‘Game of Thrones’ Season 2 Trailer: Will Women Fare Better This Season?

Luckily, Season 2 will see an influx of new characters, including lots of female roles. Huzzah! The “Red Priestess” Melisandre of Asshai (Carice van Houten), female warrior (!!!!) Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie), noblewoman Lady Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer), Ygritte (Rose Leslie), the Ironborn captain (double !!!!) Yara Greyjoy (Gemma Whelan) named “Asha” in the novels. Wait, a sorceress, warrior and ship captain?? More women in leadership roles?? Sounds promising!

 

When I wrote about HBO’s Game of Thrones last year, I had no idea that my critique would ignite such a fire storm.
In the 2 years I’ve been blogging, my post “Here There Be Sexism? Game of Thrones and Gender” holds the rank as my blog’s second most commented post. Readers commenting had visceral reactions to my criticizing the TV show, based on the beloved series by George R. R. Martin, and its depiction of gender and its treatment of women.
Now, while I know the TV series is pretty faithful to its source material, I haven’t read the books yet. So I can’t speak to how the books depict the female characters, only the TV show. But should I have to read the books in order to enjoy the show? Nope, I don’t think so. A TV series or film should be able to stand on its own accord. But people keep telling me to wait until season 2 as the books get even better regarding the gender roles.
Last week, HBO aired its trailer for the much-anticipated Season 2. The trailer is narrated by Varys (Conleth Hill):

“Three great men: a king, a priest and a rich man. Between them stands a common sell sword. Each great man bids the sell sword kills the other two. Who lives? Who dies? Power resides where men believe it resides. It’s a trick, a shadow on the wall. A very small man can cast a very large shadow.”

Ugh. A dude…talking about more dudes. Yet another dude-fest.
In the very 1st teaser trailer that premiered in December, narrated by Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane), Robert Baratheon’s brother who’s gunning for the Iron Throne, again it’s the voice of a dude we hear.
But Game of Thrones boasts a lot of strong, intelligent, powerful women. Luckily in the trailer, we see and hear my two favorite badass female characters. Caring yet steely Dragon Queen Daenerys Stormborn (Emilia Clarke), whose transformation in Season 1 truly was the best part of the show for me, assertively proclaims:

“I am Daenerys Stormborn and I will take what is mine with fire and blood.”

Gender-bending, spunky, sword-wielder Arya Stark (Maisie Williams), says:
 

“Anyone can be killed.”

Daenerys and Arya stand out as my fave characters period, regardless of gender.
Aside from them, no other women speak. Although to be fair the only other man who speaks is Golden Globe winner Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister (he’s seriously amazeballs). We see assertive matriarchs Lady Catelyn Stark (Michelle Fairley) and Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey). But of course there’s a bit of misogyny in the trailer with King Douchbag (er, Joffrey) pointing a crossbow at Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), threatening her life.
Misogyny and sexism tainted Season 1 of Game of Thrones with rape, abuse and objectification. While it pissed some people off, nudity on a show doesn’t really bother me. What did irk me was all the brothel scenes that focused on the male gaze and male pleasure. Aside from Daenerys and Arya, even the strong and powerful female characters are ultimately deferential to the men around them. It implies women’s lives revolve around men. So many films and TV series focus on men and their perspectives with women as secondary characters rarely talking to other women.
Luckily, Season 2 will see an influx of new characters, including lots of female roles. Huzzah! The “Red Priestess” Melisandre of Asshai (Carice van Houten), female warrior (!!!!) Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie), noblewoman Lady Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer), Ygritte (Rose Leslie), the Ironborn captain (double !!!!) Yara Greyjoy (Gemma Whelan) named “Asha” in the novels. Wait, a sorceress, warrior and ship captain?? More women in leadership roles?? Sounds promising!
But with so many new women, why did I only see 1 new female face in the 2nd trailer? Why do the trailers revolve around the men??
Now, I love Game of Thrones. Really, I do. It contains complex characters, compelling plots and political intrigue. But as stellar as the show is (and it truly is), doesn’t mean it’s inoculated from sexism. In fact, my expectations are higher because it’s so good. As I previously wrote:

“Throughout the first season…women are raped, beaten, burned and trafficked. I suppose you could chalk it up to the barbarism of medieval times. And I’m sure many will claim that as the show’s defense…or that the men face just as brutal and severe a life. I also recognize that there’s a difference between displaying sexism because it’s the time period and condoning said sexism.

“But this IS a fantasy, not history, meaning the writers can imagine any world they wish to create.  So why imagine a misogynistic one?”

I can’t stress this enough. This is fantasy, people, NOT history. So why create a sexist world rife with misogyny?? Medieval fantasy, even while incorporating accurate historical elements, is not synonymous with history. As Blood Fiend astutely writes at The Book Lantern:

“I want to read more fantasy. Really, I do. But I’m unable to read it when women are constantly oppressed and seen as lesser beings in a world based on fantasy. Writers, you can create a world with any rules you choose. Yet, you continue to write sexist worlds to have your characters overcome the sexism. Can a girl fight monsters without having to deal with sexism? Does every girl have to disguise herself as a boy to fight in a war? This has nothing to do with cultural or social constructs. In your world, you don’t have to have those.”

I might not be so hard on Game of Thrones if misogyny didn’t surface in almost every movie and TV show. In most films and shows, women’s lives revolve around men. Women talk to men and if they happen to talk to another woman, it’s about men. Too many films and shows sexualize women and show women subjugated by men via violence. Even when strong, intelligent, capable women exist (as in Game of Thrones), they are continually depicted as not possessing dominion over their bodies, families and lives.
If writers and directors utilize sexism to provide social commentary, that’s one thing. And not every movie or TV show must convey a profound message. But the media continually relies on and perpetuates sexism. While a fantastic series, Game of Thrones suffers from sexist tropes and would be even stronger without them.
I hope I’m wrong. I hope Season 2 is more of a lady-fest. And it sounds like it might be with the progression of Daenerys’ reign and the addition of so many new female characters. But with rampant sexism inherent in media, including in the 1st season, I’m not going to hold my breath.

Game of Thrones Season 2 airs Sunday, April 1st at 9pm, EST on HBO.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Stephanie’s Picks:

Celebration at Sundance from Wellywood Woman

New feature: Challenging rape myths in the mainstream from The F-Word

Amber‘s Picks:

French women directors: the great news & the not-so-great from Wellywood Woman

Why I’m (Probably) Not Watching ‘The Game’ from The Crunk Feminist Collective

International contest of short films against homophobia from The F-Word

LEGO & Gender Part 1: Lego Friends from Feminist Frequency



Megan‘s Picks:

Red Tails and Tuskegee: The Women Left Out of the Picture from The Root

The Athena Film Festival: 10 Movies That Can Change the World from Huffington Post 

Vanity Fair‘s Hollywood Issue Pushes Actresses of Color Aside (Again!) from Jezebel

Why Is Hollywood So Afraid of Black Women? from ColorLines

Sexism Watch: Film Trailers from Women and Hollywood

Can Lena Dunham’s Girls Be a Game Changer? from Women and Hollywood 

What have you been reading–or writing–this week? Leave your links in the comments!

From the Archive: Disembodied Women: Take Five

This post previously appeared at Bitch Flicks on January 12, 2011.

According to the following posters, women have bright red mouths.  Wide open mouths with perfect white teeth.  That they can put things inside of.  See, women often have objects inside their bright red mouths, like golf balls or strawberries, that they’re usually biting.  And if they aren’t visibly biting anything, it’s implied that they’ve recently bitten something, what with them all sexy-licking the dripping blood off their–in case you forgot–bright red mouths.  Or maybe they’re just biting their own mouths.  Or maybe their mouths actually become food (bright red food, even). But if they aren’t biting anything, then the least those bright red mouths can do is stay silent.  In fact, looking at the posters in succession, one could even argue that all those bright red mouths (oh yeah, and the completely erased mouths) represent the silencing of women.  Who can talk while wearing an implied ball gag?  Or while eating?  Or when you don’t have a mouth?  Or when your mouth is, you know, really just a pair of red chili peppers?  Or if you’ve got a bloody knife pressed against it? Or if that shit is zipped shut?

As discussed in the other parts of this series, separating women from their body parts in media images subtly reinforces women’s status as commodities, or pleasure-objects, or victims, who aren’t valued as whole, and who are, as a result, denied their humanity.  And we all know, because we live in This Society and it’s 100% inescapable, that the representation of women’s mouths is all kinds of tied up in the mouth-as-vagina metaphor–with the accompanying requisite phallic cigarette and lipstick images apparently never getting old. (And I’d be thrilled to never have to hear the phrase “dick-sucking lips” ever. again.)  But if the mouth isn’t a vagina, then it’s a nonstop, life-ruining motormouth (ever hear someone call a man a motormouth?) that even Mr. Potato Head wants to slap the shit out of. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, have a look at the Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head commercial that ran during the Superbowl.)  
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.  Molly Ringwald putting her lipstick on with her cleavage in The Breakfast Club is one of the most famous scenes in all of 80s film.  We’ve come a long way, baby!

Animated Children’s Films: Third Time Still Not the Charm for Toy Story’s Female Characters



This guest review by Natalie Wilson first appeared at Bitch Flicks in January 2011.
 
Toy Story 3 opens on a woman-empowerment high, with Mrs. Potato-Head displaying mad train-robbing skills and cowgirl Jessie skillfully steering her faithful horse Bullseye in the ensuing chase. And that’s the end of that: From there on, the film displays the same careless sexism as its predecessors.

Out of seven new toy characters at the daycare where the majority of the narrative takes place, only one is female–the purple octopus whose scant dialogue is voiced by Whoopi Goldberg. Although two of the toys in the framing scenes with Bonnie, the girl who ultimately becomes the toys’ new owner, are female, the ratio is still far worse than the average in children’s media of one-female-to-every-three-males (documented by The Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media). And these ratios have a real effect: Decades of research shows that kids who grow up watching sexist shows are more likely to internalize stereotypical ideas of what men and women are supposed to be like.

Toy Story’s latest installment revolves around now-17-year-old Andy leaving college. His mom (who has yet to be given a name) insists (in rather nagging fashion) that he store or get rid of all his “junk.” The bag of toys mistakenly ends up in the trash, resulting in the toys landing in a prison-like daycare (way to turn the knife on working parent guilt).

In typical Pixar fashion, male characters dominate the film. Though it ends with young Bonnie as the happy new owner of the toys, making way for more sequels, Woody would have to become Wanda, and Buzz become Betty, in order for the series to break Pixar’s male-only protagonist tradition (think Wall-E, A Bug’s Life, Cars, Monster, Inc, The Incredibles).

Bo Peep is inexplicably missing in this third installment, leaving even fewer female figures. Barbie has a larger role this time around though, as an overly emotional, often crying girlie-girl. She is also a traitor of sorts, breaking away from the gang to go live with Ken in his dream house.

As for Ken, he is depicted as a closeted gay fashionista with a fondness for writing in sparkly purple ink with curly-Q flourishes. Played for adult in-jokes, Ken huffily insists, “I am not a girl toy, I am not!” when an uber-masculine robot toy suggests so during a heated poker match. Pairing homophobia with misogyny, the jokes about Ken suggest that the worst things a boy can be are either a girl or a homosexual.

Barbie ultimately rejects Ken and is instrumental in Woody and company’s escape, but her hyper-feminine presentation, coupled with Ken’s not-yet-out-of-the-toy-cupboard persona, make this yet another family movie that perpetuates damaging gender and sexuality norms.

While the girls in the audience are given the funny and adventurous Jessie, they are also taught women talk too much: Flirty Mrs. Potato-Head, according to new character Lotso, needs her mouth taken off. Another lesson is that when women do say something smart, it’s so rare as to be funny (laughter ensues when Barbie says “authority should derive from the consent of the governed”), and that even when they are smart and adventurous, what they really care about is nabbing themselves a macho toy to love (as when Jessie falls for the Latino version of Buzz–a storyline, that, yes, also plays on the “Latin machismo lover” stereotype).

As for non-heterosexual audience members, they learn that being gay is so funny that the best thing to do is hide one’s sexuality by playing heterosexual, and to laugh along when others mock homosexuality or non-normative masculinity.

Yes, the film is funny and clever. Yes, it is enjoyable and fresh. Yes, it contains the typical blend of witty dialogue as well as a visual feast-for-the-eyes. But, no, Pixar has not left its male-heterocentric scripts behind. Nor has it moved beyond the “everyone is white and middle class” suburban view of the world. Perhaps we should expect no more from Pixar, especially now that Disney, the animated instiller of gender and other norms (a great documentary on this is Mickey Mouse Monopoly), now owns the studio. Sadly, Toy Story 3 indicates that animated films from Pixar will not be giving us a “whole new world,” at least when it comes to gender norms, anytime soon.

—–

Natalie Wilson, PhD is a literature and women’s studies scholar, blogger, and author. She teaches at Cal State San Marcos and specializes in areas of gender studies, feminism, feminist theory, girl studies, militarism, body studies, boy culture and masculinity, contemporary literature, and popular culture. She is author of the blogs Professor, what if …? and Seduced by Twilight. She is a proud feminist mom of two feminist kids (one daughter, one son) and is an admitted pop-culture junkie. Her favorite food is chocolate. Her other guest posts at Bitch Flicks include Let Me In, Lost, Nurse Jackie, and The United States of Tara.

Guest Writer Wednesday: Why Watch Romantic Comedies?

some romantic comedies


This guest post by Lady T previously appeared at her blog The Funny Feminist.

A few weeks ago, I announced my intention to tackle 52 romantic comedies over the course of one year. 2012 is the Year of the Romantic Comedy at my blog, and it shall henceforth be dubbed “The Rom-Com Project.” The Rom-Com Project is a completely serious endeavor, a social experiment, and in no way a cynical ploy to get a book deal by writing about a year of doing something. In my post where I first announced the project, I explained my reasons for focusing on the romantic comedy:
I also think that looking at romantic comedies is a worthwhile feminist project. I want to look at how men and women are represented in these films. I want to look at the way romantic expectations are presented in our popular culture. I want to look at issues of consent. I want to look at the way the comedy genre affects the romance genre and vice-versa.

Readers responded well to this post and left me more suggestions than I needed, to the point where I have to decide whether to narrow down the list to 52, or expand the project to “100 Rom-Coms in a Year.”

But why focus on romantic comedies (one might ask)? Why not focus on comedies that happen to feature women?

Well, just for a lark, I looked at the Wikipedia entry on “comedy film” and took note of the different sub-genres listed under the comedy banner, as well as the examples that were mentioned for each genre.

For the fish-out-of-water genre, the entry lists six examples. 0 of 6 of these examples have female protagonists.

For the parody or spoof film genre, the entry lists three examples. 0 of 3 of these examples have female protagonists.

For the anarchic comedy film genre, the entry lists two examples. 0 of 2 of these examples have female protagonists.

For the black comedy film genre, the entry lists fourteen examples. 1 of these 14 examples (Heathers) has a female protagonist without a male co-protagonist, and fewer than half have a female co-protagonist.

I think you can all start to see the pattern here, but let me continue just to belabor the point.

Gross-out films. 4 examples, 0 female protagonists.

Action comedy films. 9 examples, 0 female protagonists.

Comedy horror films. 9 examples, 1 female protagonist (in Scary Movie).

Fantasy comedy films. 6 examples, 2 female co-protagonists (The Princess Bride, Being John Malkovich), 0 female protagonists without male co-protagonists.

Black comedy films. 3 examples, 0 female protagonists.

Sci-fi comedy films. 8 examples, 0 female protagonists.

Military comedy films. 9 examples, 1 female protagonist (Private Benjamin).

Stoner films. 4 examples, 0 female protagonists.

Some might argue with me on particular examples, but it’s obvious that dominant characters in comedy films are overwhelmingly male. (I also understand that Wikipedia is not an entirely accurate source of information, but the examples that are used to represent these different genres explains a lot about our cultural attitudes.)

But what about the romantic comedy?

If you look at the entry on romantic comedies, you see many more films that have female protagonists, or at least female co-protagonists. Especially significant is the list of top-grossing romantic comedies. 22 films are listed. More than half of them have female co-protagonists, some have one female protagonist, and one has (gasp!) more than one female protagonist (Sex and the City).

The romantic comedy genre gets a lot of flak. It’s considered a genre that’s more “shallow” than drama, but not funny enough to be a “real” comedy. Is it any coincidence that the romantic comedy is one of the few film genres, and possibly the only film genre, that regularly features women?

To me, the romantic comedy genre is an example of the struggles women face both as entertainers and as consumers of entertainment.

Love stories are dismissed as “girl stuff” (as though something aimed at women is automatically less than something aimed at men). A male-centric romantic comedy like Knocked Up is something with “mass appeal” when a female-centric romantic comedy like My Best Friend’s Wedding is “girl stuff.” Judd Apatow makes the same type of movie over and over again and gets praised despite the striking similarity in many of his films (down to style, story, and casting), but reviewers of What’s Your Number? can’t resist comparing the movie unfavorably to Bridesmaids, even though “a female protagonist” is almost the only thing those two movies have in common.

It’s a double-edged sword. Romantic comedies are looked upon with scorn, as fluffy and unimportant compared to dramatic films, but also not “edgy” or irreverent enough to be “real” comedies. But if a woman wants to watch a movie that is both a) funny and b) featuring a female main character, she doesn’t have many options available to her.

Sexism is deeply ingrained in our culture. Just look at my last paragraph. I typed the last sentence of that paragraph saying that “if a woman wants to watch a movie…with a female main character…” Then I looked back and realized that I, who tries to make a point of combating stereotypes and gender essentialism, automatically assumed that ONLY women would ever want to watch a movie with a female protagonist. That a man wouldn’t seek out or enjoy a movie with a female protagonist. That a man wouldn’t think a movie with a female protagonist was funny.

I have several problems with the romantic comedy genre. I dislike that women are almost always presented as people who are obsessed with fashion and shopping and shoes. (Not that there’s anything wrong with being obsessed with fashion and shopping and shoes – I would buy Zooey Deschanel’s entire wardrobe if I had the means. I’m only pointing out that we don’t see many female protagonists in rom-coms who are not obsessed with fashion and shopping and shoes, and I would like to see a wider variety of characters.) I dislike that funny women are usually “pretty women in high heels who adorably fall down.” I dislike that women in romantic comedies are almost always teachers and cupcake bakers or art gallery owners or trying to make it in the publishing industry. (Again, not that there’s anything wrong with those careers – I just want more variety.) Or, alternately, these women are high-powered career types whose journeys revolve around letting free-spirited men teach them how to loosen up. (For more of these romantic comedy cliches, read Mindy Kaling’s Flick Chicks, and then pick up Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? And Other Concerns. I just finished reading it, and it’s hilarious.)

And yet, despite all of these cliches and stereotypes in romantic comedy films, I still want to spend a year analyzing the genre. I think it’s a worthwhile project because I want to examine our culture’s expectations about men and women and gender and sex and romance, and how romantic comedies play into (or don’t play into) rape culture. I am looking forward to this project.

But I’m not going to a lie. I’m a little annoyed and bitter that, if I wanted to spend a year writing about black comedies starring women, or parodies starring women, or any other comedy genre starring women, I would probably not to be able to come up with a list of 52 movies for any of those genres unless I reviewed a slew of obscure films that most readers wouldn’t recognize.

Final note: Whenever a woman (or a person of color, or disabled person, or gay person, or a person belonging to any marginalized group) writes a piece criticizing the lack of representation in media, it’s only a matter of time before a troll makes a comment along the lines of, “Well, if you think there should be more movies starring [this group], why don’t you write one yourself?” To that, I say, “All in due time. Alllll in due time.” I’m not writing about my super awesome women-centric movie ideas here just yet because I don’t want anyone to steal them. *shifts eyes, holds screenplay closer to chest*

—-

Lady T writes about feminism, comedy, media, and literature at the blog The Funny Feminist. Her essay “My Mom, the Reader” has also been featured at SMITH Magazine. A graduate of Hofstra University, she writes fiction about vampires, superhero girlfriends, and feisty princesses, and hopes to one day get paid for it. She contributed a review of Easy A to Bitch Flicks

Swiffer Reminds Us that Women Are Dirt

We’ve all been here before: watching a television show, cut to commercial break, and on comes that particular ad that you absolutely loathe. You switch the channel, mute the TV, or just rant through the entire thing…again (I’m not the only one, right?).
Not too long ago, I wrote about the spate of “man up and drink a manly beverage” ads (Dr. Pepper Ten specifically), which certainly qualify as loathe-worthy. But there’s another ad campaign that just annoys me to no end: the Swiffer Wet Jet ads that feature women as dirt and show these different varieties of “dirt” falling in love with the cleaning product that gets rid of them so well.
Here’s the one I’ve seen most often — “The Film Star:”

Here, we have a dramatic actress portraying the “film” left behind after mopping, and when the Swiffer mop comes after her, she throws herself at it, clearly lusting after the mop pad that will sweep her away. The ad pulls back and shows a woman satisfied with her freshly-cleaned floor.
Taken alone, the ad is silly and obnoxious, and just about as regressive as your typical gendered ad for cleaning products. The fact that dirt is personified as a woman is disturbing, the fact that she lusts after a mop to essentially destroy her is bizarre (and suggests some deeply fucked-up sexual politics), and the fact that a woman’s enemy (a filmy floor–oh no!) is another woman plays into the typical trope that says women are naturally enemies.
If you look at the other ads in the campaign, however, it gets worse. Here’s “The Mud Lady” (note: this is embedded from YouTube, so if it gets removed, you can likely find the ad somewhere else with a simple search):

Again, we have a woman personifying something you mop up–mud, in this case–and here the woman even claims she’s “not easy” before (literally) throwing herself at the mop pad. Again, the camera pans out to a woman happily mopping her floor. Just as the dramatic actress behaves stereotypically, this woman has a “Valley Girl” (is that term still in use?) accent and quickly contradicts what she says with her actions.
There’s another one featuring an elderly woman as yet another variety of dirt, which I can’t find online (if you know of a link, please let me know and I’ll update!) and she’s unhappy that no one’s given her any romantic attention in a while. Once again, enter that irresistible mop and the woman throws herself at it. And yet another woman mopping is pleased that her floors are now so clean.
These three ads are the only ones in the campaign that I’ve seen on TV here in the U.S. When I went to the official product website, there were some ads I’d never seen that feature men in lust with the mop pad. As a matter of fact, there are two ads there featuring women, and two featuring men (perhaps they’re attempting to thwart accusations of sexism there, but I doubt the ones featuring men are in rotation as heavily as the others)–although all of them show women doing the actual cleaning.
It’s remarkable how different the portrayals of the dirt people are: the men-as-dirt ads show a Crocodile Dundee-esque character (also stereotypical) and two buddies lamenting the state of their romantic lives, while the women-as-dirt ads always show a lonely, solitary woman desperate for the kind of attention provided by this wonder mop.
I’m less interested in equal-opportunity offense here: men as dirt is disturbing, too. But for me, there’s something particularly insidious about these women-as-dirt ads. This isn’t the first time Swiffer has been accused of sexism in their ads, either. In 2008, The Hathor Legacy called out the bizarre ad campaign featuring women in relationships with their cleaning tools:

Swiffer has a whole line of commercials featuring women breaking up with their old mops and brooms to hook up with Swiffer, or the rejected cleaning tools sending flowers in an attempt to woo back their former owners. All the commercials frame women’s relationships with cleaning tools like relationships with boyfriends who are/aren’t meeting their needs. Some of them have involved the woman and the mop in couples therapy, too.

I mentioned in my Dr. Pepper Ten post that I actually like that company’s product, and I feel the same way about Swiffer. And although my husband usually cleans the floors in our home, I’m still the one who buys a majority of the products we use. Swiffer has succeeded in pissing me off and alienating me with this ad campaign to the point that I’m basically finished with their products. It’s yet another example of a company’s humor gone wrong, outdated gender roles, and the assumption that customers will just accept sexism as the norm. Nope. Not here. It doesn’t take much effort to replace a company’s product that has no respect for its customers (and that just makes horrible ads).

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

“Tilda Swinton: I Didn’t Speak for Five Years” by Kira Cochrane for The Guardian

“Are TV Ads Getting More Sexist?” by Derek Thompson for The Atlantic

“Painful Baby Boom on Prime-Time TV” by Neil Genzlinger for The New York Times

“The Rebirth of the Feminist Manifesto” by Emily Nussbaum for New York Magazine

“Sexy or Sexism? Redefine Sexy, Identify Sexism” from SexyorSexism.org

“Diverse Black Women Dominating Daytime TV” by Ronda Racha Penrice for The Grio

“Chapstick Sticks It to Women” by Melissa Spiers for ReelGirl

“‘How to Be a Gentleman'” Cancelled” by James Hibberd for Entertainment Weekly

“Is She Really With Him?” by Molly McCaffrey for I Will Not Diet  

“We’ll Always Be Together: Girl-Gang Style in Movies” by Marie for Rookie Magazine 




I Feel Like Hell …

I went to the doctor, and she tried to convince me I’m only developing allergies, but I told her I don’t understand how allergies can make my entire face, head, neck, and body feel like they might simultaneously explode, but you know, what do I know. So I’m slacking off today while I get my “allergy” situation in check. This is what was happening three Novembers ago, when Bitch Flicks had only three readers: my sister, Amber’s husband, and … wait, maybe we only had two readers …
Whatever, it’s a flashback to our very first Review in Conversation. We’ve since gone on to publish RiCs of Black Swan, Horrible Bosses, and Sex and the City: The Movie, and we have one planned for Bridesmaids. (You know you want to read that, so give us a kick in the ass and make us write it. I just can’t seem to stop myself from streaming all the new television shows Netflix keeps adding from, you know, 1992.) 

Welcome to the first installment of a new feature on Bitch Flicks: Reviews in Conversation. We take a movie that’s worth talking about, and do just that.

“This is some revolutionary shit. We’re tying up white women in Mississippi.” –John Singleton, on filming Black Snake Moan in the South
Why does the revolution necessitate wholesale exploitation of women?
Since Black Snake Moan was one of the initial movies (along with Hustle & Flow…maybe we should officially thank Craig Brewer for the inspiration) that made us want to start this site, it’s fitting that we discuss the movie in our first Review in Conversation segment.

Here’s the IMDb summary:
In Mississippi, the former blues man Lazarus is in crisis, missing his wife that has just left him. He finds the town slut and nymphomaniac Rae dumped on the road nearby his little farm, drugged, beaten and almost dead. Lazarus brings her home, giving medicine and nursing and nourishing her like a father, keeping her chained to control her heat. When her boyfriend Ronnie is discharged from the army due to his anxiety issue, he misunderstands the relationship of Lazarus and Rae, and tries to kill him. (Claudio Carvalho)

Before I address the film’s atrocious sexism, which the above summary characterizes well, I’d like to say what I love about BSM. The music, first and foremost, is outstanding. Brewer calls this a movie about the blues, and I’d like to take that a step further and say the movie is the blues. Or it tries to be, at least. The movie and its story are too small, conflicted, and tone-deaf to achieve greatness. It tries to be the blues and ends up being a blues music video, where Lazarus (Samuel L. Jackson) is the tortured and tired star, and Rae (Christina Ricci) is the video vixen, shaking her ass for the camera.

This is a movie that I want to love. It’s gritty, unique, and aware of class and race—a rare combination. However, there is no female perspective in the movie. Is it really too much to ask for a sharp film to also be sharp about gender? Is it right for a film like BSM to claim gender as a theme, while not really exploring women at all? Rae is the only female character (brief appearances by Lazarus’ wife, Rae’s mother, and a kind pharmacist easily fit into the angel/monster dichotomy), but she isn’t quite a real person. What is wrong with her? She is talked about as a nymphomaniac, and has strange, demonic fits of desire, but she’s really a victim of rape and abuse. Lazarus, whose trauma is that his wife aborted his baby and left for his younger brother, takes it upon himself to “cure” her by chaining her to a radiator. Even if the movie isn’t to be taken literally (but as a metaphor of sorts), why are the other characters so human and she so other, so animal?

Response by Stephanie

I, too, fell in love with the music in this film. It complements the key themes—race and class, as you mentioned, religion, and I’d also take it a step further to include sex. The scenes with Ricci shaking her ass for the camera are wonderfully sexy, and I found myself wavering back and forth during those scenes, wondering, is this just another female character being exploited by the camera? Or, is this a female character finally owning her sexuality?

Early on, she’s portrayed as a woman who’s at the mercy of her untamable sexual desires, and I didn’t ever get the feeling that she enjoyed them. She’s often shown squirming around on the ground, rubbing her hands all over her body, and moaning, like she’s struggling to fend off an attack. It’s at that point that she must find someone, anyone to screw, in order to make that feeling go away.

Later though, after Lazarus “cures” her by wrapping a giant chain around her waist and attaching it to a radiator, Rae is allowed to enter society again, showing up at a bar with Lazarus, drinking, rubbing up against everyone on the dance floor while Lazarus watches her from the stage, almost approvingly. What’s going on here? I truly want to read this as much more complicated than a man giving a woman permission to flaunt her sexuality, and I think it is.

But I also can’t help getting a little unnerved by the frivolity with which her sexuality is treated earlier in the film, when she’s portrayed as nothing more than the town whore. (At one point, the local mechanic says, “It’s already noon, Rae. Do you think those shorts should still be on?”) And when she’s described as “having the sickness” by another character (meaning nymphomania), it’s impossible not to think about the double-standard we still hold for men and women, especially when it comes to sexual desires.

As you mentioned, she is portrayed as “other,” often animalistic in her sexual conquests. Since I don’t think a film like this would work at all if a man were the one with the sexual “disease” (it’s natural for men to have uncontrollable sex drives, after all) then what does one make of using the myth of nymphomania to drive the plot? (See Peter Green’s “All Sexed Up,” a review of Carol Groneman’s 2000 book Nymphomania: A History, for a brief discussion of the myth.)

Response by Amber 

I agree that the scene in the bar was very sexy, and I think I agree with what you said about that being a moment of Rae owning her sexuality. I think we’re supposed to understand that scene as a very important moment in which both characters are owning something that they’d lost—or lost control of. For whatever reason, Lazarus had lost his music (and I suspect it had to do with his wilting marriage), and Rae had lost control of her sexuality. However, that scene was exhilarating, and I think it has to do with reclamation and individual victory.

But back to the way gender and sex intersect. If nymphomania is itself largely fictitious, the strange way Rae’s fits were portrayed—moments in the film that were suspended between fear and comedy—reveals some of the ideological confusion of the film. If not for her nearly-naked body, battered and bruised and constantly displayed, I might have more sympathy for the film’s motivations. Add that to Rae’s moment of catharsis where she beats the shit out of her mother with a mop handle (for allowing Rae to be raped, either by her father or another male figure in her home), and we see women destroyed by sex who we’re supposed to sympathize with.

The final topic I want to bring up is religion. We can’t deny the role Christianity plays in the film. From the name of the main character to the supporting cast (which includes a preacher), the issue of faith (and a very certain brand of faith) comes up again and again. If the movie is a metaphor for “anxiety, fear, and unconditional love,” according to Brewer himself, then religion is the element that holds it all together. The instantiations of religion, however, are clunky at best; the radiator is God, the chain is faith, et cetera. I don’t really know where to go from here, except to acknowledge the large role of religion, although it plays out in hackneyed ways.

Response by Stephanie 

While I would like to see both characters in this film actually achieve some level of reclamation and individual victory, I think it fails for the most part, but the film especially fails Rae. She remains “chained” in a metaphorical sense, even in the final scenes. I don’t believe her character discovers much, or achieves much of an arc; she remains, for me, completely static. In fact, the film pretty much uses her as a vehicle to showcase the success of Lazarus, (which is yet another example of female exploitation that Brewer has either no awareness of or no desire to address).
I was left feeling no hope for Rae in that final scene—she’s imprisoned, (in a stuffy car, surrounded by semi-trucks) stuck in a relationship with a man who’s essentially a child needing to be coddled, with only the memory of her radiator-chain to keep her from jumping from the vehicle and fucking her way across the interstate. But Lazarus has his music again. He’s managed to overcome his anger about his wife leaving him, and he’s even got a nice new chick to look after him. See how chaining up a white woman in Mississippi can revolutionize an entire worldview?
The truth is I never gave a shit about Rae. I could’ve cared for her, if Brewer hadn’t used her sexuality against her—it’s filmed as if the abuse she suffers is deserved. (See what you get when you go around whoring yourself? Tsk, tsk.) By the time we get to know her character, when, as you mentioned, she divulges her history of sexual abuse, then beats the shit out of her mother with a mop handle, it’s way too late for sympathy. By that point, Brewer has already managed to turn a young woman’s sexuality into a cross between sketch comedy and porn, where nothing about it feels real.

In that moment of catharsis with her mother, I found myself detached. Instead of sympathizing with Rae and coming to some kind of realization myself, I just rolled my eyes at the ridiculous, clichéd consequences of her abuse—girl gets raped by father-figure while mother does nothing to stop it, girl develops low self-esteem, girl becomes town slut, girl develops a fictional sex disease, girl gets chained to radiator by religious black man. Wait, what? Ah religion, how you never cease to reinforce the second-class citizenship of women, perpetually punishing them for their godless desire to fuck.
So Rae is possessed by an evil sex demon, and, at one freaky moment, Lazarus’s ex-wife. Lazarus and his brother are Cain and Abel. There’s adultery, lust, preachers, fire-and-brimstone, bible passages, and judgmental townsfolk. Basically, the religious themes receive the same clichéd treatment as women’s sexuality. Rae is pretty much “saved” by Lazarus, and Lazarus pretty much gets his shit together and “rises from the dead” (as Lazarus in the bible).
And, after this conversation, I’m starting to wonder if I’m the problem, if I made the mistake of taking this film seriously, when what it really wants to be is one big sensationalist metaphor. A metaphor for what, though? I’ll conclude with something Brewer says in an interview.
I’m not writing from a place of progress. I’m not writing a movie that I want people to necessarily intellectualize. And I think that really messes with people who feel that they need to make a statement against this, and they don’t quite know what it is they’re against. Because man alive, you look at this imagery on this poster, and I’m so obviously banging this drum. It’s like, you really believe that I believe this? That women need to be chained up? Can we not think metaphorically once race and gender are introduced?

Read the Salon.com interview with Craig Brewer 

Occupy Wall Street and Feminism and Misogyny (Oh My?)

 

I’ve been 100% on board with Occupy Wall Street since it began almost a month ago. I wrote about my experience protesting with them on October 5, and—leading up to the Times Square Occupation—I almost had goose bumps. I was ready to take the square. And then, it happened—I browsed Facebook. In my defense, I went to the Facebook community page for Occupy Wall Street to find out exactly when and where I should meet my fellow protesters, but instead, I found a YouTube video posted by the page administrator that more than seven hundred people had shared and on which hundreds of people had commented. I had to watch it. I wish I wouldn’t have. The “comedian” ranted with so much repressed disdain for women that it couldn’t help but leak out, turning his tirade from something intended to critique Wall Street and the Banks into an opportunity to degrade women directly; when he ranted about the true Economy Tankers, or the mainstream media, or those who don’t support the movement, he conveniently addressed them as an abstract and general “you.” I created a transcript of the entire video just to make sure I wasn’t going all woman and not understanding comedy and getting unnecessarily pissed about little things that don’t matter. Let’s see! Video and transcript below, with bullshit in bold:

The New York Times, the highly respected New York Times, did a great article yesterday about Occupy Wall Street. The entire report revolved around how Occupy Wall Street is a big pain in the ass to the area’s public bathrooms. Now there’s two things you need to know about the last sentence I just said. A: I’m not kidding. B: The double entendre was unintended. There will be several more of those in the following three minutes, and all of them are unintended except for seven. The New York Times, which is a so-called liberal media outlet, is more concerned about the harm done to the public restrooms than they are with the harm done to the American people by corporations and Wall Street titans who make Charlie Sheen’s moral compass look like that of Harriet Tubman. As billionaires continue to shit all over this country like it’s a bathroom near Occupy Wall Street, the media is more worried about the bathrooms near Occupy Wall Street? Are you fucking serious? Get your head out of your ass, and maybe you’ll be able to better see your priorities. This world is a shit storm of greed that desperately needs mopping up. We’re talking about people’s homes, people’s lives, people’s dreams, and the media wants to make it about the discomfort of millionaires who live around Liberty Square? The article said mothers have trouble getting strollers around police barricades. God forbid the revolution should get in the way of your evening stroll with pookie wookie. This may not be a revolution in the traditional sense, but this is a revolution of thought. Americans are tired of greed over good, profitable pollution over people, war for wealth over the welfare of average workers. This is a thought revolution, and the revolution will not be sanitized. It will be criticized, ridiculed, intentionally misconstrued, and misunderstood. But it’ll push through. Shit all over it all you want, but the floodgates are open now. The revolution will not be tidy. The revolution will not fit with your Pilates schedule. The revolution will not be quiet after 10 pm, and it will not fit easily into a mainstream media- defined paradigm. The revolution will affect your bottom line. The revolution will affect you whether you ignore it or not. The revolution will not be dissuaded by barricades or pepper spray, driving rain, police raids, or ankle sprains. It’s like the postal service on steroids; pepper spraying us is like throwing water on gremlins—the more you do it, the more of us show up. The revolution will be annoying to the top 1% and those who aren’t open minded enough to understand it. The revolution does not care if you satirize it; you still won’t be able to jeopardize it. The revolution will not wait until after your hair appointment, your dinner party, tummy tuck, or titty tilt. The revolution does not care about your lack of intellectual curiosity. The revolution will not be televised, but it will be digitized and available on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and anywhere real ideas are told. The revolution will not be hijacked by your old, tired, rejected political beliefs. The revolution will make politicians squirm, bankers bitch, elites moan, and those with Stockholm Syndrome scream, “Hit me, punk criminal assholes. Shut up and do what our captors told you. There’s a sitcom on about a chubby guy who hates his wife, and we’re supposed to watch it. Now fall in line.” The revolution will not be monetized, commercialized, circumcised, or anesthetized. Good god, don’t you get it? Greed is no longer good, and it’s not god. The thought revolution is here to stay whether you give two shits about it or not. The revolution would, however, like to apologize for shitting all over your apathy. Now pick a side.

Damn me! It’s not like I wanted to be right about this guy being a total misogynist profusely praised by hundreds. (Okay, they didn’t say, “You hate women! Awesome!” but I’m inclined to believe that ignoring the hatred for and alienation of more than 50% of the population, especially among a group of people that claims to represent the needs of 99% of the population, doesn’t exactly bode well for the group’s collective message of inclusion. Remember, the Facebook page administrator for Occupy Wall Street posted this video.) Many women and people from minority groups have written important pieces about their hesitation to fully engage with the Occupy Wall Street movement. I guess up until I watched that YouTube video, as tiny a thing as it may be (it somehow got under my skin), I didn’t truly understand where they were coming from. I’ve mistakenly been abiding by that ol’ standby, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” which meant to me that, yeah, I’m pissed at Wall Street and the Banks; the protesters are pissed at Wall Street and the Banks; therefore, we’re in this together, regardless.

That idea of working toward a common goal, often at the expense of women, has been around forever. We encountered it with Voting Rights. We even encountered it with the identity politics surrounding the 2008 presidential election. The message is always something like, “Don’t worry, ladies; your time will come eventually! We’ll worry about your oppression later.” But while I agree with most of what that video transcript says, I can’t simply ignore the specific rage toward women. I’m a woman. That kind of rhetoric negatively impacts all women. I might not be a mother; I don’t take Pilates classes; I make hair appointments maybe once every eight months; and I haven’t had plastic surgery. But I’m still a woman—regardless of whether I’m as privileged as the women his rant carelessly mentions or whether I’m part of the 99%; I’m not immune. Suffice it to say, by the time Occupy Times Square rolled around, I forced myself down there. For the first time since the movement began, I felt apathetic, confused, and just … icky about it.

But then! After hanging out under a giant rainbow tarp with my fellow protesters in Times Square, and listening to the wonderful street musicians, and chanting, “This is a peaceful protest” when the cops started to get a little edgy, and clapping like crazy when a nice police officer tossed our beach ball back into the crowd, I left with a feeling of … hope? Again? Just like when I participated my first time? And it didn’t feel like that crap hope Obama tried to sell sold during his advertising presidential campaign. It felt … dare I say … real? What is wrong with me?

Like I said—I felt confused. But the thing I realized is I truly believe that most of the organizers and participants I’ve personally met are trying. We live in a patriarchy, which means that smaller groups organized by men and women often inevitably turn into mini-patriarchies. The difference with this movement (I hope) is that the protesters at least recognize the intersecting oppressions of gender, race, class, and sexuality and are trying to change the group dynamics; we’ve had fairly shitty models thus far (visited any matriarchies lately?). It may seem small to merely recognize something, but it’s a pretty big fucking step in the right direction. That isn’t to say that each individual who makes up the group’s members necessarily examines her or his relative privilege as much as she or he should, if at all; but I honestly believe the group wants to get there. The media certainly doesn’t help by painting Occupy Wall Street as a movement organized by a bunch of entitled, young, lazy, pot-smoking white boys who got bored playing video games in their parents’ basements. I can attest—it ain’t like that. Women abound!—a very diverse group of intelligent women whose visibility shouldn’t be minimized, let alone relegated to the sexist bullshit that is Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street. (UGH.)
Now, before I unveil my counter-Tumblr blog to showcase the Women Occupiers, I want to first discuss the main reasons this movement, even after my recent reservations, still works for me as a woman and a feminist.

Consciousness Raising: If that douchebag said anything important in the video, he said that Occupy Wall Street is a thought revolution. I agree. And the particular form of activism this movement employs comes directly from consciousness-raising groups formed by feminists in the 1960s. (That may explain why the mainstream media remains clueless about how to discuss it; it’s got that “woman stench” all over it.) Wikipedia briefly defines consciousness raising as “a group of people attempting to focus the attention of a wider group of people on some cause or condition.” The meetings helped women become more politically conscious while also illustrating that individual problems “reflected common conditions faced by all women.” Occupy Wall Street began as a small group of people camping out in Liberty Plaza and—as the direct result and success of their consciousness-raising tactics—the movement has literally gone global. Not only do people march in protest, but they also occupy public spaces for extended periods in smaller groups, often bringing in speakers and setting up scheduled talks that are open to the public (including their General Assemblies). The We Are the 99 Percent blog on Tumblr also represents a viral version of consciousness raising, where a diverse group of individuals impacted most by the Economy Tankers take to the blog and share their personal experiences in order to raise consciousness about the tangible consequences of the rising economic inequalities. It’s working. Go 1960s feminists!

General Assemblies: I have yet to attend a General Assembly, so here’s a quick explanation from the downloadable guide: “The General Assembly is a gathering of people committed to making decisions based upon a collective agreement or ‘consensus.’ There is no single leader or governing body of the General Assembly—everyone’s voice is equal. Anyone is free to propose an idea or express an opinion as part of the General Assembly.” And in their working draft of the Principles of Solidarity, two of the points of unity include: “recognizing individuals’ inherent privilege and the influence it has on all interactions;” and, “empowering one another against all forms of oppression.” I very much like this. As I stated earlier, the effort to examine privilege, even if it occasionally fails, still represents something important and fairly new as a mainstream ideal. (As Occupy Wall Street continues to gain momentum, I don’t see how it can continue to be described as “fringe.”) I have no doubt that this system works sometimes and implodes other times, and I’ve read accounts from women, specifically women of color, who’ve attended a General Assembly and felt that their voices weren’t heard or their views respected. I find those occurrences unacceptable and disheartening to say the least, but I don’t find them shocking either. I can only hope that the values defined in the group’s literature prevail as everyone struggles to examine her or his privilege. After all, that struggle is, in itself, a feminist act.

Economic Inequality: This issue represents my main reason for staying onboard with Occupy Wall Street. Their proposed list of demands from a few weeks ago (not to be confused with any “official list of demands”) includes raising the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hour, instituting a universal single payer healthcare system, free college education, a racial and gender equal rights amendment, and debt forgiveness. It’s no secret (I hope) that single mothers and women of color make up the majority of the poor in the United States. RH Reality Check ran an important piece in August of 2010 that broke down the unemployment rate for these two demographics. Basically, as of around this time last year, the unemployment rate for women who head families climbed to its highest rate in over 25 years. The unemployment rate exclusively for women of color without children jumped to its highest rate since 1986. Newman concludes her article as follows:
If we are not willing to invest in the very programs that will help pull some of our poorest Americans—single mother led households and women of color—out of the spiral, then we are not rebuilding the economy. We are only as strong as our most vulnerable, as the saying goes. To continue a national discussion on unemployment and the recession without acknowledging that our women and children are suffering the most, not because we aren’t able to implement programs and pass legislation like universal, affordable child care, paid sick days, increased food stamp benefits, fair pay standards and more but because we aren’t willing to do so, is something we must own up to and do something about if we are to rise above these hard times and come out stronger than we were when we headed into the recession.

Exactly. And I believe the Occupy Wall Street movement desires to motivate the people to do just that—to push for the necessary programs and legislation that will help the poorest members of our community, you know, not starve, and to challenge our ingrained notions of power—more importantly, who gets to have that power and therefore who gets to make the decisions. The movement makes clear, even though the media keeps pretending it’s an unfocused mess, that what unites the 99% is a collective lack of economic power, which, in an unregulated capitalist society, translates into no fucking power. When your government representatives make decisions about the welfare of the people based on how much money Wall Street pays them, then it’s likely that “the welfare of the people” quickly turns into “the welfare of the people who paid us the most money to look out for their welfare.” Ha. An article from Ms. called, “We Are the 99%, Too: Creating a Feminist Space Within Occupy Wall Street,” further examines this issue of power, privilege, and oppression:
When we think about the elite 1 percent in a position of economic and political power in America, we have to recognize that those elites are predominantly straight, white men. Their position of power is upheld by patriarchy, by white privilege, by heteronormativity. If we want to dismantle oppression in our society, we can only hope to do so by recognizing the ways in which these various systems of oppression intersect and support one another. That doesn’t mean we can’t focus on the economy as a nexus of inequality; clearly, the occupation of Wall Street speaks directly to fighting corporate power and economic privilege. But we cannot imagine creating a society rooted in equality without fighting for all forms of equality, and that includes embracing feminist values. 

I encourage everyone to read the article in full because this discussion is important. The disturbing videos on YouTube—one showing a police officer pepper spraying a group of women, and another showing a police officer picking up a woman and dragging her into Citibank—I’m sure only begin to scratch the surface of what women deal with while occupying. Women deserve to start the conversations about the impact of economic inequality, to participate in the conversations, to change the conversations, and to end the conversations—and they deserve to do those things while not facing police brutality, while not experiencing sexist attacks from a random YouTuber who thinks he’s a comedian, and while, for once, not being sexually objectified. All those things work in tandem to further take away power from women, and we need women in this fight. So, being only one person, but wanting to combat some aspect of this shit, I created Women Occupy, a no-frills Tumblr blog where anyone can upload photos and videos of women occupying, whether that occupation takes place on Wall Street or in Madrid (or wherever). This is also what giving a fuck looks like. Now go. Upload. The end.

 

Eff You, Dr. Pepper: An Open Letter

Dear Dr. Pepper,
I personally find your beverages delicious, and happen to make a majority of the purchasing decisions for my household. Thanks to your outrageous ad for Dr. Pepper 10, which I just saw last night, we will no longer drink any variety of Dr. Pepper. 
Please advise.
Sincerely,
Me
P.S. Here’s the ad referenced above, just in case you outsourced this campaign to some teenage boys (although the use of “woman” rather than “girl” suggests that adults did, in fact, create the ad) and you have no clue what I’m talking about (despite this and this and this and this, and this, etc.).

P.P.S. I’m really tired of sexism-as-humor in marketing campaigns. I’m not just talking about the “not for women” thing, though I’m certainly not a fan of that idea. This whole “man up and be a manly man” shit has to stop. You’re not the first to equate a beverage with masculinity, although you’re the most straightforwardly sexist, and probably the least funny. Here are a couple of other examples of unacceptable ad campaigns, so you know what not to do when you re-do this one.
Miller Lite:

Pepsi Max:

P.P.P.S. Yes, I’m aware that companies often create outrageous advertising for the buzz and free promotion it generates. I’m also aware that this open letter generates additional promotion for the products listed above. That said, companies that gamble with such sexist messages risk alienating customers (like me and probably a lot of others), and deserve public scorn.
Readers: Have you written or read elsewhere about the new campaign for Dr. Pepper 10, or other Manly Beverages? If so, please leave your link in the comments and we’ll include it above.

Documentary Preview: ‘The Bro Code: How Contemporary Culture Creates Sexist Men’

The Bro Code: a new documentary from MEF
The Media Education Foundation recently announced their newest documentary, The Bro Code: How Contemporary Culture Creates Sexist Men. The MEF makes some very good documentaries aimed at educating people to become more media literate–which is one of the most important cultural issues of our time, in my opinion.
Men are not born devaluing women, or objectifying them, or loathing them to the point that the worst possible insult is to be called feminine. No, men (and women) learn these attitudes from a culture that constantly reinforces the supremacy of the male and closely polices masculinity (the recent “Man Up!” ads from Miller Lite come to mind, as do the less-recent calls from some female politicians that their male counterparts, again, “Man up!”).
Here’s the trailer:

TRAILER: The Bro Code: How Contemporary Culture Creates Sexist Men from Media Education Foundation on Vimeo.
I’m planning to watch The Bro Code (you can watch a free preview of the full-length film on MEF’s website) and check back in with my thoughts. Has anyone watched it yet? What do you think?

We Interrupt This Broadcast … for an Occupy Wall Street Update

Yesterday, I participated in my first Occupy Wall Street march. I’ve followed the movement—through blogs, twitter, and the live video stream—since it began three weeks ago, so when I left my apartment yesterday, I certainly had a shit-ton of information about the protest. I didn’t, however, really know what the hell to expect (aside from the beatings, gratuitous use of mace by the NYPD, and mass arrests of people exercising their constitutional right to protest, I mean). I kept hearing stuff, like how the protesters aren’t united over a single issue; that they don’t have concrete demands; that they’re leaderless and unorganized; that they’re a bunch of bored college kids who got sick of hanging out in their parents’ basements; that they’re just ungrateful vegan hippies who don’t understand how the world works; that they’re radical anarchists socialists atheists communists artists humanists and—to top it all off—that they’re engaging in all this unacceptable class warfare.

Well.

First, these amazing protesters seriously have it together. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so … opposite of unorganized. We knew exactly what was happening at all times, including where we were marching, what we were yelling, when we needed to stop, and when we needed to speed up. This group may officially be leaderless, but it certainly knows how to coordinate, plan, and carry out tasks. At one point, a man handed me a piece of paper with a list of my rights as a protester, and it included a protocol to follow if an officer attempted to question or arrest me. Helpful! A woman walked by and insisted I take a bottle of water to keep with me while I marched. Thank you! And any time I bumped into someone, whether attempting to take a picture or just, you know, tripping for no reason (as I’m wont to do), my fellow protesters steadied me or laughed with me or apologized profusely even if it clearly wasn’t their fault. It was fun. We were peaceful and chill. It kind of felt like … solidarity.

I mean, sure, people carried different signs for and against various issues. I saw signs about protecting the homeless from police brutality; signs directed at corporations; signs for going green and protecting the environment; signs for abolishing the death penalty; signs for animal rights; some anti-Obama stuff; some anti-Bush stuff; and many signs representing protestors’ specific unions. I didn’t have a sign—I just yelled with the rest of them, my favorite slogan being, “Banks got bailed out. We got sold out.” Truth! Having said all that, I would hardly call this movement divided or unclear in its goals. All these concerns fall under the umbrella of a much larger issue—the fact that 99% of the population is at the mercy of that tiny little 1% at the top of The Money Pile.

I took an Introduction to Political Science course when I was about eighteen and an idiot. I remember my teacher asking us, “Is money speech?” We were all, like, “Um, like, I don’t get it.” The class that day was focused on the concept of free speech in our country, which we all agreed was a constitutional right. But our teacher had to go and make it all complicated. “Is money speech?” he asked again. Our class ultimately decided it was the most ridiculous thing we’d ever heard. I wish I could go back to that classroom, knowing what I know now. One finds out fairly early in her adult life that when she graduates from college, and the bills start rolling in, and the bills start eating up the paycheck, and that emergency room visit happens for that fucking hive outbreak, and wait—how is this visit a thousand dollars when I have health insurance?!—and the bank wants her student loan repaid at this new interest rate, right when her brakes go out, and every broke neo-con in her family is somehow still convinced this whole bootstrap thing is real (and possible)—yeah, she learns that money is, in fact, speech. But how is it speech, you ask?

Well.

In a capitalist society, money matters; but in an unregulated capitalist society, the only thing that matters is money. The people’s right to free speech; our right to democratically elect our government officials; our right to affordable healthcare; our right to breathe clean air; our right to have access to pesticide-free foods; and our right to peacefully protest against, you know, all of our rights being violated; well—you can throw that garbage out the window.

Because, in an unregulated capitalist society, the 1% at the Top of the Money Pile gets to exercise its right to free speech, too, which its elite members happily and unapologetically do in the form of: donating millions of dollars to campaigns, ensuring that when their candidate is elected, they have effectively bought a politician who will work tirelessly to keep them comfy on the Money Pile (in exchange for those pesky campaign contributions again next year, score!); profiting, literally profiting financially, off people who have chronic illnesses, people who become sick and don’t have access to healthcare, people who become sick and have access to healthcare, people who don’t have health insurance, people who do have health insurance, and people who die (pretty good deal for you, insurance companies, amirite?!!); and basically doing whatever the hell they want with our environment and our food supply—the welfare of the people be damned—as long as they make a profit.

The problem with that “I’m using my billions of dollars as speech” thing is that we don’t all have billions of dollars. The 99%, in fact, certainly doesn’t have billions of dollars to throw at politicians as some kind of motivational force to get them to act on our behalf; all we have is our lousy vote. That issue—and this is why the 1% is quaking in its collective [insert expensive brand of shoe here]—transcends political parties and affiliations. My conservative uncle and I can’t post a link on Facebook without each of us having partisan cyber-feuds on each other’s walls. But this issue? It ain’t like that. We’re both pissed that we, the 99%, bailed out The Economy Tankers with our tax dollars, only to stand back helplessly and watch them dole out bonuses and other unaccounted for luxuries to themselves. I mean, are ya serious, assholes?

Now that the mainstream media finally wants to pretend-acknowledge the Occupy Wall Street movement, and its global impact (wait, are they pretend-acknowledging that yet?), I’m not surprised that much of its “coverage” centers around how the protesters aren’t united over a single issue, that they don’t have concrete demands, that they’re leaderless and unorganized. The reality is that the 1% owns the media too, and it’s in the best interest of the 1% to keep this movement from gaining momentum, lest its constituents suffer actual tangible consequences for their thievery. So, they get their media to make Occupy Wall Street about how young liberals are just pissy that Obama isn’t as hopey-changey as they’d hoped; or they get their media to say that those clueless Wall Street kids don’t have any real goals so this can’t be a real thing that we need to pay real attention to; or—their most effective tactic—they get their media to start comparing and contrasting Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party as if this movement is just the eruption of another political fringe group with an exclusively left-wing agenda, rather than what it is: A Call to Action for those of us who don’t get to throw down a cool million here and there and call it “speech.”

But they forgot that we do have ways of speaking up. And that the whole world is watching.