Rachael Johnson – Page 4

A Plea For More Roseannes and Norma Raes: Addressing The Lack of Working-Class Female Characters on American Screens

It is, also, of course, essential that we see female characters make their own way in professions traditionally monopolized by men. They reflect social change as well as inspire. It is equally essential that women of power are portrayed on the big and small screen with greater frequency as well as with a greater degree of complexity. American films and television programs should not, however, block out the lives of working-class and poor women. So many stories, struggles, journeys and adventures, remain unacknowledged and untold. It is a strange and troubling thought that contemporary American audiences are simply unaccustomed to seeing interesting, strong and resourceful working-class women. Whether ordinary or extraordinary, working-class women of all races and backgrounds, need greater representation.

Written by Rachael Johnson

Noam Chomsky recently observed that America is engaged in “a long and continuing class war against working people and the poor”. (Noam Chomsky: America Hates Its Poor, Salon, Dec 1, 2013). I would add that American popular culture does not, for the most part, represent poor or working-class American citizens. US television shows and movies about less privileged people are exceptionally rare. This lack of representation is becoming increasingly indefensible in the face of acute- and expanding- economic inequality. It is also a vital feminist issue as women are still poorer than men in the United States. The US government itself released a report in March 2011- the ‘Women In America’ report- showing that a wage and income gender gap between men and women still exists in the 21^st century. Poverty rates for less advantaged women are higher because they are in low-paying occupations and because they are often the sole breadwinner in their family. There are stories behind the figures, of course, but they are seldom told on the screen. Clearly, it is time for filmmakers of all backgrounds to address this unjust and frankly absurd lack of representation. The issue should also, of course, be of interest and concern to both critics and consumers of American popular culture.

Of course, it goes without saying that there are not nearly enough American movies with female protagonists and characters in general. Even less common, however, are features with less advantaged women. An arbitrary list of films with female protagonists and important characters covering the last decade might include Lost in Translation (2003), The Kids are Alright (2010), Black Swan (2010), Under The Tuscan Sun (2003), Up in The Air (2010), Julie and Julia (2009), Secretariat (2010), Eat Pray Love (2009), Bridesmaids (2011), Sex and The City 1 (2008) and 2 (2010), The Devil Wears Prada (2006), The Holiday (2006), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) Fair Game (2010), Young Adult (2011), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Stoker (2013), Side Effects (2013) and Gravity (2013). Clearly, all these movies are about professional and/or privileged women.

The heroines of contemporary American television are, also, for the most part, professional, upper-middle or upper-class women. Over the past decade, there have been a fair number of US TV shows revolving around the lives and careers of doctors, surgeons, medical examiners and lawyers. Damages, Gray’s Anatomy, The Mindy Project, Body of Proof, Bones, Private Practice and The Good Wife are among them. Currently, there are also shows depicting the lives of women who work for, or have a history with the US government, such as Veep, Parks and Recreation, Homeland and Scandal. The heroines of 30 Rock and Nashville work in the entertainment industry. It was a similar scene, of course, in the late 90s and early part of the Millenium when shows like Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives enjoyed mass popularity.

My point is not to knock the shows and movies cited. Some are interesting, stylish and entertaining, and a number have compelling female protagonists. It is, also, of course, essential that we see female characters make their own way in professions traditionally monopolized by men. They reflect social change as well as inspire. It is equally essential that women of power are portrayed on the big and small screen with greater frequency as well as with a greater degree of complexity. American films and television programs should not, however, block out the lives of working-class and poor women. So many stories, struggles, journeys and adventures, remain unacknowledged and untold. It is a strange and troubling thought that contemporary American audiences are simply unaccustomed to seeing interesting, strong and resourceful working-class women. Whether ordinary or extraordinary, working-class women of all races and backgrounds, need greater representation.

I am, of course, aware that the term “working class” is rarely used in American public discourse. The term “middle class” is, in fact, used to refer to average Americans. The definition of “middle class” is, in fact, quite a fuzzy one but that does not stop US politicians from using it. For many non-Americans, this is a curious thing. Although the US definition of “middle class” is bound up with the meritocratic ideals of the American Dream, it ultimately represents a denial that class itself exists. To quote Chomsky again, it is, in fact, a deeply political tactic used to mask social division and economic inequality: ‘We don’t use the term “working class” here because it’s a taboo term. You’re supposed to say “middle class”, because it helps diminish the understanding that there’s a class war going on.’ This article specifically refers to the lack of representation of working-class and poor women on the screen. I am talking about the lives of waitresses, factory workers, maids, cleaners, cashiers, childcare workers, married home-makers and single mothers as well as those on the margins of society.

I am, also, fully aware of the eternally-repeated claim that American audiences do not like TV shows or movies about poverty and working-class life because they find them just too damn depressing. Let’s take a look at that claim. Firstly, we have to ask ourselves who’s making it. To be blunt, it smacks of privilege and complacency. Who’s the American audience in question anyway? Advantaged viewers? And what about working-class audiences? Do they not want to see their lives represented on the screen? Surely American popular culture should not merely provide narcissistic identification for the comfortable and well-heeled. Behind the contention lies the implication, of course, that working-class life is invariably depressing. This is patronizing and, frankly, offensive. Although poverty should never be romanticized, both American television and cinema should recognize that humor, love and culture are all part of life for less privileged people. The fact that I have to even make this ridiculously obvious point is an indication of the way millions of people been obscured from the national narrative of the United States. The powers that be- and their pundits- should also, in any case, not make assumptions about what movie or show will be a great critical or commercial success. Nor should they patronize contemporary American audiences about what they can or cannot handle. Many of the best-loved shows of the Golden Age of TV have featured unsanitized, hard-hitting scenes showing human life in all its ugliness and glory. Can’t poverty be processed by TV audiences? Will class always be unmentionable?

We also have to ask if there is strong historical evidence to back up the claim. A quick study of American films and television shows over the last 40 years or so shows that working-class female characters have, from time to time, actually been celebrated in popular culture. Roseanne is, of course, the most famous small screen example. Featuring a fully-realised working-class female protagonist, the hugely popular, award-winning sitcom ran from 1988 to 1997. Roseanne was, in fact, exceptional in that it gave the world a ground-breaking TV heroine as well as a funny and compassionate portrait of an ordinary, loving blue-collar American family. Memorably played by Roseanne Barr, the matriarch of the show had warmth and wit as well as great strength and character. She was that most uncommon of creatures on US television: a working-class feminist. I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that America and the world needs the wise-cracking words of characters like Roseanne more than ever. A cultural heroine is currently badly needed today to deflate the criminal excesses of corporate masculinity.

In the 70s and 80s, there were even films about heroic female labor activists. Take Norma Rae (1979) and Silkwood (1983). Drawing on the real life experiences of advocate Crystal Lee Sutton, Norma Rae (1979) tells the tale of a North Carolina woman’s struggle to improve working conditions in her textile factory and unionize her co-workers. Silkwood (1983) chronicles worker and advocate Karen Silkwood’s quest to expose hazardous conditions at a nuclear plant in Oklahoma. Both films feature well-drawn dynamic, complex female protagonists, vital, persuasive performances and compelling story lines. Meryl Streep is customarily exceptional as Karen Silkwood while Sally Field won a Best Actress Oscar for Norma Rae. The latter’s ‘UNION’ sign is, in fact, the stuff of cinema history. Although these narratives center around the individual- in a classically American fashion- they are, nevertheless, about women who are fighting for others. There have been other female labor organizers in American history of course. Why are filmmakers not interested in their extraordinary careers? Why can’t there be biopics about women like Dolores Huerta? And tell me this: Why is no one interested in the pioneering life of Lucy Parsons?

A few mainstream films have endeavored to expose brutal maltreatment of working-class women in American society. Based on a true story, The Accused (1988) is about the gang rape of Sarah Tobias (superbly played by Jodie Foster), a waitress who lives in a trailer home with her drug dealer boyfriend. Jonathan Kaplan’s drama is actually quite unusual for an American film in that it acknowledges the factor of class in the victimization of its female protagonist. For the “college boy” rapist in particular, Sarah is nothing more than “white trash”.

Have there been more historically recent exceptions to the bourgeois rule? Over the last decade or so, there have been a small number of films that have featured disadvantaged female protagonists. Patty Jenkins’ Monster (2003) is a striking example. Monster is based on the real-life story of Aileen Wuornos, a street prostitute and killer of seven men in Florida in the late eighties and early nineties. Unusually, sexuality, gender and class intersect in the film. A sex worker in a relationship with a young lesbian woman, Wuornos defied the gender and sexual norms of her time and place. Money- the lack of it- is also seen to play a pivotal part in her fate. Jenkins paints Wuornos as an unstable, brutalized woman wounded by past abuses. Monster is a controversial film. Some argued that provided a too sympathetic interpretation of the convicted killer. Was Wuornos an unbalanced, victimized woman or simply a cold-blooded psychopath? What is clear is that Monster tries to contextualize violence. Not many American filmmakers dare to seriously address the social and psychological effects of poverty and abuse in their portraits of murderers. Channeling the fractured psyche of this most marginalized of women, Charlize Theron’s Oscar-winning incarnation as Wuornos is, simply, a tour de force. Why Monster was not nominated for Best Film or Best Director tells us a great deal about misogyny and classism inside the Academy.

Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby (2004) is another well-known film also about a less advantaged woman. It is the story of Maggie Fitzgerald (played by Hillary Swank in another Oscar-winning role), a waitress who wants to be a boxer. While its portrait of the movingly dogged and committed Maggie is greatly sympathetic, that of her family- including her mother- is deeply offensive. They are characterized as “white trash” welfare parasites. Maggie is depicted as a very different, noble creature who must cut loose from her nasty roots and class. In Million Dollar Baby, we have, in fact, a well-drawn, sympathetic female character of modest origins as well as an ideologically-loaded, hateful take on working-class men and women. Maggie is a working-class girl who has been emptied of all class-consciousness. Audiences and critics alike always need, therefore, to ask themselves how less privileged women are being portrayed on the screen and how class is being represented. They should call out discriminatory portraits.

More recently, there have been movies about less advantaged women but they remain uncommon. Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone (2010) is a critically-successful case in point. Set in a crime-scarred community in the rural Ozarks, Winter’s Bone is the story of Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), a 17-year-old girl struggling to save her family home. Ree’s missing father, a local meth cooker, has put the family property up for his bail bond and she must find him or risk losing everything. Granik provides the viewer with a sympathetic portrait of a determined yet disadvantaged young woman at risk. Winter’s Bone never, however, drowns in sentiment. The scene where Ree surrenders her horse- she can no longer afford to keep it- is portrayed in poignant yet understated fashion. Winter’s Bone contains intimate scenes of quiet power. We watch Ree teach her younger siblings to prepare deer stew and to shoot and skin a squirrel. This is a world you rarely see in Hollywood movies. Winter’s Bone has its flaws, all the same. The skies are perpetually grey and there is an improbable lack of humor in the community portrayed. More importantly, while it depicts hardship and shines a light on rural social problems, Winter’s Bone cannot really be said to critique class or structural inequities. Its narrative is typically or mythically American. Granik’s heroine is engaged in a personal rather than collective struggle. In the end, Winter’s Bone is a tale of a tough, sympathetic individual fighting for her family’s financial security.

There are other filmmakers who are interested in the lives of struggling and dispossessed women. Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy (2008) is a deeply humane story about a young woman’s search for work in the American North West. It is a simple tale that provides the viewer with a little understanding of what life is like for a girl (Michelle Williams) who sleeps in a car, with only her beloved dog for company. Its sensitive observations and empathetic insights, in fact, make Wendy and Lucy quite invaluable. Released the same year, Courtney Hunt’s excellent crime drama Frozen River is about a store clerk who becomes a people smuggler. Its central character (terrifically played by Melissa Leo) is a strong woman who has chosen to take a criminal path to support her sons and save her home.

Working-class female protagonists remain rare, however. More often than not, working-class women play supporting roles as mothers, wives or lovers. Their characters are invariably underwritten or stereotypical. A case in point is the character of Romina (Eva Mendes), a diner waitress and lover of the male protagonist in Derek Cianfrance’s tragic though self-indulgent sins-of-the-fathers epic, The Place Beyond the Pines (2013). The purpose of Romina, it seems, is to wear a pained expression and bear witness to reactionary patriarchal sentiment. Again, we need to respond to representations of working-class women critically.

While sexual abuse and domestic violence is a fact of life for women and girls across the socio-economic spectrum, it is, arguably, more common for working-class female characters to be portrayed as victims on the screen. I am not, of course, saying that filmmakers should not shine a light on the suffering of poorer victims of abuse. What I am suggesting is that the imbalance locks less privileged women and girls into the victim or martyr role in cultural representations. As powerful a depiction of abuse Precious (2009) is, it arguably perpetuates deeply offensive classist and racist stereotypes.

Winter's Bone, 2005 — *Winter’s Bone*, 2010

Less privileged women are perhaps even more poorly represented on the small screen. Some may suggest that the question of money, or the lack of it, is being addressed in shows such as Girls and Two Broke Girls. The former, of course, revolves around the personal struggles and adventures of a twenty-something woman finding her way in New York. The comedy-drama, however, does not explore what it’s really like to be without money in a big city and its characters are not, of course, working-class girls with few options and no cushion. The comedy Two Broke Girls does have a working-class protagonist. Yet while it is about women who have two jobs, and while its humor is, in part, directed at privilege, it cannot be accused of being a great satirical comedy about economic inequities. It is, in fact, both classist and racist in its humor. Are there, in fact, any contemporary US comedies that truly target economic inequality? Are there any US dramas that express anger at class divisions? What is, unfortunately, apparent is that the current Golden Age of American television does not have authentic working-class heroines.

Clearly, there needs to be a much greater representation of working-class and poor women in US popular culture. How can the lives of millions of American citizens be reflected so rarely on the screen? There should also be socially-aware portraits of such women. Filmmakers should respond to the outrage of millions and confront economic inequality. They should, also, not be frightened of being political. Economic inequalities should not remain unanalyzed and unchallenged. Hardship should not be hidden but movies and TV shows that represent working-class life should capture both its joys and struggles. Working-class women need not be portrayed as angels or martyrs. Vivid, complex characters are needed. Filmmakers need to remind themselves that there have been great working-class heroines in American film and television. More stories are needed about less privileged women who work to change the lives of themselves and others. Writers and directors should portray the lives of politically-active working-class women as well as the careers of great social activists. They are the stuff of great drama. The huge popularity of Roseanne illustrates that Americans have been more than willing to embrace shows about working-class life. Roseanne also showed that the lives of working-class women can be depicted with both heart and humor. Imagine, if you will, a satirical sitcom set in a Walmart-like store. If braver choices were made, and if braver filmmakers were given greater attention, a working-class feminist consciousness would be given a voice in American popular culture.

Portrait of a Girl: Reflections on the Role of Flora in Jane Campion’s ‘The Piano’

What is clear is that Campion is interested in the strategies women use to survive in patriarchy. But she is not only interested in the fate of women. She is also interested in how girl-children negotiate their way in a male-dominated world. It is through Ada’s daughter as well as Ada herself that Campion explores the feminine condition in the 19th century. Her rich, multi-layered characterization of Flora is, in fact, one of the most remarkable features of The Piano. She is as interesting and compelling as the adult characters and, arguably, the most convincing. The little girl also has huge symbolic and dramatic importance. This is, of course, unusual in cinema. There are relatively few films where a girl plays such a significant, pivotal role.

Written by Rachael Johnson as part of our theme week on Child and Teenage Girl Protagonists.

It has been 20 years since its release, but The Piano has lost none of its unsettling power. An intense, provocative tale of an “imported” Scottish bride in 19^th century colonial New Zealand, Jane Campion’s finest film still stimulates debate about the nature of female identity and sexuality in patriarchy. Both written and directed by the New Zealand filmmaker, The Piano won the Palme d’Or at the 1993 Cannes film festival and picked up three Academy awards at the 1994 ceremony. Holly Hunter won the Best Actress Oscar for her memorable performance as the bride, Ada McGrath, and Jane Campion was awarded Best Original Screenplay. There was another award that The Piano took home that night–that of Best Supporting Actress. Anna Paquin won the prize for her role as Ada’s young daughter, Flora McGrath. The award was seen as unexpected by many pundits. Paquin plays a child of 9 or 10 and she was only 11 when she won the Oscar. It should not, however, have been that surprising to anyone who had seen the film. Flora is a richly complex as well as hugely important character in the story. As for Paquin’s performance, it is, simply, exceptional. Roger Ebert rightly called it “one of the most extraordinary examples of a child’s acting in movie history.”

Let’s first take a closer look at the story and central characters of this original Victorian tale. From the very start, its heroine is portrayed as a remarkable, enigmatic soul. Ada McGrath is a mute widow whose identity is clearly bound up with her beloved piano. The most important person in her life is her spirited, headstrong daughter. Mother and child are exceptionally close. They are given no back-story. Their past remains a mystery. Although Flora expresses interest in learning about her father, she does not, it seems, even know his name. Neither does the audience. At the very beginning of The Piano, we see Ada married off by her father to Alistair Stuart (Sam Neil), a colonial frontiersman in New Zealand. It is manifest from the moment she arrives on the expansive shores of that beautiful land that Ada will never accept Stuart as her husband. When he refuses to transport her piano to his home, she protests spiritedly (Flora interprets Ada’s sign language) and continues to express her discontent. It is also obvious that Stuart, a staid Victorian gentleman with a severely limited imagination, will never understand Ada. Flora, for her part, declares that she will not accept him as her father.

Another man enters Ada’s life, a neighbor and overseer called George Baines (Harvey Keitel). Illiterate, earthy and sexual, he is characterized as the very opposite of the conservative, repressed Stuart. Baines offers Stuart an exchange: some of his land for the piano. He says that he wants to learn to play the instrument. Stuart’s wife is to teach him. Baines is, however, only interested in Ada. Their association is initially exploitative: Ada is coerced into giving Baines sexual favors in exchange for earning back the piano. Their relationship changes dramatically when they fall in love. Motivated by a belief that her mother is committing a wrong as well as, no doubt, by a fear that she is no longer the most important person in her life, Flora effectively exposes their affair and gives Stuart (whom she now calls “Papa”) proof of Ada’s enduring love for Baines. What follows changes all of their lives.

The Piano is a film of arresting visual beauty. It is, however, a rose with thorns. Strange, unsettling, powerful and problematic, it can be interpreted in a variety of ways. It does invite feminist readings. Its heroine is a sensual, romantic rebel who does not conform to culturally sanctioned norms of feminine behavior. As much as men try and control her, it is clear that her body and soul can never really be owned. It also acknowledges sexual coercion and patriarchal violence as an historical reality for women. The Piano, can also, however, be interpreted as dangerously regressive in its understanding and representation of female sexuality. At the end of the day, there’s no getting around the fact that Ada falls in love with a man who has exploited her. Baines himself is transformed into a romantic hero. Then again, we may ask if Campion is perhaps trying to underscore that Ada’s psycho-sexual state is the lot of female identity and sexuality in patriarchy? Her portrait of Ada is, ultimately, extremely complex. She portrays her heroine as a victim, sexual subject, self-directed woman, and survivor.

What is clear is that Campion is interested in the strategies women use to survive in patriarchy. But she is not only interested in the fate of women. She is also interested in how girl-children negotiate their way in a male-dominated world. It is through Ada’s daughter as well as Ada herself that Campion explores the feminine condition in the 19^th century. Her rich, multi-layered characterization of Flora is, in fact, one of the most remarkable features of The Piano. She is as interesting and compelling as the adult characters and, arguably, the most convincing. The little girl also has huge symbolic and dramatic importance. This is, of course, unusual in cinema. There are relatively few films where a girl plays such a significant, pivotal role.

Flora McGrath is an extremely smart, perceptive, imaginative and articulate child. She likes to get involved, to meddle even, and loves to tell stories. ‘”My real father was a German composer,” she tells fascinated colonial women at one point. Perhaps because she has been fatherless, Flora has not been shackled by patriarchal norms of femininity. She is lively and headstrong, the very antithesis of the archetypal meek Victorian girl-child. As Ada is, also, not an authoritarian mother, her childhood has been blessed by a great deal of love and freedom. In an early scene in The Piano, we see her tearing through her grandfather’s home on roller-skates.

Flora is also not afraid of speaking to adults, even paternal figures. She shares her mother’s innate, autonomous spirit and rightly perceives that her new father is a threat to their special bond. Amusingly, the closeness of the bond is even recognized by the dull Stuart. He is always tentative when he approaches Ada and her child. At the beginning of the story, Flora tells her mother that she does not want another father. She declares, “I’m not going to call him Papa. I’m not going to call him anything. I’m not even going to look at him.” Although she wants to hear stories about her own father, Flora is conceived, at least at first, as an anti-patriarchal child. The love between Ada and Flora embodies a utopian, gynocentric ideal and, as Flora is aligned with Ada, she too represents the feminine state.

From the very start of the film, Ada and Flora are shot together. Campion’s camera recurrently emphasizes their similarities–their brown eyes, extreme pallor, and sober style and color of dress–and makes them mirrors of each other. We see them tilt their head in the same way and when someone unfamiliar crosses their path, they alternate in standing behind each other. Mother and child are in the same portrait, and the same story.

Flora serves a concrete as well as symbolic role in the story. She is, literally, Ada’s voice. Although she may sometimes fancifully embroider her mother’s unvoiced words, she interprets her signing for others. If the piano is Ada’s non-verbal means of expression, Flora is her only human instrument of communication. The child also represents Ada’s freedom and female freedom in general. This is beautifully illustrated in a scene where we see Ada joyfully play the piano on the white sands while Flora dances with supreme self-confidence for her mother.

Flora is, however, not only her mother’s helper and beloved child. She is also her adversary. It is Flora who effectively reveals her mother’s transgressions to Stuart. “I know why Mr. Baines can’t play the piano,” she tells her stepfather. Although her view was limited and she did not, of course, fully understand what she saw, she was once a witness to the adults’ curious activity. She does, however, sense that her mother and Baines were doing something her stepfather would not like. Stuart soon learns the truth and attempts to rape Ada when he discovers her making her way to Baines’ home.

Flora is not an evil little girl. She loves her mother but simply does not understand the consequences of her words. Her betrayal should not, in fact, shock the viewer. Flora most likely feels like she has been betrayed. “I want to be in the photograph,” she says with a scowl when her mother’s wedding portrait is being taken. She fears that she will no longer be in her mother’s photographs. When Baines and Ada are together in the cabin, Flora plays alone outside. Hurt and angry, she fears that she has been replaced in her mother’s affections. Perhaps she even harbors feelings of hate towards her. That is why she starts calling Stuart “papa.” The fatherless child begins to side with convention and patriarchy. Interestingly, we hear Flora judge her mother like a fanatical Puritan. She calls her mother’s observation that people talk rubbish “unholy.” At one point, she screams that her mother is “going to hell.” When Stuart boards up their house to prevent Ada from visiting Baines, Flora gives him helpful directions. She betrays her mother a second–and last–time. Charged with giving a romantic message to Baines, she decides instead to give it directly to Stuart. Flora will, however, be traumatized by her stepfather’s brutal, life-changing punishment of her mother and will soon return to the fold. She becomes, once again, the loyal, ardent voice of Ada. Her mother’s lover, Baines, will be her new father.

Campion’s portrait of Flora is as fascinating and complicated as her portrait of Ada. Flora is a strong-willed, non-conformist girl-child allied with her mother in a land of male strangers. The close bond she shares with her is unique. Flora is Ada’s very likeness, as well as instrument and expression of freedom. Yet she reproduces the lines of preachers to condemn her mother and chooses–at least, for a time–to accept her austere stepfather’s ways. Flora’s disloyalty issues from feelings of abandonment and insecurity but it is also indicative of the insidious ideological power of patriarchy. Campion shows how girl-children may reproduce its values.

Holly Hunter, Jane Campion, and Anna Paquin at the Oscars

Campion’s take on childhood itself is unsentimental and truthful. Flora is a charming, expressive child but she is not Hollywood cute. Paquin’s performance is hugely charismatic. She perfectly captures her character’s individualistic, insubordinate ways. She also, however, embodies girlhood. Flora may be intelligent and imaginative but she is also a child. While she may have spent a great deal of time in the company of adults, witnessing adult anxieties and brutality, she does not yet fully understand the adult world. Like most children, she is self-centered and like most, she wants to monopolize her mother’s love and attention. Children can also, of course, be cruel as well as affectionate–almost in the same breath, on occasion. Flora is no exception. In one scene, we see the little girl torment then comfort a dog outside Baines’ cabin. With her mother, she can be both sweet and censorious in a darkly comic way. When Stuart locks Ada in the house upon discovering her affair, Flora says to her mother, “You shouldn’t have gone up there, shouldn’t you? I don’t like it, and nor does Papa.” Almost immediately, she makes the pleasant suggestion, “We can play cards, if you like.” She scolds as well as mothers Ada, in the same way she scolds and mothers her dolly and the dog. In the final scenes of The Piano, we see Flora busily attend to her mother’s needs.

Campion not only makes Flora a real child; she is also drawn as an emotionally complex human being with her own needs and wants. Thanks to her inspired, multi-layered characterization and Paquin’s natural, fully realised performance, Flora is consistently credible and authentic. Campion’s portrait of Flora is also a political one. The writer-director is interested in her place in the world. Through Flora, she explores the distinctive nature of the mother-daughter relationship as well as the hold of fathers. Flora is an intelligent, resilient child. Like her mother, she is portrayed as a survivor and sovereign spirit. We last see her cart-wheeling in the garden of her new home. Ultimately, her fate is fascinating one to contemplate.

The Global Feminist: Acknowledging Nicole Kidman’s UN Role

Written by Rachael Johnson

Nicole Kidman is one of the most accomplished actors working today and one of Hollywood’s most fashionable stars. Since 2006, she has also been a Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women. Formerly known as UNIFEM (the United Nations Development Fund for Women), UN Women promotes gender equality and female self-empowerment around the world. It advocates both economic and political advancement and works to end violence against women. Kidman has also been involved in the United Nations’ anti-violence initiative as the spokesperson for Say NO- UNiTE to End Violence Against Women. The statistics cited by Say NO are deplorable: a staggering one in three of the world’s women and girls is a victim of violence. We are, in fact, currently in the middle of Say NO’s Orange campaign, a social media initiative that aims to increase awareness of VAW. From November 25 to December 10, individuals and communities around the world are encouraged to wear orange, the color of consciousness, organize actions and draw attention to positive initiatives that are presently tackling the issue. Check out the site and spread the word!

The widespread, systematic rape of women in war zones is another issue that UN Women addresses and challenges. This appalling phenomenon has, historically speaking, only recently begun being addressed. It is astonishing to note that rape was only recognized as a crime against humanity in 2001 (Rape: A Crime Against Humanity, BBC, 22^nd Feb, 2001). Kidman has visited Kosovo, a land scarred by sexual violence, on behalf of UN Women. There she heard testimony from rape survivors and highlighted its physical and psycho-social wounds. The actor has also underlined that “rape in conflict zones must be punished as a war crime.”

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iapSSL0w1KE”]

Kidman’s UN role should perhaps be more widely known and acknowledged but in October of this year, Variety magazine paid tribute to her commitment to women’s rights. In her acceptance speech at Variety’s 5^th Power of Women lunch, she remarked, “No matter how long I devote my time to this, I will never be able to comprehend and I will never accept that one in three women and girls will be raped, beaten or abused in their lifetime.” Kidman does not, of course, have a radical political persona but her words here express a certain passion. Violence against women is, for the actor, ‘the greatest injustice and outrage of all.’ We actually need nothing less than rage from women in the public eye about gender-based violence but Kidman’s words should, nevertheless, be appreciated. We should also, perhaps, remind ourselves that the job of a Goodwill Ambassador is to draw attention to UN initiatives. It is an essentially ‘diplomatic’ role and this, no doubt, is reflected in the discourse of its celebrity advocates.

Role model Kidman at Variety Awards, 2013

Kidman’s commitment to women’s rights was fostered in childhood. Her mother, Janelle Ann Kidman- a former nursing instructor- was a primary model of influence. Kidman honored her mother in her Variety acceptance speech: “I became involved because I was raised by a feminist mother who planted the seed early in me to speak out against the fact that women are so often treated differently than men. She was very clear with me: she said stand tall, do not settle for less than what is fair.” As she further explained in an interview with Variety, it was, in fact, Janelle Kidman who told her about the work of UN Women (then UNIFEM). Kidman explained how she was inspired by a story her mother related about trafficked women in Cambodia who benefited from UNIFEM-sponsored training and education. When Kidman won her Best Actress Oscar for her role as Virginia Woolf in The Hours (2002), she celebrated both her mother and daughter in her acceptance speech: ‘I am standing here in front of my mother and my daughter, and my whole life, I’ve wanted to make my mother proud and now I want to make my daughter proud.’ This is, actually, no small thing. Specifically embracing your matrilineal line is still quite uncommon in mainstream public life.

We should, of course, maintain a generous degree of skepticism regarding the public roles of Western celebrities. Their presence often reinforces patronizing- even culturally imperialist- attitudes towards non-Western societies and poorer nations. Gender inequality is, however, a global fact, and gender-based violence is a reality for women from Lagos to Los Angeles. Supporting an international entity dedicated to eliminating discrimination against women is a positive, essential endeavor. Nicole Kidman is a household name around the world and her support is all the more meaningful when you consider the irrational- or frankly spineless- refusal of certain female role models to identify as feminists. Cultivating an internationalist feminist consciousness is equally vital. As Virginia Woolf herself once wrote: “As a woman, I have no country. As a woman, I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.” We should always try to embody those words.

Hey Boy: An Appraisal of Ryan Gosling’s Feminism

Canadian-born Ryan Gosling is a talented actor, charismatic movie star and global sex symbol. The Notebook (2004) made Gosling a romantic screen icon but he has also, of course, given a number of inspired, thought-provoking performances in both independent and mainstream movies. His roles have been mostly varied and complex, but if you want a general sketch of his screen persona, I would say it’s a potent mix of melancholy, vulnerability, romanticism and sensuality. There is also an aggressive side. While they may retain a vulnerable aspect, he has played quite a few violent men. A seductive presence on the screen, Gosling is also an object of desire for multitudes of women around the world.

A typical "Feminist Ryan Gosling" — A typical “Feminist Ryan Gosling”

Written by Rachael Johnson as part of our theme week on Male Feminists and Allies.

Canadian-born Ryan Gosling is a talented actor, charismatic movie star, and global sex symbol. The Notebook (2004) made Gosling a romantic screen icon but he has also, of course, given a number of inspired, thought-provoking performances in both independent and mainstream movies. His roles have been mostly varied and complex, but if you want a general sketch of his screen persona, I would say it’s a potent mix of melancholy, vulnerability, romanticism, and sensuality. There is also an aggressive side. While they may retain a vulnerable aspect, he has played quite a few violent men. A seductive presence on the screen, Gosling is also an object of desire for multitudes of women around the world.

The star’s off-screen image is also engaging. There is a welcome lack of smugness and he comes across as charming and good-humored in interviews. In his personal life, he seems to have a refreshing preference for women older than him. Thanks to the “Feminist Ryan Gosling” tumblr, the actor has also become a sweetheart of online 21^st century feminism. For people who have not yet heard of Danielle Henderson’s site, it features funny memes that couple photos of Gosling with gender studies quotes. The man, himself, has also exhibited a certain feminist awareness in public life. When Blue Valentine (2010) was given an NC-17 rating by the MPAA for a scene showing his character giving his wife oral sex, Gosling slammed the decision as sexist. He pointed out that it is “okay” to show sexual violence in American movies but not “a woman’s sexual presentation of self.” Mixing the romantic and the progressive as well as the courtly and the hip, Gosling’s star persona is attractive to female and feminist audiences. Any appraisal of Gosling’s feminist reputation should, therefore, not only consider his online image, star persona and political opinions but also reflect on his roles and performances. How is masculinity embodied in his screen characters and how do his films represent gender? Let’s first look at that site.

Movie still from Blue Valentine — Ryan Gosling in *Blue Valentine*

Danielle Henderson started “Feminist Ryan Gosling” in 2011 when she was a graduate student. As she explains on her site, the blog was started as an academic joke. Her internet memes typically feature shots of the star–paparazzi, publicity and film stills–accompanied by quotes by feminist cultural and intellectual figures. They reference Gosling’s romantic appeal and the source of the humor, of course, comes from the mismatch between text and image. Although an essentially humorous site, “Feminist Ryan Gosling” is actually a pretty important pop cultural phenomenon. First, it is an entertaining example of the democratic potential of online culture. It shows that we do not have to be mere passive consumers of the Hollywood star product. We can, moreover, appropriate the image of the star for our own purposes. This is a quite subversive thing, of course. It may even be dangerous in other contexts–imagine a right-wing, homophobic appropriation of a star’s image–but “Feminist Ryan Gosling” is a positive, good-natured tribute with progressive aims. A gender studies student has contributed to the shaping of a male Hollywood star’s persona while advancing feminism in a way that is seductive to a mass audience. “Feminist Ryan Gosling” was, incidentally, turned into a Running Press book in 2012.

Gosling’s good looks play a starring role in all of this, of course. Although the actor is perhaps not classically handsome, he is an exceptionally good-looking guy with a classically desirable Hollywood body. His slim, muscular form is, in fact, part of his star persona. In the comedy-drama Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011), it is even the object of humor. Here, Gosling plays a womanizer who gets involved with a young law school graduate played by Emma Stone. When she first sees his buffed body, she protests, “Fuck! Seriously? It’s like you’re photoshopped!” It is a nice send-up of a certain side of his image. Gosling may not display his body or express himself sexually on the screen like Michael Fassbender–few do–but he has shown interest in thought-provoking sexual themes. He is also not frightened of being the object of the camera’s gaze.

Handsome and charismatic, Gosling, of course, fulfils the norms and ideals of Hollywood stardom. For more than a decade, however, he has been one of the more interesting younger male talents in American cinema. Gosling has, in fact, made some fascinating choices and many of have been conspicuously atypical. He’s never really been a boring pretty boy and he’s rarely played it safe. In the controversial The Believer (2001), Gosling plays a young Jewish man who becomes a neo-Nazi. That was his first major role. Gosling is not frightened of playing unconventional male roles. In Half Nelson (2006), he plays a charismatic history teacher with a drug habit. Many of his characters also complicate our ideas of American manhood. In fact, he’s played men who destabilize traditional norms of masculinity. I’m going to look at a couple of roles that offer complex, subversive portraits of masculinity–Blue Valentine and Lars and The Real Girl (2007)–as well as one that is more typical of his more conventionally or mythically masculine roles, the part of the stuntman and getaway driver in Drive (2010).

Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Love — Ryan Gosling in *Crazy, Stupid, Love*

Directed and co-written by Derek Cianfrance, Blue Valentine is one of the great love stories of the Millenium. Intimate, intense and naturalistic in style, it is a world away from The Notebook. While The Notebook is a distinctly old school affair, an epic romance steeped in sentimental clichés, Blue Valentine is an inventively structured drama that depicts both the ecstasies of sexual and romantic love and the painful collapse of a marriage. It’s the story of Dean (Gosling), a house painter and Cindy (Michelle Williams), a nurse. When they first meet, she is a student and he is a furniture mover. Cindy’s background is middle-class and Dean is the son of a janitor. They fall in love and Cindy becomes pregnant. It is not certain if Dean is the father as Cindy has had a recent relationship with a fellow student. He accompanies her to the abortion clinic but Cindy decides to keep the child. They start a family together.

Blue Valentine is a riveting, heartbreaking tale, and both actors give powerful, first-rate performances. Dean is, in many ways, characterized as an average, heterosexual working-class guy. In terms of physical appearance and dress, the character conforms to conventional masculine norms. Thankfully, he’s not a working-class type conceived by Hollywood. His portrait is well-drawn, persuasive and sympathetic. A contented beer-drinker and chain-smoker, he is generous, caring, feisty and romantic. Note that Gosling’s character is not a traditional patriarchal figure. He is capable of sexual jealousy, it is true, but because of his love for Cindy, Dean is willing to embrace the child of another man as his own. Biological paternity, paternal ‘ownership’ of a child has, of course, been integral to patriarchy and his generosity of spirit goes against these conventions. Dean’s lack of ambition- ambition in the conventional sense- also defies cultural expectations of gender. He’s quite happy with his situation. Being a father and husband, he says, is more important to him than work.

Danielle Henderson's Feminist Ryan Gosling book, (Running Press, 2012) — Danielle Henderson’s *Feminist Ryan Gosling* book (Running Press, 2012)

Dean ultimately comes across as the more vulnerable of the two. He clings to their dying relationship, refusing to believe that Cindy has fallen out of love with him. Interestingly, Dean rages against traditional conceptions of mature masculinity. When Cindy says she’s ‘more man’ than Dean in a heated argument, he asks her what being ‘the man’ means. It is Cindy who is unhappy with her position in life although she is proud of her nursing: she planned to study medicine before falling pregnant. It is, you sense, the source of her unhappiness despite her love for her child and husband. Blue Valentine accepts the messiness of love and life, and neither character is judged. What is interesting is that it shows a man perfectly content within the domestic space and a woman who feels suffocated and unfulfilled. Cindy’s understandable frustrations are sensitively addressed and Dean’s characterization is distinctly non-masculinist. In these ways, Blue Valentine could, therefore, be said to have a progressive take on the needs and desires of men and women today.

The portrayal of sexual love in Blue Valentine is intimate, authentic, and sometimes raw–too intimate and authentic, it seems, for the MPAA who gave it an NC-17 rating for a cunnilingus scene. Gosling rightly read the decision as “a product of a patriarchy-dominant society.” He criticized the MPAA for “supporting scenes that portray women in scenarios of sexual torture and violence for entertainment purposes” but not allowing “a scene that shows a woman in a sexual scenario which is both complicit and complex.” The ruling reflects unhealthy, archaic sexual attitudes but we should not be surprised by it. Hollywood still sanitizes sex and love, and it is still misogynist: oral sex should only be given to men, of course, and if cunnilingus is permitted, it must be stylized. Thankfully, the decision was overturned on appeal and the film was given an R rating. Gosling came off as impassioned and genuine in the debate.

In the comedy-drama, Lars and The Real Girl, Gosling also plays a man who destabilizes conventional notions of masculinity. He plays Lars, a deluded young man who has chosen to have a romantic relationship with a life-size sex doll named Bianca. It may sound downright creepy but Lars is effectively portrayed as sweet-natured, troubled guy much loved by his family and supported by his community. It is actually quite funny and moving to watch his loved ones and neighbors play along with the fantasy. It is the unspoken hope that he will one day not need his plastic girlfriend. Suffering from a childhood trauma, the vulnerable Lars fears physical intimacy. Note also that there is no sex between Lars and the doll: Bianca’s a missionary.

Ryan Gosling in Lars and the Real Girl — Ryan Gosling in *Lars and the Real Girl*

Written by Nancy Oliver and directed by Craig Gillespie, Lars and the Real Girl is an unusually warm-hearted, offbeat experience. Gosling is happily unglamorous in the role. The pale, mousy-haired Lars sports a moustache and distinctly unsexy sweaters. Gosling’s body is slacker, softer and fleshier than usual. In short, Lars is the antithesis of the hard, hyper-virile Hollywood hero. There is, ultimately, the blissful promise of real love for Lars with a real girl. Does this promise celebrate the romantic union of equals or does it actually indicate a conservative undercurrent at work in the film? In other words, does normalization mean masculinization and marriage? Or does it merely present a benign case for benevolent masculinity? In one scene, Lars asks his brother how he knew he was a man. He answers, “You grow up when you decide to do right…and not what’s right for you, what’s right for everybody, even when it hurts.” However you read the film, what Gosling gives us is a quite courageous portrayal of unconventional, non-hegemonic masculinity. In that sense, it is a feminist performance.

Drive is typical of the more conventionally and mythically masculine roles Gosling has embodied, especially most recently. In Nicolas Winding Refn’s ultra-stylish thriller, he plays a mechanic and Hollywood stuntman by day, and a getaway driver by night. He displays qualities that have been traditionally celebrated as masculine: physical strength, coordination, control and bravery. He is also, of course, a great risk-taker. He remains nameless throughout the film; he is only known as “the driver.” An outsider and loner, the driver befriends his neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan) a waitress with a young son to support and a husband in jail. The driver himself is drawn further into the criminal underworld when he agrees to race stock cars for a malevolent crime lord. When Irene’s husband is released, things get even more complicated. The driver takes it upon himself to protect the family from the mobsters.

Ryan Gosling in Drive — Ryan Gosling in *Drive*

Gosling’s character combines archaic and modern attributes. He is a simultaneously romantic and dangerous figure, an unsettling blend of seductive melancholy and extreme brutality. Protecting the woman he loves, as well as her family, the driver plays the ancient role of a knight. His spirit of self-sacrifice is also evocative of the enigmatic protagonist of the classic Western Shane (1953). The drifter Shane is an outsider who protects a family who loves him from wicked men. The driver is also, however, capable of acts of extraordinary sadistic violence. In a scene set in an elevator, we watch the driver kiss Irene in Golden Hollywood fashion, guide her gently into a corner with a protective hand, and then kick the head of an assassin to a bloody pulp.

The driver is a man of few words and Gosling’s cool, minimalist turn brings to mind Steve McQueen’s performance style. Gosling’s role in Drive could be said to be mythically masculine. Unfortunately, the film does not have complex, charismatic female roles. Although she is also portrayed as a romantic figure in this chivalric romance, Irene’s character is just too insipid and asexual. The function of Christina Hendrick’s character, it seems, is to betray the driver and get her head blown off by a hired gun. The only other women seen in the film are topless strippers. Drive criminally fails in its representation of women. In terms of its representation of masculinity, however, it is more interesting and ambiguous. If the film does not, perhaps, critique masculinity, it could, nevertheless, be said to consciously comment on cultural constructions of masculinity in its allusions to conventionally masculine genres and ideals, as well as through its meta-characterization of the driver.

Ryan Gosling in The Notebook — Ryan Gosling in *The Notebook*

What is also remarkable is how much the camera loves Gosling in Drive. Watching him give a master class in getaway driving, with a toothpick hanging from his lips, is a sexual experience. The driver’s gloves, jackets and t-shirted back are all fetishized in the film. This kind of focus serves to eroticize the character. It is an unusual thing still for a man to be looked at with such intensity. This looking undermines traditional representations of masculinity, as self-conscious display is culturally associated with femininity.

Courtesy of Danielle Henderson’s site, Gosling has become a witty symbol of contemporary male feminism. His online feminist persona has, of course, only increased his sex appeal. Gosling has also displayed a certain gender-awareness in both his public statements and roles. His choices often indicate an interest in truthful and challenging representations of gender and sexuality. He has empathetically embodied men who do not conform to conventional notions of masculinity. He has, of course, played traditional masculine characters but even they frequently mask vulnerable qualities and complexities. It’s going to be interesting following Gosling’s career. I hope he becomes more politically engaged in his public life, and even more adventurous in his choice of roles.

Sex Symbol and Trail-Blazer: A Review of ‘Love, Marilyn’

Monroe, in fact, enjoyed expressing herself sexually. To see her as an eternal victim is to rob her of her own sexuality. Monroe embraced her sexual subjectivity; she did not want to be a sexual object. In fact, she told Meryman, “I just hate to be a thing.” Of course, female sexuality is simultaneously denied, contained, controlled and exploited in a misogynistic society. The star was, at once, punished for her sexuality and reduced to being a sexual object. I think, with Monroe, we should not reproduce those objectifying, effectively dehumanizing tendencies in our understanding of her sexuality.

Written by Rachael Johnson

Directed by Liz Garbus, Love, Marilyn is a 2012 documentary about the most iconic female American star of the twentieth century, Marilyn Monroe. The film mixes archival footage, photographs and movie clips with contemporary commentary by biographers and historians as well as old interviews with those who knew the actress. It also features dramatic readings by present-day actors of Monroe’s own words and quotes by deceased writers and directors. In her opening, Garbus anticipates the accusation of over-saturation by acknowledging that the star has, in truth, been one of the most scrutinized figures in pop culture. We are told that there have been over a thousand books written about her. Love, Marilyn, though, hopes to be fresh and different as one of its sources is a trove of recently discovered writing by the star herself. Garbus promises, “Marilyn’s own voice adds new layers to the mystery.”

True to its tagline–“One Icon, Many Voices”–Love, Marilyn employs a number of actresses of all ages to read Monroe’s reflections. They include the likes of Glenn Close, Uma Thurman, Lili Taylor, Lindsay Lohan, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood and Viola Davis. I understand the point. While attempting to shine a light on the many parts of Monroe, the director is, also, it seems, trying to suggest a kind of ancestral kinship between the women. This is quite a moving idea when you think about it. Unfortunately, what is a potentially interesting, affecting device rapidly becomes a really irritating gimmick. Far too many actresses seem to hover across the screen to give readings and I am very sorry to say that the vast majority of the performances are just too self-conscious and overstated. Of course, the actors who give voice to Monroe’s deceased male biographers and the men who knew her fare no better with this approach. The dramatic readings are simply distracting. Only Viola Davis and Adrien Brody (as Truman Capote) give half-decent deliveries. It is a shame because there are some fine talents involved.

It is even more disappointing because the artificial readings quite often obscure the absorbing and constructive elements of the documentary. Love, Marilyn features interesting commentary by Monroe biographers and film historians in addition to fascinating footage of old television interviews with the actress. Most importantly, it acknowledges her heartbreaking victimization while also recognizing her achievements and great cultural significance. Monroe should not be dismissed as a passive sex object or “bimbo.” When she was focused and healthy, she was a dynamic, engaged subject as both an actor and woman. Although it naturally addresses the darkness–the exploitation, pills, mental illness and fatal overdose–the documentary crucially highlights her creativity and ambitious, competitive nature. From the very start, it makes it clear that the young Marilyn was extremely industrious and entirely dedicated to improving her acting skills. She also looked after her interests and demonstrated uncommon initiative. Tired of being underappreciated and underpaid by the studio, and fed up with lack of creative control and worn-out roles, she walked out of her contract at Twentieth Century Fox in 1954 and escaped to New York.

The documentary underscores that Monroe’s break for independence was exceptional for a Hollywood star. Her personal revolt paid off when the studio eventually asked her to return. She got what she wanted–director approval included. Love, Marilyn also relates that Monroe launched her own production company with photographer Milton Greene, Marilyn Monroe Productions, when she went out on her own. This is an invaluable reminder for audiences. There are still too many film lovers who are unaware of this extraordinary, inspiring fact.

In New York, Monroe also began to concentrate on her craft. She took classes at the Actors Studio and befriended the legendary Lee Strasberg. In an old interview with the acting teacher, he praises Marilyn’s gifts: “She was one of the two or three most sensitive and talented people I’ve seen in my life.” Love, Marilyn points out her professional insecurities but also exhibits her gifts. There is a great clip shown of Monroe and Laurence Olivier in The Prince and the Showgirl (1957). As biographer Donald Spotto remarks, the actress simply out-performs her illustrious co-star on the big screen.

A Philippe Halsman 1952 shot of Monroe featured in the documentary

Love, Marilyn also, importantly, demolishes long-held beliefs that the sex symbol Monroe was solely manufactured by the studio. Ellen Burstyn, a former Actors Studio member, observes, “Marilyn created that wonderful character, Marilyn Monroe.” Vividly illustrating how she invented her own walk, she argues that it was the actress herself who fashioned her very own star persona. Love, Marilyn also acknowledges Monroe’s love of literature as well as her respect for ideas and intellectuals. It was during this period that she met her future husband, playwright Arthur Miller. The documentary also importantly points out that Monroe was ahead of her time regarding the question of marriage and career. Fascinating interviews with the actress shortly after her marriage to Miller reveal that she had absolutely no intention of giving up her career or slowing down. It is said that this was, in fact, one of the main reasons her marriage to the patriarchal ex-baseball player, Joe DiMaggio broke down. Monroe’s attitudes are all the more unusual in what is generally acknowledged as a backward decade for American women.

Uma Thurman performing Monroe's words — Uma Thurman performing Monroe’s words

Although it recognizes her enlightened attitudes and interest in ideas, Love, Marilyn does not, unfortunately, address Monroe’s specific ideological beliefs. The actress was, it seems, to the left of the political spectrum and impressively forward-thinking. It shows that she supported Arthur Miller when he was forced to testify before the chillingly repressive McCarthy hearings that he had no Communist affiliations but it does not explore her remarkable connections with left-wing activists, respect for working people and progressive sympathies. She actively championed the career of Ella Fitzgerald and advocated interracial harmony. As the great singer herself said, “She was an unusual woman, a little ahead of her times. And she didn’t know it.” This is a missed opportunity by the filmmaker. Monroe’s principles constitute a powerful rebuke to those who seek to simplify her as a sex object. Her support for Fitzgerald also shows that this so-called “man’s woman” was capable of sisterly solidarity.

Lili Taylor performing Monroe's words — Lili Taylor performing Monroe’s words

There is, of course, a darker side to Monroe’s life. Tragically, there is little doubt that she suffered sexual exploitation in Hollywood. She was also objectified on the screen. Love, Marilyn explains that this was particularly the case in the early part of her career. Head of Twentieth Century Fox, Darryl Zanuck, it is said, hated Monroe and gave her a string of offensive, one-dimensional sex object roles. This was, of course, the main reason why she quit Fox. The documentary also suggests that Monroe was both a victim of the casting couch and a cog in the Hollywood machine. Monroe was a casualty of the deeply conservative patriarchal time and place that was America in the ’50s.

This understanding should not, nevertheless, obscure the fact that there was another Marilyn who somehow survived her hellish youth to love and desire others. As a 1962 Life Magazine interview with Richard Meryman reveals, Monroe was not ashamed of her sexuality: “We are all sexual creatures, thank God, but it’s a pity so many people despise and crush this natural gift” (Life Magazine, Aug. 17, 1962). Monroe, in fact, enjoyed expressing herself sexually. To see her as an eternal victim is to rob her of her own sexuality. Monroe embraced her sexual subjectivity; she did not want to be a sexual object. In fact, she told Meryman, “I just hate to be a thing.” Of course, female sexuality is simultaneously denied, contained, controlled and exploited in a misogynistic society. The star was, at once, punished for her sexuality and reduced to being a sexual object. I think, with Monroe, we should not reproduce those objectifying, effectively dehumanizing tendencies in our understanding of her sexuality.

Love, Marilyn rightly shows that the actress was not frightened of expressing–and displaying–herself sexually. When it was discovered in 1952 that Monroe did a nude calendar a few years earlier, the scandal threatened to destroy her career. But the star was defiant: “I will not be punished for it, or not be loved, or be afraid of my genitals being exposed, known and seen. So what?” Thankfully for the star, the scandal catapulted her to fame. Film historian Thomas Schatz boldly proposes that Monroe was a sexual pioneer: “The world was ready for that. Obviously, the sexual mores are changing and she is at the vanguard of that. She’s anticipating a sexual revolution that many people associate with Betty Friedan, etc, a decade later, that would not have happened without Marilyn Monroe.” There is an amusing anecdote related by Amy Greene, Monroe’s friend and wife of Milton Greene, that reveals the sex symbol as a sexual subject. When questioned about the unlikely pairing between the actress and DiMaggio, Monroe simply responded, “He’s terrific in bed.” The sexual politics surrounding the star could, nevertheless, have been explored in greater depth. It would be have been interesting to examine both male and female attitudes towards Monroe as well as her attitudes towards her own sex.

A 1962 Arnold Newman photo of Monroe with the poet Carl Sandburg featured in the documentary

Love, Marilyn does not shy away from the depressing aspects of Monroe’s life and rightly recognizes that she was victimized personally and professionally. It examines her ultimately troubled marriages to Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, addiction to pills, miscarriages and ill health, as well as her final disputes with the studio. It contends that both husbands ill-treated her: DiMaggio was violently possessive while Miller belittled her intelligence and career in his writing. Towards the end of her life, Monroe also suffered ruinous problems in her work. Love, Marilyn, it must be said, is a sympathetic rather than sychophantic portrait. It does give voice to directors like George Cukor who accused Monroe of a gross lack of professionalism. But it also suggests that the actress was used as a scapegoat for the sins of others.

All in all, Love, Marilyn is formally flawed but certainly interesting and significant. Drawing on a variety of sources, it presents important arguments. As Garbus highlights Monroe’s achievements and cultural contribution, it cannot be said to just be another miserabilist take on the icon. All the same, a more focused, unhurried approach would have been more helpful and the arguments could have been developed further. I would personally like to have spent more time with the biographers and film historians interviewed. Hopefully, however, Love, Marilyn, will encourage viewers to review, or discover, the star’s performances and read more about her life and career. The more you learn about Monroe, the more fascinating she becomes. There is the sadness–the abuse, exploitation, and deep psychological suffering–but there is also the originality, self-invention, ambition, intellectual curiosity, empathy and sexuality. I also hope that Love, Marilyn will inspire documentarians out there–particularly feminist filmmakers–to explore the complexities of this most enduring, ground-breaking star.

A Role of Her Own: A Celebration of Satyajit Ray’s ‘The Big City’

Arati is, in fact, a great screen heroine. She is elegant, giving, gritty and spirited. Committed to supporting others, she has a strong personal and public moral code. She cares for both her loved ones and her fellow female co-workers. She buys presents for every member of the family when she gets her first salary and, although he has hurt her, she does not hesitate to praise her failing husband when she is with others. At work, Arati is not frightened of asking her boss for a raise and she learns to bargain with her colleagues for extra commission pay. When Edith’s virtue is slighted at work (the boss believes Anglo-Indians to be inherently promiscuous), she speaks out against the injustice and makes an extraordinarily risky yet heroic move. It is important to note that Arati is not regressively presented as a maternal martyr but as a dynamic, engaged worker and citizen.

Written by Rachael Johnson.

For most lovers, and scholars of ‘World Cinema’, the great Indian director Satyajit Ray will be forever identified with the Apu Trilogy. Chronically the coming of age of a young Bengali boy in the early part of the last century, the critically-acclaimed Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956) and Apur Sansar (1959) still feature in highly regarded Greatest Films of All Time lists. While they remain prized, influential films, 2013 has given us the opportunity to look at other great works by Ray. Re-released by the British Film Institute to celebrate its 50^th anniversary, Mahanagar (The Big City) is one that particularly caught my eye. It proved a pretty special discovery.

Set in 1950s Kolkata, The Big City is an intimate, insightful examination of the role of women in post-Independence India. The heroine of the tale is Arati Mazumdar (Madhabi Mukherjee), a lovely, kind-hearted housewife who lives with her bank clerk husband, Subrata (Anil Chatterjee), and their small son Pintu. They share their modest, lower middle-class home with Subrata’s elderly parents and teenage sister. As he is finding it hard to make ends meet, it is decided that Arati should also help support the family. She procures a job as a door-to-door saleswoman. Initially fearful of stepping out into the city streets, Arati soon adapts to the world of work. Gaining confidence and customers, she displays a considerable talent for the business. She meets people outside her family for the first time and strikes up a friendship with a stylish Anglo-Indian colleague called Edith (Vicki Redwood) who introduces her to lipstick.

But all is not well at home. Horrified by the very idea of his daughter-in-law working, Subrata’s deeply conservative father, Priyagopal (Haren Chatterjee), cold-shoulders the couple. The retired school teacher is particularly ashamed of his son. He believes that he has failed as a husband and that a woman who works suffers great hardship. Interestingly, he feels no shame in asking his former pupils for financial help. Subrata embodies urban post-colonial India and comes across as a quite genial and relatively modern husband. There are nicely-observed scenes at the beginning of the film where he shows engaging support for his wife who is naturally nervous at entering the workforce for the first time. He defends their decision to his father. ‘Change comes because it’s necessary,’ he says. However, Subrata too becomes increasingly threatened by Arati’s new role. She is forced to mollify his masculinist sense of worth. ‘I’m still the same. Just a housewife,’ she says. But he still tells her to quit her job. It is a cruel demand as it shows that Subrata does not care about Arati’s personal happiness and sense of self-worth. It also demonstrates a lack of logic and imagination. The request is all the more discouraging because he is a customarily gentle, likeable man. The Big City is not a polemic and Ray does not express an openly judgmental attitude towards his male characters. The film does, however, indicate that their narrow-mindedness is irrational and self-defeating. The director shows, through the illustration of a potentially disastrous life-changing event, that such reactionary, patriarchal attitudes are dangerous to the survival of both men and women. Unchanging concepts of gender serve neither the family nor community. Ray is, therefore, interested, in both the consequences of women’s participation in the workforce for both the individual and her society.

Ray wonderfully shows what work and economic independence mean for Arati personally. His portrayal of her struggle and advancement is both tender and progressive. Ray’s heroine is both good at her job and fulfilled by her work. It energizes her. ‘I work all day, and yet I don’t feel tired,’ she tells Subrata. There are many beautifully-observed moments in the movie but one scene in particular captures Arati’s own feelings towards her emerging role and independence. When she receives her first pay packet at work, she goes into the bathroom and opens the envelope to examine the pristine notes. In front of the mirror, she holds them to her chest and then smells them. She is pensive, a little bemused, and simply, understandably, proud of her success. At home, she tells her husband, ‘If you saw me at work, you wouldn’t recognize me.’ She is, of course, deeply hurt when Subrata asks her to give up her job. Ray addresses social change in humorous ways too. In one amusing scene, a stunned Subrata, having tea in a café, watches Arati, in black shades, cross the busy street outside. She runs into the husband of a friend and accompanies him into the café. It is an entirely innocent meeting but Subrata listens to their conversation behind a newspaper. Arati has two selves for two worlds. At home, she hides the lipstick she wears in the big city. These tensions are handled with delicacy and wit. Thanks to the well-drawn characterization and Mukherjee’s fully-realized performance, Arati’s growth always strikes the viewer as believable. Her spark is actually evident from the very beginning of the story when she wakes Subrata up in the middle of night to tell him, ‘I’m going to work.’

Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee) and husband Subrata (Anil Chatterjee)

While it is a tale filmed in black and white, and rooted in particular time and place, The Big City has immeasurable universal appeal and contemporary significance. Although it is not without melodramatic elements, it tells a very human story with both wit and kindness. It has a progressive sensibility and great heart. A sensitive study of a woman’s personal awakening and growth, it also understands that the personal is deeply political. The Big City has a wonderful heroine and a memorable central performance. Mukherjee’s turn as the strong, gracious Arati is quite mesmerizing. Newly restored, it is, in addition, gorgeous to look at. Now part of the Criterion Collection, The Big City is not difficult to track down. It is a beautiful film and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Maude and The Dude: Feminism and Masculinity in The Big Lebowski (1998)

Populated by mostly male characters, The Big Lebowski is, to some extent, a tale of male friendship. Nevertheless, the cult comedy should never be interpreted and celebrated as exclusively a guy’s film. The Big Lebowski offers an amusing, subversive portrait of masculinity and features an excellent comic performance by one of the most gifted actresses working today. What’s more, it suggests that the future is matriarchal.

Written by Rachael Johnson as part of our theme week on Cult Films and B Movies.

Stuffed with unique characters and superb comic performances, The Big Lebowski is an insanely enjoyable crime caper about mistaken identity, fake kidnapping and fraud. Set in LA in the early 90s, its cast of characters includes zealous bowlers, avant-garde artists and Malibu pornographers. Perfectly played by Jeff Bridges, the hero is Jeff Lebowski, an ageing hippie and contemporary slacker who prefers to be called “The Dude.” Referencing The Big Sleep and the screwball comedy, The Big Lebowski has scenes of surreal visual wit and a wonderfully funny script. The movie was, bizarrely enough, neither a great commercial or critical success when it was released in 1998. Nonetheless, affection for it has grown and the pot-smoking, White Russian-drinking Dude has become a beloved icon of contemporary American cinema. There are now academic conferences and festivals dedicated to The Big Lebowski as well as a faith. Yes, Dudeism is truly a cult.

I will not go into the mad plot in detail but the central premise of the tale is that the Dude is mistaken for a pompous, paraplegic, elderly tycoon (David Huddleston) who shares his name. I am more interested in the brothers’ comic characterizations of the two Mr. Lebowskis, the older man’s adult daughter, Maude, and his young ‘trophy wife’, Bunny. I will draw particular attention to their portraits of the Dude and the tycoon’s daughter. As with the men, the women of the film could not be more different. Maude (Julianne Moore) is a somewhat snooty feminist artist who has decided to have a child and Bunny (Tara Reid) is a nymphomaniac with links to the porn industry. I will not only look at the Coens’ representation of women in the comedy but will also examine their ideas about masculinity. Let us first consider the Dude.

Feminist artist Maude Lebowski (Julianne Moore)

We first see the Dude wandering through a supermarket late at night, being contemptuously eyed by the sales clerk. When he finally goes to the counter, the Dude casts a look at George Bush Senior giving a statement on the store’s television. This is around the time of the first US-Iraq War and the President is issuing a warning: “This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait.” As not a few Lebowski scholars have rightly noted, the movie’s hero does not conform to capitalist and militarist models of American masculinity. We do not really know how he does it but the Dude survives quite happily outside the world of work. A man without ambition is still considered atypical or odd in society. He is, to a considerable extent, a subversive being. The Dude’s laid-back, pleasure-loving ways are both amusing and appealing to both male and female viewers. It is no accident that we first see the Dude in a supermarket. His relaxed lifestyle, modest apartment and endearingly scruffy appearance all give the finger to the consumerist ethos. The Dude is also a pacifist with a radical past. He claims that he was an author of the original Port Huron statement as well as one of the Seattle Seven. The dominant placing in his home of the iconic photo of Nixon bowling is also a tongue in cheek expression of his anti-establishment politics. The Dude’s personality and progressive values are at odds with the military-industrial complex. Frankly, I think the film’s great cult appeal in both the US and around the world is due, in considerable part, to his peace-loving personality and progressive principles. The Dude appears to be the antithesis of macho American militarism. The cowboy narrator (Sam Elliot) who begins and finishes the tale may be a charming, dreamy character but he is intended as a send-up of a mythic figure of American masculinity. The characterization of the Dude’s buddy Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) as a ham-fisted, egotistical, Vietnam-obsessed nut also serves as a parody of American power. The old-fashioned, obsolete storyteller introduces us to a different kind of man.

The Dude also displays pretty feminist leanings in his recognition of society’s commodification of the female body. A desiring heterosexual man, he openly flirts with Bunny and happily beds Maude. Pornography, however, does not seem to play a significant part of his single sex life. “Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women,” the Dude cries at one point about a certain Malibu-based pornographer named Jackie Treehorn. His upside down observation points to a certain progressive awareness. When Maude shows him a clip of Logjammin’, a film directed by Treehorn and starring her stepmother, his response is droll and sardonic. In the film, a cable man appears at the apartment of two young women. Bunny is semi-dressed and her roommate is topless. Maude notes how “ludicrous” the story is and the Dude responds with a somewhat unexpected sharpness.

Maude: Lord. You can imagine where it goes from here.

Dude: He fixes the cable?

When the Dude encounters Treehorn himself, he is impressed by the man’s pad but not his ambitions. He is not convinced by the director’s promises of technological advancements in the industry and sees through his artistic pretensions. The following snippet amusingly illustrates his skepticism:

Jackie Treehorn: I deal in publishing, entertainment, political advocacy.

The Dude: Which one’s Logjammin’?

“Real-life” incidents and hallucinatory sequences indicate that the Dude manifests classic Freudian fears of castration but I suspect that it is the Dude’s mostly uncomplicated, easy masculinity–as well as laid-back ways and good nature–that make him an unsuspecting (initially at least) sperm donor for Maude.

The Dude’s first proper meeting with the feminist artist is at her loft. Maude’s eye-catching entrance is literally over the top. Passing directly over him, she sails through the air on ropes before spraying paint on the canvas below. When she descends and frees herself from the harness, we see that she performs her conceptual art in the nude. She dresses and approaches the Dude. With her geometric bob and green velvet robe, the pale, red-haired Maude has a markedly Bohemian look. In a composed though dramatic voice, she fires questions about sex at the Dude. “Does the female form make you uncomfortable, Mr Lebowski?” she asks. The Dude does not seem at all uncomfortable. Maude explains, “My art has been commended as being strongly vaginal which bothers some men. The word itself makes some men uncomfortable. Vagina.” The Dude remains unfazed. Maude seems to have a mid-Atlantic accent. Her crystal-clear enunciation of “vagina” is, in any case, quite special. The Dude is primarily interested in his missing carpet–watch the film!–but Maude continues to ask him if he likes sex. Before he has the chance to answer, she tells him, “The male myth about feminists is that we hate sex. It can be a natural, zesty enterprise…” She then defines satyriasis and nymphomania for him before informing him that Bunny suffers from the latter. What is comic is incongruous, of course, and the interplay between the two is both very funny and well-observed.

In their portrait of Maude, the Coens appear to paint the conceptual artist as pretentious. Their characterization parodies so-called self-regarding aesthetic styles and artsy affectations. In another scene set in her studio, Maude laughs eccentrically on the phone to Italy. Her male colleague in the room giggles along with her. Their laughter is shown to be smug and silly. It is a pointed critique but–as with all satirical portraits–the intention is to shame human–male and female–vanity. The target of the Coens’ satire here is, also, the narcissism of the affluent artist. What is potentially more problematic is their parody of a female, feminist artist. The references to self-referential portraits and nudity are intended to allude to feminist artistic traditions. However, the mocking is not nasty but knowing, and these references could also be meant to ironically refer to popular notions of feminism. Although crafty and patronizing, Maude is not a hateful, misogynistic projection. She is, rather, a richly singular, strong and amusing comic character. Moreover, her theatrical, over-the-top nature actually functions to upset such readings. Julianne Moore’s interpretation of Maude is both vivid and clever and should always be highlighted in pop culture discussions of the comedy.

The Dude and Maude have sex when she later appears without warning at his home. She opens her robe and simply says, “Love me, Jeffrey.” Cut to the Dude smoking a post-coital jay while Maude asks questions about his background and lifestyle. Her face remains impassive as he tells of his radical days and love of bowling but you can tell that she is not impressed. A brief hope that he may have had musical talents is swiftly extinguished when he tells her that he used to a roadie for Metallica. The Dude is initially unaware that Maude has chosen him as a sperm donor and is, quite naturally, taken back by her desire to have a child with him. Quite hilariously, she responds by scolding him for his superficiality: “Well yes, what did you think this was all about–fun and games? I want a child.” However, the Dude does not seem bothered by his purely reproductive role when Maude tells him: “Look Jeffrey, I don’t want a partner. In fact, I don’t want the partner to be someone that I have to see socially or have any interest in raising the child himself.” Maude’s unabashed self-interest and imperious air amuse the viewer. The Dude’s castration anxieties may ironically refer to his lack of sway over Maude and misogynist fears of castrating feminists but the Dude is fundamentally quite happy to provide for his feminist “lady friend” and do what she wants. In a celebrated hallucinatory sequence, a film within a film, Maude plays a commanding Valkyrie.

What is, of course, arguably more predictable and disappointing about The Big Lebowski is the small number of female characters. There is only one other female character of note in the comedy: Bunny Lebowski. Bunny is a Californian stereotype: a tanned, party-loving blonde. The Coens do, in a way, sabotage the stereotype through exaggeration: Bunny is not portrayed as a victim but as an outrageously self-assertive, promiscuous young woman. When the Dude first encounters her relaxing by the pool, she makes him the following offer: “I’ll suck your cock for a thousand dollars.” There is also, it is true, no female solidarity shown by the main female characters in the film. Maude does not like or approve of her stepmother. Although a feminist, she seems to have no problem calling a Bunny a slut. It is not surprising, however, that there is no love lost between them. Seemingly loyal to the memory of her late mother, Maude is, quite understandably, not overjoyed at her father’s marriage to a much younger “trophy wife.” As a feminist, she also cannot commend Bunny’s pornographic experiences.

There is, also, perhaps, a less progressive side to the Coens’ portrait of Maude. Is she not yet another female character in a Coen Brothers movie pregnant or craving a child? Think Fargo or Raising Arizona. What to make of this tendency? Is it pro-natalist or merely life-affirming? Does it reflect male awe of fertility and indicate an endorsement of matriarchy? What makes The Big Lebowski more subversive, however, than Raising Arizona is that the female character is a single mother who does not want a father for her child and has no need for a male provider. Maude is a fundamentally anti-patriarchal cult heroine. She should, therefore, be celebrated by feminist dudettes or dudes everywhere.

It is Maude who sheds light on the real state of the Big Lebowski’s wealth and power. She explains to the Dude that her father does not have money in his own right and that her mother was the wealthy one. We also learn that Lebowski’s role in the company is actually inconsequential. He helps oversee the charities and is given “a reasonable allowance” by Maude. The old man was, moreover, not a great professional success in the past. “We did let him run one of the companies briefly but he didn’t do very well at it,” his daughter explains. The Dude responds with initial wonder but Maude convinces him that this is the case: “I know how he likes to present himself. Father’s weakness is vanity, hence the slut.” Maude not only helps The Dude get a handle on the schemes surrounding him but she also punctures masculine vanity and shines a light on the pretensions of fathers. Personified by Maude’s father, patriarchy is shown to be fraudulent in the Big Lebowski. The dominant placing of Dude’s iconic poster of Nixon in his home, of course, serves as a knowing comment on fallen, deceitful fathers.

At the end of the movie, the cowboy narrator assures us, “I happen to know there’s a little Lebowski on the way.” The Coens’ zany Valentine to Californian eccentricity does not end in marriage or even cohabitation. This ending is amusingly intended as a satisfying resolution for both genders. It may not be romantic but both the hero and his “lady friend” get what they want: Maude is blessed with a little Lebowski and the Dude contentedly returns to his old life. The Big Lebowski simultaneously salutes the freedoms of unconventional men as well as female reproductive agency and power. Populated by mostly male characters, The Big Lebowski is, to some extent, a tale of male friendship. Nevertheless, the cult comedy should never be interpreted and celebrated as exclusively a guy’s film. The Big Lebowski offers an amusing, subversive portrait of masculinity and features an excellent comic performance by one of the most gifted actresses working today. What’s more, it suggests that the future is matriarchal.

In Praise of ‘The Fall’s Uber Cool Feminist Heroine: Gillian Anderson’s Stella Gibson

The Fall is one of 2013’s television success stories. The five-part BBC crime drama is a compelling, well-crafted production with a fine cast and a terrific lead performance by Gillian Anderson. Set in present-day Belfast–and also shot on location in the Northern Ireland capital–The Fall chronicles the police hunt for a serial killer of attractive, professional women in their thirties. It is created and written by Allan Cubitt–who scripted Prime Suspect 2 (1992, UK)–and directed by Jakob Verbruggen.

Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson)

Written by Rachael Johnson

The Fall is one of 2013’s television success stories. The five-part BBC crime drama is a compelling, well-crafted production with a fine cast and a terrific lead performance by Gillian Anderson. Set in present-day Belfast–and also shot on location in the Northern Ireland capital–The Fall chronicles the police hunt for a serial killer of attractive, professional women in their thirties. It is created and written by Allan Cubitt–who scripted Prime Suspect 2 (1992, UK)–and directed by Jakob Verbruggen.

Anderson plays Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson, an Englishwoman called in from the London Metropolitan Police to review a high profile PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) investigation into the murder of an architect. When another woman of similar looks and background is found murdered, Gibson takes charge of the investigation. The Fall is not a whodunit like Forbrydelsen (2007, DK) or The Killing. We know the identity of the murderer, a certain Paul Spector, from the very first episode. The viewer’s interest lies instead in studying the killer and watching Stella pursue the case.

The serial killer’s personal and professional lives are “normal”: Spector is a young man in a caring profession with a hard-working wife and two small children. He is a bereavement counselor. She is a neonatal nurse. Capably played by Jamie Dornan, Spector is slender, good-looking and athletic. A good family man, he seems to have a loving relationship with his children. His sweet, sensitive daughter adores him. Spector’s wife, Sally Anne (Bronagh Waugh) does not know that she is sleeping with a killer of women. He does not reveal violent, misogynist tendencies in his family life. Nor does he show evidence of any psycho-sexual hang-ups in his marital relations. Returning home from violating the domestic space of a potential victim, he falls into bed and makes love with his wife. Possessing, it seems, a split personality, Spector leads two very different lives. At times, these lives are sustained simultaneously. In one unnerving scene, he stalks a potential victim in a park with his young daughter in tow. At first, Dornan’s Spector struck me as a little too normal to be credible but there is an intensity and arrogance to his character that suggests a darker side. There have been serial killers from very average backgrounds and the makers of The Fall consistently underline Spector’s chilling ordinariness in their observational study of the killer. The writer Allan Cubitt has created a man–not a monster.

As a writer of a series that introduced the world to Helen Mirren’s Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison, Allan Cubitt is, of course, well-acquainted with strong female characters. His Stella is a particularly striking, commanding protagonist. Clad in pencil skirts, silk blouses and stilettos, she cuts an elegant, glamorous figure. Amusingly, Stella’s silk shirts have become a fashion column and pop culture talking point in the UK. The character’s ultra-feminine looks, it must be said, aim to signify authority rather than slavishness to an ideal of femininity. Stella is self-governing and goal-oriented. The English outsider has, in fact, an almost patrician manner at times. Her leadership style cannot be characterized as either buddy-buddy or maternal. Stella is a cool rather than cold woman, however. This is apparent when we see her calmly help a male co-worker recover from a traumatic incident. We admire her poise and intelligence. Stella also shows interest in the lives of her female co-workers. Most importantly, she possesses a feminist consciousness: she exposes misogyny while combating male violence against women.

Murderer and Family Man, Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan) — Murderer and family man, Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan)

Entirely at ease in her skin, Stella is, also, very much a sexual woman. One scene in particular stands out. Spotting a good-looking cop at a crime scene, Stella asks her female companion, police constable Danielle Ferrington (Niamh McGrady) to introduce her to him. When he asks her how long the review will take, Stella tells him point-blank: “I’m staying at the Hilton. Room 203.” It is an impressive, amusing display of female sexual sway. They enjoy their night together but when he makes the mistake of texting a sexy selfie the day after, Stella breaks off contact. She has no interest in pursuing a relationship. Stella is also unafraid of exposing sexual double standards. The one night stand becomes a potentially compromising issue for her male co-workers as the plot develops. Stella, however, detects the underlying reasons for their unease. She puts them in the picture: “That’s what really bothers you, isn’t it? The one night stand. Man fucks woman. Subject man, verb fucks, object woman. That’s ok. Woman fucks man, woman subject, man object. That’s not so comfortable for you, is it?”

Police Constable Danielle Ferrington (Niamh McGrady)

Stella is a rational, self-directed, sexual woman. What is unfortunate is that this particular combination of characteristics in a female protagonist is still rare in mainstream film and television. Unusually, the makers of The Fall have not given Stella a troubled back story or a comforting vulnerable side. She does not appear to be haunted by her past and there is no evidence of alcoholism or other psychological problems. Happily, the script does not seem to support the outdated, bogus belief that successful, professional women can only attain real happiness by marrying and having children. Stella does not seem to be mourning a lost love. Nor does she seem to ache for a child. These tendencies, it must be said, invariably surface in Hollywood and mainstream US television’s characterizations of strong women and it is commendable that The Fall does not take that route.

Stella Takes Charge — Stella takes charge

The Fall could be said to exhibit strong feminist principles. Of course, makers of serial killer dramas risk aestheticizing sexualised violence against women. Although they arguably represent an attempt to get into the mindset of the killer, some may find The Fall’s scenes of voyeurism and violence as suspect as those in more plainly exploitative productions. The Fall is, however, manifestly feminist in its refusal to portray Spector as a monstrous other and in its remarkable characterization of its heroine. It is also evident in the direct way it tackles the issue of victim-blaming. In a conversation with Jim Burns, the Assistant Chief Constable of the PSNI (John Lynch), Stella questions the use of the word ‘innocent’ in describing the killer’s victims:”‘Let’s not refer to them as innocent…What if he kills a prostitute next or a woman walking home drunk, late at night, in a short skirt? Will they be in some way less innocent, therefore less deserving? Culpable? The media loves to divide women into virgins and vamps, angels or whores. Let’s not encourage them.” There are other independent, resourceful women in The Fall and other instances of female solidarity. Stella has a good rapport with pathologist, Paula Reed Smith (played by Archie Panjabi) as well as PC Danielle. We see the latter stung with guilt that she was not able to save a potential victim. Danielle’s sisterly camaraderie even extends to removing the tell-tale signs of Stella’s one-night stand on an errand to her hotel room.

Stella with Pathologist Paula Reed Smith (Archie Panjabi) — Stella with pathologist Paula Reed Smith (Archie Panjabi)

The Fall is not without derivative elements and devices but it is a stylish and quite gritty series. A deeply engrossing thriller, it unsettles, frightens and moves its audience. The Fall’s setting is also interesting. Belfast provides a somewhat tense, moody backdrop. Sectarian conflict is not a distant memory and politics shapes everyday lives. While we may ask whether The Fall provides a particularly pioneering or remarkable study of male violence, it is admirable that its creators are not afraid to emphasize the killer’s normality and masculinity. Most importantly, The Fall has given us a new, über cool feminist heroine. The good news is that there will be another season.

Female Identity and Performance: An Appreciation of Alan Pakula’s ‘Klute’ (1971)

Klute is one of the key American films of the 1970s. Engaging with themes of surveillance and voyeurism, Alan Pakula’s masterpiece is, first of all, an absorbing, suspenseful thriller. It owes its intimidating ambiance, in great part, to Gordon Willis’s extraordinarily skillful and innovative photography. Klute, however, transcends the genre in the many ways it addresses contemporary gender politics; the New York-set neo-noir is both a character-driven study of female identity and sexuality as well as an unsettling portrait of misogyny. Starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland–two of the most interesting cinematic icons of the day–Klute is also an actor’s film. Fonda won a richly deserved Best Actress Oscar for her outstanding central performance.

Written by Rachael Johnson.

Klute is one of the key American films of the 1970s. Engaging with themes of surveillance and voyeurism, Alan Pakula’s masterpiece is, first of all, an absorbing, suspenseful thriller. It owes its intimidating ambiance, in great part, to Gordon Willis’s extraordinarily skillful and innovative photography. Klute, however, transcends the genre in the many ways it addresses contemporary gender politics; the New York-set neo-noir is both a character-driven study of female identity and sexuality as well as an unsettling portrait of misogyny. Starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland–two of the most interesting cinematic icons of the day–Klute is also an actor’s film. Fonda won a richly deserved Best Actress Oscar for her outstanding central performance.

Sutherland is John Klute, a Pennsylvania-based private investigator searching for a missing friend, executive Tom Gruneman. Fonda plays Bree Daniels, his most important lead in the case. Bree, a high-class call-girl with modeling and acting aspirations, has apparently been receiving obscene letters and phone calls from Gruneman. She does not, however, remember meeting him. Bree is also being stalked. The detective offers her protection and their relationship deepens. They soon become lovers. As Klute pursues the case, another prostitute is found murdered, and it is not long before the killer targets Bree.

It must be said that it is not the plot of Klute that stays with you but rather the characters and performances. Equally, the story’s most interesting themes relate to gender and sexuality. Unusually for a mainstream film, Klute is graced with a complex female protagonist. Bree is shown to be a self-determining, self-reliant woman. She seeks out modeling gigs, goes on acting auditions, and makes regular visits to her female therapist. Bree claims that her current work has given her real independence. She is no longer controlled by a pimp and considers her transactions with her ‘johns’ empowering. Early on in the film, we witness Bree negotiate with a nervous commuter client from Chicago. Supremely self-assured and entirely in control of the situation, she is sexually assertive in a dominant, almost maternal fashion. On the city streets, with her seventies ‘shag’ hairstyle, mini skirt and thigh-high boots, she radiates sexual charisma and power. We also learn that Bree used to work full-time on Park Avenue but now only tricks when she wants to. She further maintains that prostitution, on her own terms, has given her a certain psychological autonomy and control. When she tells Klute that she never climaxes with her clients, it comes across as a boast of personal sovereignty. But as Bree falls in love with the investigator and experiences a kind of sensual rebirth, she feels increasingly overwhelmed and disempowered by her feelings. Making love with Klute, she says, is ‘a baffling and bewildering experience’. What is evident, from her sessions with her therapist, is that her insensibility is a mask for mere numbness. Bree, in fact, tells her that she fundamentally wants to be ‘faceless and bodiless and left alone’. Sucked back into the vortex of her old life, she begins to unravel. At one unsettling point, she attacks her lover with scissors. There are also indications that Bree wants to stop turning tricks. In an early scene, we see her angrily ask her therapist why she is still drawn to the life.

Giving a truthful picture of prostitution on the screen is a thorny issue, of course. Many Hollywood films have prettified and sanitized prostitution and the stereotype of the whore with a heart of gold is one of the oldest in the business. Klute has a relatively complex take on prostitution. What it shows is that the prostitute remained a scapegoat for society’s sexual hypocrisies in the 1970s- an era of progressive change regarding gender and sexuality. Bree herself is fully aware of the double standards but she does not see herself as a victim. When she claims that she is very much in charge when she tricks on her own terms, the viewer is confronted with the suggestion that there are women who are not victimized by the profession. Our response to Bree’s statement, of course, depends on our individual attitude toward prostitution. It may be argued that Bree is too articulate and too bourgeois to be a believable call girl but they should remember that there is not one type of prostitute. Klute even shows that the life has an absurd and amusing side. We learn about a wealthy client who visits Bree’s old Park Avenue workplace not to ‘party’ with the girls but to clean the bathroom. Bree’s profession is, however, depicted as a dangerous one and, as specified above, she is evidently psychologically troubled. Klute is not a polemic on the dangers of prostitution but it indicates the omnipresent threat of sexual violence- and homicide- in the profession while pointing out its associations with drug culture. Klute’s stance on sex work may be interpreted in a variety of ways. Does the characterization of Bree as sexually and emotionally disengaged reflect an accurate understanding of the psyche of sex workers or does it represent a disavowal of female sexuality? Does Klute’s associations of prostitution with danger reinforce Victorian ideas of ‘fallen women’ as vulnerable and passive? What is clear is that the watchful, taciturn Klute is intended as a potential savior for Bree.

Klute does not solely offer a portrait of prostitution. It is also an allegory of the female condition in patriarchy. Klute explores the objectification and exploitation of women through the symbolic figure of the prostitute. We are encouraged to see Bree as an embodiment of female sexuality in a hypocritical, sexist society. In this sense, it is actually irrelevant whether she is believable as a call girl. Although drawn as a highly individualistic, complicated character, Bree is manifestly intended to represent universal femininity. There is a feminist consciousness exhibited in the film. It is apparent in an early scene when we see Bree apply for a modeling job. The female applicants are lined up in a row before being openly and cruelly objectified. The way the scene is framed seems to indicate that the aspiring models are treated in a fashion not too dissimilar from women in a brothel. Klute also uses the theme of surveillance to explore society’s objectification of women. Bree is being watched constantly- by her stalker, clients and protector. The practice and metaphor of acting further points to a feminist awareness. Acting is not just an aspiration for Bree but a means of personal and professional expression. It, also, however, masks fragility and emptiness. These psychological weaknesses are not unique to Bree but represent the fractured psyches of women alienated from a still-patriarchal society. Her dilemma is, effectively, an existential one: she is searching for an authentic social role. The character of Bree fuses Actress, Prostitute and Woman. These identities, as we know, have been interchanged throughout Western history. Klute shows how sexually liberated and economically independent American women were objectified, exploited and abused after the so-called sexual revolution of the sixties.

Klute, moreover, offers a sharp, disturbing portrait of misogyny. The villain is not the classic weirdo or social outcast of most movies and crime reports. Played with a reptilian venomousness by Charles Cioffi, the thriller’s sadistic psychopath is an esteemed man of wealth and power. His heart contains an ocean of hate for women and prostitutes are accessible, serviceable targets for his fathomless misogyny. In his final confrontation with Bree, he tries to justify his actions. They are worth quoting in full: ‘You make a man think that he’s accepted. It’s all just a great big game to you. When you’re all too obviously lazy and too warped to do anything meaningful with your lives so you prey upon the sexual fantasies of others. I’m sure it comes as no great surprise to you when I say that there are little corners in everyone which were better off left alone- sicknesses, weaknesses which should never be exposed. But that’s your stock and trade, isn’t it- a man’s weaknesses and I was never fully aware of mine until you brought them out.’ His character, it is quite boldly suggested, illustrates the hypocritical, perverse aspects of heterosexual masculinity.

In the closing moments of Klute, we see Bree leave her New York apartment with her lover. As the outcome seems to fulfill the imperatives of a conventional Hollywood ending, it may arguably be seen as a sell-out. The good, traditional man saves the troubled, wayward woman. Of course, the romantic in us believes that happiness lies with this man of honor and compassion. For the first time in her life, Bree has experienced genuine sexual intimacy and joy with a man. In a wonderfully understated performance, Sutherland gives the quiet Klute a gracious, self-effacing masculinity. Nevertheless, Bree’s closing voiceover seems to cast doubt over a permanent future for the couple. She is perhaps too complex a character to be rescued and her fate remains ambiguous.

Ultimately, what makes Klute most memorable is Fonda’s multi-layered, full-blooded performance. She invests Bree with a remarkable intelligence and plays her with a singular openness and bravery. With her would-be lover Klute, she is alternately satirical, seductive and mocking. In her therapy sessions, we witness Bree’s quest for self-definition in articulate, questioning observations and emphatic hand gestures. Fonda’s performance is equally rich in empathy. Bree’s acting endeavors are shown to be sincere and enterprising. As noted, the character’s worldliness is countered by deep apathy and despair. Her capacity for self-destruction is revealed in an especially striking party scene where she regresses perilously into her old life. To a deafening funk soundtrack, we see a stoned, sweaty Bree weave her way through a crowded club, stop to make out with a stranger and embrace an old girlfriend before surrendering to the throne of her former pimp, Frank Ligourin (a sleazy-handsome Roy Schneider). Fonda’s expressions in this riveting episode are a pitch-perfect blend of brazenness, revulsion, discontent, despair and defiance. Bree’s final confrontation with the murderer is equally unforgettable. Forced to endure the recorded screams of a fellow prostitute being tortured and murdered, she bows her head and silently cries. Terrified yet still trying to maintain her dignity, we watch her wipe away the snot now dripping from her nose. Few Hollywood actresses of any era have been allowed to be as real and raw as Fonda in this scene. In her autobiography, My Life So Far (Random House, 2005), the actress explains that she was crying for all female victims of male violence in these moments.

Klute is a classic that deserves to be revisited again and again. An involving, atmospheric thriller and politically-aware study of female identity, it boasts one of the most original and emblematic heroines in the history of American cinema and features one of the greatest screen performances of all time.

Welcome New Staff Writer Rachael Johnson

Writing from an international, feminist perspective, I am interested in analyzing the ways gender, sexuality, race, and class are portrayed onscreen. I hope to both examine the representation of women in mainstream movies and draw attention to the stories of others. It is a privilege and pleasure to contribute to vital, contemporary discussions about women in film.

Written by Rachael Johnson.

Hi, everyone! I am very happy to be a part of the Bitch Flicks team.

I have contributed articles on film to CINEACTION, www.objectif-cinema.com and www.jgcinema.com. I have, in fact, already written three articles for Bitch Flicks Theme Weeks–on Varda’s Vagabond, Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, and the documentary The Boxing Girls of Kabul. I look forward to writing many more.

British-born, with a pretty nomadic background and international outlook, I plan to contribute pieces on films from North America, Europe and all around the world. My tastes are wide-ranging. I have loved movies from the US (Hollywood and independent features), UK, Australia, France, Mexico, Brazil, China and Japan, to name but a few. Documentaries, social commentary and political films are areas of particular interest, but I also have a passion for psychological thrillers and surrealist cinema, as well as an interest in star studies.

Writing from an international, feminist perspective, I am interested in analyzing the ways gender, sexuality, race and class are portrayed onscreen. I hope to both examine the representation of women in mainstream movies and draw attention to the stories of others. It is a privilege and pleasure to contribute to vital, contemporary discussions about women in film. Hope to see you very soon!

Older Women Week: The Extraordinary Romance of an Ordinary "Old Girl": Thoughts on ‘Ali: Fear Eats the Soul’

Of course older women have traditionally not been allowed to be sexual beings, and mothers have always been held to a higher sexual standard than fathers. In fact, when a woman of any age does not conform or transgresses sexually she customarily suffers greater social condemnation. What Ali: Fear Eats the Soul makes clear is that the Whore-Madonna complex still reigned supreme in 1970s Germany. When Emmi first tells her daughter and son-in-law that she has fallen in love with a much younger man, they laugh. The thought of an old mother in love and lust is so impossible, so unnatural—horrific, in fact—that laughter is the only fitting response. When she introduces her children to her new husband, one son calls her a whore and another kicks in her television. In the eyes of her deeply conventional, racist children, Emmi is guilty of the most profane double betrayal—racial disloyalty and defilement of the maternal role.

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

This is a guest post by Rachael Johnson.

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is a tale of interracial and intergenerational love set in West Germany in the 1970s. It was both written and directed by one of the key figures of the New German Cinema, Rainer Werner Fassbinder. In his short yet productive life–he died aged 37 of a drug-related heart attack–the workaholic Fassbinder made countless remarkable films and pursued an equally remarkable private life. Anti-bourgeois and anti-establishment, the bisexual Bavarian earned a legendary reputation as a flammable wild child and libertine of extreme appetites. Influenced by Douglas Sirk’s socially subversive melodramas, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is a fascinating exploration of sexual taboos and non-conformity as well as a searing critique of German racism. It is, also, a deeply affecting love story.

The lovers are Ali, a Moroccan-born mechanic in his thirties and Emmi, a white German woman around 60. Tall, bearded and muscular, Ali is played by El Hedi ben Salam, then a lover of the director. Emmi, played by Brigitte Mira, is a small woman of average looks with a pleasant, pudgy face. There is nothing glamorous about Fassbinder’s heroine, and it is this very ordinariness that endears her to the viewer and makes the story all the more poignant. A lonely widow with three married children she rarely sees, there is, it seems, little remarkable about Emmi either. Nor is she a privileged hausfrau. She cleans for a living.

The bar

The two meet in a bar frequented by Arab immigrants. Emmi takes shelter from the rain, but she is also drawn by the ‘exotic’ music. It is a fairly odd scene. The bar maid is a buxom, blonde German woman, and there is only a handful of customers. They stare impassively at Emmi when she enters. A long shot emphasizes her vulnerability and isolation. She sits by the door and asks the bar maid about her clientele and selection of music. She orders a coke and keeps her coat on. The women mock her and a female companion of Ali prods him to dance with ‘the old girl.’ He obeys her with a mock salute. The others stare at the couple, of course, but Ali is gracious, and they learn a little about each other. He accompanies Emmi home and their extraordinary romance begins in a sweet, ordinary fashion.

Fassbinder lays bare the nasty, pervasive nature of racism in West German society during the seventies. Ali, we soon learn, only calls himself Ali because white Germans have maliciously given him the stereotypical name. His life is hard. He works constantly and drinks heavily. He tells Emmi that he shares a room with five other foreign workers. ‘German master/Arab dog’ is how he describes race relations at his garage. Racism is a constant in the lovers’ lives. Emmi listens with unease as her fellow cleaning women dole out dehumanizing descriptions of immigrants as dirty, lazy, dangerous and hypersexual. Her female neighbors gossip incessantly about her affair and fix merciless eyes on her lover. Her son-in-law, Eugen, played by Fassbinder himself, is a lazy boor enraged at the mere mention of his Turkish foreman. When her landlord’s son accuses her of subletting due to Ali’s presence, Emmi tells him that the young Moroccan is her fiancé. The ruse becomes a reality when they mutually agree to tie the knot. Emmi’s children, neighbors and co-workers ostracize her and her new husband. She is forced to eat lunch alone at work, and he is humiliated by the local shop-keeper. Only the passage of time and naked self-interest mellow their attitude.

Ali surrounded by Emmi’s coworkers

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul explores the impact of racism on human relationships. Fassbinder specifically underscores how its evil even infects those of an intimate nature. Emmi’s relationship with Ali sours and she is shown to be capable of reproducing the racism of her compatriots. Impatient with his craving for couscous, a sign, of course, of deep homesickness, she tells her husband to adapt to German customs. On one occasion, she encourages her co-workers’ sexual objectification of Ali, an objectification that smacks of unsavory white voyeurism. When he quits the room, she puts it down to a changeable ‘foreign mentality.’ Emmi is, of course, a product of her nation’s past. In the 1970s, Germany’s history of genocidal racism was still a living, breathing memory. Emmi was a young woman when the Nazis were in power. When she tells Ali that she and her father were members of the party, it is a quiet, forever mind-blowing reminder that membership was the norm.

Emmi with Eugen and Krista

There are, nevertheless, indications that Emmi was always a little different. She crosses borders. Her parents did not want her to marry a foreigner after the war, but she married a Polish man. She is not a xenophobe like her father. She enters the immigrants’ bar because she is drawn to the sounds of others. Emmi is genuinely curious about other cultures and accepts cultural differences. She is hospitable and questions why white Germans and foreigners cannot be friends. She is appalled to hear of Ali’s intolerable living conditions. Curiosity, empathy, attraction and love make up Emmi’s feelings for Ali. Although she will never suffer the daily degradations and abuse he suffers, she is also a victim of racism. Although she tries to hide it, she is, in fact, tormented by the hatred besieging them. Emmi is derided and marginalized by white Germans for loving and marrying an Arab man. A neighbor asks, at one point, if she is a ‘real’ German due to her Polish last name. White women who have affairs with North African and Turkish foreign workers are labeled ‘filthy whores’ by her co-workers. Although a manifestly provincial product of her time and place, Emmi artlessly manages to challenge German racism through the simple, human act of loving. In the socio-historical context of post-war West Germany, she is a nonconformist.

Ali and Emmi

Seemingly unsophisticated, Emmi also breaks sexual taboos. She is a desiring old woman, and it is this desire that outrages and disgusts her children. Of course older women have traditionally not been allowed to be sexual beings, and mothers have always been held to a higher sexual standard than fathers. In fact, when a woman of any age does not conform or transgresses sexually she customarily suffers greater social condemnation. What Ali: Fear Eats the Soul makes clear is that the Whore-Madonna complex still reigned supreme in 1970s Germany. When Emmi first tells her daughter and son-in-law that she has fallen in love with a much younger man, they laugh. The thought of an old mother in love and lust is so impossible, so unnatural–horrific, in fact–that laughter is the only fitting response. When she introduces her children to her new husband, one son calls her a whore and another kicks in her television. In the eyes of her deeply conventional, racist children, Emmi is guilty of the most profane double betrayal–racial disloyalty and defilement of the maternal role.

Her daughter Krista mirrors her brothers. She calls Emmi’s home ‘a pigsty.’ There is, it must be said, little female solidarity apparent in Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. The older woman’s female peers and acquaintances seem for the most part to be slaves of convention, regarding issues of race and gender. Ali’s female friends are manifestly threatened by Emmi’s sexuality. One calls his wife ‘a filthy old whore’ behind her back. ‘It’ll never work out. It’s unnatural, plain unnatural,’ she spits, with some jealousy. Does Fassbinder identify women in particular with convention? Or does he see his female characters as parts of the patriarchal system?

Emmi and Ali embrace

Fassbinder’s portrayal of Emmi’s passion is, however, empathetic and quite revolutionary. He never depicts the older woman’s desire as warped and unnatural, and it is worth reflecting how rare an attitude this is on screen. Emmi’s sexual subjectivity is acknowledged. When she momentarily looks at Ali showering, she tells him, ‘You are very beautiful, Ali.’ Her looking does not here denote exploitative voyeurism. Her softly delivered words are addressed to her husband only. He smiles back at her. An older female gaze, of course, doubly reverses cinematic male-female conventions of objectification. In this very short scene, the director recognizes Emmi’s subversive female gaze while, it must be said, expressing his own sexuality. Ultimately, Fassbinder understands that his heroine is, at heart, driven by an entirely natural desire for intimate human companionship as well as a simple need for love.

Their intergenerational relationship comprises painful personal humiliations–issuing from racism and infidelity–but it is also an essentially loving one. Ali’s everyday interactions with Emmi are, from the very start, characterized by kindness, devotion and respect. He and Emmi share their insecurities, comfort each other and enjoy each other’s company. Her daughter’s so-called conventional marriage pales in comparison. There are many achingly poignant, well-observed moments in this love story. On the street where she lives, an anxious Emmi fearing that she had lost her new love, cries Ali’s name before running toward him like a little girl. The warm, relaxed way Ali strokes Emmi’s arm their first night together is another arresting sign of their unusual bond. Their supposedly impossible relationship always seems authentic. Fassbinder reveals the unlikely pair’s fundamental affinities. They are both victims of loneliness and social alienation, and they are both hard-working, working-class people.

Emmi and Ali have dinner

There is an essential humanity to Fassbinder’s characterization of both lovers, and their unusual love story is told with tenderness. Unsurprisingly, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul was well received internationally. It honors the empathetic imagination and pays touching tribute to the outsider. It also shows how an ordinary ‘old girl’ can quietly tear down racial boundaries as well as defy conventional expectations of female desire.

Rachael Johnson has contributed articles to CINEACTION, www.objectif-cinema.com and www.jgcinema.com.

Women in Sports Week: The Toughest Trio: A Review of ‘The Boxing Girls of Kabul’ (2011)

Saber Sharifi trains women boxers in The Boxing Girls of Kabul

This is a guest post by Rachael Johnson.

The Boxing Girls of Kabul is a Canadian documentary about the boxing careers of three young Afghan women, sisters Sadaf and Shabnam Rahimi and Shahla Sikandary. It was written and directed by the Afghan-Canadian filmmaker Ariel J. Nasr. Based in Afghanistan, Nasr produced the recently Oscar-nominated live action short, Buzkashi Boys (2012).

The Boxing Girls of Kabul opens with harrowing archival footage of an execution of a woman at the Olympic Stadium in Kabul on November 16th, 1999. Many will recall this secretly-recorded film from news reports, but it will always disturb and haunt: the kneeling woman, clad in a pale blue burqa, attempts to turn her head to her executioner as she is about to be shot. Mercifully, the camera cuts to a blue sky and carries us directly to contemporary Afghanistan. We see, in close up, the determined brown eyes of a young female boxer training at the very same stadium where women were executed during the dark days of Taliban rule.

We are first introduced to Sadaf who tells us that she and her fellow fighters spar in the same gym where girls were imprisoned. She is somewhat frightened by the place itself but explains, “When we play sports, we forget our problems. When I box, I feel happy. I box because I want to advance myself, and advance Afghanistan.” Sincere and ambitious, the girls want to determine their own destinies. Shahla says, “In the future, I want to be the most progressive and bright of all Afghan girls…a champion.” All are hungry for medals.

Image from The Boxing Girls of Kabul

Boxing has always, of course, been the most traditionally masculine, most brutal and most controversial of sports. Female boxing remains a divisive issue around the world and only became an Olympic event at the London 2012 Games. It is all the more remarkable that girls from a land scarred by gender discrimination have taken up the sport. The girls’ coach, Sabir Sharifi, explains, “The Taliban were absolutely opposed to sports. They had an especially strong opposition to boxing.” A girl boxer in a hijab is an incongruous image for many–or most–Westerners. For the Taliban, female boxing is simply sinful. Boxing has also, however, been the sport of the marginalized and oppressed so it is perhaps unsurprising that these young Afghan women have chosen boxing. The sport for the trio is identified with self-empowerment and female self-worth.

It is interesting to see the boxing girls of Kabul negotiate the streets and shops of the capital with their trainers–as well as journey abroad for competitions–but the interviews with them and their families at home and in the gym provide a more intimate and perhaps more illuminating portrait of the nature of their lives. In the locker room, we see the trio and their peers talk about exam results, tease each other about their hair and spray bottled water over each other. These glimpses serve to remind the viewer that their interests and aspirations are fundamentally the same as most young women around the world. They also give a strong idea of both their incomparable pressures and camaraderie.

Nasr also provides helpful insights into the attitudes of the men in the boxers’ lives. Their coach is a very likeable, middle-aged man. Sharifi formed the girls’ boxing team in 2007 with “a few brothers.” He himself was a victim of Afghan’s tragic, war-torn history. The 1980s Soviet occupation, he explains, put an end to his Olympic ambitions. Sharifi and his colleagues consistently demonstrate support and affection for their charges. He says he wants champions. There persists in the West an Islamophobic, racist belief–even among self-proclaimed progressive people–that all Muslim men in all Muslim lands dominate, control and persecute their daughters. The forward-thinking likes of men such as Sharifi constitute a formidable response to such bigotry. He is not alone. Shahla explains that it is her father who supports her the most in her family. “He thinks that a girl can be someone in the future,” she says. Sadaf and Shabnam Rahimi’s father is also encouraging while their progressive mother wants them to continue both their education and sporting career.

Image from The Boxing Girls of Kabul

Female boxing, of course, enrages the Taliban and Afghan conservatives in general. The girls are given the opportunity to compete in Vietnam and Kazakhstan. Unhappily, increased recognition brings increased intimidation for both trainer and coach. Sharifi is threatened on the street while Shahla experiences pressure to stop boxing from her brother. He is shown to be infinitely more conservative than her father. In English, he expresses concern that his sister’s boxing career will endanger the family in the event of a full-blown Taliban resurgence. He worries that the family will be accused of being “kuffar” (non-Muslim). “Nothing except this,” he insists. But is he merely motivated by concern for his family’s safety? He scorns his sister’s independence, accuses her of not praying with satisfactory piety and delivers this extraordinarily unsettling threat: “If I was in my father’s place, I would set so many restrictions she wouldn’t even be able to eat without being afraid.” But the girls bravely pursue their sport despite these difficult and dangerous circumstances.

There are other obstacles. Funds and facilities are inadequate. They do not even have a ring. In Vietnam and Kazakhstan, we see them outclassed and overwhelmed by their hosts. It is painful to watch, but I was reminded by a quote by the novelist and boxing writer Joyce Carol Oates: “Boxing is about being hit rather more than it is about hitting, just as it is about feeling pain, if not devastating psychological paralysis, more than it is about winning.” The girls, understandably, complain of inadequate training and resources, but they are also, of course, cutting their teeth. Shahla is fortunate to secure a bronze medal in Vietnam–there were only four in her weight class–gaining the attention of the Afghan media. Her father is proud of her achievement.

We learn, at the end of the documentary, however, that Shahla no longer competes. Pregnant with her first child, she visits the gym “when she can” and works part-time. You wonder if she will return. It is heartening though to hear that Sadaf continues to compete and that Shabnam aims to be a doctor. Perhaps they have been empowered by their mother’s words: “In Afghanistan, we have to fight against men to show we have pride.”

Image from The Boxing Girls of Kabul

Documentaries like The Boxing Girls of Kabul are invaluable in that they give voice to the voiceless. These young women possess a rare courage. Spirited, ambitious and attractive, they make engaging subjects. The cinematography (by Nasr) is not particularly striking in The Boxing Girls of Kabul and it is a no-frills documentary formally. The director is modest and unadorned in both style and approach. The interviewer is a silent presence; the boxers as well as trainers and family members speak for themselves. This works well as they appear to reveal their hopes and fears quite openly. The documentary, however, is simply too short at 52 minutes. The trio’s stories could have been further developed. It is evident that they box for themselves, their gender and their country, but it would be have been rewarding if the filmmakers had explored their motivation more deeply. Their influences could also have been cited. Which fighters (male or female) inspired them?

The young women are trail-blazers in a patriarchal society still plagued by religious extremism. They are, equally, children of war. For decades, Afghanistan has been blighted by conflict. Bizarrely, the documentary does not mention that ongoing war between foreigners and the Taliban. The prolonged presence of the American military in Afghanistan is curiously absent from all conversation. It would have been interesting to know the boxers’ thoughts on the conflict as well as the role of the West in relation to the status of women in Afghanistan. The Boxing Girls of Kabul gives relatively little historical background and context. It does not explain how the Taliban came to power or shed new light on their mindset. (If you want to learn about the roots of Taliban, start with Ahmed Rashid’s 2000 book Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia.)

Listening to Shahla’s conservative brother was, then again, quite enlightening. His obsession with what others think reveals a deep lack of imagination and reflects a fear of difference. Social conformity seems to have a tyrannical hold on him. The documentary does, however, unsettle stereotypes about both Afghan men and women. This is invaluable. Nasr has created an affecting, compassionate portrait of proud, independent Afghan womanhood in The Boxing Girls of Kabul. Ultimately, there are few things more moving than witnessing the endeavors of an oppressed group or people.

Rachael Johnson has contributed articles to CINEACTION, www.objectif-cinema.com and www.jgcinema.com.