Mystery – Page 5 – Bitch Flicks

‘All the Boys Love Mandy Lane’ Cannibalizes Its Feminist Message

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane manages to convey that toxic rape culture narrative in subtle ways, like when she’s alone with a boy who says, “Can I hold your hand? Can I kiss you?” and she turns her head to let him kiss her cheek. I felt my stomach turn during this scene; she was alone with a boy who clearly had sexual intentions, and Mandy Lane’s cheek move seemed like an appeasement, like a way to delay any unwanted sexual contact without making him angry. Unfortunately, it’s also a move that men often read as coy, as “teasing” … and it puts women in another double bind: she doesn’t want to piss him off and risk him potentially hurting her, but she also doesn’t want to do anything sexual with him. This kind of behavior gets women labeled “teases” all the time, and it’s a way to take responsibility away from men who believe, incorrectly, that the slightest amount of sexual contact—kissing, hand holding—means a woman automatically wants to take things further.

Written (with spoilers) by Stephanie Rogers.

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane attempts to send a feminist message. Unfortunately, that message spontaneously combusts at the end of the film. It gets so much right, though, especially in its depiction of sexual harassment, catcalling, stalking, and society’s obsession with women who embrace virginity versus women who embrace their sexuality. In fact, all these boys love Mandy Lane (Amber Heard) because they see her as a conquest, a beautiful, “pure” teenage girl who functions as a prize, a trophy. In essence, they believe that the boy who finally gets to sleep with Mandy Lane will also get those coveted bragging rights, a boost to his masculinity cred—and patriarchy loves nothing more than requiring men to constantly reaffirm their manhood to their bros. For instance, when they talk about Mandy Lane, they say things like, “I’ve got first dibs,” which effectively mimics the locker room talk we’ve lately come to associate with fraternity emails showcasing sexual assault tips.

Another viewer could easily dismiss all this as harmless “joking,” but thankfully, the film allows us to experience things through Mandy’s viewpoint. We see her pull away from boys who try to kiss her, who pull the strap of her shirt down, who put their hands in her hair. We watch her spin around when she realizes someone outside her window is watching her change her clothes. She appears uncomfortable most of the time, as if she feels somewhat responsible for the actions of the boys around her. I imagine many women can identify too closely with Mandy Lane, asking themselves, “Am I dressing too provocatively? Is this harassment entirely my fault?” It’s the narrative of rape culture, one that both men and women have come to internalize: if a woman doesn’t want to be noticed, then she shouldn’t walk around looking so hot all the time.

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane manages to convey that toxic rape culture narrative in subtle ways, like when she’s alone with a boy who says, “Can I hold your hand? Can I kiss you?” and she turns her head to let him kiss her cheek. I felt my stomach turn during this scene; she was alone with a boy who clearly had sexual intentions, and Mandy Lane’s cheek move seemed like an appeasement, like a way to delay any unwanted sexual contact without making him angry. Unfortunately, it’s also a move that men often read as coy, as “teasing” … and it puts women in another double bind: she doesn’t want to piss him off and risk him potentially hurting her, but she also doesn’t want to do anything sexual with him. This kind of behavior gets women labeled “teases” all the time, and it’s a way to take responsibility away from men who believe, incorrectly, that the slightest amount of sexual contact—kissing, hand holding—means a woman automatically wants to take things further.

The director (Jonathan Levine) balances Mandy Lane-as-Madonna by including two sexually active high school girls-as-Whores: Marlin (Melissa Price) and Chloe (Whitney Able), who’ve both had some sort of sexual contact with the three boys in their clique—Bird, Red, and Jake—at least enough to point out who has the smallest penis in the group. Marlin, Chloe, and the three bros decide to spend a weekend at Red’s ranch, and they invite Mandy along. For some reason, Mandy agrees to go (under the guise of making new friends), but it isn’t clear until the end of the film why Mandy truly accepts the invitation. For whatever reason, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane turns into a lightweight home invasion massacre out of nowhere, but it still makes some thoughtful commentary on bodysnarking and teen sexuality before ruining itself with conventional horror movie tropes.

Interestingly, the only locker room talk happens with the women after their respective cheerleading practice (Marlin and Chloe) and track workout (Mandy Lane, who literally runs away from a boy during her run, her former friend Emmet). Chloe calls Marlin “chubby” when Marlin shows off her new bellybutton ring to which Marlin responds, “I’m not fat.” Mandy watches these interactions almost always in silence as if making a mental note for herself. The bodysnarking happens again between Chloe and Marlin, once they’re ranch bound, during a trip to the bathroom at a rest stop; Marlin says to Chloe, “You really need to trim that. It’s like Sherwood’s Forest down there.” Chloe gives her a “whatever” look, but later, we find Chloe trimming her pubic hair on the toilet at the ranch. Again, Mandy Lane never participates in the bodysnarking but listens and watches quietly instead.

Once they hit the ranch, though, the film begins to unravel. It goes way too far in its Virgin/Whore depiction, painting both Chloe and Marlin as sex-crazed and shallow. (Marlin gives a hand job and a blowjob in the span of 20 minutes but not without flashing her breasts to a man at the rest stop, too, and Chloe won’t stop talking about banging the local ranch hand, Garth.) Mandy Lane, on the other hand, watches quietly, makes no judgments or accusations, and appears Madonna-esque and mysterious, almost too sticky sweet. We know something isn’t right here, and I thought at first Mandy Lane represented the virginal, Say No to Drugs, Final Girl from conventional horror films.

When one of the boys steals a fuse and shuts off all the lights at the ranch, Mandy Lane gets stuck fending off another boy in the dark, this time Jake, who leans in repeatedly to kiss her. Interestingly, Mandy Lane almost never says “no,” but her body language communicates how little she wants to do with Jake. This narrative suggests, importantly, that some men and boys think nothing of continuing to push and push until a woman fiercely says “no.” Again, that rape culture narrative plays out here, and because the film operates from Mandy Lane’s perspective, the audience feels bad for her and (hopefully) feels less bad for, and even angry with, the boys for making her feel so unsafe.

Honestly, the film could’ve ended for me somewhere around there as an astute commentary on how rape culture impacts the actions of both men and women. It could’ve ended as an astute commentary on how bullying and bodysnarking (especially by other women) impacts a woman’s self-esteem. But the writer (Jacob Forman) and director decided to take All the Boys Love Mandy Lane in a boring direction that tried way too hard for a shock ending. The body count racks up. Both the men and the women die, taking away any potential interpretation that the killer is merely punishing the men for their actions toward the women. Instead, the deaths of Chloe and Marlin—the Whores—suggest that anyone with a sexual appetite at all deserves punishment.

Other viewers might not need their fun horror films to carry A Message, but this one went, for me, from an epic feminist masterpiece to mundane, sloppy, and forced. Ultimately, Mandy Lane turns out to be way less innocent than she appears, and the film makes the audience hate her. And when a film makes the audience hate the character who represents the film’s important themes—the insidiousness of rape culture, for instance—then that film fails tremendously to say much of anything.

Stephanie Rogers lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she sometimes watches entire seasons of television in one sitting.

Notes from the Telluride Film Festival: Reviews of ‘The Past’ and ‘Ida’

We learn in The Past that not is all as it seems, and maybe all that is left in the past isn’t really. Academy Award-winning director Asghar Farhadi (2011’s The Seperation) returns with his first movie outside of Iran. Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) returns from Iran to finalize his divorce with Marie-Anne (Berenice Bejo, 2011’s The Artist) and finds himself awkwardly sleeping at the house of her new boyfriend, which also contains her children.

This is a guest post by Atima Omara-Alwala.

It’s in the Past, or Is It Really? A Review of The Past

We learn in The Past that not is all as it seems, and maybe all that is left in the past isn’t really. Academy Award-winning director Asghar Farhadi (2011’s The Seperation) returns with his first movie outside of Iran. Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) returns from Iran to finalize his divorce with Marie-Anne (Berenice Bejo, 2011’s The Artist) and finds himself awkwardly sleeping at the house of her new boyfriend, which also contains her children.

Director Asghar Farhadi is Iranian, and in speaking about the film, addressed how he hopes–as someone from the East–that people from the East and the West can better understand one another through film. Certainly, The Past is, among many things, one of those movies that aims to dispel notions about his Iranian characters. First, the movie has a major female protagonist in Marie-Anne as the ex wife of Ahmad, in addition to her daughter Lucie, who is in a supporting role. Marie-Anne is a woman with a solid career as a pharmacist. Ahmad is an Iranian man, who adores children and is better with them than his soon-to-be ex-wife, and he enjoys cooking for his ex-wife and the children. The Western portrayal of Iranian men (or men from the Middle East) tends to show men as very patriarchal who treat women with disdain (eg, Not Without My Daughter). As if to ensure the viewer that Ahmad is not a one hit wonder, Marie-Anne also is in a serious relationship with a new Iranian man, Samir (Tamir Rahim) who is a single, devoted father to his son Fouad after his wife ends up in the hospital in a coma from a suicide attempt.

A web of secrets from the past threatens to destroy the lives of all the characters; how they grapple with it and deal with them (or if they do) is what makes this film riveting to watch for all viewers (as it has universal themes).

A must see by a talented director.

The Odd Couple: A Review of the Film Ida

Ida is a wonderfully-directed film by Polish director Paweł Pawlikowsk about two women learning about themselves and their family together. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) is a novice, an orphan brought up by nuns in a convent. Before she takes her vows, she is told of her only living relative, Wanda (Agata Kulesza), whom she seeks out to find the answers about her family.

Anna finds out she’s really not Catholic, but Jewish, according to her Aunt Wanda.

Wanda, a somber woman, wondering about what happened to her sister’s family (Anna’s parents) agrees to take a journey with her to find out what happened. It is a journey both women take that forces them to learn about each other, and it challenges each other’s beliefs.

You learn Wanda has fallen a bit in her career. Formerly a powerful attorney and judge in Communist Poland, you quickly see Wanda’s brilliance, intensity, and hardness. You see slices of what Wanda must have been when she demands answers on what happened to her sister from the family that now lives in her sister’s home. “You know I can destroy your life,” says Wanda. Anna is quiet and demure, a perfect product of her Catholic upbringing and at times clearly does not know what to make of her Aunt.

Putting a devout young sheltered Catholic woman with a wordly Polish Jewish woman is bound to create tension. When Anna quietly, but clearly, disapproves of her Aunt Wanda’s dancing, drinking, and flirting with men on one of their road trip stops, Wanda senses this and points out how Anna’s Jesus hung out with women like her (alluding to Mary Magdalene).

The saddest moment in the journey awaits them as they find out what really happened to their family. How they both deal with that tragedy and are impacted by their interactions with each other carries the last third of the film poignantly.

Shot in black and white, it resonates of a darker time in Poland. This is a must see because the story is touching and Paweł Pawlikowsk portrays the depths that are these women characters. Despite Anna being a novice on her way to being a nun and Wanda being a powerful career woman, they are not caricatures but real characters with feelings and desires who are figuring out their lives.

Atima Omara-Alwala is a political strategist and activist of 10 years who has served as staff on 8 federal and local political campaigns and other progressive causes. Atima’s work has had a particular focus on women’s political empowerment & leadership, reproductive justice, health care, communities of color and how gender and race is reflected in pop culture. Her writings on the topics have also been featured at Ms. Magazine, Women’s Enews, and RH Reality Check.

Older Women Week: Telling Stories: ‘My House in Umbria’

Film poster for My House in Umbria

This is a guest post by Amanda Civitello.

Emily Delahunty is a writer of fiction. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of My House in Umbria, a beautifully atmospheric film by Richard Loncraine starring the inimitable Maggie Smith. Smith shines in a rich role that takes advantage of her great skill. Too often we praise her – as I did for Bitch Flicks here – for her fantastic comic timing and cut-glass wit, forgetting that she is a dramatic actress as well, and worthy of much better parts than those that ask her to do little more than deliver a one-liner. That’s sadly what seems to garner her recognition these days: an impeccable demonstration of acerbic wit in the form of what Smith deems a “spiky old lady.” In a season of melodrama and over-the-top performances on Downton Abbey, for example, there was one standout moment of arresting, extraordinary acting, and it belonged to Maggie Smith, standing alone beneath the stone arches in the aftermath of her Lady Sybil’s death. She looked for all the world as if burdened by innumerable sorrow, and it was an utterly heartbreaking image. My House in Umbria gives Smith the opportunity to exercise her considerable mastery in a part that provides ample moments of similarly reflective silence as well as witty repartee.

In contemporary Italy, a terror attack on a train leaves only four survivors from a carriage of eight. Mrs. Delahunty, of course, is a survivor, as is the General (Ronnie Barker), a young German man (Benno Fürmann), and a little American girl (Emmy Clarke, in a remarkable performance for such a young actress). When the survivors can’t return to their homes until the investigation is complete, Mrs. Delahunty, an English expat, welcomes them to her villa in Umbria. There, they all find healing in each other’s company, the quiet routine of the countryside, and the presence of the little girl orphaned by the tragedy. Aimee arrives at the house rendered mute by the tragedy and the loss of her parents, but through the persistence and attention of Mrs. Delahunty, the others, and the staff – including Timothy Spall in a great turn as Quinty, manager of the estate – she soon finds her voice again, and it is she who inspires healing, forgiveness, and hope in the others. Their insular little community is rocked, however, by the arrival of Aimee’s estranged uncle, who comes to take her back to America, as Aimee’s departure threatens to destroy their tentative peace.

Maggie Smith as Mrs. Delahunty in My House in Umbria

“We are the stories we tell ourselves,” director Shekhar Kapur asserted in a TED talk about creativity, and that’s true; put differently, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” wrote Joan Didion in 1979. We tell ourselves stories to overcome hardship, to reason ourselves out of the incomprehensible. We dream up explanations and embellishments. We protect ourselves and entertain ourselves, and in the end, there is often little difference between what actually happened and what we say happened. After a while, we come to believe the story, to find it true rather than fictitious, and our perspective is shaped accordingly.

“We survived,” Emily is fond of saying to a number of characters in the film – and while she’s obviously referencing the terror attack when she speaks to her fellow “walking wounded” – it’s apparent from its very first utterance that Emily has survived far more than the explosion in carrozza 219. As her story unfolds, we come to discover that Emily is a survivor of childhood abandonment: she was sold as an infant to a childless couple by her parents who had no place for a child in their circus-act lives. She’s a survivor of sexual abuse and a survivor of a succession of abusive relationships. She traveled extensively with boyfriends pursuing extraordinarily odd jobs. Emily recounts her own troubled history as a kind of story, her memories tinged with a distinctly literary tone, and at times – and like the characters – one questions the veracity of some of her stories, particularly when her version doesn’t exactly mesh with another’s. But does it really matter if they’re true or not?

The surrealist depiction of the terror attack itself

For Mrs. Delahunty, these kinds of stories seem to come as naturally as breathing: she invents entire lives for the strangers around her – like this writer has done since she started dreaming up stories for the staid nuns teaching her lessons – and relates them with such authority that it’s difficult to retain a critical air about them. We believe the stories Mrs. Delahunty tells because she believes them. Maggie Smith underscores this over and over again. She crinkles her eye, purses her lip, fiddles with her sunglasses or her ever-present glass of grappa in such a way that, even as we believe wholeheartedly in the story Mrs. Delahunty weaves, we can’t help the flicker of incredulity that creeps up. Of course, we do believe her, as the writer intended, but our perception of Mrs. Delahunty is marked by the subtle reminders from Smith to listen with a critical ear.

Because of this, My House in Umbria succeeds primarily on the strength of Smith’s acting. Much of the film consists of an internal narrative, in which we hear through voiceover Smith’s thoughts on the fellow passengers who become her houseguests. She concocts background stories for each of them, a mixture of dreams, astrology, and deductions liberally sprinkled with what she wants their stories to be. She wants to create, for example, a love story between Werner and the young woman accompanying him. When the General takes to Aimee, she decides that it’s down to a bit of guilt about the way he raised his own daughter who perished on the train. These ideas are rooted in her observations, of course, but they aren’t necessarily real. The General might have actually had a very good relationship with his daughter, for example, barring his dislike of her husband, and might not harbor any regrets over her childhood. Of course, he might not, but it doesn’t matter; what matters is that Mrs. Delahunty believes these stories, and we believe them right along with her. It’s to the credit of actors like Timothy Spall, Ronnie Barker, and Chris Cooper that they deliver the kind of quiet, restrained performances that render Mrs. Delahunty’s musings believable.

Emmy Clarke as Aimee and Maggie Smith as Mrs. Delahunty in My House in Umbria

Her stories ultimately influence the ways in which she interacts with her guests, most notably Mr. Riversmith (Chris Cooper), Aimee’s estranged uncle. Through a bit of eavesdropping and her own tendency to dramatize a situation, Mrs. Delahunty – to her mind – fleshes out Mr. Riversmith’s character, melding bits of reality (he’s a professor who studies the carpenter ant) with logical extensions and explanations, some of which require her to dismiss the observations that don’t quite fit her narrative. (She steadfastly refuses, for example, to leave him alone as his body language would attest, convincing herself that it’s a front.) Mr. Riversmith, however, is the one guest who fights back against her, refusing her repeated offers of a drink – “You could do with a drink,” Mrs. Delahunty asserts time and again, to which Mr. Riversmith replies, in escalating anger, that he drinks little, if at all, and certainly not at 9am – and suggesting she kindly get her nose out of his business. Yet, Mrs. Delahunty persists, and it’s to Smith’s credit that we cheer her on, and see the value in it, even when it becomes uncomfortable to watch.

The film’s climax sees Mrs. Delahunty, sloshed beyond belief on her grappa, stumble into Mr. Riversmith’s bedroom in the middle of the night, clutching a bottle and two glasses, and demanding that he speak to her (and share a drink, of course). She levels all of her conjectures at him – her reasoning about Werner, her thoughts about healing as a group, the defaults she finds in his character, and, above all, her desperate need to keep Aimee in Italy. She is practically paralyzed with fear and sorrow at Aimee’s leaving; her anxiety reveals itself in a surprising way. There’s always been an undercurrent of latent romance on Mrs. Delahunty’s part; here it bubbles to the surface in a scene achingly sad in its desperation. She opens her robe and offers him her breast, and, to her shock, he shields his eyes and turns away. The anger melds with crushing disappointment in Smith’s expression – but at what? At Riversmith’s refusal? (She is a woman, after all, who remarks in the opening scene that men still continue to give her a second appreciative glance.) At Riversmith’s defiance? We aren’t sure, and neither is Mrs. Delahunty.

The General teaching young Aimee the Cha-Cha

For the real truth of Mrs. Delahunty’s stories has nothing to do with actual events or actual personalities and everything to do with seeing the heart of a person or a situation. She has a knack, through her fictionalizations, to make blatantly, disturbingly, brutally honest observations of the people around her. (She cracks the case before the inspector does; not by research and detective work, as he does, but on the strength of a dream and eagle-eyed observation.) And it’s Mrs. Delahunty, therefore, who manages, in a web of conjecture, to get at the core of Mr. Riversmith’s character: his guilt. “Colpa,” she tells him before he throws her out of his room, her voice wavering in her drunkenness. “It means guilt. We all of us feel colpa about something. Do not, I beg you, let colpa stand in the way of your actions.” He responds with an angry, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”

“I think you do,” Mrs. Delahunty replies. “You feel colpa because you never made peace with your sister. And because of that, you feel obliged to take the child back with you.” He’s never said as much to her, of course – he never mentioned Aimee’s mother apart from a brief acknowledgment that he had never met Aimee because of his falling-out with her mother, his sister.

The tension between Mrs. Delahunty and Mr. Riversmith comes to a head when she argues with him late at night

And yet she is right: he does feel guilty, and, the following morning, Aimee returns home, welcomed back into Mrs. Delahunty’s arms in a beautifully shot scene. This parallels the shot of Aimee standing at the window as the carriage explodes, the light bright behind her; in this scene we see her lit from behind, away from the window, locked in a loving, maternal embrace. There’s no need to emphasize the Italian, or to couch her words in bumbling poetry. It’s a literary trick, to use a foreign word in place of an English translation, and one we’d expect to find on the page rather than on screen. But in Smith’s hands it transfers marvelously to film, and we’re reminded, once again, that all of this has been made possible because Mrs. Delahunty sees the world as a writer of fiction.

My House in Umbria is in many ways a meditation on fiction and characterization, on the way we writers create characters from those around us, and fictionalize our friends. It is, on a smaller scale, about grief and about survival. What it is not about is justice: there’s nothing more than the sketchiest of explanations for the perpetration of this crime; there is no arrest, and the terrorist ultimately gets away. This is unsurprising, perhaps, as the attack itself is presented in a dream-like, surreal manner, happening in slow motion as if it’s already a memory. In that particular sense, My House in Umbria is not especially satisfying. But as a film that grapples with the concept of forgiveness in the wake of tragedy, My House in Umbria is hugely successful. For Emily, writing and forgiveness (and guilt, yes) are inextricably linked.

Aimee’s return home, with the sunlight streaming behind her

And yet, through all of this, Emily is a writer with a terrible case of writer’s block. She writes the odd phrase in her notebook, but throughout the film, we never see her write. Her literary career is in the past, her interest in her work having been eclipsed by a steadily increasing dependence on alcohol. The ending is happy not just because Aimee returns home but because Mrs. Delahunty seems to find her own footing again. “She’s happier than she’s ever been,” Quinty remarks to the General, and then, Mrs. Delahunty says it herself, marveling that she feels the inspiration to write returning to her after a long winter. What makes Maggie Smith a great actress, of course, is that she develops incredible depth to her characters. Far too often, an older actress must create that intensity for herself out of a supporting part that’s lacking in complexity or that’s rich in tropes. In My House in Umbria, Maggie Smith delivers an exquisite performance that should drive home to screenwriters the necessity of writing complex roles for older women: Smith takes a well-rounded character and rich scenario and makes them so compelling, so enthralling, so utterly fascinating that one wonders why screenwriters aren’t lining up to craft such parts for her. And, more importantly, why the parts waiting for her are reinventions of the same, tired tropes.

Amanda Civitello is a Chicago-based freelance writer and Northwestern grad with an interest in arts and literary criticism. She is the editor of Iris, a new literary magazine with an LGBTQ+ focus for YA readers. She has contributed reviews of Rebecca, Sleepy Hollow, and Downton Abbey to Bitch Flicks. You can find her online at amandacivitello.com.

LGBTQI Week: The "Q" Stands for What?

This is a guest review by Ashley Boyd.

Note: I use the term queer as an umbrella term for all sexual and gender minorities with an acknowledgment that queer is a historically pejorative term.

SPOILER ALERT! This article includes spoilers for Season 7 of TNT’s The Closer.

The cast of The Closer

As The Closer’s Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick), a tough Southern Belle from Georgia, returns to LAPD headquarters this coming July, she will be joined, again, by new and popular recurring character Gavin Q. Baker III (Mark Pellegrino), a lawyer Johnson hired after falling into legal trouble over the murder of a gang member in her custody. The Hollywood Reporter describes Gavin as a “gay, former city attorney-turned-partner in a private law firm.” Pellegrino, known for his work on Being Human, Lost, and Supernatural offers a skillful portrayal of the intelligent yet arrogant lawyer, which fans have positively reviewed.

Mark Pelligrino

The Closer Creator, James Duff, has been a vocal advocate for LGBT representation on television. At a Power Up dinner in which he was honored, Duff had the following words to say:

I know how hard it is to get stories about gay people, lesbians, and transgender and bisexual people on the screen, and people need to see these stories. Not just young gay people, not just young people in the LGBT community but straight people need to see these stories too. They need to know—they need to know that we are a part of America.

According to GLAAD’s Where We Are On TV 2011-2012 Report an annual report about diversity on television, there are 28 LGBT series regulars on mainstream cable and 26 recurring characters. GLAAD credits TNT with three LGBT characters with The Closer having one recurring character: Dr. Morales played by Latino gay male Jonathon Del Arco. Despite its low visibility count, several producers and actors of the series support LGBT rights.

The Closer began with a definitive statement in the pilot episode in which a lesbian living as man is murdered by her unsuspecting girlfriend. The writers frame homophobia as a negative attribute and position Brenda as a supporter of LGBT equality. Throughout its seven seasons, the series has included gay characters, gay actors, and gay-themed storylines that include issues of homophobia, anti-gay violence, and gay activism.

The cast created a PSA about GLSEN’s Safe Space Campaign in response to the high number of gay teen suicides. Prominent gay male actors like Peter Paige (Queer as Folk) and The Closer’s own Phillip. P. Keane who portrays Buzz Watson (character’s sexuality is unknown) appear in the series. Most importantly, The Closer Creator, James Duff, is gay. The last fact makes Gavin’s introduction all the more interesting.

Despite being likeable, Gavin is a problematic character. Because Gavin has never verbalized his sexuality, viewers must rely on clues to decipher his sexual orientation. This is not a difficult task because the series gives quite obvious (and stereotypical) markers of Gavin’s sexuality.

Since the writers do not have Gavin specifically state that he is gay, the question becomes, how do we as viewers understand Gavin as a gay man? Dr. Morales speaks of his boyfriend on several occasions, but Gavin is more of a mystery. How do we know that he is, in fact, gay at all? If one did not read news stories about Pellegrino joining the cast and the introduction of his character, how would we even know? Do we all know a gay person when we see one? Of course not. We may think we do, but really we don’t. More often than not we draw these conclusions based on assumptions that derive from stereotypes about gay people and gender assumptions.

When I say that we rely on stereotypes I mean that we associate certain behaviors, attributes, and characteristics with different genders, like women like to shop and men like their tools (very simplistic, I know). Women and men act (or perform) their gender through how they dress, how they walk, how they converse with others, and so on. These gendered ways of living become expectations for those in the gender group and lead to assumptions about those who present as one gender or another. For lesbians and gay men, the assumptions are reversed. For example, one assumption—albeit a stereotype—about gay men is that they’re feminine. Because we rely on stereotypes to inform our opinions of others, especially groups in which we do not belong, we begin to expect members of this group to behave in the way we assume.

For television and film, we rely on writers to tell us who these people are, and we rely on actors to embody them and to make their experiences believable and relatable. As socialized creatures in an increasingly visual culture we have learned how to read people and to read characters. It’s become second nature that we don’t even realize we’re doing it. We learn at a young age how to differentiate between genders, races, and ages. Granted, this is becoming increasingly more difficult and complicated, but we still do it.

Gavin

Viewers first meet Gavin in the episode “Home Improvement” when Brenda and her husband, Fritz, meet him for a consultation. Gavin presents as a confident, no-nonsense lawyer with a great knack for interior office design (see hand sculpture). His charm and wit are as attractive as his tailored suits. Pellegrino provides the character with deliberate hand gestures and feminine mannerisms along with a slow and snarky speech pattern.

Thus far, Gavin performs stereotypical gay male cues that are so recognizable that they’ve become cliché. It’s almost like they’re saying “We don’t need to tell you that he’s gay because it’s written all over him!”

After a tense yet humorous exchange among the characters about Gavin’s $10/minute fee and $25,000 retainer, Brenda and Fritz rush out of the office with Brenda angrily quipping to Fritz, “Gavin Q. Baker. The “Q” stands for quick!” Although I usually like double entendres, this one is quite puzzling because of its potentially derogatory insinuation. (“Q” as in “quick” OR “Q” as in “queer?”)

Interestingly, there is a concerted effort to physically create this character. Greg La Voi, the series’ costume designer describes, in detail, on his Fashion File blog the inspirations for Gavin’s attire and accessories, such as his signature brooches, diamond pinky rings, and fashionable scarves (as suggested by Duff). La Voi does put a significant amount of work in each of The Closer characters, but Gavin is of particular interest here in that his dress marks a sense of femininity.

As much as I like Gavin I can’t help but be critical of this portrayal. My skepticism about the progressive nature of this character grew larger after the episode “Star Turn” in which a popular teen idol’s (obviously inspired by Miley Cyrus) father dies. The teen pop star’s hit song “Daddy, Say Yes” rises in the charts after her father’s death. Gavin stops by Brenda’s precinct for a visit and fawns over the case:

Gavin: Oh, wait, wait, wait. You’re still working on that case? [singing] Daddy, say yes!

Brenda: Yes.

Gavin: [excitedly] Oh my God. Is that not the worst video ever? I’ve watched it fifty times.

Sigh. A gay man giddy over a teen pop star is so stereotypical that I don’t even know why they did it.

Let’s recap, how do we know Gavin is gay? He uses feminine hand gestures. Check. Sometimes he wears traditionally feminine accessories. Check. He likes teen pop stars. Check. Said that he’s gay? Don’t recall. If a gay man equals an effeminate man than how are we progressing in our understandings of gender and sexuality? This is not to say that effeminate gay men do not exist or that effeminate gay men on screen (and in real life should) “tone it down.” What I am essentially critiquing are associations: the automatic association between gender performance and sexual orientation.

Maybe we’ve evolved as viewers. Do we not need clues anymore? Maybe LGBT people have been fully accepted into U.S. society? Are big announcements such as Ellen DeGeneres’ no longer necessary? On the other hand, are small clues enough? Is it possible to be too subtle?

We all want to come to a place in which a person’s sexual orientation (and gender, race, class, nationality, age, ability, etc.), does not determine their status in society. However, what clues have we grown comfortable with that might actually prevent us from reaching our goal?

Those in the dominant group are often comfortable with these types of characters because they fit the box. We like the box. The box is our safe place. We know what is in the box and the box does not talk back. But when marginalized group members do not fit, we question their authenticity (e.g. “You don’t look gay? Are you sure you’re gay?”). What if a gay person doesn’t fall into a stereotype and never discloses? What do you do then as a viewer? Assume they’re straight? Hold assumptions?

Nevertheless, this characterization is compelling considering that Duff is gay and strongly advocates for LGBT visibility. Why would Duff introduce a character like Gavin that reinforces preconceived notions about gay men? This reminds me of the brouhaha about Will & Grace’s Jack McFarland, a character heavily criticized for his flamboyancy, but interestingly, portrayed by gay male actor, Sean Hayes. Some gay men might be annoyed with yet another feminine-performing gay male on television while others may find empowerment and positive visibility in a character like Gavin. Who knows! Representations of marginalized groups are always a double-edged sword. Everyone wants to be depicted “accurately” and without prejudice or stereotypes, yet when attempts are made, there’s still criticism (like this article).

I began this essay with a strong criticism of Duff’s decision to create this character, but now I am actually quite intrigued about the possibility of queer characters on television that never say they’re queer.

As the final 6 episodes of the series premieres in July, we will see more of Gavin as Brenda’s legal troubles continue. I wait with excitement to see how The Closer says goodbye to its lovely gay lawyer.

———-

Ashley Boyd has an MA in Women’s Studies. Her thesis focused on the representations of reproductive justice, race, and violence in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series. Currently unemployed, Ashley spends most of her time applying for jobs, watching television, reading, and writing. She is currently working on publishing chapters of her thesis and landing that dream job!

LGBTQI Week: Why You Should Love ‘FlashForward’s’ Janis Hawk

This is a guest review by TJ Murphy.

When considering the finest LGBTQ representation in television, the short-lived science fiction television series FlashForward may not be at the top of your mental list.

The 2009 ABC show—about a mysterious event that causes the entire planet to black out for two minutes and seventeen seconds (exactly), during which each person on Earth experiences a “flash-forward” into his or her life six months into the future—lasted for only one season. The cancellation was perhaps warranted due to the extreme overacting of lead Joseph Fiennes (no doubt better suited for roles like Shakespeare in the lauded Shakespeare in Love) and the contrary “blahness” of his co-lead John Cho.

However, the show’s premise of getting a glimpse into one’s future provided a gamut of philosophical conundrums concerning free will—whether or not we have any—that charmed the pants of this philosophy major’s heart. If those quandaries would not suffice to make you all hot and heavy though, I have five magic words for why you should find and watch this one-season show: FBI Special Agent Janis Hawk.

Janis is introduced to the show as a member of the L.A.-based FBI team (led by lead character Mark Benford, played by the histrionic Fiennes) that will strive to solve the mystery of the flash-forward. She wears navy power suits, speaks in a gravely, sarcastic tone, and is, in her own words, “super gay.” Thank you baby Jesus!

Now let’s get this straight. She is (*sob* was) an out lesbian character on a major television network whose sexuality has nothing to do with the show’s premise and little to do with the character’s personality and interaction with her coworkers. She is a strong, female character who happens to like the ladies, much to the dismay of some poor shmuck who asks her out at karate practice. Instead, she leaves with this woman, the alluring Maya:

You know what? Let’s take a little YouTube break. (This clip will kick your ass, wine-and-dine you and then make you breakfast). Oh, I forgot the last minute of it! It will also make your heart sad.

The fabulous Christine Woods as Janis Hawk is only an auxiliary character; a B story to the show, and her love life is only a B story to her B story, if you will. The fact that Janis’ romance has the emotional turmoil to guide us from first-date jitters to steamy sexual tension and then on to disappointment and abandonment in such a short span of screen time is a testament to the character’s strength.

Indeed, Janis Hawk is not a fabulous character because she is a lesbian and that lends her some sort of diversity credential. She is a fabulous character because she is a layered one. In her fast-forward, she sees herself as pregnant, getting a sonogram, enamored with love for her unborn child. This startles her because 1) she has never wanted a child and 2) in order to have a child, it would seem that there would need to be a penis involved and she remarks dryly, “I don’t like them.”

(Her “I don’t like them”—best delivery of a line… ever).

The fact that Janet broke up with Maya when Maya suggested that Janet’s future baby is theirs is a wonderful example of character complexity. Maya is overeager to make a family with Janet and Janet is understandably protective of her possible future pregnancy. She tells Maya, “This isn’t a me-you thing, Maya, this is a me thing.” She makes clear that her pregnancy would be just that, hers, and that Maya has no right to put claims over it. Feeling pressured and exposed, Janet ends it. What’s left from the brief relationship? Two characters—neither the villain nor the hero, no savior nor saved. These are the pieces left in a broken relationship, whether it be a straight or LGBTQ one, and when film or television manages to mirror reality like this, it is doing something very, very right.

When a run-in with some bad guys leaves Janet with a bullet wound in her stomach and a very rare chance of being able to conceive, Janet faces true heartbreak for the first time. She copes with feelings of failure, inadequacy and hopelessness stemming from the sickening feeling of recognizing her own desire to be a mother too late.

She also probably ruined her olive suit. (It matched my eyes and everything).

On a more frivolous note, the character of Janis wears this silver ring on her thumb—the very same thumb that she uses to draw Maya closer and sink them both into the ephemeral bliss of a kitchen kiss.

That flash of silver just gets me every time.

However, if getting to pretend that you’re dating this bundle of FBI-agent strength, sarcasm and flashing smile–

–is not enough motivation for you to watch the show, let’s remind ourselves of our little secret. Remember that Janis’ romance is a B story to her own B story within the show. There are many other complex and fascinating characters, including the male doctor she spoke with who is diagnosed with cancer yet sees a future with a beautiful Japanese woman and a haggard father who sees, in his vision, the daughter killed in action in Afghanistan alive and well six months later.

Moreover, as stated, Janis’ own story is far more complex than her romantic life and sexuality—as any well-rounded character should be, especially any LGBTQ character whose broadcast might stretch the minds of bigoted people.

At this point, I would like to warn you that there are a lot more surprises to the show that will keep you coming back for more, but if you hate any kind of spoilers, put your hands over your ears and sing “I Was Born This Way” right now. … Did I trick you? Instead, just don’t scroll down past this picture of a bunny in a knitted hat:

If Janis Hawk wasn’t already badass enough, she turns out to be…

A DOUBLE AGENT!!!!!!!!!

My case is closed. Love her, cherish her, cheer her on, and cry that this show only lasted a season so that we do not have more time with Janis Hawk.

———-

TJ Murphy is a rising senior at Dartmouth College studying philosophy and art history. She is now accepting any advice from anywhere as to what she should do for a living. She enjoys writing, bookstores, cappuccinos, and climbing trees and she is not usually bitter about cancelled television shows.

LGBTQI Week: The Problem with GLBT Representation in True Blood and Lost Girl

This is a guest post by Paul and Renee.

When it comes to GLBT representation in the media, unless a television show is targeted specifically at the community, erasure continues to be the norm. Urban fantasy has moved from a small die hard audience to the mainstream and though we can regularly see shows about vampires, werewolves, fae, and ghosts, there are few GLBT characters and a dearth of decent representation.

HBO’s True Blood and Showcase’s Lost Girl have the most visible GLBT characters on television in North America, in terms of the urban fantasy genre. Though both shows have GLBT characters who have extremely high profiles and a reputation of being extremely GLBT friendly, there are certainly many problematic elements.

True Blood is based on The Southern Vampire Series written by Charlaine Harris. In the novels, Lafayette is killed off quite early and is shamed for participating in a sex party. Thankfully, the character of Lafayette in True Blood has become a staple of the show. Despite being a fan favourite, Lafayette is a character that inarguably fulfills a lot of stereotypes that are aimed at same gender loving men of colour. Lafayette is a cook but he moonlights as a sex worker and a drug dealer. Though he is routinely given some of the best lines to say, he too often falls into the sassy best friend role.

Nelsan Ellis as Lafayette and Kevin Alejandro as Jesus in True Blood

In season three, we learned that Lafayette only started dealing V and doing sex work to pay for the hospitalisation of his mentally ill mother and though the reason is understandable, no other character on True Blood has been forced into this position though they are all working class.

If Lafayette is dogged by several stereotypes, Talbot revels in them. The lover of Russell Edgington (who is an awesome villain but also personifies the depraved, psychopathic homosexual trope), Talbot is a 700-year-old vampire who squeals at the sight of violence. He throws epic temper tantrums over the interior decorating. Someone stamp a rainbow on him and call his unicorn, he’s done. But to quickly fill his shoes we have Steve Newlin – get yourself another trope bingo card because he’s a) a gay man trying to force his attentions on a straight man b) a closeted homophobe, c) a closeted, bigoted preacher and d) getting campier by the episode – have you hit bingo yet? Bet you will by the end of the season, this was just 2 episodes!

The women aren’t free from stereotyping either; Tara finds her love for women and with it an interest in kick boxing – did she get some free dungerees and power tools with that?

I do have to say that not all the portrayals are stereotyped – Eddie subverts many (albeit he exists to serve and help Jason grow) and Jesus more – we don’t see enough about Pam and Nan to see what they fit. But except for Pam, they all fit one trope – GAY DEATH. Yes, there’s a drastic amount of “gay death” on this show. It’s a sad trope that GBLT people rarely live long on the television screen and their sexualty is often the cause of their deaths – and with Talbot (who actually died during gay sex! And to hurt his gay lover), Jesus (at the hands of his gay lover!), Eddie (found by his killers because he hired a gay prostitute), Sophie Ann and Nan were racking up the body count.

But, perhaps the most glaring flaw in True Blood is how the GBLT romances compare with the straight counterparts. True Blood is not a show that is shy about nudity or sex scenes – it is pretty unusual for episodes to go by without at least someone humping someone wearing very little. Eric, Sookie, Jason, Bill, Sam – we have seen them naked and going at it hammer and tongs. But Lafayette and Jesus? The contrast is blatant – even most of their kisses are in low light conditions. They go to bed wearing multiple layers of clothing (in Louisiana, no less) and their scenes together commonly have them sitting pretty far apart and lacking any real physical (or even emotional) intimacy. The emotional distance is very telling in what should be some of the most poignant scenes between them – when Jesus is grieving over his dead friend, when he is risking his life going into Marne’s shop, when Jesus emerges from that shop injured (Lafayette actually ran to hug Tara while Jesus bleeds); you’d expect some emotional angst here. But throughout season 4, you could have mistaken them for roommates, not lovers. This sanitisation is sadly prevalent with gay and bi male couples in television in general – their sex lives are considered more obscene than their straight counterparts, in need of censorship and “toning down.” True Blood’s straight explicitness makes this extremely blatant – with Lafayette and Jesus and even with Sam and Bill’s “Water in Arkansas” dream sequence (that cuts out just before a kiss). The closest we get to any explicit scenes is with Eric and Talbot – again with low light kissing, no nudity and, of course, saved for straight audiences by including the dreaded gay death.

We contrast that with the lesbian relationships and, if anything, we see a different story. But is this putting them on the same explicit level as the straight relationships or is it an attempt to pander to the straight male gaze? If anything, the scenes between women are more sexualised than between straight couples – not because they’re more explicit, but because they are less personal. Nan Flannigan and Pam both have sex (oral sex that doesn’t smudge their perfect make up, no less) with nameless, characterless women. The only actual relationship we have seen between two women is Tara and Naomi – and again, we saw them make out and have sex almost before we knew Naomi’s name. She appeared in exactly five episodes – and not for much of them at that – and in that time they were either having sex or fighting over Tara’s deception. She has now disappeared. Tara and Naomi’s relationship seemed to exist more to show sex and provide Tara with conflict than to be an actual relationship. All of these sex scenes feel even more gratuitous than the majority of the straight sex scenes because they add precious little to plot, story, development or any relationship – they’re there for the sake of the sex.

Rutina Wesley as Tara Thornton in True Blood

I love that True Blood goes out of its way to include so many GBLT characters – yet at the same time they make me cringe. Inclusion of many characters is great – but we shouldn’t be able to go through TV Tropes, ticking off the stereotypes, the tropes and the unfortunate prejudiced portrayals.

In Lost Girl, we move from having a GLBT character as a sidekick to the protagonist. Bo is a succubus – a being which takes life force from others through sexual contact. At first she is only interested in taking energy from evil doers because she has absolutely no control over her abilities. When she discovers that she is actually a member of the fae, and not some sinful freak, Bo begins a relationship with Dyson – a male werewolf. Vying for her attention is also the beautiful human doctor Lauren.

Essentially what develops is a love triangle and, as to be expected, it is far from simple. Bo has good chemistry with both Dyson and Lauren and in the end engages in sex with them separately. The problem then becomes a question of who does Bo really belong with. It is clear from the outset that though she cares very deeply for Lauren, her real love is Dyson. Dyson even goes as far as sacrificing the most important thing in his life – his love for her at the end of season one, in order to save Bo’s life. When they do have a break in their relationship, it is because he is temporarily unable to feel passion for her. It is during this period that Bo explores further possibilities with Lauren, which rather makes Lauren look like second choice.

Lauren is heavily attracted to Bo, but she is searching for a cure for her comatose girlfriend Nadia, who has been in stasis for five years. The first time that Lauren and Bo have sex, it is because Lauren has been ordered to do so by The Ash – the leader of the light fae. This amounts to sex through deception. Unfortunately, this isn’t the last time that sex between women happens at the behest of a man, which reads like cheap titillation. In a break from both Lauren and Dyson, Bo briefly dates the dark fae Ryan and he initiates a threesome, but what the camera focuses on is Bo’s interaction with the woman he procured. Clearly this was a sexual performance meant to please the straight male gaze.

The cast of Lost Girl

One of the most frustrating aspects of same sex love on Lost Girl is its treatment of the relationship between Nadia and Bo. After spending five years looking for cure for Nadia, Lauren is finally successful. However, after Nadia is infected by The Garuda, a few short episodes later, Lauren quickly assents to her desire to die. How are we to believe that Lauren held this faithful love for all of these years and then so quickly agreed that her partner should die? Nadia and Lauren’s feelings for her were determined disposable for the sake of furthering a love story which has clearly already been decided.

Even when Bo learns to control her desire to drain life energy during sex, there are still only two instances of sex between her and Lauren, which pales to the numerous times that Bo engaged in sex with Dyson. Lauren is the fragile human that Bo can potentially hurt, whereas Dyson literally represents everything that is good in terms of protection, strength and healing.

This of course places a premium on the heterosexual relationship over and above the gay one.

And this is perhaps the cornerstone of GBLT depictions in media in general – and certainly in these shows specifically – GBLT relationships are nearly always depicted as secondary to relationships of straight people. They can be there, but they have to take a back seat to the “real” relationships and depictions. Too often this backseat results in characters that are fraught with tropes and are frequently laden with stereotype after stereotype.

We’re happy, after so much erasure, that we’re actually seeing GBLT inclusion – and these programmes certainly do a lot right – but there’s still a lot dogging these characters.

———-

Paul and Renee blog and review at Fangs for the Fantasy. We’re great lovers of the genre and consume it in all its forms – but as marginalised people we also analyse critically through a social justice lens.

Guest Writer Wednesday: A Feminist Review of ‘Prometheus’

Noomi Rapace as Dr. Elizabeth Shaw in Prometheus

Guest post written by Rachel Redfern originally published at Not Another Wave. Cross-posted with permission.

The prequel and spinoff for the classic film Alien has as much feminist food as its precursor did, albeit slightly less groundbreaking, though we can’t fault it for that: Alien did give us the first female action hero in Sigourney Weaver’s portrayal of the irrepressible Ripley.

Prometheus is naturally larger in scale and far more reliant on special effects, a feature that while clichéd is expected in the current sci-fi action genre (not to be solely negative, the landscape was absolutely amazing and the cinematography superb, seriously, watch for some stunning views of Iceland’s Vatnajökull National Park, Hekla Volcano, and Detifoss Waterfall).

And while some of the scenes are admittedly, far more graphic and gratuitous than I think necessary (there is a simple purity to the original Alien death scenes that I think is lacking here), the film featured some thought provoking and disturbing themes, though all backed again by a strong, smart, female scientist-turned-reluctant heroine and survivor, similar to the original Ripley.

Charlize Theron as Vickers in Prometheus

The Swedish Noomi Rapace (seriously loving these Swedish actors) and South African Charlize Theron oppose each other brilliantly; Theron as the efficient and disdainful corporate heavy, Noomi as the resistant, believing, courageous scientist out to find some answers.

The film features a hefty score of themes for discussion, including one of the most disturbing abortion scenes I’ve ever seen. That scene is apparently what pushed the film up from a PG-13 rating into an R; if the studio had wanted to ensure a PG-13 rating, the MPAA demanded that they cut the entire scene. However, both director Ridley Scott and Rapace felt the scene was pivotal in Shaw’s intense desire to survive and in her emotional and mental development. If you weren’t pro-choice before, chances are you might be after witnessing this scene.

Perhaps notable as well is the fact that Shaw (the character who has the abortion) must physically fight to have one, forcing her to face the ordeal entirely alone. After the operation we see a general disdain for her decision (though perhaps a grudging respect for her will to survive). What stunned me about the whole situation was the entire lack of care and concern she received after it happened, the whole horrific event was entirely passed over without even a raised eyebrow in her direction as to her well being. She is even brutally hit in the abdomen by an unfeeling thug, an action I felt very deliberate in its exploitation of her recent scarring experience.

In a recent interview, Rapace discussed the scene, stating that the four of days of shooting were the most stressful of the entire film and that she started to have vicious nightmares of alien babies growing inside of her. On a personal note, I can well imagine such nightmares: the fear of losing control, of something taking you over without your will, of something using your body as it’s own instrument, it’s a powerful message about the state of the female body in our society and I found it profound and disconcerting.

Sexual imagery as well abounds in the film and, as has been said of the other Alien films, there is a substantial amount of phallic imagery and perhaps (we don’t want to project too much here) the male fear of rape as many men are violently violated and penetrated by a long, tubular, animal, which of course impregnates them.

An interesting theme that is present in this film, but not the other Alien films is a profoundly religious one, the death of our makers. On Prometheus the death of a parent is the agent of destruction as each main character deals with the abandonment and rejection they feel from their creation and of course, their ensuring resentment towards that creator. Even the mission of the ship is designed to find our own creators and discover why they have abandoned us and why we were created in the first place, if we were just to be left to our own devices. The title of the film then becomes remarkably fitting (as I’m sure was intentional) since Prometheus was a Greek who stole fire from the Gods to give to humans, an act that lead to the humans advancement and eventual independence from their creators. Prometheus was brutally punished for his disobedience and his compassion, destined to suffer for eternity, however that doesn’t stop the continued progression of humanity.

Similarly in the film, the ship and its inhabitants are obviously being punished for their own disobedience and for the overwhelming intention to survive and protect themselves from their own creator’s rejection and malevolence.

Even Michael Fassbender, who plays a Lawrence of Arabia fan and a Peter O’Toole lookalike, states, “We all want our parents dead,” indicating that even he, as a robot is unsatisfied with his creator’s image. In an odd twitch the themes of creation and destruction then becomes mutually inclusive and creation becomes more of an act of ability rather than an act of love. Why do we make something? “Because we could.”

Although disturbing, I found the religious and social themes to be thought provoking and feminist-friendly and I would easily recommend the film. Though I did cover my eyes like a small child during a few of the more intense jump scenes.

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

Is ‘Prometheus’ a Feminist Pro-Choice Metaphor?

Noomi Rapace (Dr. Elizabeth Shaw) in Prometheus

Warning: massive spoilers ahead!

A pseudo-prequel to Alien, Prometheus raises existential themes of religion, god, faith, science, creation, mythology and evolution. While these are all worthy topics, I’m much more interested in Prometheus’ treatment of its female characters and its commentary on reproduction. Is director Ridley Scott’s new film a pro-choice metaphor advocating reproductive justice?

I was ridiculously excited to see Prometheus. As I’ve shared before, Lt. Ellen Ripley was my icon growing up…as she was for many of us. And Scott admittedly loves showcasing strong, intelligent female leads.

Here the incredibly skilled Noomi Rapace plays the female protagonist Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, an archaeologist guided by her curiosity and buoyed by her religious faith. She and her colleague/partner Charlie Holloway discover caves with paintings signifying our creators or “Engineers” as they call them. When corporate Weyland Industries (a pre-cursor to Alien’s Weyland-Yutani) funds their expedition, they go in search of the beginning of humanity…with horrifying consequences.

The film is problematic with its weak dialogue and flimsy characters. Aside from Rapace’s Shaw and Idris Elba’s Janek (Stringer Bell cigar-smoking and playing an accordion?? Yes, please!), I seriously couldn’t give two shits who lived and who died, which is particularly annoying since Alien rested on the strength of its nuanced character development. But where the film captivates is in its exploration of reproduction.

Patriarchy perpetuates rape culture and infringes on reproductive rights. Alien centered on rape and men’s fear of female reproduction. Littered with vaginal-looking aliens and phallic xenomorphs violating victims orally, these themes resurface. But this time around, Scott’s latest endeavor also adds abortion and infertility. As ThinkProgress’ Alyssa Rosenberg asserts, Prometheus bolsters the Alien Saga’s themes of “exploration of bodily invasion and specifically women’s bodily autonomy.”

Holloway goes on a diatribe to Shaw about creation and meeting our creators. He says that everyone can create. Shaw responds, “Not me,” shedding tears as she laments her infertility, something rarely depicted on-screen. Their conversation seemed to comment on how society views women as broken and not fulfilling their ultimate purpose unless they give birth.

While Shaw doesn’t give birth, she does become pregnant.

When David the android (Michael Fassbender) obtains some of the mysterious “black goo” from the temple, he poisons Holloway by placing a drop in his drink. After Holloway and Shaw talk about creation and infertility, Shaw has sex with the infected Holloway.

After Holloway dies (torched by a flame-throwing-toting Vickers), David examines Shaw for any infection. He then tells her that she’s pregnant (say what??). She knows this is impossible because of her infertility. Even though she’s stunned by this revelation — because of its improbability and her infertility is a source of pain — Shaw wants it out of her immediately.

But David doesn’t want her to have an abortion, insisting she be put in stasis and trying to restrain her. Like Ash in Alien, it appears David had an agenda to try and keep the creature inside Shaw alive. David tries to thwart Shaw’s agency and bodily autonomy, forcing her to remain pregnant. Hmmm, sounds eerily similar to anti-choice Republicans with their invasive and oppressive legislation restricting abortion. No one has the right to tell someone what to do with their body.

After fighting her way past people, Shaw enters a medpod, a surgical “chamber,” which is only designed for male patients. Now before anyone says that the chamber was intended for secret passenger Weyland (a dude), it still subtly reinforces patriarchy nonetheless. Why couldn’t a medical chamber offer procedures for all genders rather than just defaulting its calibrations to male?

Undeterred, she programs the machine to remove a foreign object. She watches as her stomach is the mechanical arms remove the alien creature and then is stapled up. Hands down this was the most riveting scene (and squeamish…aside from that creepy eye scene), watching a terrified yet steely determined Shaw assert control over her body and her reproduction.

Now, not everyone agrees that Shaw was pregnant or that her procedure should be called an abortion. Some say yes, others argue no, and still others are unsure. Rosenberg asserts it’s not really an abortion as Shaw “isn’t pregnant but rather infected” and the surgery doesn’t result in “the termination of her pregnancy but a premature birth.” But Scott himself calls it a pregnancy.

For those who discount Shaw’s abortion because it’s a foreign object or not a traditional fetus, look at Breaking Dawn. Bella’s vampire/human fetus grew at a rapid rate, made her sick and almost destroyed her body. Yet she chose to keep it. My point is that Shaw could have as well. Instead, she chooses an abortion.

But whatever terminology you use — and I’m in the camp that calls it an abortion — you can’t ignore the abortion metaphor.

Rather than merely succumbing to the trappings of the Mystical Pregnancy Trope, which reduces women to their reproductive organs, we instead see a metaphor for patriarchal constraints trying to strip women of their reproductive rights and bodily autonomy.

Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (actor Noomi Rapace) after having abortion in Prometheus

But before I start jumping up and down that a summer blockbuster features an abortion, there’s a few probs here. The word abortion is never uttered. Nope, not once. Instead, it’s referenced as a “procedure.” When Shaw enters the medpod, she initially attempts to program a caesarean, again not an abortion.

Prometheus also suffers from some problematic gender depictions. While both Prometheus and Alien thrust their female leads into terrifying situations, Shaw and Ripley drastically differ, not only in their personalities and worldviews. But in the way the films treat them.

Alien possessed a strong feminist commentary on sexist patriarchy silencing women’s voices and attempting to objectify and violate their bodies. Unlike Ripley, both Shaw and the icy, seemingly villainous Vickers are sexualized. Both Shaw and Vickers are punished — Vickers by falling into the stereotypical trap of being a cold, selfish shrew and Shaw for her sexuality. Although I’ve got to point out that while Vickers was definitely selfish (not stopping to help a stumbling Shaw when outrunning the crashing ship), I think she made some smart decisions surrounded by an assload of people making idiotic ones. And um, I don’t blame her for not wanting an infected Holloway onboard (which Ripley also tried to do with Kane in Alien). Weyland also makes a sexist statement about inheritance and how David is the closest thing he has to a son, despite his flesh and blood daughter Vickers. It’s as if a daughter is meaningless to him.

Ripley wasn’t defined by her relationship to a man nor did she need a man to survive. But Shaw does…or at least an android taking the form of a man. Yes, she’s a resilient survivor. Although David makes a point to express his surprise at Shaw’s survival, saying he didn’t know she had it in her (ugh, cue bad pun). But aside from her self-induced abortion, Shaw ultimately must rely on others: the squidlike xenomorph extracted during her abortion to save her from a violent Engineer as well as David to escape the planet as he can fly the Engineers’ spacecraft. Although Shaw is the one who determines their course.

Perhaps these gender problems are meant as a commentary on the incessant sexism plaguing today’s society. Or maybe Ripley was such a quintessential feminist film icon that this film pales in comparison.

While it’s not as feminist as it could or should be, The Mary Sue’s Zev Chevat sums up what I liked most about Prometheus:

“Mixing in allusions to birth, the body as battleground, and a female character’s absolute will to regain control belong in this series as much as slimy extraterrestrials. It’s what the Alien films do well, and what Prometheus does best.”

Prometheus is an incredibly flawed film. But when reproductive justice faces a daily barrage of attacks, I have to applaud its efforts to depict its female protagonist not only choosing an abortion, but fighting for her right to exercise autonomy over her body. Especially when so few films and TV series do.

Motherhood in Film & Television: MOTHER

Mother (2009)

This is a guest post from Tatiana Christian.

This review contains some spoilers.

For the past few years, I’ve been slowly immersing myself in international cinema; specifically France, Korea and Japan. So when Bitch Flicks did a call for reviews on films about mothers, I immediately thought of MOTHER (also known as Madeo), a Korean film made in 2009, directed by Bong Joon-ho. Bong Joon-ho is also the mastermind behind another Korean classic, The Host. So naturally, I HAD to watch it, and writing a review for Bitch Flicks offered me the perfect opportunity!

Categorized as a drama, MOTHER centers about a mother, (who is played by Kim Hye-ja) who lives with her 27-year-old son, Do-joon (played by the luscious Won Bin) in the countryside. The film chronicles Hye-ja’s search, after her mentally challenged son is convicted of murdering a local girl, as she attempts to find the real killer.

As expected by the title, MOTHER focuses extensively on Hye-ja’s journey — in the opening of the film, we see her wander out into a field and start dancing. In the next scene, we watch as she’s chopping medicinal herbs, observing her son across the street as he plays with a dog. Her gaze never shifts from him, even as we’re being led to believe that she’s going to cut herself if she doesn’t pay attention.

When Do-joon is hit by a speeding Benz, his mother rushes out to see if he’s okay – even though he’s alright and doesn’t appear to have any bruises or scratches. Even when she’s having her cut treated, she’s obsessive about finding her son, and making sure that he’s okay. And this type of concern is portrayed through the film; such as in the scene where he’s peeing outside and she holds the bowl for him to drink his medicine. This particular scene struck me as rather intimate, as she stares down at his penis for a moment or two before encouraging him.

I found this relevant because in a later scene when Do-joon comes home intoxicated, he crawls into bed with his mother (presumably the only bed in their small apartment), and immediately rests his hand on her breast. She murmurs that it’s “too late” and eventually he withdraws his hand. MOTHER never delves much deeper into the potentiality of incest, and aside from another character teasing Do-joon by suggesting that they’re having sex – that’s it.

However, I can’t really suggest that their relationship is necessarily codependent, as Do-joon demonstrates his independence several times (such as telling his mother to go to sleep when she calls because he’s out late at the bar or confronting her when he remembers that she attempted to kill him as a child). Hye-ja is shown caring and worrying more about Do-joon than he does for her, and he seems not all concerned with the fact that he has confessed to a crime he didn’t commit.

MOTHER is driven more by Hye-ja’s desire to save her child, to protect him based on the belief that he is innocent. (Portrayed as a mentally challenged character, there’s an air of innocence — or general ignorance — to him. For example, when he’s taken to the crime scene and there is a crowd of spectators, he looks out to someone he knows, takes off his mask and begins to wave while smiling — seemingly oblivious to the severity of what‘s happening.)

So Hye-ja takes on the burden of caring; trying to locate a lawyer who will take on Do-joon’s case, trying to convince a police officer who is a family friend to investigate further, sneaking into Jin-tae’s (played by Ku Jin) cabin to search for clues, approaching the friend of the girl Je-Moon (played by Je-mun Yun) who has died, and so on. It’s all rather impressive actually, watching Hye-ja commit to discovering the real story behind the murder, and enlisting the help of Jin-tae (who proves invaluable in her quest) and having no qualms about getting involved, lying or impersonating someone.

Without giving away too much of the ending, she discovers who the real killer is and commits yet another crime in response to the truth she learns. At the end of the film, we see her taking a type of bus retreat with other mothers, and she’s the only person sitting as the others dance in the aisle. In her lap is her acupuncture kit, and she inserts a needle into her upper thigh in an effort to open her heart and let her emotions flow. Soon after she begins to dance with the other mothers, perhaps finally free. But this time, her dancing is more expressive, versus when we see her in the beginning of the film.

According to Horrornews.net: “She is absolutely riveting and roles like this, especially for women, are almost never found in American cinema.”

This quote ultimately summarizes my experience with MOTHER – a film about a mother willing to do whatever it takes to save her child. In many American films, mothers are often portrayed as deranged (such as the biopic Mommy Dearest) or some kind of superhero (based entirely on tropes) mom who does everything for everyone else but nothing for herself (such as I Don’t Know How She Does It, starring Sarah Jessica Parker).

In MOTHER, Hye-ja is a full-fledged character with both flaws and strengths; she’s unafraid, determined and single-minded in her purpose. In the film, we see her attend the wake of the murdered girl to insist that her son is innocent. Expectedly, the family violently confronts her, dragging her off the premises, while cursing both her and her son. In the very next scene, we see the mother has wandered into a nearby graveyard, looking into her compact and applying lipstick so that she can meet up with the lawyer who will help her son’s case.

MOTHER isn’t about the ideal or perfect depiction of a mother and her relationship with her children; MOTHER is about one individual in her search to save her son.

Tatiana loves watching foreign cinema, and thanks to Netflix, she’s definitely gotten to watch a bit more of it too! Currently, she’s the Marketing Director for Side B Mag (an awesome lit mag!), always on the search for literary magazines to submit to and has recently continued her self-study to help her become more proficient in French. Merci beaucoup!

Reproduction & Abortion Week: ‘American Horror Story’ Demonizes Abortion and Suffers from the Mystical Pregnancy Trope

Warning: if you have not watched all of American Horror Story Season 1, there are massive spoilers ahead!

American Horror Story co-creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk wanted to create a TV series that truly scared people. And they’ve definitely succeeded in their goal. But why the hell are they so afraid of abortion and women’s reproduction?

Inspired by The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby and The Shining, the creepy, eerie and phenomenally acted and well-written show follows the Harmons — cellist Vivien (Connie Britton), psychiatrist Ben (Dylan McDermott) and their daughter Violet (Taissa Farmiga) — as they move from Boston to Los Angeles to heal over past traumas of a stillbirth and infidelity. They move into an old haunted mansion in this “violent, erotically charged horror story about a troubled family.”

American Horror Storysucked me in immediately. Besides passing the Bechdel Test many times, strong, clever, interesting women abound. The performances by Connie Britton, Jessica Lange, Dylan McDermott, Frances Conroy and Taissa Farmiga are outstanding.

Britton, who co-headlines the first season, wanted Vivien “to be somebody that was accessible, somebody who was strong and not victim-y. Which is something that’s always really important to me, no matter what I’m playing.” Britton almost didn’t play Tami Taylor in the TV show of Friday Night Lights didn’t want to merely play a coach’s wife on a show “dominated by men” and have her character “fall into the background.” Murphy has called the bravura Constance (Jessica Lange) a “survivor” and according to Britton, he called Vivien “‘a heroic character’ and describes American Horror Story as a horror for women.”

A horror for women? Sounds promising. Ahhhh but not so fast! If the show is for women, why do we see women objectified, conflating sexualized images with rape, assault and violence. And why the hell is it obsessed with demonizing abortion and pregnancy??

In the series premiere, we first encounter Vivien in a gynecological exam (after a brutal stillbirth) and her doctor prescribes her hormones. Eco-friendly Vivien, who uses organic products and doesn’t like using anything synthetic, responds:

“I’m just trying to get control of my body again, especially after what happened.”

That line might just be the most prophetic in the series. The female characters’ bodies are continuously invaded, brutalized and dominated.

In the series premiere, Vivien is raped by the Rubber Man, thinking she’s having sex with Ben but who’s really ghost Tate. At the end of the episode, we learn Vivien’s pregnant…with twins…by two different fathers. It’s crystal clear that as soon as Vivien gets pregnant, she’s having a “mystical pregnancy” and will give birth to a demon baby. Vivien has a nightmare that she can see a hand (paw or claw??) moving underneath her swollen pregnant stomach. In “Open House,” the obstetrician tells Vivien and Ben that “every woman worries she’s got a little devil inside her.” We’re also told several times that one of Vivien’s twins is growing at an alarmingly rapid rate. Vivien eats cooked offal and later ravenously devours raw, bloody brains, paralleling the liver-eating scene in Rosemary’s Baby. Murphy attributes this to the baby having “demonic cravings.”Angie, the ultrasound technician, faints when conducting Vivien’s ultrasound. When she meets with Vivien later in a church, Angie tells her that she saw the devil on the sonogram, “the unclean thing, the plague of nations, the beast.”

As the fabulous Anita Sarkeesian at Feminist Frequency, in her outstanding “Tropes vs. Women” video series, writes:

“It’s common practice for Hollywood writers to have their female characters become pregnant at some point in their TV series. These story lines are almost always built around women who have their ovaries harvested by aliens or serve as human incubators for demon spawn – basically the characters are reduced to their biological functions.”

Sarkeesian goes on to quote Laura Shapiro who called the Mystical Pregnancy “a type of reproductive terrorism:”

“…It makes becoming pregnant seem disgusting, frightening and nightmarish…The problem from my point of view is that pregnancy and birth are natural processes that are being distorted into torture porn, ways of punishing women and exploiting their terror to up the dramatic stakes.”

After she learns of Vivien’s pregnancy, Hayden (Kate Mara), Ben’s student who he had an affair with (and who’s killed after she tells Ben she’s keeping their baby), becomes obsessed with stealing Vivien’s baby. And if one babystealer wasn’t enough, Constance and former house dwellers Nora (Lily Rabe) and Chad (Zachary Quinto) conspire to steal Vivien’s unborn baby too. Babysnatching! Cause that’s what all women and gay men do. Oh wait, that’s what all “crazy” women do…Wait, aren’t all women “crazy???” (The show’s treatment of mental illness is a topic for a WHOLE other post).

As each of these characters can’t procreate (Constance due to her age, Hayden and Nora as they’re dead, Chad a man…who’s now dead), they covet Vivien’s capacity for reproduction. They objectify Vivien, reducing her to a vessel, an incubator for the baby these characters so desperately yearn to possess.

Vivien’s pregnancy is in many ways the crux of the show. Even on the poster, a pregnant Vivien arches her back seductively as the Rubber Man hovers above with outstretched hands, as if waiting to pluck the baby from her womb.

In “Piggy Piggy,” Leah, Violet’s former bully, tells Violet the devil is real. She discloses information in the Book of Revelations from the Bible:

“In heaven, there’s this woman in labor, howling in pain. There’s a red dragon with 7 heads, waiting so he can eat her baby. But the archangel Michael, he hurls the dragon down to earth. From that moment on, the red dragon hates the woman and declares war on her and all her children. That’s us.”

In “Spooky Little Girl,” medium Billie Dean tells Constance that a child conceived by a human and a ghost (Vivien and rapist Tate) would result in the antichrist and would bring about the apocalypse. In the penultimate episode, when Vivien gives birth, scenes flash between the horrific current situation of Vivien dying — a scene inspired by the film Demon Seed — and Vivien and Ben’s joyous delivery of Violet 16 years earlier. But Vivien dies in childbirth, giving birth to one baby who lives (and who’s a murderous sociopath) and one who dies.

In fact the entire season, from the first episode to the last, revolves around Vivien and her pregnancy who inevitably becomes the allegorical “Woman of the Apocalypse.” Hmmm, so we should all fear women because they could at any moment incite the end of the world.

According to American Horror Story, we shouldn’t just be terrorized by pregnancy. All aspects of reproduction should scare the shit out of us, including abortion.

In the title sequence for each episode, we see jars of aborted fetuses on the shelves in the basement –again fueling the fire of fear and disgust surrounding abortion. It feels like the messages implied here are “good” women don’t get abortions and abortions are gross and scary. Don’t believe me? Trust me, it gets reinforced over and over again. In fact, because of the macabre show’s obsession with abortion, Feminist Film renames it “American Abortion Story.”

Abortion is discussed throughout the series. Vivien and Constance (who says her “womb is cursed”) talk about abortion after Vivien worries something’s wrong with her baby. After the Harmons move to LA, Ben returns to Boston to accompany Hayden to get an abortion. We witness her emotional instability after Ben checks his phone (because you know, no one in their right mind would choose to get an abortion…eyeroll!). Then Hayden changes her mind and decides to keep the baby…which she never has since she’s murdered.

In the 3^rd episode, when Vivien takes the “Eternal Darkness” house tour,” she discovers the history of the Montgomerys and Charles’ “Frankenstein complex.” In 1922, surgeon Charles Montgomery and his socialite wife Nora lived in the house. When they need more money to pay their bills, Nora arranges for Charles to perform illegal abortions on young women.

The “Eternally Damned” tour guide also condemns the Montgomerys’ performing abortions: “But the souls of the little ones must have weighed heavy upon them as their reign of terror climaxed in the shocking finale in 1926.” Reign of terror? Is that what you call abortions?? At first I thought I must have missed something…perhaps the girls were being murdered. But nope. The abortions are the “reign of terror.” Lovely.

As Tami at What Tami Said astutely points out, the inception of the house’s evil, its pull in harboring pain, despair and tortured souls, all stems from one person: an abortionist. Oh and to hammer home the point that abortion equates to evil, the episode is entitled “Murder House.”

In another episode, we learn in a flashback that one of the women’s boyfriends, angered by her abortion, kidnaps Nora and Charles’ baby Thaddeus and murders him. Charles “reconstructs” Thaddeus (aka the “infantata”) with the baby’s body parts, animal parts and the heart of one of the aborted fetuses. Nora tells Charles she tried to breastfeed him but it wasn’t milk the baby was craving. We witness bloody claw marks above her breasts. Nora goes on to say:

“We’re damned Charles because of what we did to those girls, those poor innocent girls and their babies.”

So basically Murphy and Falchuk are saying, “Fuck you, reproductive justice!”

Think Progress’ Alyssa Rosenbergfinds American Horror Story “seems to suggest that the end of a pregnancy before term, whether by miscarriage, abortion, or murder, is the ultimate expression of evil. Abortion Gang’s Sophia rightfully condemns the series as an “abortion horror story” and “anti-choice propaganda at its worst.” Tami at What Tami Said criticizes the series for its “conservative and anti-choice messages” including “doctors who perform abortions are bad;” “women who receive abortions are promiscuous and selfish, therefore bad;” “abortion = murdering babies.”

By portraying Charles and Nora as greedy, preying on young girls reinforces the notion that all abortion providers are greedy, evil predators. And American Horror Storyisn’t telling us that illegal, back-alley abortions are bad. No, it’s telling us ALL abortions are bad.

The most terrifying aspect of American Horror Story isn’t the shocking gore or gasping plot twists. When our reproductive rights face a daily barrage of attacks, it’s frightening that the series so blatantly perpetuates myths surrounding the fear, stigma and shame of abortion and pregnancy. Reducing women to their reproductive organs, we’re told women’s sexuality and reproduction should scare us and as a result, women’s bodies should be punished and controlled. I’m getting so fucking sick and tired of ignoring sexism, misogyny and anti-choice bullshit just to watch TV.

Oscar Best Picture Nominee: An Oscar for Oskar? ‘Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,’ the Surprise Nominee

Thomas (Tom Hanks) and Oskar (Thomas Horn)

This is a guest post from Jennifer Kiefer.

Potential viewer beware: the trailer for this film is awful. Terrible. Even worse than Alexander’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. But that’s because this film deals with, as young Oskar dubs it, “the worst day.” When I first saw the trailer, I hated it. I thought it would be an overblown, sentimentalization of 9/11. But it was way above that. (For the record, I hated the trailer, loved the book and film.) Even so, it would be immensely difficult for anyone to make a two-minute-or-less trailer of any film including the events of 9/11, because to not disclose that the event is involved would be to hoodwink and outrage viewers when they discovered this upon viewing the film, but to include it in such a short duration automatically leaves the impression of emotional warfare. Even the tagline is horrible, perhaps a desperate attempt to grab the potential viewer by the collar and shout, “Don’t you see! This film is not about September 11! It’s about every day after!”

A better tagline: “A boy’s search for his father.” Even: “Based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer.”

Of course, any piece of art (perhaps excluding documentaries) more than mentioning 9/11 will endure endless criticism, regardless of the usage or the piece’s merit, and this film is no exception. As opposed to a film like Remember Me, which uses the event really as a surprise ending—sorry if I spoiled that incredible film for you—Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is, as the tagline pleads with you to believe, not necessarily a story about the events of the worst day. Yes, Oskar’s dad dies in the World Trade Centers. Yes, they show the buildings, but ninety percent of that is actual footage shown on television screens, and never once do they show a plane tearing into the building. In fact, the most exploitative thing about the movie’s portrayal is hazy shots of a man falling from the building, and only then because Oskar wonders whether that could have been his own father. “The other kids probably see their dads, too,” he says.

Thomas Horn as Oskar

EL&IC is about Oskar’s journey to deal with his father’s death, to analyze the artifacts, to constantly question why or how someone could or would kill thousands of people he did not even know, but also about Oskar’s connection to the people of New York City as he searches for the missing lock which fits the key Oskar found in his father’s closet a year later. For a young boy who possibly has Asberger’s (“The tests were undetermined,” Oskar says), his father was his best friend. They look in the New York Times for mistakes together, they practice karate techniques and have oxymoron wars in the living room. His father created “Reconnaissance Missions,” which forced Oskar to talk to other people, which he says is hard for him to do. In the tragedy of his father’s death, he creates his own reconnaissance mission, even larger than anything his father could have imagined, proving that even in tragedy there is community.

Perhaps Oskar’s precociousness (some argue over-precociousness) and grieving sentimentalized his father’s death—the film can be very emotional in this young man’s personal tragedy (played beautifully by Thomas Horn, but more on that later), but it is also humorous and honest. But why shouldn’t a smart, questioning nine-year-old boy be sentimental, even overly so, about his father’s premature, sudden death? Any death of a parent at that age would be devastating, even a year or two afterwards. The film is most moving and honest in the scenes where Oskar remembers or simply misses his father, resulting in fear, explosive anger, and solitude.

But still, some people have called this the “worst movie ever.” First, that’s not possible because films like Absence of Malice and Open Water exist. Second, I would be surprised if these opinions were based on more evidence than “the film is about 9/11” (or “the kid’s demeanor annoyed me.”). It is such a recent wound for Americans that even a sensitive, well-made film such as EL&IC will invoke backlash and extreme criticism. It is surely a gutsy and risky topic.

Some have argued that the film would not be that changed had Oskar’s father died in another way, say an automobile accident. Sure, the story would still be honest and heart-wrenching and beautiful, but it wouldn’t be as meaningful. Here’s where I go English Major on you.

Oskar is constantly trying to make sense of this tragedy and his father’s death. One of the most moving and emotional scenes pits Oskar against his still-living mother, crashing the kitchen, yelling for her to make sense of it. But she cannot, and he tells her, “I wish it had been you.”

Oskar and his mother, Linda (Sandra Bullock)

The tragedy of 9/11 holds much more meaning and complexity than an accident. What would it have shown about the human condition if his father died in a crash? Shit happens? Humans are really bad drivers? Bad luck? Oskar is conflicted, because the events of the worst day seem to prove that people are horrifying and everything is an unsafe target, yet in his search for the lock, his only clue being an envelope labeled “Black,” he finds that people can also be generous and surprising. Even though a very, extremely tragic event, 9/11 did unite the residents of NYC. Oskar similarly connects with this city a year later in his search, emphasizing once again that tragedy breeds community. Everyone Oskar meets, as he says, “has all lost someone,” sometimes sharing Oskar’s tragedy and sometimes not.

Oskar’s father wasn’t a regular worker in the World Trade Center—he was a jeweler who had a meeting at a popular coffee shop there on a higher floor for the view. Rather than being “emotional warfare,” (a term I have tossed in before) this serves to prove how the worst day affected everyone and anyone.

Not as much discussed in the film, the Renter, an unspeaking man living with Oskar’s grandmother, is a survivor of the Dresden bombings. The juxtaposition of both atrocious events confirms the inevitability of war and the violence of human nature, both events being essentially “pointless” in that both incidents killed innocent civilians for political purposes. What was that about a car accident being the same?

And simply plot-wise, other types of death would have made the artifact of the answering machine, with messages from his father on the worst day trying to reach someone at home, which Oskar replaces and hides, “Just like nothing ever happened,” more difficult, if not impossible, for Oskar to have.

This film is so gorged with symbolism (the food of English majors) that even each of Oskar’s little facts serves a deeper meaning—a story of a researcher who played recordings of dead elephants’ calls to relative elephants who recognized the calls, the eight minutes of light that would remain on Earth even if the sun went out, ad nauseum. I didn’t even attempt to process the symbolism of the name Black in the midst of everything else.

The Renter (Max von Sydow) and Oskar

I promised you early on that this film incorporates humor. Jonathan Safran Foer is a pro at quirk, wherein some of the humor lies, though genuine. In his first novel, Everything is Illuminated, the main character is named Jonathan Safran Foer. The first and many chapters of the book are written in a broken translation of English by Alex, both funny and poignant. The driver believes he is blind. The novel EL&IC includes photographs, blank pages, pages with one sentence, pages blacked out from overwriting, and a flipbook in the back. The character of the Renter is typical of Foer’s signature quirk (can you have a signature on your second novel?)—he is a survivor of tragedy who has lost his words and cannot speak. He writes everything down in a daybook and even has “yes” and “no” tattooed on his palms.

Max von Sydow, as the Renter, has great comedic timing in his nonspeaking role. The people Oskar meets, his interactions with his father, the brief lies Oskar counts (“Why aren’t you in school?” “They said I know too much already.”) all produce genuine laughter, even after moments of potential, authentic tears. (Was it Vonnegut who said that laughter is a response to overwhelming tragedy in an essay about his own experiences in Dresden?)

Thomas Horn, in his first-ever role, carries the film with wonderful wit and beautiful pathos. Subtleties make his performance—his expressions during unspoken moments, his over-enunciation even when speed-talking (a quality of his possible Asberger’s?), the fear in his eyes as he rides the subway (an easy target in his eyes). The panic in his demeanor as he decides whether or not to cross a bridge. Sticking his key absently into stray locks at the locksmith shop. His performance is so good I was honestly surprised that this was his first role—Oskar is a complex, emotional, challenging character, and would be a difficult feat for any actor. Horn is honest and pretty amazing throughout, particularly convincing in the most affecting, most difficult scenes—pinching himself to cause bruises because he feels guilty, screaming because he has lost his father and cannot understand why, telling his mother that he wishes she had been the one to die. Though he was not nominated for Best Actor (why don’t they have a Breakthrough or Best Young Actor award?), his performance surely landed the film its nomination for Best Picture, which could not have been fueled solely by Max von Sydow.

Oskar and The Renter

So, will it win the Oscar? Probably not, though for my money it deserves it, and the Academy did previously award the also-controversial Crash. It would be a tremendously exciting surprise, but don’t bet your house on it. Max von Sydow has a chance, perhaps based on his age—Alan Arkin said after his win for Little Miss Sunshine that he thought it was because he was getting older (though both are great performances).

If none of this has convinced you, if for no other reason, you should rest assured that this is a beautiful, premium film because my father, who is notorious for falling asleep in the darkness of the theater, stayed awake for the entire film during at 9:55 PM showing.

Jennifer Kiefer holds a BA in Creative Writing from Western Kentucky University. She currently resides in Louisville, Kentucky where she is using her former movie theater employee discount and waiting to hear back from graduate programs.

Oscar Best Actress Nominee: Rooney Mara in ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is up for four Academy Awards in addition to Rooney Mara’s nomination for her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander: Cinematography, Film Editing, Sound Mixing, and Sound Editing. It has received numerous other awards and nominations.

This piece, by Megan Kearns, first appeared at Bitch Flicks on January 10, 2012.

Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Lisbeth Salander consumes my thoughts. I’ve spent the last year and a half reading, writing, analyzing, debating and discussing the punk hacker. As a huge fan of the books and the original Swedish films, I was NOT excited to see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Hollywood remake.

Plagued by sexist marketing that seemed to focus solely on Mikael and depict Lisbeth as a sexpot damsel in distress, I feared Hollywood would wreck one of the most unique female protagonists in pop culture. With trepidation, I watched David Fincher’s take on Stieg Larsson’s epic. While some gender problems arose, I’ve got to admit I was pleasantly surprised. And it all hinges on Rooney Mara’s performance.

For those who don’t know, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the first part in the global phenomenon of The Millennium Trilogy, features disgraced crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) and brilliant researcher Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) who unite to solve the mystery of a woman who disappeared 40 years ago. The gritty, tense plot fuses with social commentary on violence against women, sexuality and gender roles.

Do we really need an American remake? Fincher, a notoriously obsessive and detailed filmmaker, creates a gorgeous film evoking a macabre ambiance. Trent Reznor’s eerie and haunting score punctuates each slickly stylized scene perfectly. Phenomenal actors fill the screen: Craig, Robin Wright (who I will watch in absolutely anything), Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgaard, Vanessa Redgrave. While everyone does their best, the remake isn’t quite as compelling as the original. I never really felt invested in any of the characters. Except for Lisbeth. The sole reason to see the film is Mara’s stellar portrayal.

Click here to read the full piece.