Movie News – Bitch Flicks

From the Archive: Business Trip Wishes

NOTE: After reading over this letter (originally posted July 2, 2009), I’m struck by how many of these stereotypes were included in Bridesmaids. I’m not sure how I feel about that yet; I ultimately found Bridesmaids to be a fairly subversive film. (Stay tuned for my Review in Conversation with Amber–she may completely disagree with me on that.) But yeah, Bridesmaids failed the shit out of this list of no-nos. Hmmmmm …

According to several entertainment sources, a new comedy called Business Trip has been picked up by Universal Pictures. Written by Stacey Harman, the film focuses on four women who take a business trip together and, instead of getting any real business-oriented work done, shenanigans ensue. Apparently, it’s being produced by the same people involved with The Hangover, so I speculate that Business Trip will contain similar comedic elements, but from a female perspective.

How do I feel about this? It’s hard to say. I’ve longed to see a film that focuses on what women actually do when they’re screwing off together. I’m pretty sure they get high sometimes. They might even sleep until noon and not have jobs and live in their parents’ basement at the age of 34 (although probably not in a film about women in corporate

America

). I guess I’ll at least experience some satisfaction if the filmmakers manage to stick to a few basic rules.

Dear Business Trip filmmakers,

As you work toward developing this film, and if you’re at all interested in breaking some new ground by portraying real women on-screen (rather than the conventional stereotypes of women we’ve gotten so used to seeing) please be advised of the following:

1. Do not cast Jessica Alba, Megan Fox, Katherine Heigl, and Anna Faris, and then parade them around in giant heels, wearing some semblance of revealing business suit-esque attire, probably involving excessive cleavage and certainly showcasing thirty gratuitous inches of bare leg.

2. Do not institute a plot point that involves one of the lead actresses finally feeling complete because she finds a man who rescues her from her horrible life as a lonely, over-achieving corporate executive i.e. childless, feminist spinster.

3. Do not include a scene where one or two or all of these women make out, possibly in a hot tub, but definitely in front of a man, just for the sole purpose of performing some lightweight pornographic male fantasy.

4. Do not kill one of them off with a melodramatic deadly-illness twist.

5. Do not include a scene where one or two or all of these women get depressed about a man, and as a result, gorge themselves on any carbohydrate-infused junk food within reach, while simultaneously sobbing (for extra comedic effect).

6. Do not ever allow any character to utter the phrase “cat-fight” … ever.

7. Do not script any of the following: klutzy falling scenes, food fights, cake-decorating, aerobics classes, weepy arguments with Mom, random bursting into song, lip-synching and/or dancing around in pajamas to 60s music, a wedding, an ice-queen who can’t feel, an infantilized, codependent ditz, group slut-shaming, or group competition for a man.

8. Do not even go near “scheming-vindictive-bitch” territory; we get enough of that in the male-dominated comedies of the Apatowverse.

9. Do not try to balance out the characters’ personalities by making one a good, sweet, virginal Madonna and another a fucked-ten-men-in-one-night, “crazy party girl” who dances topless on bar tables with a cigarette in one hand and a tequila shot in the other.

10. Do not make one or more of the characters “baby-crazy” and/or desperate to be inseminated by a gay best friend.

11. Do not turn this into Sex and the City Takes a Business Trip, even though that’s undoubtedly what everyone will encourage you to do.

Good luck!

Love,

Bitch Flicks

Guest Writer Wednesday: Your Review Is Scarier Than Scream 4

This guest post by Kevin Wolf is cross posted at Shakesville.

[Trigger warning for misogyny, eating disorders and body policing, ableist language.]

The masses were clamoring for another Scream sequel (people simply would not stop talking about it!) so Scream 4 was manufactured and hits theaters today. Hence, the posting of reviews across the internets, including this one from Michael O’Sullivan at The Washington Post, which opens:

“Scream 4” has issues.

If it were a person, and not a movie, it would be a 17-year-old bulimic girl, desperate for the attention of 17-year-old boys and alternately bingeing on cheesy slasher-flick cliches, and purging, by pointing out, over and over, just how gag-me-with-a spoon cheesy they are.

On the one hand, it is obsessed with itself, winking and pouting in front of the metaphorical mirror of self-referential scrutiny that the series — directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson — is famous for. On the other, it suffers from a case of crushingly low self-esteem, reminding us at every turn just how lame it is. (In a sense, it won’t shut up about how fat it looks in these jeans.)

Mr. O’Sullivan is not a teen, bulimic or otherwise. But because this is a movie for and about teens, he evidently felt obliged to wedge something “teenagery” into his review. And because this movie has “issues,” he must represent our hypothetical teen as a “girl” who is bulimic, who is desperate for boys to notice her, and who is so “lame” and self-involved she won’t shut up about how fat [she] looks in these jeans!!

Now, I’m not the target audience for the movie, nor the target of O’Sullivan’s horrific clusterfuck of misogynist, fat-hating, exploitative, condescending bullshit, yet for some reason I’ve taken offense. Why? Because I hate the assumption made by this critic that it’s gonna be just fine with me that he represent this film and its audience in this carelessly stupid, thoughtless, and endlessly privileged way.

I’m going to suggest to O’Sullivan that he take another look at this review and compare that opening with a paragraph further along: “At the heart of the film is a joke: What’s happening on screen is just like a bad horror movie. Except that, by acknowledging its own badness, ‘Scream 4’ hopes to turn itself into a good horror movie. Or at least a hip, funny and self-aware one.” Notice, Mr. O’Sullivan, that you have here said essentially the same thing (the movie is agonizingly self-conscious and wants to be hip) without personifying the film as an offensive stereotype and thus demeaning teenage girls with disordered eating in the process. And it was so easy!

Please, Michael O’Sullivan: Stop trying to be hip and clever. For a start, you’re about as hip and clever as an Allstate commercial. And your lack of self-awareness and empathy is painful—one guesses especially so for the targets of your “humor.”

2011 Post-Oscar Response

Might as well dive right in! Here is the list (short version) of the winners:

Best Picture: The King’s Speech

Best Actor: Colin Firth in The King’s Speech

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale in The Fighter

Best Actress: Natalie Portman in Black Swan

Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo in The Fighter

Best Animated Feature Film: Toy Story 3

Best Director: Tom Hooper for The King’s Speech

Best Documentary Feature: Inside Job

Best Documentary Short: Strangers No More

Best Foreign Language Film: In a Better World

Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network

Best Original Screenplay: David Seidler for The King’s Speech

Well. As we said earlier in the week:

“the Academy Awards are the most visible celebration of filmmaking in the United States–and possibly the world. Yet–and despite the misnomer of ‘liberal Hollywood’–they continue to exhibit cultural values and norms that are conservative and simply unacceptable. Women are typically rewarded for playing roles that support a central male character in films. People of color are rarely nominated for–and even more rarely win–major awards. This year (as in most years), all Best Director nominees are white men. (Only one woman has EVER won this category.) The Best Picture nominees are about white people (or white cartoon characters), and are lauded by mostly white male critics. Even in a movie about lesbians, a man takes center stage. We could go on, but you get the idea.”

So now that the 2011 Academy Awards have aired, what did you think? I love the discussions that’ve been happening leading up to the Oscars, and I’ll highlight a few of the ones I found particularly enlightening. For starters, the Feminist Frequency video below is an absolute must-watch:

In our Best Picture Nominee Review Series, we (with the help of our Guest Writers) showed that most of the films were about men, with the exception of Winter’s Bone, Black Swan, and The Kids Are All Right–with the latter two still exhibiting some major problems with their portrayals of women. We also showcased Ten Years of Oscar-Winning Films (in posters), which further illustrated the accolades presented to male-dominated films.

Add The King’s Speech to the ever-growing list.

For those of you who watched the 2011 Academy Awards, you heard Steven Spielberg list several Great Films that had previously won Oscars for Best Picture. He then listed several more Great Films that were nominated for Best Picture Oscars but hadn’t won. His lists included the following films: On the Waterfront, Midnight Cowboy, The Godfather, The Deer Hunter, The Grapes of Wrath, Citizen Kane, The Graduate, and Raging Bull. What do they have in common? They’re all movies about Heterosexual White Men. So I ask, what would’ve been wrong with including some of these films in the list: Rebecca, The Sound of Music, Kramer vs Kramer, Terms of Endearment, or Driving Miss Daisy … ? At this point, I’m honestly starting to wonder if The Academy gives a flying fuck at all about people who aren’t Heterosexual White Men; they sure as hell have no interest in pretending they do.

The following Oscar analyses deepen the discussion.

“Talking About the 2011 Oscars” from The Funny Feminist:

It would appear that expanding the Best Picture category to include ten films instead of five has resulted in more recognition for movies about women.

It hasn’t, though, seemed to improve the field for other marginalized groups, because, as Shakesville pointed out, not a single person of color was nominated in the acting categories. I guess no people of color acted in any movies last year! Or else, the Academy filled their quota last year by giving nominations to Gabourey Sidibe and Mo’Nique and don’t feel the need to recognize any other people of color. Excuse me while I go roll my eyes.

The Academy also filled their quota of female directors last year. In 82 years of the Academy Awards, they finally recognized a female director (Kathryn Bigelow) and awarded her for her work on The Hurt Locker. I guess no women made movies this year, because the Best Director category is all male.

“Oscar was a Dude: America’s Celebration of Men” from The Sociological Cinema:

Hollywood didn’t invent patriarchy, but that doesn’t preclude it from being implicated in reproducing it. The cultural critic, Stuart Hall, once observed that the people who work in creating media stand in a different relationship to ideology than the rest of us. That is to say, those who produce, direct, and act in films have at their disposal a powerful tool, which can be used to transform how people come to understand the world in which they live. Movies–especially the ones the Academy deems worthy of its coveted Oscar–pose answers to questions many people never asked, such as, “whose story is likely to matter most?” or just, “who matters?” As evidenced from the list of nominated films this year, those who were hoping for a revolution in the kinds of stories Hollywood tells may be disappointed. For now, a critical awareness of the men and masculinity America is (also) celebrating on Sunday may have to suffice.

Thoughts? Concerns? What the hell?

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Women Still a Rarity in Top Film Jobs from the Los Angeles Times:

“Women held 16% of key jobs such as director and producer on the top 250 films of 2010 (as measured by domestic box-office receipts), according to the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University. That’s steady from the 2009 figures and about the same level as in 1998, when the center launched its ‘Celluloid Ceiling’ report.”

Leading Ladies from The Eye:

“From February 10 to 13, Barnard’s Athena Center for Leadership Studies and the group Women in Hollywood will collaborate to create the first annual Athena Film Festival. The festival seeks to be an interactive weekend that addresses issues of female empowerment through film production—featuring both the works of female filmmakers and films about women. The Eye sat down with Kathryn Kolbert, the festival’s cofounder to discuss how the festival will affect the future of female leadership at Barnard.”

The Top 15 Feminist Film Stars from Ecosalon:

” … let’s think about the ladies of authority, the women of wit, the steel magnolias of cinema. For every loveless lass brought to life by a Rom Com Queen, there’s a kick-ass character of empowerment. Here are our 15 favorites.”

The Girls on Film from Den of Geek:

“We may have come a long way since female author, Mary Anne Evans, had to publish under a pseudonym of George Eliot, but it’s blokes that still run the show.

Which is why The Girls on Film is such a breath of fresh air. On paper it sounds like a parody project. A troupe of female actors take on iconic scenes from cult movies, from Fight Club, Star Trek and The Town, reading the same lines, acting the same parts as the men. But the results are no laughing matter.”

The Super Bowl and Violence Against Females from the Daily Kos:

“The other equally critical issue is how we American males define manhood. Far too many of us think it is about violent behavior, warfare, gunplay, mindless and ego-driven competition, and the conquering of each other, or women and girls, by any available means. And this has nothing to do with the debates that have raged for years about there being a spike in domestic violence cases on Super Bowl Sundays because of the drinking and abusive behavior of male sports fans. Hard to pin down that kind of data. But it unquestionably is a day when so many different types of people come together, pause, and watch perhaps America’s bloodiest and most violent sport as if it were a video game.”

Blue Valentine’s Ryan Gosling: The New Voice of Feminism in Hollywood? from BlogHer:

“The ratings war over Blue Valentine may have gotten more press than the stunning film itself — the movie was originally given the dreaded NC-17 branding before The Weinstein Company (who is also fighting the good fight for The King’s Speech) successfully appealed it and earned themselves an R. Surprisingly, it was Ryan Gosling who most notably came to his film’s defense — Melissa Silverstein from Women in Hollywood called him the ‘Hollywood Feminist of the Day’ and was floored by this quote from Gosling …”

Pariah: A Film About a Black Lesbian Young Woman Finding Herself in White Het Male Supremacy from A Radical Profeminist:

“In a Western world where, far too often, human = white and male, queer = white and male, lesbian = white, and woman = white, it is difficult for me, a white gay male, to fully appreciate the struggles for visibility and validation faced by those of us in the queer community without white and male privileges. Why it is that white queer people think telling stories primarily about whites and men is representative of “us” is beyond me.”

Lady Gaga Brings Cholas Back to Pop Culture–Like It or Not from Racialicious:

“What sets Gaga’s use of the term apart, for now – there’s been no video released for ‘Born This Way,’ though she will perform it at the Grammy Awards on Feb. 13 – is the direct use of the word Chola in the lyrics, as opposed to visual shorthand. And that’s where the controversy comes in: the word it’s derived from, Cholo, originated in the 16th century as a slur, similar to “mutt,” in both Perú and Mexico. But in the U.S., some would argue that they’re tied in with the Chicano identity and culture, following the lineage of the Chicano Movement of the 1960s.”

Rediscovering WWII’s female ‘computers’ from CNN:

“Men had built the machine, but Bartik and her colleagues debugged every vacuum tube and learned how to make it work, she said. Early on, they demonstrated to the military brass how the computer worked, with the programmers setting the process into motion and showing how it produced an answer. They handed out its punch cards as souvenirs. They’d taught the massive machine do math that would’ve taken hours by hand.”

Feminists in Focus: Reporting Back from the New York Jewish Film Festival, Yolande: An Unsung Heroine — the Egyptian Jewish spy — and Red Shirley from Lilith:

“Yolande used her work as a journalist as cover for reporting on Cairo’s power elite – right up to the king — for Israel’s pre-state de facto government, the Jewish Agency. She reported directly to Teddy Kollek, the future long-time mayor of Jerusalem, back when he headed intelligence for the Jewish Agency.”

Athena Film Festival not just for feminists from Columbia Spectator:

“Rah-rah feminism aside, the festival lineup of strong movies with the occasional dash of Hollywood intrigue may also hold attraction for casual cinephiles or the merely star-curious. Debra Granik is one of only 10 women to have ever directed a Best Picture nominee feature film. She and the co-writer of ‘Winter’s Bone,’ Anne Rosellini, will discuss the film with Anne Thompson of the blog Thompson on Hollywood after its screening in Miller Theatre.”

Prevent Official Release of Kanye West’s Women-Hating Monster Video from The Petition Site:

“HipHopConnection.com has leaked a video teaser for the Kanye West hit song ‘Monster’ and what we’ve seen is beyond disturbing. In just 30 seconds, viewers take in image after image of eroticized violence against women:

– Dead women, clad in lingerie, hang by chains around their necks.

– West makes sexual moves toward dead or drugged women propped up in a bed.

– A naked dead or drugged woman lays sprawled on a sofa.”

A Challenge to the Farrelly Brothers from Shakesville:

“That the Farrelly Brothers think sexual harassment and assault is hilarious is not news. The entire premise of There’s Something About Mary was a woman being stalked by multiple men who were deceiving her to try to sleep with her. (Ironically, Brett Favre played the one guy who wasn’t stalking her. Whoooooops!) Kingpin featured a predatory landlady who coerced Woody Harrelson’s character into exchanging sex for rent. Me, Myself & Irene had a scene in which Jim Carrey’s character grabbed a baby off hir nursing mother’s breast and started suckling, to the woman’s horror. One of the many problematic aspects of the premise of Shallow Hal is that the main character, who believes his fat girlfriend to be thin, has sex with her while effectively unable to consent to the actual person with whom he’s having sex. Et cetera.”

Leave your links in the comments!

Business Trip Wishes