Motherhood – Page 4 – Bitch Flicks

“But I Do!”: Releasing Repressed Rage in ‘The Ring’

These abstract symbols not only frighten, but link events in the real world to Samara’s cursed tape: this particular creature recalls the “spiders, snails, and puppy-dog tails” that little girls are decidedly not supposed to be made of. When Rachel engages this videotape, notably created by the patriarchal forces that might be seen to repress Samara, she sees Samara in a sparse hospital room in fast motion, staring at the clock as its hands whirl around and around.

This guest post by Rebecca Willoughby appears as part of our theme week on The Terror of Little Girls.

If horror films with little girls at their centers express anxieties about puberty, female potential, or the morphing of charming young women into screeching harpies, then The Ring is probably one of the best examples. Its little girl, Samara Morgan, seems to be just plain inexplicably evil.

If recounted chronologically, her “real world” back story goes something like this: Samara was adopted by Richard and Anna Morgan when Anna failed (repeatedly) to conceive. I should note that I’m not talking about the sequels, which to me are clearly made not because we necessarily want to know more about the story and the characters, but because the first film enjoyed some financial success. Anyway, after the adoption, strange things begin to happen at the Morgan’s horse ranch, including the animals going crazy and drowning themselves. Anna begins seeing things, and believes the terrifying images are generated by Samara. The Morgans decide to seek psychiatric treatment for Anna and for Samara; at some point both are released, but Anna is still disturbed. Believing Samara to be the source of her visions, Anna suffocates her daughter and throws her into a well, then leaps off a cliff near their home.

But Samara isn’t dead, and spends seven days expiring at the bottom of said well. Afterward, well, even if she wasn’t evil before, she certainly has an axe to grind. Samara’s supernatural obsession becomes “showing” people terrible “things,” through her strange psychic ability, which gives her the power to create media—this special talent eventually takes the form of a cursed videotape that kills the viewer seven days after watching. Usually this process involves a very waterlogged and very scary-looking Samara crawling out of a leaky television set and looking at the victim with her very angry eye, whereupon that victim also suddenly becomes very scary-looking and waterlogged, but also totally dead.

When I saw the film on its release, I slept with the lights on for seven days. Yes, me: horror film aficionista, one who has seen some pretty intense stuff in the service of her dissertation research. Right. While at the time I was kind of obsessed with figuring out just why the film scared me so much, now I am kind of obsessed with one scene—hell, just a few shots—and one line of dialogue from the movie.

It’s probably not the scene that immediately springs to the mind of most folks who have seen the film. It’s not the last terrifying moments in Noah’s (Martin Henderson) life where a slimy Samara (Daveigh Chase) slithers out of a television screen and stalks him across his studio apartment to fulfill her awful curse. It’s not even the first of many interruptions of the linear narrative with shocking or weird images: where in the midst of Rachel’s (Naomi Watts) conversation with her bereaved sister Ruth (Lindsay Frost), we’re treated to a brief shot of poor Katie (Amber Tamlyn), the film’s first victim, crouched in a closet with a horrifying look on her dead face. It’s the scene when Rachel, previously rebuffed by Mr. Morgan in her search to discover who Anna Morgan and her daughter were, returns to his farm at night (brilliant move in a horror film) and stumbles upon a videotape of Samara Morgan’s psychotherapy.

We know that something significant is about to happen because—aside from the usual horror film suspense buildup—Rachel is surprised by a centipede as she rifles through a box of the Morgan’s belongings. She’s seen this centipede before in the fabled videotape that kills you, and throughout the film images from the tape seem to intrude little by little onto the real world. These abstract symbols not only frighten, but link events in the real world to Samara’s cursed tape: this particular creature recalls the “spiders, snails, and puppy-dog tails” that little girls are decidedly not supposed to be made of. When Rachel engages this videotape, notably created by the patriarchal forces that might be seen to repress Samara, she sees Samara in a sparse hospital room in fast motion, staring at the clock as its hands whirl around and around. An off-camera doctor indicates that they are in hour 14 of therapy–a therapy where Samara is wired with electrodes, plugged into a wall, and asked a variety of questions. The doctor makes several inquiries before she responds. But the most disturbing and important moment occurs when, just after Samara asserts that she loves her mommy, the Doc indicates that Samara is hurting her. When he says, “You don’t want to hurt anyone,” Samara responds: “But I do, and I’m sorry. It won’t stop.”

A revelation! A young girl supposedly given up by her family, subsequently adopted, and then poked and prodded by medical science and creepy male psychologists admits to having feelings other than love, maternity, and joy? Amazing! So although as a society we might locate a lot of anxiety in the maturation of young girls, this film—at least for a moment—doesn’t repress the idea that young girls might have feelings other than the ones society tells them to have. What’s problematic, of course, is that the film sees this admission as evidence of Samara’s evil. While the film overall may not be very progressive in terms of its depiction of women, and young girls in particular, it does have this ONE MOMENT of openness, like a valve releasing some of the pressure of repression.

In addition to admitting that she wants to hurt people, Samara is plagued by the idea that her adopted father is going to leave her in the institution, that he doesn’t love her. Eventually, her mother kills her, ostensibly because her idealization of what it means to be a mother didn’t come true exactly as she envisioned it. Because her adopted daughter isn’t “sugar and spice and everything nice” all the time. The expectations that society doles out for young girls and for mothers is far from realistic. Is this disconnect the real horror?

I’d like to take a moment to point out that Aiden (David Dorfman), Rachel’s young son, is far from a normal kid. He’s able to channel that creepy-but-probably-our-hero vibe that was perhaps first perfected by Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense just a few years before The Ring. Rachel is also probably not up for a Mom-of-the-Year Award; like Anna and Richard Morgan, she and Noah haven’t been the best parents in the world. Ruth Goldberg has written insightfully about the mirroring present in The Ring between Anna and Richard Morgan and Rachel and Noah with Aiden in Barry Keith Grant’s book on horror film, The Planks of Reason. It’s very clear that while Aiden is a model kid—picking out not only his clothes for Katie’s funeral, but Rachel’s as well, and being extraordinarily self-sufficient because Rachel is working all the time—Rachel and Noah are far from model parents. While she certainly doesn’t seem to share Anna Morgan’s homicidal ideas, Rachel’s life is not exactly constructed to be conducive to having a young child; she relies on Aiden’s capable nature to take up the slack. So really, part of the “terror” of little girls has to do with their mothers—the expectations that society heaps upon them for a “perfect” child, and that they must always, under all circumstances (including unrelenting evil) love their offspring. Certainly reality is far more complicated, and motherhood and childhood much more complex. If The Ring is expressing THAT anxiety, then the film’s success should be evidence that this is a conversation society needs to have.

On that note, one final word on sequels. I might have tipped my hand in the paragraphs above about my general feelings for them, but I do at the end of the day have a hard time believing that any film project is mounted for purely financial or business-oriented reasons. I have to think that there’s just too much work involved in an endeavor like filmmaking to justify it with solely materialistic motives. Therefore, if there are sequels to The Ring (which there are, but which I judge to be inferior in many ways to the style of the original—which was not even an “original,” but that’s another essay), then it’s because there’s some deeper driving force behind the need to express the anxieties at their center. So, I’ll tentatively say: onward to The Ring 3! Perhaps the most frightening things about this film in the end are its telling links to some of the more frightening aspects of our own society. If it takes sequels to work those issues out, bring them on.

Rebecca Willoughby holds a Ph.D. in English and Film Studies from Lehigh University. She writes most frequently on horror films and melodrama, and is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

The Volatility of Motherhood in David Cronenberg’s ‘The Brood’

For Cronenberg, Candy represents the symbolic order and influence of the father, precisely what Nola wishes to eradicate. Candy is supposed to come “home to mommy” and have no fatherly influence. The characters in the film are defined by rigid gender constructs, or alternatively, through their attempts at living up to them.

This guest post by Eli Lewy appears as part of our theme week on The Terror of Little Girls.

The association between women and reproductive activities is a common theme in horror films. Female genitals have been perceived as mysterious and uncanny by men during the course of Western history. In Canadian film director David Cronenberg’s 1979 film The Brood, Nola, a wife and mother, is in a psychiatric institution where she uses Dr. Raglan’s methods of psychoplasmics to manifest her emotional and psychological troubles physically. Nola has failed in her role as a nurturing mother to her daughter Candy, and being a loving stable wife to her husband Frank, a leading cause of her psychological fragmentation. Nola’s inner rage and pain causes her to form an external womb-like sac that gives birth to evil children with whom she shares a telepathic bond. Nola’s ability to give birth parthenogenetically[1] is what constructs her as “monstrous.” Her womb, one of the primary symbols of biological womanhood, is constructed as being a volatile space filled with danger.

In The Brood, Frank, Nola’s husband, attempts to act as the protector of his daughter Candy against the evil mother, Nola. For Cronenberg, Candy represents the symbolic order and influence of the father, precisely what Nola wishes to eradicate. Candy is supposed to come “home to mommy” and have no fatherly influence. The characters in the film are defined by rigid gender constructs, or alternatively, through their attempts at living up to them.

Frank, who has recently separated from Nola, is discriminated against in the judicial system even though his wife is far from capable of nurturing Candy. When Frank attempts to take steps against Nola and get full custody of his daughter, his lawyer plainly tells him that he has no legal rights to deny Nola of her mothering responsibilities as “the law believes in motherhood.” The filmmaker suggests that even unfit mothers are preferred over fathers. The criticism of the supposed female dominance over the realm of the family in the film is clear once the audiences realize what kind of a mother Nola really is. The horror occurs when the father is powerless, rendered irrelevant by a “monstrous” mother.

Nola is in desperate need of feeling loved and accepted by Frank, who in turn, is disgusted by her. The Brood broaches the idea of a hereditary female cycle of abuse and evil: Nola’s mother was emotionally and physically abusive toward her which, in turn, caused Nola to be abusive toward her young daughter Candy. The Brood complies with the ancient sexist notion that maternal desire is the source of monstrosity (Creed 46). Most of Dr. Raglan’s patients’ rage manifests itself in boils and lesions, unlike Nola, whose rage comes in the form of an external womb capable of birthing deformed beings. Not only is her body and mental state in shambles, she has incorporated the brood children into the mix who bring harm to others. This conveys a message that Cronenberg returns to frequently: females who dare to be aggressive and expressive destruct others. Nola’s rage is seen as something that the women in her family inherited, but there is no attempt at understanding why this has happened.

During Candy’s stay with her grandmother, she sees a picture of her mother as a child in the hospital. Nola looks a lot like Candy; in fact, she is played by the same young actress. This is the first instance in which Candy shows some sense of presence, interest, and involvement in the film as she is usually catatonic and detached. The traumatic events she has lived through are reflected in her blank stare. Candy is one of the main victims in the film; she witnesses her grandmother’s death, gets viciously beaten by the brood, and is constantly under threat.

Candy could easily be mistaken for one of the brood children with her straight blonde hair and the almost identical red parka. In fact, even her own father mistakes Candy for a brood for a fleeting second. The brood children know that she needs to come with them to the institute; they are the same in some way. However, once Nola commands her brood to attack Candy, their blood ties no longer matter and they intend on killing Candy.

Candy in peril after Nola orders the brood children to kill her

When Frank attempts to save the kidnapped Candy, he comes face to face with Nola for the first time in the film. A primal birthing scene ensues. She is sitting on a platform in a regal manner. Nola questions Frank’s love for her and confidently explains that “what’s been happening to me is too strange, too strange to share with anyone from my old life.” She then proceeds to raise her arms to reveal what lies underneath her white nightgown: her external womb. The whiteness of Nola’s robe is juxtaposed with the “monstrosity” that lies beneath. The camera switches between Nola’s confident, queen-like posing and Frank’s pure and utter disgust for what his eyes are seeing.

As though the sight of this hideous sac were not enough, Nola proceeds to bend over, bite the sac, and take out her bloodied brood fetus. However, the epitome of Nola’s “freakishness” is yet to come. Nola licks away the blood and amniotic fluid, irrevocably propelling Nola to an abject being completely comfortable with her animalistic maternal instincts, reproductive functions, and disfigurement. We see all this unfold though Frank’s eyes – we are him in this scene, disgusted and disbelieving. Nola changes from human to monster. She was unaware of the fact that the brood children are murderous, but once Frank tells her she does not change her demeanor and smiles maniacally, condoning her progeny’s actions. Rage and psychoplasmics have sucked the humanity out of her. Once Frank tells her the truth, which is that he is there to take their daughter away from her, Nola coldly says, “I’d kill Candice rather than let you take her away from me.” Frank then proceeds to leap and strangle his wife to death. He begs her to make the brood children stop what they are doing to Candy, but Nola is too far gone, her humanity has been stripped away. Nola’s plea to “kill me, kill me” is masochistic; she is letting Frank give into his urge to destroy the maternal (Beard 85). Frank is full of rage while killing Nola, which is the only effective thing he does throughout the picture. However, this does not prevent Candy from being exposed to the disease; he has not saved her. We then see the boil on her arm at the end of the film, implying that Candy will carry on the dubious honor of the clan’s “female legacy.”

Works Cited

Beard, William. The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2006.

Creed, Barbara. The Monstrous Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. London and New York: Routledge. 1993.

Eli Lewy is a third culture kid, burgeoning filmmaker, and Master’s student studying US Studies. She currently resides in Berlin. You can read her film review blog here: www.film-nut.tumblr.com and follow her on twitter at @scopophiliafilm

[1] Reproduction that occurs with the ovum only.

The Beautiful Journey of ‘Layover’: An Interview and Review

Written by Rachel Redfern.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yU_m-uxwe8″]

While so many of us find displeasure in the level of Hollywood films often topping the box office, the new indie film, Layover, directed by Joshua Caldwell is proof that it is not the budget and special effects that make a memorable film, rather it’s the story and characters that we find compelling. Layover is a beautiful, atmospheric indie film about a young French woman, with limited English, who has a 12-hour, one night layover in Los Angeles. Simone (Nathalie Fay) looks up an old friend and from there, spends a reflective, surprising evening on the streets of LA.

Joshua Caldwell, the award-winning director and screenwriter of Layover, was generous enough to grant us an interview for this piece and help us understand how Layover came together and what makes it so compelling. Simone is a woman in transit, and as Caldwell explained to us, a woman “who was on a journey, but a journey she wasn’t really sure she wanted to be on. She’s given this brief moment of pause and reflection before having to decide whether she continues on or not.”

The viewer’s experience of Simone’s thoughtful, life-changing night in Los Angeles is further augmented by the fact that 90 percent of the dialogue is in French. While making life much more difficult for the editing team, and obviously for the actors and crew, it also increases the feeling of isolation that we experience through Simone, making the city seem truly unfamiliar. And while adding to the general atmosphere of the film and the power of Simone’s layover, according to Caldwell, it actually increased the actor’s performance: “Shooting in French actually allowed me to focus more on the performance and emotion and make sure that was coming through regardless of the language. My ear wasn’t tuned to whether the words were correct or not, which can often distract you from paying attention to the emotions.”

'Layover' and its atmospheric Los Angeles — *Layover* and its atmospheric Los Angeles

It’s a plan that apparently worked and as a female viewer, I loved Simone’s bold, no-fear attitude. This wasn’t a movie about being out alone late at night wandering the streets of an unfamiliar city, but rather about moving confidently through space, regardless of our inner fears about growing up. Simone’s concerns about becoming a mother and the perils of marriage, but her wish to still move forward despite her own fears, certainly speak to the experience of the modern 20- (or 30-) something.

And yet, the way that Simone slides through a single night in a foreign country (whether metaphorical or literal) is not only reflective of the millennial experience, but also of a larger, more human experience. The surprising connections, the flirtations, the dancing, the night views, the sense of isolation, the unwelcoming airport terminals and blank hotel rooms. But also, the sense of community between a small group as people wander in and out of a party, the awkward conversations with old friends, and the inevitable regrets of old choices and vague hopes of new ones, are all present.

It’s a tribute to Caldwell that the moody, quiet woman we meet at the beginning, is by the end of the film, not necessarily different, but appears to the audience to be completely different—real, relatable, transitioning.

The film has been heralded as a beautiful coming of age film, which it is; however, it’s the intimate connection that Simone and the “Mysterious Motorcyclist” (Karl Landler) make that sets this film apart. Intimacy without romance and erotic tension without sex is difficult to portray, but Layover manages to connect two young, average people in one, surprising, unexpected moment. Its sort of the most beautiful, and best kind of movie, the kind of story that film does best, two souls connecting, understanding, changing, and then saying goodbye, either to each other, or who they were before. And it’s these kinds of stories that connect across age, which was exactly Caldwell’s intention, despite the film’s stars all being obvious millennials.

Layover is an anomaly in other ways as well; the acting is superb, the dialogue realistic, and several of the scenes were compounded by haunting cinematography, yet the whole package production cost a mere $6,000. Contrast that number, a solid down payment on a Toyota, to the $30 million spent on Guardians of the Galaxy.

Telling great stories like Layover with such a small amount though will hopefully have repercussions in the rest of Hollywood as some film budgets, and the films being made, are hopefully reconsidered. According to Caldwell, having a smaller budget actually helped Layover to move organically, allowing the characters to interact with more realistic situations; “There’s a reality to it that I don’t think would have come from a more polished piece. Also, what our lack of money forced us to do was create really compelling characters that jump off the screen and stick with you after the movie is over.”

It’s a powerful lesson in the abilities of excellent storytelling to arise from a more grounded budget, (an almost laughable meta-moment of art imitating life), and makes sense as Layover takes its influence from the French New Wave style, which favors being creative with what you have. Layover was actually shot on a Canon 5D, which Caldwell believes, “was a beautiful example of what can be done with a minimal budget.”

Karl Ladler as the 'Mysterious Motorcyclist' in 'Layover' — Karl Landler as the “Mysterious Motorcyclist” in *Layover*

And it’s not just to Caldwell’s credit that the film has turned out so well, but also to the excellent quality of actors he’s employed; Nathalie Fay especially is worth watching in the future, though you can catch glimpses of her in past roles for Hangover and Due Date. Caldwell too, heaped praise on the star of Layover and told us how he managed to grab such a talented actor for his project: “I met Nathalie (Fay) when she came in to audition for a very small role in a digital project I was directing called Level 26: Dark Revelations. During shooting, we got to talking and she mentioned she was from Montreal and spoke French, and I guess that just stuck with me. With Layover, I needed people who I knew would be on board with the way we were shooting it (on weekends, no trailer, do their own make up, etc.)… But beyond all that, Nathalie was a natural for the role and deserves all the praise she’s receiving.”

It’s the final scene however, that is especially moving; in a beautiful voiceover, Simone predicts her future and wanders through the sadness and depression she knows she’ll feel soon, but also the hope she has that happiness will be there too. It’s a familiar, very poignant moment, and I found my experiences suddenly, fully, reflected back to me, in that thoughtful way that only good stories can accomplish.

Luckily, Caldwell is working on more projects, including a second film in the LAX trilogy (of which Layover is the first), which includes yet another female protagonist passing through Los Angeles, though this time with higher stakes: “The second film in the series is called Assassin, and it’s the story of a female contract killer named Jane who escapes up to the San Bernardino Mountains when a job goes wrong. There, she meets and falls in love with a local woman named Ella. As the two grow closer, the baggage of their past lives threatens the future of their relationship.”

As with Layover, Assassin will be produced on a minimal budget, though this time, Caldwell and company are looking for some audience participation and will be funding this film through Seed&Spark and would obviously love any support offered (you can check out their Seed&Spark page here and a trailer for the project here.).

Josh Caldwell, director and screenwriter for 'Layover' — Josh Caldwell, director and screenwriter for *Layover*

Joshua Caldwell is an MTV Movie Award winning director, writer, and producer. He has worked with a number of high-profile producers, including CSI: creator Anthony E. Zuiker. His award-winning short film Dig, starring Mark Margolis of Breaking Bad, was featured in numerous film festivals and his Superman fan fiction short film Resignation which screened at Comic-Con 2014. LAYOVER had its World Premiere at the 2014 Seattle International Film Festival where it was nominated for the prestigious FIPRESCI New American Cinema Award and is now available at LayoverFilm.com. Follow Joshua on Twitter @Joshua_Caldwell

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Rachel Redfern has an MA in English literature, where she conducted research on modern American literature and film and its intersection, however she spends most of her time watching HBO shows, traveling, and blogging and reading about feminism.

‘The Conjuring’: When Motherhood Meets Demonic Possession

Punishment is the main objective of the demon Bathsheba in ‘The Conjuring,’ and specifically she seeks to punish the mother figure of a family. The hauntings and road to possession begin when in 1971, Roger and Carolyn Perron move into an old farmhouse in Rhode Island with their five daughters. Slowly, they begin to experience paranormal disturbances.

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

Punishment is the main objective of the demon Bathsheba in The Conjuring; specifically, she seeks to punish the mother figure of a family. The hauntings and road to possession begin when in 1971, Roger and Carolyn Perron move into an old farmhouse in Rhode Island with their five daughters. Slowly, they begin to experience paranormal disturbances.

Carolyn, the mother, is the most affected and punished by these disturbances. She is physically punished when she wakes up one morning to see bruises on her back. Other bodily harm occurs throughout the hauntings. The spirit goes so far as to pretend to be Carolyn’s daughter when playing a family game with her. She is then dragged to the cellar and attacked.

Carolyn is the only one who is constantly singled out by the demon. The father is not dealt with at all. While the daughters are also horrified and attacked by the spirit, punishing the daughters is just another way for the demon to get at Carolyn. Carolyn cares for her daughters, and it is devastating for her to see them attacked. This is quite a simplistic characterization, for Carolyn is written to merely serve the theme of the story rather than as a dynamic female character. Being a mother is her main characteristic, but she is established as warm and caring one, thus allowing the demon to prey and try to destroy her strong bond with her daughters.

But why is the demon attempting to destroy this relationship between mother and child? Why is the demon trying to attack this loving family and destroy their content life? When Carolyn brings in paranormal investigators Lorraine and Ed Warren, with some research they discover that the demon is that of a woman named Bathsheba. They learn that in the 1850s, Bathsheba was married to a rich farmer named Sherman. Together they had a child, and when it was a week old the father caught Bathsheba sacrificing her baby to the devil. Bathsheba then hanged herself after proclaiming her love for Satan, cursing anyone who tried to take her land. Carolyn learns that Bathsheba specifically seeks out the punishment of mothers, all who have lived on this property before her, in order to have them sacrifice their children to the devil.

While female characters are often the ones singled out for possession, The Conjuring takes another interpretation by viewing possession through the lens of motherhood. We have often had possessed fathers who go on to wreak havoc on their family, such as The Amityville Horror (who the real-life Warrens also investigated) and The Shining. The mother character is often the one to protect her child against the man. (Most notably, Shelley Duvall as Wendy Torrance in The Shining.)

It is perhaps more believable and less horrifying when a father figure turns on their family, for it is more common or widely seen for fathers or stepfathers to be abusive to a family. While mother abuse does happen, it is thought to be quite rare. It is far more horrifying for a once loving mother to turn into an evil, abusive, and psychotic one. When we hear of heartbreaking stories of child abuse or murder at a mother’s hand we often exclaim, “How could a mother EVER do that?” whereas if we hear about a man committing abuse, it is merely shrugged upon and seen as something that always happens. In reality, women who hurt children are not worse than men who hurt children; both are equally awful.

Motherhood in society is more often debated upon and mothers are seen as the sole caretakers for a child. Mothers have to live up to often highly unrealistic standards. If they fail, they are criticized and condemned. Those who rise to those magic standards are seen as noble, for they are doing “the most important job a woman can do.” It is more “acceptable” for a father to walk out on a family or fail to rise to the occasion of fatherhood; you won’t hear much criticism or outcries. But if a mother does, she is deemed horrible and selfish. So in all, it is seen as more shocking and thrilling for a mother to turn against her children in violent and horrifying ways.

After being attacked by Bathsheba, Carolyn is eventually possessed by her. When she wakes up from a nap, she sees Bathsheba lying on top of her. Bathsheba then vomits in her mouth in order to get inside Carolyn and possess her to elicit her last final punishment. Bathsheba will use Carolyn to kill her children and sacrifice them to the devil, as she has so many times before with other mothers. The now possessed Carolyn behaves as normal, conspiring with her husband and the Warren’s to take the children back to the hotel where they will be safe. Then we see Carolyn take two of her daughters, Christine and April, back to the house. The girls are frightened and do not know what is wrong with their mother.

The Warrens and Carolyn’s husband rush back to the house where they find Carolyn trying to stab her daughter Christine with scissors. They eventually are able to tie the possessed Carolyn to a chair to perform an exorcism. Despite being tied up, Bathsheba continues to punish Carolyn with the most painful physical abuse thus far. Carolyn spits and vomits huge amounts of blood, nearly choking on it. When anyone tries to take her outside, Bathsheba makes Carolyn’s skin sizzle and mottle with severe burns. Bathsheba levitates the chair and quickly slams it down on the hard concrete basement floor. Her husband begs Carolyn to “be strong” and “fight” against the demon, but it is clear that it is beyond her power to try and stop this.

The possessed Carolyn eventually escapes and goes to try and kill her other daughter April, who is hiding under the floorboards. Lorraine Warren tries the final act to bring Carolyn back. Lorraine recounts a special memory with her daughters at a lovely day on the beach. Through the power of the special relationship between mother and child, Ed Warren is able to complete the exorcism and Carolyn is able to return to her normal self. For at her heart, Carolyn is a good and caring mother, and there can be nothing to sever that.

The demon attempts to destroy (what is seen as from society) the most sacred bond, the bond between a mother and child. The demon wants to completely destroy all of those relationships, as she had destroyed that idea of motherhood when she killed her child for Satan. But in the end Bathsheba still slightly wins. Even if she was exorcised and Carolyn’s role as a caring mother won out in the end, her daughters still have scarring memories of their mother while she was possessed. Although only for one night, they still suffered from the hands of abuse. Those memories may linger on and alter the viewings of their mother. Bathsheba was still able to alter the mother and daughter relationship but not in the way that she had hoped.

The Conjuring is one of the unique horror films where possession is examined through the eyes of motherhood. We have seen possessed fathers wreaking havoc and terror on their families but not as many mothers. A violent and uncaring mother will always be scarier than a father. An abusive and evil father, we see those horrors more often in everyday life. The Conjuring plays on the already pre-existing attitudes we have to see violence inflicted by mothers on their children as to be of a most evil nature.

Caroline Madden is a recent graduate with a BFA in Acting from Shenandoah Conservatory. She writes about film at Geek Juice, Screenqueens, and her blog. You can usually find her watching movies or listening to Bruce Springsteen.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Check out what we’ve been reading this week–and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!

One Feminist Critic’s Battle With Gaming’s Darker Side at NPR

The tyranny of maternity on TV by Mary McNamara at Los Angeles Times

Lena Dunham Adapting YA Novel ‘Catherine, Called Birdy’ Into Movie by Julia Zdrojewski at BUST

Wonder Woman’s Kinky Feminist Roots by Katha Pollitt at The Atlantic

Elizabeth Peña paved the way for Latinas in Hollywood at PRI’s The World

Frances McDormand is much more than the role in Fargo that made her famous at PRI

How Gail Simone changed the way we think about female superheroes by Alex Abad-Santos at VOX

How One Casting Director Made Television More Diverse by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong at Fast Company

Director Justin Simien on Dear White People and Black Stories in Hollywood by Jesse David Fox at Vulture

“Pride” is a Joyful Film About the Need for Unlikely Allies by Sarah Mirk at Bitch Media

Jane Campion’s ‘Top of the Lake’ to Return for Season 2 by Inkoo Kang at Women and Hollywood

5 Things to Know About Jane the Virgin by Nolan Feeney at TIME

London Film Festival Review: ‘Honeytrap’ – Engaging Story of a Young Woman Who Lets Yearning for Acceptance Spiral Out of Control by Wendy Okoi-Obuli at Shadow and Act

Working with Laverne Cox, Standing in Solidarity with Trans Women of Color by Mitch Kellaway at The Advocate

Everything We Know About ‘XX,’ The All-Female Horror Anthology You’ve Been Waiting For by Kate Erbland at Film School Rejects

What have you been reading/writing this week? Tell us in the comments!

‘Lyle’ is a Lesbian Take on ‘Rosemary’s Baby’? Yes Please!

My sister and fellow Bitch Flicks contributor, Angelina Rodriguez, and I live tweeted our viewing of ‘Lyle.’ We loved actress Gaby Hoffman’s big, beautiful brows and the gap between her two front teeth (these two traits are strong in our own family). Leah often wears ratty, mismatched pajamas, and very few of the characters have styled hair. Overall, we appreciated how real and unmade-up the film’s stars were.

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

I was excited to review female-directed (Stewart Thorndike‘s) Lyle, a FREE streaming independent film and a reboot of (pedophile) Roman Polanski’s classic film Rosemary’s Baby. Like Rosemary’s Baby, Lyle stars a pregnant woman who becomes more suspicious and more isolated every day, fearing a conspiracy to harm her unborn child. Unlike Rosemary’s Baby, Lyle‘s lead character Leah (Gaby Hoffman) is a lesbian, and her first-born daughter, Lyle, dies under mysterious circumstances. Though billed as a horror movie (and, in some inexplicable cases, a horror comedy), Lyle is more of a psychological thriller than anything, dissecting the ways in which Leah deals with grief, loss, pregnancy, and motherhood as well as paranoia, aggression, fear, and alienation.

My sister and fellow Bitch Flicks contributor, Angelina Rodriguez, and I live tweeted our viewing of Lyle, using the hashtag #LyleMovie. Aside from being really fun, it also helped us home in on the successes and shortcomings of the film. First of all, we loved actress Gaby Hoffman’s big, beautiful brows and the gap between her two front teeth (these two traits are strong in our own family). Leah often wears ratty, mismatched pajamas, and very few of the characters have styled hair. Overall, we appreciated how real and unmade-up the film’s stars were.

Gaby Hoffman and her furrowed big, beautiful brows. — Gaby Hoffman and her furrowed, glorious brows.

The cast of the film is almost entirely made-up of women. Only one primary character is male, and he’s a Black man. I can’t tell you how refreshing it is for this jaded feminist reviewer to see a cast comprised of groups that media traditionally under-represents!

The downside of a ratio like this, though, is that all Leah’s persecutors (real and imagined) are other women. Most notably, her partner, June, played by Ingrid Jungermann (the creator and star of the lesbian web series F to 7th). Leah and June mostly have a non-affection relationship with little to no physical contact. June is portrayed as an inconsiderate, perhaps murderous partner who may or may not be using Leah. If June is, in fact, using Leah and her baby-making abilities, is June even actually gay, or is that part of the ruse? I don’t like that I found myself questioning the veracity of a character’s sexuality, and it seemed that Lyle encouraged this suspicion.

June & Leah's fleeting intimacy — June and Leah’s fleeting moment of intimacy

The film also may have been advancing a weird, regressive perspective on motherhood, as even the poster declares, “A mother should protect her child.” Leah does little other than exist as a pregnant woman. Her identity outside of her status as “mother” is largely unknown to us. Lyle seemed to be seeking to normalize lesbianism through the notion of the nuclear family. For instance, the couple moves into a fancy apartment to accommodate their expanding family. Leah stays at home while June works late hours, and June is constantly gaslighting her pregnant partner. It’s all very traditional and falls within the existing heteronormative paradigm.

A pregnant Leah runs down the street, begging for help

On the positive side, we have a self-advocating heroine who is intelligent, clever, and stands up for herself. She never gives into those who seek to erase her fears and her accusations of foul play. Leah is strong and self-preserving (while protecting her unborn child) until the end. Having a hugely pregnant heroine with bushy hair and eyebrows is a beautiful thing. Having the climactic final showdown take place in the birthing room is also seriously badass. Though I didn’t love the implications that could be read into some of the themes in Lyle, it’s moving in the right direction. This is a free, independent horror film starring lesbians that doesn’t seek to exploit their sexuality for the male gaze. It’s very existence is a triumph. Plus, it’s fun to watch.

Bitch Flicks writer and editor Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. Her short story “The Woman Who Fell in Love with a Mermaid” was published in Germ Magazine. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

The Women of ‘True Detective’ – Madonnas and Whores

Shots of Lisa emphasize her youth, her beauty, the perkiness of her breasts, and the roundness of her ass. Unlike Maggie, she is very sensual and perhaps the opposite of nurturing. She is openly mocking toward Marty and refuses to cater to him emotionally. Marty seems to see Lisa as a necessary evil; she allows him to deal with all the pain and degradation he sees in his job. At one point Marty says in a voiceover sequence says: “You gotta take your release where you find it, or where it finds you. I mean, in the end it’s for the good of the family”–implying that having Lisa in his life allows him to get out his “animal” urges, allowing him to be able to be a good husband and father to his family when he gets home.

As often happens when you live on an island in the South Pacific, I was late to the party with True Detective. Despite the fact that at its core it’s a show about two white dudes trying to save a bunch of ladies who are already dead, I found the show to be quite captivating because of the relationship that grows between the two anti-hero leads: Marty, played by Woody Harrelson and Rust, played masterfully by Mathew McConaughey. Unfortunately the depth afforded the two leads is not replicated for any female characters on the show. These are largely made up of sex workers who Rust and Marty come across in their investigations. There have been many analyses of the show’s portrayal of sex workers so I won’t delve into that. However I do want to talk about how the two female characters, who are perhaps most central to the show, personify a Madonna-Whore dichotomy. These are Maggie, played by Michelle Monaghan, who portrays Marty’s long-suffering wife and Lisa, played by Alexandra Daddario, who is his much younger mistress.

It is pretty easy to see how Maggie is the classic Madonna. She is portrayed as feminine and virtuous, taking care of Marty, raising his children, looking after their home, etc. At the beginning of the season she is essentially sexless. Her initial interactions with Rust are not really flirtatious but simply an extension of her maternal role. She expresses caring and concern over his mental health and shares in his sorrow over the death of his child. She nurtures him and he appreciates her for it. We don’t really know anything about Maggie outside of her relationship to Marty; everything about her seems to be subsumed into caring for him and their children.

For Lisa on the other hand, her sexuality is the largest part of her character, casting her as the Whore to Maggie’s Madonna. Shots of Lisa emphasize her youth, her beauty, the perkiness of her breasts, and the roundness of her ass. Unlike Maggie, she is very sensual and perhaps the opposite of nurturing. She is openly mocking toward Marty and refuses to cater to him emotionally. Marty seems to see Lisa as a necessary evil, she allows him to deal with all the pain and degradation he sees in his job. At one point Marty says in a voice-over sequence: “You gotta take your release where you find it, or where it finds you. I mean, in the end it’s for the good of the family”–implying that having Lisa in his life allows him to get out his “animal” urges, allowing him to be able to be a good husband and father to his family when he gets home.

Rust dismisses Lisa as “crazy pussy” despite the fact that all of her behaviour seems to be quite reasonable considering the circumstances. When they end up in the same bar on their respective dates it is not Lisa who loses control, it is Marty. He is unable to keep his eyes on her and ends up approaching her to harass her. It is Marty, not Lisa, who cannot accept that she has ended the relationship, and it is most certainly Marty, not Lisa, who gets intensely jealous and completely crosses the line by going to her house and beating and threatening her new boyfriend. By any reasonable measure it is Marty not Maggie who is acting “crazy,” but Marty is a man and is entitled to a degree of autonomy and the ability to act out from time to time without facing any consequences for it. Lisa has no such luxury as a woman who has sex with a married man. This is made abundantly clear when she tries to confront him at the courthouse where she works and where Marty is testifying.

Lisa repeatedly tells Marty that he cannot disrespect her like this, that his actions will have consequences. When she confronts him at court, he treats her like a hysterical female despite the fact she has very legitimate reasons for both being furious at him and confronting him openly. It seems logical for her next move to be to tell his wife, however Marty’s reaction is one of fury and confusion. He seems deeply confused that Lisa would firstly, act with her own agency and secondly, act in a way to hurt him. Despite everything he has done to Lisa, Marty seems think that Lisa might be a whore but she is HIS whore and the fact that she would act against him is incomprehensible.

Maggie, being the long-suffering and virtuous Madonna that she is, takes Marty back eventually and he behaves himself for a time. The upshot of all of this is that in the True Detective universe women are clearly categorized – women who are valuable and worthy and women who are not. As Lisa fulfills the role of whore in his life he feels like he can treat her however he pleases. Whereas with Maggie, who is a virtuous Madonna, Marty must work hard to earn back her love and trust. This explains why Marty reacts so violently when his daughter is found in a car with two boys. He has to punish the boys for marking his daughter as a Whore and not a Madonna. The dichotomy also plays out in the final end of Maggie and Marty’s marriage. In order to ensure that the relationship will end for good, Maggie has to cast herself in the role of Whore by having sex with Rust. To her this is the only way by which Marty will not try and earn his way back into her life and her guess is correct. Once Marty realizes she has slept with Rust she is ruined to him and the relationship is finally over.

The one positive to me in all of this is the portrayal of Lisa. While Marty does his hardest to push her down and treat her like she is worthless because she sleeps with him, she constantly asserts her agency. From the very first time we see her, turning the tables on Marty and handcuffing him to the bed, right to when she tells Maggie about their affair, she is constantly challenging Marty’s assumptions about her place. This at least serves to disrupt the notion that women who fit the role of Whore are passive and subject to the whims of men. Lisa is also not disposable; she is the one who decides when the relationship should end and firmly asserts the boundary even when Marty acts in ways that are both violent and childish.

Overall, however, the show fell into lazy tropes about women and the ways in which it explored them were not particularly interesting or revolutionary. Hopefully the next season does better.

Gaayathri Nair is currently living and writing in Auckland, New Zealand. You can find more of her work at her blog A Human Story and tweet her @A_Gaayathri

Leaning In to ‘Grey’s Anatomy’

Across its 10-season run, ‘Grey’s’ has dealt with parenting, childlessness, abortion, romantic relationships—both heterosexual and otherwise–illness, loss, friendship, and career mostly through the eyes of its female protagonist, Meredith Grey, and her colleagues, friends and family: Cristina, Izzie, Lexie, Callie, Arizona, April, Addison, Bailey and so on. This season, though, seemed to really tap into the oft-mentioned feminist issue of “having it all” (meaning kids and career) and what happens when a woman shuns that path.

This guest post by Scarlett Harris originally appeared on The Scarlett Woman and is cross-posted with permission.

Grey’s Anatomy is one of the more feminist shows currently on the air. Hell, it’s created by Shonda Rhimes (she of Scandal and Grey’s spin-off, Private Practice, fame), a big champion of woman-centric storytelling on TV.

Across its 10-season run, Grey’s has dealt with parenting, childlessness, abortion, romantic relationships—both heterosexual and otherwise–illness, loss, friendship and career mostly through the eyes of its female protagonist, Meredith Grey, and her colleagues, friends and family: Cristina, Izzie, Lexie, Callie, Arizona, April, Addison, Bailey and so on. This season, though, seemed to really tap into the oft-mentioned feminist issue of “having it all” (meaning kids and career) and what happens when a woman shuns that path.

Early on this season tensions were brewing between Meredith and Cristina when Meredith gave birth to her second child, Bailey, named after Dr. Miranda Bailey who helped deliver him, and leaned out of the surgery game. As Meredith’s life became increasingly family oriented, Cristina felt alienated from “her person,” with whom she used to compete for surgeries and get drunk on tequila at Joe’s bar. This is not to suggest that just because Cristina doesn’t want children (a character consistency since season one) she’s not involved in that part of Meredith’s life: Cristina is often shown caring for and engaging with Meredith’s daughter Zola. But this story arc illustrates that having two children is a lot different than parenting just one (cue Elizabeth Banks-style outrage over mothers of one child being less than mothers of more) and Meredith’s redirected attention certainly takes its toll on her friendship with Cristina.

This comes to a head in episode six of this season when Meredith chooses to continue her mother’s portal vein research using 3D printers (which Cristina later co-ops for one of her groundbreaking medical coups). This is partly because of Cristina’s recriminations in the previous episode, “I Bet It Stung,” that Meredith doesn’t do as many surgeries or as much research as Cristina because she chose to lean in to her children. There is much talk about “choosing valid choices” but ultimately Meredith identifies an impasse between the two friends and surgeons because Cristina doesn’t “have time for people who want things” that she doesn’t want.

Business continues much this way until April’s wedding, in the episode “Get Up, Stand Up,” in which Meredith and Cristina are both featured as bridesmaids. During a dress fitting, Cristina takes issue with Meredith calling her “a horrible person, over and over… because I don’t want a baby.” Harkening back to their very first day on the job, Meredith accuses Cristina of sleeping her way to the top, while Cristina retorts that in her struggle to maintain work/life balance, Meredith’s “become the thing we laughed at.” By episode’s end, Meredith acknowledges her envy of Cristina’s surgical trial successes:

“I’m so jealous of you I want to set things on fire. You did what I tried to do and I couldn’t… I don’t want to compete with you… but I do.”

Come the show’s mid-season return, Meredith and Cristina’s friendship is back on track, with them bonding over Meredith’s anger at her husband Derek reneging on their agreement to focus more on Meredith’s career upon her realisation that she doesn’t want it to slip by the wayside in the wake of motherhood. They do this while drinking wine and looking after the kids at Mere’s place while Derek’s out of town.

Derek’s absence throughout the season, in Washington D.C. on business at the behest of the President (I know!), is juxtaposed with Meredith’s desire to be an attentive mother, which she didn’t have growing up and was the cause of many of her ills, whilst balancing her first love of medicine. In last season’s “Beautiful Doom,” Meredith worries about leaving Zola in the care of others while she operates. Callie, a working mother herself, assures Meredith that “it’s good for Zola to see you work. It’s good for her to see you achieve. That’s how she becomes you.” The season finale sees Meredith decide to stay in Seattle despite Derek accepting a job in Washington D.C. She doesn’t want to become her father, who was a “trailing spouse” to her aforementioned mother.

As far as Cristina’s concerned, though, her ex-husband Owen’s desire for a family is what’s kept them in flux from on-again to off-again for the better part of the past three seasons. In the Sliding Doors-esque episode “Do You Know?” Cristina is given the option of two life paths: one in which she has children, whilst in the other she continues her focus on her career; both involve Owen, and both see Cristina becoming miserable. The married-with-children scenario elicits a certain empathetic desperation as it’s made clear Cristina’s only succumbing to it for her lover. And when Owen meets maternal-fetal surgeon, Emma, whom Cristina described as “picket fence; a dozen kids; fresh-baked goods,” it seems he’s found his happy ending. But Owen’s desire for Cristina, despite his better judgment, causes him to cheat on and subsequently end things with Emma who is befuddled at how her boyfriend went from house hunting to breaking up with her in the space of a day. Owen asserts it’s because Emma wanted to stay home with their kids when they had them and he wanted someone who is “as passionate about her work as I am.” Make up your mind, Owen!

While Owen’s indecisiveness is annoying, it’s refreshing to see a woman who doesn’t want children framed as desirable over the traditional portrait of womanhood. This is not to mention Cristina’s hardheaded drive. On the other hand, Emma represents the losing battle women face in the fight to “have it all” perpetually highlighted by the concern-trolling media: you’d better want to be a mother, but you’ve also got to be driven in your career; you have to be around to raise your children, but you’d also better be leaning in in the workplace.

Grey’s has always been a staunchly pro-choice show. Upon April and Jackson’s shotgun wedding, Jackson’s mother brings up the issue of April’s faith when it comes to raising their future children who will be on the board of the Harper Avery Foundation, but no pressure! Catherine Avery asks whether April believes in limiting reproductive rights, and whether she’ll raise her children with those views. If so, will that colour their judgment in providing funding to hospitals that perform abortions, like Seattle Grace/Seattle Grace Mercy West/Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital/whatever it’s called now?! And what about stem cell research?

Grey’s certainly doesn’t sweep these issues under the rug because it’s convenient for a storyline or for the show to remain politically unbiased. Rhimes has spoken about Cristina’s unintended pregnancy in a season one/two crossover storyline in which she was scheduled for an abortion but miscarried before she could have the procedure due to an ectopic pregnancy:

“… [T]he network freaked out a little bit. No one told me I couldn’t do it, but they could not point to an instance in which anyone had. And I sort of panicked a little bit in that moment and thought maybe this isn’t the right time for the character, we barely know her… I didn’t want it to become like what the show was about… And [Cristina’s miscarriage] bugged me. It bugged me for years.”

Come 2010/2011’s seventh season, Cristina again finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy to Owen. Rhimes said:

“I felt like we had earned all of the credentials with the audience. The audience knew these characters. The audience loved these characters. The audience stood by these characters. You know, we were in a very different place even politically, socially. Nobody blinked at the studio or the network when I wrote the storyline this time. Nobody even brought it up except to say, that was a really well written episode.”

With no signs of slowing down, but with perhaps one of TV’s most feminist characters departing, Grey’s Anatomy is sure to continue presenting women, work and the myriad choices in between in a positive and realistic way.

Scarlett Harris is a Melbourne, Australia-based freelance writer and blogger at The Scarlett Woman, where she muses about feminism, social issues and pop culture. You can follow her on Twitter here.

Seed & Spark: Hollywood’s Leading Ladies: To Be a Mom or Not to Be; What Role Will You Choose?

For a very long time, women who didn’t want to have children were deemed “selfish,” because — well, I’m not quite sure why. Men, however, although maybe a disappointment to their mothers, weren’t really labeled anything. They were bachelors, at worst.

In many movies, the struggle that men have is not a result of a decision involving kids. But in most romcoms and dramas, if there is a female role of a certain age, it centers upon the subject of children.

I wanted to look at three current movies and their depiction of parents, particularly how their children influence their decision making and where the children fit into their lives.

I chose to examine three movies where the lead was nominated for Best Lead Actress in 2014 and in a fertile age range, which led to the movies ‘Blue Jasmine,’ ‘American Hustle’ and ‘Gravity.’

This is a guest post by Kelsey Rauber.

I wanted to look at three current movies and their depiction of parents, particularly how their children influence their decision making and where the children fit into their lives.

I chose to examine three movies where the lead was nominated for Best Lead Actress in 2014 and in a fertile age range, which led to the movies Blue Jasmine, American Hustle, and Gravity.

As I told a friend about the idea of this article, she immediately interjected: “But it’s not just film! It’s across the board!” She proceeded to name at least four of her very good female friends, whose husbands travel a lot, while they hold a full time job as are the primary person responsible for the child’s well-being. Is this still justified in a world where nearly two-thirds of women are the primary breadwinner of the household?

(May contain some spoilers.)

Blue Jasmine by Woody Allen

Jasmine, recently widowed, with no kids of her own but a stepson that no longer speaks to her, makes a good case for child-free living. Her husband cheated on her and embezzled lots of money. To top it all off, her mental health is questionable.

Blue Jasmine, as a movie, feels like a possible realistic take on women–who they can be, how they can fail and the choices that they make. Jasmine, obviously blinded by wealth, doesn’t quite understand what it means to care about other people.

On the other hand, we have Jasmine’s sister, Ginger, who is probably the truest depiction of an underpaid, divorced woman that I have seen in a movie in a long time. The supporting role is her role in life.

She works hard (in a grocery store), doesn’t get out often (hasn’t been to a party in years), and looks for love in all the wrong places because she was never made to believe that she is worthy.

She and her ex-husband share custody of their two boys, but the boys live with their mother. The one thing I find most fascinating about her: She doesn’t complain. She has her life and she lives it. She isn’t unhappy. As far as she’s concerned, she is doing her best and it is good enough.

None of the men that either Jasmine or Ginger date throughout the movie comment on having kids.

American Hustle by Eric Warren Singer and David O. Russell

Though I wasn’t a huge fan of this movie as a whole, it is interesting in its different take on the paternal role. Here, it is actually the protagonist, Irving Rosenfeld, who makes a sacrifice for his adopted son. When an FBI agent busts Irving and his partner in crime/mistress, Sydney, she proposes they pack and leave the country. Irving isn’t willing to do it, because he feels a strong sense of responsibility toward his son.

Irving’s wife, Rosalyn, is depicted as a pretty terrible mother. She constantly blows things up seemingly out of sheer boredom. She’s also portrayed as an alcoholic, which fuels her inability to take care of her child (which is her full-time job).

What is interesting here is that the viewer walks away with a feeling that Irving is a good dad. I’m not saying he is a bad father, he clearly cares about his son, but the information that we don’t get in the film is how long he disappears for when he is with his mistress— he manages to have a whole other life with Sydney. I can’t help but feel that this movie sets the viewer up to feel a certain way toward the father/son relationship, even though we really only know part of the story.

If they decided to make a sequel to this movie about the boy, I think we’d see that there is no hope for this kid; his male role models are his adoptive father, a crook, and his mom’s new boyfriend, who works for the mafia.

Gravity by Alfonso Cuarón and Jonás Cuarón

Gravity is easiest to discuss given its confinement to two main characters. The viewer is left alone with two strangers for more than two hours, so inevitably things get personal.

Ryan Stone, a medical engineer, specialized in hospital scanning systems and is on her first mission in space. She gets stranded with Matt Kowalski, who is on his final mission, about to retire.

Very early in the movie, Ryan opens up about her deceased daughter: “She was playing tag—she slipped, hit her head, and that was it.”

This revelation sheds some light on Ryan’s passivity. Any loss of this magnitude would change a person’s perspective on life. The viewer is left to wonder, who was Ryan before the loss of her daughter? Was she fun and optimistic? Was she absent a lot because of her job? Would she be in space right now if her daughter was still alive?

Matt, like most Clooney characters, is a recently divorced, childless, charismatic individual. He doesn’t open up about why he doesn’t have kids. The question is never posed.

I can’t help but wonder, if Matt would’ve been replaced by a female character, would the fun, charismatic individual, who knows the ins and outs of space, not fight a bit harder to save both their lives, rather than sacrificing her own life for a woman who doesn’t give anyone the impression there’s much to live for?

I’m usually fan of movies that defy stereotype. (Un)fortunately, it still seems like a niche quality, mostly found in Indie films.

All of these movies were written by men and some depict women better than others. Generally, women are given great jobs, great flaws, and a human touch, which is great since… you know, we are human.

What does it mean to not have children, or not want them as a woman? Where can we get answers to these questions? My first response would be: Not Hollywood.

My interest in this topic erupted from my recent diagnosis with PCOS, which is one of the leading causes of infertility in women. I’m also gay, so the thought of having children had already been slightly complicated.

I don’t know if I want kids. I do know that I’d like the option.

After consulting with family and friends, I took an interest in the portrayal of parenthood, as well as the absence of normalcy surrounding not being a parent for women in Hollywood movies, which led to this article as well as the short we are crowdfunding for, titled We Had Plans.

The production company I work with, CongestedCat Productions, drives content with a less generic, more realistic take on individuals whom are usually forced into a box based on gender, sexuality, race, etc. We portray people as people and expect our audience to look at them that way and relate to them on an emotional level. We don’t do caricatures or stereotypes. If this is something you can get behind, we are making films you’ll want to see.

Kelsey Rauber is a New York City-based screenwriter and an integral member of CongestedCat Productions. She was named Grand Prize Winner in the comedy division for her feature About a Donkey by the 2012 New York Screenplay Contest. That same screenplay was also a semi-finalist in the 2013 LA Comedy Shorts Festival. She is the writer and co-creator of the comedic web series Kelsey, which premiered on blip.tv in September 2013 to rave reviews and consistent press coverage, being named a Critic’s Pick and one of the best comedy web series of 2013 by Indiewire. She is currently crowdfunding on Seed&Spark for her next projects.

Unsentimental Love and ‘Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore’

I’ve long been a little troubled by the women characters in Martin Scorsese’s films. I say this as compliment overall, because though the female protagonists are few, they’re far from shallow and weak. From Lorraine Bracco’s Karen in Goodfellas to Vera Farmiga’s Madolyn in The Departed, Scorsese has shown that he can depict women who are multi-faceted and complex. It’s just that their stories are always told in relation to the men their lives. Theirs is always a kind of power struggle with their husbands or boyfriends, and in the end, that power is rarely on par with men’s. I had heard that Scorsese’s 1974 Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore was different, but since it’s one that so rarely talked about, it took awhile for me to finally check it out. And I’m so glad I did.

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore poster — *Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore* poster

This is a guest post by Heather Brown.

I’ve long been a little troubled by the women characters in Martin Scorsese’s films. I say this as compliment overall, because though the female protagonists are few, they’re far from shallow and weak. From Lorraine Bracco’s Karen in Goodfellas to Vera Farmiga’s Madolyn in The Departed, Scorsese has shown that he can depict women who are multi-faceted and complex. It’s just that their stories are always told in relation to the men their lives. Theirs is always a kind of power struggle with their husbands or boyfriends, and in the end, that power is rarely on par with men’s. I had heard that Scorsese’s 1974 Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore was different, but since it’s one that so rarely talked about, it took awhile for me to finally check it out. And I’m so glad I did.

Ellen Burstyn’s Alice is a 30-something mother in Socorro, New Mexico, where she lives with her husband Donald (Billy Green Bush) and son Tommy (Alfred Lutter). Donald is an overbearing bastard of a man who does little more than bark at Alice and Tommy, who each take care to stay out of his way. Nothing Alice does is ever good enough for Donald. Thelma and Louise fans won’t be able to help but compare him to Darryl, the lout of a spouse who bullies Thelma. Unfortunately, there’s no Louise in this film to whisk Alice away in a 1966 Ford Thunderbird Convertible. Alice’s release from Donald is spurred by a freak car accident that kills him and leaves her and Tommy to fend for themselves. Just like the viewer up to this point, Alice has wished for Donald to disappear, but her guilt is raw, and Tommy senses her ambivalence. Rather than remain in a town she hates in a house she can no longer afford, Alice packs up the station wagon and heads to Monterey, California to reclaim her first love: singing. What ensues is an unlikely road movie with a mother and son at the center, and men on the periphery.

Alice’s first stop is Phoenix, which is about as far as her money will take her. When she and Tommy settle in to a motel, Alice must go shopping for clothes that will make her look younger, as she tells her Tommy. It was at that moment in watching the film that I saw the story come into focus: what happens when a parent doesn’t hide the difficulty of making ends meet from her kid, but instead matter-of-factly involves him in the day-to-day slog of getting by, promising that good things are to come despite the current circumstances? Rather than keep Tommy in the dark about how broke she is and how no one will hire her for a living wage, Alice unsentimentally–yet lovingly–informs Tommy of her plans as she makes them.

Well, almost. Given that Tommy is still young (10 or 11), Alice does prefer to keep intimate details to herself, particularly when it comes to the first man she meets since her husband’s death, Ben (played by Harvey Keitel), who’s a regular customer at the bar where she lands a singing gig in Phoenix. Tommy is no fool, though, and when he asks one too many personal questions Alice tells him she’s not going to talk to him about her sex life. Sure, she doesn’t take this moment to have the birds and bees discussion, but when was the last time you heard a parent acknowledge the existence of a sex life to their kid? Its instances like that that make this film a fascinating study of a parent-child relationship in the context of shifting gender dynamics in a changing society.

Alice_Doesnt_Live_Here_Anymore_28780_Medium — The film is a fascinating study of a parent-child relationship.

A glance at the movie poster for Alice tells you that she’s going to eventually make her way into the arms of a rugged and mostly affable Kris Kristofferson, but she must deal with Ben first. While Alice initially rebuffs his advances, he eventually wears her down and wins her over. Yay, we think! Someone who will treat Alice with the tenderness she deserves. It doesn’t take long for Ben to reveal himself as a philanderer and psychopath, and this realization prompts Alice and Tommy to once again pack up the wagon for the next town, Tucson. Alice decides to make a pragmatic move and start working a job that’s close to their motel and will ensure free food: waiting tables. At this point in the plot the story expands to include the women at the restaurant—the brassy Flo (Dianne Ladd) and timid Vera (Valerie Curtain)—and Tommy’s new friend Audrey, played by a very young and very boyish Jodie Foster (creepy alert: two years later she and Harvey Keitel would be joined as the prostitute/pimp dyad in Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, which makes you feel gross when you watch them in Alice). Alice also meets David (Kris Kristofferson), and like her, we’re not altogether sure that his fixation with Tommy is genuine or just a sneaky way to pick up his mom. We see Alice try to work through the challenges of managing her expectations of love and work, and there’s real narrative power in how she fully inhabits all her choices, be they selfish, selfless, stupid, or sane. Though billed as a romance, the real love story has two couples at its core: Alice and Tommy, and Alice and herself.

Heather Brown lives in Chicago, Ill., and works as a freelance instructional designer and online writing instructor. She lives for feminism, movies, live music, road trips, and cheese.

Speaking with a Woman’s Voice: ‘The Future Starts Here’

Bitch Flicks was lucky enough to receive an invitation to the premiere of Tiffany Shlain’s new webseries The Future Starts Here in New York City last week, and your humble correspondent was lucky enough to be the one to attend it. Shlain is, as her series’ voiceover states, a mother, filmmaker, and founder of the Webby Awards, and The Future Starts Here is an AOL-produced miniseries about being human in the digital age.

Our history books have been telling the stories of just a small handful for centuries. When we look back at this time in history, the story’s going to be about the power of creative breakthroughs that include all of us.

Episode 5, “Participatory Revolution”

Bitch Flicks was lucky enough to receive an invitation to the premiere of Tiffany Shlain’s new webseries The Future Starts Here in New York City last week, and your humble correspondent was lucky enough to be the one to attend it. Shlain is, as her series’ voiceover states, a mother, filmmaker, and founder of the Webby Awards, and The Future Starts Here is an AOL-produced miniseries about being human in the digital age.

Eight bite-sized videos, The Future Starts Here will only cost you forty minutes of your life total, and it’s well worth the time. It’s a remarkable distillation of complex ideas into accessible, snappy soundbites that are thought-provoking rather than reductive, and I think it makes a fantastic general introduction to some of the complicated questions I happen to be grappling with in my own doctoral research.

Though the series is all about technology and how it is changing our lives, the first episode, “Technology Shabbat,” is about switching off. When I spoke with Shlain, she explained that this was a quite deliberate move: it serves to ground what follows in caution and self-awareness, steering the series clear of the naïve, starry-eyed techno-optimism it sometimes skirts. When I asked her if she thought technology was a force for good, she said yes, provided that we use it right. (And this assessment is clearly borne out by any brief glance at, say, internet feminist activism and the backlash thereto.)

The second episode, “Motherhood Remixed,” is the one that Shlain pinpointed as most explicitly engaging with feminist concerns. It’s an intriguing and important look at Shlain’s efforts to balance her busy workload with her family life, and it features some delightful infographics that reconfigure parental roles in admirable ways; but its concluding piece of advice is perhaps the weakest of the bunch, because “Create your own schedule or present a plan to someone who can make it happen” is simply not a workable option for many parents outside of Shlain’s socioeconomic bracket. The episode raises some excellent points about how technology can change the work-life balance, but it’s simply narrower in scope and context than some of the other pieces, and a direct acknowledgment of that fact wouldn’t have gone amiss.

A thread of feminism runs through the whole series, in a way that Shlain emphasized is intended to be accessible to the widest possible audience. Shlain told me with a sigh that she had had no end of questions about being a woman in a male-dominated arena, and she stressed that she feels her feminism is most powerfully enacted simply through being a woman and speaking with a woman’s voice. When you come down to it, this is the very heart of feminism: the most abstruse feminist theory is ultimately rooted in the many disparate experiences that we collect under the heading “being a woman.” Throughout the series, Shlain does a skillful job of integrating the fact of her womanhood, mentioning it explicitly at key moments when the non-feminist-identified viewer might be struck by it and brought to new understandings.

One of the delights of the series, and something that is perhaps at least partly attributable to a familiarity with the phrase “the personal is political,” is the seamless integration of aspects of Shlain’s personal and family life. Even outside of the episode directly concerning motherhood, Shlain grounds her musings and illustrates her ideas by using material from her own life: anecdotes about her children, examples of her family’s actions, even an episode co-helmed by her robotics professor husband (episode four, “Why We Love Robots”). This fluid movement from the micro to the macro, exemplifying the inextricable relation of the personal and the theoretical, is what good feminism does best, and in this sense The Future Starts Here is a triumph of feminism in action.

Examining aspects of technology from the simple rules of tech etiquette to the effect of participatory culture on the creative process, Shlain strikes an excellent midpoint of optimism and skepticism – what she dubs “opticism.” She expertly weaves together big ideas (referencing such luminaries as Heschel and Teilhard) and an approachable style. She ends each episode with a suggestion for action or a question for consideration. And, as noted above, she does it all in about the length of your average TV drama, if you DVR it and fast-forward through the commercials.

The Future Starts Here. What are you waiting for?

Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, tumbles as trans substantial, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax. He’s intrigued that a secular Jew like Tiffany Shlain and a leftist Christian like himself have such similar ideas about the philosophy of the digital revolution.

Female Sexuality is the Real Horror in ‘Womb’

Womb poster

Written by Erin Tatum.

Today, I wanted to talk about a little film called Womb. It’s not very well known – Doctor Who fans will recognize it as one of Matt Smith‘s leading roles before his TARDIS fame. The film presents a fascinating introspective on the ethics of cloning while at the same time highlighting the difficulty of differentiating types of love, putting an oddly poignant spin on the sci-fi genre. Above all else, I enjoy director Benedek Fliegauf’s unabashed aggressiveness in deconstructing everything we romanticize about childhood and then punching us in the throat with our own sentimentality.

The symbolism of this fetus is going to get exponentially creepier.

First of all, the setting and cinematography is breathtakingly gorgeous in the most depressing way possible. The characters are constantly surrounded by haunting, saturated bleakness. This proves to be an effective backdrop for the ensuing emotional turmoil while underscoring the overarching question of morality that plagues the main character, Rebecca. The opening voice over is Rebecca’s exhausted yet serene affirmation that “it’s over now” and that her presumably dead lover has left her with a final parting blessing of pregnancy. If you haven’t looked up an overview of the plot, you are probably thinking that this is going to be a powerful romantic drama that ends in the tragedy of death mixed with the hope of the baby’s promise for the future. You’d be about a quarter right. It’s about to get all Freudian up in here.

Savor the wholesomeness while you can.

We begin by watching the blossoming childhood romance between Rebecca and her neighbor, Tommy. They are inseparable, spending all day playing together and developing little rituals unique to their friendship. Everything seems perfect until Rebecca announces that she and her mother are moving to Japan. Tommy awkwardly kisses Rebecca and she runs embarrassed out of the room. It’s genuine and heartfelt enough to make me almost forget my annoyance that we force heterosexuality on children by romanticizing the hell out of every opposite sex friendship, but I’ll let it slide because damn these kids are adorable. Later, he tells her that he has a plan to rescue her in the morning before she leaves. Alas, Tommy fails to show up and Rebecca leaves without saying goodbye.

The one appropriate instance of romantic chemistry in this film.

After completing university, Rebecca returns to her original home in England. Of course, her secret primary motivation is to find Tommy, who just happens to live in the exact same place because apparently childhood defines your entire existence. Tommy dumps his current girlfriend like a sack of hot potatoes the second Rebecca finds him and the two attempt to pick up their relationship where they left off, except now with hormones and stuff. They briefly kiss, but Rebecca puts the brakes on, telling him it feels weird. Oh honey, if only you knew. She insists on accompanying Tommy to protest the opening of a national park filled with cloned animals. While they’re driving, Rebecca suddenly announces that she really has to pee. Tommy pulls the car over so that Rebecca can pee in a bush. He decides to exit the car for some reason and is promptly struck and killed by another car, marking the only time in cinematic history that a full bladder has served as the catalyst for the entirety of a film’s central dramatic plot.

Not yolo? Oh no.

Rebecca feels responsible for Tommy’s death and tells his grieving parents that they can totally bring him back because Rebecca plans to impregnate herself with his clone! Tommy’s mom is rightfully appalled, but Tommy’s dad is just like “Whatever, you do you.” This is the part where this film starts making your skin crawl. It’s really sweet and noble and you know Rebecca is willing to put herself through the inevitable confusion out of love for Tommy. However, it’s shortsighted and selfish and adds a whole new stratosphere to the definition of pedophilia, because it’s obvious that on some level, Rebecca chooses to bring Tommy back out of regret that they never consummated their relationship. Carrying a fetus with the subconscious intention of having sex with that future person somewhere down the line is a part of the id that I never want to think about. That said, this decision marks an important shift in how Rebecca’s sexuality is perceived. She declares herself to be a literal vehicle of perversion. From here on out, her desires are marked as obsessive, predatory, and unnatural, which is a striking contrast to when her innocence and devotion to Tommy was celebrated within the sanctity of revived childhood romance just a few weeks ago.

Just casually huffing my son’s preteen pheromones nbd.

Tommy’s parents decide that watching the clone version of Tommy grow up would be too painful and move away, leaving Rebecca to raise him on her own. She decides to tell her son that his father is the original Tommy, who died in a car accident before he was born. We jump forward to where cloned Tommy is the same age as the original Tommy was when he and Rebecca first met. Rebecca’s affections toward him are thus a bit too intimate – stroking his face a little too long, deeply inhaling the scent of his skin, sitting naked with him in the bathtub even though Tommy is clearly too old to need assistance. Eva Green, the actress who plays older Rebecca, does a great job of representing the bizarre fusion of the butterflies from your first crush with more physical adult desires. These scenes just left me wondering how on earth they explained this dynamic to the child actor. “Okay, you’re going to be in love with a girl your age and then come back later as a cloned version of your character, only now you don’t know that your former girlfriend is actually your mom. She still has a wildly inappropriate crush on you, but just act oblivious until it becomes relevant to the plot again.” I know that sometimes a film crew won’t explain darker themes to child actors to protect them, but surely they had to give him a heads up about this. I would be concerned if I were 11 and the 20-something actress playing my mom was sensuously smelling my neck.

Mother and child reunion…bow chicka wow wow.

My confusion was rather explicitly cleared up soon enough, when a playful mother-son wrestling match quickly progresses into a steamy moment of sexually charged flirting. Tommy pins Rebecca to the ground, forcefully straddling her. With an impish grin on his face, he breathlessly declares, “I could do whatever I want with you,” and there’s a little too much pleasure and excitement in his triumphant tone. The cataclysm of taboos makes this scene the most significant of the film in terms of social commentary on sexuality. For all of the times we want to pathologize Rebecca’s desires as the source of the problem, this exchange very much implicates Tommy in that deviance. The binary between childhood innocence and adult depravity is not as polarized as we’d like to think. Children can be sexual too, a cringe-inducing reality that society desperately tries to bury by creating strict scripts of innocence and chastity for childhood romance, immortalized by Hallmark cards and Hummel figurines.

Beyond making a case for the existence of children’s sexuality, Tommy’s actions also indicate that his desires may be a bit sadistic, only further shattering the haven of pre-pubescence. He clearly enjoys dominating Rebecca, tauntingly putting his face inches from hers knowing full well, even if only subconsciously, that they’re both in the heat of the moment and teetering on some level of sexual release. Again, we’re talking about 11-year-old Tommy. I also think that this is one of those moments that’s supposed to minimize the incest factor by implying that cloned Tommy has some sort of unconscious ESP link to the memories and feelings of original Tommy, but that small scrap of comfort is totally obliterated by the fact that you’re witnessing a completely consensual erotic moment between an adult and a child. Rebecca gasps, “Go ahead,” but the two are interrupted by Tommy’s friend calling his name. Tommy deliberately lets his face hover above Rebecca’s for a few more seconds, seemingly relishing her helplessness and obvious desperation. If you don’t think Tommy is now complicit in whatever freaky dynamic is going on here, you’re delusional. I found myself wishing that he would kiss her just to break the tension and then immediately wanted to drink myself to death for even letting the thought cross my mind. He reluctantly stands up and walks over to his friend, leaving Rebecca sprawled out in the sand and looking uncomfortably close to orgasm.

Genetic engineering: a proven birthday ruiner.

Rumors about Tommy being a clone isolate him from his friends because their mothers don’t want them to be associated with a “copy.” No one shows up for Tommy’s birthday party. The whole idea of clones as a metaphor for any oppressed minority that experiences overt discrimination might be more effective if the main character hadn’t gestated her boyfriend’s clone with the primary purpose of acting out her repressed childhood sexual urges, but at least it’s a valiant attempt. Tommy’s bewilderment at his sudden outcast status does pull at your heartstrings. Conveniently, Tommy’s new lack of social life means that Rebecca will be his only support system growing up. I’m sure that will only make their relationship healthier! Ah, there’s nothing like an incestuous dystopia to carry you through those troubled teen years.

This is awkward enough without the Freudian possessiveness.

Just in case you weren’t horrified enough yet, the unresolved sexual tension between Tommy and Rebecca is about to skyrocket off the Richter scale. Like his mother, Tommy returns to his childhood home, now the same age as when the original Tommy died. Unhappily for Rebecca, he arrives with his girlfriend, Monica, in tow. Rebecca mopes around the house, taking every opportunity to be jealous and pouty. She seems particularly disillusioned when she goes to wake Tommy, only to discover Monica in bed with him and connect the dots that they probably had sex the night before. The implication is that Rebecca has been single and celibate ever since the original Tommy died. On one hand, our sympathy leans toward her because she has sacrificed everything for Tommy and it’s a sad juxtaposition to watch her plateau in loneliness while Tommy’s life is filled with friends and opportunities.

Rebecca sulking over Monica’s failed olive branch pastries.

Still, here Rebecca’s motives start to acquire a distinctly vindictive, bitter undertone that erodes her original justification of everlasting love and devotion. She’s pissed that her relationship with clone Tommy hasn’t magically replicated into her romance with original Tommy, but she forgets that they’re different people and Tommy has no obligation to simply pick up the life of his original where it left off. Plus, her warped nostalgia creates impossibly high expectations on several counts, considering she never told him the truth and she should have anticipated that Tommy isn’t supposed to want to have sex with his own mother. Womb has a weird tendency to humanize incest in ways that make you feel dirty for even contemplating the scenario enough to formulate an opinion.

Giving new meaning to the phrase “sexy fishnets.”

Rebecca’s hostility toward Monica creates tension in Tommy’s relationship with Monica. Monica senses the growing distance between them and tries to keep their relationship alive with lots of flirting and sex, much to Rebecca’s chagrin. Despite Monica’s best efforts, everything falls apart when yet another play fight derails into not-so-subtle passion, culminating in Tommy shoving his head under Rebecca’s shirt. Monica has been watching them and realizes that they both look a little too aroused for family fun, prompting her to storm off. Tommy once again lets his face linger near Rebecca’s before chasing after Monica, giving her a particularly intense Stare of Rediscovered Lust with Inevitably Dramatic Consequences. That Tommy sure knows how to leave a lady wanting more. It’s a shame he only seems to be at the top of this game when he’s fighting off oedipal sexual urges.

This moment is too sad for a witty caption.

The last screw of Rebecca’s fantasy comes loose when Tommy runs into the original Tommy’s mother, feeling an eerie familiarity with her. He can no longer stand Rebecca’s silence and demands concrete answers about his genealogy. Rebecca caves and shows him old footage of the original Tommy protesting. He berates Rebecca for lying to him his whole life. It’s all quite heartbreaking and raw and I had to crank down my sound because Matt Smith’s anguish is so visceral it’s terrifying. The subtext that was once relegated to awkward pauses and unspoken taboos rapidly shifts to fear. Tommy rapes Rebecca and it’s brutally carnal, especially when compared to his naively bewildered romantic interactions as the Doctor (skip to the 2:15 mark and marvel at the sheer volume of flailing). The experience is filled with tears and anger and is so very obviously the opposite of everything Rebecca has been dreaming of for the past two decades.

I’m sure he’s off to more dismal horizons.

Tommy departs quietly and alone soon after the incident. The viewer knows that he impregnated Rebecca. The ultimate consensus of the film seems to be Rebecca making peace with the pain that both Tommys have caused her because now she will have Tommy’s child, which is implied to be the fulfillment she was searching for all along. This bittersweet romanticism appears to gloss over the fact that clone Tommy is a rapist, but I guess that puts us back at sum zero in terms of morality judgments. Rebecca was punished throughout the film for allowing her sexuality to transcend even the laws of mortality. Womb might be insinuating that female desire is the root of all evil, but then again, no one else walks away squeaky clean either.