Misogyny – Bitch Flicks

Stanley Tucci’s ‘Final Portrait’: What about the Women?

‘Final Portrait’ is entertaining, fun in parts, silly, and a bit melancholy. It is also deeply, inescapably misogynist, so lost in being impressed with male genius that it forgets that women are even human. Giacometti, it is suggested, hates women. And yet, by never properly addressing his hatred and his fear, so, it seems, does this film.

Guest post written by Laura Witz.

The Guardian gives writer/director Stanley Tucci’s Final Portrait four stars, missing out on the fifth simply due to a lack of action. The Hollywood Reporter dubs it “a narrative with little consistent forward momentum and an anticlimactic ending, though the film remains agreeable thanks largely to Rush’s flavorful performance.” Little White Lies considers it too “French” for some, but notes that “while hardly a masterpiece itself, Final Portrait is exceptionally warm company.”

Yet, as I sat in the UK premiere of Final Portrait at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, I have to admit that it was not warmth I felt, but anger. There is no doubt, as all of these reviews note, that Geoffrey Rush is wonderful and Armie Hammer, while a little less so, is still quite good. But it is the film’s dismissal of women as either silly, dowdy, or dangerous, that allows it to slowly sink in that Final Portrait’s creators have seemingly internalized the misogyny of its subjects.

The film is a chamber piece about the artist Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush). It revolves around his creation of his “final portrait” — a title that rather gives away the ending. The portrait is of young writer, James Lord (Armie Hammer); the film is an adaptation of Lord’s memoir. Lord is originally told the portrait will take just one afternoon, but this stretches out for weeks as Giacometti misses the deadline and Lord delays multiple flights due to an awkward combination of politeness and vanity.

The set up for the film is a nice one and it creates a good basis for comedy, and indeed, it is in the comedy that Final Portrait does itself proud. However, what left me with a chill was the way the narrative turned the moment it included a woman. Giacometti has a wife and he frequents a sex worker, the latter of whom he makes no secret of.

The female characters are primarily kept out of the comedy and saved for the moments when the film takes a darker turn. Annette, the wife, played sympathetically by Sylvie Testud, provides the only relatively rounded woman/female character in the narrative. Annette is interesting, but not well enough drawn for us to understand her motivations for staying with a man who is borderline abusive. The scene in which it is implied that she is indulging in consolatory extramarital sex sits uncomfortably, a kind of narrative attempt to let Giacometti off the hook for his behavior. There is little reasoning for this and no further mention. Quite simply, the narrative, like Giacometti, is not interested in Annette.

Caroline (Clémence Poésy), a sex worker, is a nerd boy’s wet dream. She is sweet, girly and energetic to the point of irritating; she dances on screen and covers Giacometti’s eyes, calling him, cutely, “the old gray one,” and willfully dismissing Lord from the modeling chair. But, importantly, she is a sex worker, so Caroline’s entire job is presumably designed to make smug, aging, insecure men feel good about themselves. Yet by never showing us past this persona, the film itself buys into it, indulging in the non-threat of this child-like woman. At one point Caroline goes missing, and we wonder if we might be about to see more to her character, but then she turns up rained on and cute; her return to Giacometti is played like the end of a rom-com.

Amidst all of this, there is a baffling scene, played for laughs, where the wealthy Giacometti (who will give his wife no money) gives Caroline’s pimps more money than they ask for. In this, we are to forget that this is four men bargaining over the body of a woman and simply enjoy the concept of paying too much to greedy men. This is one of a number of scenes dropped in, seeming out of joint with the film at large. Another more disturbing scene involves Giacometti drunkenly searching the town for a replacement for Caroline. The camera shakily presents Giacometti’s perspective of the sex workers: cold, unforgiving and, most damningly, not Caroline. In this, they are the aggressors, and the drunken man looking to pay for a night of comfort is their victim.

Finally, following this scene, back in the studio Giacometti asks a baffled Lord if he has ever fantasized about raping and murdering two women. Lord looks surprised, and a little amused. Giacometti comments that when he was a child he found such fantasies comforting. And this scene, passed by without a second glance or any additional commentary, sums up the careless misogyny of the film.

Final Portrait is entertaining, fun in parts, silly, and a bit melancholy. It is also deeply, inescapably misogynist, so lost in being impressed with male genius that it forgets that women are even human. Giacometti, it is suggested, hates women. And yet, by never properly addressing his hatred and his fear, so, it seems, does this film.

Laura Witz is an editor and writer of plays and stories living and working in the UK. She has written plays that have performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Jane Austen Festival in Bath and her articles and stories have been published in a number of institutions and publications, a few of which can be found on her blog. Witz hopes to one day become an aerial clown. You can follow her on Twitter @Charlotte_Prod.

Obsessed with Boyhood: The Latent Misogyny Running Rampant in Richard Linklater’s Films

On the surface, a lot of his female characters reflect strong ideals. … But take a deeper look and Linklater’s female characters tell another story: one of a creator deeply obsessed with ignorant male stereotypes and the women that encourage them. … Looking back through his films, they all contain this running theme of underdeveloped man-children who are routinely validated in their anti-woman approach.

This guest post written by Maya Bastian appears as part of our theme week on Unpopular Opinions.

Disappointed. That would be the first way to describe how I felt after walking out of Richard Linklater’s latest release Everybody Wants Some!!, 20 minutes into the film. Disgusted. That was my second response. These feelings quickly turned to outrage as I realized that I had just played witness to the reversion of cultural ideals that has overtaken our society as of late.

Hailed as “achingly perceptive” by Variety and “utopian” by The New York Times, Linklater himself refers to the film as a “spiritual sequel” to his earlier nostalgia-laden hit Dazed and Confused. In reality, it’s an intensely sophomoric and outdated romp through the lives of five college jocks who bandy around, seducing girls, and partying until they drop. The male protagonists refer to women as “bitches” when they get rejected and intelligent women are thought of as “dykes.” Set in 1980s Texas, it’s a throwback to Porky’s–era films, where the women are idly brutalized and consent is disregarded several times throughout the course of the movie.

What is astounding is that the glaring misogyny that runs rampant throughout is completely brushed aside by just about every critic. The Guardian gave it a rave review, saying, “The attitudes towards women are unenlightened but the freshman of Linklater’s joyful 80’s campus movie reveal occasional complexity.” RogerEbert.com called it a “gentle film” but I would argue the opposite. There is nothing gentle about flouting consent and flaunting camera angles that are meant to denigrate the female form.

The disappointing part is that I’ve been a fan of Linklater’s films for some time, excited by his subversion of narrative techniques and his bold commitment to strong characters that buck the status quo. Waking Life was startlingly moving and profound. Tape was cinematic genius in its execution.

On the surface, a lot of his female characters reflect strong ideals. Sooze (Amie Carey) in Suburbia is a hardcore third-waver and lashes out “angrily” about smashing the patriarchy. The lead female character Amy (Uma Thurman) in Tape presents as a strong woman and an accomplished lawyer. Celine (Julie Delpy) in Before Sunrise and the rest of the Before Trilogy, is intellectual, graceful, and human. Sure, they all seem like feminist role models. But take a deeper look and Linklater’s female characters tell another story: one of a creator deeply obsessed with ignorant male stereotypes and the women that encourage them.

After viewing Everybody Wants Some!!, I had to reassess my devotion to Linklater. It led me to review his earlier titles, only to realize that he is suffering from the classic virgin/whore rhetoric. Every one of his narratives are about male characters running rampant over women’s rights.

Looking back through his films, they all contain this running theme of underdeveloped man-children who are routinely validated in their anti-woman approach. These characters often appear fun and exciting. No one really challenges them on their behavior, most simply laugh it off. A glaring example is Steve Zahn’s character in Suburbia, aptly named Buff. He primarily exists to reflect an attitude that glorifies acting poorly, hurting others, and treating women as objects. Yet no one ever seriously addresses his behavior except for Sooze, the token feminist, who gets quickly shot down by her peers.

While he does include the occasional strong female voice, Linklater tends to tokenize these women. They are often one-note characters who are stereotypes of themselves. Even Celine in the Before Sunrise series falls victim to this pattern. Though she starts off as a thinking, feeling woman with complexity in Before Sunrise, by the end of the series, she has devolved into a bitter, nitpicky wife, treading alongside all of the female “married woman” stereotypes that we fight so hard to deflect and dismantle. In Before Midnight, her character presents as “flat” and one-dimensional, with Linklater adhering to the school of thought that strong, intelligent women are incapable of compromise and empathy.

Linklater marginalizes his female characters in almost every movie that he has made. Tape, while brilliant in its technical prowess, reduces the only female character (Uma Thurman), as an object to be fought over. Dazed and Confused is another glaring instance of hyper-sexualization, where practically every woman lacks definition. The only substantial female character is the nerdy redhead Cynthia (Marissa Ribisi), who ends up being objectified by the much older Wooderson (Matthew McConaughey) in what is considered one of THE classic lines of the film.

As Linklater’s oeuvre evolves, the sidelining of his female characters increases. In School of Rock, the only two adult female characters (Sarah Silverman and Joan Cusack) are both uptight, angry, and only serve as foils to guitarist Dewey Finn’s (Jack Black) brilliant plans. Even in the much lauded Boyhood, we see signs of the director’s tendency to tokenize women. In Linklater’s world, we can only ever be seen on one side of the virgin/whore rhetoric. Either he focuses his camera on our bodies and our loose morals or he martyrs us, as is the case with the long-suffering single mother (Patricia Arquette) in Boyhood. While it’s worth mentioning that Patricia Arquette’s performance is brilliant, it still serves as further proof that Linklater perpetuates male-centric stories where women exist as an afterthought, only putting them front and center when they can fulfill society’s categorization of women into tiny, little boxes.

Which brings us back to his latest effort. Shockingly produced by a woman, Megan Ellison of Zero Dark Thirty fame, Everybody Wants Some!! continues to receive rave reviews. Apparently bro culture has reached its cultural apotheosis.

Salon writer and self-proclaimed feminist, Joanna Novak, even professed that she didn’t see anything wrong with the throwback and glorification of bro culture, though she jokes that looking past the “casual sexism” and enjoying the “bro-centric ideology” might make her a “bad feminist.” But here’s the thing. The longer we as a society continue to glorify boys acting badly, laugh at a bunch of jocks using women and lying to get them into bed, jeer along with them at so called “imperfect” bodies, the longer rape culture will exist and the objectification of women will reign supreme. Why is it so hard to convict a rapist? Perhaps it’s because the media sees handsome, swagger-ful boys as cute and cheeky as opposed to predatory. Perpetuating this social construct of masculinity in a time when we need desperately to dissect it and deflect it instead, is a dangerous path.

While the reviews of this pointless, nostalgia-saturated narrative are shocking, the response isn’t surprising. The current swath of the films’ reviewers are primarily men who seem to be joyfully reliving their youth.

One shining light in this otherwise woeful collection of reviews is Jill Richard’s article in the Los Angeles Review of Books. She delineates that as a culture, we are past the age of Animal House style fraternity. Richard writes:

“If one is a bro, the bro squad looks like a great time. But I suppose I feel like that squad wouldn’t have me as a member, or would rape me, and that makes all the difference. […] …There is no non-sinister defense for the ‘American male birthright’ as a conceptual category.”

On a larger scale, Linklater has not just disappointed me as a filmmaker, but as an artist. We have reached an apex in our society, where art must be a voice for the under-represented. Artists have an obligation to create pieces that speak to the condition of our culture and of the world. The time to laud ego-centric films that glorify the glory days of its maker have passed. We no longer need to see work that makes us laugh but that does not make us think.

During the release of Boyhood, one Los Angeles Times critic refused to pander to the flow of warm reviews. While just about everyone was hailing the film as genius, Kenneth Turan took a solitary stance against the film, amid consternation from fellow critics. What he said rings profoundly true in our age of hyperbole and over-hyped cinema. While he did not end up reviewing the film, he did write an incredibly astute article on the nature of genius and the way our society creates cultural impunity by lauding films that don’t deserve it. Turan writes:

“…The fuss about ‘Boyhood’ emphasized to me how much we live in a culture of hyperbole, how much we yearn to anoint films and call them masterpieces, perhaps to make our own critical lives feel more significant because it allows us to lay claim to having experienced something grand and meaningful.”

As Indiewire‘s Sam Adams writes in response to Turan’s perspective, asserting the need for diverse opinions in film criticism:

“Masterpieces, however, are not made so by unanimous praise, but by careful scrutiny. Criticisms, and the extent to which they illuminate the fascinating imperfections beneath those ‘masterpieces’ surfaces, only make them stronger.”

Turan’s and Adams’ points ring true to many socially conscious ears. Richard Linklater is no longer a genius in my eyes, but simply a talented filmmaker who has achieved success by pandering to societal norms, sadly failing to use his indefatigable intelligence to see through them.

Disappointing at best, destructive and debilitating at worst.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

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

The One Night Stand That Wasn’t: Before Sunrise and Before Sunset‘s Jesse and Celine

Boyhood (Featuring Girlhood)

The Bad Mamas of Contemporary Cinema

Maya Bastian is a writer and award-winning filmmaker who focuses on socio-political issues. She sits on the board of Breakthroughs Film Festival, a short film fest championing new generation female filmmakers. Follow her on social media @mayabasti or check out her website for more info: www.mayabastian.com.

Catherine Tramell in ‘Basic Instinct’ Is a Subversive Anti-Hero

The notion of Catherine as a subversive anti-hero develops when you view the film not as a story about the supposed protagonist Detective Nick Curran but as Catherine’s journey from mind games to almost domestic bliss but always returning to her basic instincts which threatens the Hollywood happy ending of established heteronormativity.

This guest post written by Alexandra West appears as part of our theme week on Unpopular Opinions.

What happens when we love something problematic? What happens when in the middle of something problematic there’s something unique, interesting, and incredibly refreshing? How do we as audience members look for the potentially progressive nuggets that drive a filmic narrative forward in new and interesting ways while also understanding that nugget can come wrapped in a basket of deplorable politics? One such case worthy of examination is Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) as a progressive anti-hero in Paul Verhoeven’s blockbuster erotic thriller Basic Instinct (1992). The notion of Catherine as a subversive anti-hero develops when you view the film not as a story about the supposed protagonist Detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) but as Catherine’s journey from mind games to almost domestic bliss but always returning to her basic instincts which threatens the Hollywood happy ending of established heteronormativity.

Set in San Francisco, notably one of the most queer-positive cities in North America, Basic Instinct centers on the murders of men possibly committed by Catherine, a beautiful, wealthy, murder mystery author with a degree in psychology. The murders all mirror crime scenes directly from her books and homicide detective Nick Curran becomes entangled in the crimes and obsessed with Catherine. Nick can’t decide if Catherine is behind the murders or if he’s in love with her or both.

Throughout the film, Catherine’s bisexuality is at the forefront of her character which marks her as transgressive to the hetro-male oriented police force while the other female characters in the film are also implied or explicitly coded as bisexual or lesbian. Any subtly or nuance in regards to the queer experience in a mainstream blockbuster is wiped away in favor of brash eroticism and the ultimate objectives of Nick who imposes his heteronormativity on his relationships, particularly with Catherine. Nick’s hope is that he’ll be enough for Catherine to settle down for. Catherine is framed in contradistinction to Nick’s almost girlfriend Beth (Jeanne Tripplehorn) a police therapist who plays the typical “good girl” with a maybe sinister past. Nick (and the film) can’t help but conflate both Catherine and Beth in his mind through the lens of the virgin or the whore. Ultimately, Nick’s desire to render Catherine as his own private virgin drives the film towards a mainstream conclusion.

But what of Catherine, the object and prize of the film? Through all the gross biphobia, homophobia, and misogyny of Basic Instinct, Catherine remains an enigma. Her role in the film as foil to Nick’s heteronormative dream is what’s most subversive about her as a character. Her alluring presence confounds those around her; her placement in the film is a clear nod to the femme fatale role, but Catherine occupies the role of narrative driver. The ultimate satisfaction of Basic Instinct in subsequent viewings stems from watching her manipulate the narrative and those around her, watching protagonist Nick succumb to her charms and power. Catherine continually and enjoyably plays with Nick prodding him towards his reckless ways of drinking, drugging, and indiscriminate sex. However, instead of attempting to create husband material out of Nick, Catherine utilizes him for her own purposes of her new book. Her means to an end finishes with her book, her creation, her narrative – not wedded bliss. Catherine’s role as an author is posited by the film as a potential red herring when in fact it actually marks her as the maker of meaning, conducting research through her own means.

It is her manipulation which allows Nick to reflect, grow and change throughout the film for better and for worse allowing him to be the hero he thinks he is. Nick completes the narrative she constructs for him. If he did not play along with her suggestions and supposed whims the film could have had a very different outcome but as Basic Instinct stands, Catherine developed Nick’s narrative of one of toxic masculinity viewing everything other as a threat which in its dark ending suggests that Nick’s white-picket fence goals are as unfounded as the film’s dangerous portrayals of homosexuality. As Nick views Catherine as a prize, she views him as a character in one of her books and just as disposable. Ultimately, Nick needs Catherine more than she needs him.

While Catherine does inhabit the role of the Dangerous Woman (a seemingly modern version of the film noir femme fatale character) cliché and the Murderous Bisexual Women trope, it’s important to acknowledge what is unique and perhaps even progressive about her. She is both the architect of the narrative and her own destruction as she struggles against giving up her agency in favor of a “normal” life. In order to act as a good mother or wife, she’d have to give up the things that made her interesting and alluring in the first place, illuminating the flaws of the patriarchal “happy ending” and ultimately mocking the very thing the film attempts to confirm as an “acceptable” way of life. The role she never gives up on is that of author and creator; her sexuality, identity, and motives are all fluid based on the situation but her God-like power in the film is unmistakable. The film even flirts with a near happy ending for Nick and Catherine which is where the film would have ended if Nick was the true protagonist but instead, the film ends with the vantage point of Catherine’s true intention.

Stone would go on to reprise the role of Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct 2 (2006) as the only holdover from the previous film. Stone has had a problematic relationship with the original film herself, decrying that the infamous leg-crossing shot was achieved and exhibited without her consent which in essence is the film doubling-down on its problematic nature. Watching the film in this day and age, its troubling and problematic elements ring through clearer than church bells, but the film is also a hugely important cultural touchstone for 1992 as it was the 4th highest grossing film of 1992. The film is marked by Verhoeven and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas’ penchant for creating watchable chaos and mayhem (see also Showgirls) with the film perpetually creating a new audience for itself based on the film’s taboo-inclined nature. Looking back at Basic Instinct as a piece of media that was so widely and readily consumed, its façade is still marred by biphobia, homophobia, and misogyny, yet it’s satisfying to know that Catherine still remains at large, a threat to everything Hollywood deemed acceptable.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

The Trope of the Murderous Bisexual Woman

Biphobia in Basic Instinct

Alexandra West is a freelance horror journalist and playwright who lives, works, and survives in Toronto. Her work has appeared in the Toronto Star, Rue Morgue, Post City Magazine and Offscreen Film Journal. She is a regular contributor to Famous Monsters of Filmland and a columnist forDiabolique with “The Devil Made Us Watch It.” In December 2012, West co-founded the Faculty of Horror podcast with fellow writer Andrea Subissati, which explores the analytical side of horror films and the darkest recesses of academia.

‘Colossal’ and ‘Lady Macbeth’ Tell Similar Stories of Violence and Empowerment at TIFF

Both Nacho Vigalondo’s monster movie, ‘Colossal,’ and William Oldroyd’s period piece, ‘Lady Macbeth,’ are solid, carefully-made films built around a stunning performance from their lead actors – Anne Hathaway and Florence Pugh, respectively – and both tell the story of a woman surrounded by men who try to control her. Rightly or wrongly, both films also seem to presume that the best way for women to be strong and empowered is through physical violence.

Written by Katherine Murray.

Last week, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) saw the world premieres of Nacho Vigalondo’s monster movie, Colossal, and William Oldroyd’s period piece, Lady Macbeth. Both of these are solid, carefully-made films built around a stunning performance from their lead actors – Anne Hathaway and Florence Pugh, respectively – and both tell the story of a woman surrounded by men who try to control her. Rightly or wrongly, both films also seem to presume that the best way for women to be strong and empowered is through physical violence.

In Colossal, Gloria (Anne Hathaway) struggles with problematic drinking, got fired from her job, and kicked out of her boyfriend’s apartment. She moves back to her home town to get her life together, but soon discovers that she’s psychically linked to a monster that appears in South Korea every morning to blindly stumble into skyscrapers, leaving a trail of chaos and destruction in its wake. This sounds like a completely bizarre and preposterous premise, but it works really well in the film. At first, it seems that Gloria will have to pull back on her drinking and behave in a more responsible way to deal with the monster, but it slowly becomes clear that there’s another antagonist in this story. At the risk of revealing one of the best twists in the film, it turns out that Gloria’s nice guy childhood friend, who initially seems destined to be her romantic interest, is actually a Nice Guy childhood friend – in that he secretly hates and fears women, and only pretends to be friends with them because he’s angling for sex. The second half of the film is about him getting increasingly vile and misogynist while she struggles to stand up to him.

At the screening I attended, Vigalondo explained that he’d been editing the film right up until the premiere and joked that all he could see were the mistakes he made. However, the mistakes don’t really show. There’s a little bit of fuzzy logic about the monster, and its origin story is built up to be more than it is but, overall, the film seems technically well-made and takes us on an understandable and unexpected emotional journey. The degree to which you enjoy this movie will be mediated by your Matrix quotient – meaning, if you were annoyed that Neo and Trinity killed a bunch of innocent people so they could look cool in The Matrix, you will be annoyed that Anne Hathaway’s monster kills a bunch of innocent people by drunkenly stumbling into a skyscraper. Colossal makes more of these deaths than The Matrix did, but not as much as it makes of the pain Gloria suffers herself.

That said, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Colossal and, even though I’m about to question the film’s use of violence as a path to power, this is a movie that deserves to land a distributor, so as many people can watch it as possible. There are interesting conversations to be had about the film, once it’s part of the cultural landscape.

Lady Macbeth is complicated, in that it’s an adaptation of an opera that was an adaptation of a Russian novel called Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, which does not, itself, have anything to do with Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Set in England, in the 1860s, the film follows Katherine (Florence Pugh), a woman who marries into a modestly wealthy family that hates her. The first act of the film depicts Katherine’s life as an endurance test – physical discomfort, humiliation, isolation, boredom, sleep deprivation, celibacy – that will apparently go on forever. By the time the murders start – and there are lots of murders in this film – we’re on her side.

This is Oldroyd’s first feature film (written by Alice Birch), after working mostly in theatre and, although everything looks gorgeous, there’s an overall broadness to the movie that would work better on-stage. All of the physical violence in the film is blocked and shot in ways that reveal it as pantomime; every line of dialogue and sound effect is crisp and loud as though there’s a chance we might not hear it.

Katherine intentionally goes from being sympathetic to villainous over the course of the film, and there are unanswered questions about some events – including what looks like a possible gang rape. The best explanation for the story came from Naomi Ackie, the actor who plays Katherine’s servant, Anna. During a Q&A, Ackie explained that to her, Lady Macbeth is about the choices people have when they’re oppressed, and how intersectionality leaves each of the characters with different options. The option Katherine chooses is to kill anyone who threatens her freedom and – without giving away too much – Gloria eventually resorts to violence in Colossal, too.

On the one hand, it feels great to watch these women fight back against men who threaten violence or have used physical violence to make them subservient – I got really emotional watching Colossal, and appreciated the care Vigalondo took developing the situation and exploring the misogynist undercurrents in what initially appears to be harmless behavior. There’s also a great moment in Lady Macbeth where Katherine stares at her father-in-law impassively during an outburst, and you can tell it’s because she’s already planned his death – it’s a much-welcome change after watching her bow to his wishes earlier in the film. On the other hand, watching these women meet violence with violence reinforces the idea that the best or only way to have power is to beat or kill someone else, which is an idea that’s bad for women (and many men) in the long run.

Men’s domination of women has historically hinged on physical strength and threats or deeds of violence. Although both Colossal and Lady Macbeth seem to propose that the best way for women to end their oppression is also through violence, the biggest gains women have made collectively in society didn’t happen because we started to beat men up – they followed from cultural change that placed more value on freedom, democracy, and equality. Some may argue that it’s important for women to learn to physically defend themselves, but the best way for us to ensure that women are treated like people rather than property is through dismantling intersecting systems of oppression and claiming an equal share of political, economic, and social power. Until we have that, women’s rights are an experiment that men can end at any time.

As committed to empowering women as both of these movies are – and I don’t doubt their commitment – the road to power on-screen looks a lot different than the road to power we’ve taken and probably should continue to take in life.

Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies, TV, and video games on her blog.

‘Carnival of Souls’ and the Mysteries of the Insubordinate Woman

What is so terribly “weird and unnatural” … about Mary? While writer/director Herk Harvey and writer John Clifford may not have intended to make Mary a subversive woman, she certainly was in a few ways. … Keep in mind, her actions and her situation are supposed to be terrifying. Only because she was presumed to be dead could she act in ways “unfit” for a woman. Uncoupled, hardhearted, curt, and curious.

This guest post written by Marlana Eck originally appeared at Awaiting Moderation. It is cross-posted with permission. | Spoilers ahead.

I’ve been watching 1962’s Carnival of Souls recurrently with rapt attention since I was a teen. My stepdad had a DVD box set which included Carnival along with The Last Man on Earth and House on Haunted Hill.

Notice the representative art work for both The Last Man on Earth and House on Haunted Hill. The Last Man on Earth, for instance, shows Vincent Price in the background with a decidedly active and intelligent glare. In the fore, we see the negative space of a woman’s spirit with her fully illustrated, sexualized body helplessly laid out on the margin credits.

In the art work for House on Haunted Hill, we see a woman in a yellow dress hanging in a noose situated in the middle of the film advertisement, and in the bottom left corner we see the severed head of a woman held by Vincent Price.

In both posters, Price is the master of his universe.

Now I love me some Vincent Price. However, looking critically, I see the limited agency of the female figures in the representative art work as a snippet of larger culture. Horror calls to mind the repressed, the subconscious. It is fascinating that the art of both of these film posters show sacrificial women. As Pierre Bourdieu sums up in “Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction”: structures reproduce themselves, and these posters show us how female bodies are treated within the context of our culture.

There were several promotional film posters used for Carnival of Souls, but the one on the boxed set was the commissioned illustration which showed a woman (Mary Henry as we learn, played by Candace Hilligoss) with the straps of her white top falling off (pretty sure half nipple hanging out) and leg out almost up to her hip, centered. On the left-hand bottom corner there is the “floating head” of “The Man” (as he is billed in the credits) styled after the main terrorizing apparition in Carnival, played by the film’s director, Herk Harvey.

As I go on in my interpretation, I hear a 1989 interview with the film’s writer, John Clifford, echoing in my mind. In an endearing Midwestern twang he said, “We just wanted to make a horror movie with some pizzazz.” Herk Harvey implied people have granted the film more meaning than they originally intended. I am aware, then, that perhaps the subversive tenants of the film were not intentionally engineered and may have been subliminal on the part of the creators.

The film begins with a cryptic portrayal of misogyny: a car full of men challenge a car full of women to a drag race, which was quite popular in our nation’s history post WWII as it emphasized a leisurely freedom loving and equally destructive America.

The men run the women off the road as we fear most of them have plunged to their death.

After the crash, the police question one of the men who challenged the car of women to the drag race. He lies and says “It wasn’t our fault. We were the first ones on the bridge, coming along, following the track, and they wanted to get around us I guess and they lost control and they dropped off…”

A crowd of select townspeople watch as the police fish for the missing car. This scene is riveting, if only for the audience of onlookers being 100% men, young and old.

Yet, hours later as the women’s car is exhumed, there is one woman who just won’t die: Candace Hilligoss’s character, Mary Henry. She famously trudges up from the mud, seemingly unharmed. We are unclear how long she was underwater, how she survived, or if she is even really alive (this is a horror flick, after all). It is this iconic picture that starts us off.

Mary could easily represent a critique of wartime post-traumatic stress disorder; Herk Harvey was a veteran himself opting out of the Navy and going into theater after his service in WWII.

Mary tries to resume her life, but irritates others with her insouciance.

Hilligoss trained with Lee Strasberg (in New York City where her cohort included Marilyn Monroe). Carnival of Souls was one of her only forays into film, she was mainly a stage actress. Hilligoss has a keen sense for the macabre, an edginess that I find so badass. This is part of her supposed supernaturalness.

In one of the first scenes where we learn more about Mary’s life, we observe she is a talented organist who has decided to take a job out in Utah. The priest says goodbye to her and tells her the ole, “If you’re ever in town again, stop by.” Not one for niceties, Mary says, “I don’t know if I’m ever coming back.” After she walks out the priest confides in one of his bros, “I don’t know about that girl [sic]…a few days ago she survived an accident. You’d think she’d feel a little something like humbleness or gratitude.”

A looming thought is: so, Mary is walking about “dead.” What does it mean to be a “living” woman?

What is so terribly “weird and unnatural” (to use the verbiage from one of Carnival of Soul’s promotional taglines) about Mary? The film investigates metaphysical uncertainties in the mind of this young church organist. Does she have a soul? Why doesn’t she connect with others the way she is supposed to?

Partly, I think Mary is simply a byproduct of all that was negative about the boom of consumer culture in the 1950s and 60s. The dissonance Mary displays can be attributed to the confusion of women not being as liberated as they thought they’d be by “going to work.” She is continually haunted by “The Man,” a ghoul who represents all she will become (dead, laborer).

When she spurns the advances of her voyeur housemate, John, (a classic “I’M JUST A NICE GUY!”) who frequently watches her bathing and dressing, she then deals with being “the bitch.” Interestingly, she doesn’t reject John on the basis of religious protestation (as maybe you’d think was her orientation as a church organist). She says, “The church is just a place of business.” This is quintessential Mary Henry. She tells John (essentially), “K, you have to leave now, I want to go shopping.” It is only during this time in the film do we see her look as if she is in love as she swoons. But it’s love for shopping, not John.

There are several scenes in the film where she is in public places and people don’t see her at all. She feels invisible, alienated. The ghouls, her subconscious fears, always see her though, especially “The Man.”

One of these scenes is in a department store. She goes in to try on a dress in a chipper mood. All of a sudden there are dreamy glitch squiggles on the screen and Mary snaps back into her post-accident self. She panics and runs out of the dressing room screaming that no one sees her. No one really sees her. I feel you, Mary.

Mary talks to a male analyst who tells her everything she’s been experiencing has been her imagination. Yes, she may have PTSD, but we know there is something else going on with Mary, and so does she.

The amount of mansplaining Mary has to face in this film is incredible. Candace Hilligoss’s exquisite portrayal of resistance and apathy inspires me to do Mystery Science Theater style voiceovers of key scenes. For instance her supervisor, the priest, says, “But, my dear, you cannot live in isolation from the human race,” to which Mary, in my head, responds, “WATCH ME, G.”

It’s also fun to caption her with postmodern endearments, like “Dafuq?” in the photo below.

While Harvey and Clifford may not have intended to make Mary a subversive woman, she certainly was in a few ways. Much like Jill Lepore does in The Secret History of Wonder Woman, I look at Harvey and Clifford’s work of male gaze through my female gaze. Unlike William Marston’s Wonder Woman, Mary Henry was never meant to be a hero of this story. Keep in mind, her actions and her situation are supposed to be terrifying. Only because she was presumed to be dead could she act in ways “unfit” for a woman.

Uncoupled, hardhearted, curt, and curious. Many have compared the story of Carnival of Souls to Ambrose Bierce’s short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” where the protagonist, Confederate soldier Farquhar, imagines the noose around his neck at his execution does not kill him and he instead escapes by swimming upstream to find his wife and children. This fantasy of being able to escape pending actions of justice is similar to Mary’s conundrum.

Mary is not able to live out her fantasy of embodying the detachment she feels as a “real life” experience. What traumas may she have faced while alive? We are introduced to a variety of scenarios, all of which many woman deal with regularly: leering, mansplaining, male-based research and psychoanalysis, accusations of “hysteria,” spiritual guilt. In the final shot of the film, we notice the car is exhumed once more, and Mary is still inside of it, dead, unable to work through her traumas as a living, insubordinate woman.

Marlana Eck is a scholar, writer, and educator from Easton, Pennsylvania. Her writing has appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Raging Chicken Press,Hybrid Pedagogy, San Diego Free Press, Cultured Vultures, Lehigh Valley Vanguard, and Rag Queen Periodical. At the latter two publications she serves as director. In her free time she enjoys horticulture and overestimating the efficacy of her dance moves in the living room mirror. Follow her on Twitter at @marlanaesquire.

‘The Witch’ and Legitimizing Feminine Fear

Instead it mashes these together to legitimize the misogyny of historical witch trials. … Those hoping for a nuanced 1630s witch tale, beware: ‘The Witch’ legitimizes fear of feminine sensuality while simplifying powerful female denizens to devil-worshiping pleasure-seekers.

This is a guest post written by Josephine Maria Yanasak-Leszczynski. | Spoilers ahead.

Witches are one of those archetypes common enough that it is easy to say they exist in every culture. Yet through foreign interpretation, mythological evolution, and even simple mistranslations, witches vary enough to call into question their omnipresence. This archetype differs from actual witches, followers of Wicca and other pagan religions.

Witches depicted in tales are often women, but not always. As healers they practice medicine, but sometimes in the form of potion making, as they are in possession of forgotten medicinal and herbological knowledge, sometimes spiritual, with plenty of amalgamations in between. As curse makers they are in possession of dark magics, using common implements or rare ingredients, or sometimes only words. They can be ritualistic, fickle, or wise entities of more or less human composition depending on their lineage. Their power can derive from lineage, chance, interactions with powerful beings and on and on.

In the United States, witch stories and lore are flavored by witch trials in New England. In extreme cases here, women and men perceived as living outside the pious norm were forced to admit to committing atrocious acts, jailed, tortured and murdered. Inspired also by a period of witch trials in Europe lasting hundreds of years where accusations of witchcraft were used to bring down politically powerful women, or the invisible threat of feminine power over men, there is a rich history of witches in film and television touching on this morbid piece of shared American and European history. Many of these depictions in media support or reject the criminalizing of perceived feminine power.

The Witch explores very few of these things, except to depict the scariest versions of American witches in stark color and with exacting matter-of-factness. There is no room to misinterpret the witches in this movie. It is also a film about desires so secret, the audience does not even know they exist within our poorly fleshed out protagonists.

This is especially frustrating in a film so visually complete, because the desire for more on the part of women is often demonized in film, and The Witch plays into that while using its powers of cinematography to the greatest degree. Here is a beautiful, sometimes terrifying film, chilling in its failure to flesh out characters and give them understood motives.

However, one thing this film does well is presenting its trumped up, cliché version of witches.

Witches, after all, are feminine inspired fear incarnate. They are reflections of sin, and in The Witch we see three mirrors. The first mirror is mother Kate, her baby murdered in a scene so grotesquely the opposite of motherly care, it reads like the Hostel of American Witch film. The second mirror is a seductress for the oldest boy Caleb, aided in ogling his older sister by the camera repeatedly and obviously, because hey, he likes breasts. Finally, the patriarch William is murdered not by a witch, but by a new masculine power, Black Billy, who we can read as the Devil. There was something satisfying in his murder: he was the reason they were all out in the wilderness alone in the first place. Yet it is unconvincing that he was the root of all their sufferings given his ineffectiveness as a leader and general weakness beside the focal point of his wife. Also, the replacement of patriarchy with patriarchy reads like so many witch trial accusations of Puritan fathers versus Satan.

It would be easy to view these scenes as each protagonist individually snapping if it weren’t for so many witnesses in some central scenes. The Witch reads like two movies: One of visual horror, depicting in full grandeur the literary and oral traditions of decrepit European minds in religious frenzy, then one of psychological horror on the tolls of extreme piety and isolation. Instead, it mashes these together to legitimize the misogyny of historical witch trials.

The film can be described as The Crucible style witch trial pretending on the part of the young twins Mercy and Jonas confused by the Black Narcissus seduction by erotic wilderness. It would be a 1600s familial AntiChrist, flavored by Lovecraftian fear of the American backwoods if it weren’t for the sheer number of things we fear. The film reels too quickly from paranoia to solid evidence of evil to be effective; stabbing “show don’t tell” into bite-sized chunks for an audience not sure they’re really hungry.

The Kubrick-esque score does play beautifully when contrasted with the great stillness of the stunning forested vistas. But this is interrupted by every scene with human life where, boxed in and poorly protected by their wood constructions, they talk far too quietly and often incoherently.

The ending would be satisfying if any of it tied together, or any of the offerings made by our witch’s seducer had been touched on earlier in the story. Those hoping for a nuanced 1630s witch tale, beware: The Witch legitimizes fear of feminine sensuality while simplifying powerful female denizens to devil-worshiping pleasure-seekers.

This is a truly forgettable and not-good horror film that is frustrating in its potential. In case there was any hope the film is symbolic and not representative, writer/director Robert Eggers comes out with a clear message in the end, citing “historical witch trials” as a source.

See also at Bitch Flicks: ‘The Witch’ and Female Adolescence in Film

Josephine Maria Yanasak-Leszczynski is a museum educator by day (and often night), and a freelance writer every other time she manages to make a deadline. She can be found on Twitter at @JMYaLes.

Let’s All Calm Down for a Minute About ‘The Hateful Eight’: Analyzing the Leading Lady of a Modern Western

In an action movie, violence is due to befall all characters. Is violence against any female character inherently woman-hating, inherently misogynist? … It’s possible that subconscious sexism makes people quick to see her as a victim, and then criticism of the trope of women as victims may be getting in the way of seeing the agency and complexity of a character like Daisy Domergue.

This guest post is written by Sophie Besl.

[Trigger warning: discussion of rape, sexual assault and graphic violence] | Spoilers ahead.

When the only female character in Quentin Tarantino’s new film, The Hateful Eight, appeared on promotional materials, and eventually onscreen, with a black eye and chained to a male character, the hair on everyone’s backs was already up. A Tarantino fan and writer I admire went so far as to post on Facebook, “…What I saw tonight in 70 millimeter was a woman-hating piece of trash.”

In this analysis, I ask viewers and readers to take a new perspective. In an action movie, violence is due to befall all characters. Is violence against any female character inherently woman-hating, inherently misogynist?

The Hateful Eight Is a Western.
This male-centric genre, like many others, is guilty of shackling a limited number of women into stereotypical roles such as: a) emotional, submissive frontier wives completely at the mercy of men’s decisions, b) hyper-sexualized sex workers, or c) exoticized depictions of Native and Indigenous women. Of course, there are still standout roles for women (Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles, Katharine Ross in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the role of Mattie in True Grit), but these roles are difficult to etch out. I would like to submit that Daisy Domergue, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, is one of these strong roles. Tarantino gets as close as he can to putting a woman in a leading role (which he has shown is his preference in Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Death Proof, and Inglourious Basterds).

The primary message of The Hateful Eight is about the Civil War and what it meant for America and the men, white and Black, who fought it. Thus, the main characters fought in the war. While a small number of women disguised themselves as men and fought, the overwhelming majority of veterans were men. So since the main characters had to be veterans, these were male, but Tarantino made the “next available” lead character female. Domergue is essentially the third lead, the highest level available that is historically accurate for a woman, given Tarantino’s primary goal exploring race relations (her Golden Globe nomination is for supporting actor, but it’s okay, those decisions are not a science!).

Play the Movie in Your Mind with a Male Actor in the Role.
In my opinion, one test of whether a character is feminist or not is if you ask, “Does this character’s gender play any part in the character’s actions, fate, or treatment?” If the answer is “no” or “not really, not essentially,” then that is a very feminist character. Insert a male actor in place of Jennifer Jason Leigh. Think about it — the plot would play out exactly the same. Not only that, but almost no lines of dialogue would need to be changed. “This woman” would be replaced with “this man,” “sister” with “brother,” etc. The only outlier is the dreaded “b” word, but Tarantino has plenty of colorful insults for all manner of characters.

Domergue Is Never Viewed in a Sexual or Objectifying Way.
This is rooted one of my favorite things about Tarantino as a filmmaker. In a world riddled with rape, the last thing we need is gratuitous, titillating visuals, filmed from a male point of view, of sexual violence against women.¹ The closest Tarantino ever comes to this is with the Bride² — but the sexual violence is implied not shown³ — and Death Proof, where the revenge equally or far outweighs the initial gender-based homicide. On the flip side, Tarantino has no problem showing rape and sexual assault against men onscreen, such as in Pulp Fiction and The Hateful Eight.

Shosanna in Inglourious Basterds is one of the best examples of Tarantino writing for women as if they do not live in danger of sexual violence from men. This suspension of disbelief onscreen is refreshing and empowering for viewers, such as me as a woman who does somewhat live in daily fear of sexual violence. Shosanna repeatedly, assertively turns down advances from Zoller quite at her own peril throughout the entire film. Her fearlessness is astounding, and respected. Here are the ways that Domergue is written in similarly feminist ways:

[Spoilers follow.]
• She is walked into a log cabin in the middle-of-nowhere Wyoming to spend the night with 9 or 10 men, one of whom she is chained to, and it never seems to the viewer that she might be in danger, of sexual violence or even significant other harm.
• There is no implication that her captor has raped or sexually assaulted her.
• Her looks are never commented upon, neither that she is pretty nor looking haggard. The comment-ability of her appearance intensifies over time based on the chaos that occurs inside the cabin, yet no one comments. This is impossibly refreshing and almost unheard of for women in film. Even the looks of the strongest women characters in other Westerns are usually remarked upon or up for discussion among the men.
• Domergue is not a love interest of any of the characters.*
• Men are willing to risk their lives to save Domergue due to familial or gang ties, not out of love, affection, or sexually driven motives.*
• The camera never rests on her in an objectifying or gazing way that is different than the other characters or unique to her as a woman.

*Note: Major Marquis Warren does imply this in one line of dialogue, but it is quickly dismissed. Compared to most films where men only act out of love for women and sex is a major motivator, this is still a major step in terms of feminist film.

Okay Yes, We’ll Talk about the Violence.
I’m no fool — I’m not going to pretend that it’s all butterflies and rainbows for Domergue in The Hateful Eight. As Leigh told The Daily Beast, she took a photo of herself and sent it to her mom when her only makeup was a black eye and a few scratches and bruises and said, “This is as good as it’s going to get. This is the beauty shot from the movie. … Then it just got more and more insane as it goes on.”

My initial question was: Is any violence against a woman inherently misogynist? Leigh said in an interview:

“I think it’s actually more of a sexist response [to say that]… I think it’s easy to have a sexist response. ‘Hitting a woman? Sexist.’ It’s a natural go-to place for people. But [Tarantino]’s actually taking the sexism out of it.”

Another argument about the violence is that Domergue has almost full agency over it. She has been arrested by an officer of the court, and he has made it clear what the consequences are for what actions. She purposely violates his rules, knowing what the consequences will be, and chooses the risks of receiving an elbow to the face for getting in some fantastic jabs at Kurt Russell’s character John Ruth, such as that his intelligence may have suffered from taking a high dive into a low well.

Also, while many would argue that Domergue gets the worst of the violence, mostly marked by her lack of wiping blood off of her face, it should be noted that part of the lead protagonist Major Warren’s genitals are separated from his body by a gunshot wound, an injury he viscerally suffers from until the end of the movie, so it’s not like Tarantino spares his lead male actors.

She Kills Her Captor.
While: a) being chained to Ruth, b) Ruth is poisoned and thus vomiting on her, and c) Ruth is still managing to beat her up, Domergue manages to grab his gun and blow him away. Any one of the “hateful eight” could have easily killed Ruth plot-wise, but Tarantino gives this murder to Domergue, who deserves it and has truly earned it. (Note: She also deftly and matter-of-factly saws his arm — which she’s still handcuffed to — off of his corpse to facilitate her mobility later that night.)

The Fates of Four Men Rest on Her in the End.
Speaking of her being a total badass, after Jody’s murder, she goes from being the #2 to the #1 leader of one of the most dangerous gangs in the land. In the final act of the film, she just about single-handedly negotiates the lives (and deaths) of the two protagonists and her two remaining gang members. She is unarmed, and yet commands full power over the four men’s actions and decisions until the very last moment. Her brilliance —“She’s very, very smart,” Leigh tells The Daily Beast — causes her to outshine all of the other characters and almost “win.” “…She’s a leader. And she’s tough. And she’s hateful and a survivor and scrappy,” says Leigh in an interview with Variety, all traits that give Domergue power in the frenetic, desperate situation in which all the characters find themselves.

The Death Scene.
This is arguably the most problematic scene of all. Let’s present what I’m up against before I present my counterpoint. Matt Zoller Seitz at RogerEbert.com writes:

“The film’s relentless and often comical violence against Daisy never feels truly earned. Saying, ‘Well, they’re all outlaws, including her, and that’s just how women were treated back then’ feels like an awfully thin defense when you hear audiences whooping it up each time Russell punches Leigh in the face, and it dissipates during the final scene, which lingers on Daisy’s death with near-pornographic fascination. In a movie filled with selfish, deceptive and murderous characters, hers is the only demise that is not just observed, but celebrated.”

Well this is where I’m going to go way out on a limb and repeat what Leigh herself (the woman who had to sit around in 30 degrees in the fake blood and brains, and pretend to be hung) said, “I think it’s actually more of a sexist response [to say that].” Why is watching a villain get what’s coming to her “near-pornographic fascination?” There’s nothing sexual about the act of killing her, or its filming/gaze. Also, after her death, her body is sometimes held in the same shot with the two protagonists, as if her character still lives on in a way.

• Did this reviewer feel the same way when Tarantino’s three protagonists were kicking the living bejesus out of Russell’s character in Death Proof?
• What about when Elle is sitting over Bud’s snake-poison-filled body in Kill Bill Vol. 2 and calmly reading to him? If anything, that is more tortuous and sick, plus the camera is looking up at Elle (murderer) and down at Bud (victim). These camera angles are reversed in Domergue’s murder, with an upward shot on her and downward at the murderers.
• If I recall correctly, the audience also “whooped it up” each time significant discomfort befell almost any of the characters: O.B. getting really cold, Ruth and O.B. throwing up from poison, Mannix getting shot and passing out, etc.
• If I recall correctly, the audience pretty clearly celebrated or enjoyed the shorter-in-duration but also gristly murders of Bob and Jody. This violence was also slated as comical.
• Maybe I was the only sick person in the theater, but I also found it pretty enjoyable and hilarious that Tim Roth’s character didn’t die right away, and he was crawling around in the background while a bunch of other stuff was going on, with no one paying him any mind.
• May I take a moment to reiterate the violence to Major Warren’s genitals? This was extremely comical to the audience — why is his violence earned but hers is not?
• There are only a few murders in the film that are decidedly not celebrated and those are of three women (and two men, one of whom is an older man in his 70s).

I see the temptation to look at what happens to Daisy Domergue on-screen and denounce, “You sexist, you’re destroying a woman, how misogynist!” I even did it for moments myself. However, I encourage everyone to move past this knee-jerk reaction. It’s possible that subconscious sexism makes people quick to see her as a victim, and then criticism of the trope of women as victims may be getting in the way of seeing the agency and complexity of a character like Domergue. I’d rather we not take this as an opportunity to put down Tarantino, but as an opportunity to celebrate Leigh’s nuanced and powerful performance – she even took time to learn to play guitar to perform a song in the film — as film critics are doing this awards season.

I’ll close with a quote from Tarantino:

“Violence is hanging over every one of those characters like a cloak of night. So I’m not going to go, ‘OK, that’s the case for seven of the characters, but because one is a woman, I have to treat her differently.’ I’m not going to do that.”

Notes:

[1] See my view on the only acceptable treatment of sexual violence in film in “I’ll Make You Feel Like You’ve Never Felt Before”: Jennifer’s Power in I Spit on Your Grave

[2] See a thoughtful exploration of the Bride’s rape revenge in Revenge Is a Dish Best Served… Not at All?. I agree with Rodriguez’s interpretation that Buck is “at the bottom of the barrel” as the first to die, but I disagree that Tarantino sees this is a means of empowerment that enables her to find liberation. I see it as another brutalization by Bill (indirectly) that further justifies her revenge. The Bride’s revenge against Bill feels very “tit for tat” in the way historically all-male cast movies are written, yet by working in the rape and the losing of her baby, he makes them more true to the realities of what a female character would face (again without showing sexual violence). Writing a female character with completely equal respect as a male character, yet with these realistic modifications based on gender, is the most feminist thing I can imagine.

[3] This argument of “implied not shown” was used to justify a reason why Mad Max: Fury Road is a feminist film.

Sophie Besl is an exploitation film fanatic with a day job in nonprofit marketing. She has a Bachelor’s from Harvard and lives in Boston with three small dogs. She tweets at @rockyc5.

Feminist Fangs: The Activist Symbolism of Violent Vampire Women

The acts of violence by the female protagonists are terrifying, swift, and socially subversive. They target misogynistic representatives of the patriarchal society that oppresses and silences women, taking them out one by one.

This guest post by Melissa-Kelly Franklin appears as part of our theme week on Violent Women.

The apocryphal notion that women are intrinsically sensitive, gentle and maternal is an old one, so we rarely see aggressive women in film and television unless they’re either trying to protect themselves or are seriously unhinged. Sara Century writes that female characters are “so often victims, but even when they’re violent criminals, that violence is either quickly punished, or it’s normalised and reduced by audiences and creators alike.” It would seem that even the notion that women could stray so far from their natures as to be capable of serious violence is utterly inconceivable outside the context of self-preservation, or the protection of children. Well-trodden is the trope that a woman would do absolutely anything to protect her child; so violent acts by women can be easily explained away with the justification that their maternal instincts are kicking in, thereby restoring women to their place in the “natural order.” Similarly, rape-revenge is often used as a catalyst for driving women to violence, using rape as a means of pushing a character to her extreme, thereby asserting that only horrific trauma can compel a woman to act outside of socially constructed notions of gender. Neither of these reasons are shallow or unjustified – and I’d much rather see a female character take control, retaliate and fight back, than see her as a passive victim. However, what these more commonplace depictions of violent women do, is silence other motivations which might see women as actively engaging in calculated acts of violence for personal and political reasons.

Portrayals of calculated violence by women are few and far between. Sure, there is the recently released Suffragette, which portrays the militant action of the London-based suffragette movement, but as others have highlighted, it’s taken a good 100 years for that to see the light of day; and other celebrated examples of female violence in films like Alien and Terminator see women forced into violence to protect themselves and their families. (Megan Kearns wrote an interesting piece for Bitch Flicks about Sarah Connor’s identity being inextricably tied to motherhood and her baby-making potential.) So whether she’s saving her biological children, or her wider human “family,” these violent women subliminally remind us that women’s role in society is as nurturer, protector and mother.

Two films that throw the proverbial spanner in the patriarchal works are the feminist vampire films Byzantium by Neil Jordan, and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night by Ana Lily Amirpour. The acts of violence by the female protagonists are terrifying, swift, and socially subversive. They target misogynistic representatives of the patriarchal society that oppresses and silences women, taking them out one by one. Both films reflect the social anxieties surrounding such subversive women – the notion that violent women violate the very laws of nature – making these idealised givers of life quite literally, harbingers of death. The subversion of traditional gender constructs within these films depict women actively working outside social norms, effectively using violent women within the vampire genre as a symbol of feminist activism.

In Byzantium, Clara (Gemma Arterton) and Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan) are a vampire mother and daughter duo living rough and on the run from a vampire brotherhood – all because Clara had the gall to disobey their sexist code forbidding women from creating more of their kind. As Katherine Murray discerningly points out, this is a rare vampire film where the vampire-protagonists are not rolling in cash or occupying vast estates, suggesting that we can easily attribute this to “the lack of opportunity they’ve had as women.” For over a century Clara and Eleanor have been relentlessly pursued by the brotherhood with the intention of killing the “aberration” that is Eleanor, thus restoring the status quo within their previously exclusive invitation-only boys club. Jordan introduces us to Clara and Eleanor’s desperate situation in a high-octane chase at the start of the film, which culminates in Clara’s capture. Believing he is close to finally achieving their aim, one of Clara’s assailants tells her, “I feel a great peace. As if order is about to be restored.” From the outset the film establishes an Us vs Them dichotomy, emphasising how everyone who chooses to function outside of patriarchal gender constructs is inevitably punished. Clara’s response? She shuts him up by taking off his head.

It appears throughout the film that Clara’s prevailing motivation is to protect the life of her daughter, making her one of the “violent mother” character types, but her acts of violence clearly go beyond protecting her daughter. Clara and Eleanor are targeted because they dared to violate the sacred code of the vampire brotherhood (a not even thinly veiled allusion to patriarchy) and the balance of power must be restored. The brotherhood is not actively seeking Clara’s death, rather they want to destroy the product of her disobedience – the reminder that Clara is the loose cannon that refuses to conform to their arbitrary gender rules. In their world, women are even denied the intrinsically feminine power to reproduce, as “women aren’t permitted to create.” While it is resoundingly clear that Clara would go to any lengths to protect her daughter, she is also driven by the desire for freedom so they can live unfettered by social rules which say they cannot do, say or share the same privileges that men enjoy. Clara’s deeply felt respect for individuality, freedom and personhood is made poignantly clear at the end of the film, when she acknowledges that Eleanor should make her own way in the world and discover her identity apart from being a daughter.

The boys gather to chat about whether Clara (Gemma Arterton) should be allowed to join their vampire club

Clara’s targeted attacks against patriarchy aren’t limited to members of the vampire brotherhood. The exploitation and persecution of women is also seen in the human world of the film. Desperate and struggling women are seen throughout the first half of the film, from the lone, drugged girl that Eleanor discovers barely conscious on a park bench, to the sex-worker being taunted by promises of a cigarette by the pimp in the amusement park. Clara sees an opportunity to gather together these women and free them from the power of the odious pimp, by first seducing him, then killing him. Clara’s rescue of the girls may well be self-motivated, but by taking them out of the hands of the pimp and into her matriarchy at the Byzantium hotel, she provides them with a safer, cleaner and fairer environment in which to work. And in case we didn’t get that this act of violence was done for a good cause, she croons to his corpse, “the world will be a better place without you.”

While we might laud Clara’s vigilantism, we feel conflicted in our admiration for her badass defiance of convention in the high-tension scene where she kills Eleanor’s teacher. We struggle more with this kill than previous ones, as the teacher is well-intentioned, inspires his students and is genuinely concerned for Eleanor’s welfare. It’s clear that Clara undertakes this execution to keep their secret and preserve their liberty, but the way she relishes her torturous performance leading up to the kill is chilling. We get a brief insight into why Clara isn’t about to take any risks on letting this man live. She tells him that once “I made a fatal error. I was merciful.” That mercy lead to the rape of her daughter, and her punishment for saving her is to be pursued for over a century by a brotherhood that seeks their destruction. While the murder is not justifiable, it’s understandable that Clara would have some serious issues trusting educated white men in positions of authority, and would not give pause to eliminating the threat. This scene reveals the desperation and degradation of the individual – and the wider repercussions – when denied all agency and personhood.

On the hunt: Clara’s first kill as a newborn vampire

Female agency – or lack thereof – is a similarly prevalent theme in A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. Like Clara and Eleanor of Byzantium, the women in Amirpour’s film are searching for a way to free themselves from patriarchal oppression. Sex-worker Atti (Mozhan Marno) saves every cent and dreams of escaping Bad City to explore the places marked out on the huge map on her wall, and even the more privileged daughter of a wealthy family feels the need to conform to conventional beauty standards by having a nose-job. Only the Girl (i.e. the vampire protagonist played by Sheila Vand) moves freely about the city, addressing oppression with her own form of violent justice. The title of the film effectively draws on the inherent vulnerability ascribed to a lone woman at night in order to subvert our expectations of the narrative. In this film, the girl walking home alone is not the potential victim, but rather, the predator. In a nail-biting, but darkly comic illustration of this idea, the Girl meets a sweet, good-looking young man named Arash (Arash Marandi), drugged up from a party and dressed as Dracula. In his stupor he assures her that he wont hurt her, and in delicious moment of dramatic irony, we know that the Girl may well hurt him. Fortunately for Arash, something about his lost-kitten like vulnerability touches her, and a romantic connection between them develops.

Will she or won’t she? The Girl takes Arash home after finding him lost and alone one night

The Girl’s acts of violence are never gratuitous. Her first kill of the film is the pimp, Saeed, whom she witnesses taunt Atti and refuse to pay her, forcing her perform oral sex as an inducement. The Girl observes from a distance with eerie, omnipotent stillness. When Saeed later takes the Girl home and attempts to get physical with her (his seductive dance moves are met with a subtle eye-roll from the Girl which is just priceless), she attacks him, drinks him dry and steals his valuables to give to Atti later. As Ren Jender suggests, this vampire is a vigilante who stalks the streets of Bad City satiating her hunger only on exploitative men who mistreat desperate women.

Later in the film we see Arash’s drug-riddled father visit Atti. He watches her dance sensually, then insists that they share some drugs. When she refuses adamantly, making it clear she doesn’t want any of Hossein’s kind of “good time,” he decides to enforce the ‘fun’. In a moment looking disturbingly like a potential rape, he whips off his belt, binds Atti’s hands and violates her by forcibly injecting the drugs. While stalking the streets nearby, the Girl’s hypersensitive instincts alert her to Atti’s situation, and she swoops in like an avenging angel to show Hossein once and for all that no means no.

There is one terrifyingly menacing scene when the Girl probes a little boy with questions, asking if he is good. “Don’t lie” she hisses, terrorising him with the threat of taking out his eyes if he’s ever bad. It’s an easy conclusion to draw that by ‘good’ she means not growing up to become like the exploitative men of Bad City. The threatened eye-gouging punishment is a clear symbol of her preventing him from ever seeing, and thereby objectifying women. While there is no physical violence in this moment, the mere threat of it is enough to achieve her aim. The Girl is the stuff of misogynists’ nightmares.

“I’ll be watching,” the Girl warns the Street Urchin, and she always is

Both Byzantium and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night suggest that action against sexism and misogyny should be targeted and dramatic. Society has always deemed violent women as creatures to be feared, as by eschewing established gender structures they are unpredictable and uncontrollable, violating the supposedly natural laws that define their femininity. That’s not to say these films encourage bloody, criminal violence, rather they advocate the rejection of restrictive social constructs of femininity in redressing gender imbalance, using violent women characters as a potent symbol of feminist activism.

Melissa–Kelly Franklin is an international filmmaker, writer and actress collaborating in London, Bristol and Berlin. She holds an honours degree in English Literature and History, with one film soon to be released and another cooking in pre-production. Updates about her work can be found at melissa-kellyfranklin.tumblr.com and she occasionally tweets at @MelissaKelly_F.

‘Family Guy’ and Sex Positivity…or Lack Thereof

So the only difference between Meg and Lois is that while Lois is forthcoming about her sexuality, she is attractive so it’s OK to see and hear about it because the audience (and creators) can shame her for it later, whereas Meg is presented as ugly/unattractive and therefore we don’t even want to hear or see her in any sexual way unless it’s making fun of her.

This is a guest post by Belle Artiquez.

Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy is a massive hit show that has gained popularity over the course of its ten odd seasons. Even with this immense following, the show portrays the idea of sex positivity in a solely masculine light. It passively portrays a kind of controversial sexism that appears as a joke, but still perpetuates existing problematic topics of concern for women and the Queer community. A Public Display of Misogyny is one that is sometimes done in a playful manner, but with full intention of insulting women, while at the same time making it look like said women can’t handle a simple joke. When in reality, women are quite simply fed up with the constant sexism that is rampant in today’s society but considered less than important. Other times it is done to look sexy: often seen in advertisements or music videos where women are seen in a suggestive pose surrounded by more than one half naked man. These are the kinds of misogyny that Family Guy hurls out in nearly every episode. The creators of the show attempt to normalize this behaviour and make it appear acceptable, because again, it is done in a comical, whimsical light, so… where’s the harm?

Quagmire, a character who’s only ever portrayed as a pervert, kidnapper, sexual abuser and quite frankly disgusting human being (to those of us sane enough not to laugh at the jokes associated with his behaviour) is presented in a humorous way, an outrageous and exaggerated way, but for comedic effect all the same. Even this kind of repulsive sexuality is considered acceptable to MacFarlane, because it’s funny. Female sex positivity and anything Seth MacFarlane creates do not mesh, they don’t belong, and that’s due to MacFarlane’s hyper masculine idea of sexuality being something only (straight) men can truly own and have agency in. Any depiction of male sex, no matter how perverse, is set in a positive way; this is why Quagmire is saved from serving actual jail time for his (hundreds of) sex crimes in the episode “Quagmire’s Mom.” The one episode where viewers thought that finally there was going to be some retribution for his despicable behaviour–but we couldn’t even have that, he gets away scot-free–and continues with his extremely violent sexual assaults even blaming his behaviour on his promiscuous mother (because its always the mother’s fault!) but it’s OK, because it’s all fun and cartoons. So Quagmire can really do no wrong, he won’t lose his friends when they see half naked Asian women run from the boot of his car, he won’t be reported to the police when he blatantly date rapes a woman, his sexuality is accepted in Quahog because he is a straight male.

We see women in Quagmire’s trunk numerous times throughout the show before they run for their lives.

With female sexuality and sex positivity though we have a total different story. Lois Griffin is portrayed as the extremely attractive married woman, but she is completely sexualized and fetishized throughout the show. It’s almost her only characterization, other than the nagging wife. We see her multiple times in the role of dominatrix, a few times with Peter, and once even with her own son Stewie. She is often very aggressively sexual, and some might argue that this is due to her owning her sexuality which is totally sex positive and body positive too, but I see it differently. When we see her in these roles it’s played for laughs, for shock value, that a mother and wife would have such a sexual history and violent fantasies. And this is all connected to the idea that she is presented as the Bad Mother archetype. We see her in this role quite a lot, but most often (in nearly every episode) when it comes to Meg, her daughter. She is only ever presented in this light, and it’s not hard to see why she fits this bad Mother role; she constantly laughs at meg and belittles her, she diminishes Megs sexual experiences and laughs them off, she literally steals one of Meg’s Boyfriends, insults Meg (and her appearance) and is constantly trying to control Meg’s love life, and those are just the examples that involve Meg. These are not the qualities of a mother who loves her children. So, I’m not saying that I disagree with Lois being so open about her previous and on-going sex life, or even that I have problem with her being into BDSM, I don’t think Lois is a “slut,” as she has affectionately been called on many Family Guy forums; however, I do have a very serious problem with the way in which her sexuality is directly presented to make her look bad, to make her look like a horrible woman/mother/wife.

This is not the only time her sexuality is presented in a negative light. “Mind Over Murder” is an episode that sees Peter opening up a bar in his basement. After Lois ends up singing one night, she finds that she really enjoys it so decides to make a regular appearance singing and dancing giving a jazzy feel to the bar, she feels confident and sexy but more importantly she is happy. Peter on the other hand finds the attention she gets from his male friends too much to handle and demands she stop, because it’s her fault the men don’t know how to control themselves around a woman showing a bit of skin. But also, how dare she be in control of her own sexuality. It’s fine for her husband, Quagmire, and even her son Stewie to place her in a sexual role, but for her to put herself there is outright unacceptable. She refuses to stop, giving a middle finger to slut shaming, and continues, enjoying the spotlight and attention (since she gets neither in her marriage). Her happiness does not last long, and again her sexuality, with which she is in control of, is depicted in a negative light. Soon the women of the town have a problem with her too, seeing her as a threat to their relationships with their husbands. This entire idea is meant to say that it’s a woman’s fault for men looking at her, Lois is put down, belittled and slut shamed, all because these women’s husbands don’t know how to respect women. Peter doesn’t want anybody seeing her as a sexual being because once you are married you should lose all sexual appeal to other people. That’s not sex positivity, that’s female sexual oppression and it’s extremely unfair.

Lois Griffin is extremely sexualized to the point of it being nearly her only consistent characteristic.

And that’s with a character that is considered conventionally attractive. Poor Meg is depicted as the eternal joke purely because of her appearance. Because she is frumpy, she should never have a boyfriend, she should never, ever marry an attractive boy (even though she had to lie about being pregnant in order to get down the aisle), and most of all she should never be in control of her sexual experiences. We see her in one episode making out with a guy who turns out to be Chris in a closet at Halloween, and she is depicted as so desperate for any sort of sexual attention that she will even wonder if he is going to text her the following day, she also ends up making out with Brian, a dog, but even he doesn’t want her, then another extreme, becoming obsessed with a married Joe. All these scenarios have one thing in common: they all make her out to be so starved of male attention that she will literally kiss a dog, try to take a married man or even want a sexual relationship with her own brother, so we have bestiality, incest and delusional husband stealing. These most certainly are not sex positive experiences. What’s even more infuriating is MacFarlane could have actually made a positive statement with Meg’s character; there are many teenagers who feel neglected, isolated, unattractive and ignored, who wholeheartedly understand what Meg goes through, and yet the fact that her feelings and experiences are invalidated with a simple “Shut up Meg” by the very people who are supposed to want her to be happy, turns her into another punching bag for the sake of it. It turns all of these teenagers isolation into nothing more than a joke. Meg has so much boy trouble and is even turned into a transgender man purely as a joke that she is not feminine, not attractive and not wanted. This transgender issue isn’t even explored in the show, it’s a one off joke…it the she’s not feminine, so she must want to be a man hetero-biased argument that is extremely offensive.

This basically sums up Meg’s life. Always the physical and metaphorical punching bag for her family.

This is all based on heteronormative sexuality, and as anybody who watches Family Guy knows, there are a lot of representations of the LGBT community in the show. But does MacFarlane depict these in positive ways? Absolutely not. The presentations of queer sexuality are deeply stereotypical: gay men are extremely feminine and lesbian women are masculine. One episode that really stands out, but is not even nearly the only episode, concerning this issue is “Quagmire’s Dad” (I feel like Quagmire and his family are the centerpiece of sex misrepresentation in the show). Quagmire’s father, a war hero veteran, comes to town to visit his son, and very suddenly characters are remarking on how “gay” he appears, because he drinks cosmopolitans and his voice isn’t the low masculine they expected of a war hero. Stereotyping, it appears, is rampant when it comes to the discussion of gender identity. As it turns out, Quagmire’s father is not gay, but transgender–he wants to transition into a woman. He describes wanting to change his future his future not his past and how he has dealt with these feelings for a long time, this so far is not a negative portrayal of trans folk and their experiences, but the sympathetic portrayal ends there. In the hospital for his operation, Lois refers to the entire thing as a “circus,” the conversation revolves around the chopping off of his penis and there is basically no actual support for this man who is about to go through a life changing transition.

Stewie showing how transphobic the characters (and show) are.

After the transition, Quagmire’s father, now known as Ida, is treated with contempt by everyone, Lois throws out a pie Ida makes and Peter asks inappropriate questions about Ida’s breasts and lack of penis. Everyone is wholly unaccepting of Ida, until Brian meets her at a pub, and instantly falls for her. They end up spending the night together and Brian is absolutely smitten with this wonderful woman he met the night before. That is until he finds out who she is , then he vomits everywhere, forgets about the “wonderful” woman he met the night before and is totally focused on the fact that she was a man. It’s important to note that Brian is used on numerous occasions to highlight the “sexually unwanted” aspect of numerous characters. It’s the “not even a dog would have you” theme. Unfortunately for Ida, her sexuality is thus seen as something wrong, disgusting and unpleasant. Yet again Family Guy fails to interpret very real experiences in a way that is not exploitative. And that’s just one transphobic episode that seemed dedicated to being just that, unaccepting and a massive joke. There are plenty of transphobic references throughout the show, one recurring joke includes Stewie, who is presented as increasingly Bisexual (since he appears to have relationships with girls, loves dressing as a woman, hits on gay men, and has sexual fantasies of his teddy bear Rupert) as the show progresses. His sexual identity is as confusing as a cat that barks: we know that he has to be gay, in the very least, as he enjoys seeing the male body, relaxing in gay bars etc. However, on numerous occasions we see him either date or kiss girls (also babies just in case you were wondering) which could either be Stewie trying to fight his homosexual nature, which just doesn’t seem plausible because he appears to be quite open about it, or he is in fact bisexual. Whichever it is, this is played for laughs, and is not in any way an accurate representation of a child growing up under the spotlight that is patriarchy’s hatred of anything but hetersexuality. Instead we have cheap laughs at Stewie dressed as a woman, acting as a stereotypical gay or even spying on unsuspecting men in the shower (similar to Quagmire’s behaviour).

Stewie often dresses as a woman, and enjoys the occasional relaxing night at a gay bar.

So MacFarlane’s definitely not sex positive when it comes to women or anybody of the LGBT community, but is somehow accepting of a hyper-masculine rapist/pervert’s sexuality! Logical? No not at all. Offensive? Absolutely. And hey, that’s all Family Guy strives for–to be as offensive as possible regardless of how it portrays its sexual minorities.

Belle Artiquez graduated from film and Literature studies in Dublin and since has continued her analysis and critique of film, TV, and literature (mainly in the area of gender politics and representations) as well as cultural and societal critiques on such blog spots as Hubpages and WordPress.

‘Miss Julie’ Is My Very Worst Date, Nineteenth Century Style

It’s hard to avoid the sense that this is a story about how the rich are in decline – how complacency has made them helpless and weak enough for the poor to pull them down. It’s hard to know if we’re supposed to think that John has the right idea by using Julie as a stepping stone to move toward his goals – if we’re supposed to think she deserves what she gets because she was stupid and drunk and coming onto him. The play seems to think so – Chastain and Ullmann seem to disagree – the movie itself seems to be a confused mixture of the two viewpoints.

Written by Katherine Murray.

Now on DVD, Liv Ullmann’s adaptation of Miss Julie is a complicated, if not always very uplifting, exploration of the intersection between class and gender. Despite the best efforts of everyone involved, there’s still a thin angry thread of hatred for women and poor people vibrating under the surface. Spoilers for a story that’s over a hundred years old.

Miss Julie is a pretty straight-forward story about class differences at the turn of the nineteenth century. Based on the 1888 play of the same name, the movie follows Julie, the daughter of a wealthy Baron, as she tries to seduce her father’s Valet, John. It isn’t a romance story – Julie and John don’t love each other. In fact, they kind of hate each other, but they’re two people who happen to be in close proximity, and they’re bored. Because it’s based on a one-room play, most of the action consists of watching two people argue with each other long past the point when most of us would walk away, and the drama consists mostly of trying to figure out which of them is The Worst.

The film moves through roughly four stages, marked by unexpected changes in John’s behaviour.

In the first, and best, and most palpably uncomfortable stage. Julie sexually harasses John in a style I’d like to call 50 Shades of Awkward and Unpleasant. In Jessica Chastain’s portrayal, Julie pretends to be more confident than she is. She wants John to like her – she wants him to be infatuated with her – and, because he isn’t, she abuses her power over him by ordering him to behave as though he is. There’s a creepy and overtly sexual moment when she makes him start kissing her boots, but there are also much sadder and mundane requests. She makes him dance with her, bring her flowers, and offer her a glass of wine. And each time he grudgingly, angrily does any of these things, she smiles and thanks him as though it were his idea, trying hard to pretend that it was.

Even at this stage in the story, there’s a pitiable element to Julie’s power. It’s true that she can coerce John into doing whatever she wants him to do, but it’s also clear that she doesn’t know what she wants from him at all. John’s much more worldly, and, behind his clenched, contemptuous expression, we can tell that he sees her much more clearly than she sees herself. He’s annoyed mostly because she’s playing stupid, childish games with him – not because he feels threatened by her presence. There’s an uncomfortable vulnerability to Julie in these scenes, even on the first viewing, because we can see that she’s exposing all her weaknesses to John without knowing.

The second stage of the story comes when John – quite suddenly, almost like he’s gotten fed-up and reached a breaking point – confesses that he’s actually in love with Julie. He has, in fact been madly, passionately in love with her for years, and that’s why it torments him so much when she teases him this way. Julie is surprised by this, but pleased, and there’s a bit of the normal Heathcliff what-will-your-family-think we-can-never-be-together stuff before they both cross a line and have sex.

In the third stage, John starts to look like a douchebag. He lies to and manipulates the kitchen maid he’s dating, and turns on Julie as soon as he has enough power to do so. Because she’s a woman, and this is 1888, she can’t ever tell anyone she had sex with a servant. Julie’s also afraid she might get pregnant, and she’s shocked that John would lie to her and pretend to be the perfect (which, in her eyes, means subservient) boyfriend just to get her into bed. John’s happy he wrecked her life and crows over the fact that she’s now just as gross as him. With the class barrier gone, he now has more power because of his gender, and he slut-shames her for, like, an hour in the middle of the movie. As Julie starts to get more panicked about what she’s done and what’s going to happen to her when everyone finds out, John tries to convince her that the only way to salvage the situation is to steal her father’s money and run away with him, so that he can start the business he’s always dreamed of. After a lot of coaxing, Julie goes along with this plan, but John changes his mind again.

In the final and shortest stage of the movie, the sun starts to rise and John sobers up and realizes that he’s been too ambitious for his own good. He doesn’t want to take the risk of running away with Julie anymore – he wants to stay in the comfortable little life he’s made for himself as the Baron’s servant. This is, after all, The Way of the World. Julie’s still in a state of total crisis, though, and he needs to stop anyone from finding out about what happened with her, so that he doesn’t lose his job. So, he convinces her to kill herself, and that’s the end.

Miss Julie is really obviously interested in the intersection of class and gender – like, obvious to the point that Julie and John do a little bit of dream interpretation, discussing how they’re always climbing or falling in their sleep – but, because the author’s take on the situation is kind of horrible, it’s hard to tell where the movie comes down. If you don’t want to read Strindberg’s entire introduction to the play (which I am told is even more misogynist in its original version), suffice to say that John’s a special kind of Poor because he wants to be refined, but he’s still dirty and ignorant on the inside, and Julie is a man-hating half-woman who’s destroying the fabric of society because she doesn’t know her place.

It’s also not surprising that Chastain had a tough time with the idea that Julie kills herself because John tells her to. I have a tough time with that, too, and I’m not sure I buy her explanation that it’s ultimately empowering because Julie was suicidal all along and wanted John to help her self-destruct.

Director Liv Ullmann seems to want us to understand Julie not as a horrible deviant, but as a victim of her circumstance, reacting in an understandable way. The film opens with a sequence in which we watch a young Julie wander bored and alone through her father’s mansion, and implies that her interest in John is born from the same lack of playmates, coloured by a strange naiveté that comes from leading a sheltered life. (Chastain is also much older than Julie, making her awkwardness and innocence seem like a psychological outcome rather than the product of youth).

At the same time, it’s hard to avoid the sense that this is a story about how the rich are in decline – how complacency has made them helpless and weak enough for the poor to pull them down. It’s hard to know if we’re supposed to think that John has the right idea by using Julie as a stepping stone to move toward his goals – if we’re supposed to think she deserves what she gets because she was stupid and drunk and coming onto him. The play seems to think so – Chastain and Ullmann seem to disagree – the movie itself seems to be a confused mixture of the two viewpoints. This version of Miss Julie isn’t so much a reaction against or dialogue with the original as it is a faithful performance that tries to sneak in a more empathetic worldview around the sides. It’s very interesting, but I’m not sure it completely succeeds.

Aside from the movie’s weird politics, Chastain and Colin Farrell are both very interesting to watch, but it’s a long haul. I wasn’t kidding when I said it’s mostly two hours of people fighting in the kitchen. That’s something that doesn’t work as well without the visceral immediacy of a stage.

All in all, I’m not sorry I watched this, but I enjoyed the first leg of the story, which seemed to be uncomfortable on purpose, more than I enjoyed the last legs of the story, which seemed like the playwright’s ghost was giving us the finger.

Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies and TV (both real and made up) on her blog.

Reflecting on ‘True Detective’s First Season

But, at the end of the day—at the end of a lot of days—I’m tired of watching these shows and seeing women as props and symbols used to push the hero along his way. I’m tired of watching these shows and seeing the massive chasms between what they present, what they claim to represent, and what their fans insist they represent.

This guest post by Lisa Shininger previously appeared at her site and appears now as part of our theme week on Dystopias. Cross-posted with permission.

Spoilers ahoy.

I’m tired today.

I stayed up too late last night to watch the first season finale of True Detective, the lush, loquacious portrait of Southern decay that held me in thrall all weekend, racing to catch up to the zeitgeist, if not the killer(s). I’m no stranger to late nights—nor to the toll of an extended media binge—but the seemingly endless spin of the HBO Go loading wheel (and the horrified contortions of my face once the show began) were more tiring than I had expected.

More than that, though, this tiredness also stems from choosing for a weekend to almost wholly submerge myself in the barely fictional, humanity-ravaged landscapes of Louisiana. The glimpses we had of the fading memory of a town—of man-made structures being devoured by the march of time and nature—mirror the Rust Belt city I live in, where my drive to work has been carefully mapped around abandoned factories and crumbling facades so the unrelenting misery of impotent nostalgia doesn’t get its claws too deep into me.

There is no escape from Pizzolatto and Fujinaka’s post-apocalyptic vision in the world of True Detective. Rust and Marty end almost where they began, but they will be forever tied to that land that sinks ever further out of sight.

Sometimes it feels like there is no escape in my neck of the woods, either. While no swirling, galactic vortices yawn open above my head, I see hints of humanity’s high-water mark in every rusted fence falling inexorably beneath a new grassy tide.

That’s not entirely why I’m tired today, though.

Sure, I’m tired of driving through familiar post-industrial wastelands, of hearing the echoes of a Springsteenian wail with every mile, both in reality and in fiction.

And I’m tired of the artistic fetishization of decline, of photo essays about the crumbling American industrial civilization with little or no context for the societal forces that precipitated that decline, and those that continue to accelerate it while we avail ourselves of disaster porn.

I’m tired of watching these shows be widely praised for the quality of their writing, their fully dimensional characters, their gritty and realistic depictions of life—while I’m wondering where the other half of the world is.

In high school, I fell hard for The X-Files. Harder than for any other thing in my life, before or since. It fed my adolescent desire for darkness and the occasional lingering shot of David Duchovny’s fishbelly-pale torso.

The infamous fourth season episode, “Home,” touched on some of the same themes and archetypes revealed through this season of True Detective. The abduction and violation of women. The high American Gothic horror of the backwoods inbred. The willful ignorance of what happens in our communities. The invisible threads of malice and terror that we imagine—and occasionally reveal—crisscross our heartlands.

There, the monsters weren’t just the malignant and malformed Peacock men who roamed the Pennsylvania hills in their classic car to the dulcet tones of a Johnny Mathis sound-alike, in search of new breeding stock and targets for their violent protective urges. The monster was also the literal thing under the bed: the woman who presumably birthed them and continued to give birth to their doomed offspring. The episode hinges on Mulder and Scully seeking her out, to rescue her from her captors, from the horrors they assume she endures. But when Scully engages her, Mrs. Peacock reveals herself to be every bit the horror that her sons are. She is complicit and consenting—by the show’s terms—both in her confinement and in the rampages her sons commit.

We meet her presumable counterpart in the True Detective finale, but when the present-day detectives Gilbough and Papania begin to tell us her role among the evil that surrounds her, Marty Hart tells them to stop. He is as uninterested in her life as he is in that of any of the women who surround him, when their lives aren’t in support of his own. He is as uninterested in her life as the show is in the lives, or deaths, of any of the women we encounter.

From Elastic’s True Detective title sequence pitch, via Art of the Title — From Elastic’s *True Detective* title sequence pitch, via Art of the Title

There’s always an argument to be made in favor of women-as-prop as an essential part of True Detective’s narrative and message. Over at The A.V. Club, Todd VanDerWerff says in a lengthy, weighty True Detective postmortem:

The most frequent criticism about this season has been its lack of “well-defined” female characters. This is a misleading statement. That there are no “well-defined” female characters on True Detective is the point.

Is it? Really?

It’s an essential part of the character of Marty, sure. His life outside the job is populated by women he barely knows: his wife, his children, his mistresses. It’s also an essential part of how Rust doesn’t allow himself to make connections with people—he only knows what he can see in service of his work.

But, how does the absence of women in the show—as viewpoint characters, as protagonists, as anything more complex than eyewitnesses and victims—further that point in ways that can’t be done within the narrative?

If the point of having no developed women—outside of Maggie, who I can’t forget never acts on anything unless it is in reaction to Marty—is to illustrate the disregard and disdain the world has for them, isn’t that point made in the way, for decades, dozens of women and children vanish and no one cares enough to pierce the veil of lies hung in their wake?

The question that kept ringing through my head as I mainlined the show was: Why are these always men’s stories? Monsters in myriad guises prey on women and children, but it’s always more men telling us stories about those monsters. Always.

If Pizzolatto’s aim in making this show was to transform the common beats and tropes of the murder story into something that transcended the genre, why do we have eight episodes that retread the most common of tropes: the victimization of passive women?

The inciting point of the entire season is the ritual murder of a woman and the destruction of property, which could arguably be seen as equivalent crimes. We first encounter Dora Lange as a literal object, a doll posed by unknown persons in a tableau that is as dehumanizing as it is unsettling. Greyed by death, frozen in a ritualized pose, crowned with antlers and transformed into a once-living sculpture: she is nothing but a piece of art, for whoever left her there, for Rust, and for us as well. The camera lingers on her naked flesh the way we imagine her killer might have done.

What more do we know about Dora Lange at the end of the season that we didn’t learn in those first scenes in the cane field? Rust tells us she is likely a prostitute, and so we learn she was. She had an ex-husband, who leads us into the mid-season digression into the hyper-macho world of drug dealers and undercover operations. How she came to be married to that man, working in that mobile home brothel, dead in that field, is only explained in the barest of strokes needed to move our heroes around their boards.

By the time we know that the men the show tells us are directly responsible for her murder are themselves dead, even Dora herself has been subsumed: by the detectives’ quest, by the horror visited upon her, by the monsters who set her death in motion, even by the young girl whose image has supplanted hers on Rust’s wall.

These are never stories told by women about how they’re preyed on. About how they try to protect themselves and fail, or how they succeed. About how they choose to be complicit in their own abuse, or how they never had a choice. These stories are never even about women who are preyed on. It’s always about men, and men, and men.

Lisa Shininger is a writer and designer from Dayton, Ohio. She cohosts Bossy Britches, and yells about pop culture at lisashininger.com and @ohseafarer.

‘Mr. Robot’ and the Trouble with the White Knight

This guest post by Shay Revolver appears as part of our theme week on Masculinity.

You’ve probably seen the poster art for Mr. Robot everywhere in the past few weeks. It’s pretty good show and it deserves the attention.

Poster for Mr. Robot Starring Rami Malek — Poster for *Mr. Robot,* starring Rami Malek

From the very first scene of Mr. Robot you are hooked. You find yourself invested in Elliot’s life. You feel connected with him and you hope that he succeeds. It’s a strong opening for what I feel will be an amazing show. The wait between the sneak preview and the next episode has been torture so I’ve watched the pilot more than once with my partner and my son because I can’t get enough. But somewhere in between each of the viewings I’ve had some thoughts that in some way take a part of my love away. The problem with loving good storytelling and being aware of the varying forms of patriarchy or misogyny in some stories is that once you’ve had a chance to digest a piece of media, you find yourself questioning all the little things that you find problematic and sometimes you can’t tell if it’s just you over analyzing or if there really is a problem there.

That space is where I find myself after seeing and loving Mr. Robot. Rami Malek plays the shy and socially awkward Elliot well. In the beginning of the show he takes down a pedophile and you root for him. Throughout the show he seems to inwardly clash with any of the Alpha males that surround him. Mr. Robot (played by Christian Slater) is as much of an embodiment of a man’s man as Brad Pitt/ Tyler Durden was in Fight Club. This statement is true, minus the Fight Club part, with most of the other men in his life, but they seem express all of the “masculine” traits you’d expect from a cis white male. Elliot, on the other hand, gives off a sense of humanity that makes you feel connected almost instantly as you join him on this adventure through his world. Elliot isn’t your typical male. He doesn’t exude all of the traits that you’d expect in a show’s lead. He’s not incredibly charismatic, he doesn’t put out an err of bravado, he doesn’t even have that uber masculine sense of entitlement. He’s not out swilling beer or doing any of the things you would expect. He is in no way a “man’s man.”

The problem doesn’t come from the viewing of this show, it comes from the aftertaste. Elliot is a traditional lone wolf type of man. He has his own rules and own mind and lives his life according to his own ideals. This makes him a nice contrast Amanda’s boyfriend. He’s the uber masculine type of guy that uses niceness as a weapon. He’s smarmy and even before we got into his indiscretions you couldn’t help but not like this guy. He has all the trademarks of a cis white male frat boy. He oozes all the traditionally masculine character traits that are the hallmark of the patriarchy. He has a sense of entitlement and this cloud of arrogance so thick you could choke on it.

Watching Elliot interact and rebuff him makes you feel like you’re on his side. This is where things start to get a little tricky for me. The thing that feels homey about Elliot is that despite his social awkwardness he generally cares for other people like his best friend Amanda (played by Portia Doubleday) and his therapist Krista (played by Gloria Reuben). The problem isn’t with the caring, the problem is with the way he shows it when they’re not around. In this regard he exudes a hyper masculine sense of over-protectiveness. During one of his exchanges with Amanda’s jerk of a boyfriend, Ollie (played by Ben Rappaprt), you find out that Elliot has been cyber stalking him. He discovered fairly early on that he was cheating on her and had been since shortly after they exchanged “I love yous.” But Elliot hasn’t told her yet. His reasons are self-serving–he doesn’t want to deal with the mess she’ll become after another break-up and he feels like he can “manage” him better than whatever guy she’ll find next. So instead, he keeps this secret from his best friend. This behavior runs parallel with the fact that every time that Amanda seems to be faltering at work, he swoops in to save the day and defend her from anyone who tried to make her seem less that capable. He can’t help himself from trying to save the day, from being a “White Knight.”

Gloria Reuben as Elliot's Therapist Krista — Gloria Reuben as Elliot’s therapist, Krista

I have long had a problem with this archetype both in media and in real life. To me this whole phenomenon of men feeling the desire to swoop in and “Save the Princess” seems to be more of a hindrance to feminism than a companion. Women are not helpless creatures who need protecting, at least not in the White Knight type of way. There is always an undertone in their actions that seem to convey the message that they’re just letting us have our way and will wait in the wings until they have their moment and can save us from ourselves. One of the biggest shows of Elliot’s underlying muber masculine White Knighting actions was him deciding to frame the CTO of E-Corp because he was rude to Amanda. In that moment he had the choice of two envelopes, one leading to the real culprit in the hacks, the other leading to the CTO. He was set to turn in Mr. Robot and his crew until the moment that the CTO kicked Amanda out of the room. Elliot took issue with that and in an effort to “protect” her and “defend her honor” he sets the CTO up to take the fall. I will give the writers credit for what they choose to do with Amanda’s character. To her credit, she calls Elliot on his choice to jump in during a meeting with their bosses to cover for her, she didn’t know to what extent he tried to defend her. But, the scene seems in a way that the show is aware of this element of the dynamic and makes sure that we know it too.

Elliot (Rami Malek) Seemingly Confused That Angela (Portia Doubleday)

Unfortunately, the problem with the White Knighting doesn’t end there. Elliot is fond of his therapist, Krista, and feels sorry for her and her relationship issues, mainly her trouble finding a suitable man after her divorce. His solution to facilitate keeping her safe and teaching her “to read people” involves him digging up dirt on her current online dating love interest. This is a side note in the pilot episode. Toward the end of the episode, shortly after you realize how awesome this series is going to be, he finds the dirt that he as looking for. Once again, instead of telling her himself, he chooses to confront him and blackmail him into telling her the truth about himself and breaking up with her. In the next scene that his therapist appears in she’s obviously shaken and appears to have been crying. He knows that his plan has worked. She is now “safe” and he seems pleased with his work.

Elliot and Mr. Robot Talk Business — Elliot and Mr. Robot talk business

This is another one of the problems that I have with White Knight syndrome. The types prone to exhibiting this behavior tend to have a lower opinion of women that than their outwardly sexist counterparts. White Knights take up the causes of the women in their lives and speak out for them, but it is usually done in a manner that seems to suggest they think that these women are incapable of speaking up for themselves. Elliot unfortunately seems to be as textbook as it comes in this regard. In some ways he seems more sinister in his actions because he seems so nice and unassuming , these traits make it so you don’t realize he’s moving pieces around in the lives of the women in his life.

He is resolute in his thinking that he knows what is best for them and will “protect” them from themselves by any means necessary. He does all of these things from the shadows while outwardly expressing genuine concern.

I can’t tell if Elliot’s behaviors are a sign of the times or if they’re his true feelings left out exposed like a nerve , a gift from the writer expressing the realism of White Knights, and I’m not sure where the show will go from here. I love the premise; the show itself comes off as a cross between Fight Club and Hackers–two of my favorite films–and the writing, direction, and camera work are amazing. I hope that in future episodes the women speak out more and he proves himself as less of a panderer and more of a genuine person whose actions toward the women on the show relay the words that he speaks to them. It’s hard to tell where this characters interactions will take the story, but I hope Elliot evolves into something better than the anti-hero that he is now because, as I said before, the show I plan on watching is phenomenal.

Elliot Does a Victory Stance After Taking down the Man (because the man was mean to Amanda) — Elliot does a victory stance after taking down the man (because the man was mean to Amanda)

Shay Revolver is an inked vegetarian, mom, feminist, cinephile, insomniac, recovering NYU student, and former roller derby player currently working as a Brooklyn-based microcinema filmmaker, web series creator, and writer. She’s obsessed with most books, especially the Pop Culture and Philosophy series and loves movies and TV shows from low brow to high class. As long as the image is moving she’s all in and believes that everything is worth a watch. She still believes that movies make the best bedtime stories because books are a daytime activity to rev up your engine and once you flip that first page, you have to keep going until you finish it and that is beautiful in its own right. She enjoys talking about the feminist perspective in comic book and gaming culture and the lack of gender equality in mainstream cinema and television productions both on screen and behind the camera. She prides herself on using all (or damn near close) to an all female crew because it’s harder for women to build up their reel. She also thinks that everyone should check out the weekly @bitchflicks twitter chat about feminism and media every Tuesday at 2 because it’s awesome and she loves engaging with other women.

Twitter : @socialslumber13

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