Objectification of Women

The Problems with Disney’s ‘Pocahontas’

In ‘Pocahontas,’ Disney missed an important opportunity to represent Indigenous women in a relatable, empowering way, and instead focused on commodifying their culture for mass-market appeal. … Pocahontas’ life only became a story worth telling when a white man became involved. She only became a princess when a white man recognized her as royalty. She only became the center of a Disney movie because white men realized they could profit off of her myth.

This guest post written by Shannon Rose appears as part of our theme week on Indigenous Women.

For as long as I can remember, my brother who has autism and I have loved Disney movies, and they have given us a real way to connect and bond with each other over the years. Disney has had such a positive impact on my life and my relationship with my brother that it is difficult to look back and see how problematic the films are, especially with regards to Indigenous women. However, I have realized that it’s important to step back from our own attachments and examine the harm Disney has done by perpetuating damaging stereotypes. This, in turn, will help us fight for better representation in future animated films that will positively impact the next generation of Disney movie fans. In Pocahontas, Disney missed an important opportunity to represent Indigenous women in a relatable, empowering way, and instead focused on commodifying their culture for mass-market appeal.

Pocahontas is an animated romantic musical drama about a young Native American woman in the 17th century who falls in love with a colonizing European, John Smith, and saves his life, bringing temporary peace between the colonizers and the Indigenous people. I always assumed it was an overly embellished rendition of history, but it is actually a heavily romanticized version of John Smith’s account of the events. This is problematic because there is a long, fraught history of European storytelling that involves a colonizing white man being saved by an Indigenous woman, who then falls in love with him and becomes a Christian, which is suspiciously similar to Pocahontas’ tale. The Powhatan Nation criticized Pocahontas for perpetuating the trope of “the ‘good Indian,’ one who saved the life of a white man.” White men have been fascinated with “civilizing” gorgeous Indigenous women, and John Smith’s story is only one of the many that have been perpetuated. Knowing this changes the context of the film. It’s no longer a story of a woman who falls in love with a seemingly unattainable man, but rather the delusions of a white colonizer who dreams of a beautiful Indigenous woman wanting to give up her life among “savages” to become a proper “civilized” European, aiding him in his desire to spread white civilization and power across the world.

Disney sells the film as having a female protagonist, but since the source material originated from a white man’s point of view, she lacks the agency to guide the story. Pocahontas is immediately “othered” as a mystical creature deeply in touch with nature, and not a complex human being. She communicates with animals, she can leap from great heights, she asks advice from a tree, and the wind leads her along her journey. All of these magical touches create distance between her and the audience. More importantly, it creates distance between Native Americans and how they are represented on-screen. When Disney made Pocahontas and her culture otherworldly, they erased the humanity of Indigenous people.

The audience is introduced to John Smith as an English man who has traveled all over the world, and has proudly killed many Indigenous people in order to spread his idea of “civilization.” “You can’t fight Indians without John Smith!” a fellow shipmate says. “That’s right, I’m not about to let you guys have all the fun!” Smith elatedly responds. Here is a man who has never hesitated to kill Indigenous people before, but when he finds Pocahontas at the end of the barrel of his gun, he suddenly has a change of heart. He doesn’t stop because she’s a woman; he stops because she is stunning. Her body is worth more to him alive than dead.

Another magical element that does more harm than good is the way Pocahontas immediately learns how to speak English, to the shock and delight of both her animal friends and Smith. Off the hook, Smith now has no need to learn her language because Pocahontas adjusts herself to accommodate his needs. The language barrier that exists between cultures has always required give and take from both sides; it makes us better communicators and strengthens our ability to understand each other in a deeper, more meaningful way. By forgoing that struggle, the white colonizer is accommodated and their white supremacist beliefs are sustained.

Part of the problem with Pocahontas is how it teaches young Indigenous girls that their worth is dependent on the men in their lives. To be seen as a princess, as royalty, they must be willing to risk their lives to defend white men and turn away from their own culture. While Pocahontas is portrayed as a heroine, did she ever have a choice? Would her story ever have been told if she had let Smith die, if she had chosen her family over him? She would have been erased from history, as far too many Indigenous women have been. Pocahontas’ life only became a story worth telling when a white man became involved. She only became a princess when a white man recognized her as royalty. She only became the center of a Disney movie because white men realized they could profit off of her myth.

Disney exacerbated the erroneous long-held belief that Indigenous women welcomed Europeans and their culture to America, erasing the history of racism, colonialism, and genocide against Indigenous peoples. Disney went one step further, however, and commodified Native Americans and their culture in ways we have not been able to recover from. In early 1995, months before the movie was released, Disney spent millions marketing the film. Pocahontas Barbie dolls, Payless Shoes moccasins, and Halloween costumes can still be found today, twenty years later, giving white girls permission to appropriate Native American culture and treat race and culture as costumes. Because Disney made Pocahontas an American “Princess,” many non-Native people assumed her as one of their own. Thus, we now can claim a shared American heritage, and not have to think twice before appropriating her culture. Many of us have long struggled with our place in the U.S.’s violent and troubled history but Disney single-handedly made cultural appropriation “okay” for an entire generation of children in order to sell merchandise.

It is hard to accept that something we love is deeply flawed because their flaws reflect back on us. It’s much easier to brush those criticisms off and push it to the back of your mind. It’s important to know, though, that you can love something that is flawed (I’ve been singing “Just Around the River Bend” for a week now) and still push Disney and other filmmakers to not make the same mistakes again.

We need to amplify stories of Indigenous women, and give them the support they need to tell those stories and make them be heard to a larger audience. Indigenous women need to be writers and directors, not props in white people’s stories to make us feel better about colonizing their home. The true story of Pocahontas, where she was kidnapped and used as propaganda by the Virginia Company and whose real name was Matoaka, is tragic and should embarrass us non-Native people. It was never Disney material, but there are stories about Indigenous women out there that are. Disney just needs to look beyond source material created by white men.

Shannon Rose is a writer and director living in Los Angeles. She has her MFA in Film & Television from USC School of Cinematic Arts, and she is passionate about creating opportunities in film for diverse voices. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram @femmefocale.

‘The Neon Demon’: Objectification and Rape Culture

‘The Neon Demon’ brings to light the dual narcissism of our culture: the simultaneous, reciprocal reality created when consumers come into contact with images. The images exist so long as we look at them, and all Refn has done is reify our culture’s unhealthy obsession… I’m glad for ‘The Neon Demon,’ because it solidifies something that was already there: a hundred ornate mirrors reflecting back a society complicit in rape culture.

This guest post is written by Holly Thicknes.

[Trigger warning: discussion of rape and rape culture]

The Neon Demon threw up a lot of questions when it regurgitated Elle Fanning’s eyeball.

Yes, Nicolas Winding Refn made a surrealistic film about a 16 year old It-Girl model who gets slowly engulfed by the horrific monster that is the fashion industry via a bunch of envious flesh-eating model competitors. It’s the Donald Trump card of controversy at cinemas right now. But it also – pretty neatly, despite its gory appearance – epitomizes a society that is at once compelled and revolted by its need to consume.

Refn is obviously obsessed with women. He’s in awe of them. He thinks they’re intangibly beautiful. His entire filmic career can be seen as an expression of his distraction with how the female body differs from the male, and how that inspires violence. Jealousy, protectiveness, impotency: it’s all there in the scopophilic text of his films, skirting around the ankles of his uber-masculine figurines that dance perfect executions of violent, sexual acts.

It’s no wonder his latest film, a departure from the likes of Drive and Only God Forgives in that its central character is a woman, but in which his obsession shines through stronger than ever, has been deemed by many a gross, misogynistic ululation, or else pure unashamed spectacle. I can’t help but wonder if, had a heterosexual woman made a neo-porn movie detailing all of her perverse, beautiful desires, anyone would be eager to finance it. But I don’t begrudge Refn for making it, just as I don’t begrudge Hitchcock’s unapologetic spunking of his inner most fantasies on cinema’s walls. It’s not about limiting human creativity, censoring what could be deemed a negative influence or pointing the finger at what someone truly feels.

The Neon Demon brings to light the dual narcissism of our culture: the simultaneous, reciprocal reality created when consumers come into contact with images. The images exist so long as we look at them, and all Refn has done is reify our culture’s unhealthy obsession – what he himself is unhealthily obsessed with.

I’m glad for The Neon Demon, because it solidifies something that was already there: a hundred ornate mirrors reflecting back a society complicit in rape culture.

Reducing someone to an object makes it easier to harm them. More than this — it incites violence. Rape culture is a culture that dehumanizes. It normalizes rape and abuse while simultaneously blaming rape and sexual assault victims/survivors for their actions and behaviors.

This is embedded in the fabric of The Neon Demon. It sets up a gorgeously glowing, electronically scored, Americana world in which beauty “isn’t everything – it’s the only thing,” and women strive to mold themselves into non-human visions. The predatory danger of this nightmarish place, which young Jesse (Elle Fanning) is so keen to be part of, is crucial to the first part of the film, in which Keanu Reeves plays a rapist motel owner by the name of Hank, preying on young disenfranchised girls who are forced to live there. As Jesse presses her ear to the wall of her room and listens to the 13-year-old girls being raped next door with tears streaming down her face, the margins of her power close tightly around her. She is reduced to nothing but a porcelain doll – her beauty and youth her only bargaining tools of worth.

But, alas, every effort the first half of the film makes to incredulously depict moments of degradation and objectification – so promisingly linked directly to rape in the above scene — melts into nothing. It is disappointingly superseded by what it sees, like a magpie destined to be drawn from one shiny artifact to the next. Refn gets entirely distracted by the surface of the movie, pushing the mesmerizing spectacle to its all-consuming limit and in doing so, dissolving all of its efforts towards saying something interesting, memorable and, crucially, progressive.

Perhaps it is enough to address the link between objectification and rape at all, and Refn’s second-act descent into style obsession — there are some painfully drawn-out shots of pure fantasy indulgence — only reiterates his pointing out how far our image illness has gone. But somehow, I don’t think so. I feel it has the effect of switching off swaths of audiences who find themselves in the middle of one of Refn’s wet dreams. The film negates its previous commentary by becoming hypnotized by its own evil.

We cannot blame Refn for articulating an ugly truth. We are all complicit in our culture. If the eyeball-eating scene is the only one that survives The Neon Demon, let it be not for its shock factor, but because it fills us with as much disgust as do rape culture and our own mass consumption of women’s bodies.

Holly Thicknes is a freelance film critic and editor of female-focused film blog Girls On Film. She lives and works in London, studies printmaking, and helps organize themed short film events for Shorts On Tap. She is particularly interested in the ways in which films help people carve out spaces for themselves in an increasingly lonely society. You can follow Girls On Film on Twitter @girlsonfilmLDN.

‘Anomalisa’ and the (Fe)Male Gaze

Charlie Kaufman draws on an emotional darkness that is deeply human – something that every person can relate to in some way, big or small, regardless of gender or age. Which is why it’s frustrating to see in ‘Anomalisa’ – like in so many movies before it – the sense of hope come in the form of a woman, an object of romance for a man. … To put it bluntly, I’m sick of movies in which sad men think they can be saved by their idea of a woman.

This guest post written by Sarah Halle Corey previously appeared at REELYDOPE and is cross-posted with permission.

I watched Anomalisa in a room filled with middle-aged men. It was not a movie meant for me, and I knew that going in.

Charlie Kaufman, the writer and co-director of the film, is the king of emotionally damaged men in indie film, from lovesick Joel in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to self-loathing (and semi-autobiographical) Charlie in Adaptation. He creates brooding, self-centered white men who struggle to find meaning in their existences. Michael, the main character of Anomalisa, is no different. He’s a self-help author who doesn’t know how to help himself. Everyone in his world looks and sounds exactly the same, and so he doesn’t know how to connect to other people or to any sense of meaning in his life. He’s trapped by his own weaknesses, especially his own depression and disillusionment. And he’s a middle-aged white man.

The middle-aged men in my movie theater audience ate it all up.

But the thing is, I did too… at least a little. If I didn’t fully eat it up, I took some pretty hefty bites. I, a 22-year-old woman with a big, bubbly smile relate to Anomalisa. What does that say about me? What does it say about the movie?

Roger Ebert famously said, “The movies are like a machine that generates empathy.” Kaufman and co-director Duke Johnson pretty brilliantly demonstrate Ebert’s idea by fully immersing the audience in Michael’s world. We see the same identically blank faces as Michael, and we hear the same single one-tone voice. The drab colors and claustrophobic hotel setting contribute to Michael’s and the audience’s sense that the world is a mind-numbing place. Oh, and did I mention the whole thing is made with stop-motion animation? So each and every movement on screen is slightly stilted, slightly inhuman. The use of stop-motion to create a sense of detachment is the cherry on top of a disillusionment sundae.

The audience is so expertly placed in Michael’s perspective, that we can’t help but feel the fear and tedium and longing that he does. As we watch the movie, we tap into something in ourselves; our own personal feelings rise up and help us to relate to the story being told. Beneath the surface of my bubbly smile, there is some fear and some longing, and maybe even a little tedium every now and then. Kaufman helps us to dig into what might be happening beyond the surface of reality. He draws on an emotional darkness that is deeply human – something that every person can relate to in some way, big or small, regardless of gender or age.

Which is why it’s frustrating to see in Anomalisa – like in so many movies before it – the sense of hope come in the form of a woman, an object of romance for a man. Michael, and thus the audience, feel disillusioned until Lisa enters the story. With a detailed face and a unique voice crackling with warmth, Lisa offers a beacon of connection and possible peace of mind. She is in the movie to serve only one purpose: to be Michael’s vision of salvation who he hopes will save him.

We’ve seen it countless times before with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl: the cinematic trope of quirky women who are endlessly available to better the lives of male leads. Lisa doesn’t exactly fit the type; while the Manic Pixie Dream Girl stands out as eccentric, Lisa is completely and utterly ordinary. And, (spoiler alert) Michael’s hopes for salvation through her don’t come to fruition. Nevertheless, even as the antithetical Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Lisa’s only role in the film is to be a projection of Michael’s emotions and issues.

As I sat watching Anomalisa, which had expertly wrapped me up in Michael’s world, I couldn’t help thinking where his fixation on Lisa left me as an audience member. I was there for the ride, there to be swept up into my main character’s point of view. And yet, his point of view is the male gaze, of which I, as a young woman, would theoretically be the object. So then what is my place in watching Anomalisa?

To put it bluntly, I’m sick of movies in which sad men think they can be saved by their idea of a woman. Existential dread and emotional depth belong to us all, not just middle-aged men. Perhaps the male gaze in film is something that women can claim for ourselves, reminding the world that these feelings are universal ones. When we’re not fighting the patriarchy, women also get sad over the meaning of life. Perhaps instead of defaulting to male protagonists, we can see more complex women who are saved by their Manic Pixie Dream Guys, or saved by something else entirely.

It’s true that movies are empathy machines, making the audience feel what the characters feel, and Kaufman excels at that. But, it would be even better if we could get to empathize with a broader range of characters. I liked Anomalisa, but I would have loved a movie with Lisa as the subject, not the object.

Sarah Halle Corey is a writer, filmmaker, and digital content creator who produces work about pop culture, feminism, feelings, and everything in between. You can find her work at sarahhallecorey.com. Sarah is usually drinking way too much coffee and/or tweeting @SarahHalleCorey.

‘Violet & Daisy,’ ‘Sucker Punch,’ and Poe’s Law

And the main thing about ‘Violet & Daisy’ I couldn’t puzzle out is what we’re meant to make of the incessant and brutally unsubtle reminders of the title characters’ schoolgirl trappings: popping bubble gum while blasting machine guns, stopping to play hopscotch on the way to pick up ammo, sucking lollipops while chatting with their boss and sharing cookies and milk with their target, giggling while jumping on the bellies of their victims to see blood spew from their mouths. I get that there is a “shocking contrast” between these innocent activities and their professional murdering, but could Fletcher really think that was novel or interesting enough to warrant a whole movie?

And then I think: Oh god, is this a sex thing? This is probably a sex thing. Wait, that’s too gross. This can’t be a sex thing. But oh god, lollipops. Lollipops are always a sex thing.

People who know me and know I write for Bitch Flicks love to give me suggested post topics. “I watched this movie and there was a girl in it—you should totally write about that!” Sometimes it is a case of “I can’t tell if this is sexist, could you sort that out for me in ~1000 words?” (I tease, but I actually really appreciate these suggestions because deciding what to write about is often the hardest step. Dance Academy is in my Netflix queue, KDax!)

Movie poster for 'Violet & Daisy' — Movie poster for *Violet & Daisy*

Yesterday was my husband’s birthday, so I am finally yielding to a long-standing request and reviewing the film Violet & Daisy. Collin’s gchat-transmitted review of the film is “I just liked that it was about two killer women and it had Tony Soprano in it.”

A slightly longer synopsis: Violet (Alexis Bledel) and Daisy (Saoirise Ronan) are young, girlish assassins, who take a new assignment because they want to buy dresses from the fashion line of a pop singer named Barbie Sunday. For contrived reasons, they fail to kill the target (James Gandolfini) initially and form a strong emotional bond with him while periodically fending off other assassins after the score. Gratuitously violent dramedy ensues.

Alternate title: Cutesy Murderesses! — Alternate title: *Cutesy Murderesses!*

The whole thing is rather twee and aggressively quirky, Tarantino-by-way-of-Wes Anderson (down to the Futura title cards). It’s so patently derivative I started to wonder if that was The Point somehow. Did writer-director Geoffrey Fletcher (who also wrote Precious, the polar opposite of this film in terms of tone) get carried away with a style mimicry writing exercise and actually make the movie?

Violet and Daisy play a hand clapping game

And the main thing about Violet & Daisy I couldn’t puzzle out is what we’re meant to make of the incessant and brutally unsubtle reminders of the title characters’ schoolgirl trappings: popping bubble gum while blasting machine guns, stopping to play hopscotch on the way to pick up ammo, sucking lollipops while chatting with their boss and sharing cookies and milk with their target, giggling while jumping on the bellies of their victims to see blood spew from their mouths. I get that there is a “shocking contrast” between these innocent activities and their professional murdering, but could Fletcher really think that was novel or interesting enough to warrant a whole movie?

And then I think: Oh god, is this a sex thing? This is probably a sex thing. Wait, that’s too gross. This can’t be a sex thing. But oh god, lollipops. Lollipops are always a sex thing.

Daisy sucks a lollipop. — Lollipops are always a sex thing.

But wait, the guy who wrote Precious couldn’t possibly think the sexualizing little girls is the key to a winning film. That doesn’t make any sense. This must be a critique of these sexist and icky tropes. The punchline is coming any minute. Any. Minute. Now…

This sort of Poe’s Law experience is probably familiar to many feminist film-watchers: is this patriarchal trash or is it secretly a critique of patriarchal trash? A classic example is Sucker Punch, a movie that scientists have proven cannot be written about without using the word “masturbatory.” Most feminists (including myself) barfed all over the movie and its icky initialization and objectification of victimized women, but director Zack Snyder insists his film was meant to be a critique of the audience’s desire for such content. Which makes my bullshit meter go off. The sad truth is we live in a world where it seems more likely that a movie about abused women with names like “Baby Doll” and “Sweet Pea” fighting fantasy steampunk wars is much more likely to be catering to the perverted male gaze than challenging it.

And ultimately, Sucker Punch was too unpleasant a viewing experience for me to worry too much about the validity of its claims to feminism: it is a terrible movie either way. Thankfully, Violet & Daisy isn’t nearly as gross as Sucker Punch, but if anything that makes me even less bothered to decide if the movie was trying to deconstruct these tropes or just replicating them. Either way, Violet & Daisy is not really worth watching unless doing so will somehow make your partner happy.

Have you experienced Poe’s Law at the movies?

Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town who will write a negative review of a movie you like as a birthday present.

The Gaze of Objectification: Race, Gender, and Privilege in ‘Belle’

What does it mean in a young woman’s life to be constantly stared at and treated as “the Other”? ‘Belle,’ directed by Amma Asante and written by Misan Sagay, has a lush, gorgeous look from the costumes to the landscape, and throughout this new film we, too, are invited to “look,” and to understand that “the dominant white male gaze” is related to power in 18th-century England. An actual 1779 portrait currently hanging in Scone Palace, Scotland, credited to artist Johann Zoffany, is at the heart of the complex ‘Belle,’ as is the issue of race.

Movie poster for Belle — Movie poster for *Belle*

This guest post by Laura Shamas, PhD, previously appeared at Huffington Post and is cross-posted with permission.

What does it mean in a young woman’s life to be constantly stared at and treated as “the Other”? Belle, directed by Amma Asante and written by Misan Sagay, has a lush, gorgeous look from the costumes to the landscape, and throughout this new film we, too, are invited to “look,” and to understand that “the dominant white male gaze” is related to power in 18th-century England. An actual 1779 portrait currently hanging in Scone Palace, Scotland, credited to artist Johann Zoffany, is at the heart of the complex Belle, as is the issue of race.

The film is based on the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle (poignantly played by Mugu Mbatha-Raw), the illegitimate mixed race child of Captain Sir John Lindsay (Matthew Goode) and a woman named Maria Belle; her parents met on a Spanish slave ship. Dido’s mother dies before the story begins. The opening images of the film depict a child in a cloak in the shadows, a carriage ride on a rough road in England in the 1700’s, and then, the emergence of Captain Sir John Lindsay, who’s come to claim Belle as his daughter. But he’s unable to raise her, as he must sail away with the Royal Navy. He brings Dido to Kenwood House in Hampstead, the home of his aristocratic uncle, Lord Mansfield (sensitively portrayed by Tom Wilkinson), who is the Lord Chief Justice of England. He leaves Dido in the care of the Mansfields, but before Lindsay departs, he assures the girl that she is loved.

The pastoral Mansfield estate already has a young blonde charge on the premises: Lady Elizabeth Murray (Sarah Gadon plays the older Elizabeth), whose own father abandoned her while he’s moved on to Europe. The young Elizabeth and Dido become inseparable, and as “cousin-sisters” grow up doing everything together: frolicking in the grass, sharing a bedroom, studying music, letters, French, and eventually, the proper mores of society as taught by their watchful aunts, Lady Mansfield (Emily Watson) and Lady Mary Murray (Penelope Wilton). The Mansfields themselves are childless, and truly love their great-nieces. The two girls are raised on relatively equal footing in the home, with some notable exceptions. For example, when visitors come, Dido is not allowed to dine with them, due to being born out of wedlock. She is, however, able to meet and greet guests after dinner in the parlor.

The news of Captain Lindsay’s eventual death is delivered by letter; Dido becomes an heiress, afforded an sizable annuity, and therefore, is set financially for life; this is in direct contrast to Elizabeth, who has no dowry and must marry well, much as in a Jane Austen novel, in order to maintain the standards of her upbringing and lineage.

When male visitors do eventually arrive for dinner at Kenwood House, such as potential suitors James Ashford (Tom Felton) and his brother Oliver (James Norton), they stare and whisper in asides, sizing up “the mulatto”; director Asante aptly depicts the 18th-century concept of women as objects here. In a later carriage scene, Elizabeth directly expresses to Dido that choices facing them, as women, are depressingly limited; they are unable to work, and a good marriage seems to be their only hope for the future.

The motif of “looking” is emphasized further in other sequences in the film. There’s a very touching scene of Dido staring at herself in the mirror, and clawing, in agony, at her own skin, trying to come to terms with her own identity.

But when a painter is commissioned for a family portrait of the two girls, there are several separate shots of Dido holding a pose, gazed upon by not only the painter, but surreptitiously spied upon by another potential suitor, the budding abolitionist John Davinier (Sam Reid).

The film points to the multiple meanings of “gazing” at Dido: yes, due to her remarkable female beauty, as in the title, but also because she is “the Other” in 18th-century British society: aristocratic, educated, and biracial. In one scene, this is especially highlighted. Both Elizabeth and Dido are asked to play the piano for the Ashfords during their first visit to Kenwood House. Lady Ashford (Miranda Richardson) doubts that Dido will be able to play at all. But it is Dido who, between the two girls, is the more accomplished musician. In a later scene, the objectification of Dido in British society is more dire, as misogynistic James Ashford, who once called beautiful Dido “repulsive,” stares at her on a river bank, and then assaults her.

Mabel (Bethan Mary-James), the freed servant in the Mansfield’s London home, is another character connected to “looking.” Dido and Mabel stare at each other upon meeting, a recognition of their shared heritage — and yet their different positions in society. Later, in front of a mirror, Mabel shows Dido how to comb through her hair properly, starting with the ends first. Mabel tells Dido that a man first showed her how to do it.

Courtship becomes a major crucible in the film. Who will get a viable marriage proposal? Dido’s first proposal occurs under the watchful eye of a marble statue of Aphrodite in a bathing pose, seeming to imply it’s a love match. But later, the romance falls apart. Earlier, Lord Mansfield tried to entrust the keys of the house to Dido, offering her the honored place that her spinster Aunt Mary holds — a Hestia position as household caretaker. Hestia is the virginal domestic Greek goddess of the hearth who never leaves home. Worried about her future, Lord Mansfield implies that Dido won’t be able to make a suitable marriage match, due to her liminal societal position: her ethnicity combined with her aristocratic background. But his offer greatly disappoints Dido, and so we know that a romance is in her future; she chooses the way of Aphrodite, not Hestia.

Classism and racism are key parts of a secondary parallel plot involving Lord Mansfield, who must render a judgment on the horrible Zong massacre of 1781, about insurers and the deaths of 142 slaves on a cargo ship. Davinier becomes secretly allied with Dido here, trying to convince Lord Mansfield to rule against the ship’s crew, in favor of the insurers. Although there are several points in the film that seem anachronistic, as if twenty-century sensibilities are in motion instead of the more likely constraints of the time period, it is Dido’s agency in this later part of the film that seems most modern, and perhaps unlikely. Still, it gives Dido an important activist goal, and the two plotlines come together well in the end: Dido’s ability to decide her own future, the verdict in the Zong trial, and romance.

The famous Zoffany portrait of the girls is revealed in the end, highlighting the focus on its unusual qualities: a handsomely gowned, pearl-wearing young black woman touched by a well-dressed white woman, given equal center space at eye line level. In the film, Asante has shown us other pictures of the era, where Africans in paintings are given little space, infantilized, or enslaved, depicted as property. The impact of the independent spirit of Dido in the painting, and the equality in stature of the two girls in the portrait, is evocative and satisfying. Director Asante again reminds us of the motif of looking, gazing, as we ourselves finally stare at the family portrait that our heroine dutifully posed for at Kenwood. And instead of Dido merely seated, she’s smiling and in motion. Symbolically, and in contrast to Elizabeth, she is going somewhere. The theme of “looking,” or gazing upon from a position of privilege as related to objectification, is explored thoroughly in Belle. The film challenges us: what do you really see and why do you see it?

Laura Shamas is a writer, film consultant, and mythologist. Her newest book is Pop Mythology: Collected Essays. Read more at her website: LauraShamas.com.

Women’s Bodies in the Oscar-Nominated Films

What is telling is the presence of so many films that either elide or sexualize female bodies in the category that presumably represents the best of the best. The Academy clearly has a critical preference for movies about men, with women present primarily as wives and sex objects.

video-undefined-19A6CE7F00000578-696_636x358 — *The Wolf of Wall Street*

This guest post by Holly Derr previously appeared at Ms. Magazine and is cross-posted with permission.

Jake Flanagin at Pacific Standard and Victoria Dawson Hoff at Elle recently floated an interesting idea: The Oscars should be entirely segregated by gender. Their proposal would create categories such as Best Female Director and Best Female Writer in addition to the already segregated acting awards.

Though this would lead to recognition of more women working in the field, it wouldn’t solve one of the Oscars’ main gender problems: the Academy Award for Best Picture. Most films are produced by teams of both men and women, making segregation in that category impossible. And yet, the Best Picture category is where we can see the clearest evidence of the Academy’s preference for male-driven films. Only three of the nine films nominated this year even have women in leading roles: American Hustle, Gravity and Philomena.

Perhaps as significant as the lack of women characters is the treatment in these films of women’s bodies. The main female character in Her is not even human, allowing the film and its central relationship to avoid dealing with the messy reality of women with bodies. In Dallas Buyers Club, one of the two female-gender-identified characters is played by a cisgender man, effectively replacing a body that would raise interesting questions about the difference between sex and gender with one that is much easier to understand. One cannot help but wonder, if a trans actor had played the role, in which category would she be eligible for a nomination?

Where women’s bodies are present in these films, they are almost always objectified through an emphasis on their sexuality. In The Wolf of Wall Street, one woman has sex on top of a pile of money (the actor says her back was covered with paper cuts after filming) and another woman literally wears money. One could argue that these moments are designed to reveal the callousness of the male characters, but in imagining and glamorizing a world without any female characters who aren’t objectified, the film ultimately endorses its characters’ worldview. The main female character in 12 Years a Slave is literally a possession, and she is repeatedly raped. Unlike with The Wolf of Wall Street, which encourages the audience to identify with criminals, 12 Years a Slave invites us to sympathize with the victim rather than the perpetrator. In this way, the film does at least provide a critique of turning women into objects, rather than an endorsement.

o-12-YEARS-A-SLAVE-PRESS-IMAGE — *12 Years a Slave*

American Hustle provides the clearest example of Hollywood’s inability to deal with women’s bodies without sexualizing them.Though most of the fashions in which the male characters adorn themselves–from the polyester to the conspicuous chest hair to the hairstyles–are quite unsexy, the women are dressed in ways that reveal their every curve. Though plunging necklines were popular for evening wear in the era portrayed in the movie, women also wore formal dresses that, by today’s standards, look like your grandmother’s nightgowns. During the day, women wore button-up shirts with large collars; the most popular woman’s outfit of the decade was the pantsuit, and hair was more commonly worn natural than elaborately styled.

amy_adams_wardrobe_malfunction_a_p — *American Hustle*

It makes sense for Amy Adams’ character to wear a dress cut down to her belly button, but when her character impersonates a British aristocrat, it would have been more logical to have her button up. She would still have been sexy and her talent would have shone just as brightly without an outfit that invites the viewer to spend most of the scene staring at her boobs. Similarly, the notion that a troubled housewife would wear her hair in an updo all the time is incongruent both with Jennifer Lawrence’s character and with the style of the time.

The contrast between the body of Christian Bale’s character and those of his lovers is especially striking. Whereas Bale’s character has an outside that matches his inside–his corrupt, conniving character is manifest in his weight, physical health and unnatural hairpiece–Adams’ and Lawrence’s characters are gorgeous despite their twisted insides. I would love to see a version of this film in which the women’s bodies, the clothes they wear and the hairstyles they sport are as reflective of their unsavory inner selves as the men’s are.

Only two of the nine films nominated for Best Picture are genuinely about women, and the difference in how women’s bodies are treated in those films versus the other seven is telling. Sandra Bullock spends much of Gravity in shorts and a tank top, yet at no point is she sexualized. One might note that she looks strong and healthy, but one’s eyes are not deliberately focused on her breasts either by her costume or the camera. The unnecessary addition of [SPOILER ALERT!] a lost child to Gravity betrays Hollywood’s inability to portray women without reference to their biology, but even the final shot in which the camera slowly pans from Bullock’s feet to her head is much more about showing her strength than it is about showing her girl parts.

Philomena is a film centered around a woman’s reproductive past, yet it trounces the competition in its fully human representation of a woman character. Unlike Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle, Judi Dench is old enough to conceivably be the woman she portrays. Close-ups of her face make no attempt to hide signs of age, revealing a beautiful woman whose wrinkles only make her intense emotional experience all the more gripping. Though the film is about the woman’s search for her lost child, the woman herself is far more than a mother on a mission. She loves her children, but she also loves sex. She’s a woman of faith, she’s openly accepting of gay people, she loves to read and she makes friends everywhere she goes. This is not to say that every female lead in every movie needs to be a saint; most real women are not. But is there any other female character in this year’s nominees for Best Picture about whom the audience learns so much and in whom they become so deeply invested because of whom she is instead of what?

You might question whether the absence/objectification of women’s bodies in this year’s Best Picture nominees reflects on Hollywood or the culture as a whole. None of these films would necessarily be problematic on its own—12 Years a Slave in particular performs the important function of detailing the violence under which female slaves really lived and showing slave owners to be as oppressive as they really were. What is telling is the presence of so many films that either elide or sexualize female bodies in the category that presumably represents the best of the best. The Academy clearly has a critical preference for movies about men, with women present primarily as wives and sex objects.

Though segregating awards by gender would up the profile of women working in Hollywood, it would also perpetuate the notion that there is something fundamentally different about work created by women and work created by men. And it would not solve the fundamental problem at the heart of Hollywood: Movies about men are more highly valued than those about women.

For more Bitch Flicks commentary on the 2014 Academy Award nominees: 2014 Academy Award Nominations; The Academy: Kind to White Men, Just Like History

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Holly L. Derr is a feminist media critic who writes about theater, film, television, video games and comics. Follow her @hld6oddblend and on her tumblr, Feminist Fandom.

‘Sucker Punch’ Might Leave You Wishing for a Lobotomy

My main issue with the film is that it is speckled with meaningless platitudes and clichés about girl empowerment when the film simply isn’t empowering. The women in the film are portrayed as oversexualized, helpless, damaged goods. Though there are metaphors at work that symbolize abuse or objectification of women, nowhere does the film stress an injustice or seek to dismantle its source. It is just like any other formulaic action movie complete with boobs, guns, and explosions, but it has a shiny, artificial veneer of girl empowerment. The false veneer is the aspect of the film that truly infuriates me, along with the side of artsy pretentious bullshit.

Sucker Punch posters — *Sucker Punch* posters

This guest post by Angelina Rodriguez appears as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.

Sucker Punch (2011) was a visually beautiful film with little substance, cardboard characters, and a scattered plot. The film is layered in hollow, underdeveloped metaphors so that fanboys can feel intellectually superior (to feminists that just don’t get it) while they wank off to helpless, sexualized mental patients. There is so much garbage happening at once that it seems like Zack Snyder wanted to make a couple of different films but instead funneled all the ideas into one terrible concoction.

Our hero, Baby Doll, played by Emily Browning, is an infantilized 20-year-old, sporting pig tails, doll make-up, and a sailor or school-girl outfit. Although she is technically supposed to be an adult, her demeanor, dress, and innocence is childlike. She looks like a young girl playing dress-up and her smallness is constantly emphasized while she is on camera with men. Her character is an eroticized child wearing a pouting or vacant facial expression throughout most of the film.

Helpless and pouty with closed mouth.. Helpless and pouty with open mouth… — Helpless and pouty with open mouth…

She is the image of the “pure innocent virgin” with both hair and skin white as snow. Her twisted, murderous stepfather wants to secure inheritance left to Baby Doll by her late mother for himself so he makes a shady deal with an orderly to get Baby Doll taken out of the picture for good, with a lobotomy in five days. She is damaged and abused but still holds onto her fantasies of freedom. We follow her through three realities: the mental ward, the brothel, and the battle arenas where she and the other girls fight giant samurais, undead Nazis, and dragons in high-intensity action sequences. In the brothel, Baby Doll and the other girls are forced into prostitution which is paralleled by the abuse she and the other patients are experiencing in the hospital at the hands of the orderly/pimp, Blue. In this reality, like the lobotomy, she is promised to the High Roller in five days.

The creators took the serious situation of forced institutionalization, already fraught with gratuitous abuse, and made it even more overtly sexually exploitative by throwing sex work into the mix. The entire portrayal of these girls’ abusive experiences drips with exploitation. This story doesn’t evoke feelings of sympathy for its boring, one dimensional, unrelatable female characters. If anything, the goal of this story of violence and abuse against women is to arouse the audience. Even during scenes of pain, vulnerability, hurt, or death, the girls appear sexually-charged, and the camera seems to be pawing at their ever-exposed skin.

Blue: “You know what it feels like? Like I’m this little boy sitting in the corner of the sandbox while everyone gets to play with my toys, but me. So I’m going to take my toys, and I’m going to…”

As if there wasn’t enough objectification, Baby Doll has absolutely no character development or personality. We know nothing about her, aside from her life being A Series of Unfortunate Events. She acts as a tragic vessel, simply the embodiment of the mind-over-matter notion of freedom. Her only job is to symbolize patriarchal oppression and martyr male fantasies of female powerlessness. She occasionally does something badass like stabbing Blue or spitting in some dude’s face; however, she still lives a brutal life and meets a cruel end despite her strength and acts of protest. This communicates that the feminist objective isn’t reachable, that the patriarchy is inevitable, and that we should simply give into it.

Another huge issue I have with the faux girl power in Sucker Punch is the Guardian Angel, played by Scott Glenn, who directs the girls along their missions. He gives them orders during the battle sequences and tells Baby Doll the secrets to gain her freedom. The Guardian Angel tells Baby Doll how to be empowered and released from the torment of patriarchy, but his advice never offers true freedom. A recurring theme in the story is that, “You have all the weapons you need,” and that you decide your own destiny. In contrast, these women are constantly being acted upon by men, even when they make “their own” decisions to escape or to fight or even to accept a lobotomy (although what other option did she REALLY have). If women have all the tools that we need, then why do we need a paternal figure dictating our survival? Interestingly enough, Baby Doll’s Angel seems much more like a Charlie to me.

Baby Doll chooses to always fight her battles, as the narrator, therapist, and angel character repeatedly urge her to do, but it is all in vain.

Baby Doll chooses to fight but still gets shafted, and all of her friends die. Baby Doll is only able to mentally escape this torment by “choosing” to accept a lobotomy. In a deleted scene, the penetrating lobotomy is tastelessly paralleled by a “consensual” sex scene with The High Roller in the brothel reality.

Why is an invasive medical procedure preformed with a long, sharp metal tool likened to a sex act? Sexuality is often coded as violent. Maleness is portrayed as a weapon with a penis as a gun, sword, or knife. This creates a connotation of force. Women exist simply as props while men are the action and reaction. This notion of sexuality isn’t progressive or feminist, as it contributes to rape culture. And this was supposed to be her act of true rebellion?

She agrees to sex in an unbalanced situation that could be described as coercion or rape despite her seeming consent. What is the message? “You can take my body, but you can’t take my soul?” Well, fuck that. The entire premise seems to be communicating that women may not be able to subvert the patriarchy or avoid violence or exploitation, but that we have the power to rise above it and free ourselves internally, mentally, or spiritually. The story says that women should be able to mentally rise above rape and abuse. Of course, it’s so simple. Why didn’t we think of that? It’s a good thing we have Zack Snyder to make porn-y, pretentious movies to tell survivors how to get over their trauma and tell women how to be empowered like the “guardian angel” that he is.

This film puts the responsibility of survival and equality upon the shoulders of women instead of men, and the type of survival it offers is piss-poor at best. The effects of systematic abuse that seek to dehumanize and oppress can’t be avoided, regardless of a woman’s strength or will. Women have been fighting throughout history, and we continue to fight every day, although that information may be new and exciting to Zack Snyder. We need men to do their part completely and independently in order to create equality and freedom. The creators of Sucker Punch attempted to manipulate feminist ideas for profit and the fulfillment of male fantasies without doing any real feminist work. They had hopes of using feminism as an excuse for showing partially naked, ethereal waifs being intermittently badass and helpless, but failed miserably. This kind of “participation” in the feminist movement is damaging and despicable.

Angelina Rodriguez studies Sociology at Fairmont State University. In her free time she thinks about things and pets puppies.

‘Slumber Party Massacre’: Deconstructing the Male Gaze

Slumber Party Massacre came up while I was searching for female directors in the exploitation genre. Although it came off as yet another sensationalistic and gory 80s slasher, it stuck out, mainly due to its ridiculous title or the fact that most of the characters were female. Upon viewing it, what shocked me was not so much the gore and violence, but I was surprised by the clever humor, the funny characters, and most of all the incredibly veiled feminist satire.

The women of Slumber Party Massacre in the locker room — The women of *Slumber Party Massacre* in the locker room

This guest post by Emanuela Betti appears as part of our theme week on Cult Films and B Movies.

Slumber Party Massacre came up while I was searching for female directors in the exploitation genre. Although it came off as yet another sensationalistic and gory 80s slasher, it stuck out, mainly due to its ridiculous title or the fact that most of the characters were female. Upon viewing it, what shocked me was not so much the gore and violence, but I was surprised by the clever humor, the funny characters, and most of all the incredibly veiled feminist satire.

The movie was written to be a mock parody of exploitation movies, as well as a satire of masculinity in the slasher genre. However, the movie was marketed as a straight slasher movie, which ended up causing a lot of mixed opinions: while reading through reviews, some critics brushed off the movie as a boring slasher with gratuitous T&A, while others actually caught the humor and satire, and revered its feminist perspective. Slumber Party Massacre is actually a very feminist movie, and it’s a biting satire of the male gaze that exists in cinema. Through its witty and clever humor, the movie deconstructs the prevailing sexism and masculinity in the slasher genre, offering one of the most entertaining feminist exploitation movies ever made.

Slumber Party Massacre is very women-centric: both in the characters and the women behind the scenes. The film was directed by Amy Holden Jones, one of the few female directors to delve into the exploitation genre, and written by feminist Rita Mae Brown. This fact alone should make you want to pay attention to the small details, which in this movie are actually not that small but thrown right into your face.

The story revolves around Trish, a young high school girl who throws a slumber party at her house, and Valerie, Trish’s neighbor, who doesn’t attend the party and spends a boring evening at home. As you can already guess, the girls at the slumber party are eventually harassed by a silent killer. The movie begins in a typical suburban neighborhood, and we are introduced to Trish’s bedroom. Trish is the stereotypical image of innocence and femininity: her bedroom is full of plush toys and fluffy pinkness. We then move to a school setting in which we are introduced to Valerie, who is somewhat of an outsider to the popular group of girls led by Trish, but is an essential character in the story.

She doesn't see the dead body — She doesn’t see the dead body

One of the first scenes that made me raise an eyebrow was the shower scene: after gym class, the girls are in the school showers, where we see a lot of T&A, and not even in a clever or artistic way. That scene confused me—I couldn’t understand why a movie directed and written by women would objectify the female body in such a demeaning way. Maybe, at the end of the day, the director just wanted to make a buck? And didn’t really care? I later realized that nudity (and objectification) is actually a very important element in the story, along with sexual innuendos. An example is the killer’s weapon of choice, a 12-inch drill which he sometimes holds in suggestive places (like his crotch, as a phallic metaphor). Also, there are countless instances in which boys from Trish’s high school, or the killer himself, are staring, spying, or quietly watching the girls. I realized that the gratuitous nudity was not so much for the gratuity, but to directly point out how this group of girls is the target of a voyeuristic threat, and are purposely being objectified through these male character’s gazes to show that they are in fact the victims of the killer’s drill, but also of the male gaze. There is a scene that says it all, in which the kids walk past a dumpster where the body of one of the victims is lying in the trash, unnoticed. The movie is about what we see and what we don’t see, or more specifically, knowingly watching and unknowingly being watched. This is the basis for the concept of the male gaze in cinema, which is finding pleasure in looking at a person as an object, who becomes the unwilling or unknowing victim of the gaze.

What makes this movie such a clever satire is the twist placed on the male gaze, which we see in Valerie. The objectification of Trish and her friends is emphasized by the contrast with Valerie and her younger sister Courtney (probably the most interesting female character in the whole movie) who are actually the ones doing the objectifying. During the evening, Courtney pulls out an issue of Playgirl from under her sister’s bed, and later on, both girls casually look at full-page spreads of naked men. Trish and Valerie are opposites, not only in their personality and social life, but also in their role with the gaze. Throughout the movie, we never see Valerie naked, and there’s a good reason why; while Trish is the passive victim of the gaze, Valerie is the bearer of the gaze, she enjoys looking at pictures of naked men and is immune to the killer’s gaze. Valerie is the true heroine of the movie, and she saves the day by finding an equally phallic weapon (a machete) and “chopping off” the killer’s drill, basically castrating him metaphorically.

If there were are any doubts on whether Slumber Party Massacre is an intelligent feminist satire or just a regular slasher, all questions are answered when finally, after the killer goes on a bloody rampage without speaking a single word, he finally utters some of the most horrifying lines: “All of you are very pretty… I love you,” and “you know you want it, you’ll love it.” Those seem like the words of a rapist, and although the killer didn’t rape any of the girls, he did violate them: just like a rapist victimizes a woman by violating her body, the male gaze, which roams rampant in Hollywood cinema, violates women on the screen by turning them into objects.

Along with sharp satire and sharp commentary, Slumber Party Massacre is full of clever humor. There’s the scene where Valerie is relaxing at home, watching an old slasher movie while she’s a character in one herself (and the events on TV seem to sync up with what’s happening next door). Then there’s Courtney grabbing a drink from the fridge without noticing a dead body inside, or one of Trish’s friends eating a slice of pizza over the delivery boy’s dead body. Amy Holden Jones and Rita Mae Brown do a wonderful job at providing entertainment and humor, alongside a refreshing and sharp feminist viewpoint. If there’s any movie that made me respect cheesy exploitation movies, it’s this wonderfully cheesy slumber party slasher full of pizza, nudie magazines, and girls chopping off metaphorical penises.

Emanuela Betti is a part-time writer, occasional astrologer, neurotic pessimist by day and ball-breaking feminist by night. She miraculously graduated with a BA in English and Creative Writing, and writes about music and movies on her blog.

Women in Sports Week: Because Being Girly Doesn’t Mean Being Weak: ‘Bring It On’

Bring It On movie poster

This guest post by Deborah Pless previously appeared at her blog Kiss My Wonder Woman and is cross-posted with permission.

I first saw Bring It On when I was still deep into my rebellious phase. You know the one. Lots of punk rock, plaid bellbottoms (they came back in style just in time for my middle school years), and an intense loathing for anything that smelled of “school spirit.” I prided myself on never attending a single football game in high school, and I absolutely never ever cared about cheerleading.

I was a rebel. A grrrrl. And no cheerleader was going to get in my way or the way of feminism.

So imagine my surprise when partway into the movie I’d rented as a hatewatch I realized that I cared. A lot. I really, really wanted the Rancho Carne Toros to win that darn cheerleading competition. It made me deeply uncomfortable.

Kirsten Dunst and Eliza Dushku in Bring It On

But looking back on it, I know exactly why I love that movie. It’s not “just” a cheerleading movie; it’s a cheerleading movie. A movie about female athletes in a feminine sport doing incredibly difficult things for the sheer love of the game. And doing those difficult, athletic things as a team.

More than that, this isn’t a movie about a ragtag group of misfits who somehow rise to success. It’s not about women trying to succeed in a man’s world. It’s got more interesting, diverse female characters than you can shake a spirit stick at, and the male characters are the ones who feel ancillary. The male characters are the ones getting flack for joining the sport, and the whole story revolves around a team of women in a female-dominated sport competing against other women at the top of their game.

Cheerleading.

I just dumped a lot on you right there, so let’s back up. Bring It On, released in 2001, stars Kirsten Dunst as Torrance Shipman, a peppy high school cheerleader in her senior year. Torrance has just made team captain of the Rancho Carne Toros, a team that’s just won their fifth National Championship in a row. She’s excited. She’s ambitious, and in the first five minutes of the movie she sends a girl to the hospital.

Gabrielle Union as Isis in Bring It On

And injured player means they need a replacement, so bring on the recruits! Torrance and the team hold tryouts, eventually selecting Missy Pantone (Eliza Dushku), a transfer student from LA and a gymnast looking for an athletic outlet. While Missy is leery of joining the cheerleaders at first, she eventually gives in, because they are athletes, and it sounds like fun.

Unfortunately, Missy gets pretty pissed when she realizes, and tells Torrance, that the Toros have stolen all their cheers, plagiarizing them from an inner-city squad in LA, the East Compton Clovers. She proves it too, and Torrance is horrified to learn that all their National Championships were the result of cheating. Worse, the Clovers know about it, as their captain, Isis (Gabrielle Union), makes very clear. The Toros won’t be getting away with it this year.

Torrance is devastated and has to figure out what to do. They try to carry on as usual, but the Clovers show up at a football game and humiliate them by showing that the cheers are stolen. They try hiring a choreographer, but that ends badly when another team hires the same choreographer, and they both bring the routine to Regionals.

Kirsten Dunst as Torrance Shipman in Bring It On

Finally, they reach the end of their rope, and Torrance decides to do something drastic: make up their own entirely original routine, like they should have been doing all along.

From there to the end of the movie it’s a lot of training montages and inspirational speeches, but the ending is what really sticks the landing here. The Toros and Clovers both compete at Nationals. They’re both really good. And the Toros lose.

But they don’t care, because for once, they lost on their own merits. Besides, second place in a National Championship with a routine they made up in three weeks isn’t all that bad, and the Clovers were genuinely and indisputably better.

Torrance (Dunst) and Isis (Union) face off in Bring It On

Now, there is a romance in the movie, with two guys vying for Torrance (Missy’s brother Cliff, the punk rocker, and her college boyfriend Aaron, the cheating jerk), but the romance is never the feature. It’s a nice side dish to the entrée that is competitive cheerleading. And the entrée is fantastic.

For all that it’s ridiculously sexualized by the media, cheerleading really is a sport. Not only that, but it’s also the single most dangerous high school and college sport, resulting in the most injuries and hospital visits. Cheerleading is terrifying, and it’s hard, and it’s really hard to do well.

The story in Bring It On is about women in a sport that’s totally hardcore trying to be the best. It doesn’t gloss over the sport’s sexualized history, with the football players, who have never won a game, taunting the male cheerleaders by calling them fags, and openly objectifying the women on the squad. No one respects the cheerleaders. But they don’t care.

Missy (Dushku) and Torrance (Dunst) in Bring It On

Or rather, they do, but they don’t let it bring them down. Missy, the character who first disses cheerleading as “not a real sport,” comes around in a big way when she sees that it is physically challenging, and just, you know, fun. She sticks by the team, and even contributes to their ultimate routine. Her gymnastics expertise is sadly underused in the film, but it’s clear that she’s a consummate athlete, and her devotion to the team helps us as an audience get invested.

More than that, though, Missy starts to appreciate the “girliness” of the team. At first she sneers, but she slowly comes around. Because being girly doesn’t mean being weak, the movie shows us. Girly girls are just as capable of kicking butt. Doesn’t mean you have to be a pretty princess, but you can. It’s okay. You can like shoes and still be a top-notch athlete. When Missy starts to get it, we start to get it. She doesn’t lose herself in the squad; she just gets more comfortable. Like she doesn’t have to front, and whatever she’s into is fine. Because they’re a team, and teams support each other.

It’s funny too, because you don’t often think about it, but not only does the movie pass the Bechdel Test with flying colors, it also passes the Race Bechdel Test, and contains a surprising lack of White Savior behavior. While Torrance does feel terrible about what her team has done to the Clovers and tries to make amends by raising the money for them to attend Nationals, the Clovers turn her down. They don’t need her help, and they manage to raise the money themselves.

The Toros perform their routine in Bring It On

The title of the movie itself is a sign of how seriously this movie takes the competition, not only wanting to win, but wanting to win because you are actually the best. When Torrance tries to use her white guilt to “make it right,” Isis tells her that all she should do is bring it.

“You want to make it right?” she says. “Then, when you go to Nationals, bring it. Don’t slack off because you feel sorry for us. That way, when we beat you, we’ll know it’s because we’re better.”

Ultimately, I’m pretty sure that’s the message of the movie. That the real pride in sports comes from doing your absolute best no matter what, and win or lose, being completely proud of what you did. The Toros don’t have a lot to be proud of for most of the movie, and you can see the damage it does to them. So their final performance, and their second place win, is a moment of triumph. They fight long and hard and they get the score they deserve.

Kirsten Dunst as Torrance Shipman in Bring It On

I’m not saying the movie is perfect, mind you. There is an alarming amount of sexual objectification even with the caveat that it’s bad, and some of the characters are total stereotypes. Jan, the male cheerleader who just does it because he can finger girls, disgusts me, and the entire bikini car wash thing is sad. But no movie is perfect.

So back to little high school me sitting on the couch, jaw dropped that a movie about cheerleaders in sexy uniforms, that doesn’t skimp on the sex-talk or avoid the sexual issues surrounding the sport, actually made me care. And it made me kind of excited. I wasn’t about to go and try out for the squad, but I was still inspired.

I saw women at the peak of their skill competing in a sport that is for women, by women. A sport where being girly doesn’t mean being weak, and where you try your absolute best because you refuse to go quietly. I fell in love.

Deborah Pless is the blogger-in-chief over at Kiss My Wonder Woman. She lives in Western Washington.

Travel Films Week: ‘Sex and the City 2’: Hardcore Orientalism in the Desert of Abu Dhabi

The story of Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha continued in Sex and the City 2 (2010)

This is a guest post by Emily Contois.

I’m not embarrassed to admit it. I totally own the complete series of Sex and the City—the copious collection of DVDs nestled inside a bright pink binder-of-sorts, soft and textured to the touch. In college, I forged real-life friendships over watching episodes of the show, giggling together on the floor of dorm rooms and tiny apartments. Through years of watching these episodes over and over again, and as sad as it may sound, I came to view Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha like friends—not really real, but only a click of the play button away.

On opening night in a packed theater house with two of my friends, I went to see the first Sex and the City movie in 2008. Was the story perfect? No. But it effectively and enjoyably continued the story arc of these four friends, and it made some sort of sense. Fast forward to 2010 when Sex and the City 2 came to theaters. I had seen the trailer. I’ll admit, I was a bit bemused. The girls are going to Abu Dhabi? Um, okay. Sex and the City had taken us to international locales before. In the final season, Carrie joins Petrovsky in Paris and in this land of mythical romance, Mr. Big finds her and sets everything right. When their wedding goes awry in the first movie, the girls jet to Mexico, taking Carrie and Big’s honeymoon as a female foursome. But the vast majority of this story takes place in New York City. It’s called Sex and the City. The city is not only a setting, but also a character unto itself and plays a major role in the narrative. So, it seemed a little odd that the majority of the second movie would take place on the sands of Abu Dhabi.

In Sex and the City 2, the leading ladies travel to Abu Dhabi

Before the girls settle in to those first-class suites on the flight to the United Arab Emirates, however, we as viewers must suffer through Stanford and Anthony’s wedding. From these opening scenes, there’s no question why this dismal film swept the 2011 Razzie Awards, where the four leading ladies shared the Worst Actress Award and the Worst Screen Ensemble. How did this happen?? These four ladies were once believable to fans as soul mates—four women sharing a friendship closer than a marriage. And yet they end up in these opening scenes interacting like a blind group date—awkward, forced, and cringe-worthy.

As our once favorite characters slowly warm up to one another, Michael Patrick King’s weak screenplay lays some groundwork for the film’s plot, all of which establish that these women are not traveling to an exotic locale for fun and adventure. They’re escaping—and from decidedly white people problems at that. Carrie from a hot marriage settling all too quickly into a routine of couch, TV, and takeout. Miranda from the stresses of a job she just quit. Charlotte from an always-crying-terrible-two-baby-girl and a worrisomely, buxom nanny. And Samantha, well, isn’t escaping anything. Her entire life has been reduced even further to beating menopause with an army of all natural pharmaceuticals, which fuel full-volume sexual interludes. As such, this all-expense-paid vacation to the Middle East serves as an escape filled with a little girl time and a lot of bold, overt, and luxurious consumption.

From the moment our Sex and the City stars have decided to take this trip together, however, Abu Dhabi is viewed through a lens of Orientalism, demonstrating a Western patronization of the Middle East. Starting on the first day in the city, Abu Dhabi is framed derisively as the polar opposite of sexy and modern New York City. It’s also stereotypically portrayed as the world of Disney’s Jasmine and Aladdin, magic carpets, camels, and desert dunes—”but with cocktails,” Carrie adds. This borderline racist trope plays out vividly through the women’s vacation attire of patterned head wraps, flowing skirts, and breezy cropped pants. Take for example their over-the-top fashion statement as they explore the desert on camelback, only after they have dramatically walked across the sand directly toward the camera of course.

Samantha, Charlotte, Carrie, and Miranda explore the desert, dressed in a ridiculous ode to the Middle East via fashion

The exotic is also framed as dangerous and tempting, embodied in Aidan, Carrie’s once fiancé, who sweeps her off her feet in Abu Dhabi and nearly derails her fidelity. This plays out metaphorically as they meet at Aidan’s hotel, both of them dressed in black and cloaked in the dim lighting of the restaurant.

Carrie “plays with fire” when she meets old flam, Aidan, for dinner in Abu Dhabi

Sex and the City 2 also comments upon gender roles and sex in the Middle East. For example, in a nightclub full of belly dancers and karaoke, our New Yorkers choose to sing “I Am Woman,” a tune that served as a theme song of sorts for second wave feminism. As our once fab four belt out the lyrics, young Arabic women sing along as well. And yet the main tenant of the film appears to be an ode to perceived sexual repression rather than women’s rights.

The ladies of Sex and the City 2 sing “I Am Woman” at karaoke in an Abu Dhabi nightclut

Abu Dhabi is a place where these four women—defined in American culture not only by their longstanding friendship, but also by their bodies, fashionable wardrobes, and sexual exploits—must tone it down a bit. For example, Miranda reads from a guidebook that women are required to dress in a way that doesn’t attract sexual attention. Instead of providing any context in which to understand the customs of another culture, Samantha instead repeatedly whines about having to cover up her body. Our four Americans watch a Muslim woman eating fries while wearing a veil over her face, as if observing an animal in a zoo. The girls poke fun at the women floating in the hotel pool covered from head to ankle in burkinins, which Carrie jokingly comments are for sale in the hotel gift shop. In this way, Arab culture is both commodified and ridiculed. And rather than finding a place of common understanding, the American characters are only able to relate to Arab women by finding them to be exactly like them, secretly wearing couture beneath their burkas. While fashion is the common thread linking these American and Arab women, the four leading ladies don’t really come to understand the role and meaning of the burka. Instead, after Samantha causes a raucous in the market, the girls don burkas as a comedic disguise in order to escape.

At this point in the film, the main narrative conflict is again a very white problem—if the ladies are late to the airport, they’ll (gasp!) be bumped from first class. Struggling to get a cab to stop and pick them up, the women have to get creative. In a bizarre twist that references a scene from the first twenty minutes of the film, Carrie hails a cab by exposing her leg, as made famous in the classic film, It Happened One Night. While she gets a cab to stop, one is struck by the inconsistency. The women were just run out of town for Samantha’s overt sexuality and yet exposing a culturally forbidden view of a woman’s leg is what saves the day? Or is the moral of the story that a car will always stop for a sexy woman, irrespective of culture? Either way, our leading ladies make it to the airport, fly home in first-class luxury, and arrive home to better appreciate their lives. No real conflict has been resolved—though a 60-second montage provides sound bites of what each character has learned.

In homage to It Happened One Night, Carrie bares her leg to get a cab to stop in Abu Dhabi

Throughout the course of Sex and the City 2, the United Arab Emirates doesn’t fair well, but neither does the United States, as the land of the free and home of the brave is reduced to a place where Samantha Jones can have sex in public without getting arrested. Sex and the City 2 stands out as a horrendous example of American entitlement abroad, a terrible travel flick, and a truly saddening chapter for those of us who actually liked Sex and the City up to this point.

Emily Contois works in the field of worksite wellness and is a graduate student in the MLA in Gastronomy Program at Boston University that was founded by Julia Child and Jacques Pépin. She is currently researching the marketing of diet programs to men and blogs on food studies, nutrition, and public health at emilycontois.com.

The Occasional Purposeful Nudity on ‘Game of Thrones’

In fact, the difference between gratuitous nudity and artistic nudity is not that difficult to discern. Even ‘Game of Thrones,’ the show that puts the word “tit” in “titillation,” occasionally uses nudity in a way that isn’t exploitative and adds to a scene rather than detracting from it.

Written by Lady T.

Much has been said about the gratuitous nudity on Game of Thrones. Several feminist critics (such as yours truly) have written about the objectification of the female characters, and how the writers use naked women as objects for male fantasy or to develop male characters.

Challenging the use of nudity in a TV show or film will predictably result in accusations of prudishness and pearl-clutching, as though feminist critics are nothing but live-action versions of Helen Lovejoy.

“Won’t somebody please think of the children?!”

It’s easy to assume that critics are ranting because they’re too squeamish and repressed to look at pictures of naked women without feeling embarrassed. Leaping to that conclusion is much more comfortable than acknowledging the problematic aspects of using naked female bodies as decoration and masturbatory fodder.

The accusation of prudishness is also a strawman argument, assuming that viewers who object to objectification can’t tell the difference between gratuitous nudity (where naked bodies are used for spank bank material) and nudity that serves an artistic purpose.

In fact, the difference between gratuitous nudity and artistic nudity is not that difficult to discern. Even Game of Thrones, the show that puts the word “tit” in “titillation,” occasionally uses nudity in a way that isn’t exploitative and adds to a scene rather than detracting from it.

One such example can be found in the story of Daenerys Targaryen, a character who is more frequently naked than most other characters on the show. The very first time we see Daenerys, she is a pawn in her brother’s game to earn the throne he feels is rightfully his. Stripped naked, Daenerys steps into a bathtub, her eyes haunted and her expression blank. She is the sacrificial lamb and she knows it, and her nakedness is symbolic of her status as an object.

The last time we see Daenerys in the first season, she’s naked again–except this time, she has just emerged from flames and hatched three dragon eggs. The fire that consumed her enemy and her clothes has left her skin smudged but unburnt. Her nakedness is no longer a symbol of her vulnerability–it’s a symbol of strength.

The Mother of Dragons, Daenerys the Unburnt

Daenerys doesn’t have to be naked for the viewer to understand the change in her character, but the nudity in both scenes highlights and reinforces the dramatic growth she’s had over ten episodes.

Another scene that includes purposeful nudity takes place in the third season, where Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth, captive of Stark family allies, bathe in the tub (though sitting on opposite sides). Jaime, having lost his swordfighting hand, is even more sarcastic than usual, insulting Brienne’s prowess as a fighter and implying that her former king died because she wasn’t a good enough knight. At this, the maid of Tarth leaps to her feet, completely naked in front of the Kingslayer, staring him down until he apologizes for impugning her honor.

This is a great moment for Brienne’s character–only moments before, she was embarrassed to share a bath with the Kingslayer, but when he insults her, she wastes no time in asserting herself. When she rises to her feet, naked as the day she was born, she isn’t subject to the same male gaze as the chorus of nameless prostitutes on Game of Thrones. She’s still a warrior, and being stripped of her armor doesn’t change that fact one bit.

And the scene only gets better from there. Jaime Lannister, used to being the strongest and most skilled person in the room (in both swordplay and wordplay), is stripped in every sense of the word. He’s vulnerable in a way he’s never been before, confessing the truth about his reasons for killing the Mad King, and he eventually faints into Brienne’s arms, whispering, “Jaime. My name is Jaime.”

Brienne hears Jaime’s tale of killing the Mad King

Much like Daenerys’s scenes at the beginning and end of season one, the nudity in this scene represents both strength and vulnerability. In this scene, Jaime Lannister reveals more of himself than he’s revealed to any other person, and this only works if they’re both literally stripped bare.

Now imagine how much MORE powerful these scenes would be if the frequent use of gratuitous boob shots hadn’t turned this aspect of the show into a running joke.

Despite strawman arguments that claim the contrary, it’s really not all that hard to discern the difference between gratuitous nudity and nudity that serves an artistic purpose. People who claim otherwise are not confused; they’re deliberately disingenuous.

Lady T is an aspiring writer and comedian with two novels, a play, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at The Funny Feminist, where she picks apart entertainment and reviews movies she hasn’t seen.