
This then brings us to the characterizations of amputees. In horror films, amputated women seem to fall into two categories. We have women who have been amputated as some sort of a punishment, and women who have turned their amputations into something of empowerment. In Jennifer Lynch’s controversial directorial debut, Boxing Helena, we see a woman who is amputated solely so she cannot run away. In Saw VI, Tanedra Howard’s character must amputate her own arm to survive one of Jigsaw’s traps, and is later shown in Saw 3Das a painfully angry victim who, although survived death, has been forever punished as a one-armed woman, only gaining a positivity in the form of better parking at the mall. To counteract these women punished with amputation, we have characters like Cherry Darling in Planet Terrorwho have taken a very Ash J. Williams approach to amputation by replacing the missing limb with a weapon. Her machine gun leg has made her character an iconic figure and one of the most recognizable women with a disability in horror.
Sensory disabilities (blindness, deafness, muteness) are often used as a catalyst to further along story lines. Ms. 45, The Eye, The Beyond, Julia’s Eyes, and even Orphan included either sensory disabled protagonists or supporting characters. The loss of sight, sound, or speech is something that many people fear to begin with, so much like having a character with a physical disability, presenting a major character unable to see, hear, or speak immediately raises their stakes. Female characters are often blind or deaf, giving the freedom for story tellers to write circumstances they would normally be unable to construct. Why can’t Ms. 45 call the cops and find justice for her attack? She cannot speak. Why can’t little Max tell when her adopted sister Esther is plotting her demise? She cannot hear. Characters in horror films vitally depend on their senses for survival. Taking one of their senses away change the way the protagonist must play the game to be alive at the end of the film.
However, the most problematic portrayal of women in horror lies in the representation of mental illness and mental disabilities. Unfortunately, society already has a stigma in place for mental illnesses, and artforms reflect this poor mentality. In 2012, Bitch Flicks ran an AMAZING piece by Megan Kearns titled “That ‘Crazy Bitch’: Women and Mental Illness Tropes in Horror” that encompasses everything that I could possibly write about this topic. My favorite quote from the piece states:
“And the Crazy Bitch trope helps perpetuate mental illness stereotypes. It has many sister tropes infesting horror too. Like the Hysterical Woman, where female characters are depicted as overly emotional and irrational, The Madwoman in the Attic, a trope where a character with mental illness is locked away, isolated from society, and the Nervous Housewife, where men doubt women’s paranormal experiences and patronize them. Jen Doll at The Atlantic Wire gives us “10 tropes about women that women should stop laughing about,” including “the crazy.” As Doll astutely observes, calling someone “crazy” is a way to put people (often women) down and for the accuser to feel better about themselves, all while being insulting to those who who struggle with mental illness.”
Ultimately, it appears that the growing awareness of ableist behavior is changing the way we treat people with disabilities in cinema, especially with female characters in horror films. Female tropes and archetypes will always exist, but gaining a stronger educational grasp on why characters are written the way they are is the most sure-fire way to learn how to provide better portrayals and influence less offensive media. I must thank comic artist and Day of the Woman reader Shannon LeClerc for suggesting that I tackle this topic. Of course I in no way scratched the surface of disabled women in horror films (is there a book on this subject?), but the best way to make a change and gain a better understanding is to open a dialogue and actually discuss the situation. Women with disabilities are a prominent character type, and we will only gain a solid understanding if we talk about it.
BJ Colangelo is the woman behind the keyboard for Day of the Woman: A blog for the feminine side of fear and a contributing writer for Icons of Fright. She’s been published in books, magazines, numerous online publications, all while frantically applying for day jobs. She’s a recovering former child beauty queen and a die-hard horror fanatic. You can follow her on Twitter at @BJColangelo.
I wish I could say that ‘Gone Girl’ is a subversive feminist film exposing myriad gender biases and generating a much-needed dialogue on rape and domestic violence. Yet it reinforces dangerous myths rather than shattering them.
[Trigger Warning: Discussion of rape and intimate partner violence]
Is Gone Girl a misandry fest, a subversive feminist masterpiece, or a misogynistic mess? All of the above?
I loved Gone Girl. It intrigued me with its labyrinthine plot, complex characters and noir motif. It simultaneously enthralled and enraged me. There is so much to unpack regarding gender. While a whodunit mystery revolving around the disappearance of Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike), and whether or not her husband Nick (Ben Affleck) is the culprit, the crux of the film is the dissolution and destructive unraveling of a marriage. It begs the question: Do you ever really know the person you marry?
Deftly written by Gillian Flynn (who wrote the novel as well) and expertly directed by David Fincher, it’s an uncomfortable film that boldly examines the underbelly of love and marriage and how the media shapes perception. Told from the perspectives of both Amy (often through her diary) and Nick, Gone Girl cracks wide open and shines a spotlight on the often gendered expectations within a heteronormative marriage. Society pressures women to be flawless, never wavering in an aura of perfection. Gone Girl takes a sledge hammer to that.
In an outstanding and riveting performance by Rosamund Pike, Amy is a fascinating character. She’s brilliant, pragmatic and narcissistic. We watch her shift effortlessly from a devoted and then fearful wife to a calculating and fearlessly manipulative villain. A ruthless, Machiavellian anti-hero, Amy morphs into whatever persona she needs to don to obtain her objective. She wears personalities like a cloak, shrouding her true nature and intentions. Filled with rage, she discards the role of the docile wife. She’s not going to live on her husband’s or any man’s terms. She refuses to fulfill society’s expectations.
Amy uses her femininity to achieve her diabolical goals. She uses her sexuality, wielding it as a weapon. They are tools in her arsenal to ensnare and punish men. But just as she readily adopts stereotypical feminine traits when she needs them, she also utilizes stereotypical masculine traits of anger and violence. Her gender informs her actions and the way she perceives the world. However, Amy despises gender norms and doesn’t want to be constrained by them. She doesn’t want to be a satellite to a man. She wants to do whatever she pleases, regardless of the consequences.
I have to applaud Amy’s rage and defiance. Although I’m horrified by her disturbing, sociopathic and misogynist tactics. This is why I relish Amy’s notorious “Cool Girl” speech. “The cool girl. The cool girl is hot. Cool girl doesn’t get angry. … And she presents her mouth for fucking.” This is a scathing commentary on how men see women as objects, as vessels, as accessories, not as entities unto themselves. I couldn’t help but say, “FUCK YEAH,” while Amy recited it. Her speech succinctly encapsulates the Male Gaze and hetero men’s expectations of women, while shattering the illusion that women are never angry and that women merely orbit men, suffocating their own needs and desires. Amy’s speech illustrates that society tells women to contort themselves to seek men’s approval.
As much as I cheer for the astute and searing commentary in the “Cool Girl” speech, Amy also condemns women complicit in this charade. She despises how women fall into their prescribed roles, all for the enjoyment of men. When Amy recites this speech, she’s driving in a car, gazing at myriad women passing by. As David Haglund points out, director David Fincher chose the images, not of men but of women, to coincide with Amy’s words. So while the words condemn men, the corresponding images implicate women, making everyone culpable. It becomes a condemnation of women themselves, that they shouldn’t fall into the trap of pantomiming this performance.
What could have potentially been a feminist manifesto mutates into something ripped out of a misogynist’s or Men’s Rights Activist (MRA)’s warped fantasy.
The biggest problem with Gone Girl lies in the tactics Amy utilizes to punish men — by faking intimate partner violence and rape. Amy ties her wrists with rope, squeezing and tightening them while turning her wrists and she hits her face with a hammer to simulate abuse. She repeatedly shoves a wine bottle up her vagina to simulate the bruising and tearing from rape. Amy falsely accuses men of rape, stalking and abuse, all for her own ends. Amy convincingly plays the role of an abuse survivor. It’s scary because this is the kind of bullshit people believe — that women lie and make shit up to wreak vengeance on men.
Author/screenwriter Gillian Flynn said that Amy “knows all the tropes” and she can “play any role that she wants.” But therein lies the problem. Abuse victims and survivors are not merely “tropes” or “roles.” Amy pretends she is being abused in order to frame Nick by writing in her diary that she fears for her life and worries that her husband might kill her. She says she feels “disposable,” something that could be “jettisoned.” Women murdered at the hands of abusive partners are typically treated as disposable in our society. People tell victims/survivors that they should have known better, they must have provoked their abuse. People question why victims/survivors stay with abusive partners. People put the onus on women to prevent rape. These are the myths that films, TV series and news media reinforce. It’s extremely problematic to equate Amy playing “the role” of an abused rape victim with actual women abused and raped.
We also see victim-blaming underscored in the film from Amy’s neighbor Greta. When they first meet, Greta comments on the bruise on Amy’s face saying, “Well, we have the same taste in men.” Yet when the two women are watching a news program on Amy’s disappearance and how the leading cause of death for pregnant women is homicide (it is), Greta calls on-screen Amy (feigning ignorance that the real Amy is right next to her) a “spoiled,” “rich bitch.” She goes on to say, “While she doesn’t deserve it, there are consequences.” While this is a commentary on privilege and Greta has survived abuse too, this also amounts to victim-blaming 101.
But the victim-blaming doesn’t stop there. One of Amy’s exes talks to Nick and tells him how she falsely accused him of rape and had a restraining order placed on him. He tells Nick that when he saw her on the news missing, “I thought there’s Amy. She’s gone from being raped to being murdered.” Again this underscores the myth that women lie about rape and abuse. But the numbers are so low for reports of false rape and domestic violence that they are almost non-existent.
Victim-blaming myths permeate every facet of our society. Janay Rice’s abuse and the resulting #WhyIStayed conversation recently highlighted the myriad myths people believe about intimate partner violence, particularly when it comes to women of color. People feel they need “proof” to verify or corroborate a victim/survivor’s trauma. Society perpetually places the onus on women for their abuse rather than on where it belongs: with the abuser. As we’ve seen with Marissa Alexander, the legal system doesn’t reward but rather punishes domestic violence survivors. This happens again and again, over and over. Women are not believed. And it’s dangerous to keep feeding this narrative.
Rape is “an epidemic.” Violence against women is an epidemic. We live in a rape culture that inculcates the abuse and objectification of women and dismisses violence against women. Society makes every excuse for abusers while it unilaterally shames and blames victims and survivors of intimate partner violence, rape and sexual assault.
Some might try to assuage Gone Girl’s misogyny by declaring Amy’s misandry or by underscoring that there are two female characters – Detective Rhonda Boney and Margo Dunne – who are onto Amy’s game. But it doesn’t. When you have a protagonist doing despicable things, the film/TV series often straddles a fine line between condemnation and glorification. However, there is a way for a film/TV series to delineate their message: by the comments and perspectives of ancillary characters. Breaking Bad illustrates this beautifully. Despite what many fanboys got wrong, we are NOT supposed to identify with power-hungry, abusive, rapist Walter White. We may be fascinated by Walter’s fierce intelligence. But we are supposed to identify with Jesse and Skyler, both of whom are the heart and conscience of the show. They are the ones telling us the audience, both overtly and covertly, that Walter’s actions are despicable and monstrous.
In Gone Girl, almost every character condemns and despises Amy. They loathe her for her manipulations and how she has framed Nick. But no character comments on how Amy’s actions reinforce rape culture. Not one. Rhonda could have easily mentioned the stats for women reporting rape or domestic abuse, how few rape and abuse cases are brought to trial and even fewer convicted because of victim-blaming biases. Nick’s sister Margo could have said how horrible Amy’s schemes are not only for her brother but the implications for other women too. But everyone in the film only focuses on how Amy’s actions impact Nick. Nick even says at one point in the film, “I’m so sick of being picked apart by women.” (Boo hoo, poor Nick. Isn’t that every misogynist’s anthem??) So when Nick slams Amy’s head into the wall and calls her a “cunt” towards the end of the film — despite his abusive actions and misogynist language — we the audience are supposed to sympathize with him because he just wants to be a good dad, because he’s the one victimized by this manipulative shrew.
I wish I could love this film without reservations. I wish I could say that Gone Girl is a subversive feminist film exposing myriad gender biases and generating a much-needed dialogue on rape and domestic violence. Yet it reinforces dangerous myths rather than shattering them. The embedded “Cool Girl” speech rails against the patriarchal notion that women serve as nothing more than accessories and sexual objects to men. But the film falters by playing into a victim-blaming narrative reinforcing rape culture.
We need more complex female protagonists. We need more female anti-heroes and villains. If only we could have one in a film that doesn’t simultaneously perpetuate the misogynist notion that women lie about rape and abuse.
While watching ‘The Maze Runner,’ I couldn’t help thinking, wouldn’t this story have been so much more rich and interesting if it had been told from Minho’s or Teresa’s perspective? Why not feature a girl or a boy of color as the protagonist?
Like most Hollywood films, The Maze Runner — the latest young adult (YA) novel set in a dystopian future adapted for the screen — revolves around a white male protagonist. While mildly entertaining, rather than exploring new ideas and themes, it suffers from gender and racial tropes.
Echoing themes in Lord of the Flies (boys in the wild creating their own society) and The Hunger Games (dystopian setting, a treacherous obstacle course and adults manipulating children for a supposedly greater good), The Maze Runner follows Thomas, whose memories have been erased, as he’s transported into a community of boys living in a forest, called the Glade, in the middle of a fluctuating maze.
It’s a decent film. Nothing special, nothing great. Just fine. I couldn’t care less who lived or who died because all of the characters possess gossamer personalities. The beginning opens with disorientation dropping you right into the story. But beyond that, it didn’t really contain much suspense. Plus I was able to predict pretty much the entire plot about 20 minutes in. Despite a few similarities, The Maze Runner lacks the stellar acting, character development, gravitas and social commentary that helped catapult The Hunger Games to blockbuster success.
The racial diversity of the boys in the Glade pleasantly surprised me. Not only do we see multiple boys of color (who talk! who matter as characters!), it was fantastic to see boys of color in leadership positions: Albie, the group’s leader and the very first boy ever sent up, and Minho, the Keeper of the Runners. Now, I want to applaud this film for its diversity. However, the film (and the book too) can’t resist centering a white male protagonist who is considered “special” and “different” because he’s curious about things and asks questions. Of course, Thomas can figure out everything better and faster than everyone else, even the people who have been in the Glade for years. Sure, you could argue that perhaps that has to do with his repressed memories resurfacing. But I think the real reason is that heaven forbid we have a hero who isn’t white or male, aside from a few notable exceptions (Katniss in The Hunger Games, Tris in Divergent).
Even though there are white boys in the Glade, The Maze Runner feels akin to a White Savior narrative. Now, the White Savior trope is typically reserved for movies about Black people and slavery or Indigenous people, who need to be “saved” or “civilized” by a lone white hero. Yet it still parallels the trope as the boys in the Glade need the new white guy to teach them about the maze and to attempt an escape. Minho has been mapping out the maze for three years, no small feat since the maze changes every night. Yet it’s Thomas, not Minho, who figures out how to kill a Griever and the code to use at the end of the maze. It’s Thomas who motivates the others to try to escape when the others have become complacent.
Thankfully, Thomas doesn’t play a role in “establishing order and peace,” which Albie says they have achieved after the “dark days” of panic and fear. Author James Dashner was inspired by Lord of the Flies to write a series about boys depicting how “instead of killing each other and being animalistic, they would form a brotherhood and do whatever it took to protect each other.” The boys do all work cooperatively together. But Thomas is the only one who breaks the rules and enters the maze as it’s closing to try to save Albie and Minho. While Thomas doesn’t civilize the boys, he does demonstrate a sense of bravery and morality the others seem to ignore or repress. The film’s message seems to be that we should question things, not passively accept them, which Thomas’s presence in the Glade embodies.
So where are all the girls? The movie never explains that. And no one seems to ask that question. The boys are shocked to see a girl, Teresa, come up the elevator the day after Thomas arrives. She is the only girl to ever arrive in the Glade. Aside from an extremely brief performance by Patricia Clarkson, Teresa is the only female character we ever see.
One nice change from most YA movies is the lack of a predictable love triangle or the emergence of a love story. With the presence of one girl, the film could have easily fallen into that trap. Love stories aren’t in and of themselves bad. In fact, I love them. It annoys me how often media denigrates love stories, typically because women and girls are the primary intended audiences. No, I’m glad no love story exists because it usually reduces a female character’s role to nothing more than an object of desire for the dudes in the film. It also typically reifies heteronormative relationships, also queer diversity would have been great to see here.
Teresa is the epitome of the Smurfette Principle. She is the only girl amongst 50 or so boys. Lacking true agency and personality, Teresa’s sole purpose in the film appears to be to potentially create confusion and chaos amongst the boys and to inspire Thomas. Sure, we see her acting feisty as she throws items off of a tower and tosses a torch at a Griever. But ultimately, her role only matters in how it relates to and impacts the male characters. Yes, Teresa tells Thomas that maybe there’s a reason they’re both different. And she encourages him that they should escape. But that’s about it. If I had any hopes for Teresa’s growth in the subsequent films in the trilogy (four books if you count the prequel), this article on the sexism in the books dashed that.
Ummmmmm, pardon me? No, no, no. Just. No. That’s an extremely problematic statement. So because there have been a few female-centric film franchises based on YA novels it’s “refreshing” for the main character to be male? Uh oh, lady movies have been doing well at the box office. Gasp! BRING BACK THE BOY MOVIES.
It matters that girls (and all genders) see diverse representations (gender, race, sexuality, age, body size, people with disabilities, etc.) on-screen. It matters that girls see themselves reflected in media.
While watching The Maze Runner, I couldn’t help thinking, wouldn’t this story have been so much more rich and interesting if it had been told from Minho’s or Teresa’s perspective? Why not feature a girl or a boy of color as the protagonist? Even though it’s framed as a male-centric story, it still could have contained complex, nuanced fully developed female characters. It could have made an intriguing commentary on constricting, stereotypical gender roles or the toxicity of hyper masculinity. It could have explored how gender and race impact social structures and people’s experiences. Maybe I expect too much from my movies.
Despite its racial diversity, instead of forging a new trail, The Maze Runner follows a fairly formulaic and familiar story filled with tired tropes.
I had the wonderful opportunity to speak with Athena Film Festival co-founders Kathryn Kolbert, Constance Hess Williams Director, Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College, and Melissa Silverstein, Founder and Editor, Women and Hollywood. We discussed the upcoming festival, creating opportunities for female filmmakers, and the importance of seeing women leaders on-screen.
Co-Founders of the Athena Film Festival, Kathryn Kolbert and Melissa Silverstein [Photo by: Kristina Bumphrey/Starpix]
The Athena Film Festival “is an engaging weekend of feature films, documentaries and shorts that highlight women’s leadership in real life and the fictional world.” I had the wonderful opportunity to speak with Athena Film Festival co-founders Kathryn Kolbert, Constance Hess Williams Director, Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College, and Melissa Silverstein, Founder and Editor, Women and Hollywood. We discussed the upcoming festival, creating opportunities for female filmmakers, and the importance of seeing women leaders on-screen.
1. Megan Kearns: Why did you both start the Athena Film Festival?
Kathryn Kolbert: The festival started after an event at Gloria’s Steinem house that Melissa had organized to honor Jane Campion. Both of us were very struck by hearing the same thing from all the filmmakers who were there about the difficulty of having movies with strong female courageous women characters in their films. I had just started at Barnard at the Athena Leadership Center and really felt like we needed to focus some of our attention on changing what I call the “blink” — what do you think of, what do you see when you think leader or when you’re asked what does a leader look like. Most people respond to that by thinking of a white man with gray hair at the temples. I think our view was we need to change that in the wider culture. And we need to level the playing field for women or men who want to tell stories about great women leaders. From there, the festival was born.
2. Megan Kearns : I’m sure you both love all of the films showing at Athena Film Fest? Which films or panels are you the most excited about? If people can only see one or two, which are must-see?
Melissa Silverstein: Firstly, we are very excited for three films that would highlight our opening film, our centerpiece film and our closing film. They’re all really different.
Belle directed by Amma Asante, tells the true story of a woman from history who helped basically bring down the slave trade in England. Decoding Annie Parker, also based on true events about two women, not connected to each other but separately, who came up with the idea that breast cancer is passed down from person to person. And then lastly, the documentary on Geraldine Ferraro [Geraldine Ferraro: Paving the Way]. Those are the pieces that we’re holding up as our “tent poles,” as they say. And Megan, you write about Hollywood, you know those “tent poles” are never about women, right? So all of our “tent poles” are about women at the Athena Film Festival.
And then there are amazing nuggets and conversations going on here that I don’t want people to miss. I want people to get a film, and then a panel, and then a film and then a panel. Some of those highlights are, especially for your audience, the “Bechdel Test 2.0,” which is really asking people to look beyond just the Bechdel Test and beyond representation to how do we create more substantive leading roles for women. Amplifying women’s voices — we’ll talk about and feature people working behind the scenes to get more women-friendly and women-centric content out there. Also, some leaders who are leading that charge.
[Filmmaker] Lexi Alexander is coming. She made a big hoopla with her piece on what it’s like to be a woman director. The woman is just like raw energy rolled up into…I don’t even know what she would be rolled up into. She’s going to explode like a cannon, I have a feeling. She’s got a lot of things to say and she’s not afraid to say it. And in a business where people are afraid to say the truth, I think this could be a very revealing conversation.
Kathryn Kolbert: I would highlight that I’m going to be talking with Leymah Gbowee who is the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Winner from Liberia. A woman whose story was told in the film Pray the Devil Back to Hell. And I think that helped to internationalize the unbelievable work that she did to create peace in a country that had been at war for many, many decades. If you’ve never had the opportunity to hear her, she’s just extraordinarily charismatic and interesting because she’s had a chance to visit with women all across the globe who are working for peace.
The second thing I think is really interesting across the festival is we have everything from a teenager sailing across the ocean alone [Maidentrip] to an animated film [Frozen], to women from all different countries around the world do many different kinds of things. I encourage people to go see more than one film, to come in and see 3 or 4, because that’s the story, that’s the subtext of what we’re doing that doesn’t get noticed until you’re seeing lots of things. The shorts are a really good example of that. Both shorts programs are great.
Melissa Silverstein: We curate a program that allows you to see all different kinds of women doing all different kinds of leadership. You have an opportunity to put together for yourself a vision of what you think films could be like and leadership could be like. I know the readers of Bitch Flicks like that vision and believe in that vision. By coming in and just sampling one or two things you get a little bit of it. But if you feel the breadth of it, you can understand the potential if we have more women’s stories in our culture.
3. Megan Kearns : How important do you think it is for people to see women in leadership roles on-screen?
Kathryn Kolbert: It’s incredibly important. Let me give you one piece of research that I think is extremely useful and telling in terms of what we’re trying to do here. A number of years ago in India, they passed what’s known as a reservations law which reserved a third of all town heads, the equivalent of mayors, around the country for women. They did that on a randomized basis so you could study what happened when women became mayors. Therefore, it couldn’t be attributed to something other than the gender of the women who ascended to these roles. Two things happened. One, the agendas of the women were different than the agendas of the men because they were listening more closely to both the men and women in the villages. The men’s agendas seemed to reflect the male leadership in the village. The women’s leadership reflected both the attitudes of male and female constituents. So the agendas changed.
But here’s the interesting piece that applies to our festival. What also changed was the aspirations of girls. When you had two women in a row who became mayors in their village, they believed and understood they could be a mayor themselves. That’s what this festival is all about. It’s how you inspire the next generation or the generation after that to ascend to leadership in whatever capacity they aspire to. Until they see people who are like them, in those roles, they won’t be able to do that as effectively.
Melissa Silverstein: So bringing in a person like Lexi Alexander, who has taken on — she doesn’t always think this is the thing she needs to do but she understands by putting this out there — she has taken on a responsibility. She wants this business to change. Not just for herself but for other women, the women who can’t get jobs and for the girls who want to see — as Kitty always says, “What do you think a leader looks like? The guy with gray hair at his temples.” When you ask girls, “What does a director look like?” They describe Steven Spielberg-like. We want girls to be able to dream, to see themselves as potential directors. That way we’ll have more stories about women, because we know the research shows that when you have more women behind the scenes, you have more stories about women.
4. Megan Kearns: There’s a panel on the Bechdel Test at Athena and last year 4 Swedish cinemas employed a Bechdel Test rating to indicate gender bias. How important do you think the Bechdel Test is?
Melissa Silverstein: I’m going to push back on you on the Bechdel Test. It’s not the beginning and it’s not the end. We get stuck in the fact that two women talking to each other about a man. Two women talking to each other about something other than a man is not enough. And should not be enough.
Kathryn Kolbert: If we put this in another context, it would be like saying because one Fortune 500 company has one woman on their board of directors, that the fight is over. It’s just beginning. It’s not really a fight. It’s an effort to bring parity in the world in a whole range of arenas. From my perspective, in terms of leadership, you only can change the world if women get beyond their gender and can contribute equally within any kind of organization or entity. And as long as they’re a minority, in any respect — whether it’s on-screen, behind the screen, directors, whatever role they’re playing — as long as they’re a minority, their gender is the only issue people are looking at them for, rather than the huge contributions they bring to the table. We believe in parity because it makes the product better.
Melissa Silverstein: What we’re trying to do with the Athena Film Festival is give women directors the opportunity to have their films at a first-class event and create conversations that show people — basically what we want to say is, it shouldn’t be a big deal to have six movies directed by women in a film festival. Yet, at all the film festivals I go to, it is always a big deal to see six movies by women. We want to create opportunities for them out there, they just don’t have the opportunity to be seen at this level. We want people to take them more seriously and we want people to understand that their work stands on its own. People in the film business need to look at this work a bit differently and to redefine what success is.
Kathryn Kolbert: We want to remember that men are allies in this as well. One thing that the Athena Film Festival has always stood for is it’s important what the story is, not necessarily the gender of the person who directed the film. While we do believe women directors need more opportunities, there’s no question about that, we also show movies by male directors who are telling stories of interesting, creative, courageous women because that needs to be part of the norm as well. The issue is not who made the film so much as what the film is contributing to the cultural conversation. From my perspective, in terms of how you change leadership, men and women need to work together to change what leadership looks like.
6. Megan Kearns: What are your thoughts on the Celluloid Ceiling’s Report that there hasn’t been progress for women in film in 16 years. How can we move past the “gender inertia” of film that Dr. Martha Lauzen talks about and achieve more diverse female representation in film?
Kathryn Kolbert: It’s not much different than any other major institutions in the country. Hollywood has despicable numbers but so do Fortune 500 companies, so do non-profits, so does the education sphere. All over the world, this is a problem, in terms of women and leadership roles. I think that the solutions are more complicated than any of us would like. It would be really nice if we could say there’s one thing that could be done and the problem is solved. It’s not that simple, nor do we believe that to be the case.
But I do think for Hollywood, there are two things that can make a significant difference. One is this myth that the major audience are 18- to 25-year-old guys. The blockbuster films are kind of geared toward that audience. In fact, women go to the movies, women are more likely to go to the movies when they’re not seeing blockbuster films for 18-year-old guys. That’s one really significant thing: the industry has to catch up to their own data.
Melissa Silverstein: It has to catch up to the rest of the country.
Kathryn Kolbert: The second thing is they have got to say this, they have got to admit that there is a problem. Until they do, it’s not going to change. To me, we need to call upon the leaders of the big studios to say openly that this is a problem, we’re going to address the problem, we’re going to work on the problem, and we’re going to quit ignoring it.
Melissa Silverstein: I agree. There has to be the will. Now there is no will. Now, Dr. Lauzen’s statistics, she’s been counting this for 16 years. I would venture to say that it’s been that bad for many more years than that. We just have those statistics for 16 years. This has been going on for decades.
But Hollywood is a business. These people’s jobs are to make money and the inertia comes from the fact that they continue to make money and they don’t see how bringing women into it will improve on their bottom line. They don’t see the need because their bottom line continues to grow. They’re contracting the amount of movies they’re releasing at the studios. As they contract, they make bigger “tent poles,” more boy-centric, more superhero-centric, more action-centric, more internationally-centric. All those issues lead into less and less opportunities for women.
Until somebody says, “I’m going to hire a woman to direct the next Marvel movie or the next Avengers movie, we’re going to have this conversation until we break through that glass ceiling. It’s got to happen at the top level.
7. Megan Kearns: Who are your favorite female filmmakers?
Melissa Silverstein: I’m a huge Lynn Shelton fan. I also feel like I’ve seen Nicole Holofcener’s body of work. There are many men you can say, “I’ve seen that person’s body of work.” There are not that many women where you can have the body of work and you can feel really connected to it. For me, I have that connection to Nicole Holofcener’s work. And I think one of my favorite movies of all time is Whale Rider. And Bend It Like Beckham.
On Aug. 21, 2010, 14-year-old Laura Dekker sailed out of Den Osse, Netherlands for a two-year circumnavigation of the world, alone. By the time she finished her journey, on Jan. 21, 2012, at the age of only 16, Dekker would be the youngest person to ever sail solo around the world. Documentary ‘Maidentrip’ chronicles Laura’s voyage. It’s an emotional coming-of-age story, set as a love letter to the ocean and the transformative experience of encountering a larger world.
On Aug. 21, 2010, 14-year-old Laura Dekker sailed out of Den Osse, Netherlands for a two-year circumnavigation of the world, alone. By the time she finished her journey, on Jan. 21, 2012, at the age of only 16, Dekker would be the youngest person to ever sail solo around the world.
Following her journey was documentary filmmaker, Jillian Schlesinger; from film shot while meeting with Dekker at various points in the trip, and sea-voyage scenes filmed by Dekker’s hand-held camera, Schlesinger has produced an emotional coming-of-age story, set as a love letter to the ocean and the transformative experience of encountering a larger world.
Since there were two Bitch Flicks’ staff vying for the opportunity to review Maidentrip, which premieres Friday, Jan. 17, in New York City, writers Rachel Redfern and Megan Kearns teamed up to produce a special conversation-based review, sharing their reactions to the award-winning documentary.
Rachel: Well first of all, this movie was fantastic! It really hit me on a personal level, since I just returned for two years living abroad in South Korea, and I remember what it was like to really push myself outside of my comfort zone. Watching the changes that Laura goes through and her feelings of loneliness and wonder, it made me relive a lot of my own experiences. But after watching the film, I wanted to go on an adventure again, to leave and challenge myself. Which to me means that it’s a powerful and dynamic film, when it can force audiences to identify with the protagonist, evaluate their own emotions, and then motivate them.
Megan: Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!! I completely agree with you. I thought Maidentrip was fantastic too. The film really struck a chord with me on multiple levels. I thought it was incredible to be able to view her journey through her perspective, to see the world through her eyes. It’s rare for a film to show us a woman or girl’s perspective throughout. I was also impressed by her determination and resolve.
Megan: Laura wasn’t doing this for fame or notoriety or money, but that she had a dream as a child that she was determined to fulfill. That she wanted to go after something so passionately. I’ve always wanted to travel the world, but due to finances or school or work, I’ve never been able to travel as much I yearn to. So it was wonderful for her to seize the moment and just do it. I also loved that she didn’t like school because she didn’t like people telling her what to do!
Rachel: Yes, I was blown away by her maturity and how grounded she was, she’s obviously an incredibly mature and independent young woman
Megan: Yes! We need to see more independent young woman like Laura on-screen. It’s so fascinating how she was far more interested in exploring, meeting new people, trying new things, seeing new places.And how comfortable she was with herself and with being alone, yet when she met people, she had these deep connections.
Rachel: That speaks a lot to her personality I think, to be so comfortable disembarking from her boat at the age of 14 and wandering around a country by herself.
Megan: She rejected the narrative of what she’s “supposed to do.” And I love that. It was intriguing to see her journey. It was a moving love letter to travel and to sailing.
Rachel: I absolutely agree. In fact, I thought that the film did a beautiful job of showing the wonder and beauty of sailing, as well as the great community around sailing. The film also did a great job of showing how skilled Laura is as a sailor and her obvious love of sailing. I loved that Laura confesses that only Guppy, her boat, feels like home, but it could also be taken as a criticism of her home life and relationship with her parents
Megan: I also thought it was interesting when she says that true freedom is to not have attachments. It seems like Laura became increasingly comfortable on her own away from people. She seemed to crave solitude.
Rachel: I was really struck by Laura’s development, as she came into herself and became a more private person–obviously not wanting to deal with other people, and loving the moments when she was just alone on her boat. That was one thing I loved about the film was that it was able to really show Laura’s changes; it’s fantastic to be able to see someone grow up in a two hour film.
Megan: Yes, me too! That typically only happens in the arc of a TV series. Not a two-hour movie. AND we typically only see coming-of-age stories with men/boys. Not women/girls.
Rachel: Yes, I found it refreshing! I was really stunned that Schlesinger was able to show so much or Laura’s self-assurance and confidence as the trip progresses. I just felt that it painted a whole and complete picture of an individual really coming of age. And, maybe a weird side note, but I love that we see Laura physically change (her face, she grows up, and dyes her hair).
Megan: That’s a fantastic point! I couldn’t believe that so much was shown, revealed…yet it felt so expansive and not rushed at all. The film really breathed. Although sometimes, with my short attention span, I wanted things to hurry up. But I was so glad that they didn’t. The film really unfolded beautifully. I really felt that I want on this emotional and physical journey with Laura. It’s as if her journey at sea was a physical manifestation of her moving through the liminal stages of childhood/adolescence and into adulthood.
Laura Dekker on the deck of “Guppy”
Rachel: What did you feel that you gained the most from the film?
Megan: I’m glad you asked! I think I’d have to say the most I gained was to stop wasting time or making excuses and go after what you want. To pursue your dreams, whatever they may be. To not give a shit about people’s opinions. To chart your own course. Sometimes we as adults get bogged down in our day-to-day duties and responsibilities. We forget what matters most to us. We put our dreams on the back burner.
What did you gain most from the film?
Rachel: Something similar to you I think; I gained a desire to travel/go abroad again. I guess that it reaffirmed my belief in the power of experiences to change us in really profound ways and the need to be proactive in our lives and really push and challenge ourselves. And challenging yourself can be so difficult, that it seems daunting and overwhelming sometimes. For instance, in the film, when speaking about a difficult time in her journey, her first few weeks alone on the first big ocean crossing, Laura said, “I just couldn’t get any food down, I just feel really strange.” I kept thinking about my own experiences living abroad, and how it can be so expanding, but also terrifying. But then, only a few minutes later, we see her crying as a group of dolphins play alongside her boat and she confesses to the camera how much they mean to her, as company, and as a reminder of the beauty of the world.
Rachel: Laura’s story is an intense one, and has garnered a lot of media attention. It’s great that they are recognizing the accomplishment of this incredible young woman. And in conjunction with that, it was interesting when Laura talked about the two other young woman who tried to do the “Not Stop Around The World” records: Jessica from Australia and Abby from America. Did you notice all three were women? I was curious, if there were also a lot of young men trying to do the same thing?
Megan: Yes, I DID notice that too!
Rachel: I think that it’s telling that there are brave young women so willing, and so focused on their goals, that they’re out there doing these kinds of things.
Megan: Perhaps there’s this notion of getting out there because society so often dictates to women what they can and can’t do. It’s a form of rebellion. A revolutionary act. Maybe even on a subconscious level?
Rachel: Interesting idea. What did you think of the cinematography of the movie? Especially since half of the film was hand-held footage from Laura herself?
Megan: I thought it was stunning, breathtaking. I really felt the majesty and beauty of nature. And I liked that the majority of the footage was shot by Laura. Sure, some of it was choppy. But I thought that added to its charm. It’s a little rough around the edges. But then the camera pans on this exquisite sunset. Seeing the waves crash against the boat in the storm, the dolphins swimming beside the boat. It made me feel like I was right there alongside her. Also, I thought the score was haunting and beautiful, punctuating the story perfectly.
Rachel: Yes, it made me feel more involved in the film, the traveling and the sailing with the camera rocking around; probably just one more reason that the movie was so powerful. I also thought it was a tribute to Jillian as a filmmaker that she was able to effectively use different elements of storytelling to accentuate Laura’s youth, and the fact that she is searching for herself, her place in the world, and her independence. Yet, all of this is couched within the framework of Laura’s love of sailing. I love how this film was able to speak to both of us on such a personal level, and really connected with us in our past experiences.
Laura Dekker and her home, “Guppy”
Megan: But now you’ve got me thinking… Documentary films are so tricky. Because I’m thinking of the film, framing it as a story, despite it being a true one. Documentaries always have a bias, a perspective that the filmmaker wants you to see. They’re manipulative. Not necessarily in a bad way, but they’re trying to make you see/feel something specific.
Rachel: I think that’s a great point. What perspective/bias do you think Jillian was trying to portray?
Megan: Hmmm…I think she was trying to convey a coming-of-age story. That here’s this incredibly brave, independent, mature, thoughtful young women. Setting out to achieve her dream but also discovering more about herself along the way. There’s this aura of anything is possible.
Rachel: I love that the film brought up Laura’s very conflicted relationship with the press, touching on the fact that the Dutch government tried to stop Laura’s journey, and even have her removed from her father’s custody, especially since Laura never wanted that kind of notoriety for her trip.
Megan: YES. But it’s so interesting that she has a film made about her, yet she values her privacy and doesn’t like journalists with their prying questions.
Rachel: I would be very interested to know how Julian (the director) was able to convince Laura and her father to participate in the project. As a little aside though…I did some research yesterday and found a few articles stating that Laura Dekker is not happy with the film and isn’t supporting it anymore. Which is a very interesting continuation of Laura’s distrust of the media.
Megan: Oh wow.
Rachel: But apparently Schlesinger (the director) has been fantastic about Laura’s refusal to support the film
“Jillian Schlesinger, to her credit, doesn’t seem to be taking Laura’s disapproval too personally. ‘We prefer to respect Laura’s privacy and to let her speak for herself on the matter as much or as little as she’d like to at this time.'”
Rachel: I suppose it would be hard for me to watch a story of my own life journey from kid into adult….To see my mistakes, even if it did end up in a positive place?
Megan: While of course Jillian edited the film and scored it, it’s still a majority of Laura’s footage which I think makes it different than most other documentaries. Perhaps this is naive, but I feel like it makes it a “purer” story. Truer to the source.
Rachel: Especially since it’s all Laura, there are no outside influences going on there.
Megan: You raise a great point about how hard it must be for Laura to watch this, to see her triumphs but also her mistakes, her pain and her growth. What do you think about the film’s commentary on the passage of time?
Rachel: Oh, great question! Because it does cover a full two years in only two hours, I think that it can sometimes be easy to forget just how long two years is, and they end up shortening six weeks at sea into five minutes of footage. Perhaps, whether intentional or not, the film really underscores memory of time, only choosing the parts we consider the most important or significant to remember, when in reality, there might be more to the story. Things that could have been important to someone else, but that we don’t always remember or see or hear about. What do you think that the film is saying about time?
Megan: I agree with you. Also, I thought it was interesting that Laura says, “After 30 days [at sea], time doesn’t exist any more. It was the best feeling…I made peace with it. I was just there, with nature.” That was really powerful. To slow down. To not obsess over the past or worry about the future, but to really live in the moment.
Megan: I know we already talked about the media. But I thought it was interesting and awful to see all the headlines and descriptions of Laura in the media before her voyage. That she was “crazy” and “unstable.” I wonder, would they have said the same thing about a boy her age?
Rachel: The horrific things people were saying about her! Do you remember that one person said, “I hope she sinks” And I just thought, “Really? I mean, really? You thought that was OK to say? Wishing for someone else’s death?!” I was shocked. Hmmm, I’m not sure that they would have, I think they would have been more willing to let him go ahead with the trip.
Megan: Yes, I remember her saying that! That’s disgusting. Why would you wish for someone’s death?! And the media would never say that about a boy. They might say reckless or impetuous or something like that. But not “crazy” or “unstable.”
Rachel: That is one thing I’ve noticed, as a traveler and a woman, People are ALWAYS telling me, “But do you feel safe?” “Don’t you think it would be better to travel with a group?” I think people definitely have this perception that women maybe shouldn’t be traveling alone, because it’s too dangerous, and because of this, many women stop themselves. And while yes, we can’t ignore that it can be more dangerous as a woman, I think it’s unfortunate that so many women stop themselves from opportunities, or are stopped by others, because of fear.
I love that Maidentrip is about a girl taking control of her life and doing what she needs to do.
Rachel: But all that said, would I allow my 14-year-daughter do what Laura did? Probably not. And I think it is a valid point, and one that is underscored by Laura’s own admissions, she didn’t have the best relationship with her parents, making her an incredibly self-assured and independent young woman
Though, I wonder, while I don’t think many 14-year-olds would be ready to leave their parents and go off into the world, history is full of people stepping up at that age and doing incredible things.
Megan: You raise a fantastic point. I wouldn’t let my daughter (if I had one) go on a trip alone at that age. Especially sailing, when there’s so much that can go wrong. But then I think, you can’t live your life in fear. I’m torn. But yes, her loving yet strained relationship with her parents had to have played a role.
Rachel: I think people are far more capable than we give them credit for and Maidentrip is definitely a testament to the human ability to adjust itself to its environment.
One thing, the sea is always thought of as a woman (as is mother nature), perhaps it’s significant that a girl who had a very sad relationship with her mother, would have this typically female symbol (the ocean) guiding her into womanhood.
Megan: YES! And boats are named after women. That definitely makes the film even more powerful on a symbolic gender level.
Rachel: Yes! It becomes an incredibly female film, centered in the female experience.
Megan: Yes, it illustrates Laura’s perseverance, determination and resolve. What a survivor. I also love when Laura says, “There were all these people who looked at me like it was impossible that I had come in with this weather. And then as I finally started to warm up again and to think straight, I realized that wow, that’s actually pretty badass.” Such a powerful declaration — her realization of her own power and agency. She’s not shy or humble or timid about it. She embraces it.
Rachel: It was definitely a moment of self-realization, for her to be able to see that in herself. How powerful for us, and the audience, especially when you think that “sailor” stories always seem to be male ones, (pirates, etc…).
Megan: You’re SO right! Almost all sailor stories — and survival stories in general — are told from a male perspective. Like All is Lost, Castaway, and Captain Phillips.
Rachel: Or Life of Pi and Liam Neesen’s The Grey.
Megan: That’s one of the reasons why I love Gravity. It’s important to see women survivors and explorers too.
Rachel: Yes! And I just thought, “I want more women to have that kind of experience!!!”
Megan: YES! Exactly!! I felt that too.
Rachel: Maybe that’s the true power/message of the film? Hopefully that it could make women (and men) realize that inner ability.
Megan: Laura will never stop searching, never stop being herself. I want every woman to recognize and embrace her inner strength and power.
Rachel Redfern is a Staff Writer at Bitch Flicks. She is a traveler and teacher who spent the last few years living in Asia. Now back in her native California, she focuses on writing about media, culture, and feminism. She writes for Policy Mic and tweets at @RachelRedfern2.
At first, Jean appears like a stereotypical shrew, a misogynistic trope. The shrew often serves the purpose to show us that the male lead is a put-upon nice guy. The intention is for her nastiness to reinforce our sympathy for him. But ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ differs in that we inevitably sympathize with Jean, or at the very least, we understand where she’s coming from. We understand her vitriol and frustration towards Llewyn. Jean’s role isn’t hollow. Beyond her rage and meanness, there’s a melancholic sadness behind her eyes. She embodies far more complexity than a mere trope.
Music can wordlessly stir emotions and move us. A song can provide a glimpse into a moment in someone’s life. Music can mark the borders of a cultural era. A lyrical love letter to folk music, Inside Llewyn Davis brilliantly captures all of these.
I didn’t know what to expect. While I love folk music — the acoustic guitar, the harmonies, the raw emotion, the social justice messages simmering under the surface — I’m not the biggest Cohen Brothers fan. So it surprised me that the deceptively simple yet complex Inside Llewyn Davis is one of my favorite films of the year.
The musical performances were all performed by the actors and performed live. It lends an authenticity and electricity to the film. The emotive music feels like another character in the film. Llewyn (and Oscar Isaac) comes alive when he performs. He’s a soulful and raw musician, which encompasses the evocative feeling of folk music in the 1960s.
Epitomizing many folk musicians of that era, Llewyn doesn’t want to sell out. He wants to remain a solo artist after the suicide of his musical partner. Yet he struggles to make a living out of his art. Both music manager Bud Grossman (F. Murry Abraham) and jazz musician Roland Turner (John Goodman) don’t take folk music seriously, as a viable commercial endeavor or as an art form respectively. Roland even tells Llewyn, “What’d you say you played? Folk songs? I thought you said you were a musician.” But Llewyn is determined to stay true to his art.
Ulysses the cat, Llewyn’s frequent companion, was my favorite part of the film. But not only because I’m a sucker for a cat (which I am). The cat’s name, a form of Odysseus, who tries to find his way home in the Greek mythological epic The Odyssey, is a fitting allusion. Llewyn is a wayward traveler physically, as he flits from couch to couch crashing at various friends’ houses, artistically, as he doesn’t feel appreciated, and emotionally, as he doesn’t really connect with anyone and doesn’t belong anywhere.
Which brings us to the women in Llewyn’s life. We see the women in the film through Llewyn’s eyes, just as we do everything else. And as Llewyn is cynical, viewing everyone and everything as a nuisance or obstacle obstructing his path, we see the women skewed in the same light.
Jean (Carey Mulligan), the most prominent female character, is a folk musician too. We see her sing on-stage with Jim (Justin Timberlake), her husband and Llewyn’s friend. Of course we’re treated to a lovely objectifying commentary by the bar owner Pappi about how he wants to fuck Jean. Nice.
Full of wrath and fury, everything Llewyn does enrages her. Immediately hostile, she spouts venomous lines at him such as, “Everything you touch turns to shit,” and he “should wear two condoms” when he has sex. “I loved her spiteful, vitriolic rants,” said Carey Mulligan, who found the role “liberating” and “great fun.” While the entire film is told from Llewyn’s perspective – not really a surprise as the film title alludes – we do eventually understand why Jean feels the way she does towards Llewyn.
“His own worst enemy,” Llewyn is a selfish jerk. He’s unreliable and lashes out at people, sabotaging his relationships. It’s interesting because a musician is supposed to entertain people, not alienate them. Yet that’s precisely what Llewyn does to nearly everyone in his life.
When Jean discovers she’s pregnant, she fears that Llewyn might be the father of her unborn baby, catalyzing her to want an abortion. Needing the money to fund Jean’s abortion spurs Llewyn taking a job recording with Jim — an interesting scene in and of itself as it seems to encapsulate the disconnect between the folk music Llewyn wants to create and the commercial pop music Jim that’s making him money. Jean says she would keep the baby if she knew for certain Jim was the father. Despite being about Llewyn, I appreciate that the film affords Jean the opportunity to express her wishes.
As a reproductive justice advocate, I always appreciate abortion in a film as a choice people make. 1 in 3 women will have an abortion in her lifetime, not to mention the trans* men, genderqueer and non-binary individuals who have abortions too. It’s a common, routine medical procedure. Yet it’s still rare for a film or TV series to depict a character choosing and having an abortion.
At first, Jean appears like the stereotypical angry shrew, a misogynistic trope, reminding me of Rachel McAdams’ trope character in Midnight in Paris. The shrew often serves the purpose to show us that the male lead is a put-upon nice guy. The intention is for her nastiness to reinforce our sympathy for him. But Inside Llewyn Davis differs in that we inevitably sympathize with Jean, or at the very least, we understand where she’s coming from. We understand her vitriol and frustration towards Llewyn. Talking about her role, Carey Mulligan said Jean started off optimistic and hopeful, till “the world came along and hit her in the face.” Jean’s role isn’t hollow. Beyond her rage and meanness, there’s a melancholic sadness behind her eyes. She embodies far more complexity than a mere trope.
The other female characters we see in the film are Llewyn’s sister Joy and Lillian, the mild-mannered wife of his professor friend. Llewyn argues with his sister about their father and tells him to quit music, admonishing him for not having his life together. When Lillian asks him to sing at a dinner party and then (horror of horrors!) she sings along with him, Llewyn rages at her, making her cry. Llewyn is angry as Lillian is singing the harmony that his deceased partner sang. But he doesn’t want another filling his shoes. He wants to perform solo. It’s an interesting juxtaposition to Jean and Jim who encourage people to sing along with them when they perform onstage. But Llewyn must be the center of attention.
After hearing club owner Pappi say that he slept with Jean because that’s the price women pay to be able to perform onstage in his establishment (wow, swell guy), Llewyn proceeds to heckle a female folk singer. So he makes two women cry in the film but doesn’t stand up to the men in his life. Is his male posturing an attempt to assert his masculinity? Is he lashing out at women because he feel he can’t change the course of his life? Is he depressed that he’s disconnected from others? Does he feel Jean belongs to him like a possession? Is he just a misogynistic douchebag? All of the above?
Tinged with sadness and yearning, the crux of the film rests on Llewyn struggling to maintain balance, trying to do the right thing but then getting frustrated and saying fuck it. He strives to be a “true” artist rather than a commercial commodity. He tries to get Ulysses the cat back to his human family. He tries to take responsibility and pay for the abortion of not only Jean but a previous girlfriend too. He tries to be a good son and visit his father in a retirement community. He tries to reach out to people and forge relationships. But he inevitably annihilates his best intentions.
Llewyn is a filter for not only the women but everyone in the film. It’s all about him. And normally that would bother me. I can’t stand when movies don’t pass the Bechdel Test or the Mako Mori Test, when everything revolves around men. The women in the film don’t interact with one another. Okay, that is annoying. But Inside LLewyn Davis is such a captivating character study, a beautiful testament to the power of music, a brilliant exploration of art and what deems an artist a failure or success, an intriguing commentary on how we connect and disconnect with those around us, and it includes an abortion storyline and a female character transcending gender tropes — that I almost don’t care. Almost.
I was excited to see Gravity for a long time. A female-centric sci-fi film? Yes, please! I adore Sandra Bullock. Even when she stars in shitty movies, I don’t care. I unapologetically love her. While people envision her as a comedian (and yes, she’s incredibly funny), I’ve always thought she had the potential to shine in more serious roles (sidebar, 28 Days is one of my favorite films).
But the best part of Gravity? It offers us a different kind of female hero.
I was excited to see Gravity for a long time. A female-centric sci-fi film? Yes, please! I adore Sandra Bullock. Even when she stars in shitty movies, I don’t care. I unapologetically love her. While people envision her as a comedian (and yes, she’s incredibly funny), I’ve always thought she had the potential to shine in more serious roles (sidebar, 28 Days is one of my favorite films).
But the best part of Gravity? It offers us a different kind of female hero.
Haunting and harrowing, Gravityis a gripping cinematic spectacle about astronauts stranded in space. The visual effects are breathtakingly stunning. I can’t stand 3-D. But the visuals were so gorgeous, so crisp, I completely forgot I was watching a 3-D film. The film envelopes you, immersing you into the vast expanse of the star-filled void of space. You feel as if you’re stranded, drifting in space too. Gravity transports the audience to a place most of us will never see.
Gravity doesn’t merely rest on its technical laurels. The dialogue suffers from schmaltz in a couple places but the acting is nuanced and powerful. While George Clooney is his typical charming self as veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski on the brink of retirement, make no mistake. This is Sandra Bullock’s film. The film rests on her shoulders, which she carries with raw emotion and nuance.
Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is not a stereotypical female protagonist. Yes, she’s smart. And white. And thin. While those traits make her similar to the majority of women leads, her personality differs. A biomedical engineer on her first mission in space, she’s quiet and reserved. But that shouldn’t make you underestimate or question her strength. Dr. Stone analyzes situations, she uses her ingenuity to figure out solutions to the problems that bombard her in space.
We feel the palpable tension she feels. We feel her anxiety, her panic, her fear. It feels claustrophobic at times as the camera shots sit inside her helmet, as if we too are stranded in the empty abyss of space. We also visually see the camera from her perspective, a tactic that garners greater empathy for her from the audience. We see the world through her eyes.
Films often objectify women as sex objects or relegates them to the role of the male protagonist’s wife, mother, sister, lover, sidekick. And yes, the studio tried to give Dr. Stone a love interest (bleh), as if she needs a relationship with a man to define her. When we do see strong women who define themselves, they typically are portrayed as tough badasses kicking ass or wise-cracking or feisty. Don’t get me wrong. I love badasses. I love mouthy, opinionated, angry, tough as nails women. But those shouldn’t be the only kind of female protagonists we see.
“I want [women & men] to be allowed to be weak & strong & happy & sad — human, basically. The fallacy in Hollywood is that if you’re making a “feminist” story, the woman kicks ass & wins. That’s not feminist, that’s macho. A movie about a weak, vulnerable woman can be feminist if it shows a real person that we can empathize with.“
And therein lies the beauty of Dr. Ryan Stone. Not all women leads need to kick ass in order to be strong or complex. We need to see the stories of intelligent, quiet, reserved, vulnerable women too.
We also rarely see a female film hero struggling with depression. Dr. Stone has lost the will to live. Due the tragic death of her daughter, she yearns for silence. Grief swallows her. She tells George Clooney that that’s what she likes best in space. The silence. There’s no chaos. Only peace. He tells her that he gets it as, “there’s nobody up here who can hurt you.” In her life, her routines confine her. She goes to work and then just drives, listening to the radio, a reminder of her daughter. Yet these routines keep her buoyant as she struggles to stay afloat amidst her depression. She’s surviving but not really living.
There’s a part in the film when I thought, “Oh, here it comes. The ubiquitous scene where a dude comes and rescues her. As if she can’t rescue herself.” Thankfully, I was wrong. Some quibble that it’s a hallucination of Kowalski, so he’s the one who saves her. Nope, it’s all her. Sure he inspired her. But it’s her memory, it’s her imagination.
Now, with a female-centric stranded-in-space sci-fi film, it might be easy to draw comparisons to the queen of survival: Ripley. Both female heroes are stranded in space, both fight to live. Both characters are regular women, both mothers, taking charge in a crisis. Both films feature reproduction themes and motifs: rape and the fear of female reproduction in Alien, womb imagery and rebirth symbolism in Gravity. And both films feature scenes where the female leads remove their protective gear to illustrate their vulnerability. Okay, they do have share a lot of similarities! But here’s where they diverge — Ripley has a ferocity that Ryan Stone does not possess. And that’s a good thing. We need to see myriad female personalities depicted on-screen.
Some have criticized that the film has to humanize Dr. Stone by making her a mother. It’s a fair complaint as most iconic strong female characters in film (Ripley, Sarah Connor, Beatrix Kiddo) are mothers. My fabulous Bitch Flicks colleague Amanda astutely wrote that she encompassed the grieving mother archetype. But Dr. Stone isn’t merely defined by motherhood. Nor do I think her being a mother makes her more palatable to audiences. We see and hear about her career. We accompany her on her emotional journey.
Our society sees women as inferior, that everyone aspires to be men. That men do all the awesome, strong things while women serve as pretty décor and accessories to men. Hollywood assumes that only men won’t go see “women’s movies,” whatever the fuck those are (are they films with women sitting around discussing their periods? Wait…I want to see that movie…), while women and men will see films with male protagonists. This is bullshit. People want to see good stories with complex, interesting characters regardless of gender.
Women often have to endure seeing a mediocre or shitty movie with female leads because we desperately yearn to see ourselves represented. Men get to see themselves in myriad iterations in a wide swath of roles. But women are typically relegated to the love interest, damsel in distress or sidekick. Most female film characters don’t shatter gender stereotypes. They rarely lead as heroes, usually serving as props to the male protagonists, and playing out gender tropes.
Seeing a woman in a commanding role on-screen, seeing things from her perspective, seeing her decisions – this is a big fucking deal. Sandra Bullock has called her role as Dr. Ryan Stone “revolutionary,” as Alfonso and Jonas Cuaron wrote the script with a woman as the protagonist. Society traditionally thinks of men in leadership roles, not women. You can’t be what you can’t see. Seeing media representations of yourself in your gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religion, seeing bodies of different sizes and abilities – all of this matters. It impacts how we see ourselves, the lives we envision for ourselves. And how others see us.
Gravity offers a unique female hero. It’s okay that Sandra Bullock’s character isn’t shooting guns or beating up bad guys. It’s okay that she’s quiet and vulnerable. It’s okay to see a woman struggling through emotional pain. In fact, it’s a good thing. Not all women are the same. Our female leads should reflect that reality.
Megan Kearns is Bitch Flicks’ Social Media Director and a feminist vegan writer living in Boston. She loves watching films and entirely too much TV including Parks and Rec, The Wire, Sex and the City, Breaking Bad, Damages and Scandal. Follow her on Twitter @OpinionessWorld.
A child of the 80s, I grew up watching TV shows like Murder She Wrote and Love Boat. Living with my grandparents for 6 years clearly influenced my television viewing habits! But my favorite series of my childhood — and one of my absolute faves as an adult — was Golden Girls.
Humorous and feel-good, I didn’t realize at the time that Golden Girls was such a cutting edge show. It’s not often that a movie or TV series focuses solely on female characters. It’s even rarer when those women are over the age of 50. Following the lives of four single female friends living together in Miami, Golden Girls showed us that grandmothers are sharp, funny and sexy, that they still have goals and dreams. It forever shaped the way I view women.
Created by Susan Harris, the series’ quartet featured smart, sarcastic Dorothy (Bea Arthur), sexy, feisty Blanche (Rue McClanahan), sweet, clueless Rose (Betty White) and sharp, jaded Sophia (Estelle Getty). These women formed a tight-knit family. They teased one another and supported each other through tough times, all while gossiping and eating cheesecake. Sidebar, it was great to see women unabashedly eat on-screen. Dorothy Zbornak, a bibliophile with her witty quips and shrewd outlook on life, was the one I could identify with most. But the show gave equal time to delve into each woman’s life and her perspective with a palpable chemistry between them.
Golden Girls was ahead of its time. We rarely see female actors over the age of 50 portraying characters embracing and owning their sexuality. Reduced to our appearances, women are told time and again that beauty, youth and thinness determine our worth. When the media body shames and bodysnarks female actors’ bodies, it’s clear how how far we need to go in featuring women’s stories. And so in our youth-obsessed society, it’s revolutionary to see women over 50 on-screen as beautiful, vivacious and sexual.
A groundbreaking show, it dealt with issues such as safe sex, ageism, sexism, mental illness, domestic violence, interracial relationships, homelessness, HIV/AIDS, LGBTQ rights, immigration and animal rights. Yet it was equally revolutionary for focusing on women and their friendships.
Too few films and TV shows feature female leads. It’s even rarer to see a series focus on female friendship. Golden Girls paved the way for TV series like Sex and the City (even down to conversations revolving around the diner, echoing Golden Girls‘ late-night cheesecake chats), Living Single, Girlfriends, Designing Women, and Girls. While it might be easy to brush off the four women as caricatures or archetypes, each role was nuanced and complex. It’s important to see ladies celebrating ladies.
Women’s dialogue and plotlines in film and (to a lesser extent) in television, don’t typically focus on other women or even themselves. If women talk to each other, it’s often focusing on men. While imperfect, this is why the Bechdel Test matters. Dorothy, Blanche, Rue and Sophia cared about their careers and volunteered in their communities. They talked about current affairs, social issues, motherhood, family, their aspirations and goals. They swapped stories on dating, marriage and sex. But they were never defined by the men in their lives. They defined themselves.
In the series finale, Dorothy tells Blanche, Rose and Sophia, “I love you, always. You’ll always be my sisters. Always.” It was that kind of powerful sisterly camaraderie that resonated with me throughout my years. It informed my feminism.
Golden Girls reinforced the importance of women’s opinions, that their lives and stories matter. It highlighted the value of female friendship, proving that women’s lives don’t revolve around men. It showcased social justice, conveyed the detriments of patriarchy, and proved that women don’t have to abide by confining stereotypical gender roles. It taught me that it’s never too late to start over. You’re never too old to live the life you wish or to forge new friendships.
So Dorothy, Blanche, Rose and Sophia…thank you for being a friend to us all.
Is Hollywood really churning out the same movies, with the same stories over and over, revolving around men?? Yes, yes and yes. Geez, it’s called diversity, Hollywood.
Men saving the world. Men doing what no one else can. Men, men, men. Oh yeah, and it’s almost exclusively white men. Sure, two women do make an appearance as the focus of the narrator — “one reporter” and “one woman,” aka Linda Fiorentina … in one frame holding panties. But in that sea of men, seeing only two women doesn’t really cut it. Men are not the only ones whose stories are worth telling. They’re not the only ones making a difference or saving the world. But you’d never know it.
Writing about the video, Joseph Lamour said, “This montage of movie trailers may seem like just another funny supercut, but to me it plays like a highlight reel for what’s wrong with American cinema.”
I thought it was a bit strange that all the movies in this video are about 20 years old or older. But has that much really changed? Of the top 250 grossing films in the U.S. in 2012, 9% were directed by women and 15% of the scripts were written by women. Of the top 250 films, women comprise 18% of all directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors. Only 33% of speaking roles in movies belong to women.
You might also be thinking, “But these are just trailers. Who cares about the trailers??” But movie trailers, just like advertising in general, affect us. As I’ve written before about the prevalent sexism with Super Bowl ads: “Most people think they can ignore ads or that marketing is harmless. But advertisements splatter across billboards, buses, magazines, TV, radio and the internet. In Jean Kilbourne’s groundbreaking book Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel, she argues sexist and misogynistic imagery bombards us, inundating our senses even on a subconscious level. Whether we realize it or not, ads impact our choices and views.”
When we see movie after movie, ad after ad, revolving around men, it implies and reinforces the message that women don’t matter as much as men.
We talk A LOT at Bitch Flicks about the need for more women in film. More female protagonists, heroes, anti-heroes and villains. More films passing the Bechdel Test. More films focusing on mothers and daughters, sisters and female friendships. More female directors and screenwriters. More women of color. More queer women. More women of different sizes, ages, socioeconomic statuses, personalities, etc, etc, etc. More, more, more. We desperately need more.
Listen up, Hollywood. We’re tired of the same shit. We want to see more of all of our stories reflected on-screen. Not just white dudes.
