Tag: Race in Film

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

The Racial Politics of X-Men from Race-Talk

Human Rights Watch International Film Festival: The Price of Sex–directed by Mimi Chakarova from Women and Hollywood

Movie Review: Polytechnique, A Fictional Killer of Women Who Is All Too Familiar from the New York Times

8 Real Women Who Deserve Their Own Action Movies from The Mary Sue

Thelma & Louise Would Blush from the Globe and Mail

Bridesmaids Buries Hollywood’s Fear of Feminism from the Guardian UK

Guest Writer Wednesday: ‘X-Men First Class’: I Like it, but WTF?

X-Men First Class, 2011, Matthew Vaughn
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The X-Men franchise. I’ve been a fan of this ragtag team of mutants since the first movie was released (afterwards diving into the world of comics). The movies, along with their source material, have always been clear in their metaphorical status: These are not just mutants, these are everyone who is Different, Othered and Not Accepted by mainstream society. Previously, this analogy has certainly existed in the films, drawing specifically on Magneto’s history as a Jew in World War II, and on the idea of “coming out” as Bobby (Ice Man, played by Shawn Ashmore). Ian McKellen (Magneto) has discussed the connection between X-Men, race, and sexuality in reference to the first three X-Men films.

Certainly as a metaphor (and hardly that) for gay society, X-Men First Class succeeds. The movie is set up around the stories of Erik (Michael Fassbender) and Charles (James McAvoy), who we come to know later as Magneto and Professor X. Until they meet, about twenty minutes into the film, their stories are filled with loneliness and a sense of “am I the only one” — Charles’ despair is cut short by the arrival of Raven Darkholme/Mystique, whom I’ll discuss later at length. In the comics, Charles and Erik have a long history, a relationship of deep intimacy that spans decades. In X-Men First Class, this relationship is condensed into mere months, and when discussing the film, my (male) friend explained that “For two men to get that close, that fast, there’s probably gay sex happening.”

The movie doesn’t dispute this. In fact, we are treated to a scene of Erik and Charles in bed together, laden with semi-sexual dialogue. Their conversations are deep, meaningful, their gazes fierce and full of longing. Were it not for the plot of the film, and attention paid=”center”> to other characters, I would be certain that the first half of X-Men F=”center”>irst Class was setting up for explicit gay sex. And, really, there’s=”center”> nothing wrong with this. If X-Men First Class is deemed the first gay s=”center”>uperhero movie, then I’m more than proud to have seen it during o=”center”>pening weekend, in a packed theater, and having heard no disparaging=”center”> remarks to that nature. Of course, there is also a huge problem with t=”center”>he “bromance” — Erik and Charles (and villain Sebastian Shaw, also) e=”center”>ssentially deny the validity of their human or female associates in=”center”> order to form a delightful world order on their own. It should be n=”center”>oted that Erik, Charles, and Sebastian all read as male, caucasian,=”center”> and capable of “passing” for human.=”center”>

The plot of this film, firmly rooted in the continuity of the=”center”> previously made X-Men films despite problems, deals primarily with the C=”center”>uban Missile Crisis, US government’s acceptance (and non-acceptance)=”center”> of mutants, and an almost James Bond-esque effect of lingering Nazi=”center”> sentiment. The villains: The Hellfire Club. Consisting of Sebastian=”center”> Shaw (Kevin Bacon), Emma Frost (January Jones), and two henchmen:=”center”> Riptide and Azazel, the Club fronts as a high-class strip club and=”center”> doubles as a lair to promote nuclear war. Shaw believes that mutants=”center”> are, literally, Children of the Atom, and seeks to promote a nuclear=”center”> holocaust (yes, he was involved with the last Holocaust in this canon)=”center”> that will wipe out humanity, leaving only a pure mutant race behind.=”center”>

Who we come to know as the X-Men (Charles, Erik, Beast, Mystique,=”center”> Havok and Banshee) align themselves with the CIA, the institution=”center”> first seeking information on the Hellfire Club and later working=”center”> directly against the nuclear threat. The primary voices of the CIA are=”center”> Agent Moira McTaggert (played by Rose Byrne, in a significant change=”center”> from the character’s comic origins) and a benefactor played by Oliver=”center”> Platt. These two are Good Humans and Allies, working with the mutants=”center”> to integrate and fight for their cause, which just so happens to also=”center”> be the mutants’ cause: the CIA obviously want to avoid nuclear war,=”center”> Erik wants revenge on his “creator”, and Charles wants to keep public=”center”> perception of mutants in a positive light, something that won’t happen=”center”> if Shaw succeeds.=”center”>

And overall, the movie doesn’t disappoint. Despite it’s failings=”center”> (again, I’ll discuss this later), X-Men First Class is a truly fun=”center”> movie. Director Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) puts the film together with=”center”> a genuinely nice balance of humor, tense action, and political=”center”> intrigue. As much as I am baffled by some of the choices the film=”center”> chooses to make, and angered by several others, I can’t wait to see=”center”>X-Men First Class again. Count this off to my fangirling of the=”center”> series, perhaps, but the rottentomatoes.com=”center”> rating seems to agree. =”center”>

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Magneto is skilled at making funny faces while using his powers.
The rest of this review deals with how X-Men First Class handles race and gender, and contains detailed spoilers for the film.

As I stated, the X-Men franchise is no stranger to identifying with marginalized groups, and this film takes that one step further, while ironically completely failing to support any marginalized groups, aside from perhaps, LGBTs. I would hesitate to discuss a movie in these terms, had it not already made it abundantly clear that it was dealing, not only with a fictional universe, but as an analogy for ours.

There are several Characters of Color in X-Men First Class, but don’t go into the film expecting positive portrayals. When I refer to a Character of Color, I mean that said character’s “home” form is not traditional caucasian.

First, we have Darwin (played by Edi Gathegi): a young recruit to Charles’ team, his power is to “adapt to survive” (growing gills when submerged, turning rock solid to deflect physical blows). He receives limited characterization, much like the other recruits, and his first (and final) major scene involves attempting to deceive Shaw, “rescue” another mutant who has decided to deflect, and get quickly killed in the process. During Shaw’s monologue to the teens about why they should join his side, he states that by Charles’ way of thinking, they would rather “be enslaved or rise up to rule”. On “slaves,” the camera cuts to and lingers on Darwin, a black male. Could this be seen as a point of view shot from Shaw? Perhaps, but there are no others like it in the film. Save to say that this is one of the cheapest methods of marginalizing a character that I’ve seen in a recent film.
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The X-Men wonder where they can find a new token black character.
There are characters of color among the background characters as well, throwaways like Angel, Riptide, and Azazel. These characters eitherhave no characterization (Riptide and Azazel) and work for the “bad guys” or, in Angel’s case, (to paraphrase) would rather have guys look at her in the strip club, than have guys look at her as a mutant. She defects to join the baddies as well.

Shaw’s, and eventually, Magento’s side certainly has validity. Not in the manner of wiping out an entire race to let the superior one flourish, but in the sense that mutants, and in this case, mutants who are already marginalized by their appearance, shouldn’t be forced to integrate into normal society, to forgo what makes them them. Mystique’s catch phrase, first bemoaning the fact that she is not, and later celebrating the idea of “Mutant and proud” echoes many movements in history, from Black Pride to Gay Pride. Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) learns to wear her natural form and take pride in it.

Her journey to acceptance is central to the film. Growing up with Charles Xavier, Mystique learned to hate her natural blue form. She asks Charles, early in the film, if he would ever date her, looking like this [her blue form]. He gives her a line about being unable to think of her as anything other than his sister, but repeatedly reacts poorly to her use of blue form in public, unless, of course, it is to his ends. Raven ages slower than her adoptive “brother,” and as a result, Charles continually infantalizes her, keeps her drinking cola while he drinks at bars, informs her of her decisions and influences others. Her next love interest (and unfortunately intertwined in her seeking of acceptance) is Hank McCoy/Beast (Nicolas Hoult), who she sense an immediate bond with due to his deformed feet. Beast is geekily interested in the pretty girl, but doesn’t hide his motives. He wants her blood to create a formula that destroys the physical manifestations of their powers. Again, Mystique seeks his approval of her natural form, and Beast fumbles for an answer before settling on “You’re beautiful now,” gesturing to her clearly female, white caucasian, curvy body. She finally finds someone who appreciates her natural form in Magneto, however she gains it while reducing herself to a sexual object. Even while encouraging her to embrace her natural form, Erik compares Mystique to a tiger who needn’t be tamed.

The Mystique I know from canon (both movie and otherwise) doesn’t rely on others to decide whether or not she should be proud of her body. Granted, she has suffered for looking the way she does, but becomes stronger for it. In X-Men First Class, Mystique’s journey is so closely tied to male approval and attraction that it is hard to take her seriously, and certainly removes any feminist aspects to her character.

On the subject of Beast, there are always mutants who see their powers as more of an affliction than a blessing (Rogue in the original trilogy is the primary example). Beast views his gorilla-like feet as a hindrance to his otherwise immensely successful scientific and inventing career. Aside from tossing anything vaguely scientific on a self-proscribed disabled character, the film indulges in Beast’s point of view. He tries to cure himself of the physical affliction and is instead, in a thinly-veiled echo of Jekyll and Hyde, granted a full beastly form, complete with blue hair. Should Beast have embraced his disability instead of working against it? The film doesn’t deign to say. However, Magneto, with his band of physically different mutants, is quick to accept Beast’s new form. In most canon, where Beast continues to align at least loosely with Charles, he is relegated to background roles.

The film features a training montage (split-screens and everything!) that works to simultaneously progress the characters in their abilities, to give a bit of characterization, and to show case what a genuine asshole Charles Xavier is. His methods include accessing hidden memories to manipulate emotions, instructing young Banshee that the throat is “just a muscle” and can be trained (what does this say, then, to those who have muscles that cannot be trained?), and producing a seemingly endless supply of female mannequins for Havoc to annihilate while he learns to focus his explosive blasts. Along with his not-so subtle racism and casual outing of fellow mutants, Charles really is a winner.

Previous X-Men films have stayed clear of Charles’ dubious nature (aside from X-3, which I choose not to include in my canon by virtue of how bad it was) and, perhaps, for good reason. A leader with such obvious issues is difficult to get an audience to rally behind. While I appreciated that X-Men First Class did not shy away from the problematic nature of Charles Xavier, I wasn’t exactly keen on being made to watch him subtly marginalize his own people while building a team. Given that Charles ends the film in his iconic wheelchair, paralyzed, perhaps there is another layer to the discourse here, but I couldn’t find one.

In addition to proporting to align sensibilities with marginalized POC and failing, for a film that takes place in the 60s, I was expecting a Mad Men-esque deconstruction of gender relations, not an excuse to indulge in poor treatment of females. I was truly excited going in to this film, looking forward to how Emma Frost would do in her first prolonged big-screen portrayal. I was even excited when January Jones (Mad Men) was cast in the role: her layered portrayal of Betty is intense and powerful, two qualities any proper Emma Frost must have.

I was, to say the least, disappointed. Not only is the character written awkwardly, but Jones’ portrayal lacked any kind of depth. Emma Frost is used in the film as punch line, glorified butler, and sex object. With her powers — telepathy, shown to be strong enough to combat Xavier’s, and diamond form, protecting her physical form — there is no reason for Frost to do anything she doesn’t want to. She is essentially Sebastian Shaw’s busty lap dog, and getting nothing out of the arrangement. Where was the devious woman I’ve come to love?

My friend, Aimee LaPlant, who runs the fansite EmmaFrostFiles.com, shares this dismay. She presented her view in an interview with MSNBC sex columnist Bryan Alexander that Emma Frost was not “created to be a slut,” as purported by Christy Marx, at least not in what the term slut has come to mean. Emma Frost is a powerful role model for girls: using her sexuality and enjoying it, building her powers,and effectively manipulating and controlling others to her ends.

The Emma Frost in X-Men First Class is none of these things. In fact, the portrayal of Emma in this film follows Christy Marx’s thesis almost exactly. This Emma is created to be a slut. She is sent to Russia to aide in negotiations to set up nuclear bases by Shaw, and instead of using her powers to gain information or influence, Emma “mind fucks” the Soviet official — an action that could be seen metaphorically, could be used as a cover for gaining information telepathically, however the film does not suggest that anything is happening aside from January Jones wearing sexy lingerie and a grown man groping a manifestation.

A woman presented as sexual and powerful is nothing to bemoan. However, when a woman, such as Emma Frost and Mystique, is reduced to only her sexual aspects this is troubling, and a far too easy route for filmmakers to take. What are Emma’s motivations? We don’t know. Mystique’s back story has been re-written to ensure that she relies on the approval of others rather than acceptance that is self-motivated.

As for the other main female character, Agent Moira McTaggert, I am not sure where to begin. Rose Byrne shone in the role, far beyond how the character was written. In comics canon, McTaggert is a brilliant scientist who comes to Charles’ aid with her research. In this film, she has been rewritten: she is American and not Scottish, she is a CIA agent — a lone woman in her office, she is the one coming to Xavier for his aid. Despite shining for a glorious five minutes near the finale of the film, McTaggert essentially works as the human POV for the film. She needs to learn about mutants, so through her, we do as well. Moira is one of the only females in the film who is comfortable using her sexuality (“using some equipment the CIA didn’t give me”) and manages to not be defined by it. In an eye-roll-inducing detail, her battle gear consists of a suitable uniform paired with platform shoes.

Two ending scenes in the film sum up her character, and the role of females in the film. During the climactic battle, Moira tries to catch Charles’ attention. He yells “Moira, be quiet!” — the men have a job to do. Finally, at a government debriefing, McTaggert tries to explain the events of the past days through her foggy memories (kindly induced by Xavier). “Gentlemen,” a lead agent says, his tone mocking, “this is why the CIA is no place for a woman.”
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The 60s is no place for mutants.
Marcia Herring is a rollergirl receptionist from Southeast Missouri. She is still working on her graduate degree, but swears to have it done someday. She spends most of her time watching television and movies and wishes she could listen to music and read while doing so without going insane. She previously contributed a review of Degrassi: The Next Generation to Bitch Flicks.

Quote of the Day: bell hooks

In 1997, the Media Education Foundation produced an interview with bell hooks, a renowned author, feminist, and social activist, called, “BELL HOOKS: Cultural Criticism & Transformation.” hooks discusses a variety of pop culture topics, including rap and hip-hop, Madonna’s influence, Hollywood, and the often negative representations of race, class, and gender within them. You can watch the full interview in parts on YouTube, and you can read the entire transcript of the interview, but I want to quote from just two sections; the first deals with the feminist backlash in mass media:
One of the issues that no one wants to talk about is that finally, the most successful political movement in the United States over the last twenty years was really the feminist movement, and that there is a tremendous backlash to feminism that is being enacted on the stage of mass media. So that films like Leaving Las Vegas really are about ushering in a new, old version of the desirable woman that really is profoundly misogynous based and sexist. It’s no accident; we know that when women went into the factories in the World Wars because men were not here–that when those wars ended–mass media was used to get women out of the factory and back into the home. Well in a sense, mass media is being used in that very same way right now, to get women out of feminism and back into some patriarchal mode of thinking, and movies to me are the lead propaganda machine in this right now.

hooks said this in 1997. Almost fifteen years ago. So have movies gotten better or worse since then in contributing to the feminist backlash? When I try to come up with some truly great feminist-leaning films released (in Hollywood) in those fifteen years, it’s admittedly a struggle–and that doesn’t mean I’m saying they don’t exist. Yet when I think about sexism in Hollywood films, it takes about three seconds to recall a handful of misogyny-laden movies released only within the past several months. In fact, it’s virtually impossible not to find sexist films hitting the mainstream every opening weekend.
hooks continues her discussion of movies, referencing the filmmaker Spike Lee and critiquing representations of blackness in Hollywood:
A major magazine like Time or Newsweek just recently carried a story on Spike Lee as a failure. I mean, it just was amazing! How could you talk about Spike Lee as a failure? It was something like, Malcolm X was made for thirty-seven million, but it only made forty-some million. And I thought, well, how is that a failure? You not only paid for your movie, but you had some excess profit–though not a great deal, not what Hollywood would want. But that can become talked about in mass media as a failure, even though Woody Allen, who has made many films that do not make a lot of money, does not then get talked about as a failed filmmaker. And so that is in the interest of a certain structure of white supremacy and patriarchy, to put Spike Lee down at this point in his career, and to make it seem that somehow he could not deliver the goods, because part of that is about sanctioning white people to become the new makers of so-called black film.

As in, for example, a film like Waiting to Exhale, which is sold and marketed in ways that suggest this is a black film. I mean, people kept telling me, this is a film about black women, this is going to be for black people. In fact, this was a typical Hollywood shitty, uninteresting film–the script written by white people, all marketed as being a film by and about blackness, successfully. Nothing Spike Lee has done can match the financial return of this piece of shit. This is how blackness can be done successfully, and the problem lies not with the terms of what makes blackness successful in Hollywood or on the screen, but with Spike Lee as an individual. And that I think is tragic because so many black people are buying into that mode of thinking. That Spike Lee somehow represents a failure, when in fact, Spike Lee will continue to be the most successful black filmmaker in the United States, and he’s not by any means a failure.

Here’s a way in which, as Hollywood decides to occupy the territory of blackness, it becomes very useful to say, “We let black people have that territory, and they just didn’t know what to do with it. They made these strange films like Girl 6–it didn’t even have a plot. I mean, Crooklyn didn’t even have a plot.” Which of course is completely bogus, because the plot of Crooklyn was very obvious and very simple; it was about a family where the mother is dying in the family. But I can’t tell you how many white reviewers wrote that it didn’t have a plot. When what they should have said is that it didn’t have a plot that interested us. That White America is not interested in black mothers that are dying. So I think that is going to have deep ramifications for the future of representing blackness in Hollywood–because it is really almost a public announcement of the white takeover of that particular territory, the issue of representing blackness in Hollywood. 

It’s interesting to look at how films represent blackness in Hollywood currently, and if it’s changed for the better or for the worse within the past fifteen years. Tyler Perry has certainly become one of the most prolific and successful–if not the most successful–black filmmakers in Hollywood, but there’s also much controversy surrounding his representations of race in film. Precious, Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, garnered Oscar nominations and a Best Supporting Actress win for Mo’Nique, and Dreamgirls catapulted Jennifer Hudson’s career after she won her Best Supporting Actress Oscar. And within these past fifteen years, the Best Actress Oscar was awarded, for the first time ever, to a black woman, Halle Berry.

I don’t have the answers. I think it’s important in general to look at the kinds of roles Hollywood rewards women for playing; but it’s perhaps even more important to keep insisting that Hollywood filmmakers create better roles for women. Overall, I’d argue that we’re much more inundated with pop culture imagery everywhere now than we were fifteen years ago, with advancements in technology (and the increased and constant advertising that comes with it). So if the representations of race and gender in the media, and movies in particular, haven’t changed much–or have in fact gotten worse–and the pop culture and mass media machine is churning out this shit faster than it ever has in history, where does that leave us? 

Guest Writer Wednesday: Sucker Punch

Sucker punched by “Sucker Punch”– Girls and guns don’t equal female empowerment

This is a cross-post from What Tami Said.

This really is the best movie ever cuz its like hollywood finally said to me Fuk yeah you my man are all we care about heres some awesome shit for you to get off on and everyone else can just go fuk themselves and you get to watch. Read more…

I just “liked” Flick Filosopher Maryann Johanson on Facebook solely on the basis of her Sucker Punch review, written in what oddly sounds like the voice of the guy who sat behind me yesterday afternoon when I went to see the movie. Based on the predominately male and middle-aged audience in the theater, I am likely the only woman who fell for the previews and thought Sucker Punch might be some video game or graphic novel-based film about ass-kicking chicks who slay dragons and other cool shit. Well, actually, that stuff does happen, but it’s surrounded by too many other porny, fetishy, gender- and race-biased tropes to be any sort of empowerment tale. The characters were too cartoonish to be relatable. And the fight scenes and CGI weren’t exciting enough to allow me to forget the analysis and enjoy the fun. Sucker Punch comes off like a slightly twisted adolescent’s wet dream–if said wet dream had the benefit of a cool score and awesome computer-generated graphics.
Set some time in the late 50s/early 60s, Sucker Punch tells the story of 20-year-old Baby Doll (Emily Browning), who accidentally kills her little sister, while attempting to save the girl from being sexually assaulted by their stepfather. The act earns Baby Doll, whose mother dies in the film’s first frames, commitment to a Goreyesque Vermont mental facility, and, after her stepfather pays off a weasly orderly, a date with a lobotomist (Jon Hamm, who seriously must be saying “yes” to every acting job now), due at the hospital in five days. As Dr. Don Draper stands poised above a bound Baby Doll, wielding the long, sharp orbitoclast he will pound into her frontal lobe, Baby Doll (and the audience) escapes into the fantasy that is the rest of the movie, including a second world, where Baby Doll and her fellow inmates are enslaved at a “dance club,” where they are forced to offer sexual favors to keep the moneyed, male clients happy.
Let me concede that the dirty, gothic look of Sucker Punch was arresting. The soundtrack, with an ominous cover of the Eurythimics’ “Sweet Dreams,” was fantastic. I’ve already downloaded it. It’ll be great accompaniment when I haul my butt off the couch and start my spring running regimen. Also, I’m gonna need to explore more of actor Oscar Isaac’s oeuvre. The fight sequences in Sucker Punch were pleasingly flashy and loud with lots of leaping and flashing steel and steampunkery, but ultimately they were made hollow by repetition and uninspired choreography. We’re more than a decade on since The Matrix debuted. You gotta give me more than slow motion shots of a character leaping past bullets and dragon fire.
Since Sucker Punch couldn’t entertain me with its sound and fury, I couldn’t help but notice the larger problem in the movie: A disturbing and regressive treatment of women masquerading as “girl power.”
**Spoilers Ahead**Spoilers Ahead**Spoilers Ahead**Spoilers Ahead**Spoilers Ahead**
We can start with the infantilization of the lead character, Baby Doll, a 20-year-old rendered as woman child–tiny but big-headed, with large eyes and white blonde, pig-tailed hair, perpetually dressed in schoolgirl drag. She is mute and trembling through much of the first half of the film. The result is that Sucker Punch plays on “jail bait” fantasies using the cover that its heroine is truly an adult woman.
So too does the film leverage implied threats to women to titillate–particularly sexual threat. From the earliest scenes, when Baby Doll’s hulking stepfather eyes her lasciviously and tries to push his way into her bedroom, Sucker Punch highlights the protagonist’s sexual vulnerability–not to make a point about violence toward women, but to render her more fragile and endangered, and by extension, to underscore her femininity and desirability.
And it must be said here that the key to Baby Doll’s persona and her place in the film is her whiteness. Sucker Punch genuflects to the traditional views of womanhood that have historically been assigned exclusively to white women (to the detriment of ALL women). It is not a mistake that, of the gang of female characters, Baby Doll is the blondest and most alabaster of skin. She is the most innocent. It is she that is reserved for the most special of the fantasy club’s clients, the High Roller. It is her dancing that is so arousing that it hypnotizes the men who witness it. It is Baby Doll that the swarthy pimp/orderly (depending on the fantasy world) must have and who he intends to take by force. (A nasty nod to the white women in danger of rampaging dark men stereotype.) Conversely, it is the women of color in the film–Amber (Jamie Chung) and Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens)–who are drawn as the flattest of the flat characters, with no back stories or desires, but to serve Baby Doll. And it is those women whose lives are unwillingly sacrificed (literally) so that one pretty, blonde, white woman can live the life she deserves.
The most obvious sign that Sucker Punch is no female empowerment film–not even a Kill Bill (which I really liked and to which Sucker Punch plays homage)–is the plot itself. The idea that a young woman, who has recently lost her mother and sister; who is imprisoned for fighting against domestic violence; who may have endured rape at the hands of her stepfather or just narrowly escaped it; who is about to endure a forced medical procedure would, for relief from her trauma, retreat into a fantasy world where she is a sexual slave who must dance provocatively for strange men…absurd.

Sucker Punch is no female fantasy. Sucker Punch isn’t about women at all, despite the female leads. Josh Larsen of Larsen on Film describes exactly what Sucker Punch is:

…it’s the fantasy of a 14-year-old boy steeped in kung fu, “Call of Duty” and online porn. Read more…

And this is why I should start reading film reviews before I see films not after.
Tami Winfrey Harris writes about race, feminism, politics and pop culture at the blog What Tami Said. Her work has also appeared online at The Guardian’s Comment is Free, Ms. Magazine blog, Newsweek, Change.org, Huffington Post and Racialicious. She is a graduate of the Iowa State University Greenlee School of Journalism. She spends her spare time researching her family history and cultivating a righteous ‘fro.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Each of the wives deals with the different schools of thought within feminism in ways that roughly align with their ages. The three tell the generational story of feminism, albeit in broad and heavily stereotyped ways.

What’s interesting about the expressions of feminism is that they are happening within a family structure where the husband/father is at the center as the authority. 

Of 4,315 adults across the UK who were surveyed, a clear majority believe cinema too often falls back on discredited stereotypes, including sexless older women, drug dealing, oversexualised black people and gay people whose lives are dominated by their sexuality.

Almost two-thirds of those questioned believe older women are “significantly underrepresented” in films. They are rarely portrayed as sexual beings and are, generally, only given marginal roles, according to the findings, published exclusively in the Guardian today. 

The Fort Lee Film Commission is sponsoring a symposium next month dedicated to the first female filmmaker in cinema history, Alice Guy Blache, as part of the 2011 Garden State Film Festival (GSFF) in Asbury Park, New Jersey. The symposium, Reel Jersey Girls: Alice Guy to Today–a Century of Women in Film, is a key event, said Fort Lee Film Commission executive director Tom Meyers, at what he calls “the largest annual film festival in the state of New Jersey.”

Alice Guy Blache, one of the first three filmmakers in France, began directing in the 1890s. In 1912, Blache came to the then motion picture capital of the world, Fort Lee, and built her $100,000 studio, Solax, on Lemoine Ave. There she produced, wrote ad directed hundreds of films, according to Meyers. 

Whatever the strategy, director Deborah Kampmeier says she hopes that women and men can reach parity in the film industry, because film is so important to our culture. Kampmeier says that “films are the place in society that we really sit around the campfire and tell our stories and make our myths, and really create our future as a society. And 93 percent of those stories are being told by men, and this is a chronic, very unhealthy balance.”

The Group from Papermag: 

It’s a really good time to be young, female, funny, smart–and a little bit weird and awkward. Meet the members of Hollywood’s unlikely new in-crowd.

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a cute, bubbly, young (usually white) woman who has recently entered the life of our brooding hero to teach him how to loosen up and enjoy life. While that might sound all well and good for the man, this trope leaves women as simply there to support the star on his journey of self discovery with no real life of her own.

Winter’s Bone Q and A from Women and Hollywood: 

Here’s the Q and A from the Athena Film Festival with Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini and moderated by IndieWIRE’s Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. 

Leave your links in the comments.

Guest Writer Wednesday: The Blind Side: The Most Insulting Movie Ever Made

This cross-post first appeared at Rage Against the Man-chine on June 11, 2010.
Davetavius and I consider ourselves the world’s foremost authorities on watching movies for reasons other than those intended by their producers. As such, we go way beyond just watching “cheesy” (whatever that means) movies, 80s movies, or kung fu movies (which I refuse to watch but which every dork on Earth has been pretending to like in some attempt at letting everyone know how “weird” they are since Quentin Tarantino’s ridiculous ass popularized kung fu movie fandom as the #1 route to instant eccentricity cred in True Romance) to focus our attention on recently-released romantic comedies, those obnoxious movies in which two assholes just sit around and talk to each other for 98 minutes, and “serious” movies for which people have been given gold-plated statuettes. One can learn an awful lot about the faults and failings of our social system and corporate entertainment’s attempts to sell us its version of culture by watching movies created by and for the anti-intelligentsia, and if one were to try hard enough, I’m sure one could find the string that, if tugged, would unravel the modern world system buried somewhere in a melodramatic Best Picture Oscar contender intended to make people who refer to beers as “cold ones” feel like they’re considering The Big Issues. There was no way we were going to miss The Blind Side.
Spoiler alert: this is the worst movie I’ve ever seen, and I’m going to spoil your desire to see it yourself by writing this post. Also, I may, if I can manage to give a fuck, divulge important plot elements. But it’s based on a true story that everyone has already heard anyway, so who cares.

Let me say up front that I’m aware that I’m supposed to feel sorry for Sandra Bullock this week. She’s purported to be “America’s sweetheart” and all, she has always seemed like a fairly decent person (for an actor), and I think her husband deserves to get his wang run over by one of his customized asshole conveyance vehicles, but I’m finding it difficult to feel too bad. I mean, who marries a guy who named himself after a figure from the Old West, has more tattoos than IQ points, and is known for his penchant for rockabilly strippers? Normally I’d absolve Bullock of all responsibility for what has occurred and spend nine paragraphs illustrating the many reasons Jesse James doesn’t deserve to live, but I’ve just received proof in the form of a movie called The Blind Side that Sandra Bullock is in cahoots with Satan, Ronald Reagan’s cryogenically preserved head, the country music industry, and E! in their plot to take over the world by turning us all into (or helping some of us to remain) smug, racist imbeciles.

The movie chronicles the major events in the life of a black NFL player named Michael Oher from the time he meets the rich white family who adopts him to the time that white family sees him drafted into the NFL, a series of events that apparently proves that racism is either over or OK (I’m not sure which), with a ton of southern football bullshit along the way. Bullock plays Leigh Anne Tuohy, the wife of a dude named Sean Tuohy, played by — no shit — Tim McGraw, who is a fairly minor character in the movie despite the fact that he is said to own, like, 90 Taco Bell franchises. The story is that Oher, played by Quinton Aaron, is admitted into a fancy-pants private Christian school despite his lack of legitimate academic records due to the insistence of the school’s football coach and the altruism of the school’s teachers (as if, dude), where he comes into contact with the Tuohy family, who begin to notice that he is sleeping in the school gym and subsisting on popcorn. Ms. Tuohy then invites him to live in the zillion-dollar Memphis Tuophy family compound, encourages him to become the best defensive linebacker he can be by means of cornball familial love metaphors, and teaches him about the nuclear family and the SEC before beaming proudly as he’s drafted by the Baltimore Ravens.

I’m sure that the Tuohy family are lovely people and that they deserve some kind of medal for their good deeds, but if I were a judge, I wouldn’t toss them out of my courtroom should they arrive there bringing a libel suit against whoever wrote, produced, and directed The Blind Side, because it’s handily the dumbest, most racist, most intellectually and politically insulting movie I’ve ever seen, and it makes the Tuohy family — especially their young son S.J. — look like unfathomable assholes. Well, really, it makes all of the white people in the South look like unfathomable assholes. Like these people need any more bad publicity.

Quentin Aaron puts in a pretty awesome performance, if what the director asked him to do was look as pitiful as possible at every moment in order not to scare anyone by being black. Whether that was the goal or not, he certainly did elicit pity from me when Sandra Bullock showed him his new bed and he knitted his brows and, looking at the bed in awe, said, “I’ve never had one of these before.” I mean, the poor bastard had been duped into participating in the creation of a movie that attempts to make bigoted southerners feel good about themselves by telling them that they needn’t worry about poverty or racism because any black person who deserves help will be adopted by a rich family that will provide them with the means to a lucrative NFL contract. Every interaction Aaron and Bullock (or Aaron and anyone else, for that matter) have in the movie is characterized by Aaron’s wretched obsequiousness and the feeling that you’re being bludgeoned over the head with the message that you needn’t fear this black guy. It’s the least dignified role for a black actor since Cuba Gooding, Jr.’s portrayal of James Robert Kennedy in Radio (a movie Davetavius claims ought to have the subtitle “It’s OK to be black in the South as long as you’re retarded.”). The producers, writers, and director of this movie have managed to tell a story about class, race, and the failures of capitalism and “democratic” politics to ameliorate the conditions poor people of color have to deal with by any means other than sports while scrupulously avoiding analyzing any of those issues and while making it possible for the audience to walk out of the theater with their selfish, privileged, entitled worldviews intact, unscathed, and soundly reconfirmed.

Then there’s all of the southern bullshit, foremost of which is the football element. The producers of the movie purposely made time for cameos by about fifteen SEC football coaches in order to ensure that everyone south of the Mason-Dixon line would drop their $9 in the pot, and the positive representation of football culture in the film is second in phoniness only to the TV version of Friday Night Lights. Actually, fuck that. It’s worse. Let’s be serious. If this kid had showed no aptitude for football, is there any way in hell he’d have been admitted to a private school without the preparation he’d need to succeed there or any money? In the film, the teachers at the school generously give of their private time to tutor Oher and help prepare him to attend classes with the other students. I’ll bet you $12 that shit did not occur in real life. In fact, I know it didn’t. The Tuohy family may or may not have cared whether the kid could play football, but the school certainly did. It is, after all, a southern school, and high school football is a bigger deal in the South than weed is at Bonnaroo.

But what would have happened to Oher outside of school had he sucked at football and hence been useless to white southerners? What’s the remedy for poverty if you’re a black woman? A dude with no pigskin skills? Where are the nacho magnates to adopt those black people? I mean, that’s the solution for everything, right? For all black people to be adopted by rich, paternalistic white people? I know this may come as a shock to some white people out there, but the NFL cannot accommodate every black dude in America, and hence is an imperfect solution to social inequality. I know we have the NBA too, but I still see a problem. But the Blind Side fan already has an answer for me. You see, there is a scene in the movie which illustrates that only some black people deserve to be adopted by wealthy white women. Bullock, when out looking for Oher, finds herself confronted with a black guy who not only isn’t very good at appearing pitiful in order to make her comfortable, but who has an attitude and threatens to shoot Oher if he sees him. What ensues is quite possibly the most loathsome scene in movie history in which Sandra Bullock gets in the guy’s face, rattles off the specs of the gun she carries in her purse, and announces that she’s a member of the NRA and will shoot his ass if he comes anywhere near her family, “bitch.” Best Actress Oscar.

Well, there it is. Now you see why this movie made 19 kajillion dollars and won an Oscar: it tells a heartwarming tale of white benevolence, assures the red state dweller that his theory that “there’s black people, and then there’s niggers” is right on, and affords him the chance to vicariously remind a black guy who’s boss thr0ugh the person of America’s sweetheart. Just fucking revolting.

There are several other cringe-inducing elements in the film. The precocious, cutesy antics of the family’s little son, S.J., for example. He’s constantly making dumb-ass smart-ass comments, cloyingly hip-hopping out with Oher to the tune of  Young M.C.’s “Bust a Move” (a song that has been overplayed and passe for ten years but has now joined “Ice Ice Baby” at the top of the list of songs from junior high that I never want to hear again), and generally trying to be a much more asshole-ish version of Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. At what point will screenwriters realize that everyone wants to punch pint-sized snarky movie characters in the throat? And when will I feel safe watching a movie in the knowledge that I won’t have to endure a scene in which a white dork or cartoon character “raises the roof” and affects a buffalo stance while mouthing a sanitized rap song that even John Ashcroft knows the words to?

And then there’s the scene in which Tim McGraw, upon meeting his adopted son’s tutor (played by Kathy Bates) and finding out she’s a Democrat, says, “Who would’ve thought I’d have a black son before I met a Democrat?” Who would have thought I’d ever hear a “joke” that was less funny and more retch-inducing than Bill Engvall’s material?

What was the intended message of this film? It won an Oscar, so I know it had to have a message, but what could it have been? I’ve got it (a suggestion from Davetavius)! The message is this: don’t buy more than one Taco Bell franchise or you’ll have to adopt a black guy. I’ll accept that that’s the intended message of the film, because if  the actual message that came across in the movie was intentional, I may have to hide in the house for the rest of my life.

I just don’t even know what to say about this movie. Watching it may well have been one of the most demoralizing, discouraging experiences of my life, and it removed at least 35% of the hope I’d previously had that this country had any hope of ever being anything but a cultural and social embarrassment. Do yourself a favor. Skip it and watch Welcome to the Dollhouse again.

Nine Deuce blogs at Rage Against the Man-chine. From her bio: I basically go off, dude. People all over the internet call me rad. They call me fem, too, but I’m not all that fem. I mean, I’m female and I have long hair and shit, but that’s just because I’m into Black Sabbath. I don’t have any mini-skirts, high heels, thongs, or lipstick or anything, and I often worry people with my decidedly un-fem behavior. I’m basically a “man” trapped in a woman’s body. What I mean is that, like a person with a penis, I act like a human being and expect other people to treat me like one even though I have a vagina.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Creator of The Wire issues heartfelt critique of the “war on drugs” from Feministing

Last week, actress Felicia Pearson, who plays “Snoop” on The Wire, was arrested as part of a major drug raid that included 30 people. While this is certainly disappointing news, because I think a lot of people are rooting for her success after her involvement with the show, I was particularly struck by the reaction of David Simon, creator and executive producer of The Wire and Pearson’s colleague.

A History of (Firsts) for Women and Film from The Film Experience

First woman to receive an honorary regular-sized Oscar: Greta Garbo in 1954. Yep, after 20 or so men had been given one. After another 15 or so men were given non-competitive statues the next woman was Onna White for choreographing Oliver! (1968).

The ratio continues this way: 1970s men: 14; women: 3; 1980s men: 8; women: 1; 1990s men: 9;women: 3; 2000s men 12: women: 1; This year men: 3; women: 0; What the hell is AMPAS’s problem with women, exactly?

Interview with Sherry Hormann, Director of Desert Flower from Women and Hollywood

Desert Flower opens this Friday in NY and LA.  It stars Liya Kebede as Waris Dirie, a woman who escaped from Somalia and became a top fashion model and UN spokeswoman against female genital mutilation.  Director Sherry Hormann answered some questions about the film.

I Love Lucy: Radical Feminist Propaganda? from Against All Evidence 

Ricky: All people in the world are divided into two groups… men and women.

Lucy: [sarcastically] I know. It’s a wonderful arrangement.

Ricky: Now. Men have short hair, and women have long hair. That’s the difference between them.

Lucy: Oh?

Icons of Black Female Empowerment from The Root

From Diana Ross to Lena Horne to Queen Latifah, black women in pop culture have defied the odds, inspired and awed their fans. In honor of Women’s History Month, we’ve put together a list of some of the icons of black female empowerment.

March Movies I Won’t Be Seeing (And One I Might) from The Funny Feminist

First up is Sucker Punch, starring a bunch of life-sized Bratz dolls:

Summary: A group of girls escape from an insane asylum where they have been imprisoned against their will, kicking ass and taking names on the way!  They also happen to be wearing next to nothing while they do this, but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence, right?

The Feministing Five: Anita Sarkeesian from Feministing

Anita Sarkeesian is the founder of the fabulous blog and video series Feminist Frequency, where she analyzes depictions of gender in pop culture in an accessible, entertaining way. Sarkeesian believes that popular culture is a powerful force, one that can shape how we think about the world, and that it even though it can seem silly, it deserves serious analysis: she wrote her master’s thesis on representations on strong women in scifi and fantasy television.

Why I Am a Male Feminist from The Root

The word turns off a lot of men (insert snarky comment about man-hating feminazis here) — and women. But here’s why black men should be embracing the “f” word.

Leave links to what you’ve read and written this week about women and film!

Seriously? These Are the 100 Greatest Female Characters?

This past Monday, Total Film published its list of the 100 Greatest Female Characters. As everyone knows, these Best Ever lists tend to have the pretty obvious problem of not being able to include everyone and, therefore, not being able to please everyone. But we here at Bitch Flicks found this particular list more problematic than usual. For a variety of reasons. Before we discuss the WTF-FAIL of this, check out the list below and/or scroll through the photo-list at Total Film (especially if you’re interested in their use of sexist language and images).

100. Baby from Dirty Dancing, played by Jennifer Grey
99. Cherry Darling from Planet Terror, played by Rose McGowan
98. Vivian Ward from Pretty Woman, played by Julia Roberts
97. Samantha Baker from Sixteen Candles, played by Molly Ringwald
96. Stifler’s Mom from American Pie, played by Jennifer Coolidge
95. Layla from Buffalo ’66, played by Christina Ricci
94. Marquise de Merteuil from Dangerous Liaisons, played by Glenn Close
93. Karen Silkwood from Silkwood, played by Meryl Streep
92. Marnie Edgar from Marnie, played by Tippi Hedren
91. Briony Tallis from Atonement, played by Saoirse Ronan
90. Gertie from E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, played by Drew Barrymore
89. Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca, played by Judith Anderson
88. Jean Brodie from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, played by Maggie Smith
87. Malena Scordia from Malena, played by Monica Bellucci
86. Audrey 2 from Little Shop of Horrors, voiced by Levi Stubbs
85. Gilda Mundson Farrell from Gilda, played by Rita Hayworth
84. Matty Walker from Body Heat, played by Kathleen Turner
83. Annie Savoy from Bull Durham, played by Susan Sarandon
82. Severine Serizy from Belle Du Jour, played by Catherine Deneuve
81. Gloria Swenson from Gloria, played by Gena Rowlands
80. Catherine Tramell from Basic Instinct, played by Sharon Stone
79. Phyllis Dietrichson from Double Indemnity, played by Barbara Stanwyck
78. Bess McNeill from Breaking the Waves, played by Emily Watson
77. Thelma Dickinson from Thelma and Louise, played by Geena Davis
76. Alabama Whitman from True Romance, played by Patricia Arquette
75. Coraline from Coraline, voiced by Dakota Fanning
74. Annie Porter from Speed, played by Sandra Bullock
73. Kate “Ma” Barker from Bloody Mama, played by Shelley Winters
72. Marge Gunderson from Fargo, played by Frances McDormand
71. Elisabet Vogler from Persona, played by Liv Ullmann
70. Sally Albright from When Harry Met Sally, played by Meg Ryan
69. Bonnie Parker from Bonnie and Clyde, played by Faye Dunaway
68. Ada McGrath from The Piano, played by Holly Hunter
67. Soshanna Dreyfus from Inglourious Basterds, played by Melanie Laurent
66. Alice Hyatt from Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, played by Ellen Burstyn
65. Lee Holloway from Secretary, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal
64. Barbarella from Barbarella, played by Jane Fonda
63. Annie Wilkes from Misery, played by Kathy Bates
62. Sylvia from La Dolce Vita, played by Anika Ekberg
61. Regan MacNeil from The Exorcist, played by Linda Blair
60. Mary Poppins from Mary Poppins, played by Julie Andrews
59. Mildred Pierce from Mildred Pierce, played by Joan Crawford
58. Margo Channing from All About Eve, played by Bette Davis
57. Adrian Pennino Balboa from Rocky, played by Talia Shire
56. Nikita from La Femme Nikita, played by Anne Parillaud
55. “Baby” Jane Hudson from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, played by Bette Davis
54. Summer Finn from 500 Days of Summer, played by Zooey Deschanel
53. Judy Barton/Madeleine Elster from Vertigo, played by Kim Novak
52. Debby Marsh from The Big Heat, played by Gloria Grahame
51. Amelie from Amelie, played by Audrey Tautou
50. Jessie from Toy Story 2, voiced by Joan Cusack
49. Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, played by Louise Fletcher
48. Alex Forrest from Fatal Attraction, played by Glenn Close
47. Evelyn Mulwray from Chinatown, played by Faye Dunaway
46. Blanche Dubois from A Streetcar Named Desire, played by Vivien Leigh
45. Paikea Apirana from Whale Rider, played by Keisha Castle-Hughes
44. Charlotte from Lost In Translation, played by Scarlett Johansen
43. Ofelia from Pan’s Labyrinth, played by Ivan Baquero
42. Margot Tenenbaum from The Royal Tenenbaums, played by Gwyneth Paltrow
41. Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, played by Audrey Hepburn
40. Mindy “Hit Girl” Macready from Kick-Ass, played by Chloe Moretz
39. Chihiro Ogino from Spirited Away, voiced by Rumi Hiragi
38. Mia Williams from Fish Tank, played by Katie Jarvis
37. Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, voiced by Kathleen Turner
36. Older Daughter from Dogtooth, played by Aggeliki Papoulia
35. Ursa from Superman II, played by Sarah Douglas
34. Ann Darrow from King Kong, played by Fay Wray
33. Betty Elms/Diane Selwyn from Mulholland Dr., played by Naomi Watts
32. Scarlett O’Hara from Gone With the Wind, played by Vivien Leigh
31. Coffy from Coffy, played by Pam Grier
30. Kym from Rachel Getting Married, played by Anne Hathaway
29. Trinity from The Matrix, played by Carrie-Anne Moss
28. Lady from Lady and the Tramp, voiced by Barbara Luddy
27. Louise Sawyer from Thelma and Louise, played by Susan Sarandon
26. Nina Sayers from Black Swan, played by Natalie Portman
25. Enid from Ghost World, played by Thora Birch
24. Rosemary Woodhouse from Rosemary’s Baby, played by Mia Farrow
23. Mrs. Robinson from The Graduate, played by Anne Bancroft
22. Dory from Finding Nemo, voiced by Ellen Degeneres
21. Veronica Sawyer from Heathers, played by Winona Ryder
20. Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction, played by Uma Thurman
19. Clarice Starling from The Silence of the Lambs, played by Jodie Foster
18. Laurie Strode from Halloween, played by Jamie Lee Curtis
17. Carrie White from Carrie, played by Sissy Spacek
16. Bridget Gregory from The Last Seduction, played by Linda Fiorentino
15. Catwoman from Batman Returns, played by Michelle Pfeiffer
14. Matilda from The Professional, played by Natalie Portman
13. Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, played by Noomi Rapace
12. Jackie Brown from Jackie Brown, played by Pam Grier
11. Eli from Let the Right One In, played by Lina Leandersson
10. Sugar Kane Kowalczyk from Some Like It Hot, played by Marilyn Monroe
9. Hildy Johnson from His Girl Friday, played by Rosalind Russell
8. The Bride from Kill Bill, played by Uma Thurman
7. Hermione Granger from Harry Potter, played by Emma Watson
6. Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz, played by Judy Garland
5. Princess Leia Organa from Star Wars, played by Carrie Fisher
4. Clementine Kruczynski from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, played by Kate Winslet
3. Sarah Connor from The Terminator, played by Linda Hamilton
2. Annie Hall from Annie Hall, played by Diane Keaton
1. Ellen Ripley from Alien, played by Sigourney Weaver

Well. Let’s discuss the most ridiculous, WTF-FAIL elements of this list.
1. 7% of the 100 Greatest Female Characters are–wait for it–not human. We’ve got Audrey 2 the plant; Coraline the cartoon girl; Jessie the cartoon cowgirl; Chihiro Ogino the cartoon girl; Jessica Rabbit the (sexy) cartoon rabbit; Lady the dog; and Dory the fish. And only three of these seven Greatest Female Characters are even animated humans. The rest are animals. And one, the plant, is voiced by a man. 
2. Only 5% of the 100 Greatest Female Characters were directed by women, and that includes a co-director credit (Andy and Lana Wachowski) for The Matrix. The other woman-directed films include Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank, Jane Campion’s The Piano, Niki Caro’s Whale Rider, and Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. Maybe I shouldn’t be so appalled by this statistic, considering how difficult it is for women directors to get their films made in general. But seriously, 5%?
3. What’s up with all the children and teenagers on this list? Am I really supposed to believe that, in the history of film, 20% of the Greatest Female Characters were younger than twenty? I know ageism in Hollywood is bad, but that doesn’t mean amazing women characters over forty don’t exist. And I mean in addition to Stifler’s Mom (MILF!) from American Pie, who Total Film so graciously remembered to include. Just sayin,’ list compilers, if you were really hard-pressed, you could’ve checked to see if any women of color have ever acted in films.
4. Why is this list so fucking white? I’m not familiar with every movie or every movie character on the list, but I know I’m having a hard time finding nonwhite women. Pam Grier’s two blaxploitation characters, Jackie Brown and Coffy, jump out right away, and I’m fairly confident that’s not a good thing. Is Pam Grier the only black actress the Total Film list compilers are familiar with? Because, I mean, off the top of my head I’ve got: Whoopi Goldberg in The Color Purple, Queen Latifah in Chicago, Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls, Angela Bassett in What’s Love Got to Do With It?, Halle Berry in anything …
5. You know what’s also interesting about those characters I just listed? None of them is completely deranged (Mrs. Danvers, Annie Wilkes, Alex Forrest.)  Or a prostitute (Vivian Ward, Severine Serizy, Alabama Whitman.)  Or a Fighting Fuck Toy (Barbarella, Catwoman, Cherry Darling.) Or a seductress (Marquise de Merteuil, Matty Walker, Annie Savoy.) And I’m not even suggesting that prostitutes and deranged women and seductresses and fighting fuck toys (okay, maybe them) are all necessarily terrible characters. But many of these characters, and the films they inhabit, have been deemed antifeminist as fuck.  
Basically, compiling a slew of antifeminist characters from antifeminist films and putting them on a list called The 100 Greatest Female Characters–while ironic–is kind of unacceptable. I’ve only barely grazed the surface of this nonsense. If you want to see some really messed up statistics surrounding this list, check out The Double R Diner for a much more in-depth analysis, including a look at the many characters who are victims of violence and sexual assault. 

So, readers, what female characters would you include on a list of the 100 Greatest?

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

The general media obsession with Mirren’s sex life has been replaced these days by a kind of awe, no less misogynistic, that a woman in her 60s can look attractive and happy. At 65, Mirren is adored and venerated; if it’s true that, after being made a Dame in 2003 and winning an Oscar in 2007 for playing the title role in The Queen, she has become that dreaded property, a national treasure, then at least she is one with plenty of sharp edges capable of giving you a painful nick if you’re not careful.

Feminism has gotten somewhat of a bad rap lately. Many people feel that it’s outlived its goals. Don’t women have equal rights now? What is there to complain about? The answer to this is that just giving people the legal possibility to do something doesn’t mean you are genuinely opening opportunities for them. Saying that giving people equal rights leads to them instantly being regarded as equals is like saying that giving African-Americans the right to vote ended racism in America. But what has all this to do with movies? Well, feminism isn’t just a political movement, but also an academic one. And yes, there is something like feminist film theory.

Feminism Friday: Any Woman Worth Her Salt from Blazing Modesty Changes the World
Not so for the moment a little earlier when, after spraying CCTV cameras with a fire extinguisher to cover the lens, she inexplicably, with the fire extinguisher still to hand, whips off her knickers to block the final camera.  This she can do easily and a million times more gracefully than any knicker removal I’ve seen or executed in real life, thanks to the massive slit in the tight skirt she wears to her office job in the CIA.  I can’t believe Jolie even did it, really.  I’d have been tempted to punch the director in the face.  There’s also a questionable moment at the beginning of the film when she’s learning to fold napkins for her anniversary dinner with her husband.  I find it very hard to believe this was part of the original script, and while the function of the episode is clearly to establish the husband and the occasion, this would never have been written for the character as Cruise would have played it.

A Question of Habit from Whalen Films
In the February 23, 2008 episode of Saturday Night Live, Tina Fey made a seemingly serious case for Hillary Clinton as president, arguing that we shouldn’t mind if she’s a bitch because “bitches get stuff done.” Fey went on to bolster her argument with the following observation: “That’s why Catholic schools use nuns as teachers and not priests. Those nuns are mean old clams, and they sleep on cots and are allowed to hit you. And at the end of the school year, you hated those bitches, but you knew the capital of Vermont.” How did nuns become part of this discussion? And how did they get reduced from the historical reality of their significant contributions to such a narrow and nasty caricature?

Shortly after the Oscars ended Sunday, Samuel L. Jackson sent an e-mail to a Times reporter wondering why no black men had been chosen to present awards on the film world’s biggest stage.

“It’s obvious there’s not ONE Black male actor in Hollywood that’s able to read a teleprompter, or that’s ‘hip enuf,’ for the new academy demographic!” Jackson wrote. “In the Hollywood I saw tonite, I don’t exist nor does Denzel, Eddie, Will, Jamie, or even a young comer like Anthony Mackie!”

Jackson may be on to something, at least when it comes to the young comers.

For me, this frustration is usually borne of being othered and disrespected, when I simply aimed to be entertained by a trashy novel or TV show. I dipped into Charlaine Harris’ Aurora Teagarden series, hoping to enjoy the books as I enjoy the TV series based on Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series. Instead, I got a bunch of thinly-written, triggering stories where all women (but the protagonist) are routinely judged harshly and women like me (black women) are alternately sassy or angry or dead or running from the law, and blackness or Jewishness or gayness or any other “ness” that is not small-town and conservative and Southern and Anglo and Christian is to be frowned at or remarked upon or, best, hidden. And so, instead of enjoying a cozy mystery in my downtime, I wound up feeling uncomfortable and marginalized.

I dislike SATC for the way it forced its central characters into stereotypes. To service those stereotypes for the sake of a storyline. Chris Noth was the tall-dark-and-handsome wealthy man. Kim Cattrall the over-sexed hyper-assertive female who had to stumble over failed romances or personal trauma (breast cancer) to show her sensitivity. Cynthia Nixon is the cynical New York career-woman. Kristen Davis the doe-eyed, Rules playing, sweater-set wearing woman on a mission for the nuclear family and nothing else. Sarah Jessica Parker is the child who plays dress-up, even in her marriage, trying on costumes in the hopes that they’ll make her lifestyle complete. These roles needed to be boldly and sharply drawn in oder to parody or even slay some of the stereotypes of women.

At a do last year to crown Lennox Barclays Woman of the Year, barely half the roomful of 450 of Britain’s brightest women admitted to being a feminist. Lennox was disgusted. “They were afraid,” she says. In a sort of stream of consciousness ramble, she adds: “The word feminism needs to be taken back. It needs to be reclaimed in a way that is inclusive of men. Men need to understand, and women too, what feminism is really about. And it is not the parody that it has been diminished and turned into, and it is not this parody about whether you burn your bra or shave your armpits or whatever. That’s just nonsense. Actually it’s a red herring. It’s really disgraceful that it has become the kind of dumbing down of something that has to do with human rights, social and political values – and where we’re going as a world that is dominated by war and strife. And young women being born still have no rights over what is done to their bodies.”

Thelma and Louise came out in May of 1991 and change was in the air.  The film touched a raw nerve in women that had been lying dormant during the Reagan backlash years.  It became a cultural touchstone, was on covers of magazines, and got both Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon Academy Award nominations.  Geena Davis tells stories of women seeing her on the road and honking at her and thanking her for the film.  But here we are 20 years later and it feels like that film was never made.

Today, it’s time to look back at ten women who’ve made cinematic history. I won’t claim that this ten constitutes the “best,” because to do so would immediately detract from the hundreds and thousands of women developing cinema worldwide. These are, quite simply, ten women you should be familiar with. Some have the honor of “first,” while others have left an indelible impact on the industry.

Consider this your springboard to a rich history of female talent.

On the silver screen women are usually seen as a helpless mother, submissive wife, devoted girlfriend, overcaring sister, daughter or a vamp, but directors like Vishal Bharadwaj and Alankrita Shrivastava are trying to break the mould and present women in a more realistic, vibrant and unconventional way.

One-film-old Rajkumar Gupta’s “No One Killed Jessica” was an attempt to bring alive the struggle of Sabrina Lall’s fight with the Indian judiciary for years to get justice for her murdered sister.

Kathryn Bigelow may have been the first female filmmaker to win a Best Director Oscar for 2009′s The Hurt Locker. But did you happen to notice that for the most recent Academy Awards, the nominees in the same category were all men — in a year when two movies directed by women, Winter’s Bone and The Kids Are All Right, were up for Best Picture?

Gender inequalities exist throughout the arts, but they’re especially pronounced in the rarefied world of film directing. We all know a few big-name women filmmakers: Bigelow, Sofia Coppola, Susan Seidelman, Catherine Hardwicke, Nora Ephron, Julie Taymor. In honor of International Women’s Day, we present ten great, contemporary female directors who you may not know but should definitely check out.

The key to the influence of film is HOW film is used to represent violence against women to the masses. The key is to see film as a tool:

Done well, a powerful documentary, movie, public service announcement, music video or television episode can give might momentum to helping activists and nonprofits working to end violence against women motivate grassroots support for the cause.

Done right, the film-maker will be able to walk the balancing act of accurately depict the horrors of violence against women while inspiring the viewer to join the movement to end violence against women.

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