Tag: Religion

‘The Seventh Seal’: A Skull is More Interesting Than a Naked Woman

‘The Seventh Seal’ was released in Sweden in 1957. The title is a reference to the Book of Revelation (Rev. 8:1): “And when the Lamb had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.” Ingmar Bergman’s 17th film examines the big question: where is God? Set in Sweden in the 14th century during the Black Plague, the film documents the travels of the knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) and his squire, Jöns (Gunnar Björnstrand), as they return home from the Crusades (this is one of many useful anachronisms in the film, just go with it). Block is literally pursued by Death (Bengt Ekerot). Along the way, Bergman also muses on love, isolation, and death.

The Seventh Seal Poster
The Seventh Seal Poster

Written by Andé Morgan.

The Seventh Seal was released in Sweden in 1957. The title is a reference to the Book of Revelation (Rev. 8:1):  “And when the Lamb had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.” Ingmar Bergman’s 17th film examines the big question: where is God? Set in Sweden in the 14th century during the Black Plague, the film documents the travels of the knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) and his squire, Jöns (Gunnar Björnstrand), as they return home from the Crusades (this is one of many useful anachronisms in the film, just go with it). Block is literally pursued by Death (Bengt Ekerot). Along the way, Bergman also muses on love, isolation, and death.

This film is a classic. If you think you haven’t seen it, you are wrong. You have seen it by way of parody in The Colbert Report, Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, Last Action Hero, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and others. Bergman’s mastery of dialogue and symbolism is on constant display in the film. While not typically considered Bergman’s best work, it was a critical success and solidified his position as a leading director and screenwriter of the post-war era. Continue reading “‘The Seventh Seal’: A Skull is More Interesting Than a Naked Woman”

‘Philomena’: A Feminist Gender and Religion Critique

Philomena is based on the true story of Philomena Lee, an Irish woman who got pregnant as a teenager and was relegated to a convent where she was forced to perform grueling manual labor before her young son was sold to an adoptive US family. Fifty years later, Philomena works with a washed-up ex-journalist to find her son while he uncovers the dark truth behind her son’s adoption and the church’s betrayal. Overall, I’d say this is a feminist film that tries to expose oppressive gender roles that linger on today and allows its heroine, played by the exquisite Dame Judi Dench, to be her own person: a woman who makes her own decisions and mistakes while remaining irrepressibly full of humor and love.

Philomena Poster Alt

I wouldn’t exactly characterize Stephen Frears much-praised film Philomena as a comedy. I’d describe it as more of a dramatized exposé of the corruption of the Irish Catholic church with moments of levity that give a desolate story warmth and humanity. Philomena is based on the true story of Philomena Lee, an Irish woman who got pregnant as a teenager and was relegated to a convent where she was forced to perform grueling manual labor before her young son was sold to an adoptive US family. Fifty years later, Philomena works with a washed-up ex-journalist to find her son while he uncovers the dark truth behind her son’s adoption and the church’s betrayal. Overall, I’d say this is a feminist film that tries to expose oppressive gender roles that linger on today and allows its heroine, played by the exquisite Dame Judi Dench, to be her own person: a woman who makes her own decisions and mistakes while remaining irrepressibly full of humor and love.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DBPqcp6Hc4″]

Philomena is in the business of critiquing institutions; specifically: religion, gender, class, and media. The interactions between ex-journalist Martin and Philomena highlight class disparity. Sometimes the exposure is subtle. Martin flies to the convent while Philomena drives with her daughter. Philomena is giddy at the prospect of free champagne on the flight to America as well as the complimentary grand breakfast buffet and the posh hotel room. She doesn’t “get” Martin’s sense of humor or cultural references, and she reads romance formula fiction, never guessing at the “formula” obvious in all her books. These moments are designed to make the audience chuckle at the sweetness of Philomena’s naivete while underscoring her lack of privilege, education, and wealth.

Philomena feels "like the Pope" for being allowed to ride on the airport transport service.
Philomena feels like royalty for riding on the airport transport service.

Other times, the class disparity is stark and painful. Philomena realizes she could never have given her son the opportunities and lifestyle he enjoyed as a result of his adoption. Martin is, on occasion, cruel to her because the things that excite her are old hat for him; he’s jaded and has come to expect a life of comfort and privilege. He also mocks Philomena for her faith, insinuating that her class status is why she believes in a higher power (because he is too learned and intellectual to believe in anything). The movie shows that though Martin is more worldly, wealthier, and better educated than Philomena, he doesn’t enjoy life the way that she does. She refuses to be bitter or angry like he is. He begins to understand and accept the fact that Philomena needs him, with his connections and his status as an upper-crusty white man, to find out the truth about her son.

Martin rebuffs Philomena for her excitement about the hotel's omelet station
Martin rebuffs Philomena & her excitement about an omelet station

Philomena‘s religion and gender critique go hand-in-hand. Religion judges and punishes young women (some as young as 14) for giving in to “carnal” desires that they haven’t been educated about to even understand the potential consequences. The film also highlights forced labor along with constant recriminations to show how religious forces incite fear, shame, and blame that Philomena and countless others carry for over 50 years. Philomena experiences a particular guilt because she enjoyed the sexual encounter that led to her pregnancy. The church teaches that female bodies and female pleasure are sinful, and many of the nuns are revealed to be bitter and vengeful, a perfect example of patriarchy-complicit female figures of authority. There is no discussion of the culpability of the male cohorts whose sperm was a necessary part of the baby-making equation. Sound familiar? The religious right continues this mentality with its abstinence-only education while heaping stigma galore onto young women who become trapped in pregnancy, insisting that the female body is a breeding ground for impurity and that all the fault lies within the woman, who is, in many cases, forced to suffer all the consequences.

Young, inexperienced Philomena at the fair.
Young, inexperienced Philomena at the fair.

The kicker is that “female sin” is big business for the church in Philomena. The convent forces young women to “pay off” their debt/sin by working ungodly hours (pun intended) in the convent, and then they illegally sell the babies to the US for a great deal of money. The church destroys evidence and refuses to help families reunite even after 50 years of separation. The film claims that this was in part due to a continued resentment and desire to punish the sins of the young mothers, but it’s perhaps more true that the church is covering its tracks. Here, the church, a religious institution, takes advantage of the weak, the helpless, the poor, and the disenfranchised. Here, the church, targets women in particular using the notion of female sin to solidify their dogma and to reinforce their power (financial in this case). The exploitation of women by religious institutions is not new and continues today, as female reproductive rights are leveraged to cause divisiveness and to reinforce the power of political groups, religious groups, and the patriarchy.

The real-life Anthony with a nun before he was sold.
The real-life Anthony with a nun before he was sold.

Despite it all, Philomena remains a good-hearted person. She stands up to Martin when necessary, insisting that this is her story. She asserts that she’ll be the one who makes the decisions and that her reaction is her own, not his or a media that seeks only to capitalize on her tale of woe and exploit her for its own gain. She continues to love and accept her son regardless of the many things she learns about him that an old-fashioned religious person like herself could have found alienating. In the end, she forgives the convent, proving that she is the bigger person and more Christian than the nuns and religious institution that tormented her. While the circumstances of the film are tragic and devastating, Philomena’s doggedness, her bravery, and her journey have exposed wide-spread corruption and opened the door for other mothers to reunite with their long-lost children. Though she’s an ordinary woman without means, a fancy education, or influence, she stood up to a powerful institution steeped in centuries of history, and she said, “No more.” Philomena’s quest shows us that the personal is political and that one woman can make a difference in the the world.

Judi Dench sits with the real Philomena Lee.
Judi Dench sits with the real Philomena Lee.

——————
Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

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.

‘Salma’: The Poetry of Repression and Seclusion

Salmai movie poster.


Written by Leigh Kolb


In the village of Thuvarankurichi in rural India, young Muslim girls are locked away once they start their periods. While their early years are filled with school and play, once puberty hits, they are taken away from the outside world and relegated to the confines of their family homes until they are married (which often happens soon after menses).

Salma was one of those girls. The internationally acclaimed documentary Salma explores her return back to the village after she has, despite innumerable odds, become an accomplished poet and politician.
Her determination is highlighted throughout the film, and no amount of dramatization is needed to convey the depths of despair for the women in this culture and the odds that were–and still are–against Salma.

Interviews with family members show how conflicted many of them are about Salma’s success. Her father says, “She’s a good girl, but she’s too clever.” Her aunt says also that Salma has always been “clever,” although she was also always “disobedient.” The women around her have poignant observations on what it means to be a woman in their society, but are unsure how to change it.

When Salma was removed from the outside world, relegated to a basement room with a small grate for a window, she was still desperate to learn and read. Groceries came wrapped in old newspapers, and she would dig them out of the trash so she had something to read. She was in despair over her situation, and she says the “anger was boiling inside me”–so she started writing poetry. Her poetry grew out of the intensity of the realization that her life was to “get married, have kids and die.”

Salma, a Tamil poet and politician.

She finally was forced to marry the man who had been chosen for her, and she tried to continue writing. She would keep a journal, and the journal would disappear. She would write on torn-up bits of paper and hide the paper and pens in boxes of sanitary napkins and under blouses–they would still disappear any time her husband found them. She finally discovered a place that she could hide her writing, and would smuggle it out to her mother, who would send them to a publisher.  
We are able to follow Salma’s rise to power through a window of her world, which still isn’t perfect. Her husband says that he’s accepted her gift, but he clearly harbors a great deal of anger and resentment–their relationship appears cold and distant. Salma seems exhausted and tired of fighting in many scenes, except when she has the opportunity to talk to young girls about their plans and futures. 
Salma consistently encourages girls to stay in school, and is most alive and exuberant when speaking to young women about their educations. Her heart clearly breaks as she watches other young girls get whisked out of school and into arranged marriages. She is working through her writing and through her leadership to empower and educate young women and has success in preventing child brides, but all too often, the traditional culture wins. 
One of the most poignant and difficult aspects of this film is the complexity of Salma’s family members. Her mother was both her captor and her rescuer–she took her out of school and locked her up, but also helped her get her poetry published. Salma’s husband is angry and for years destroyed her work, but he now supports her political and writing careers. It was difficult as a viewer to try and condemn her family, because each of them is portrayed as a complex human being with clear motivations. It’s incredibly powerful when, as a viewer, you are left with the heaviness of a complex reality.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of the film is hearing the next generation of men speak. Salma’s nephew doesn’t want his mother (Salma’s sister) going to the movies, and he’s critical of Salma’s choice not to wear a head scarf. He goes on and on about how burkas are women’s rights, and they should wear them for “men and society.” He doesn’t want his mother going to the cinema “for her own good,” and expresses disappointment in Salma. Salma’s sons, too, seem to disapprove of her and she says that being in the village turned them against her. 
While Salma’s successes and continued influences on women’s lives are powerful forces, the battle is not won. The film does a beautiful job showing that.

Salma still must confront resistance from her family and the next generation.

It’s also important to note that the practice of shutting girls away–literally and figuratively–upon puberty is not relegated to conservative Muslim cultures. In Salma, a young Hindu girl is shown getting married, stunned and sick-looking. In America, there is the Christian Patriarchy movement, which keeps girls in the home and away from higher education. While Salma captures the devastation of patriarchy in one little corner of the world, the ideals and practices are not confined to India by any stretch of the imagination.  
Filmmaker Kim Longinotto has spent her career highlighting the plight of oppressed women, and she does so in Salma with grace and precision. Salma doesn’t simply present the life of a Tamil poet; instead, it is a suspenseful unfolding of a complicated story without a wholly happy ending. Salma–the film and the poet–shows the great power and limitations of one woman who takes a stand against the confines of her environment. It’s a reminder of the great strides that still must be taken around the world for women’s equality. As Salma tirelessly points out, education is where it all must begin. And in a larger culture that has a history of keeping women from literacy and silencing their voices, this is an imperative step. 
Salma is a selection from Women Make Movies, an organization that “facilitates the production, promotion, distribution and exhibition of independent films and videotapes by and about women.”

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.

Romantic Comedy (and Female Friendship) ‘Arranged’ Marriage Style

Written by Rachel Redfern
Arranged is a 2007 romantic comedy by Diane Crespo and Stefan Schaefer about two women, one a Muslim woman, the other Jewish, finding love in an unusual way. Setting a romantic comedy within two disparate but highly developed communities of Orthodox Judaism and Islam in New York City offered a unique perspective on the normally tired genre.

Zoe Lister-Jones is Rochel, a twenty-two year-old Jewish woman from New York, just beginning her new job as a special education teacher at a public school. Francis Benhamou is Nasira, an independent young Muslim woman also beginning her career teaching the fourth grade at the same school. Because of their shared students and more conservative beliefs, the two women become friends and help each other through their prospective arranged marriages. Both women are at a crossroads in their lives as they try to please their families and maintain their faith, while also seeking their own happiness.

As a quick side note, Schaefar and Crespo did an astounding job of placing the film within a religious setting and really giving the film a deep center in tradition and devout faith. During the opening credits, the film establishes itself within these religious neighborhoods in such a way that for the first five minutes I didn’t realize the movie was set in the United States until a character specifically stated it.

Original movie posted for ‘Arranged’
In one strong and fabulous aspect, Arranged is a feminist triumph; the film’s portrayal of female friendships might be at the very top (it also passes the Bechdel Test). These two women meet through a shared passion in their careers and their struggles to find their place and fit into their new school. But it is their ability to connect beyond their faith that is most striking; in one scene, a distraught Rochel desperately asks Nasira to join her at the cemetery and stand near her while she prays for guidance and peace. The image is one of generosity and love, since Nasira cannot participate in the ritual and must just stand by and watch her. But both women are intensely supportive of the other and it’s a positive portrayal of the ways that women build each other up in communities.

Similarly, the film is mostly women and mainly centers on the interactions among mothers and daughters, sisters and friends and the ways that they struggle to understand one another through the lenses of their own experience. I found the mother-daughter relationship between Rochel and Nasira and their mothers to be especially poignant. Rochel’s mother, Sheli (Mimi Lieber), and Nasira’s mother, Amina (Gina Schmuckler), are both incredibly sympathetic to their daughters, obviously wanting what’s best for them—Sheli is even willing to support Rochel in her decision to wait, against the judgments of the matchmaker and neighborhood women; however, they’re also dynamic forces in their daughters’ lives, fighting and pushing them to a decision they think is best. It’s simultaneously both frustrating and heartening to watch but also very realistic in how it captured many female, familial relationships.

Arranged is very focused on proving that modern ideals of love and dating are not always best and obviously wants to show that many women in these same situations are independent and beloved by their families, while also having a choice in who they marry. Unfortunately, the film does end up undercutting its own intentions to show that these women have a choice, but should they make the choice not to marry or choose someone other than a person their family approves of, it’s stated that Rochel (and probably Nasira) would have to leave their families and would ultimately be disowned.

Zoe Lister-Jones and Francis Benhamou in Arranged

Ideas about arranged marriages in the United States vary, from deeply traditional communities still using matchmakers and choosing for their children, to critics, both in and outside of these communities, who say that choices are still limited for women and believe that arranged marriages have similar levels of distress and unhappiness. No one knows the exact amount of marriages in the U.S. that are arranged (or forced for that matter), but researchers believe the number of arranged marriages globally to be around fifty percent.

The film attempts to show that love can build and grow from an arranged marriage since it belies the transience of infatuation, but by the end of the film, it feels like a too-convenient tying up of loose ends. I had hoped to see more exploration in one or two of the couples learning to love each other, or perhaps one of the women making the choice to wait or not to marry. It would have been productive to see how two very good actresses and their devout and intelligent characters would have dealt with such a situation.

It was also unfortunate that three of the four secular characters in the film were caricatures of western insensitivity, and it is sad to think that many intelligent and good people of faith, especially of more orthodox religions, have to deal with such harsh judgment (I’m guilty as well, I confess). But, the other characters seemed to be painted with a quick brush that was pretty heavy on the “airhead.” None of these characters was very informed or particularly smart, a glaring group of character flaws that need some more subtlety and diversity. The female principal of their school (Marcia Jean Kurtz) is especially inappropriate and condescending in the way that she speaks to Rochel and Nasira about their religions (in a way that I think no public school principal in New York City could act and still keep her job).

It’s interesting since this film was made over fifty years ago, but The Fiddler on The Roof is still more of a hard-hitting exploration in tradition vs. modernity, arranged marriage vs. choice, religion vs. race than Arranged.

Yet, all in all, Arranged is a sweet and uplifting film about the power of female friendship with great actresses, a beautiful score, and a uniquely positive portrayal of women. I would definitely recommend this film for a Sunday afternoon.

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

 

‘True Blood’ Season Six Kick Off!

Written by Rachel Redfern

***Spoiler (or more aptly called, rumors) alert  

With the passing of one great HBO show comes the dawn of a new one. While we all cry for the season finale of Game of Thrones and the subsequent nine months without Peter Dinklage, it means now we have True Blood to look forward to.

Starting June 16th, the next great gratifyingly guts and love HBO show will be up and running with ten episodes pleasantly filled with Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard), Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), and Alcide Herveoux (Joe Manganiello); while the show has a normal run of twelve episodes a season, it’s been shortened to a soul-crushing ten due to Anna Paquin’s pregnancy.

As a little recap, season five ended with Eric yelling, “Sookie, Run!” after the creation of Billith, the lovable Bill turned into a religious vampire fundamentalist who drinks the ancient blood of Lillith and becomes an evil liturgical nightmare. 

Artwork of Lillith

As a feminist, I find it fascinating that Lillith was chosen as the starting point for the vampire religion. In the original legend of Lillith, she was created before Eve to be Adam’s wife, but she refused to be Adam’s “slave” and so rebelled against god, left the Garden of Eden and then slept with Satan. She gave birth to many children by Satan, but when god demanded she give them to him she refused. Therefore, like so many female mythic figures (and modern day ones) she has been cast as either a demonic prostitute or as a great mother figure who protects children, more commonly known as the angel on the hearth.

This obviously transitions into the use of religious themes from season five, and that will be carried over into season six. (According to the season six trailer, an incredulous Sookie tells Bill, “You really do think you’re god.”) Whether True Blood intends to cast Lillith as a demon or an angel hasn’t been entirely determined (though my money is on demon); however, it’s incredibly unique to have a woman as the savior figure in a religion (the only other film/tv show I can think of is Dogma, and I’m not sure that counts). Unfortunately though, it seems Lillith can’t just stay a woman; Bill drinks Lillith’s blood and effectively becomes a part of her,  either taking on some part of her divinity or just becoming her in flesh. While it was a bit frustrating to have her become a man at the end of the season, it’s also still interesting to have a possibly androgynous religious figure.

True Blood is a show that has consistently dealt with some of the more mythological and pagan representations of women: Holly (Lauren Bowles) as a good witch; Marnie (Fiona Shaw) and Antonia in season four as the sometimes bad, sometimes good witches; Maryann (Michelle Forbes), as the evil ancient maenad in season two; and a whole host of good, bad and flighty fairies throughout the entire show.

Of course on the surface, True Blood gets a reputation as a vampire romance with lots and lots of sex; however, the show in general has powerful themes: religious fundamentalism, terrorism, racism, homosexuality, and even PTSD. Todd Lowe and his gentle search for earthly normalcy provided a great counterpoint to the search for supernatural artifacts or dominion of the other characters. Also, Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) is one of the most interesting homosexual characters on television; Ellis plays the role with a physical masculinity but with a more feminine wardrobe and a flamboyant sexuality. For me, Ellis’ masterful acting as a playful joining of genders and stereotypes is able to move away from a trite rehashing of more mainstream representations of homosexuality. (Note: The following clip, while representative of Ellis’ fine powers of gender melding, also contains explicit language. NSFW.)

 

True Blood also did an amazing job with firmly insinuating a real sense of place into the series; there is a gritty realism to its deep south with the humidity, rich and poor suburbs, accent, clothing and behavior. Ultimately the show portrays poverty, varying levels of education, spiritual communities, even a few crappy old cars, and unlike many other shows, characters are of varying beauty and body type, have unstylish hair cuts and ill-fitting jeans (except for a lot of the vamps–most of them are just dripping sex). So at least the show maintains some sense of realism while the main cast runs around staking vampires and strip dancing with fairies.

We also have to recognize the incredibly kick ass soundtracks that the producers bang out over every season: Beyond the bland mixes of generic pop music of most shows, True Blood features punk rock, country, folk music, fabulous jazz and sleazy hip hop in a brilliant mashup. It also has in my opinion, one of the best, if not the best, opening sequences of any tv show. 
 

The cast of True Blood


So, on to season six: what can we expect? Spoilers and rumors to follow.

Sookie and Jason: Looks like Sookie and Jason are on the trail for Warlow (Rutger Hauer), the mysterious vampire who killed their parents and to whom Sookie was apparently promised. Sookie also looks like she’s coming in to her own and letting someone (Bill? Eric?) know she doesn’t belong to anyone and that she’s getting sick of the way her life is going.

Eric and Sookie: Eric and Sookie look like they’re getting it on in a few scenes and beyond that, Eric looks sweet, and sexy and amazing. Perhaps this season we’ll get to see him in the heroes’ role as he realizes the best parts of himself? Also, apparently Nora isn’t just his sister? Supposedly, there’s a little bit more of a secret there than we originally thought. Bigger than all of that though, is the rumor that Eric might meet the true death in this season, which if that happens, would entirely change the course of the show.

On a side note however, the show has received some criticism for its unwillingness to kill off major characters, so while I think that Eric dying is a low possibility, (though Skarsgard’s career has been gaining recently; he might want to move on to other projects) perhaps that’s why the show might be ready to take the plunge of major character death? Also, consider this season’s tagline “No one lives forever.” 

True Blood Season 6 and tagline

Pam and Tara: Pam and Tara will continue their relationship and the two definitely seem to be going it alone. However, I have heard that Tara has a near-true-death experience, which we hope will only be an experience and not a permanent change. 

Evil: The humans might just be the villains in this season, along with Warlow, since rumors have been leaked of scary anti-vampire weapons (one of which might end up hurting Tara). It also looks like there’s some intense secret lab where humans have been conducting experiments on vampires and other supernaturals. Perhaps a vampire/werewolf alliance will be on the horizon this season?

On a happy note, everyone’s favorite pastor family is back with Sarah Newlin (Anna Camp) and Steve Newlin (Michael McMillian), and Sarah looks like she’s probably gonna be a badass. 

Trailer #2

Trailer #1 

What do you think will happen this season? Is it time for a main character to die? 

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

 

Women of Color In Film and TV: Conflicting Thoughts On ‘Sita Sings The Blues’

By Myrna Waldron

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In the film’s opening sequence, Sita rubs Rama’s leg.

So before I start, let’s address the elephant in the room. This film is about The Ramayana, an important text in Hindu mythology, and primarily focuses on Sita, an avatar of the goddess Lakshmi, who is married to Rama, an avatar of Vishnu. But the film was written and directed by a white animator, Nina Paley. There is some effort to represent the story and Indian culture faithfully (and the only non-Indian members of the cast play white characters), but the sense of humour and deliberate contrasting between ancient tragedy and modern comedy leaves an undeniably western perspective on this legend. So, yes, this film counts as cultural appropriation. That is not exactly what I’m going to be talking about today, since I am frankly unqualified to do so. I have read objections to the film by Indians, and they naturally are far more knowledgable about the Ramayana and Hinduism in general. I’m just a white atheist who went to Catholic school, and my only previous knowledge of the Ramayana is from a very shortened version I read in a fairy tale collection as a child. 
But even considering the cultural appropriation problem, I still like this film. There is no media which is not problematic in some fashion. You can still like problematic things provided you recognize and understand what the problematic elements of the film are. Sita Sings the Blues is beautifully animated, quite funny, entertaining, and introduced me to the music of Annette Hanshaw. But the concerns that Indians have brought up about the film’s depiction of the Ramayana are valid. Therefore I am going to try to approach this film in the most balanced way I can – I want to focus on the things that are great about it, but also criticize the parts that are problematic. If you are unfamiliar with the film, or have not seen it in a while, it has been released under a Creative Commons licence and is available to watch for free on the film’s official website, YouTube, and Hulu.

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“Big, round, firm, juicy…LOTUSES!”

The Good:

  • I love that this is a successful indie film written, directed, edited and produced by a single woman, Nina Paley, and the film is about a woman of colour. You can really tell this was a labour of love for her, and it’s an incredible achievement that one animator was able to do a feature length film on her own. The film is also explicitly meant to be feminist – in a long summary of the film that she released to the press, she described Sita Sings the Blues as “a tale of truth, justice, and a woman’s cry for equal treatment.” I hope to see more films helmed by women, and not just independent ones. I know that women of colour have an even harder time getting recognized as filmmakers, and I would like to see this same story retold from someone who grew up in Hindu culture, as opposed to a westerner. WOC filmmakers often do not get given a chance to succeed, as they are never given funding nor marketing, and naturally blamed for their films’ financial failure. Quite a vicious cycle. I would love to see more ways for feminist film lovers to discover films made by women and women of colour.
  • One of my favourite things in the world is animation, so this film’s widely varying animation styles (and narrative styles that change with the visuals) was such eye candy for me. If I’m counting correctly, there are 6 styles of animation used in this film. The film starts with a stylized Sita rubbing Rama’s leg (depicted in the animated gif at the top), led by stylized and symbolic depictions of the gods. It then rotates into other animation styles. Nina Paley’s autobiographical portions are done in a scribbly, loose style. The 3 Indians who narrate the story are represented as shadow puppets. The Ramayana characters’ dialogue is shown through two different forms of Indian-style artwork – one with lots of detail and bright colours, one with wide, expressive eyes and simple use of colour. The bulk of the film is devoted to Annette Hanshaw jazz songs as “performed” by Sita to complement the narrative. The sequences are presented in a modern vector graphic style, with lots of circles used in the character designs, and is even more stylized in presentation than the introductory sequence. Finally, one scene depicts an Indian woman drawn in white stencil dancing in flames and singing to Rama (it’s kind of hard to describe). Because the visual and narrative styles rotate so quickly (no portion is over 5 minutes) the story keeps you interested and you never stay in one style long enough to get bored.
  • I love the Annette Hanshaw sequences, but I have to say, my favourite parts of the film are when three English-speaking Indians from various parts of the country, Aseem Chhabra, Bhavana Nagulapally, and Manish Acharya, narrate the story of The Ramayana and are represented as shadow puppets. I love listening to the very subtle differences in their accents, and how the oral tradition of the story has subtle variations depending on cultural location. I’m just sorry they weren’t identified by name (I had to use the Wiki to credit them) so I could tell them apart beyond “Two males, one female.” Because their discussions are unscripted and they are reciting the story from memory, they make lighthearted jokes about the story, modernize some of the language (one describes Sita telling her kidnapper Ravana that his “ass is grass.”), argue mildly about details and names, and point out some of the plot holes. I laughed out loud when the three agreed that Sita left a trail of jewelry for Rama to follow, then one wondered how much jewelry Sita was wearing to be able to drop jewels for that long a distance. In response, another one says, “Don’t challenge these stories!” I also found it interesting that as they told the story, they questioned some of its details. Ravana is supposedly unquestionably the villain, yet had a past of being learned and a noble warrior. They wondered why he would be so out of character as to kidnap another man’s wife. One also marvelled that the supposed villain did not do the cliche thing and force himself upon Sita. I think questioning and analysis of one’s own culture is a good thing, so I really ate up the shadow puppets’ discourse on The Ramayana.
  • Probably the most popular sequences of the film are the stylized vector graphics of an impossibly curvy (she’s all boobs and hips and almost no waist) Sita “singing” jazz and blues songs performed by 1920s singer Annette Hanshaw. Hanshaw has this incredible ability to filter deep emotion through her voice, and having Sita perform these songs gives her a necessary amount of emotional depth. All we know of Sita via the narration is that she is absolutely devoted to her husband, no matter what. The Hanshaw songs thus have Sita expressing joy, adoration, heartbreak, hope, and acceptance, while still maintaining that necessary devotion to Rama. This is important since, no matter how you approach the story, Sita has a very tough time and is treated unfairly – we know that Ravana never touched her and Sita has only ever been with Rama, but she is still punished for even the possibility that another man touched her. The woman whose agency was taken from her should be given a way to express herself, so the blues sequences are a nice compromise.
  • Finally, the gif above depicts another one of the better points of the film, which is its sense of humour. In this scene, Ravana’s sister is trying to tempt him to kidnap Sita by describing her beauty. She says, “Her skin is fair like the lotus blossom. Her eyes are like lotus pools. Her hands are like, um, lotuses. Her breasts are like big, round, firm, juicy…LOTUSES!” Sita’s story is unquestionably a tragedy, so the little sprinklings of humour here and there keep the movie from being emotionally draining. I like the use of deliberate anachronisms to emphasize the differences between the ancient Indian setting, and the modern culture of today. Annette Hanshaw’s songs reference technologies that naturally wouldn’t have existed in ancient times, so Paley instead has Sita humorously hold a banana next to her ear when Annette sings about using a phone. And as I mentioned before, the little jokes that the shadow puppet narrators make (and their disagreements on plot details and names) help to make the narrative as lighthearted as possible. I admit I really dislike films that depress me, so this narrative decision appealed to me.
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Sita sings “Mean To Me” while going through her trial by fire

The Problematic:

  • Okay, now for the flaws. The autobiographical bits retelling the end of Nina Paley’s marriage are terrible. They drag the story to a screeching halt, the loose, drab and scribbly animation style contrasts far too much with the sumptuous and colourful styles used in the other animation sequences, and the story seems far too biased towards Nina’s perspective. I naturally don’t know the details of what really happened, but I have trouble believing that Nina’s former husband Dave is as selfish, heartless, sexless and aloof as she depicts him as being. There had to have been a reason he suddenly lost interest in her beyond their being separated by his job for some months. And I feel so uncomfortable discussing a woman’s personal life, and yet she put this stuff right in her movie, so I can’t help but talk about it! I really think that the autobiographical portions should not have been in the film. It might have been cathartic for her, but it’s awkward for everyone else.
  • Another big problem with the autobiographical portions is that I think it’s going too far for Ms. Paley to directly identify herself and the end of her marriage with Sita and her marital problems. Sita and Rama are more-or-less Hindu gods, so for a mortal white woman to compare herself with them has to come off as kind of blasphemous and egotistical. I’m glad she found comfort and inspiration in reading The Ramayana, but I would have left that revelation as perhaps a footnote or just a single scene. The autobiographical bits are interspersed throughout the film to contrast/compare directly to the chapters of Sita’s story, so you’re quite obviously supposed to identify the two women together. There are lots of western films where a character is meant to be a Jesus analogue or is Messianic in some way, but it is almost always a symbolic comparison, not an overt one. There’s no attempt at symbolism here, and I have to wonder if it would still be acceptable even if it was purely symbolic.
  • Ms. Paley is also unfortunately channelling her grief and anger over the end of her marriage through her depiction of Rama. This is supposed to be the most virtuous and wise man living, and yet the film depicts him as cruel, cold, weak-willed and stubborn. I, too, would question his supposed perfection after he continued to doubt Sita after she already passed his trial by fire (depicted in the gif above). But I think his character has to have been exaggerated somewhat in this film. Some of the people writing objections have argued that in The Ramayana, Rama was extremely broken-hearted and reluctant to banish Sita, but she loved him so much she persuaded him to send her away so that he could be an effective ruler for his people. That’s some extraordinarily self-sacrificing behaviour on Sita’s part, but it seems much more plausible considering the first half of the story is emphasizing how much they absolutely love each other.
  • This negative depiction of Rama goes as far as to basically make him the real villain of the story instead of Ravana. He is even shown kicking, pushing and walking over Sita while she is heavily pregnant. WHOA. It’s really going way too far to depict a man of being a domestic abuser if there isn’t any evidence for it. Again, this is an avatar of a god, and even though he has made a mistake in doubting Sita and sending her away (putting his own reputation amongst his people above the love of his wife), this exaggeration of his character is offensive. When Sita bears Rama’s twin sons and they are raised to praise him, they even sing a sarcastic song about how great and wonderful Rama is and that his word should never be questioned. I get the feminist attempt to question why the man’s judgement is always accepted above the rights of the woman, but the questioning should be directed at their own culture, not someone else’s. Just like we don’t like it when other cultures judge us by their standards, we don’t have the right to judge them by ours either.
  • The film’s biggest problem is that it is judging ancient Hindu mythology and custom by modern western feminist standards. If a modern western story came out where a wife is kidnapped, her kidnapper demands to marry her but does not rape her, she is rescued, her husband fears that she has been “tainted,” she proves she hasn’t, and yet is still suspected by others, and is ultimately banished while pregnant with her husband’s sons, and the husband is still depicted as the hero of the story, I would understand the virulent criticism. But because this is the story of the Ramayana, it’s not fair for a white feminist to start complaining about it, and then create a film which reflects mostly her views without making it clear she’s taking liberties with the story. Yes, it’s obvious that Sita never sang jazz songs, but it’s not so obvious that Rama wasn’t actually as cold and cruel to her as he is depicted in this film.
  • This unfortunately reeks of the cliche where white feminists go to women of colour and start telling them that they are oppressed by their culture and condescendingly try to “free” them from it. Women of colour can speak for themselves and make up their own minds. That’s what intersectionality is all about – we do not tell people of other cultures (and gender identities, and sexualities, etc etc) how they’re supposed to act and think. The first time I saw this film a few years ago, I was just as angry at Rama as Ms. Paley wants me to be, because I was completely ignorant of the story. It wasn’t until I started researching for this review that I found out that, wait a sec, she’s not depicting him accurately or fairly. When you have the influence to present another religion’s story to an audience that is likely going to be unfamiliar with it, the responsible thing to do is to either depict it accurately, or make it clear that it is an exaggeration. Sita Sings the Blues’ messages have unfortunately been diluted because of this strongly problematic element.

So while my feelings on Sita Sings the Blues are conflicted, I still think that it is a well made film despite its flaws. I encourage people to make up their own minds about it. If nothing else, the film gets us to consider differences in cultures and religions, and white women’s feminism vs the feminism/womanism of women of colour. 
I don’t think Nina Paley is intentionally racist, she’s just fallen victim to one of the big problems of western culture where the white person forgets that their perspective and opinion is not the only valid one. The vast majority of people won’t think about this sort of thing unless they immerse themselves into social justice culture, and even then it’s quite difficult to adjust your way of looking at the world. As one poignant Tumblr post said (and I’m paraphrasing), in social justice spaces we try to explore deep intersectional concepts like the erasure of trans* people of colour. In the “real” world we struggle to explain to people that ‘feminism’ is not a bad word. 
I also do not think that the film should be banned or censored like some right-wing groups have demanded, but I do think Paley should have made it more clear that she was taking some really strong liberties with the story. I have struggled for weeks trying to figure out how I was going to approach this film, so I hope I have been as fair as possible in my review. If nothing else, I have gained yet another new perspective and understanding of this film via my research on it, and that’s the best I can hope for.

P.S. I am trying a new experiment where I decorate the review with custom-made animated gifs of the film/show I’m reviewing, rather than just grabbing stuff off of Google Images. Please let me know if you like this new format, or whether you’d prefer static screenshots instead.


Myrna Waldron is a feminist writer/blogger with a particular emphasis on all things nerdy. She lives in Toronto and has studied English and Film at York University. Myrna has a particular interest in the animation medium, having written extensively on American, Canadian and Japanese animation. She also has a passion for Sci-Fi & Fantasy literature, pop culture literature such as cartoons/comics, and the gaming subculture. She maintains a personal collection of blog posts, rants, essays and musings at The Soapboxing Geek, and tweets with reckless pottymouthed abandon at @SoapboxingGeek.

2013 Oscar Week: ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’: Deluge Myths

Quvenzhane Wallis as Hushpuppy in Beasts of the Southern Wild

 Guest post written by Laura A. Shamas, Ph.D.

Warning: spoilers ahead!
With the Oscar season in full swing, many of the nominated films released in 2012 are in the spotlight again. Beasts of the Southern Wild is nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Actress, Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director. Post-Sandy especially, the flood mythology motifs of Beasts of the Southern Wild deserve further examination, as they point to important symbols and mythic tropes active in the film. Water, personified as a character, reminds us of the potency of tales of the Deluge. Although floods are associated with destruction in mythology, they may also be seen as harbingers of renewal; Hushpuppy, the young female protagonist, leads with hope and wisdom at the film’s end.
Beasts of the Southern Wild, written by Lucy Alibar and Ben Zeitlin (based on Alibar’s play Juicy and Delicious), and directed by Zeitlin, is set in The Bathtub, a fictional delta region similar to parts of southern Louisiana. The story centers on Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), a six year-old girl growing up in a ramshackle compound in a boggy bayou, raised solely by her ailing caring and erratic father, Wink (Dwight Henry). Hushpuppy’s mother left a long time ago, and in her own special house, the girl sometimes converses aloud with a symbol of her mother — an old sports jersey her mom left behind. In Act Two, Hushpuppy links a flashing white light over water in the distance to her mother’s identity.

WATER AS SYMBOL
We see that Hushpuppy and Wink’s lives are impacted by the presence of Water, as it incites much of the film’s plot. In Act One, a powerful storm of hurricane-force comes at night; their compound is flooded. In the downpour, the monsoon is personified when, with a rifle, Wink shoots up in the torrential rain and yells: “I’m comin’ to get you, Storm.” The next day, Hushpuppy and Wink navigate their rusty boat, crafted from an old truck, through swollen, overflowing waterways; a lone pet dog joins them. They look for survivors and take stock of the crippling destruction in their region. At first, it seems that no one else has survived, and Hushpuppy remarks, in voiceover narration: “They’re all down below trying to breathe through water.” Their square boat resonates as an ark-like image in this sequence. In Symbols of Transformation, C. G. Jung identifies Noah’s Ark as “an analogy of the womb, like the sea into which the sun sinks for rebirth.”[i]

In A Dictionary of Symbols by Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant, the meaning of water “may be reduced to three main areas. It is a source of life, a vehicle of cleansing and a centre of regeneration.” [ii]

All three of these aspects are depicted in Beasts of the Southern Wild. In Act Two, water is shown as a source of life in a teaching sequence: Wink shows Hushpuppy how to catch fish by hand (“You have to learn how to feed yourself. Now stick your hand in this water!”). Also in Act Two, the ocean feeds the community in the celebratory scene of The Bathtub’s storm survivors feasting on crawfish in their makeshift shelter in Lady Jo’s seafood shack. Wink tells Hushpuppy to “Beast it!” as she eats a crab. We gradually understand that Wink, as Mentor, is teaching his daughter bayou survival skills.

Later, the water serves as a source for spiritual cleansing; Hushpuppy embarks on a search for her mother, and finds maternal nurturing from women who work aboard a pleasure ship, the “Elysian Fields Floating Catfish Shack” featuring “Girls Girls Girls.” Wink’s passing, with final ship burial rites that are similar to those of the ancient Vikings, is connected to a spiritual return to the sea.

The theme of “regeneration” is clear in the ending of Beasts of the Southern Wild, and discussed in further detail below. Much more than a mere setting, water is part of every major plot turn, and somehow young Hushpuppy must learn to live with it, on it, and sail through it. 

FLOODING: MEANING AND MYTHS
Key tropes from flood stories are featured in Beasts of the Southern Wild. In ancient flood mythology, deities send destructive waters to punish humanity; some flood myths are also categorized as part of creation myths because a new cycle may begin after the water recedes. A deluge brings fear, according to ARAS’ The Book of Symbols: “Floods are especially frightening because they intimate unpredictable forces of like nature within ourselves.” [iii] A deluge may herald a post-Apocalypse renewal — a spiritually cleansing effect, related to the purification function of baptism. From a myth perspective, it can be seen as a three-part process: ruination, revival, and purification. [iv] As Tamra Andrews writes in A Dictionary of Nature Myths: “Humanity returned to the water from whence it came, then began again.” [v]

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Classic tales from traditions worldwide feature flood motifs. The Sumerian Epic of Atrahasis predates Noah’s story; ARAS’ The Book of Symbols says the Atrahasis tale “describes casualties of flood strewn about the river like dragonflies.” [vi]

The familiar story of Noah’s Ark is one of many legends in which the deluge brings a renewal, the start of a new cycle, even a rainbow. In the Gilgamesh Flood Myth (which some scholars trace to The Epic of Atrahasis), Upnatishtim must build a boat to weather a storm so foul its verocity frightens the very gods who created it. Like Noah, Upnatishtim’s boat eventually lands atop a mountain.

In the Irish legend of Fintan mac Bóchra, Fintan escorted one of Noah’s granddaughters to Ireland. As one of three who lived through the deluge, Fintan “the Wise” survived the deluge by shape-shifting into a salmon and two birds; eventually he became a human again and advised the ancient Kings of Ireland. A Kikuyu story (Kenya) tells of spirits drowning a town with beer, as inhabitants find refuge in a tavern.

In China, the tales of “Yu The Great” center on flood fighting, with family sacrifices as part of the battles, and supernatural assistance in the form of a yellow dragon, or in some versions, Yu is the dragon. [vii] An ark features prominently in the Greek myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha, Prometheus’ son and Pandora’s daughter, who survive a flood unleashed by Zeus. Floods are also featured in numerous Native American tales, such as the Arapaho story of Creation, in which a man with a Flat Pipe enlists Turtle to help save the land or the Chickasaw Nation’s Legend of the Flood in which a raven delivers part of an ear of corn to a lone remaining family on a raft, post-Deluge.

Hushpuppy faces an Auroch in Beasts of the Southern Wild

In Beasts of the Southern Wild, the melting ice cap imagery is linked to the global warming rise of coastal waters — perhaps Earth’s way of punishing humankind (which could be seen as divine chastisement related to myths above). The “watery end of the world” theme, the motorboat as ark, the tavern as place of refuge, the release of supernatural beings (such as Hushpuppy’s vision of the frozen Aurochs unleashed through global warming), the connection to animals and earth as agents of healing (Hushpuppy listens to them): all of these elements in the film may be seen as related to flood myth tropes. Although there is no rainbow at the end, there is definitely as sense of renewal as Hushpuppy becomes the new Bathtub leader. The imagery and mythic tropes in the film overall resonate with symbols of giving birth: from the womb-like ark, to overwhelming water which could be seen as related to amniotic fluid, through Hushpuppy’s search for her long-absent mother.

HUSHPUPPY AS HEROINE
By the end, Hushpuppy emerges as a culture heroine, leading the surviving people of The Bathtub forward as they walk on a road with water lapping at them from all sides — with Hushpuppy as a signifier of renewal, in keeping with traditional motifs of flood mythology. This conclusion gives us a female-lead vision of hope for the future; Hushpuppy’s voiceover narration tells us that one day scientists will find evidence of a girl named Hushpuppy who lived with her father in the Bathtub.

With our collective experience of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and now Sandy in 2012, the poignant depiction of flood mythology tropes resonate strongly in this award-winning film. Watching Beasts of the Southern Wild allows us to consider the Deluge’s symbolic import to the human psyche not only as an image of destruction, but as an important signal of change, marking a time of transformation. 

———-
Laura Shamas is a writer, film consultant, and mythologist. Her newest book is Pop Mythology: Collected Essays. Read more at her website: LauraShamas.com.
NOTES
  • [i] Jung,C.G. Symbols of Transformation. Collected Works, Volume V. Edited and Translated by Gerhard Adler and R.F.C. Hull. Princeton University Press, 1977. Page 211, Paragraph 311.
  • [ii] Chevalier, Jean, and Alain Gheerbrant. Trans. John. Buchanan-Brown. A Dictionary of Symbols. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1994. Page 1081.
  • [iii] “Flood.” The Book of Symbols by The Archive For Research In Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS). Amy Ronnberg, Editor-In-Chief. Cologne: Tashen, 2010. Page 50
  • [iv] Andrews, Tamra. A Dictionary of Nature Myths: Legends of the Earth, Sea and Sky. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Page 72
  • [v] Andrews, Tamra. A Dictionary of Nature Myths: Legends of the Earth, Sea and Sky. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Page 72.
  • [vi] “Flood.” The Book of Symbols by The Archive For Research In Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS). Amy Ronnberg, Editor-In-Chief. Cologne: Tashen, 2010. Page 50.
  • [vii] Wilkinson, Phillip and Neil Phillip. “Yu Tames the Floods.” Eyewitness Mythology. London: Dorling Kindersley, 2007. Page 175.

2013 Oscar Week: Cosmology, Gender, and Quvenzhané Wallis: ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’

Written by Max Thornton.
In my studies, I work with the intersection of pop culture and religion. This is a frustrating field: a lot of the discourse from the theological side is exceedingly shallow, and the explicit pop-culture engagements with religion are rarely any better.
Honestly, I often find I can have the richest theological dialogue with popular culture that is not explicitly religious, and Beasts of the Southern Wild is a superb example.
It is, of course, religious in the broad twentieth-century existential sense of “ultimate concern” and “meaning-making.” The film tackles Big Themes of loss, belonging, growing up, but it does so through a very specific story – that of six-year-old Hushpuppy, living with her difficult father in an imperiled swampland community called the Bathtub.
Quvenzhané Wallis is astonishing as Hushpuppy. I own T-shirts older than this girl, but she knocked my socks off and I hope she wins a billion Oscars. Like the film itself, she had to pull off a delicate balancing of the cosmic and the intimate. As the cinematography veers between wide sweeps of polar ice caps and close, intense shots of life in the Bathtub, so Wallis seemingly effortlessly manages both the very embodied work of near-wordless acting and the lyrical voiceovers that punctuate the film. With lines like “The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right. If one piece busts, even the smallest piece, the entire universe will get busted,” Beasts of the Southern Wild reminds me a little of Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, but whereas that film bored me rigid, Beasts moved me to tears.
Or, to express that in Internet…

Part of that dynamic is simply that both films exist in an entertainment culture overwhelmingly dominated by white middle-class people. Before The Tree of Life ever came out, I had reached a point where if I never again in my life saw another piece of entertainment about a white suburban family, it would be too soon. A film about a poor, largely African-American community in a Louisiana bayou automatically grabs my attention to a much greater degree (and, let’s be perfectly honest, the fact that it’s 45 minutes shorter than Malick’s endless bloody movie doesn’t hurt).

Interestingly, the film was initially a play about a father and son. Writer Lucy Alibar’s initial choice to distance herself from the young character through the gender-flip is reversed for the screen, and she is not unaware of the politics of gender:

“We made a hero story with a little girl in it, and she is fighting for her family, not her boyfriend. I never saw that growing up, I thought I had to be a little boy to be a hero.” (BlackBook interview)

“I always felt like there wasn’t a blueprint for father daughter relationships — for them or for us. Because what are they supposed to do with us, treat us like boys, or small women, or what? Father daughter relationships are so unique from family to family, and I’d love to watch it explored more onstage.” (Barnes & Noble interview)

Suddenly it makes sense that Hushpuppy’s father encourages her to be “a man”: it’s the only way of relating that he knows. He simply has no other way of expressing his feelings or his hopes for his young daughter.

Hushpuppy, being a man.

The film beautifully navigates the relationship between independence and interdependence. From the very beginning, where Hushpuppy and her father live in separate but adjacent tiny houses, the six-year-old is never babied or coddled in any way; and yet she consistently stresses her understanding of the world and her place in it. She has a remarkably holistic idea of the cosmos, completely lacking in anthropocentrism – her description of a hospital: “When an animal gets sick here, they plug it into the wall” – and astounding in its sense of perspective.

Although the film itself doesn’t directly address the concept of God, it is pervaded with a religious sense. Lucy Alibar again:

“God isn’t this distant thing. God is right here with you all the time. He’s your buddy, and you can talk about everything. And writing this play and working on the film, seeing it, I felt God’s presence. I just had more of a sense of my place in the whole scope of everything.” (Elle interview)

Alibar’s triumph is that the film perfectly walks the line of contradictory impulses, affirming the individual’s “place in the whole scope of everything” without being deterministic, stressing the need to (as Hushpuppy’s teacher puts it) “take care of those smaller and sweeter than you” without being paternalistic, portraying an aching realism through a fantastical story of long-dead beasts. Cinema’s triumph is the emergence of an amazing young talent in QuvenzhanéWallis.

“I see that I’m a little piece in a big, big universe. And that makes things right.”



Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, tumbles as trans substantial, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax.

The Religious ‘Community’

Written by Max Thornton. Originally posted at Gay Christian Geek in March 2012; reposted here in honor of Community‘s return.
Anyone who is even casually acquainted with me in meat-life will be aware of two facts: (1) Community returned this week, and (2) I was very, very, very, very happy about this.
Community is straight-up my favorite show on TV. Its midseason disappearance from NBC’s schedule was devastating to me, and the announcement of its return had me capslock keymashing all over the internet. I celebrated Thursday’s episode with friends and champagne: it was glorious and beautiful, and it’s not really an exaggeration to say that this show is a religious experience for me. Here’s why.
I just love them all *so much*
1. The community of television
I tend to be fairly generous with my definition of “the religious”. Like Tillich, I think religion is an orientation toward ultimate concern; like Barthes, I believe we are surrounded by images that signify ideologies – and if popular culture reveals and reflects a society’s most deeply held values, then it’s not a huge leap to argue that pop culture can be a locus of religious experience. (Tom Beaudoin’s Virtual Faith makes this argument very nicely.)
Although TV ownership in the US is apparently declining, television is still the most ubiquitous form of mass media in this country (of that 3.3% of TV-less households, it’s a fairly solid bet that many of them still watch shows online). As such, it is the most unifying artifact of American popular culture, and thus television as a whole could be considered a site of religious meaning. Even for a small cult show like Community,several million viewers participate in the weekly ritual of watching it – a shared experience that nonetheless resonates on a personal level for each individual, much like a religious service.
2. The community of the individual
Some people have accused the Community ensemble of being uniformly terrible human beings who evince no character growth and are unlikeable and completely unrelatable. I will not link to the people saying these things, because they are erroneous, incorrect, inaccurate, misguided, mistaken wrong-mongers who are very very wrong.
I see myself in Jeff: his walls of sarcasm and cynicism that try but fail to hide the true depths of his emotional responses.
I see myself in Britta: her enthusiasm for political causes and her morality that stems from a heart in the right place but is often ill-thought-out or hypocritical in practice.
I see myself in Abed: his profound love of pop culture, his social discomfort, his use of pop culture to understand those around him.
I see myself in Shirley: her deep Christian faith and her struggle to overcome her personal failings to live a really loving Christian life.
I see myself in Annie: her neurotic perfectionism and intense fear of failure.
I see myself in Troy: his goofy sense of humor, his deep bromance with his BFF, his quest for a place and purpose in the world.
I see myself in Pierce: his desperate desire for acceptance and inclusion, insecurities often masked by acting like an almighty asshole.
I really, really love these characters. Each one of them speaks to a different part of my own personality, often in ways that illuminate my flaws and weaknesses. They are complicated, imperfect human beings, but they love each other and I love them. They embody the complex, messy reality of being human – of being simultaneously wonderful and terrible, capable of beautiful things and horrific things, worthy of love and of hate.
Remember this?
3. The community of friends
It’s called Community because that’s what it’s ultimately about. This is a show about a group of people who are thrown together in a situation that’s for none of them ideal, and who learn to make the best of it. The interpersonal dynamics at play in this show are special because they are bold and because they speak a truth that is rarely spoken in television.
Compare the show Friends. That was also a show about a group of friends, and it was often a sweet show with a good heart, but all the friends came from the same social location: straight, white, young, of a certain socioeconomic bracket. Community dares to portray a very diverse group of people who find common ground without erasing their differences. The relationship between the Self and the Other must involve both the unity of commonality and the space of respecting difference. Friendship is the experience of navigating this Scylla-and-Charybdis – learning to find common ground in your shared humanity while celebrating and benefiting from each other’s difference – and Community portrays this wonderful, difficult process better than any other show I’ve ever seen.
Remember this??
4. The heart of Community
Community is a dizzyingly inventive show, playing with pop-culture history in endlessly fun and creative ways, but it is still a television show, and as such it follows a certain formula. The characters love each other; they learn lessons about the value of friendship; they make missteps and hurt each other, but they ultimately make the right choices and warm our hearts. Like religious truth, Community‘s heart is both inexhaustibly profound and completely obvious.
So very many religious and philosophical traditions hinge on the Golden Rule. Jesus himself said that everything else was pretty much window-dressing. Love your neighbor as yourself: it really couldn’t be simpler. And yet we have to be taught it, over and over again, in different ways and by different people, and we still don’t do it. It’s childishly simple, but it’s also really difficult.
In the same way, Community is a television show. More specifically than that, it’s a half-hour network sitcom. It plays by established rules and conveys a simple, feel-good message. At the same time, though, it takes such delight in exploring the limits of those established rules and finding new and awesome ways to express that simple message.
Community is a show about love, it’s a show written from a place of love, and I believe it’s a manifestation of God’s love in the world. I leave you with the moment I first knew this show was something really special and a nugget of pure wisdom: cabeza es nieve, cerveza es bueno.
 
Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, tumbles as trans substantial, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax.

‘The Master’: A Movie About White Dudes Talking About Stuff

Movie poster for The Master
Well this movie is a piece of shit.

Slim at Gone Elsewhere does an excellent job of explaining the plot, so if you don’t know the plot, go there first … then come back here and let me explain to you why this movie is a piece of shit.

I went into it thinking it had the potential to be good because Paul Thomas Anderson made Magnolia, and Magnolia has some wonderfully nuanced and well-developed women characters, so I know he’s capable of not creating films exclusively about white dudes talking about stuff, but fuck, I honestly couldn’t get over his absolute reveling in the incessant blathering of white dudes to other white dudes.

Don’t get me wrong; Joaquin Phoenix’s emotionally disturbed character, Freddie Quell, totally makes a sand-woman on the beach—complete with breasts and spread legs—that he then proceeds to hump and fingerfuck in front of a group of cheering white dudes (even they get uncomfortable after a few seconds of this) before beating off into the oh-so-vast and Oscar-worthy cinematographically-shot ocean, but as far as women characters go, the sexually assaulted sand-woman left a little to be desired.

Freddie Quell pinching a sand-woman’s nipple in The Master

Okay, okay, Amy Adams appears a few times, once to read a naughty sex passage from a book to Freddie—who wouldn’t want to hear Amy Adams say “opening the lips of her cunt” (or something) for no discernible reason?—and she shows up again to jerk off her husband (The Master!) Philip Seymour Hoffman over a fucking bathroom sink, so I don’t want to mislead anyone—women exist in this sea of white dudes talking about stuff, but in between giving handjobs, carrying around infants, defending their men, and gratuitously exposing their breasts to drunk and violent sociopaths, they’re just kinda blah.

I don’t want to mislead anyone. I’m not saying I haven’t exposed a breast or two to a sociopath in my day, but that doesn’t mean I found these ladies relatable, and that includes the violated sand-woman.

Amy Adams in The Master, looking pissed

And I wish I knew what to say about Freddie’s love for a 16-year-old girl named Doris, especially since he looks like he’s in his mid-50s throughout the film. Okay, in fairness, Freddie only interacts with Doris in his memories (because this is art, people), so it makes sense that we never actually get to see Doris age. (But still, Freddie was either like 30 when she was 16, or they should’ve hired some better fucking makeup artists.)

Regardless of the potential statutory rape situation, Freddie can’t seem to get over his First Love because then we wouldn’t have the quintessential white dude movie plot dilemma: there’s a girl he can’t have, or a girl who died, or a girl he lost, or a girl he has to save—if there’s one thing we all know about films about white dudes talking about stuff, it’s that women emotionally fuck up white dudes so hard!

Eeeek, bitches, can we cool it already?

Doris and Freddie in Freddie’s creepy memory/flashback in The Master

This film will probably win a million Oscars and other accolades because the people who determine award winners in Hollywood are white dudes who like watching movies about other white dudes talking about stuff. And the critics lauding this film? They’re mostly white dudes who like helping white dudes who determine award winners in Hollywood vote for movies about white dudes talking about stuff. So yeah, expect this to grace the list of Best Picture Oscar Nominees.

Getting back to this movie being a piece of shit, here’s the thing: a million people will say, “Stephanie, you obviously just don’t get this film. It’s genius! You don’t understand art! It’s a metaphor for the ways in which religion and absolute power corrupt! These dudes are supposed to be awful!” Perhaps all of that is true. Except, of course, for the fact that none if it is true.

Freddie Quell, boom

Okay, on a less pissy day, I might go along with the argument that Anderson is attempting a successful metaphor regarding men and religion and corruption, but that doesn’t blind me to the fact that he ultimately uses women characters tropes of women to move forward the fairly boring plight of white dudes struggling with … something. I certainly don’t buy the argument either that this is just how things were back then i.e. whenever this film is supposed to take place; there’s an important difference between depicting a time period and straight-up worshiping it.

The point is, if your film contains about three speaking women total (oh, and a woman made of sand), and each of these women is constantly doing one of the following—standing by her man, carrying around babies, jerking dudes off, existing only in the occasional flashback, lying on a couch and talking about how she remembers a penis poking her when she was still a fetus in the womb—or, if she’s a literal fucking object (i.e. she’s made out of sand), then your film suffers from, at the very least, lazy writing.

The Master and his ladies

Yes, I just said that Paul Thomas Anderson, creator of There Will Be Blood (white dudes all over the place), Boogie Nights (a movie about a white dude with a giant cock), Hard Eight (white dudes), Punch Drunk Love (a movie about a white dude phone sex operator pimp or whatever), and Magnolia (a movie in which we get to hear famous white dude Tom Cruise tell us to “respect the cock”), got particularly lazy with his women characters in this one. Movies made by a white dude about white dudes talking about stuff—stuff like power and corruption in capitalism and religion, for instance—can succeed (There Will Be Blood)—just leave the fucking recycled caricatures of women out of it (There Will Be Blood).

Of course, then we wouldn’t be treated to last-line-of-the-film-gems like this:

Freddie (talking to a woman while she’s riding him): “You’re the bravest girl I’ve ever met. Now stick it back in, it fell out.”

If you want a different, slightly more intellectual (ha) take on The Master, you should read this review by Didion, who writes “… this film shows that Anderson has a lot more sensitivity toward women than his prior films would suggest.”

Preach it!

E.T. – Queer Space Jesus

People love writing stories about Space Jesus. The Ur-example is, for me, Klaatu in The Day The Earth Stood Still (believe it or not, the scriptwriter thought he was being subtle with that one, bless his heart). An alien stranded, alone of its kind, on another planet is the very archetype of a stranger in a strange land, of the returning repressed other, of that liminal hybridity that’s so often figured as monstrous, holy, or somehow both. As a cultural trope, Space Jesus makes perfect sense.

I admit, I just needed an excuse to post this picture, because it’s awesome.
All my life, E.T. has been a favorite Space Jesus of mine, and it’s not just because the film’s human protagonist is, like me, burdened with a severe case of Middle Child Syndrome. E.T.’s Space Jesus characteristics are thunderingly obvious – the magical healing powers, the precious too-good-for-this-sinful-earth-ness, the death and resurrection – but he can also be read as a specifically queer Jesus figure.
Queer theology is a pretty young discipline, but queer figurations of Jesus have always abounded. The fourteenth-century mystic Julian of Norwich wrote passionately about Jesus as Mother, endlessly giving birth to us. (As an aside, I would encourage anyone who’s Christian and depressed to read Julian: “God did not say you will not be troubled, you will not be belabored, you will not be disquieted; but God said, You will not be overcome.”). Renaissance artwork depicting Jesus is fairly bursting with homoeroticism. Early-twentieth-century attempts to portray Jesus as ruggedly masculine were a direct reaction to a nineteenth-century Christ popularly associated with traditionally feminine characteristics.
What’s new in queer theology is not the act of queering Jesus as such, but the conscious employment of analytical tools taken from secular queer theory: a deconstructionist methodology, a critical focus on subjectivity and embodiment, and a dedication to problematizing the gender binary.
E.T. definitely problematizes the gender binary. According to IMDb, “Spielberg stated in an interview that E.T. was a plant-like creature, and neither male or female.” Elliott codes him male while Gertie dresses him up femme – both of them projecting their own gender identity on the squashy little guy. Like the Jesus of queer and postcolonial studies, E.T. functions as a blank slate for people to project themselves onto. He is what they need him to be.
This is what a Queer Space Jesus looks like.
There’s also something very queer about the connection between E.T. and Elliott. It’s not just a psychic link – it’s somatic: when E.T. falls ill, Elliott falls ill; when E.T. gets drunk, Elliott gets drunk. The embodied yet mystical link between boy and alien has notes of the in-dwelling Holy Spirit that joins believers to the body of Christ, which is arguably an inherently queer concept anyway.
Medic: “Elliott thinks its thoughts?”
Michael: “No, Elliott feels his feelings.”
(And that scene where he asks the frog if it can talk and then releases all the frogs? Not just psychically-drunken shenanigans. I think it shows Elliott gaining a heightened awareness of the value of non-human life – borderline ecofeminist theology – and it also recalls the plague of the frogs in Egypt. People often spot the Christiness of E.T., but they rarely seem to note the Exodus undercurrents. Which is ironic, given that Spielberg’s Jewish.)
There are other Jesus connections to be made – am I reading too much into it if I note that Elliott’s mother is named Mary, and that the kids occasionally seem to address her as such? That, in an upending of the Mary and Martha story, she plays the Martha role as she bustles around putting groceries away, too busy even to notice Gertie playing with E.T.? And I note that Jesus has always seemed to me like kind of an asshole in that story, and that Elliott’s mom is presented with a good deal of sympathy for how hard she works as a newly-single mother of three, and that seems like a useful queering of a problematic biblical text.
What, then, do we do with our queer Space Jesus? I think it’s important that there’s no dogmatic answer to that question. If there were, he wouldn’t be very queer. Queer Space Jesus isn’t about providing neat answers, or even necessarily about making life easier or better. What we can get from him is a renewed sense of wonder and awe regarding our vast starry universe, our tiny blue planet, and the amazing mystery of life; a promise that we are not alone, that our alienation is understood on a profound and compassionate level by other life-forms on our own world as well as perhaps on others; and an everlasting assurance that, come what may, he’ll be right here.
   
Excuse me. I have something in my eye.    
Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax.