Out queer writer Gore Vidal was prescient in discussing the danger of self-labeled “conservative” Republicans (“reactionary” has always been a better term for them). In 1968, as part of network news coverage of the political conventions Vidal debated William F. Buckley, the loathsome “conservative” stalwart… In their debates, Vidal describes Buckley’s rhetoric as “always to the right and almost always in the wrong.” The debates are the focus of Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville’s documentary ‘Best of Enemies.’
When the media or an individual claims Donald Trump is the Republican presidential candidate who most directly scapegoats marginalized groups, I think of all the decades Republicans have wallowed in their slander of queer and trans people. That slander is a big part of the reason I have no tolerance for hearing or reading that Democrats and Republicans are “just as bad” as one another and why I don’t see people who vote Republican and Republican candidates themselves as adorably quirky, the way white-guy, late-night talk show hosts seem to.
Out queer writer Gore Vidal was prescient in discussing the danger of self-labeled “conservative” Republicans (“reactionary” has always been a better term for them). In 1968, as part of network news coverage of the political conventions Vidal debated William F. Buckley, the loathsome “conservative” stalwart perhaps best known these days for his proposal in The New York Times, during the the peak years of the AIDS crisis in the ’80s, that infected people should be forcibly tattooed with their status on their buttocks and forearms. In their debates, Vidal describes Buckley’s rhetoric as “always to the right and almost always in the wrong.”
The debates are the focus of Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville’s documentary Best of Enemies, released last year and streaming this month on pbs.org, but anyone looking for context on either man’s opinions (like Buckley’s views on people with AIDS) will have to look elsewhere. The curse of gotta-hear-both-sides “balanced” journalism that legitimized the presidential campaign of Donald Trump is very much in evidence in Best of Enemies, as we see white guy after white guy lionize Buckley (so few women are in this documentary that one wonders if the filmmakers counted the woman in archival footage asking Buckley on Laugh-In, “Do you think mini-skirts are in good taste,” or the woman in a white bikini shown from behind on Miami Beach, as part of the film’s gender balance). He employs many of the same methods we see Trump using today, though Trump’s speeches are on a middle-school reading level, so he doesn’t have Buckley’s much vaunted vocabulary (which Vidal points out Buckley uses to distract, not illuminate).
Vidal wrote incisively about the debates and Buckley in an article in Esquire (which stung Buckley enough that he sued the magazine). One of the essay’s many truths leaps out in the wake of current events — and recent debates: “…There is a demagogic strategy in all this. If one is lying, accuse others of lying.”
Vidal came from the same patrician background as Buckley (Vidal was the grandson of a senator and the step-brother of Jackie Onassis) so like native Californian Joan Didion writing on Ronald and Nancy Reagan, he was able to get under the skin of Buckley and look into his corrupt soul:
“…Joe Kennedy’s sons and Senator Gore’s grandson changed as they made their way in the world, learned charity or at least good sense, but not Bill — he is still the schoolboy debater echoing what he heard in his father’s house…”
During a final debate when Vidal angered him, Buckley said in his affected, nails-on-the-blackboard accent, “Now listen you quee-ah, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in the goddamn face.” What most riled Buckley in that Esquire article was Vidal’s implication that he was a closet “quee-ah” himself. Vidal cites two gay publications of the era which outed Buckley, and later writings (including novelist Alexander Chee’s wonderful remembrance of working as part of the coterie of gay cater waiters in the Buckley residence in the ’90s) have implied the same, but those avenues remain unexplored in this film.
The film applies its misguided, “even-handed” approach when portraying both men in later life. We’re supposed to see Vidal as pathetic and mostly forgotten (even as his late biography Palimpsestwas one of his best-reviewed books) but hanging out in an Italian villa with a young, cute “friend” seems a much more pleasant old age than the one Buckley evinces in later clips when he tells Charlie Rose he’s ready to stop living. Although the film states the election of Ronald Reagan was a triumph for Buckley, as time progressed more and more of Buckley’s opinions (his support of Joe McCarthy, his view that Martin Luther King belonged “behind bars,” and something he says in the debate “Freedom breeds inequality”) were discredited, so much so that they seem like they could have been written for The Onion.
Buckley died before Vidal did, and Vidal was able to give him the send-off Buckley earned, “RIP WFB — in hell.” But really Vidal had written Buckley’s obituary years before in Esquire, when he described Buckley’s on-air homophobia during their debate:
“…In full view of ten million people, the little door in William F. Buckley Jr.’s forehead suddenly opened and out sprang that wild cuckoo which I had always known was there but had wanted so much for others, preferably millions of others, to get a good look at.”
Ren Jender is a queer writer-performer/producer putting a film together. Her writing, besides appearing on Bitch Flicks has also been published in The Village Voice, The Toast, Rewire, xoJane and The Feminist Wire. You can follow her on Twitter @renjender.
Certainly, teenagers strain against authority and exert their independence. This doesn’t mean they’re immune to other big issues that plague society – issues such as sexism and racism. If the novels being written for this demographic want to call themselves true dystopias based on a futuristic society in which our current way of living led to some global disaster, then the writers of the novels and the film adaptations shouldn’t shy away from some of the biggest issues in current politics and society.
If book sales and box office numbers are any indication, young adults love their dystopian fiction. So much so that the creative powers that be are intent on keeping the momentum going with more and more additions to this fairly recent genre phenomenon, for better or for worse. Unfortunately, the repetition breeds dilution of the initial idea of a dystopia as an opposite of a utopia, or perfect world.
The idea of dystopia takes into account basic and flawed human nature, hinging on the idea that power, political in this case, corrupts, leading to a small group of oppressors and a greater group of oppressed. YA dystopian fiction tends to present this oppression as a necessary sacrifice to save the rest of humanity after some global and apocalyptic disaster, often environmental in nature and with the clear message that we should take care of our environment now or suffer our own dystopia later.
The common element in a true dystopia is politics, but in these YA versions, the politics have become metaphors for the seemingly oppressive nature of adult and school rules under which teenagers often chafe. This conversion leaves the stories one-sided and shallow, expecting the reader to assume that, because this is a common problem within the young adult mindset, it is also the biggest problem facing young adults today. At best, such an assumption stems from laziness, and at worst, it’s insulting.
Certainly, teenagers strain against authority and exert their independence. This doesn’t mean they’re immune to other big issues that plague society – issues such as sexism and racism. If the novels being written for this demographic want to call themselves true dystopias based on a futuristic society in which our current way of living led to some global disaster, then the writers of the novels and the film adaptations shouldn’t shy away from some of the biggest issues in current politics and society. It’s not realistic to assume that these issues would simply fade into the background as society crumbled.
Take The Hunger Games, for example. Society is divided by geography and profession as each of the 12 districts supplies the capital city with a specific product or skill. The districts live in various extremes of poverty and deprivation. While some would argue that such suffering would bring out the best in some people, the situation is also ripe for the desperation that leads to an irrational fear of other, a prime motivator of racism. And yet, while the author created a diverse group of characters, including Katniss who was described as “olive-skinned,” the discrimination based on this diversity is simply missing.
The same could be said for TheMaze Runner series (the first film is available on demand through Google Play and DirecTV), which provides representation of various races to include Asian and African American and yet never a hint of racial tensions either in the grove or once they’re out of it and into The Scorch Trials, the second installment of the book and movie trilogy. Possibly the worst offender of recent offerings, however, is the Divergent series, in which society is divided by faction only, with each faction based on a particular character trait. Not only is there no hint of racism anywhere in any of the three novels of this trilogy, but sexism is gone, too.
This latter is particularly hard to swallow given that the domestically abusive and oppressive male leader of one faction (while actively opposing the female leader of another) never once makes a disparaging reference to her being deficient because she’s a woman, even after his true character is brought to light and his crimes against his own family are revealed to all. There is one comment made by a male to the lead female Tris when Peter tells her she has nice legs for a “stiff,” but this is a reference to her previous faction only. No reference to her appearance as a female, only faction.
Overall, if writers and filmmakers wish to reach the widest possible audience, they’ll need to take a harder look at more than struggles with authority. By leaving out other important problems faced by today’s young people, they leave a glaring hole in the message.
Maria Ramos is a writer interested in comic books, cycling, and horror films. Her hobbies include cooking, doodling, and finding local shops around the city. She currently lives in Chicago with her two pet turtles, Franklin and Roy. You can follow her on Twitter @MariaRamos1889.
It is this point at which things significantly begin to shift in Frank and Claire’s relationship. This entire situation, which occurred in a succession of embarrassments for Frank, clearly served as a challenge to his dominance and an infringement on his masculinity, especially coming from his wife. For Claire, meanwhile, it is evident that while Frank is fighting desperately to enforce his masculinity and remain in power, she has lost all of hers.
Frank and Claire Underwood gaze at each other. “Like sharks love blood”
This guest post by Tilly Grove appears as part of our theme week on Masculinity.
The attributes required to be a head of state and the attributes associated with masculinity have long been concurrent. Indeed, this is at least partly why so many heads of state, certainly in Western societies, are and historically have been men. Leaders are seen to be, or need to be, strong, rational, wise and assertive; these are also traits of masculinity, and considered to be the opposite of those associated with femininity and thus women. Women are seen to be peaceful, impulsive, weak-willed, timid and submissive. Though this is clearly untrue, the perception ensures that women are only able to succeed and be taken seriously in politics if they adopt masculine traits and disown feminine ones. They are placed under intense scrutiny by their rivals and the public to ensure that they do not revert back, and criticism will be invariably gendered.
Francis “Frank” Underwood (Kevin Spacey), the lead character of Netflix’s American remake of the British show House of Cards, is practically designed to showcase masculinity as he schemes his way to the President’s office. We are first introduced to Frank, who is then a congressman of the Democrat Party and House majority whip, finding out that he has not been appointed Secretary of State, an arrangement it is soon revealed that he had orchestrated by securing the election of President Garrett Walker. The show then follows his progression through the White House via less conventional means. He manipulates, exploits, backroom deals, and even kills his way from congressman to vice president and finally into the Oval Office itself. He has no qualms in disposing of his fellow congressmen, lovers, and even the President of the United States to get there, and no method is too underhand.
Frank’s ruthlessness is central to his masculinity. He is unashamed of his thirst for power and he will do anything to achieve what he wants. Even when we think we are seeing a softer side to him–for example when he takes young congressman Peter Russo under his wing to get him on the nominees list for Governor of Pennsylvania, or when he embarks on a symbiotic professional and then sexual relationship with the journalist Zoe Barnes–all is never as it seems. Frank makes reference to the fact, when he visits Barnes on Father’s Day, that he considers those he draws into his web as children when he responds knowingly to her statement that he doesn’t have any with, “Don’t I?” However, far from caring for his “children,” he uses them for his own gains and disposes of them when he is done or they threaten his dominance. When he sabotages Russo in order to fill the governor position with the incumbent vice-president, opening up that seat for himself, he sends the former alcoholic into a downward spiral and eventually kills him, making it look like suicide, when it becomes clear he is a liability. Likewise, when Barnes begins to suspect that Frank is behind this death and the other dealings occurring in the White House at that time, and after she has decided she no longer wants to sleep with him, he pushes her in front of a subway train.
In a more traditional story, we might expect Frank’s wife, Claire, to provide a feminine, maternal complement. Instead, we are given a character who at least on first appearances is every bit as ruthless and power-hungry as her husband. In her appearance, she opts for short, sharp haircuts, grey-blue outfits, and constant steely eyed determination. In her professional life, she is head of an NGO, the Clean Water Initiative, and her own career path seems very important to her. When she works together with Frank on an environmental bill designed to improve Russo’s public reputation and Frank does not give her the money she is expecting, she goes behind his back to ensure the legislation does not pass, and then goes to stay with her former lover Adam Galloway without informing Frank where she is. Considering that up until this point we have seen the two as a unit, sharing cigarettes and supportive words, this is a shock.
Frank and Claire Underwood stare off into the distance. “Trouble ahead?”
After this, it is difficult to gauge exactly the nature of the Underwoods’ marriage. At times, it seems healthy – mutually supportive, loving, and even where they both engage in extramarital affairs, this is only an issue when they are not open with the other about it. At other points, it seems that perhaps Claire is just yet another pawn in Frank’s game. He states in Chapter 3 that he loves her “more than sharks love blood,” but the image that this creates is not one of tenderness, but one of violent lust. Given the two rarely have sex with one another, this lust is defined by power instead. Frank uses Claire’s role with the CWI when he needs to, he uses her personal experiences of rape when he needs to, and he uses her support and her presence when he needs to. Claire is supposed to gain from this situation, too, but in Season 3 it becomes evident that she has not. Claire tries to get voted into a UN ambassadorial role and fails, so she relies on Frank to get it for her instead. When circumstances lead to a public fall-out between the US and Russia, she is then forced to resign, and performs only the role of First Lady. For Claire, this appears to be feminisation against her will.
For both of the Underwoods, we do get an occasional glimpse behind their masks of masculinity. With Frank, it is in his sexuality. Homosexuality is often regarded as being in direct opposition to masculinity, because it is both seen as taking on the traits of femininity and women and also because it requires that a man does not perform the task of dominating a woman. Perhaps this is why Frank is never open with anyone about his tendencies, but it is heavily implied in Chapter 8 that he had some kind of relationship with one of his old friends at military college, Tim Corbet. Later in the show, in Chapter 24, we see the Underwoods engaging sexually with their bodyguard, Edward Meechum. Claire remarks that Frank “needed that.”
For Claire, her struggle appears to be with her latent femininity. When she shows up at Barnes’ flat to demonstrate that nothing about her affair is secret, it is obvious that she is desperate for control, but given that she immediately restarts her affair with Galloway after learning of what is going on with Frank and Barnes, it is likely that there are elements of jealousy and insecurity too. In Season 2, when she uses her friendship with the then-First Lady Patricia Walker to enable Frank to continue to manipulate her husband out of the presidency, upon being told by Patricia that she is a “good person,” Claire puts down the phone and bursts into tears, clearly feeling guilt. Meanwhile, in Season 3, her decision to stay with a gay activist imprisoned in Russia as he starves on hunger strike ultimately leads the relations between America and Russia, that Frank had been working tirelessly on, to break down.
It is this point at which things significantly begin to shift in Frank and Claire’s relationship. This entire situation, which occurred in a succession of embarrassments for Frank, clearly served as a challenge to his dominance and an infringement on his masculinity, especially coming from his wife. For Claire, meanwhile, it is evident that while Frank is fighting desperately to enforce his masculinity and remain in power, she has lost all of hers. This was not the agreement on which their marriage was founded, symbolised by the argument they have on Air Force One after the Russia debacle where Frank states that he should never have made Claire ambassador, and she retorts that she should never have made him president. This conversation sets into motion a chain of events that ultimately leads to Claire packing her bags and leaving. There can be little doubt that the presence of this indomitable masculinity in their relationship, and the constant fight to retain it, played a significant part in the breakdown.
Tilly Grove writes about feminism, pop culture, mental health and more at That Pesky Feminist. She tweets too much about the same at @tillyjean_.
Season 3 of House of Cards, released Feb. 27 on Netflix, ends abruptly, as we dangle on the edge.
As Claire gives her blood in Iowa–literally for the Red Cross for a nice photo op and figuratively for Frank’s career–she gets lightheaded, and tells their biographer that she thinks about jumping of a bridge. Before she passes out, she tells him that when Frank proposed, she’d told him that “every seven years, if it’s still good enough,” they’d stay married for another seven years before reassessing the marriage.
They’ve been married for 28 years. And it’s time to take stock of the partnership, which has been feeling less and less like a marriage of equals. There’s only one seat in the Oval Office, after all.
Season 3, at its core, is about a series of clashes. Not only are the Underwoods clashing, but so also are countries, special interests, and air and water temperatures. These clashes of powers and contrasts of ideologies can be violent, but season 3 is less shocking, less violent, less sexy, than seasons past. Frank and Claire Underwood were maneuvering and clawing their ways to the top, but now they’re there. Or at least, Frank’s there. Season 3 concerns the delicate and perhaps less passionate dance of staying at the top, when the only place you have to go is down.
Because of this, Frank and Claire seem decidedly less evil than they have in the first two seasons. All of the characters are complex and none is simply good or evil–the show has always been excellent that way, and that writing certainly lends itself to being decidedly feminist, as I’ve argued for the last two seasons. Frank even seems like a tragic hero sometimes, more disheveled, more pitiful than he was while he was violently rising the ranks. Of course, he opens the season by pissing on his father’s grave–so Frank is still Frank–but his desperation to hold onto power weakens him.
Claire accomplishes very little on her own in season 3. She needs Frank’s help to appoint her as UN ambassador when she can’t get the votes from Congress. Her role as First Lady repeatedly overshadows her own goals, and she eventually must resign her UN role because President Putin Petrov bullies Frank. She then must launch full-force into First Lady mode, dying her hair to please focus groups, kissing babies, shaking hands, living and working solely for Frank. This is not Claire Underwood. She knows that this is not who she is. By the end of the season, she’s acknowledged this, and is leaving the White House. “Claire!” Frank shouts as she announces that she’s leaving him, and the credits immediately roll.
Claire must exist to support Frank.
As is suggested by the promo shots for season 3, Claire is becoming more and more an equal player in House of Cards (in season 1’s promos, she didn’t appear; in season 2’s, she sat behind Frank; in season 3’s, they are walking side by side, as they often do in the episodes). However, her role in the White House had to be for Frank, and it–and he–wasn’t enough. When Frank yells out for her to not leave at the end of the season, it’s because he also knows that he’s not enough. Without her, there will be no White House.
There are, as always, some incredible moments woven throughout this remarkably feminist political drama. Here are some of them:
Episode 1: They are sleeping in different bedrooms, and it’s clear that Claire is being left behind. She requests an appointment to be the UN ambassador, because the work of a First Lady is “not the same as contributing in a real way.” She says, “I’ve been in the passenger seat for decades. It’s time for me to get behind the wheel.”
Episode 2: Claire channels Hillary Clinton in during her nomination hearing, snapping that the “US military is irrelevant.” Of course, it’s taken completely out of context, just as Clinton’s “What difference does it make” statement was during the Benghazi hearings (the nods to current events in season 3 seem clearer than ever before). Claire is attempting to secure an incredibly important position in the UN, and at the same time, she has to pick two Easter Egg designs for the yearly Easter Egg Roll–a First Lady duty. The contrast between world power and decorative pleasantries is stark. “It’s too pink,” she says of one egg. “Girls like pink,” responds the woman with the eggs. Claire does not choose the pink egg.
Episode 3:Pussy Riot! Le Tigre! Russian President Petrov represents a time when “men were men.” He and Frank smoke Cubans and jockey for power while Ambassador Claire Underwood and Secretary of State Cathy Durant play beer pong and work toward peace. The masculine old guard often looks silly–the gifts, the games, the pride–but they too often still wield the power. By the end of the episode, Frank is lauding Pussy Riot and is flanked by Claire and Cathy (certainly not the last time he’s flanked by more powerful women in this season).
Episode 4: Solicitor General Heather Dunbar rises to power early on in the season. Frank asks her to consider his nomination for Supreme Court Justice, but she quickly realizes she wants to run for President instead. This episode deals with the US’s drone strike policies, and challenges the idea that killing innocent people to stop one guilty person is just. Meanwhile, a gay American activist is arrested and detained in Russia. In a bit of a heavy handed scene, Frank speaks with a priest in the church about justice and love, and ends up alone in the sanctuary, where he spits in Jesus’ face. The statue falls and breaks into a hundred pieces after he goes to wipe the spit off.
Episode 5: Dunbar starts campaigning, and takes the gay activist’s husband with her. She comes out strong on social issues that Frank has stayed moderate on. Frank’s dismantling of entitlement programs and his approach with America Works is Tea Party politics compared to the D next to his name. A powerful female reporter from The Telegraph replaces the former reporter whom Seth Grayson kicks out. He tries to silence one woman who asks challenging questions, and is faced instead with someone who is even more threatening. When Dunbar learns that Claire lied about her abortion on national TV, she says, “I would never do that to another woman,” in re: using the information against her. And in an incredibly powerful scene, Claire makes the Russian ambassador meet her in the woman’s bathroom while she puts on makeup, and then urinates with the door open. He’s uncomfortable, and she’s in control.
Episode 6: Claire goes with Frank to Russia to meet with Michael Corrigan, the imprisoned activist. They have a compelling conversation about marriage. Claire is unable to talk him into reading the prepared speech to be let free (he would have to apologize to President Petrov and Russia for parading nontraditional sexual ideas). Instead, he commits suicide while Claire sleeps in the cell, and he uses her scarf. She speaks out for him at the press conference–much to Frank and Petrov’s horror. “He had more courage than you’ll ever have,” she tells Frank. “I should have never made you ambassador,” Frank says. She responds, “I should never have made you president.”
Episode 7: Tibetan monks will work for weeks on intricate sand paintings, mandalas, and then ritualistically destroy it to symbolize the impermanence of the material world. A group of Tibetan monks are in the Underwoods’ White House as part of a cultural exchange. The gorgeous, time-consuming nature of their work, and the beautiful destruction of it, serves as a backdrop to Claire and Frank deciding to renew their vows. Claire changes her hair color to the dark shade it was when they first met. She’s being honored by GLAAD and other gay rights organizations. They must show the world that they are a team, but they are feeling less and less like one. Frank visits the FDR Memorial and reflects upon their similarities to the Roosevelts (his revamped “New Deal” and Claire’s human rights and United Nations activities). Claire rises again in this episode, and while they renew their vows and sleep in the same bed again, the monks poured all of that beautiful sand down a flowing river. Nothing lasts forever.
During episode 7, Claire and Frank sit at the breakfast table reading the newspaper, reminiscent of this scene from Citizen Kane. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Episode 8: A hurricane is brewing, and it’s being narrated by two voices: novelist Tom Yates, whom Frank has asked to be his biographer; and Kate Baldwin, the enterprising Telegraph reporter. The feminine and masculine (not necessarily female and male) are frequently clashing in House of Cards. These forces–whether they be stereotypical ideals of compassion and power or embodied in figures like Tom and Kate themselves–are often at their best when combined. Freddy is back in this episode, and delivers a powerful message to his grandson after meeting with Frank: “He lied to you. You’ll never be president,” he says. “It’s good to have dreams, as long as they’re not fantasies.”
Episode 9: The women are always on top in season 3’s sex scenes. The sex scenes are less exciting than season 2’s, but this positioning doesn’t go unnoticed. On the campaign trail, Dunbar is taking a decidedly feminist approach: raising the minimum wage, fighting for gay rights, and ending corporate greed. Frank, on the other hand, chants “You are entitled to nothing,” and toes the individualistic, masculine line. Remy is faced with racism–from an Iowa lobbyist and the police. Doug–whose story line is terrifying and constantly uncomfortable, except for a few warm moments with his brother–is working for Dunbar to get info for Frank.
Episode 10: Claire sits between Israel and Palestine–she’s a powerful force. She’s tricked by Petrov, however (who has always clearly been threatened by her or anyone/anything that threatens the traditional order), and her fake intel leads to a US troop’s death. When Petrov and Frank meet in the Jordan Valley (the House of Cards version of the Gaza Strip), it’s a masculine scene–guns, ammo, tanks, kevlar, camo. Petrov tells Frank that Claire must not be an ambassador anymore. Frank agrees. This, then, is the beginning of what was already an end in sight. By the end of the episode, Claire is looking at a history of headshots, agreeing to go blonde because “Iowa in particular likes the blonde.” In what has become a necessity for each season, ambiguous sexual tension takes place between Tom and Frank. Tom admits that he used to “turn tricks” with men for a living, and got addicted to hearing their stories. They hold hands for a moment–it’s an incredibly intimate scene–and then it’s over. As others have noted, it’s refreshing to see sexuality treated with such nuance.
Claire Underwood
Episode 11: Blonde Claire gives a campaign speech at a fancy little ladies’ luncheon, quite the opposite of negotiating peace talks as she had been just days before. Claire is so much like Hurricane Faith, which was poised to make a huge difference, but then did nothing. Frank can’t control the weather, but he’s trying to control Claire. Jackie Sharp is also running in the Democratic primary, but only to split the vote to eventually be Frank’s VP. She doesn’t want to do what Frank tells her to–calling Dunbar sexist or bringing Dunbar’s children into the debate–but she does when Dunbar won’t promise her Secretary of Defense. So Jackie pulls the sexism card and pulls the private school card during the debate, and Frank attacks her for it. Shortly after, Jackie suspends her campaign and endorses Dunbar. Seth calls her a “Judas Bitch,” and Remy resigns as Frank’s Chief of Staff. Players are choosing sides, and Frank must rely on Claire’s likability to get the numbers he needs for Iowa. She’s reading children a book at story time now instead of attempting to broker peace between Israel and Palestine.
Episode 12: Claire is told to be more and more in the spotlight, even answering Q&As. She’s “favorable” to voters, and there are moments where it looks as if she’s the one running for president, and she certainly feels the sting of that not being the case. “I’ll keep waving my pom-poms,” she says. She spends time with a young mother in Iowa on the campaign trail. The Underwood signs in the yard are her husband’s, though. “I wish you were running for president,” she tells Claire. The exhausted young mother talks about her unhappy marriage, and laments to Claire that if it weren’t for the baby they took out two mortgages to have via IVF, that she would leave. Moments later, Frank calls Claire to tell her that Dunbar knows about her journal and the truth about her abortions. “No, Francis. This can’t happen. Whatever you have to do, fix it.” Doug brings the journal to Frank and burns the page, promising that he’d just gotten close to Dunbar to prove his loyalty to Frank. He requests, and gets, the position of Chief of Staff. Claire is rightfully furious, considering her reproductive choices have been used as political pawns by other people. Frank has stopped seeing Claire as an equal; as soon as he was in the Oval Office, she was just the First Lady.
Episode 13: Doug’s subplot of using Gavin to find Rachel climaxes in the last episode, as he buys a trash-heap of a white van to drive to her and avenge the fact that she’d beaten him almost to death in season 2 (after she had assumed–probably rightfully so–that he was going to kill her). These awful scenes are made more tragic by the fact that Rachel has escaped her former life and is helping other abuse victims in the process. Doug comes close to love and compassion when his brother stays with him while he gets clean, but he doesn’t come close enough. Claire tries to get Frank to “fuck her,” to “be rough,” but he won’t. He sends her back to DC, and we hear the screams and clapping for him campaigning while she gets back to the White House alone. Frank wins Iowa without her there, but he knows that she must be by his side for him to be successful. When he gets back, she’s sitting in his chair in the Oval Office–where she, and probably he, knows she should be. “For all these years,” she says, “I thought we were in this together. This is not what I thought it would be. It’s your office. You make the decisions.” He snaps back that she can’t have it both ways–to be an equal partner, and for men to control her (bringing up the sex scene in a powerful way). She feels “weak” and “small” and can’t feel like that any longer.
“Without me, you are nothing,” Frank snaps at her. “It’s time for you to do your job. You will be the First Lady.”
She looks at the picture of the Tibetan mandala–capturing a moment that was destroyed–and she packs her bags, but not for the campaign trail. Claire Underwood was meant to be first, not First Lady.
Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature, and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.
She’s a toxic political figure, a creator of monumental gaffes and inappropriate situations who doesn’t even have the excuse of good intentions. Her intentions are always self-serving and she treats her staff atrociously, often assigning them the blame for her mistakes.
This repost by Rachel Redfern appears as part of our theme week on Unlikable Women.
Foul-mouthed and frazzled, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (eternally known as Elaine from Seinfeld), stars as United States Vice-President, Selina Meyer, in the Emmy Award-winning HBO political satire, VEEP. The show focuses on Dreyfus’ character, a woman who wants power, but resides in a fairly weak place, politically, having to hide in the shadows of the president and worry about her approval ratings.
There are two Hollywood versions of Washington, D.C.–one where the president is Morgan Freeman and he’s strong, but compassionate, and you feel good about being an American. The other version is something out of a John Grisham novel in which the city is one giant 60 Minutes expose of cynicism and conspiracy (the latter version just makes you sad to be alive). VEEP is the second, minus the conspiracy and snipers and with the addition of obsessive BlackBerry use.
Since the show never features the president, VEEP is free to focus on the more trivial aspects of federal politics, like the clean jobs bill Selina tries to put together, only to have the president close it down and give her obesity instead (not that obesity isn’t a big issue, it just offers a few more humorous situations than Guantanamo Bay). VEEP is interesting though, not because the characters surrounding her are ridiculous, but because Selina, the main character, is ridiculous and unlikable herself. She’s a toxic political figure, a creator of monumental gaffes and inappropriate situations who doesn’t even have the excuse of good intentions. Her intentions are always self-serving and she treats her staff atrociously, often assigning them the blame for her mistakes.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selina Meyer in HBO’s VEEP
Selina’s staff isn’t any bundle of joy either; they’re just as unethical and self-serving as she is. Amy (Anne Chlumsky) is her competent, yet also incompetent chief of staff; Gary (Tony Hale of Arrested Development), is her faithful personal aide who is so loyal he takes a sneeze in the face to save her from being sick, and even breaks up with her boyfriend for her (in a sidenote, this is the second role that has featured him as a mildly obsessed man with an insane devotion to an older woman, a role that is played out as being emasculating and undignified); Sue (Sufe Bradshaw), is her sassy secretary; Mike (Matt Walsh) as the over-the-hill fading director of communications; Dan (Reid Scott) who is politically savvy, but also a social climber of epic proportions; and of course, the weird presidential liaison, Jonah (Timothy Simons), who tries to sleep with Amy.
Selina and her female staff are just as foul-mouthed and unpleasant as their male counterparts, a fact I actually really like about the show. Instead of giving the women a rosy, fictional gloss, they’re painted more as unique players in the political process, rather than just a token show about “Women in Politics.” In that vein, the show does portray the still highly sexualized role of female leaders, which is disturbing, but unfortunately very realistic. Examples of sexual harassment are fairly common on the show, like when Sue is the recipient of some pretty blatant comments from a congressman, which she just shrugs off; the death of a famously lecherous senator is mocked as everyone raves about him publicly, but in private, all the women sarcastically share their stories of his disgusting behavior. It’s sad to think that this situation is probably very common; male political figures lauded as leaders, when in reality they’re abusive perverts. For me though, the most astute and frustrating example of this came when Amy, Selina’s chief of staff, has to negotiate with two congressmen from Arizona; their immediate disdain for her and the patronizing, “sweetheart” she receives when she sits down is so realistic and problematic I wanted her to smack them. And yet, like so many powerful and intelligent women, she just had to take the condescension or risk sounding like an “over-emotional bitch.” This portrayal of randy behavior from the male senators strikes a contrast to the depth of scrutiny that the women on the show receive about their sex life. When Selina has a pregnancy scare, the media goes crazy and many of her interviews after address that very personal topic, rather than larger, national issues.
Humorously though, her cynical staff decide to turn it into a sympathy moment and try publish a story about in a woman’s magazine. It’s one of many instances when Selina’s stance as the loving, but absent mother plays a role in her political success; It’s only when Selina cries on camera about missing her daughter that her approval rating increases. Comedy shines again as the greater revelator of cultural inequality as Selina’s motherhood is constantly called into question (as is her femininity when she’s given the nickname, “Viagra inhibitor”). As is always the case, a male leader’s relationship with his children is less important than his hairline, but a female leader must always appear guilty and remorseful about her position, she must always regret the fact that her ambition has taken her out of the home or risk being perceived as cold-hearted or worse, un-maternal.
In the end, Selina (and even most of her staff) are undeniably unlikable people. Very little (if any) time of the sitcom is spent showing political figures as doing anything to improve the lives of their constituents; rather their days are filled with scheming and backbiting. Despite the fact that the characters aren’t people you would ever want to meet, the show does highlight the selfish and elitist world of the Unites States’ highest political people, and it’s a nice change to have that shown with a female lead.
Aside from the very astute commentary that the show makes about gender and politics, one of it’s greatest strengths is in the area of the gaffe. Oh the political gaffe: Romney and his 47 percent, Akin and his “women have a way to shut that whole thing down,” Vice-President Joe Biden about half the time. While all we see is the unbelievably stupid thing that a public figure has just said on national television, VEEP does an excellent job of leading up to Selina’s gaffes. They give us the background story and the same information that Selina is given so that when the gaffe does occur it’s incredibly funny, but also a bit understandable. It’s an element of the show that serves as a great reminder of the humanity of our politicians; while yes they say stupid things sometimes, we probably would too if we were in their shoes. I mean, I say stupid stuff all the time, I’m just lucky enough that there aren’t any TV cameras around when I say it. At the end of the day, politicians are just people with better hair.
Rachel Redfern has an MA in English literature, where she conducted research on modern American literature and film and its intersection, however she spends most of her time watching HBO shows, traveling, and blogging and reading about feminism.
A subtitled Danish drama about Danish coalition politics sounds rather elitist (if not absurdly boring) and one that, at best, would appeal to a niche audience. However headlines such as “Stop what you are doing and go watch ‘Borgen,’” “Why Danish Political drama ‘Borgen’ is Everything” and “Why the World fell for ‘Borgen’” from sources ranging from ‘The Telegraph’ to the ‘Buzzfeed’ may make you reconsider that initial assumption.
This is a guest post by Nandini Rathi.
A subtitled Danish drama about Danish coalition politics sounds rather elitist (if not absurdly boring) and one that, at best, would appeal to a niche audience. However headlines such as “Stop what you are doing and go watch Borgen,” “Why Danish Political drama Borgen is Everything” and “Why the World fell for Borgen” from sources ranging from The Telegraph to the Buzzfeed may make you reconsider that initial assumption. Borgen, a one-hour series about a charismatic politician coming to power as the first woman Prime Minister of Denmark, defies expectations. Now internationally famous, the series has earned precious acclaim from critics and fans alike for its riveting machiavellian politics and strong female characters. The plot skillfully weaves together a fictionalized battlefield of parliamentary politics and journalistic media, without neglecting the exploration of its impact in the characters’ personal lives. Borgen anticipated a number of events — most notably, the election of Denmark’s actual first female Prime Minister (Helle Thorning-Schmidt), which occurred while the show was in its second season.
Borgen cast
Borgen is better for a brilliant group of actors cast well for its complex characters. The main character is Birgitte Nyborg (played by Sidse Babett Knudsen), a first-rate politician in her early 40s and the leader of the Moderates, who is unexpectedly elected the Prime Minister. In a parallel story, we meet the 29-year-old Katrine Fonsmark (Birgitte Hjort Sorensen) who is a gifted political journalist dedicated to her work. In addition to featuring strong and compelling female characters, the series dramatizes some of the more universal debates in progress about gender and leadership, for instance, how women are evaluated in roles such as heads of state which have long been men’s exclusive domains.
For an international audience, Borgen’s political drama is edgy and exotic. Produced in the land of relative gender-egalitarianism and environmental consciousness, Borgen’s international charm lies in its progressive difference; it weaves together the qualities of a successful show (a unique, clever plotline and talented actors) with the best of Scandinavian achievements, that is, progressive social and environmental norms.
When it comes to the classic, age-old, question of whether a woman can have both a family and a top-notch career or in other words, can she “have it all,” Borgen offers no easy solutions. Without denying the question’s specific application to women, it also forces the viewer to consider if anyone (in Nyborg’s position – even a man) balancing private life with difficult public responsibilities can have everything. As Vicky Frost states in her article for The Guardian, Borgen’s strength lies in resisting an oversimplification of questions of gender and feminism and addressing them without making them the apparent focus of the show.
Nyborg and family
Borgen dramatizes the tension between the private and public lives of highly successful individuals, especially that of active, busy politicians. From the very outset, Birgitte Nyborg’s family and colleagues acknowledge her as extremely smart and charismatic, and initially, as a Moderate not expecting much from the parliamentary elections, her political idealism and time for family are well-preserved. In that vein, without expectations and hesitations, she gives an honest, impassioned speech about the difference between being a politician skilled at power play and doing what’s best for the people. The speech is followed by unexpected events that put Nyborg in the position to lead the government. Once she becomes the PM, she is slowly forced to make many compromises with her ideals and sacrifice her family-time in order to continue being in power.
Nyborg’s family life is a fascinating commentary on the social place and perception of working mothers. In a remarkable scene from the first episode, Birgitte’s husband, Phillip, recounts to her that while watching her debate on TV, their little son had asked him if he would grow up to be as smart as his mother. Initially, what is described by Janet Manley on The Frisky as “the most feminist marriage on TV,” drastically changes in course of the season. Phillip, who is initially highly supportive of Birgitte becoming the PM and tackles the lion’s share of child rearing and housework, eventually begins to feel neglected and emasculated as Birgitte becomes increasingly unavailable (emotionally and sexually) and his own job becomes less satisfying. At multiple occasions, Borgen draws the attention of the viewer to the fact that even in societies with greater gender equity like Denmark, neglect of family life by a busy wife is likely to be unpalatable to her husband even though the reverse expectation has long been made from wives.
Phillip encourages Birgitte when she is unsure if she wants to be the PM
Birgitte and Philip later in the show
Borgen begins with painting an almost-fantasy: a truly gender-equal society where men and women share childcare, women hold the same positions of power in politics and media as men, and everyone achieves the enviable work-life balance. However as the narrative progresses, it becomes clear that in a fundamentally patriarchal society, such feminist fantasies are not truly tenable. However, in spite of hardships, it is heartening to watch smart, driven and flawed characters like Birgitte and Katrine climb the ladder of professional excellence and not get personally punished for being ambitious.
Borgen’s Reception
As an instant watercooler hit in the UK and within the limited, cult following of the US, Borgen has been a darling of critics and fans alike. It has spurred all kinds of debate about progressive gender politics due to its portrayal of nuanced female characters that don’t appear too often on the American TV landscape. Birgitte Nyborg is not super-skinny, but a voluptuous woman in her forties. In Episode 3 of the first season, Katrine Fonsmark’s conflict about aborting or keeping the child from her affair with a married, dead man and her final decision to abort is dramatized with equanimity. Abortion as an issue is not a source of moral ambiguity in Borgen. Katrine gets an ultrasound to confirm her pregnancy and hides it from her employer, because she’s conflicted about being pregnant, and not because she’s worried that she will be fired. Moreover, her mother, who is a practicing Catholic, advises Katrine to avoid keeping the child for the wrong reasons — in grief of the child’s dead father. Katrine is surprised and asks her mother what God would say to that, to which her mother simply responds that God has nothing to do with this. Hope Perlman from Psychology Today, is most impressed that Katrine in Denmark “can get an abortion safely, legally, and with excellent anesthesia, apparently, in a clean and well-run health facility, on national television.”
For Perlman, the calm portrayal of Katrine’s positive experience in Borgen is a sign that Denmark is well ahead of the US, not only in terms of abortion and birth control, but also in equal pay, paid family leave and quality childcare. Nuanced discussions on the subject of abortion are still a rare event on network television shows in the US (Friday Night Lights and Grey’s Anatomy are two notable exceptions), according to Sarah, a columnist for Abortion Gang. Even on Girls, the HBO show, a legal and safe abortion almost (but not quite) took place.
Politically speaking
The aesthetic of Borgen’s sets is spare, and the color palette favors faded tones. It manifests the relatively discreet and toned-down facet of Danish politics as portrayed in Borgen. Birgitte Nyborg is attended with none of the ceremony of the U.S. President. She lives in a comfortable, yet modest family house in Copenhagen, frequently bicycles to work, takes a taxi to the Parliament on the election night and travels on diplomatic missions abroad with just a few aides. The media industry as portrayed in Borgen is similarly stripped down. The interviews often take place around a simple metal table and the news presentation is quite straightforward.
Even watching a drama about the multi-party coalition politics of the Danish Parliament is a breath of fresh air compared to the limitations of a two-party model of the US. In this regard, Borgen has even been commented upon by political scientists. Writing for the Washington Post, U. Connecticut political scientist Stephen Dyson states that “Borgen … is a revitalizing antidote to the ennui of a stymied President Obama and the frustrations of our polarized gridlock politics.” The Danish political system usually produces coalition governments and the TV series reflects this by focusing on the struggle between the “Labor” and the “Liberal” (i.e. like the UK Conservatives) which usually need the support of one or more of the “Moderates,” Greens or smaller parties further to the left or right. For many American audiences, watching this level of collaboration and compromise between the so-called enemy factions and simply having a Green party is an impressive feat in itself. Speaking more generally, Borgen manages to humanize politicians. It is remarkable to watch Nyborg’s earnest and unconflicted apology to the leader of the Right Wing, for unwittingly reminding him of his daughter’s tragic death in the middle of their heated battle over immigration policy.
Critics and “Quality TV”
Many American and British critics have praised Borgen and other Nordic shows for their fearlessness in showing the darker side of characters, unlike American network shows which usually avoid experimenting with the general likeability of their main characters. Borgen can be compared to HBO shows which can afford to experiment with genre-mixing and “edgier” programming due to their independence from commercials and the subsequent concern for show ratings. On one hand, HBO markets itself as an exclusive club for the “risk-loving,” lucrative demographics using the leverage of “original programming” which is more likely to challenge social taboos (compared to its network counterpart). On the other hand, in Denmark (and Scandinavia), shows with themes like in Borgen are featured on national, publicly funded television which is the virtual equivalent of network TV in America in its accessibility to all.
Another thing that makes Borgen a quality drama in the US is its uber-limited legal availability. One may have to spend up to $50 to gain access to one season of Borgen on DVD. Within Denmark, Borgen is probably liked as a successful political drama, comparable to the likes of shows like The West Wing in the US. However, internationally, the show acquires an especially progressive tone due to the surprisingly huge differences between social realities (for e.g. in prevailing gender equity) of two Western, developed nations. The issues that are mobilized with nuance on the national TV of a country therefore tend to be indicative of what is normative within that society.
In its content, Borgen can be seen as a superior example of collaborative, global television. Borgen’s creator, Adam Price, was inspired by his favorite show, The West Wing, as he worked on creating a political drama of his own. In her interviews with Borgen’s writers, Eva Redvall, a Media and Communications scholar at University of Copenhagen, found that the writers took inspiration from many successful shows in the international domain, rather than any Danish or European series. This focus on international series is a sign of how the writers are inspired by quality product from abroad and bring aspects of their favorite series into the national domain.
What is branded as edgy within one society can be devoid of such connotations in other places. The critical consumption of International shows like Borgen therefore reveals the shifting and relative gauge of quality in “Quality TV.”
Nandini Rathi is a recent graduate from Whitman College (Walla Walla, Washington) in Film & Media Studies and Politics. She loves traveling, pop culture, photography and adventures. She wants to be immersed in filmmaking, journalism, writing and nonprofit work to ultimately be able to contribute her bit toward making the world a better place.
Directed by Shola Lynch, the 2004 documentary ‘Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed’ tells the story of Chisholm’s campaign for her party’s nomination, and without even trying to, the film offers a necessary antidote to popular culture representation of the dominant white male supremacist lens of history-making that is reified when it goes unchallenged.
If you’ve been following Mad Men this season then you know that the year is 1969, and Nixon has just taken office. Although the show is centered on white upper-middle class men and women, we are finally seeing a wee bit of narrative texture in the two minority women characters employed at the Madison Avenue advertising firm that is the show’s locus. But this is not a takedown of Mad Men, a show whose characters, writing, and style I find compelling even though I support the critiques offered by the likes of W. Kamau Bell and Daniel Mendelsohn. I bring up this series because, unless the writers this season will reveal otherwise, the New York City of 1969 on this show is not likely to highlight a major historical moment of this time and place: in that year and in that city Shirley Chisholm became the first black woman elected to Congress. Three years later, she would launch the first major bid by a woman for candidacy for the Democratic Party for the President of the United States. While there had been other candidates for third and fourth parties as far back as 1872 (Victoria Woodhull, to be precise), Chisholm’s campaign was serious in its determination to represent the United States and all its citizens in no uncertain terms. Directed by Shola Lynch, the 2004 documentary Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed tells the story of Chisholm’s campaign for her party’s nomination, and without even trying to, the film offers a necessary antidote to popular culture representation of the dominant white male supremacist lens of history-making that is reified when it goes unchallenged.
Lynch’s film follows a familiar style of documentary that viewers have come to expect from the POV series. There are numerous interviews with politicians, activists, and intellectuals who worked alongside Chisholm on her campaign or are called upon to reflect on why they did not support her nomination even while they supported her as a politician. The accounts of author/activist Amiri Baraka and former Congressmen Reverend Walter Fauntroy and Ronald Dellums are especially fascinating in that they reveal the complex interplay of concerns over standing behind a candidate they believed in vs. one who they thought could realistically defeat Nixon. Chisholm understood these concerns, but nonetheless offered a direct challenge to the conventional wisdom of electoral politics in her campaign announcement speech:
“I have faith in the American people. I believe that we are smart enough to correct our mistakes. I believe that we are intelligent enough to recognize the talent, energy, and dedication, which all American including women and minorities have to offer. I know from my travels to the cities and small towns of America that we have a vast potential, which can and must be put to constructive use in getting this great nation together.[…] I stand before you today, to repudiate the ridiculous notion that the American people will not vote for qualified candidates, simply because he is not right or because she is not a male. I do not believe that in 1972, the great majority of Americans will continue to harbor such narrow and petty prejudice.”
Though it is clear Chisholm sought the support of a united party, she was also explicit in her desire to bring together two groups to which she has dual membership: women and black people. After all, she opens her campaign announcement speech like this:
“I am not the candidate of black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the women’s movement of this country, although I am a woman, and I am equally proud of that.”
The film’s archival footage is rich with evidence of her attempting to demonstrate her goal to encourage her party toward inclusiveness. We see her move with total confidence and self-possession through crowds of supporters on the campaign trail, on voter registration drives, and facing crowds of thousands. What is perhaps the most remarkable thing about her political presence is she seems to address each audience she encounters with an exacting sense of urgency to motivate all people to seize the rights and privileges of full citizenship. In interviews and behind-the-scenes campaign footage, Chisholm comes across as almost unbelievably authentic (especially for a politician), and embodies the film’s subtitle (taken from her 1970 political autobiography): she was truly “unbought” when it came to her refusal to make political deals that would compromise her constituents and “unbossed” by those who have her remain firmly entrenched in the status quo she was elected to challenge.
Although it’s no spoiler to say that she lost the bid to George McGovern (who would lose to Nixon), the film’s real dramatic force is in the enduring impact felt by those who would go on to realize their own political power as a result of Chisholm’s courageous work. For instance, U.S. Representative Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) recalls when she first met Chisholm and joined the campaign. At the time she was both a student on public assistance and a single mother, and she remembers what Chisholm told her about her own will to act: “[She] told me, no matter what I do in life, use your power judiciously, use it with humility, but use it.”
I could spend all day quoting Chisholm; her famous 1969 speech on “Equal Rights for Women,” for instance, remains as relevant today as it did then (sadly). But rather than do that here, I’ll turn to reading and researching the words and history of a great human being who, as the Shola Lynch said, possesses “a story is an important reminder of the power of a dedicated individual to make a difference.”
And it sinks in. We can, half a world away, celebrate Pussy Riot’s name. We can listen to their music and cheer them on. What our challenge as feminists needs to be is to take their cause as seriously as those Carriers of the Cross take it. We must hold on so tightly to our convictions–at home and abroad–that the utter fear and terror of female power that those enmeshed in the patriarchy are emboldened by is neutralized.
Pussy Riot–the Russian feminist anti-authoritative protest punk band–staged a protest at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour two years ago. Their subsequent arrest, trial, and incarceration has been broadcast to a world both condemning and sympathetic of their cause.
Because of this, we’re hearing the word “pussy” thrown around on the news and in the classroom like never before. Teaching film and journalism, I think I said it in class a half dozen times in the last 24 hours. NPR’s calm deliverance of the word is almost soothing.
It’s hard to not delight in so much “pussy”—the word, as they use it, is threatening, terrifying, and forceful. It’s also a word that is used to belittle women or shame men. There’s power in the word, but there’s also silliness in the reception. The word itself is analogous to women themselves and how we inhabit this world—we often aren’t taken seriously, but us having power (especially sexual power) is terrifying to patriarchal forces. Pussy Riot has shown us this in a loud, brightly colored way.
The documentary Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer–now available on DVD—traces the path of Pussy Riot’s inception and worldwide explosion. The dozen or so women who gathered to form the punk collective in 2011 were galvanized by pro-feminist, anti-capitalist, pro-gay rights, anti-authoritarian, anti-Putin, anti-church/state ideologies. Their guerrilla-style performances with their signature brightly-colored balaclavas became known in feminist circles, but their February 21, 2012 performance was what made them a household name.
The documentary shows the group preparing for a concert/protest at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Moscow’s Orthodox church. It feels voyeuristic (in a good way) to watch this guerrilla punk group practice just like any other band.
As the film’s exposition builds, the group plans to storm the cathedral (which they say is the ultimate symbol of the relationship between the church and state), go up to the altar (where they point out women are now allowed, and they believe they should be), and perform “Punk Prayer.” The lyrics to the anthem include the lines,
“Virgin Mary, Mother of God, banish Putin, banish Putin,/ Virgin Mary, Mother of God, banish him, we pray thee!…/ Freedom’s phantom’s gone to heaven,/ Gay Pride’s chained and in detention… /Don’t upset His Saintship, ladies,/ Stick to making love and babies./ Crap, crap, this godliness crap!/ Crap, crap, this holiness crap!/ Virgin Mary, Mother of God./ Be a feminist, we pray thee…”
However, they are only able to perform for less than a minute before being dragged away by security officials and grabbed at by angry cathedral visitors (there was not a service going on at the time). Three of the members were arrested—Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (Nadia), Maria Alyokhina (Masha/Maria), and Yekaterina Samutsevich (Katia)–and Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer delves into their lives and the court case that awaited them.
Pussy Riot performs briefly at the cathedral
The film–directed by Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin—does an excellent job of letting us into the women’s lives. Their testimonies, their words to the press, and their families’ words, along with the footage of their performances, illuminate their entire story. While it’s clear that the filmmakers are pro-Pussy Riot, their allegiance isn’t distracting. For the first part of the film, as they cut between images of church, state, and protest, Pussy Riot’s performances seem like performance art, not acts of all-out revolution. We viewers think to ourselves as they get dragged off and arrested at the cathedral, “Really?”
“Their actual ‘offending’ performance was a quick and amateurish mess. It was a poorly organized and naïve display by the young women, making the punishments placed upon them—two years in intensive labor camps—appear even harsher by comparison. Out of this, the directors are able to show the growing maturity of the women’s court statements as their ‘show trial’ cage inevitably provides them an international platform on which to express their views.”
When the women are shown speaking (whether in detention or in court), they sometimes smirk and smile and certainly use the platform as activists. At one point, they say to each other that the press will use these photos of them smiling to show that they’re happy, and they say that they are actually laughing at the press. We know that their punishment hasn’t started in earnest yet, and so do they.
I found myself wanting, at times, to judge them for those smiles and testimonies that didn’t defend them sufficiently against the charges (“hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”). I realized, in my judgment, that I am part of the problem. Would I have responded that way to a documentary about young male activists? The rarity of seeing women fight and be punished on a national stage feels too rare. We—around the world—notoriously dismiss young women and find them silly. Our response to their name is indicative of that reality.
From left: Katia, Masha, and Nadia await their sentencing in a confined box in the courtroom.
We find them silly, or we find them terrifying. Rarely do we give them power.
The chilling reality of Pussy Riot’s case sets in when the filmmakers follow the anti-Pussy Riot protesters, Orthodox worshipers, and men who belong to “The Carriers of the Cross.” Women holding images of Madonna and child are disgusted with Pussy Riot, and the men say,
“Those girls really offended me… in the 16th century, they would’ve hanged them, they would’ve burned them.”
“The main one, she is a demon with a brain. She’s a strong demon. She is stubborn, you can tell by her lips, her mouth.”
“There have always been witches who won’t repent.”
And it sinks in. We can, half a world away, celebrate Pussy Riot’s name. We can listen to their music and cheer them on. What our challenge as feminists needs to be is to take their cause as seriously as those Carriers of the Cross take it. We must hold on so tightly to our convictions—at home and abroad—that the utter terror of female power that emboldens those enmeshed in the patriarchy is neutralized.
The disgust for female power is palpable in these scenes, and it is familiar. While America doesn’t have the same history as Russia, that vitriol feels familiar.
In the St. Petersburg Times, mere days before the arrest at the cathedral, a lengthy feature was published about Pussy Riot:
“The group cites American punk rock band Bikini Kill and its Riot Grrrl movement as an inspiration, but says there are plenty of differences between them and Bikini Kill. ‘What we have in common is impudence, politically loaded lyrics, the importance of feminist discourse, non-standard female image,’ Pussy Riot said. ‘The difference is that Bikini Kill performed at specific music venues, while we hold unsanctioned concerts. On the whole, Riot Grrrl was closely linked to Western cultural institutions, whose equivalents don’t exist in Russia.'”
We can watch this documentary and the news reels of Bolshevik Revolution and the footage of the original Cathedral of Christ the Saviour being demolished under Stalin. We don’t have the same history. But we have the same enemies.
Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer is an excellent documentary that reminds us of the threat women pose to the patriarchy–literally and figuratively. And when the women might seem young and naïve at the beginning of the film, we watch them mature, and we realize how serious both their punishment and the society that accepts such a punishment are. We hear Pussy Riot’s performance at the end of the film (footage from an earlier performance) as brilliant and powerful. And we realize, deeply, that we live in a world that needs Pussy Riot.
Kathleen Hanna said, “Anything is possible, if anything, this band has reminded us of that.”
Katia was granted a suspended sentence during the filming of the documentary, but Nadia and Masha went on to serve almost two years in labor camps. They were released in December 2013, which many saw as a false show of amnesty before the winter Olympics began in Russia.
The women of ‘House of Cards’ are not “Strong Female Characters.” They are well-written characters with a great deal of power, which they wield alongside the men. They are integral parts of the narrative. When female complexity and power is written into the narrative, everything else–including passing the Bechdel Test–effortlessly falls into place.
Novelist Elmore Leonard said, “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.” I think about that often when looking for or critiquing the dearth of feminist film and television. We often wring our hands over the Bechdel Test and the lack of “Strong Female Characters.”
Ideal feminist media would be like Leonard’s ideal writing–films and shows that don’t feel like they’re trying to be feminist. They just are. Complex women and women’s stories that aren’t just pieces of the whole, but are woven in seamlessly throughout the narrative–that’s what I want.
House of Cards delivers.
Last year, after season 1 debuted on Netflix to critical and popular acclaim, Amanda Rodriguez and I both wrote about House of Cards and the wonderfully complex female characters (see: “The Complex, Unlikable Women of House of Cards” and “Claire Underwood: The Queen Bee in House of Cards“). The simultaneously awful and wonderful female characters whose stories were essential to the action in every single episode. Nothing ever felt forced, and the fact that these women were both sympathetic and loathsome was an absolute delight for those of us feminist viewers who are tired of “strong female characters” who pay lip service to some kind of surface-level inequality.
House of Cards’s feminism is remarkable, because it feels wholly unremarkable.
Season 2 debuted on Feb. 14, and although Netflix doesn’t reveal exact numbers, Variety reports that the viewership in the first few hours “soared,” with many subscribers watching multiple episodes at once.
And since the only Olympic-style sport we are interested in in our home is the long-form binge watch, we were finished with season 2 by Saturday night. Within the first two episodes, I was fairly certain this was the most feminist TV drama I’ve seen–because what we want (complexity, equality, and representation) is woven in seamlessly. House of Cards is not primarily about a man. It’s not primarily about a woman. It’s about people.
In the promo materials for season 1, we saw Frank Underwood sitting alone in Lincoln’s monument. Ostensibly, he’s the show’s protagonist. And in season 1, I suppose it did often feel that way.
However, the season 2 poster features Frank again sitting in Lincoln’s seat, but Claire is sitting on top of it also. From the first shot of season 2–Frank and Claire running together–we know that Frank isn’t really our sole protagonist at all anymore.
The first two episodes tie up many loose ends from season 1, and introduce new ones for season 2. In the first episode, Claire picks up her appointment with the fertility doctor not, as we learn, to become pregnant herself, but to find out more about the drug that Gillian is on so she can threaten to withhold her insurance from her, thus getting what she wants from Gillian. “I’m willing to let your child wither and die within you,” Claire says to Gillian. Frank pushes Zoe Barnes into the path of an ongoing train, and she is killed. Frank, who has taken his place as vice president, courts Jackie Sharp to be the House Majority Whip. Why? Her military record of having to order strikes and kill people (including women and children) shows Frank that she is a bastion of ruthless pragmatism, which is how he and Claire move forward; and with this, season 2 begins.
In the following episodes, Claire faces her rapist (who assaulted her in college, and now Frank must give him an award for his military service), and honestly tells Frank how she wants to “smash things” and how much she wants to talk about it. These scenes were excellent because she didn’t let Frank be the vengeful husband. She stopped him, and then kept her power by talking about the assault. It wasn’t presented as if her sexuality was Frank’s to protect; the experience was hers. She wants to let her husband in, but she doesn’t want him to avenge her honor. That’s her job.
When she goes on national television and admits to having an abortion, she says that it was to end the pregnancy that resulted from the sexual assault. She named her attacker, and a young woman called in to the show, saying that he had assaulted her as well. This kicks off a season-long story line about a military sexual assault bill that pits women against women and shows the politics of justice as being just that: politics.
Claire bares all–in her own way–on national television.
But here’s the rub: Claire had three abortions, not one, and none were from the rape. She is matter-of-fact with her doctor and press secretary that she had three abortions, and we learn that one was during the campaign with Frank, and two were when she was a teenager. One could see these story lines as using infertility, rape, and abortion as plot points.
And you know what? It’s fantastic. I love that these typically silent or exploited topics get so much air time in House of Cards, and that Claire is more human for having gone through so much, yet she uses it all for political and personal gain. (A recent study showed that when female characters consider or have an abortion in film or TV, they are disproportionally killed or at least punished.)
When done properly, I applaud these female-specific plot points. These events are plot points in women’s lives, and they should be used well on screen. House of Cards does just that.
Historically, men have wars and external, political struggles to define and provide fodder for their journeys (both fictional and non). We see this represented with Frank’s visit to the Confederate re-enactors and his war miniatures. Women’s struggles and choices–infertility, sexual assault, and abortion–are widespread and underrepresented. To have Claire live through and use these experiences is refreshing and brilliant (and appropriately villainous).
The season goes on to show the fallout that Claire receives from admitting to having an abortion (even though she publicly says she had one after a rape), including an attempted bomb attack by a man whose wife had had an abortion, and the angry, vitriolic protesters outside her home. (She tells Megan, the young sexual assault victim at one point, “They’re loud, but I think we need to be louder.”) What a great message.
Claire is a horrible human being for many, many reasons–but her abortions aren’t included in those reasons. The show makes that clear.
Jackie–Frank’s replacement and sometimes-ally sometimes-adversary–is a force. She, in her relationship with Remy, is the one who initially isn’t interested at all in a relationship. She gets tattooed to help deal with the pain of the deaths she was responsible for in the military. She’s powerful and political, and we see her as both the enemy and ally throughout the season.
Jackie, adding on to her poppy tattoo (symbolic in its remembrance of bloodshed in war, and therapeutic in its pain).
In addition to the complex shaping of women’s stories and the characters themselves, the way the show handles masculinity and sexuality seems revolutionary.
In season 1, it’s evident when Frank goes back to his alma mater that he had had a sexual relationship with a close male friend. There wasn’t much hoopla about this, it just was what it was. In season 2, Claire, Frank, and their bodyguard, Edward Meechum, have a threesome. The next day, Frank says to Meechum as he gets in the car, “It’s a beautiful day.” And that’s all there is to it. Meanwhile, Rachel has developed a relationship with Lisa, and it’s portrayed as a loving partnership (although the camera does linger on their sex scene while it artfully pans away from the aforementioned threesome).
There’s no moral focus or panic about people’s sexuality. It just–is what it is. No fanfare. And the fact that we get to see women having orgasms (in season 2, an especially steamy scene between Jackie and Remy) is a pleasant detour from the norm as well.
“Nowadays the princesses all know kung fu, and yet they’re still the same princesses. They’re still love interests, still the one girl in a team of five boys, and they’re all kind of the same. They march on screen, punch someone to show how they don’t take no shit, throw around a couple of one-liners or forcibly kiss someone because getting consent is for wimps, and then with ladylike discretion they back out of the narrative’s way.”
The women of House of Cards are not “Strong Female Characters.” They are well-written characters with a great deal of power, which they wield alongside the men. They are integral parts of the narrative. When female complexity and power is written into the narrative, everything else–including passing the Bechdel Test–effortlessly falls into place.
This is ruthless pragmatism: feminist style, and it is excellent. In a sea of male anti-heroes on TV, it’s time that women share the stage. House of Cards shows its hand, and it’s a royal flush, with the queen right next to the king.
Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.
The subject of the film, Kirsty Sword Gusmão, grew up in Australia. She had an “ordinary childhood,” but she says her “parents were very special in that they had their eyes open to the world.”
When she was 4, her father studied Indonesian, and she would study the language with him. She studied Indonesian and began reading Inside Indonesia, which inspired her to get involved in political activism, especially in regard to East Timor.
Sword Gusmão’s story is remarkable, and her life’s work has been driven by her passion for human rights. When she started reading Inside Indonesia, she says “I tried to find out where it was published–how I could get involved.” So she did. She wrote and edited for the publication and met political leaders.
Sword Gusmão, alias Ruby Blade, looks out over East Timor.
She traveled to East Timor, posing as a tourist, and she worked to get messages sent abroad, translating texts into English, taking documentary footage and collecting photographs from the Timorese people. It was then that she was first given photographs of Kay Rala “Xanana” Gusmão, a rebel leader in East Timor who had a jungle hideout and who was “worshipped” by many Timorese people, including her friends. Sword Gusmão next traveled to East Timor as part of a documentary filmmaking team. The team’s footage was the first time worldwide media broadcasted the violence and human rights abuses in East Timor at the hands of their Indonesian occupiers.
Sword Gusmão eventually became a spy and courier in Indonesia between freedom fighters and Timorese political prisoners.
Xanana Gusmão was captured and sentenced to life in prison. “All of a sudden the leader was in the hands of the enemies,” Sword Gusmão remembers. Her alias through all of her covert work? Ruby Blade.
She began playing an active role in taking documents and interviews in and out of the prison. Xanana was still directing the resistance from prison. Sword Gusmão was a “critical link” during this time.
Eventually a relationship between the two grew. She says there was “a sense of shared life together,” although they were clearly in “unorthodox circumstances.” When they finally met face-to-face, she recalls a strong bond.
Through all of this, Sword Gusmão was risking her life for the sake of revolution and, eventually, love.
The film captures these early days of resistance in East Timor and the relationship between Xanana and Sword Gusmão while he was in prison. Sword Gusmão herself had taken a great deal of documentary footage during her work, which provided a backdrop for the chronology of her story.
Sword Gusmão received bonsai trees and tropical fish from Gusmão when he was a prisoner.
The film does an incredible job at documenting the East Timor’s fight for independence from Indonesia. The human rights abuses (almost 200,000 Timorese people died of famine or murder during Indonesia’s rule from 1975 – 1999) and struggle for independence happened just in the last few decades, yet this isn’t a story that is as well-known as it should be.
But Kirsty Sword Gusmão doesn’t seem to be the protagonist in the film, even though her alias is the title, and her photo is on the poster. Of course, director Alex Meillier acknowledged this: “We’re playing with genres in the film, spy story, love story, three-act structure. This isn’t about one hero coming to save the day, but people coming together and throwing their lot in together. There’s a lot to celebrate.”
This is true–there is a lot to celebrate in this story. East Timor votes for independence. The UN helps them transition to be an independent state. Xanana Gusmão is elected president. He and Kirsty Sword get married and have three sons.
There is a happy ending, and the audience sees it all through collected and pieced-together footage.
However, it feels as if there is more to Sword Gusmão’s story. While much of the footage is hers, it makes sense that she reads letters aloud that she received from Xanana, and that she has pictures of herself over the years. Too often, it seems as if her beauty is the subject of her story. Male activists and leaders note how they “used” her for covert operations (they say she was “pretty” and “proper in her manners”; she was “very refined, elegant–who would think she can be mischievous?”). Film footage of her swimming doesn’t seem to fit, except in concert with commentary on her beauty.
Her beauty and femininity likely were key in allowing her access to some of the situations she was able to navigate. True.
But she got there herself. Sword Gusmão begins the documentary speaking about how she’s taken opportunities in her life that have been risky, and how she wants to act with her conscience and truth–she enjoys the risks. This Kirsty seems to be swept away, though, by the revolution and Xanana, so that she’s absorbed by something much larger, and her agency and power in the story fades. The risk that drives her is muted.
Perhaps the filmmakers were trying to celebrate too much and lost some of Ruby Blade in the process.
Sword Gusmão’s activism didn’t end when she became the first lady. She started and runs Alola, a foundation to help women and children in the country, and is active in the educational system. The risks on her and her family’s lives have not ended. Her struggles and her triumphs were not as highlighted as they could have been.
Alias Ruby Blade is a stunning documentary that will do great work in educating people about not only the revolution in East Timor but also the powerful effect that individuals can have when they work toward justice–this, it seems, is definitely the filmmakers’ goal (husband and wife team Alex Meillier and Tanya Ager Meillier say, “… we are even more interested in the power of ordinary people to change the course of history. That’s what this film is really about”).
The film was featured in the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in March and the IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam). Tribeca granted it the 2012 Spotlighting Women Documentary Award.
As a feminist film viewer, I would have loved to see “Ruby Blade” herself more–and perhaps this story has the potential to inspire a Hollywood blockbuster with a powerful female protagonist. Let’s hope, at least. It could be Eat, Pray, Love: Bitches Get Shit Done Edition. We need to see what we’re capable of, and Kirsty Sword Gusmão is one strong example.
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Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.
Anyone reading the synopsis of A Royal Affair wonders if it will be more of the same. I mean what else can be said about a high-born woman trapped in loveless marriage to an awful unsophisticated idiot who finds love in the arms of an enlightened dashing sensitive man? (Looking at you Keira Knightley, in The Duchess or let’s be real, any movie about Marie Antoinette). However it is saved by actually not being about the affair but a story of the fight for enlightenment and freedom. These ideals are at the center of Danish director Nikolaj Arcel’s film, which is based on the lives of Danish King Christian VII, his wife and Queen Caroline, Mathilde, and their royal physician, Dr. Johan Streunsee.
The protagonist is Caroline Mathilde (Alice Viksander), who is the primary orator of the movie. We find her in exile in an undescribed place where she begins to write her story to her children. Caroline, who is English by birth, is betrothed at a young age to the equally young King Christian VII (Mikkel Følsgaard) of Denmark. Though the story does not go into great detail about her family origin, she is the youngest child of the then-ruling British royal family.
Being a young woman of royal birth, the best that women of Caroline’s station can hope for is a powerful marriage, with love as a luxury. This expectation is driven home in the scene where Caroline frets over whether her husband should like her. Her mother, actually trying to be very kind, says, “Dear, if you are able to get your husband into your bed on your wedding night, you will be a great success.”
And so with that Caroline’s married life begins as she is sent to a foreign land she has never visited to a place with a language she barely speaks. King Christian the VII as a husband leaves much to be desired. He is relatively childish and awkward but, beyond that, something is mentally off about him. His mental instability is made apparent in a scene where King Christian’s stepmother, the Queen Dowager Juliane Marie (Trine Dyrholm), warns him his wife’s prettiness and artistic abilities can eclipse his reign. Very suddenly, Christian moves from happiness to anger, as he takes his insecurity out on Caroline in front of their guests and demands that she “move her fat thighs” away from the piano she is playing for guests. A real Prince Charming, to be sure. Caroline, justifiably, is horrified into shocked silence as is everyone else in the room. The King’s mental capability and his mercurial nature becomes an important player in the film later.
The following wedding night scene is so painfully awkward you can’t help but feel sorry for Caroline right away. Thankfully, the filmmaker saves us from the rest of the inartful consummation by fading to black. The unhappy marriage is summed up very quickly in the next few scenes as her only solace is her friendship with lady-in-waiting, Louise Von Plessen who is sent away eventually. Christian VII is revealed to not only be verbally abusive but a heavy drinker, carouser and frequenter of Copenhagen’s finer houses with ladies of ill-repute. All of which rightfully disgusts and angers Caroline but she endures with relative matriarchal silence. Eventually, Caroline completes her most important royal duty and becomes pregnant with her first child and heir to the throne Frederik.
Around this time, enters Dr. Johan Struensee (Mads Mikkelsen, a former Bond villain in 2006’s Casino Royale!). What is interesting about Johann is that besides being a doctor he is also a man of the Enlightenment movement that is sweeping the continent. A well-read man, Johann bonds with the king over their mutual love of Shakespeare. It is for this major reason he is selected to be the royal physician and then elevated to overall trusted adviser.
King Christian’s irritation with his wife’s continued moodiness over their marriage leads to him encouraging Johann to give his wife a checkup to find out what exactly ails her, so she can be more “fun” in the King’s words.
In her own right, Caroline has an excellent education and it is revealed before she came to Denmark that she also enjoyed the writings of Voltaire, Rousseau, and other idols of the Enlightenment. Her bond forms with Johann, whom she has regarded with suspicion and complicit in her husband’s behavior, when she realizes he has smuggled and hidden many of these banned writers’ books into Denmark. In Johann, Caroline finds someone who can understand her, and in her Johann instantly respects a woman he greatly underestimated as clearly just another pretty and mindless royal wife. The bond is further cemented when Johann convinces the King and Queen that their son and heir, Frederic,k needs to be vaccinated from smallpox, something never done, but Johann successfully does also gaining him admirers at Court.
While Johann and Caroline eventually enter into the expected royal affair, the story becomes more about what their illicit partnership cultivated. Johann often accompanies the King to his Council meetings where the conservative Council men enact oppressive rulings of the state of Denmark. Due to his clear mental incapabilities, the Council treats the King like a puppet. And Johann and Caroline are both frustrated by the Council’s anti-Enlightenment, conservative, aristocratic policies of censorship and the unequal rights of men etc. It is Caroline who reminds Johann of his power over the impressionable King. And it is then that the light turns on for Johann of how the King can be used to promote a greater good.
And so it unfolds, King Christian, through the influence of Caroline and Johann’s affair, becomes the arbiter of the Enlightenment movement in Denmark. He abolishes the conservative Council, establishes freedom of the press, ends prison torture, etc. Denmark becomes a pioneering country in freedom even at the notice of Voltaire himself. Like Caroline and Johann, strangely even King Christian appears most happy during this time, as Johann is careful with his power over the King encouraging him to think actively and use his power as king but for enlightenment ideals. The political intrigue and fight for power is at the heart of this film as both Caroline and Johann fight for control from the conservative council with the King as their proxy.
Like all movements challenging the status quo, the conservative Council challenges the ideals of the Enlightenment celebrated by Caroline and Johann and their informal salon they have gathered around them. For US viewers the conservative Council’s arguments against social reforms is very familiar.. “Where is the money?” “Must be paid for” etc. And certainly viewers around the world can related to the ideals of equality and freedom. The unfolding chess match, with the mentally unstable King as its chess piece, has its consequences finally as the conservative council reaches a major checkmate against Queen Caroline and Dr. Streunsee. Caroline and Christinan’s enemy at the court, Queen Dowager Juliane Marie discovers her infidelity through the questioned birth of Caroline’s second child, Louisa.
The consequences of political infighting and manipulation even for a greater good plays itself out in a less than idealistic fashion and as a result we find Caroline back as we did at the start of the movie, in exile, penning the final pieces of her story to her children, in hopes they at least understand, if not accept her motivations. What the children do with that knowledge makes for an interesting ending.
This movie is Oscar worthy and passes the feminist smell test because A) Despite the title has “affair” in it has surprisingly little gratuitous sex in it, especially at the expense of Caroline. B) She controls the narrative and not someone else which is often the case with women who end up in her situation (read: Henry VIII’s unlucky wives) C) She is an equal partner in the Enlightenment discussion with Johann. D) it is less about an affair and is more about the coming together of two unlikely revolutionaries whose intellectual partnership became a major historical turning point for a nation’s history and political system.
While Alice Viksander didn’t carry a ton of emotional range as Queen Caroline she does command your respect, and your interest in the movie to the very end.
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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, RH Reality Check.
Rather than merely bringing European history to the screen A Royal Affair is an effective character drama of three people and their relationships with each other. It begins with Caroline Mathilda leaving her English home to join her husband King Christian VII, whom she’s never met, in Denmark. It is clear at their first meeting that all is not quite right with the king and despite her best efforts at performing her duty Caroline finds his eccentric behaviour hard to bear. The court labels the king as mad and while he’s on a European tour German doctor, Johann Friedrich Struensee, is convinced to become his personal physician. Struensee manages to gain the king’s trust with kindness and patience and by indulging the King’s fancies. Along with the development of a friendship with the King, Struensee discovers a political affinity with Caroline; both share the same radical, enlightened political ideas and what begins as an intellectual bond becomes a love affair. The film has sublime visuals without being frilly or fetishising historical dress and design, and the central trio of actors are powerfully affecting and all engage the viewers’ sympathies despite the conflicting motivations and desires of the characters.
Mads Mikkelsen as Johann Friedrich Struensee and Alicia Vikander as Queen Caroline Mathilde in A Royal Affair
At first A Royal Affair seems an unusual choice for Denmark’s nomination for the Academy’s best foreign film. The cultural products from Denmark we’re used to seeing in the UK and USA tend to be modern, sparing and noirish rather than lavish period dramas. But Queen Caroline has kindred spirits in Sara Lund of Forbrydelsen and the female characters of Borgen and The Bridge. All of these stories have people struggling with the power (or lack of) that society has bestowed on them. All are commentaries on contemporary Danish society. The relevance of A Royal Affair to the melodramas within politics today increases its value beyond historical fantasy or indulgence while still offering us the pleasures of period drama.
An interesting element to the film is how the characters are all shown sympathetically as humans making compromises to stay alive in a world that restricts them from being themselves; Struensee, whose opinions correspond with the film’s message, states “some of society’s norms prevent people from living their lives.” They all must create strategies to deal with a difficult world that is hostile to them due to their gender, their position, their “madness”, or their beliefs. Before she is married, Caroline is sober but positive about her future. But she doesn’t suffer fools gladly and hasn’t the temperament to put up with her husband’s behaviour. Once she realises the restrictions upon her she becomes steadily more melancholy until she starts to talk with Struensee. He first tries to enliven her at the order of Christian who fed up with his “grumpy” wife asks Struensee to “make her fun! I want a fun queen.” It is clear to us that her behaviour and conduct is not dull by choice but the result of a lifetime’s training in how to be a queen and of the correct femininity. Trying to cheer her Struensee asks if she rides and when she says no he replies “That is because you use side-saddle”. In this way her suffering is explicitly shown as being a result of her conforming to femininity and her joy at rebelliously riding astride is clearly visible.
Alicia Vikander as Queen Caroline Mathilde in A Royal Affair
Of course her husband could have treated her better but he too is suffering under societal expectations. He is king and expected to rule but is also seen as an idiot and a madman so is ridiculed and patronised. Struensee explains that “some people are so sealed inside their fate that they hide – deep within their mind” thus Christian’s “madness” is a coping strategy for a role he doesn’t wish to act. Once Struensee takes over Christian’s responsibilities in court, he no longer has the time to be his friend. He supplies Christian with Moranti, a black child, to play with in his place. It’s particularly sad and sickening to see the silent boy being given like a toy to an infantilised man. Despite escaping from a slave ship, Moranti hasn’t escaped his otherness and it seems that even though Struensee and Christian make moves to end slavery and serfdom in Denmark, on an individual basis people’s liberties can’t always be won. Struensee it seems has a healthier strategy for coping with the injustice of his position. He uses his influence on the king to bring about changes to society more in line with his radical enlightened beliefs. Of course the punishment Struensee receives for his transgression is harsher than the others’ suggesting that the privileges of aristocracy over the common person is more powerful than those of gender, education or sanity.
As this is supposedly a story of a love triangle (though it’s so much more) a lot of the film focuses on relationships. Romance is actually a long time coming with the friendships between Struensee and Christian, and Struensee and Caroline being more clearly established. Struensee manages to identify both of their sufferings and provide support when neither have other friends. This could make his alliances seem suspiciously convenient to his political and social goals but the relationships are at no time presented as being insincere. We’re also inclined to wonder if each person’s isolation adds to their sorrows. When Caroline first arrives in Denmark she develops a strong bond with her lady in waiting Louise until Christian viciously attacks her and removes her from the queen’s service. This leaves Caroline without a confidante until she’s sent away after being accused of plotting treason and is reunited with her. Each character suffers on their own and in this unjust world, to negotiate a place for yourself there can be no unity or sisterhood. The only time we hear Caroline speak to her mother-in-law Juliane Marie is when she is begging not to be separated from her son Frederik the crown prince. Both women understand each other’s love for their children and the need to protect them but in the royal household they cannot both succeed.
Mikkel Boe Følsgaard as King Christian VII and Mads Mikkelsen Johann Friedrich Struensee in A Royal Affair
The relationship between Christian and Struensee is depicted touchingly with Christian’s boorish manner becoming kinder in his friend’s presence. Their betrayals of each other (though it must be said that Christian’s was unwitting) are painful demonstrations of the impossibility of transgressive friendships. It is the removal of Christian’s power and autonomy that marks Struensee’s betrayal rather than his affair.
A Royal Affair shows that sometimes friendship is more important than sex, which is refreshing for melodramas such as this, and that’s perhaps what makes it more disappointing when we see less of Caroline on-screen once her relationship with Struensee becomes sexual. She may discuss politics with him in her bed-chamber but when it comes to putting their ideas to council it has to be enacted by the men. There is no doubt that Caroline’s influence is powerful but it is so often behind the scenes, it’s pleasing in any case that her fascinating story has now been shown in film.
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Rosalind Kemp is a film studies graduate living in Brighton, UK. She’s particularly interested in female coming of age stories, film noir and European films where people talk a lot but not much happens.
