Science Fiction – Page 6

The Dreamscapes and Nightmares of Jamin Winans’ ‘Ink’

Like many fans of this film, I initially watched ‘Ink’ (2009) on Netflix and immediately conducted some research to learn more about the making of this independent picture. It’s also a narrative that lingers with you after you’ve finished watching it, so I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about the film’s acting and score, as well as the pivotal moments that merge with a complex plot that unfolds somewhere between reality and fantasy. After maybe a half a dozen viewings, this story never fails to evoke tears for me.

Written by Jenny Lapekas.

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS!

Like many fans of this film, I initially watched Ink (2009) on Netflix and immediately conducted some research to learn more about the making of this independent picture. It’s also a narrative that lingers with you after you’ve finished watching it, so I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about the film’s acting and score, as well as the pivotal moments that merge with a complex plot that unfolds somewhere between reality and fantasy. After maybe a half a dozen viewings, this story never fails to evoke tears for me.

This independent film by Jamin Winans is structured around the story of a father and daughter, alongside breathtaking visuals, ethereal yet warrior-like beings, and an amazing, ambient soundtrack. Comparable to the existential terror of Donnie Darko and the romantic beauty of Eternal Sunshine, Ink is a masterpiece in terms of storytelling, artistic integrity, and the craft of merging humor with the spiritual and the potential darkness lurking in the subconscious. Winans’ vision will make you question where you go when you close your eyes to sleep and how you find your way back to waking. Ink also instills a sense of philosophical well-being, suggesting that some events in our lives may be pre-determined while we maintain the ability to step in and incite change if we would like.

John (Chris Kelly) falls apart and loses his way after his wife dies, leaving him and his young daughter Emma (Quinn Hunchar) behind. However, with the help of otherworldly companions and foes, father and daughter find each other in the dark, traversing through the world of dreams and nightmares, reminding us that we are our own worst enemy. In this reality, those who bestow pleasant dreams watch over us as we sleep and fight the evil incubi who attempt to burden us with nightmares. These two forces battle as we sleep, and John and Emma find themselves in the crossfire in Ink.

Liev, the “Storyteller,” acts as a sort of spirit guide and helps to save both John and Emma through her kind patience and gentle push for John to remember who he used to be.

Via flashbacks, we discover that John grew up poor and is now obsessed with fortune and success in his career, so much so that he has become a cold shell of the person he once was. We are also shown glimpses of the love story between John and his late wife. However, rather than cherish the piece of Shelly still in this world–Emma–he abandons his entire life and embarks on a downward spiral of depression and oblivion.

Most central to the plot of Ink is the conflicted father-daughter relationship we see between John and Emma. We are shown the dark implications of suicide when we watch John shoot himself and become the grotesque figure, Ink, whose name reminds us that we are always capable of changing our own story, taking initiative and owning our lives and our choices. Emma also shows immense courage as she loses her father and then helps him to recall his former life.

In an especially critical scene toward the beginning of the film, Emma pleads with her father to play with her, and he is reluctant, claiming that her mother can entertain her when she wakes. Here, we see the prototypical image of the bumbling, single father who feels uncertain about his parenting abilities, but is in fact doing well raising a daughter (see Casper, My Girl, and Dan in Real Life). However, after some resistance, John gives in and leaps into Emma’s make-believe world where he must rescue her from “the monster,” which we later discover is indeed John himself.

Making the transition from monster to father, John fights off the incubi and saves his little girl.

I think it’s important to recognize Allel as a fierce guardian over both father and child, and also a wonderful role model for young viewers. In this dimension, we see multiple fight scenes between Allel and male-gendered incubi. While saving Emma is truly a group effort, it’s always refreshing to spot a woman who isn’t afraid to swing a dangerous weapon–in Allel’s case, a staff she carries on her back. Liev, the beautiful and ethereal woman who is willingly taken prisoner by Ink as he and Emma journey to hand over the girl’s soul, is a prominent feminist character in the film, as well; she encourages Emma by explaining that she is transforming into a lioness in this new world and she had better practice her roar. Unlike Allel, Liev carries no weapons and teaches Emma that her voice is her weapon.

Allel and Liev both act as spirit guides in their quest to protect the innocent life of Emma, who is suffering due to her father’s neglect and drug and alcohol use. Liev is more of a maternal, pacifist figure in the movie while Allel gets pretty down and dirty beating up the forces of evil. Both characters are feminine forces the film can’t do without; Allel is part of Emma as she infuses her unconscious with pleasant dreams while Liev lends the resilient Emma the strength to cope with her kidnapping at the hands of her unrecognizable father.

The gang battles their enemies in another dimension, never causing physical change or destruction in our world.

We’re so invested in cycles and rhythms, whether it’s in our own lives or in film or literature–which mirror our lives–it’s provocative to find a scene in Ink that depicts the halting or disruption of flow in favor of necessary disorder so that change can be reached. Jacob, the “Pathfinder,” easily recognizes the chain of events and tells us that “one thing begets the next.” In an intense and memorable scene, Jacob demonstrates how sometimes the steady and predictable rhythms of life must be interrupted to jar us so that we can experience a personal revelation and recall what we value and who we are.

Jacob orchestrates an “accident” so that John is sent to the same hospital where his daughter is in a coma.

The set of metaphysical beings who travel alongside John and Emma in their quest to be reunited are so likable in their efforts to protect father and child, and we fret that they can be defeated at any moment, and all will be lost. With the combination of bad ass fight scenes, magnificent imagery, and the sense that these guardian spirits are reflections of our own spiritual imaginations and longings, it’s shocking that Ink’s budget was a mere $250,000. This low-budget sci-fi drama certainly exceeds viewer expectations, and the irony of a blind seer with a chip on his shoulder adds a dimension of comedy to an otherwise somber film. Ink’s cinematography is impressive, and the film’s score–also developed by Winans–is exquisite and accompanies the film’s juxtaposition of action and quiet nurturing nicely.

Allel tries to hold off the incubi from entering Emma's hospital room. — Allel tries to hold off the incubi from entering Emma’s hospital room.

Realizing his error and that he almost abandoned Emma for good, John fights off the evil incubi who merely capture the little girl. Something awe-inspiring happens as we watch this narrative unfold in two opposing dimensions, one in the clinical environment of a hospital and the other in a world where our souls may be lost if we lose our way. The merging point is brilliant; John rescues his daughter when she needs him the most, and the film offers us both dream-like metaphor and concrete reality, which work alongside one another well. John’s decision to seek Emma at the hospital works as Ink’s denouement in a deeply visceral fashion. We also come to discover that when John is jolted out of his own coma or temporary self-exile, in choosing to father Emma, he chooses himself.

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Jenny has a Master of Arts degree in English, and she is a part-time instructor at Alvernia University. Her areas of scholarship include women’s literature, menstrual literacy, and rape-revenge cinema. You can find her on WordPress and Pinterest.

‘Edge of Tomorrow’: Yesterday’s Tom Cruise

Please don’t let my snarky tone fool you – I love science fiction, particularly near-future stories with a dystopic veneer. So does everyone else, which is why this film genre has been so strongly represented lately, e.g., ‘RoboCop’ (2014), ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ (2014), and ‘X-men: Days of Future Past’ (2014), to name a few. And that’s the problem – it’s difficult to watch ‘Edge’ without comparing it to its contemporaries.

Written by Andé Morgan.

Edge of Tomorrow stars Emily Blunt and Tom Cruise as near-future warriors battling alien invaders. It was directed by Doug Liman.

There is something perverse about attacking a film for its lack of originality when the central conceit is that the main character repeats the same day over and over again. So, in an effort to preserve my purity, now for something completely different. You remember Groundhog Day (1993), yes? It had plenty of Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, but it was lacking… sci-fi. Specifically, it needed some quantum pseudoscience and a horde of generic squido-mechanical pod people.

Anyway, Edge of Tomorrow (2014). Released this weekend (June 6), it stars Tom Cruise as military PR weasel Major William Cage. We meet him after a trite news reel intro composed of an anthology of worldwide unrest footage (most, it seems, from the last century for some reason). He has been summoned by a large man who commands the world’s unified armed forces. Instead of spinning war from afar, Cage will be imbedded with the troops during the imminent (second) landing at Normandy. This time, humanity is attempting to take back continental Europe from an alien aggressor, so far only vaguely referenced as the “Mimics.” Cage is a coward, and clumsily threatens blackmail in an attempt to avoid combat. It doesn’t work. Instead, Cage is arrested and sent to a forward base to meet his fate as a deserter conscript. Behold, the premise.

Please don’t let my snarky tone fool you – I love science fiction, particularly near-future stories with a dystopic veneer. So does everyone else, which is why this film genre has been so strongly represented lately, e.g., RoboCop (2014), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), and X-men: Days of Future Past (2014), to name a few. And that’s the problem – it’s difficult to watch Edge without comparing it to its contemporaries.

Like the films mentioned above, Edge features frenetic action sequences and trailer-worthy tech pieces. Most notable are the exo-suits (“jackets”) employed by the Earthican forces. Exoskeletons are having something of a moment recently; see RoboCop (2014), The Amazing Spiderman 2 (2014), the Iron Man franchise, and others. So, who wore it better? My sense of aesthetics favors Murphy in RoboCop. Perhaps this is not a fair comparison, as RoboCop was much more concerned with the ethics and practical reality of cyborgism. Still, the exosuits in Edge, which are really the film’s party piece, were just so mundane compared to those envisioned in RoboCop. Instead of a fresh vision of technological advancement, they seemed like a regression from the Caterpillar P-5000 Powered Work Loader in Aliens (1986). In fact, they seem like tech that might really only be a few years away, much to the detriment of their wow factor.

The Mimics too, are unremarkable. Spastic glowing balls of slashing alien death have been done better by the Matrix films, and, even, by Battleship (2012). It’s explained that the mimics have a hierarchal structure composed of a legion of small fiery footsoliders, rare blue “alphas,” and a central “server” being (I was reminded of the brain bugs in Starship Troopers). During the first iteration of the beach landing Cage is, of course, killed. On his way out, he kills an alpha and the alien’s blood mingles with Cage’s. The brain mimic has the power to TURN BACK TIME, and does so whenever an alpha is killed. However, while the head mimic can list time travel, telepathy, organo-metallic bioengineering, and interstellar travel as hard skills, it is unable to discern that Cage is actually a human. Time is reversed, and Cage awakens to face battle once again.

And again.

Yeah, I am down on this movie. I can forgive a lack of originality if the other elements of a story shine, but we don’t even find out why the aliens are called mimics! What do they mimic? Aliens from other movies? What the hell, man?

The supporting cast doesn’t fare much better. Cage’s fellow soldiers are a rag tag crew in the vein of every war movie ever. There is a mean southern (y’all can tell by the accent, y’all) drill sergeant, a fat guy, a “crazy” guy, a black guy, a foreign guy, and a woman. It can be refreshing to see women depicted in combat roles, but Edge, like so many other films before, falls into tropes in its depiction. The female solider is shown as less clean, less sensible, and gratuitously gruff, as if she has to curse and posture constantly to defend her presence in the unit.

Blunt’s character, Rita Vrataski, is something different. She is a battle-hardened soldier that Cage has set up as a figurehead for the military to rally around. She wears practical armor (except for a helmet – no one has time for hat hair on the battlefield), and dispatches her foes with a badass Final Fantasy sword. To his credit, Liman avoided eroticizing her combat moves and generally stayed away from FFD clichés, save for a few superfluous yoga poses. A superior warrior, she teaches Cage in anti-chrome-cephalopod techniques in a training montage filled with hilarious homicide sight gags.

It is great to see a feature with a woman warrior who is not also a sex object, but there are a few problems. The other soldiers in the film refer to Rita as the “Full Metal Bitch,” a term she clearly does not care for. And while she initially trains Cage, he soon takes over a protector role, and attempts to use time travel trickery to seduce her. This scene is kinda creepy, and it does not help that Blunt and Cruise lack chemistry.

Rita does make it to the climax without getting well and truly fridged, and joins Cage in making a heroic sacrifice. Unfortunately, the script fails both the spirit and the letter of the Bechdel test. I did not note any female characters talking to each other, and the several women in the film were always either talking to Cage or talking about Cage.

Edge of Tomorrow is not a repugnant film – its treatment of women is uneven, but trending towards positive. But neither is it a great film (despite what the interwebs may tell you). For example, the dialogue was hokey in a way befitting it’s genre. Midway through the film a wild-haired-scientist tells us that the aliens’ “only vulnerability is…humanity.”

Post climax, a feel-good ending closes with a slapsticky shot of Cruise laughing to camera right. As the credits start to roll, the viewer is left with a quickly fading memory of an unremarkable vision of the future. The film does borrow heavily from the other movies mentioned above, as well as from previous Cruise vehicles like Minority Report (2002) and Oblivion (2013). In fact, Rachel Redfern was on point in her review of Oblivion: “Tom Cruise’s latest movie…is exactly that, a movie about Tom Cruise.”

I agree. Likewise, it’s best not to evaluate Edge as an original film, a science fiction film, or a feminist film – it’s a Tom Cruise film.

Note: For more information on things like “why are they called mimics,” and “what the hell is this movie supposed to be about,” here’s the source material: All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka.

Andé Morgan lives in Tucson, Arizona, where they write about culture, race, politics, and LGBTQ issues. Follow them @andemorgan.

The Very Few Women of ‘Star Wars’: Queen Amidala and Princess Leia

With cast members Daisy Ridley, Carrie Fisher (reprising her role as the iconic Princess Leia), Lupita Nyong’o and Gwendoline Christie, these women quadruple the number of female leads that typically appear in a ‘Star Wars’ trilogy. That’s right. Until now, space has apparently been no place for women, especially strong women with more than one or two lines.

Mother and daughter: Padme and Leia — Mother and daughter: Padmé and Leia

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

As buzz builds around the upcoming and presumably final Star Wars trilogy following the announcement of the Episode VII’s cast, I’m relieved to see that, with the recent addition of Game of Thrones‘ Gwendoline Christie and 12 Years a Slave‘s Lupita Nyong’o, the Star Wars franchise is trying to overcome its reputation as a sausage-fest. With Daisy Ridley on board (I’m guessing to play Han and Leia’s daughter) and veteran Carrie Fisher, who’ll be reprising her role as the iconic Princess Leia, these women quadruple the number of female leads that typically appear in a Star Wars trilogy. That’s right. Until now, space has apparently been no place for women, especially strong women with more than one or two lines. Now we just have to hope that Christie and Nyong’o won’t be used as Othered alien cameos and that these women’s considerable talents will be used, instead, to enrich the flagging franchise.

Consider the way the questionable way George Lucas has dealt with the very few women of Star Wars from the beginning. For the original Episodes IV-VI, we have Fisher as the tough rebel leader, but still royalty, Leia Organa…the only female character of note in the entire trilogy.

Leia in camouflage uniform on the forest moon of Endor

In the prequel Episodes I-III, we have Natalie Portman playing Padmé Amidala, Luke and Leia’s mother as well as a strong, independent, politically savvy queen…the only female character of note in the follow-up trilogy.

'Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace' featured an ass-kicking Amidala — *The Phantom Menace* featured an ass-kicking Padmé

Basically, despite the fact that entire Star Wars trilogies feature only a single female lead, each trilogy starts off with promise because that lone lady happens to be an empowered women who leads others with compassion, but isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty by firing a few blasters.

Mother and daughter both start off as forces to be reckoned with

Though Leia is the apex of yet another insipid (and incestuous) cinematic love triangle, her role as a critical leader in the rebellion is far more defining of her identity. In A New Hope, Leia is captured by Imperial forces and tortured. Not only does she not reveal the location of the rebel alliance, she is also integral in the success of her own rescue at the hands of Han and Luke. She also displays remarkable bravery, intelligence, and an innate talent for The Force (shown in both Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi through unexplained knowledge, strength, and a supernatural connection to her twin, Luke).

A deceptively helpless imprisoned Leia moments before her escape

Interestingly enough, one of Leia’s most seriously badass scenes is also, conversely, her most iconically objectifying one as well. When Leia poses as a “ruthless” bounty hunter to infiltrate Jabba’s Palace to rescue Han in Return of the Jedi, her cool points went through the roof. I love the idea of the woman organizing a team to go in and rescue her male love interest. However, women being in love within the Star Wars universe never goes well, and Leia is captured and forced to don scanty clothing and lounge beside Jabba. The film is vague about whether or not she has been raped or forced to engage in sexual acts with Jabba, but from here on out, Leia’s image as “Slave Leia” has gone down in pop culture as well as sexual fetish history and continues to be a popular cosplay for nerd gals and others.

I hate that Leia is best remembered for her "Slave Leia" outfit — I hate that Leia is best remembered for her “Slave Leia” outfit

Though Leia is demeaned, harassed, threatened, and disgusted by her captor, in the end, she’s able to take charge. With nothing but the chain around her neck, enslaving her, she kills Jabba, one of the most iconic villains of all time before aiding the rest of her friends in their escape. Her self-liberation, that she’s integral to her team and their escape, and that she fucking killed Jabba the fucking Hut goes a long way to distract us from the fact that for two films, we didn’t even see Leia’s wrists or ankles and suddenly, now that she’s in love, she’s a prime target for grossly sexualized objectification.

Though scantily clad, Leia is heavily armed

Later in Return of the Jedi, things get even dicier for Leia when she’s befriended and essentially held hostage by the furry Ewoks (I wonder if Lucas has some sexual fetishes he was indulging in this film). They give her a rustic dress, braid her hair and make her wear it down for the first time in the trilogy. They protect her and ignore her. Essentially, the Ewoks relegate Leia to a traditional female role, removing her agency. Leia is rescued by her friends yet again. The fact of the matter is that Leia, our only female character, is captured and rescued more than any other character in the trilogy. In the end, the film gives her back a measure of agency, and she is allowed to fight in the final battle.

Leia’s mother, Padmé, is a more extreme example of Lucas’ at best confused, at worst fucked-up attitude toward women in that her highs are higher, but her lows are so very, very much lower. On the positive side, Padmé is a popular and well-respected ruler-turned-Senator who is courageous in her dedication to her people. She generally wields her power for good, in defense of her planet and is never power hungry, nor is she a mere figurehead (despite the ridiculous ornamental nature of her wardrobe). She is alternately a diplomat and a warrior when the need arises.

Amidala doesn't shirk from necessary conflict — Padmé doesn’t shirk from necessary conflict

Though considerable, that’s where Padmé’s awesomeness ends. Throughout all three films, she is treated like a doll with her parade of outfits and her elaborate face painting. There’s even a Star Wars wiki page dedicated to her extensive wardrobe. Much of her Naboo state attire is even offensive with its appropriation of Asian cultural aesthetic.

So...many...costume...changes — Does Lucas *also* have an Asian fetish?

Despite the focus the films place on her body via her endless stream of costumes, Padmé mostly remains a badass (except for her vote of no confidence in Chancellor Valorum that opens the door for Palpatine to take control of the Senate, ushering in the tyranny of the Empire for decades to come…except for that). All agency slips from her, though, when Padmé falls in love with the atrociously acted Anakin Skywalker.

Padmé becomes little more than a love interest and a pretty face

Her story ceases to be one about political advocacy, diplomacy, and her struggles to keep her people’s liberties and safety intact. Instead, Padmé becomes little more than a love interest and a pretty face. Ignoring the fact that the love story is painfully trite and stilted with zero chemistry and wooden acting, this romance becomes all that Padmé is about. She marries Anakin in secret and becomes pregnant, and her personality totally changes. She becomes a simpering, deplorable character who dies of a broken heart. I mean, who cares that Anakin has been a childish wanker from the beginning and that she’s got a newborn set of twins? Life, I guess, is just too unbearable for a once strong and independent woman once she realizes she made a bad choice in love.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfX01lURXFk”]

Interestingly enough, Lucas did a better job in the 70s and 80s with his depiction of Leia than he did 20 years later when he brought Padmé to life.

Of the renderings of Skywalker women, Leia wins the prize for badassery

It’s a sad state of affairs when representations of women become progressively less feminist as time goes on. Despite the fact that certain parties are involved: Lucas with his growing record of bad judgment and J.J. Abrams with his habit of taking all the substance out of sci-fi franchises, I can’t help but be hopeful that the new Star Wars trilogy will get it right where its predecessors failed. Though the series has let me down before (Episodes I-III were, frankly, Bantha fodder), having several actresses on the cast for this new trilogy, women known for their strong female characters is a bright spot in a franchise that’s rapidly turning towards the Dark Side.

Of George Lucas, I, like Luke, can only say, “There is good in him. I’ve felt it.” And I, like Luke, will continue to have faith until it is perhaps too late.

Bitch Flicks writer and editor 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.

Gender, Androgyny, and ‘The Dark Crystal’

The primary theme of ‘The Dark Crystal’ is that there should be no opposites, no dichotomies, no binaries. There cannot be balance when we separate out good and evil, ends and beginnings, cruelty and kindness, male and female. These things are truly one and exist together, inseparable.

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

I’m at it again, reviewing a piece of media from my childhood that powerfully affected me in the hopes of determining what kind of message it imparted to my younger self and how that message helped shape the woman I am today. This time around, it’s Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal. (My blast-from-the-past reviews thus far include: Was Jem and the Holograms a Good Show for Little Girls, Splash: A Feminist Tail Tale?, She-Ra Kinda, Sorta Accidentally Feministy, and “No man may have me”: Red Sonja a Feminist Film in Disguise?) The Dark Crystal, like so many other 80s movies, appealed to me because it was dark, otherworldly, and told a story that was not only unique, but epic in scale. When I look back on The Dark Crystal, what strikes me most is the film’s complicated representation of gender. Most of the film’s characters are overwhelmingly androgynous.

The last gelflings: Jen & Kira — The last Gelflings: Jen and Kira

The heroes of our tale are a pair of Gelflings, the last surviving members of a race the Skeksis genocided to avoid a prophecy foretelling their downfall. In appearance, Gelflings are decidedly androgynous: they are small and child-like with smooth, feminine features and long hair. Both are gentle and soft-spoken; Jen loves to play music on his pipe while Kira sings along. However, being female gives Kira the advantage of flight because female Gelflings have wings.

Kira surprises us by using her wings to rescue Jen

Kira can also speak to animals and plants. Though that is a learned trait from her Podling foster family, women being able to understand creatures of nature is a common trope to denote femininity.

Kira marshals a pair of landstriders to help their quest — Kira marshals a pair of Landstriders to help their quest

Though Kira is physically the least androgynous character in the film, she is brave and sure of herself when Jen is not. Though Jen is the one singled out for destiny and agency with his possession of the crystal shard, he doubts his mission and himself. Kira must spur him to adventure. She also uses her wits and talents to rescue herself when the Skeksis try to drain her essence. Not only that, but in the final scene when the Skeksis are closing in, she sacrifices herself, using her own body to show Jen the path when he is lost. Kira is simply a hero. Her feminine traits don’t make her weak, and her possession of typically coded masculine heroic traits does not make her masculine. At the end of the film when the Skeksis and Mystics are joined together again to form the UrSkeks, one of them says to Jen as he holds Kira’s lifeless form, “She is a part of you.” This is true, especially considering their earlier Dreamfasting scene in which the two touch and share memories. Though Jen is male and Kira is female, their genders do not make them binary. They are stronger together; together they form a single whole. (More on that theme later…)

Kira sacrifices everything to help Jen heal the dark crystal — Kira sacrifices everything to help Jen heal the Dark Crystal

The wise figure of Aughra is also androgynous. She is clearly female with a woman’s voice and large breasts with protruding nipples, but she has a beard and curling ram’s horns along with a removable eye. The companion novel to the film, The World of the Dark Crystal, apparently identifies Aughra as both male and female, the essence and personification of the planet Thra in which our story takes place.

Aughra. Don't mess with her. — Aughra. Don’t mess with her.

Aughra is powerful, ancient, and grotesque. She commands the plants of the earth and holds the crystal shard. She is an astronomer, scientist, and prophetess who can read the future in the stars. She regards the Great Conjunction as “the end of the world…or the beginning,” claiming it’s “all the same.” Like the Gelflings don’t distinguish between self and other when it comes to male and female of their race, Aughra sees ends in beginnings and beginnings in ends. Instead of focusing on how things are different, disparate, and separate, Aughra sees infinite connections, sameness, and harmony in unity.

The entire journey of the film centers around reuniting a sundered shard to make the Dark Crystal whole again. This will reunite the sundered Mystics and Skeksis who were once single beings now separated, embodying binary, dichotomous traits with the Skeksis being evil, selfish, greedy, cruel, and violent while the Mystics are gentle, kind, peaceful, and generous. Interestingly enough, the Mystics and Skeksis are all male, and their combined form continues to be male, but their maleness is not wholly traditionally masculine in its representation.

The Mystics nurture Jen, teaching him the gentle magics of the earth

The Mystics embody more traditionally coded female characteristics: gentleness, nurturing, community building, a connection to the earth: teaching, music, and magic. They’re long-haired and peaceful…the hippies of their planet (one of them even wears a stylin’ do-rag over his hair).

Look at those lovely locks flowing in the wind. Think he conditions?

In many ways, the Skeksis are more overtly masculine in their desire to subjugate others, the grotesque way they eat, their trials by combat, and their quickness to anger and violence. On the other hand, the Skeksis are obsessed with fashion. Their clothing defines them, and the disrobing of our lead Skeksis, Chamberlain, is the height of dishonor and humiliation. They disrobe him before casting him out after he loses the trial-by-stone competition to be emperor.

The Skeksis are serious about their opulent robes.

Chamberlain himself is very androgynous with his high-pitched voice, slight build, and his preference for manipulation over force. The Skeksis are also obsessed with looking youthful. They drain the “essence” of Podlings, turning it into an elixir that they drink in order to temporarily rid themselves of wrinkles. This obsession is reminiscent of our own female-dominated beauty and fashion culture.

A disrobed Chamberlain trying to beguile the naïve Jen

The primary theme of The Dark Crystal is that there should be no opposites, no dichotomies, no binaries. There cannot be balance when we separate out good and evil, ends and beginnings, cruelty and kindness, male and female. These things are truly one and exist together, inseparable. The film’s representations of gender give preference to a more androgynous, non-binary mode of being, insisting that gender and human nature are too rich and complicated to be “this or that,” “one or the other,” “either or.” As a child, this de-coding of masculinity and femininity that allowed characters to be so much more than a simple gender formed a piece of the bedrock of my lifelong questioning of gender roles, gender hierarchy, and the entire binary system of gender. Thanks, Brian Froud and Jim Henson!

“I Choose Gru!”: on ‘Despicable Me 2’ and Lucy Wilde

I only recently discovered the ‘Despicable Me’ movies, and I’m overjoyed that I have an excuse to review the second one and to explicate its feminist elements, especially since so many women have primary roles in the ever-changing life of villain-turned-hero Gru (Steve Carell). In fact, I love these films so much, I enjoyed a Despicable-themed birthday cake earlier this week. It’s no mistake that the second movie concludes while Cinco de Mayo festivities ensue–my birthday!

Written by Jenny Lapekas.

I only recently discovered the Despicable Me movies, and I’m overjoyed that I have an excuse to review the second one and to explicate its feminist elements, especially since so many women have primary roles in the ever-changing life of villain-turned-hero Gru (Steve Carell). In fact, I love these films so much, I enjoyed a Despicable-themed birthday cake earlier this week. It’s no mistake that the second movie concludes while Cinco de Mayo festivities ensue–my birthday!

Gru returns to us in Despicable Me 2 (Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaid, 2013) as a nurturing father to three wonderful little girls–Agnes, Edith, and Margo–and we find that he’s able to merge his fatherhood duties with his exciting lifestyle. In the first film, Gru’s main priority is to become the most evil villain in the world, and he competes with the nerdy yet skilled Vector (Jason Segel) for the title. While Gru’s evil deeds range from cutting in line for coffee to encouraging his ugly dog to poop on his neighbor’s flowers, he literally gives up the moon for his girls, which now includes his new wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig), sent from the Anti-Villain League to request his help in pursuing a new villain. Because Lucy completes the image the girls maintain of the exemplary family before they were adopted, and she finds a way into Gru’s heart as well, I would like to focus primarily on her in this post.

Gru is slow to recognize that Lucy's antics complement his nicely. — Gru is slow to recognize that Lucy’s antics complement his nicely.

The various roles Lucy plays in this movie are pivotal to the plot and character development we see throughout as we come to understand her as a professional, a cunning and intelligent woman, and an undeniably feminist hero. That isn’t to say that Gru is not a feminist character as well–indeed, he is very much so. Lucy becomes Gru’s work partner as the two get themselves into trouble, only to come to each other’s rescue. She then becomes the temporarily unattainable love interest, then the damsel in distress, and finally Gru’s bride and a mother to the precocious girls, who find their new mom pretty amazing. As Gru is busy uncovering clues for the Anti-Villain League and combating Margo’s (Miranda Cosgrove) newfound interest in boys, he can’t help but fall for the poise and quirky charm that Lucy emanates.

At Agnes’s birthday party, an unnamed woman is persistent in setting Gru up on a blind date. Why the push to find someone to love and marry? This buzzing in Gru’s ear is symptomatic of the heteronormative agenda Gru is struggling to resist. Gru rejects the woman’s invitations both intellectually and socially by not-so-politely declining, and bodily by spraying her with a garden hose. His comical proclamation “I did not see you there…or there,” as he knocks her off her feet, signifies the ex-villain’s outright refusal to acknowledge his own “aloneness” (not to be confused with “loneliness”) that others may see when they look at a single (and new) father. Quite simply, Gru feels perfectly fulfilled by his daughters and his rather eccentric life fighting villains and manufacturing delicious jams and jellies.

However, I think it’s important for us to notice this dynamic as a downtrodden Gru admits to “liking” Lucy to his youngest daughter Agnes (Elsie Fisher), trusting her with this intimate and sensitive knowledge. Although Gru inevitably gives in to the social contract that we should all marry, especially when we have children, he does so on his own terms and in the name of true love.

Dressed as a fairy princess for the birthday party, Gru is excitedly told, “I know someone whose husband just died!”

Lucy arrives quite unannounced and throws Gru in the trunk of her car after assaulting him with her “lipstick taser,” a handy tool that helps her to take advantage of her femininity while fighting crime. After Gru proves his strength and cunning in the first movie, it’s a bit of a surprise to watch an unknown character take him down so quickly. However, it’s only fitting that the pair then fall in love and marry; Gru has met his match in more ways than one. Lucy is kind yet assertive, and possibly most important, she knows how to balance these qualities to embody the type of woman that Gru’s daughters can hope to become someday. We love her even as Gru’s minions are chasing her car to save their boss, and we continue to adore her even as she embarks on her journey to Australia to take a new job far away from Gru and the girls, only to jump out of the plane and claim Gru as hers.

As we'll see, the violence in the film is naturalized as a source of comedy. — As we’ll see, the violence in the film is naturalized as a source of comedy.

When Gru is forced to go on a date with the insufferable caricature Shannon (Kristen Schaal), Lucy takes the initiative to end the date prematurely because she sees that Gru is being demeaned by the shallow woman, specifically for wearing a hair piece in order to hide the fact that he’s bald. In perhaps one of the darker scenes in the film (along with Gru indirectly threatening to kill his neighbor’s dog in the first movie), Lucy shoots Shannon with a tranquilizer dart, and the two load Shannon’s inanimate body on the roof of Lucy’s car, reasoning to bystanders that she has drunk a bit too much wine with her meal, and they proceed to dump her body at her doorstep as if she’s dead. If we look carefully later on, we see that Shannon is actually a guest at the couple’s wedding.

Gru is thankful to Lucy for rescuing him.

In the final action scene, I think it’s important to refrain from classifying Lucy as purely a “damsel in distress,” although this is how I reference her above–because this is, after all, what she is when she’s strapped to a rocket–along with a comically large shark–that’s set to launch into a volcano. However, from the moment we meet Lucy, we know she’s self-sufficient and more than anything, smart; after all, her decision to love Gru is smart as he’s likely the only person capable of defeating El Macho. In fact, every decision Lucy makes throughout Despicable Me 2 is for the betterment of Gru and his growing family. He doesn’t rescue Lucy–just as he rescued Edith, Agnes, and Margo in the first movie–because these characters are helpless females; rather, this conclusion confirms his placement as a hero rather than a villain. On the contrary, the women found in the Despicable movies are quite capable of protecting themselves and those they care about.

As Gru attempts to deactivate the rocket, Lucy offers her expertise: “Is there a red one? It’s usually the red one.”

In the wedding scene, which of course involves some skillful dancing, Agnes recites a monologue that she struggles with earlier in the film: an homage to her mother. The meaning of this recitation has now shifted since she’s gained a mother. Earlier, we also enjoy a private moment when Agnes first meets Lucy at the mall and she’s simply dazzled by her presence, a nice precursor to the girls coming to know her as their own mother and celebrating their status as a complete and unique family.

Agnes recites, “She kisses my boo-boos, she braids my hair, we love you mothers, everywhere, and my new mom Lucy, is beyond compare.”

Because of Lucy and the girls, Gru comes to understand that he’s not merely a villain in a perpetually bad mood; he’s a caring father, a loving husband, and a boss who’s willing to give goodnight kisses to each and every one of his funny, yellow workers, who are, after all, part of his family as well. Both Despicable films can be read as feminist pieces as Gru is transformed by the feminine energy he finds pervading his life, influencing his decisions, and causing him to reevaluate his ideals as a villain and a single man. A concurrently responsible yet offbeat character, Gru represents the new family man in this second film. With the introduction of the delightful Lucy, Gru finds yet another reason to strive to be his best possible self by taking on the role of husband and learning that if he overcomes his fear of the unknown (and women!), he can attain true happiness.

A lovely wedding photo, complete with Gru's cranky mother and adorable minions. — A lovely wedding photo, complete with Gru’s cranky mother and adorable minions.

With the upcoming release of Despicable Me 3 (2017), we can expect more zaniness from the extraordinary family!

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Reproductive Rights in ‘Orphan Black’ Season 2

What’s shaping up to be the forefront theme in ‘Orphan Black’ season two is reproductive rights. Of all the clones, Sarah is an anomaly because she was able to give birth to Kira when all her clone counterparts are infertile. The seemingly impossible birth of Kira has the forces of science and religion both vying for access and control over clone bodies.

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I continue to be a fan of Orphan Black into its second season. My review of season one—Orphan Black: It’s All About the Ladies–focuses on the strength and wide range of female characters that the show revolves around (not to mention Tatiana Maslany‘s formidable acting talents as she portrays all of the clones). In season two, the compelling female relationships continue to be integral to the heart of Orphan Black‘s plotlines. In particular, we see a deepening of Cosima’s connection to and lingering distrust of her monitor, Delphine.

Can Cosima trust her lover and monitor Delphine?

We also delve into the dark past of Sarah’s foster mother Mrs. S, full of secrets, violence, and questionable intentions.

Is Mrs. S helping or hurting Sarah and Kira?

We also meet a new and powerful clone, Rachel, who works for the dubious cloning research corporation, Dyad, and who doesn’t seem to feel a kinship with her fellow clones.

Sarah and Rachel get off on the wrong foot — Clone-Off: Sarah and Rachel

We also see more of Sarah coming into her own as a responsible, present parent for her medical miracle daughter, Kira. Though Felix is not a woman, his close relationship with foster sister Sarah and his queerness seem to get him into the inner circle of Clone Club, and it’s always a pleasure to watch scenes where he calls Sarah on her shit, is nurturing to Kira, is hilarious, and remains fabulous the whole time.

What’s shaping up to be the forefront theme in Orphan Black season two is reproductive rights. Of all the clones, Sarah is an anomaly because she was able to give birth to Kira when all her clone counterparts are infertile. The seemingly impossible birth of Kira has the forces of science and religion both vying for access and control over clone bodies. Yes, a pitched battle between science and religion is mounting over the reproductivity of female bodies. Sound familiar? Art imitating life perhaps…

The Prometheans, a religious cult, attempt to bind Helena to their cause

Both the Prometheans (religious nutjobs) and the Dyads (cold, calculating scientists) are deceptive, selfish, and don’t see the clones as autonomous human beings. Our heroines must navigate these treacherous forces that seek to exploit them. Even more remarkable is the way in which the clones fight back by using these forces for their own gains by gathering, stealing, and manipulating resources and information in order to better understand themselves: their origin, DNA, and purpose. From within a system that attempts to abuse and dehumanize them, these woman are making their own way, living by their own rules, and relying on their collective strength to survive. Now that, my friends, is a feminism.

The Curse of Token Women in Action Movies – Katee Sackhoff in ‘Riddick’

This reveals one of the key weaknesses of incorporating token women in action movies. Token women are not real characters, they exist to tick boxes so that filmmakers can point to these characters and say “See we aren’t sexist, we had a woman and she even punched a dude in the face!” However because these aren’t real characters they end up being almost exclusively objects for the male gaze and to be fair, for Dahl this was not nearly as bad as it can sometimes be. She has a functional uniform not much different from her male colleagues and she is only subject to a couple of minutes of gratuitous nudity.

Action movies are perhaps the worst and most consistent offenders when it comes to failing the Bechdel Test, a depressingly bare minimum for assessing the female presence in a given film or TV offering. Riddick is no exception; like the other movies in the franchise, it is very much a one man against the world sort of scenario. Previous Riddick movies Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick have at least managed to have interesting women characters. Pitch Black even managed to pass the Bechdel Test. Sadly Riddick does not even come close as it falls back into the old action movie trap of only having one named female character in a sea of men.

In Riddick, Vin Diesel once again takes on the titular role. It takes place shortly after the end of The Chronicles of Riddick where Riddick was made the Lord Marshal of the Necromongers after having dealt to the previous one due to the Necromonger law of “You keep what you kill.” Over the course of the previous movie, The Chronicles of Riddick, we find out that Riddick is perhaps the sole surviving member of a race called the Furyians and he becomes captivated with the idea of discovering more about the history and demise of his people. Riddick opens with him convincing a Necromonger general to give him the location of his home planet Furya, so that he can go have a nosey. Unsurprisingly he is tricked and ends up on an extremely inhospitable planet all alone struggling to survive. He soon has an urgent need to get off planet when he realises the rain poses a very real threat and so activates a beacon on an abandoned bounty hunter ship that alerts nearby mercenaries to his location. They appear speedily as there is a massive bounty on his head and it is worth double if he is brought in dead.

As I watched the first 30 minutes, I was all like, “Huh. They aren’t going to have even a token woman in this movie, interesting.” This would have been sad as the franchise has had some interesting women characters, historically. Then they revealed that one of the mercenary ships had a female prisoner on board. She was cut loose because if they captured Riddick the ship would be overweight. I think she probably had under a minute of screen time that ended with her being shot for sport by the captain of the ship. I suppose it was meant to underscore just how big of a douche the mercenary captain, Santanna, was. However the killing of women on screen to emphasise the evilness of male characters has become so routine that the scene was more mundane than horrifying, we knew she was going to die the moment she was set free. Her death also serves as motivation for Riddick, the unnamed woman was both brown and a prisoner, two things Riddick can identify with I guess. After she is shot we see Riddick looking grim and presumably deciding to kill all of these mercenaries for being heartless assholes toward pretty ladies.

Clearly by this point it wasn’t looking great for women in this movie. As the second batch of mercenaries arrive we are soon treated to the fact that one of them is Katee Sackhoff, most renowned for playing the tomboyish pilot and complicated woman, Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica. She plays second in command of the second, less vile mercenary ship. Immediately on arrival she is hit on by Santanna in an unsurprisingly crude manner. Her response is to punch him in the face and then tell him that “I don’t fuck guys.” The statement seemed a little out of place and reads as though he is out of line for hitting on her because she is a lesbian, not because it is rude and annoying in a professional context. But OK, I can happily roll with an openly gay heroine on a mainstream action movie even if it is introduced kind of weirdly. Sadly this is as about as good as the character gets. Throughout the rest of the movie she constantly has to use her fists on Santanna, something that actually makes her look ineffectual as a leader, rather than presenting her as an ass-kicking woman as was no doubt intended. Movies seem to have fallen into convenient shorthand where a woman who is able to exact violence on a man is a good female character because she is not a passive victim. This is not the case, a woman can still kick butt (and in this case it is a pretty nominal amount of butt kicking) and still be a terrible female character.

This is reinforced when Dahl is subject to gratuitous shower scene where we see one of her nipples and Riddick leering in from the window; he is trying to steal her toiletry kit, not harm her, but the threat is there. The implication is that he could do anything to her at this point and she would be powerless to stop it. The whole scene serves to underline how vulnerable she is as a woman despite her ability to repeatedly punch Santanna in the face.

It does get worse though. When Riddick is captured by the mercenaries, he makes a few predictions, the first is that Santanna will not live for more than five seconds after he is free and the second is that he will end up “balls deep” in Dahl but only after she asks him “real pretty like.” This is pretty gross, but not really surprising in an action movie that revolves around a single hyper-masculine protagonist. What transforms it from pretty gross to slimy homophobic misogynist bullshit is later, when Riddick is stranded on a rock surrounded by many creatures who want to kill him, he is rescued by Dahl from a transporter in a safety harness. He grabs her ass and she says to him, “I have something to ask you, real pretty like…” At the end of the movie Riddick says, “Tell Dahl to keep ‘er warm for me.” This is basically embracing with open arms the myth that every lesbian just hasn’t met the right man. This myth is not only demeaning of a woman’s sexuality, but it is dangerous, it is at least partially responsible for the fact that the incidence of rape for lesbians by men is higher than for women generally. I’m sure people could argue that they are simply joking, but I don’t think that flies in the context that Riddick says to her while making a series of predictions that all come true with grave consequences.

It is hard for me not to wonder, is a token woman in an action movie worse than no woman at all? At least then we would not have to deal with the casual objectification and reinforcement of dangerous myths. Of course that isn’t really the answer–women shouldn’t have to choose between shitty representation and no representation at all. A token woman in an action movie is never a real character; she exists as a box ticking exercise, a device by which we can learn things about male characters and to provide fodder for the male gaze. Obviously not every character in every movie can be fully realised but more often than not these two dimensional parts are the province of women and/or people of colour. Riddick was no exception to this except perhaps in that Vin Diesel is not really read as white. I hope that the next movie will return to the roots of the franchise and provide us with female characters of substance and complexity.

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Gaayathri is a writer currently located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, although this is set to change soon. She is the child of diaspora two times over and is passionate about all forms of social justice. She likes to travel and prefers television to movies; however, she feels a strange compulsion to watch all movies that have fish-eating people in them, no matter how terrible they are. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Political Studies from the University of Auckland and she has spent her formative years working at various types of feminist organisations from the community to the regional in both New Zealand and around Asia. Her work has been featured around the feminist blogosphere including Flyover Feminism, Feministe, and Leftstream as well as in United Nations and NGO publications. You can find more of her work at her blog A Human Story and tweet her @A_Gaayathri.

‘Battlestar Galactica’: The Show Where All of the Women Die

Taken in the larger scope of what’s available, it’s so rare to find a TV show with so many great parts for women – so many characters who are interesting and smart and competent and vital to the stories they live in – that it’s kind of a bummer when all of them die. That said, I do think there’s a case to be made for why this may not be a horrible choice.

Um… spoilers for Battlestar Galactica.

What Battlestar Galactica is
To recap for anyone who isn’t familiar with the show but still wants to hear about death, Battlestar Galactica (2004) is a remake of the original series, in which humanity lives on a ragtag group of spaceships because robots are trying to kill everyone. The robots are called Cylons, and they look like human people, and it’s a metaphor for how the Other is really the same as we are, and that’s a lesson we need to learn to make peace.

In practical terms, there are twelve models of humanoid Cylon and multiple copies of each. So, whenever a Cylon dies (with a few specific exceptions) he or she downloads into a new, identical body and gets to come back again.

The main story line is about how the ragtag band of humans tries to find a mythical planet called Earth with the Cylons acting (mostly) as antagonists along the way. There’s also a supernatural/religious element in which there are prophecies and angels, and God has a special plan to save both the humans and Cylons by making the most vile man in their number his prophet.

Laura Roslin is the president, Kara “Starbuck” Thrace is the hotshot viper pilot, and there are videos on YouTube that recap the first three seasons if you want to know what happens.

As other Bitch Flicks writers have previously discussed, there are a lot of really good, well-written, interesting female characters, human and Cylon alike. And almost every single one of them gets killed.

Teach the Controversy: What We Mean When We Say “All of the Women Die”
As the show was winding down in its final season, Slate ran an article by Juliet Lapidos called “Chauvinist Pigs in Space” that criticized several aspects of the way women are filmed and portrayed on BSG. Among other points, Lapidos argued that, “The main female characters are all dying, dead, or not human” and that this trend sent the unintentional message that “women…just can’t hack it when the going gets rough.” The piece prompted several responses, including this one from Slant, but Lapidos wasn’t the only one saying it; similar comments were popping up on message boards and blogs (by which I mean Live Journal, because that’s where we all hung out in 2009, amirite?), especially after the series finale aired, and both Starbuck and Roslin were down for the count.

One common response to Lapidos’ article, and to the more general complaint that so many women die on this show, is to either start listing all of the male characters who died – and, since the overall death toll on this series was high, it’s a very long list, or to argue that, hey, there are still cylon women alive at the end of the show, and they’re women, too, goddammit. The problem is that comparing the number of dead characters, or human versus Cylon characters, doesn’t get at the real issue. A better way to ask the question is, “Who, of all the characters on the show, was able to survive four whole seasons without getting killed?”

On the men’s side, we’ve got all three of the leads (William Adama, Apollo, and Gaius Baltar), several important secondary characters (including Chief Tyrol, Colonel Tigh, and Helo), and a few other randoms who we never got to know that well. On the women’s side, we’ve got more randoms and (probably) a minor character named Seelix who does not appear in the final episode.

That’s all.

All of the non-Seelix women we know, including all of the lead female characters, have died. The human women are gone, and every Cylon woman left standing at the end died on screen earlier in the series. Tyrol and Tigh are also Cylons, and they didn’t have to die ever.

While I don’t like her phrasing that much, I have to agree with Lapidos that there’s a sense in which this doesn’t sit well. A sense in which it seems like, intentionally or not, the show is telling us that capable women need to die, either as a warning to the rest of us (“the price for being good at things is that you won’t survive”), or as a way of making the audience feel safe around them. Sort of like how you feel safe at the end of a monster movie when the monster gets swallowed by lava – like, don’t be afraid! These women are not roaming the Earth, continuing to be really awesome. They’re dead, like Xena, and the threat is contained.

Um… spoilers for Xena: Warrior Princess.

On a personal note, as a woman who’s watching TV, it’s also just kind of a downer. Taken in the larger scope of what’s available, it’s so rare to find a TV show with so many great parts for women, so many characters who are interesting and smart and competent and vital to the stories they live in – that it’s kind of a bummer when all of them die.

That said, I do think there’s a case to be made for why this may not be a horrible choice, so…

Why This May Not Be a Horrible Choice
Like almost every TV show, Battlestar Galactica is a mixed bag when it comes to storytelling. Some of the women die stupid deaths, but some of them die pretty good ones that follow from actively participating in the world in which this story takes place.

Starting on the Bad Death side, the main example that Lapidos focuses on is Chief Tyrol’s wife, Cally, and how she gets murdered by Tyrol’s Cylon mistress on her way to commit suicide. That’s a fair death to focus on, because it’s probably the worst, especially when paired with the mistress’ murder (by Tyrol!) in the series finale, which was just a WTF moment that got buried in all of the other explosions and stories that came to a close.

After she’s married to Tyrol, Cally is almost completely defined by her relationship with him and, even before they get married, it sometimes feels like her only role in the story is be jealous because he’s with someone else. Her death happens firstly as a surprise switcheroo for the audience, and secondly as a way to complicate Tyrol’s relationship with his boring, boring mistress who was never that great of a character, either. The show does this last minute thing where it tries to take us inside Cally’s experience when she finds out her husband’s a Cylon, but it’s really too little, too late.

Also in the not-such-a-great-death category are popular secondary characters Dualla (who shoots herself in the head out of nowhere during the final season) and Kat, who gets a very special, very manipulative episode all about her, so that we can learn about her backstory and feel bad when she gets radiation poisoning, which she gets by addressing a problem that also only exists in that one episode.

In fairness to the show, though, there are plenty of pointless, annoying, cannon fodder, and/or emotionally manipulative deaths to go around for both men and women. Starbuck has a dead boyfriend who exists only to create tension between her and Apollo, and she’s lost some male pilots just so she’ll feel bad about what a crap teacher she was. Roslin’s sidekick Billy gets offed pretty randomly when he no longer serves the story, and the whole point of his death is to show us that Dualla and Apollo were mean to him on the last day that he was alive (and he was too gentle to live in this world, or something).

That said, because all of the women die, it makes sense that viewers would take a more critical attitude to examining how they die and to what purpose in the story.

And that’s where it starts to seem like it might not be a horrible choice because, while some of the women die stupidly, a lot of them die because women are the do-ers of Battlestar Galactica. They’re making things happen; they’re driving the story, and, when the supernatural element rears its head, they’re the prophesized saviors of the human and Cylon race.

Like a lot of militaristic stories, Battlestar Galactica measures its characters’ heroism partly through their capacity to suffer, both physically and emotionally. And unlike a lot of stories, BSG splits its heroic suffering pretty evenly between its male and female characters.

Starbuck is the action hero of the story – she goes on the dangerous missions, she gets the crap kicked out of her by robots, she has a tragic backstory with a dead boyfriend and an abusive mother, and she has a special destiny that requires her to sacrifice herself to save the people she loves. Roslin finds out that she has terminal cancer on the same day that she becomes President, and in order to lead, she has to overcome the fear that she feels for herself. During the last season, her body is falling apart just like the Galactica is falling apart, like tenuous hopes for the future are falling apart, and the question is whether any of those things will hold together long enough to find Earth. She and the beat-up old spaceship are both trying to complete their final missions by bringing the people to Earth.

Starbuck and Roslin are two of the most important characters on the show, and one could make the argument that, along with Gaius Baltar, they make up a trinity of the most important characters on the show, in terms of moving the primary story line forward. They die in the process, but it’s part the heroic journey.

Even some of the other, more perfunctory deaths come from a pretty strong place. Admiral Cain is there for three episodes before she bites it, but her character is right at the center of everything and killed as a direct result of the choices she makes as a leader (to place revenge above everything else). Athena, a Cylon, has her husband kill her so that she can download into another body on a Cylon ship and rescue her kidnapped baby – it’s pretty badass. Ellen Tigh gets murdered for betraying the humans to the Cylons. D’Anna Biers dies multiple times while investigating the identities of the final five Cylons (who are unknown to the remaining seven). The list goes on. In a universe where lots of people die as the product of doing, many female characters die because they do something that affects the story.

This is one of those instances where everyone’s a little bit right. It’s legitimately kind of annoying that, in a story full of strong, well-written women, none of them but (probably) Seelix can manage to survive. The television landscape being what it is, it makes you wonder what’s going on there. At the same time, and without this cancelling out the annoyance, a lot of the women died because they were such good characters and because the show was fairly egalitarian in determining who would drive the story.

Personally, I wish that in those last, sweeping shots of the surviving characters standing on Earth, we had seen Cally, or Dualla, or Kat, or someone we cared about who was female and lived for four years. I wish that it seemed possible, in the BSG universe, to be female and live for four years. And that feeling exists side-by-side with my joy at having such great characters to begin with.

Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer and couch potato who yells about movies and TV on her blog.

On Loving ‘Her’ … and Why It’s Not Easy

But, as a woman in the audience, my relationship to these types of characters, who are reliably, predictably, boringly male, is fraught. I relate to them, but only insofar as I must continually reinvest in the myth that men are the only people who are truly capable, truly deep enough, of having wrenching crises of the soul. Even though I know this to be false in reality—women experience alienation and existentialist ennui, too (I can’t believe I even just typed that)—I am deeply troubled that the experience of this sort of angst seems to be the exclusive province of men in our cultural imagination.

This guest post by Lisa C. Knisely previously appeared at Medium.

Her is an achingly beautiful film that adroitly explores postmodern alienation and the alterity at the heart of our relationships, both with other humans and our increasingly intelligent machines. I found the lonely, withdrawn main character, Theodore (played by Joaquin Phoenix), to be an immensely relatable and sympathetic protagonist.

But, that’s the problem.

Much like Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character at the beginning of 500 Days of Summer, we know Theodore is a sensitive and depressed dude from the moment we see him listening to “melancholy songs” in the elevator as he leaves work at a large and impersonal office building in the city. And, like Jim Carrey’s character in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, we soon come to find out that Theodore was once deeply in love with an emotionally complex and intelligent woman who has left him heartbroken. Films like Her bank on the audience’s ability to relate to the experiences of lost love and existentialist ennui of their main character. And we do. As, I think, we should.

Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams in Her — Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams in *Her*

Why are these stories we tell, stories about something I would venture to call essentially human, also largely stories about being men? As Noah Berlatsky points out in a piece for Salon.com, “In Her, difference is simply subsumed into a single narrative of midlife crisis and romance — everybody’s the same at heart, which means everybody is accepted as long as their stories can be all about that white male middle-age middle-class guy we’re always hearing stories about.”

And women? Well, we’re mostly relegated to the role of foils for man’s (meaning men’s) quest for meaning, transformation, and lasting human connection. As Anna Shechtmen writes in a piece for Slate.com, “Her commits the most hackneyed error of the big screen: It fails to present us with a single convincing female character—one whose subjectivity and sexuality exist independent of the film’s male protagonist or its male viewers.”

While I agree with Shechtmen’s assessment, I’d also wager that there is nothing particularly unusual about this state of affairs in a great many Hollywood films. That the main female character in Her is a disembodied operating system through which (whom?) Theodore’s subjectivity is revealed and transformed didn’t strike me as unusual. Zooey Deschanel’s character in 500 Days of Summer might as well have been a disembodied computer voice as far as I’m concerned. Ditto Natalie Portman in Garden State. Ditto Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation. Ditto Helena Bonham Carter in Fight Club. Ditto the real doll in Lars and the Real Girl. Ditto any film where the role of the main female character is to be a beautiful and sexually available aid to the male protagonist’s gradual transformation as he gains a deeper level of self-understanding as he learns to connect with others.

Joaquin Phoenix in Her — Joaquin Phoenix in *Her*

Maybe Samantha, the operating system voiced by Scarlett Johansson with whom Theodore falls in love in Her, is just the ultimate Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Or maybe Spike Jonze is critiquing contemporary heterosexuality in which men project their desires onto objectified women. As Shechtmen notes, “One could argue that Jonze knows just what he’s doing…he is foregrounding Samantha’s role as the dark screen upon which we can project our erotic and romantic fantasies.” Daniel D’Addario at Salon.com maintains that the critique of possessive masculine desire is exactly Jonze’s point in Her, writing, “[the] evocation of female sexuality as easily controlled isn’t what the film is telling us is inherently good; calling to mind the control Theodore seeks to have over women doesn’t mean Jonze is seeking the same control. If anything, making Samantha invisible totally forecloses the option of the ‘male gaze’….”

While there is an implicit feminist critique of masculine heterosexual romantic desire in Her, D’Addario is oversimplifying the concept of the male gaze. The male gaze, as it was developed by feminist film critics like Laura Mulvey, isn’t just about women being sexually objectified and gazed at on screen; it is more deeply about the way a film structures its viewpoint so that we, the audience, are made to see through the eyes of the (usually male) protagonist and thus identify with him. In Her, there is only one brief moment during the film where the camera switches and we see Theodore from Samantha’s viewpoint. Any other glimpse of her subjectivity we get solely through Theodore’s relationship to her.

Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) goes on a date in Her — Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) goes on a date in *Her*

One can argue that all people, of any gender, project a certain amount of fantasy onto others in our intimate relationships with them. This too, seems to be something definitive of human experience. And Her examines that experience thoughtfully, with complexity, pushing our conceptual understanding of what it is to be “human” at a moment in history when we are more and more becoming cyborgs.

Still, I have trouble coming up with a Hollywood film where a woman’s subjectivity, her struggle for meaning, self-transformation and connection with others, has truly taken center stage in such a way that men in the audience are expected to identify with her story as one that is universal. Even more unimaginable, and currently unrepresentable in our current cinematic landscape, is a film in which a man or men operates as a reflective vehicle for a woman’s existential journey.

Go see Her. Ache with Theodore. Enjoy the beautiful aesthetic of the film. But, take a minute to imagine, too, if Joaquin Phoenix had played Sam to Scarlett Johansson’s Thea instead. That’s a film I’m still waiting for someone in Hollywood to write, direct, and especially, to produce.

Dr. Lisa C. Knisely is a freelance writer and an Assistant Professor of the Liberal Arts in Portland, Ore.

‘Orphan Black’: It’s All About the Ladies

‘Orphan Black’ is gritty sci-fi with layered mysteries, mistaken (and impersonated) identity, and lots of complicated female characters. The most intriguing part of the show is that many of those multifaceted female characters are played by the same woman, Tatiana Maslany. She portrays all the clones involved in a seemingly nefarious scientific experiment.

Spoiler Alert

Canada’s compelling show Orphan Black will be airing its second season on BBC America this spring, and though Ms Misanthropia reviewed it on Bitch Flicks, I had to weigh in now that I’ve finally had a chance to finish watching the series! Orphan Black is gritty sci-fi with layered mysteries, mistaken (and impersonated) identity, and lots of complicated female characters. The most intriguing part of the show is that many of those multifaceted female characters are played by the same woman, Tatiana Maslany. She portrays all the clones involved in a seemingly nefarious scientific experiment.

At first, I was skeptical of Maslany’s acting abilities because there’s a lot of subtlety and nuance required to play at least nine characters with different upbringings, nationalities, socioeconomic backgrounds, and habits. Not only that, but the clones do a lot of impersonating each other. I was sold when I could tell one clone was impersonating another before the narrative announced it. Each clone’s mannerisms, body language, and even facial expressions are different. Damn. My hat’s off to Maslany who can make her smile different enough that I can tell which character she is without context.

Bravo, Tatyana Manslany. Bravo. — Bravo, Tatiana Maslany. Bravo.

In Orphan Black, the clones are often wildly different from one another, really hammering home the nature over nurture angle, which is an important representation of how women (and other marginalized groups) are affected by their environment. Orphan Black shows us women who thrive due to their environment (Cosima with her scientific brilliance), struggle because of it (grifter Sarah Manning), or become deviant and destructive as a result of it (religious serial killer Helena). There are tweaks made to each of their genetic code that explain away Katya’s respiratory disease, Cosima’s need for glasses as well as her gayness, and perhaps other anomalies among the clones yet to be introduced, but the message is clear that the DNA of these women is virtually identical making the entirety of their development environmentally-based.

The show even tries to give social reasons for the expression or dormancy of homosexuality. — The show gives social reasons for the expression or dormancy of homosexuality.

I also want to take a second to talk about big brained science nerd Cosima, my favorite clone.

Maybe it’s because I, too, am a queer nerd girl, but Cosima’s aptitude for science and her lesbian sexuality are awesome. Where Sarah must use her body to get what she needs (like seducing Paul to distract him from realizing she’s not Beth Childs), Cosima uses her intellect. Cosima is the glue. Without her, the clones wouldn’t be able to do DNA testing or crawl down the rabbit hole of the scientific experimentation that created them. Not only that, but she is the one who discerns that each known clone has a “monitor” to observe and report back on clone activities. This means that Cosima is also capable of understanding and anticipating the psychological factors involved in genetic testing and cloning. It’s great to get to see the nerd girl shine and not be deemed sexless because of her brain power, as her affair with her monitor Delphine is the most engaging of the romances played out in the show.

Delphine & Cosima bond over science geekoutery

Orphan Black showcases great female characters who are strong or interesting or smart or even infuriating, but they’re all unique and full of depth. The series also shows that the path of each clone’s development is dependent upon her environment, which is a huge statement about how oppression and opportunity are what shape us. In order for women to succeed, we must cultivate an environment that encourages achievement, and that means we’ve got to bust up gender norms.

Aggressive & unpredictable serial killer clone Helena — Aggressive and unpredictable serial killer clone Helena

Orphan Black exists on the strength of one actress’s ability to play multiple characters convincingly. Most importantly, it’s a show about a group of women: their lives, their families, their loves, their history, their interaction with each other, their deaths, and, most poignantly, their quest to solve the mystery of their existence. Good stuff, no? It’s getting harder and harder for the media to claim that people won’t watch stories about women, especially in the face of Orphan Black‘s gripping action, great story telling, and superb acting.

——————
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.

‘Gravity’ and the Impact of Its Unique Female Hero

I was excited to see Gravity for a long time. A female-centric sci-fi film? Yes, please! I adore Sandra Bullock. Even when she stars in shitty movies, I don’t care. I unapologetically love her. While people envision her as a comedian (and yes, she’s incredibly funny), I’ve always thought she had the potential to shine in more serious roles (sidebar, 28 Days is one of my favorite films).

But the best part of Gravity? It offers us a different kind of female hero.

Written by Megan Kearns | Spoilers ahead

I was excited to see Gravity for a long time. A female-centric sci-fi film? Yes, please! I adore Sandra Bullock. Even when she stars in shitty movies, I don’t care. I unapologetically love her. While people envision her as a comedian (and yes, she’s incredibly funny), I’ve always thought she had the potential to shine in more serious roles (sidebar, 28 Days is one of my favorite films).

But the best part of Gravity? It offers us a different kind of female hero.

Haunting and harrowing, Gravity is a gripping cinematic spectacle about astronauts stranded in space. The visual effects are breathtakingly stunning. I can’t stand 3-D. But the visuals were so gorgeous, so crisp, I completely forgot I was watching a 3-D film. The film envelopes you, immersing you into the vast expanse of the star-filled void of space. You feel as if you’re stranded, drifting in space too. Gravity transports the audience to a place most of us will never see.

Gravity doesn’t merely rest on its technical laurels. The dialogue suffers from schmaltz in a couple places but the acting is nuanced and powerful. While George Clooney is his typical charming self as veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski on the brink of retirement, make no mistake. This is Sandra Bullock’s film. The film rests on her shoulders, which she carries with raw emotion and nuance.

Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is not a stereotypical female protagonist. Yes, she’s smart. And white. And thin. While those traits make her similar to the majority of women leads, her personality differs. A biomedical engineer on her first mission in space, she’s quiet and reserved. But that shouldn’t make you underestimate or question her strength. Dr. Stone analyzes situations, she uses her ingenuity to figure out solutions to the problems that bombard her in space.

We feel the palpable tension she feels. We feel her anxiety, her panic, her fear. It feels claustrophobic at times as the camera shots sit inside her helmet, as if we too are stranded in the empty abyss of space. We also visually see the camera from her perspective, a tactic that garners greater empathy for her from the audience. We see the world through her eyes.

Films often objectify women as sex objects or relegates them to the role of the male protagonist’s wife, mother, sister, lover, sidekick. And yes, the studio tried to give Dr. Stone a love interest (bleh), as if she needs a relationship with a man to define her. When we do see strong women who define themselves, they typically are portrayed as tough badasses kicking ass or wise-cracking or feisty. Don’t get me wrong. I love badasses. I love mouthy, opinionated, angry, tough as nails women. But those shouldn’t be the only kind of female protagonists we see.

It’s unusual to see a female hero who’s frail or vulnerable or even an introvert. Looking at children’s movies, the majority of female protagonists are extroverts. We rarely see a girl who isn’t spunky or gregarious in a leading role. (Although others disagree and insist that we see plenty.) As Natalie Portman recently said, feminism in film is about more than just kicking ass:

“I want [women & men] to be allowed to be weak & strong & happy & sad — human, basically. The fallacy in Hollywood is that if you’re making a “feminist” story, the woman kicks ass & wins. That’s not feminist, that’s macho. A movie about a weak, vulnerable woman can be feminist if it shows a real person that we can empathize with.“

And therein lies the beauty of Dr. Ryan Stone. Not all women leads need to kick ass in order to be strong or complex. We need to see the stories of intelligent, quiet, reserved, vulnerable women too.

We also rarely see a female film hero struggling with depression. Dr. Stone has lost the will to live. Due the tragic death of her daughter, she yearns for silence. Grief swallows her. She tells George Clooney that that’s what she likes best in space. The silence. There’s no chaos. Only peace. He tells her that he gets it as, “there’s nobody up here who can hurt you.” In her life, her routines confine her. She goes to work and then just drives, listening to the radio, a reminder of her daughter. Yet these routines keep her buoyant as she struggles to stay afloat amidst her depression. She’s surviving but not really living.

The film itself becomes a “metaphor for depression, or for grief: untethered and abandoned in a void so large that it boggles the mind, or simply shuts it down.” Dr. Stone drifts and spins out of control, disconnected, echoing the overwhelming feelings of depression. The trauma of child loss in film and television often catalyzes a mother’s journey towards empowerment. In Gravity we witness Dr. Stone’s transformation from a woman consumed by grief and despair, drifting along on a sea of sadness and attempting suicide, into a survivor who yearns and fights to live. By the end of the film, she’s grounded, no longer disconnected.

There’s a part in the film when I thought, “Oh, here it comes. The ubiquitous scene where a dude comes and rescues her. As if she can’t rescue herself.” Thankfully, I was wrong. Some quibble that it’s a hallucination of Kowalski, so he’s the one who saves her. Nope, it’s all her. Sure he inspired her. But it’s her memory, it’s her imagination.

Now, with a female-centric stranded-in-space sci-fi film, it might be easy to draw comparisons to the queen of survival: Ripley. Both female heroes are stranded in space, both fight to live. Both characters are regular women, both mothers, taking charge in a crisis. Both films feature reproduction themes and motifs: rape and the fear of female reproduction in Alien, womb imagery and rebirth symbolism in Gravity. And both films feature scenes where the female leads remove their protective gear to illustrate their vulnerability. Okay, they do have share a lot of similarities! But here’s where they diverge — Ripley has a ferocity that Ryan Stone does not possess. And that’s a good thing. We need to see myriad female personalities depicted on-screen.

Some have criticized that the film has to humanize Dr. Stone by making her a mother. It’s a fair complaint as most iconic strong female characters in film (Ripley, Sarah Connor, Beatrix Kiddo) are mothers. My fabulous Bitch Flicks colleague Amanda astutely wrote that she encompassed the grieving mother archetype. But Dr. Stone isn’t merely defined by motherhood. Nor do I think her being a mother makes her more palatable to audiences. We see and hear about her career. We accompany her on her emotional journey.

Another reason Dr. Stone as a character matters? We need to see more women scientists on-screen. There are still few women scientists, when compared to the number of men, and female scientists are paid far less than their male colleagues. Young girls aren’t encouraged to participate in STEM fields. They need to see female role models. When Kowalski asks Dr. Stone, “What kind of a name is Ryan?,” she tells him that her father always wanted a boy. It’s a brief gender commentary on how society gives preferential treatment to boys. Dr. Stone works in an extremely male-dominated field. Her father bestowed a masculine name upon her all because he wanted a child of a different gender. This interestingly parallels director Alfonso Cuaron’s own struggle to feature a female protagonist as the studio wanted him to change the lead’s gender. Thankfully, he refused.

Our society sees women as inferior, that everyone aspires to be men. That men do all the awesome, strong things while women serve as pretty décor and accessories to men. Hollywood assumes that only men won’t go see “women’s movies,” whatever the fuck those are (are they films with women sitting around discussing their periods? Wait…I want to see that movie…), while women and men will see films with male protagonists. This is bullshit. People want to see good stories with complex, interesting characters regardless of gender.

Women often have to endure seeing a mediocre or shitty movie with female leads because we desperately yearn to see ourselves represented. Men get to see themselves in myriad iterations in a wide swath of roles. But women are typically relegated to the love interest, damsel in distress or sidekick. Most female film characters don’t shatter gender stereotypes. They rarely lead as heroes, usually serving as props to the male protagonists, and playing out gender tropes.

Seeing a woman in a commanding role on-screen, seeing things from her perspective, seeing her decisions – this is a big fucking deal. Sandra Bullock has called her role as Dr. Ryan Stone “revolutionary,” as Alfonso and Jonas Cuaron wrote the script with a woman as the protagonist. Society traditionally thinks of men in leadership roles, not women. You can’t be what you can’t see. Seeing media representations of yourself in your gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religion, seeing bodies of different sizes and abilities – all of this matters. It impacts how we see ourselves, the lives we envision for ourselves. And how others see us.

Gravity offers a unique female hero. It’s okay that Sandra Bullock’s character isn’t shooting guns or beating up bad guys. It’s okay that she’s quiet and vulnerable. It’s okay to see a woman struggling through emotional pain. In fact, it’s a good thing. Not all women are the same. Our female leads should reflect that reality.

Megan Kearns is Bitch Flicks’ Social Media Director and a feminist vegan writer living in Boston. She loves watching films and entirely too much TV including Parks and Rec, The Wire, Sex and the City, Breaking Bad, Damages and Scandal. Follow her on Twitter @OpinionessWorld.

Does ‘Gravity’ Live Up to the Hype?

Gravity survives on the merit of its spectacle. It’s beautiful, terrifying, and gripping. The characters, while feeling real, are underdeveloped. The story itself is one big metaphor for Stone’s journey into isolation and despair after suffering personal tragedy. It is an epic allegory about the journey toward life, toward connection with the earth. I couldn’t tell you what kind of card player Stone is, though, or what made her want to become a doctor. Her life is a blank because she’s not an individual; she’s an archetype.

"Gravity" Movie Poster — *Gravity* Movie Poster

Written by Amanda Rodriguez
Spoiler Alert

Alfonso Curon’s Gravity is primarily an experience. It’s an edge-of-your-seat survival tale set in the vastness, the darkness, the solitude of space. I was eager to review this film because I love sci-fi, and I love women in sci-fi flicks. I can take or leave Sandra Bullock (mostly leave her), but her performance in Gravity‘s opening sequence sold me:

It’s silent in space. Astronauts are working on the exterior of a space satellite. George Clooney as astronaut Matt Kowalski is floating about making pleasant conversation. We can hear the labored breathing of Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock). Her heart rate is elevated, and she’s not taking in the majesty of space because she’s too focused on her work, too focused on keeping herself under control. Dr. Stone is not an astronaut. She’s a civilian medical engineer who’s designed some special program that NASA wants to use. Trained solely for this mission, she’s fighting not to have a panic attack while perched outside the world, and then she is violently wrenched from that perch, from that narrow margin of the illusion of safety into…chaos.

Sandra Bullock as Dr. Ryan Stone desperately holds on as a debris storm destroys everything around her. — Sandra Bullock as Dr. Ryan Stone desperately holds on as a debris storm wreaks havoc.

No other film has communicated to me the desolation of space the way that Gravity does. Dr. Stone’s vulnerability and lack of awe translate into a visceral feeling within this audience member of the true terror and anxiety of being in space, the smallness of the human animal, and the rawness of her grip on survival.

Gravity‘s cinematography is stunningly beautiful. The film is shot with such a unique style, and its zero gravity environments faced so many challenges that the movie’s innovations are being lauded as “chang[ing] the vocabulary of filmmaking.” They used puppeteers for Christ’s sake! How cool is that? Some shots did seem indulgent, perhaps trying too hard to convey Cuaron’s metaphor. The best example being when Stone makes it into a damaged space station that still has air. She disrobes in slo-mo from her suit, and the exactness of her body’s poses are anime-esque in their echoing of the fetus in the womb and birth metaphors.

Though in booty shorts, Stone is never stripped to her bra & panties. — Though in booty shorts, Stone is never stripped to only her bra & panties.

I liked Ryan Stone’s vulnerability and her constant battle with blind panic (that she sometimes loses). It made her and her experience more accessible. It’s iffy whether or not Gravity, though, manages to be a feminist film. Gravity certainly doesn’t pass the Bechdel test, but to be fair, there are very few characters at all in the movie. The only personal detail we’re given about Stone is that she was once a mother who lost her daughter to a tragic accident. This irks me because it casts Stone as the grieving mother archetype. Boooorrriiiinggg. It too simply explains her unhappy adventure beyond the ends of the earth. It forgives her for being a woman who would give up familial ties to go into space because she, in fact, has already lost those ties. Because her loss consumes her, Stone’s despair and lack of connection, in fact, justify her trip.

Clooney's Kowalski calmly tows an oxygen deprived Stone to safety. — Clooney’s Kowalski calmly tows an oxygen deprived Stone to safety.

Veteran astronaut Kowalski is a bit too perfect, too in-control, and too optimistic. When we contrast his cool command with Stone’s panic attacks, freezing up, and bouts of giving up from which he must coax her, Kowalski seems like more of the hero. That leaves Stone to be the basketcase woman whom it is Kowalski’s chivalrous duty to rescue. Stone finally encounters a situation that seems unbeatable, and she resigns herself to death. She hallucinates Kowalski comes to rescue her and gives her the information lurking in the back of her memory that she needs to save herself. He is her savior even within her mind. Not only that, but as she rouses herself from her hallucination, she says something like, “Kowalski, you clever bastard.” This leaves open the interpretation to spiritual types that she may not have, in fact, hallucinated; instead she may have had a supernatural experience in which her friend’s ghost did save her life from beyond the grave deus ex machina style. Frankly, that is just poop. Either way, Clooney as the noble, infinitely calm and self-sacrificing astronaut dude is just spreading it on a bit too thick for my taste.

Kowalski helps a flustered Stone speed up her slow work.

Gravity survives on the merit of its spectacle. It is beautiful, terrifying, and gripping. The characters, while feeling real, are underdeveloped. The story itself is one big metaphor for Stone’s journey into isolation and despair after suffering personal tragedy. It is an epic allegory about the journey toward life, toward connection with the earth, which is a poignant, compelling story, but I couldn’t tell you what kind of card player Stone is or what made her want to become a doctor. Her life is a blank because she’s not an individual; she’s an archetype. If Gravity could have accomplished its visual feats, told its epic story about survival and rediscovering the self all the while giving us rich characters, I would have loved this movie. Instead, I merely like it for its grandness of vision and its ideas; I like it in spite of its tepid storyline and lukewarm characterizations.