The Corporate Catfight in ‘Working Girl’

Because Katharine steals Tess’s idea, we automatically pull for Tess, the lower-class underdog; consequently, we are forced to view Katharine, the upper-class princess, as the demonized, selfish boss, determined to achieve success no matter what. Hurt, yet motivated to take control of her career, Tess is now forced to lie in order to have her voice heard. This causes her to be pitted against a boss who has clearly abused her power. Even though ‘Working Girl’ seems like a harmless, romantic drama, its female representation is firmly rooted in classism and sexism.

"Working Girl" poster

This guest post by Chantell Monique appears as part of our theme week on Women and Work/Labor Issues.


Mike Nichols’ Working Girl (1988) is centered on Tess McGill, played by Melanie Griffith, who is a Staten Island girl looking to make her way up the Manhattan corporate ladder. Although she has big hair, flashy make-up and gaudy jewelry, she’s soft-spoken, ambitious and smart. She may take the ferry into the city but she has dreams of being more than what people give her credit for. She’s a secretary who earned her night school degree with honors and feels she can “do a job” beyond fetching people coffee. More than anything, Tess is looking for her big break.

Enter her new boss, Katharine Parker, played by Sigourney Weaver. Katharine is everything Tess wants to be — she’s well-spoken, classy and successful. She looks like money and speaks with confidence and assurance. Although slightly intimidated by Katharine, Tess ultimately sees this pairing as her opportunity to finally get her career on track. Her hopes are strengthened more when Katharine tells her that their relationship is a “two way street” and empowers Tess to take control of her career.

Tess & Cyn take the Staten Island Ferry to the city

Motivated by her good fortune, Tess shares one of her ideas with Katharine; the idea is fresh, and intuitive. Katharine tells her that she’ll look over her notes to see if the idea has potential. This is the opportunity Tess has been waiting for. She gushes to her boyfriend, played by Alec Baldwin, that Katharine takes her seriously and that she doesn’t have to endure the skirt chasing that comes with having a male boss. Working Girl gives us hope that Tess will finally get a chance to prove herself in the cutthroat corporate world. In addition, her boss is a woman—this means, she is educated, ambitious and from what we can tell, willing to help a fellow woman find success in a man’s world. This is a start to positive representation of women in the workplace—while from two different worlds, both are educated and determined to work hard to get what they want.

 

Working_Girl_8

A freak skiing accident leaves Katharine in the hospital and unable to come into work. She asks Tess to take care her personal business, sending her to her home to handle a number of responsibilities. While perusing Katharine’s fancy living situation, Tess discovers a recorded memo from Katharine that explicitly states she seeks to pursue Tess’s idea without her, ultimately passing it off as her own. Heartbroken at her betrayal, Tess goes home early only to find her boyfriend in bed with another woman. With nowhere to go, Tess flees to Katharine’s home and after some soul searching, decides to exact her revenge.

This is where the movie shifts its direction in terms of female representation; what could be an opportunity to illustrate a harmonious relationship between two women in the workplace, instead does the opposite. Because Katharine steals Tess’s idea, we automatically pull for Tess, the lower-class underdog; consequently, we are forced to view Katharine, the upper-class princess, as the demonized, selfish boss, determined to achieve success no matter what. Hurt, yet motivated to take control of her career, Tess is now forced to lie in order to have her voice heard. This causes her to be pitted against a boss who has clearly abused her power. Even though Working Girl seems like a harmless, romantic drama, its female representation is firmly rooted in classism and sexism.

Tess: before & after

Tess finds herself in a difficult situation — she wants to move up the corporate ladder but no one takes her seriously because she’s a secretary. After discovering Katharine’s plan to hijack her idea, Tess sets up an appointment with Jack Trainer, played by Harrison Ford; she needs Jack’s help with making her idea a reality. With Katharine out of town, Tess has an opportunity to make a name for herself but before this can happen, she must refine her image. Insert the Hollywood makeover; Tess and her best friend Cyn, played by Joan Cusack, sit in Katharine’s bathroom—Tess with a beauty magazine and Cyn with a pair of scissors. “You sure you wanna do this?” Cyn asks, holding a piece of Tess’ hair. “You wanna be taken seriously, you need serious hair,” she replies.

Audiences are used to seeing makeover scenes where the ugly duckling emerges as a swan but this particular scene holds more meaning. Tess is the lower-class underdog; she has a heavy accent and her hair is teased to the ceiling. Instead of embracing her roots, she’s forced to leave her identity behind for corporate acceptance. It makes sense that she does this; unfortunately, by wearing Katharine’s clothes, cutting her hair and altering her dialect, the film manages to comment on which class has more power. If she needs serious hair to be taken seriously, then what kind of hair does she have before the makeover? As her evolution progresses it’s clear she’s trying to emulate Katharine who represents the upper-class princess, and ultimate model of success. In a classist society, this is an example of the upper-class being taken more seriously, having more power, and garnering the most respect.

Am-bitch-ous Katharine researches Tess' idea

Tess’s plan to thwart Katharine demonstrates the notion that women don’t belong in management. Women in power are seen as ruthless, am-bitch-ous and emotional. It’s this characterization that affects most women in power, pigeonholing them and undermining their success. This stereotype is evident in Working Girl; Katharine is a woman who in the beginning of the film is portrayed as focused, strong and willing to assist a female co-worker with her career. Unfortunately, as her character develops, it’s discovered that she’s not as honest as she seems. Because Katharine steals her subordinate’s idea, we now have to question her career veracity. Has she stolen other co-workers’ ideas in order to further her career? Tess went to Katharine because she was her boss; she respected her opinion and ultimately her position of power. By stealing Tess’s idea, Katharine abuses this power; her actions reinforce the stereotype that women are unable to handle management positions.

While the film relies on sexist tropes in order to create an antagonist for Tess, one has to wonder, what if Katharine was a man? Would a man have even respected Tess enough to listen to her? This creates a difficult position for Working Girl; one can argue that a man would not have listened to Tess; therefore, there wouldn’t be a storyline worth pursuing. They had to make Katharine a woman but by doing so, they portrayed her as conniving, devious and incapable, thus harming the female image.

Tess & Jack in the boardroom, trying to solidify the deal

Tess’s plan is under way; no one suspects she’s a secretary posing as management. Jack’s on board and everything is going well, including the fact that there is a connection between the two. But like most movies, all good things must come to an end. With the deal almost solidified and Jack and Tess clearly in love, she’s one step away from proving her worth. Not to be foiled, Katharine shows up at the meeting and blows Tess’s cover. In a corporate “cat fight” Katharine belittles Tess, makes her out to be crazy and steals her place at the meeting table. All is not lost for Tess, however. Days after the meeting, she runs into Jack, Katharine, and the group of men involved in the deal she put together. With Jack’s help, she’s able to prove to the CEO that it was her idea all along, telling him, “You can bend the rules plenty once you get to the top, but not while you’re trying to get there. And if you’re someone like me, you can’t get there without bending the rules.” Katharine makes one last desperate attempt to prove the idea was hers but everything crumbles around her.

The lower-class underdog manages to beat the woman who has everything. What’s interesting to note is that both women had to lie/cheat in order to achieve their goals. Katharine tried to cheat by stealing Tess’s idea and Tess had to “bend the rules” in order to have her voice heard. While this seems innocent, the film argues that women aren’t capable enough to get ahead on their own—that ultimately they must rely on lying or cheating in order to climb the corporate ladder and find success.

A professional & composed Tess, ready to "make it happen"

Working Girl is one of my favorite romantic dramas; unfortunately, it took a couple viewings in order to question its female representation in the workplace. Even though these images seem harmless, upon further investigation, they aren’t. Being able to recognize and question these images encourages viewers to challenge their line of thinking and perhaps even write alternative perspectives that can empower and strengthen the female image.


Chantell Monique is a Creative Writing instructor and screenwriter, living in Los Angeles. She holds a MA in English from Indiana University, South Bend. She’s a Black Girl Nerd who’s addicted to Harry Potter, Netflix and anything pertaining to social justice, and female representation in film and television. Twitter: @31pottergirl

Surfers in ‘Blue Crush’ and Girls in ‘Blue Crush 2’

Michelle Rodriguez, Kate Bosworth, and Sanoe Lake in Blue Crush

Written by Robin Hitchcock

To borrow an observation from my friend Liz, subculture movies are awesome. Well, they have a better chance of being awesome, and an excellent chance of being at least interesting. Focusing on people who build their lives and identities around an activity that many people never even have the chance to try is a pretty good starting point for a story. Passionate characters are interesting characters. Blue Crush credits itself as based on the article, “Life’s Swell” by Susan Orlean, about “the surf girls of Maui.” It’s more of an inspirational source for a loose adaptation, but I’m sure the studio was influenced by the line, “At various cultural moments, surfing has appeared as the embodiment of everything cool and wild and free; this is one of those moments. To be a girl surfer is even cooler, wilder, and more modern than being a guy surfer.”
To its credit, Blue Crush ignores Orlean’s notion that women surfers are “in a tough guy’s domain.” There are some surfer dude characters in the background, but they’re scenery (the way beach babes might be in a movie about male surfers). Anne Marie (Kate Bosworth) surfs with her two best friends/roommates/coworkers, Eden (Michelle Rodriguez) and Lena (Sanoe Lake). Eden dedicates herself to training Anne Marie for a competition at the North Shore’s Pipeline, sometimes angrily trying to push Anne Marie out of her self-doubt (she’s traumatized from nearly drowning while surfing at a previous competition). Anne Marie also is the primary caregiver for her younger sister Penny (Mika Boreem). Blue Crush mainly deals with personal problems rather than conflicts between social spheres. 
While it takes a sort of post-feminist approach to surfing, Blue Crush attempts to work in some subdued class commentary. The girls live in a trailer, drive a beater car, and eat convenience-store candy for breakfast. They work on the cleaning staff of a high-end hotel, getting glimpses into the materialistic and carefree lives of rich tourists. There’s an unfortunately overemphasized romantic subplot between Anne Marie and an NFL quarterback in for the Pro Bowl, wherein Anne Marie is ostracized by the WAGs who also mock him for his propensity for “slumming it” with local girls. While it is superficial and not very sophisticated, it is nice that Blue Crush at least ACKNOWLEDGES some of the class dynamics at play in Hawaii. [Of course, our protagonist is the white Kate Bosworth rather than her Hawaiian co-star Sanoe Lake, because Hollywood hates making movies about people of color.]

Sasha Jackson and Elizabeth Mathis in Blue Crush 2

Which brings me to Blue Crush 2. This straight-to-video “sequel” is just another movie about surfer girls, with no connection to the original film other than someone paying for the rights to the title. Here we have another white girl protagonist, although this one has the opposite amount of class privilege. The first ten minutes of the film are devoted to clunky exposition establishing Dana (Sasha Jackson) as a) richer than chocolate cheesecake, b) spoiled as curdled milk. After a fight with her father she storms off from Beverly Hills to Durban, South Africa, to follow in her dead mother’s footsteps of surfing along South Africa’s Wild Coast. She makes a fast friend when she uses another young girl as a Scary Dude buffer. “I’ve never seen a white girl on the bus before,” says the new friend, Pushy (Elizabeth Mathis). “Well I’ve never seen a black girl who surfs.” Don’t worry, Dana, there won’t be any others in this movie. Or any other black PEOPLE, except that one same “Scary” Dude on the busseriously, the same guy, I was worried I was racistly confused but I guess they were trying to save on hiring actors by having THE SAME. EXACT. PERSON. a) “rudely” ask to sit next to Dana on the bus b) steal her things out of her beach locker c) menace her in a dance club d) POACH IVORY. I am not kidding about that last one.

In case you can’t tell, Blue Crush 2 is profoundly terrible. I was trying to figure out why I find it so execrable when I’m so fond of the original despite its flaws, wondering if it was just a matter of basic acting skill and production values. But there is more to it than that: Blue Crush 2 isn’t really about surfing. It’s about a privileged white American girl going to Africa to find her soul (Pushy actually tells her she is on an “uhambo” or “journey” for personal meaning). Dana doesn’t learn ANYTHING; she just experiences more. She visits Africa and leaves with photographs of her in the same places her white mother had been. She visits Pushy’s township and walks away with the experience of having shown everyone that a white girl can dance. She surfs Jeffrey’s Bay not for love of the surf but because it was her mother’s dream break. Blue Crush might inelegantly handle some of the race and class issues inherent to its story, but it’s a movie about SURFING, not a movie about how great it is for a rich white American girl to visit South Africa and happen to surf while she is there.


Robin Hitchcock is a white American girl living in South Africa. She doesn’t surf (yet). 

Women in Sports Week: The Political Gets Personal for ‘Friday Night Lights’ Jess Merriweather

This is a guest post by Sarah Stringer.
(Spoilers ahead for the last couple of seasons of the Friday Night Lights TV show – if you haven’t seen it already, I’ll wait while you watch all five seasons of the show, then watch the movie and read the book. Trust me; it’s worth your time. Also, warning: links to TV Tropes. Do not click if you have anything else to do for the next 24 hours.)

Jurnee Smollett-Bell as Jess Merriweather in Friday Night Lights
A long time ago, movies, books and TV shows figured out how much emotion there is to harness in stories about sports. Sports are driven by dreams, hope, love, hate, anger, exhilaration and devastation. There’s power in that kind of passion – power that leads Rocky Balboa to knock out the mighty Ivan Drago, and Friday Night Lights’ Vince Howard to throw 60-yard bombs. Portraying them this way is truth in television; heart and love of the game really are major factors in athletic achievements, and it makes for some incredible narratives.

This says something about the fact that so many sports stories (fictional ones, and coverage of real-life ones) are male-dominated. It tells us what depths of emotions society ascribes exclusively to androgens. There are some exceptions to this rule – movies like Bend It Like Beckham, Million Dollar Baby, and A League of Their Own come immediately to mind. 
Jess, equipment manager, stands on the field with the football team
For all its well-written female characters and feminist storylines, Friday Night Lights is, overall, not one of those exceptions. It would be unrealistic if it were; it’s about a small Texas town that idolizes its football team, and small Texas towns do not idolize (or, often, have) female football teams. The show offers us complex, three-dimensional female characters like Tyra Collette, Lyla Garrity, Tami Taylor and Becky Sproles, but Jess Merriweather is the only character who demonstrates that love of sport (in a story in which “sport” = “football,” the be all and end all of sport in that town) isn’t reserved for men.

In season four, Jess strode into that hyper-masculine domain with every bit as much passion as the male characters, and the extra savvy, self-awareness, and anger that comes from being a woman in a man’s world. She became a cheerleader because it was the only way for a girl like her to get close to the sport she grew up teaching to her much younger brothers, but as she gets older, that’s not enough for her. Helping her little brothers and running drills with her football star boyfriend isn’t enough; she wants to be involved for herself. She convinces Coach Taylor to let her be an equipment manager, with the intention of someday becoming a high school football coach.

Jess argues with her boyfriend Vince (Michael B. Jordan) in the locker room
Jess’ storyline is consistent with FNL’s aversion to creating caricatures; the people around her are not divided into evil, misogynistic villains and helpful, sympathetic allies. Coach Taylor, the compassionate hero of the show, dismisses her completely at first and has to be talked into giving her a chance. Her boyfriend, Vince, is portrayed as an essentially good guy, but he gets angry and protective when his teammates start messing with her. He was raised in a culture that makes him feel emasculated and threatened by having a girlfriend who handles herself among the boys, and the show realistically portrays Jess’ frustration at having to reconcile her feelings for Vince with the way his issues hold her back.
Also realistic is how personal Jess’ storyline is. She isn’t a feminist crusader; she’s a reminder to feminist crusaders of who they’re fighting for: high school girls who find their dreams limited by rules they didn’t ask for or create. She’s a girl with her own ambitions and goals, and she’s interested in systemic issues only to the extent that they get in the way of those goals. When Coach Taylor tells her there are no female football coaches, she goes home and prints off a story about the first female high school football coach in America (even though, as Coach Taylor points out, it’s only a story because there isn’t a second one). The point of Jess’ storyline is that she shouldn’t have to do this kind of feminist campaigning; the path to her dreams should be no less clear than it would be if she were male. 
Jess as a cheerleader
FNL offers us some feminist crusaders; Tami Taylor takes on higher-up perpetrators of systemic injustices on issues of education and abortion and lobbies her husband in defense of Jess’ right to work in football-related jobs. Citing Tami as an inspiration, Tyra Collette ends the series by expressing a desire to go into politics, so she can make a difference on a larger scale. Jess, however, is not in it for the politics. She’s in it for her own rights, and systemic political issues just happen to be in her way.

Jess starts the show defined by her relationships to the male characters; she’s a love interest for Landry Clark and Vince Howard (and a catalyst for issues between the two of them), and her status as a cheerleader makes playing a supporting role to boys a central aspect of her life. However, even when her only important storylines were romantic, she was known mostly for not taking shit from the male characters. In a culture in which most students, especially female ones, let the football players get away with anything, she stands up to Landry for destroying her bike, and calls Vince out on going back to his life of crime. 
Jess talks to Landry (Jesse Plemons) at her locker

Jess’ autonomy develops far beyond simply filling a “sassy” love interest role, as her own, independent storyline really starts in season five. She talks to Tami Taylor about her frustrations with going back to being a cheerleader after spending all summer working with her boyfriend, Vince, on his football skills. She refuses to be a “rally girl,” whose job it is to take care of her football player by wearing his jersey and presenting him with baked goods every week.
This is when Jess, with some help from Tami, begs Coach Taylor for a job as an equipment manager. Coach Taylor doesn’t understand why this is important, but he lets it happen. She faces expected sexist jabs that come from being a girl in the boys’ locker room, but what makes her angrier is the way Vince tries to control her and keep her out of there. By the end of the series, her romantic storylines are subplots to her dream of becoming a football coach, just as most of the male characters’ stories are focused on their own dreams.
Jess and Vince
Jess’ other relationships show us how she got the way she is. She grew up poor, and she takes on a lot of responsibility, working long hours at her dad’s restaurant and taking on a parental role to her younger brothers. She gains maturity beyond her years, which shows in all aspects of her life. It’s incredibly refreshing to see a teenage female character who’s emotionally aware and straightforward about her feelings. She breaks stereotypes about game-playing girls by being upfront and honest with Vince and Landry in her romantic relationships and shows similar assertiveness with her father.

All this backstory should leave us unsurprised that Jess is willing to take on the odds and fight for what she wants, as she’s spent her whole life doing that. She fights her father when his hatred for the game of football emotionally harms his son. She fights Vince when he displays juvenile, sexist behaviour, and her refusal to take this from him leads to the end of their relationship. It’s implied that growing up female in a man’s world (and with dreams of existing in a very male-dominated part of that world), and poor and black in a world dominated by the more affluent, mostly white side of town, is what’s made her as strong as she is. 
Jess stands with members of the football team
However, one of my favourite aspects of Jess’ character is that she manages to be mature and savvy without being unrealistically stoic, the “strong female character” who shows no real weakness or emotions. Her feelings for the boys she dates are genuine, her love for her brothers and parents is obvious, and most of all, her passion for the game of football is overwhelming. She doesn’t always know the perfect way to fight, and she gets as angry, frustrated, depressed, and excited as anyone else. We see her cry sometimes, and not in the media’s common “it turns out the ice queen is really just an emotional woman all along” way, but in a “she has emotions – strong, weak, positive, negative, often nuanced and mixed, just like all the other male and female characters” way. Her emotions don’t make her weak or unlikable, but realistic and relatable, so you (or, at least, I) can’t help but root for her.

It’s Jess’ ability to be strong while still being emotionally realistic and flawed, and having nuanced relationships while still having her own goals/agenda and an independent storyline, that put her in the rare, coveted category of a truly three-dimensional female character. The fact that her storyline involves struggles against systemic sexism, perpetrated in a realistic way by well-meaning people around her, is icing on the cake to make her a feminist’s dream. We never see Jess score a touchdown, but she’s one of my favourite fictional feminist sports figures.


Sarah Stringer is a psychology student in Ontario, with an interest in the political aspects of pop culture.

Women in Sports Week: ‘The Blind Side’: The Most Insulting Movie Ever Made

Movie poster for The Blind Side
This guest post by Nine Deuce previously appeared at Bitch Flicks on March 23, 2011.
Davetavius and I consider ourselves the world’s foremost authorities on watching movies for reasons other than those intended by their producers. As such, we go way beyond just watching “cheesy” (whatever that means) movies, 80s movies, or kung fu movies (which I refuse to watch but which every dork on Earth has been pretending to like in some attempt at letting everyone know how “weird” they are since Quentin Tarantino’s ridiculous ass popularized kung fu movie fandom as the #1 route to instant eccentricity cred in True Romance) to focus our attention on recently-released romantic comedies, those obnoxious movies in which two assholes just sit around and talk to each other for 98 minutes, and “serious” movies for which people have been given gold-plated statuettes. One can learn an awful lot about the faults and failings of our social system and corporate entertainment’s attempts to sell us its version of culture by watching movies created by and for the anti-intelligentsia, and if one were to try hard enough, I’m sure one could find the string that, if tugged, would unravel the modern world system buried somewhere in a melodramatic Best Picture Oscar contender intended to make people who refer to beers as “cold ones” feel like they’re considering The Big Issues. There was no way we were going to miss The Blind Side.
Spoiler alert: this is the worst movie I’ve ever seen, and I’m going to spoil your desire to see it yourself by writing this post. Also, I may, if I can manage to give a fuck, divulge important plot elements. But it’s based on a true story that everyone has already heard anyway, so who cares.

Sandra Bullock schools Michael Oher in The Blind Side

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

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

The Tuohy family prays over mounds of food

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

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

Kathy Bates wants to fist bump Michael Oher in The Blind Side

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

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

Sandra Bullock braves the Black Neighborhood

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

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

Sandra Bullock reads a story to her child son and Michael Oher

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

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

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


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

‘Elysium’: A Sci-Fi Immigration Parable

Elysium Movie Poster
I was surprised that I not only liked, but was impressed by Elysium. I had my doubts because it’s a Hollywood blockbuster, and their interpretation of the tenets of sci-fi usually leaves much to be desired. Also, I just really, really don’t like Matt Damon and his…face. The film centers around a poverty-stricken dystopian Earth and the lavishly constructed off-world satellite habitat, Elysium, where only the rich and powerful are allowed to live. Elysium doesn’t do much that’s interesting with gender, but its focus on class and race relations, particularly on immigration, is the heart and soul of this film.
There are only three women of note in Elysium. Matt Damon’s character, Max, is an orphan raised in a religious orphanage. There is one nun who doesn’t see him as a hopeless trouble-maker with no hope of a future. The film implies that many impoverished children who turn to crime have little in their home lives to bolster them and give them a sense of self-worth. This nun instills in young Max a sense of purpose, insisting that he has a destiny every bit as important as anyone on Elysium. Though this nun is compassionate, she exists primarily to show why Max is at his core a good person despite the hardness of his life and in spite of his path of crime. 
Then there’s Alice Braga’s Frey, a nurse who was Max’s childhood sweetheart. Frey has “made something of herself” and has a daughter, Matilda, who is dying. Frey, too, exists only as Max’s love interest and a symbol of motherhood. Frey is constantly under threat of rape by psychotic ex-military Kruger (played by Sharlto Copley) and his men who have kidnapped her in order to force compliance from Max. The looming threat of sexual violence only exists to showcase the effect such an eventuality would have on our hero. Frey would also risk everything to get her daughter to Elysium where healing machines are readily available in every home to cure her daughter of her terminal illness. The selfless, sacrificing mother is not a new or even interesting trope in cinema.
Frey becomes increasingly distressed as her daughter slips into a coma.
Finally, we have Jodie Foster’s Delacourt, Elysium’s Secretary of Defense. Delacourt is cold and casually cruel. Her power is not only emasculating, but she is a dangerous nationalist who resorts to illegality in order to protect the purity of Elysium from “illegals” who land on the satellite’s surface in rogue shuttles before scattering in the hopes of blending with Elysium citizens or at least acquiring medical care before being deported back to Earth. Delacourt has a great deal of power that she exercises freely, and she is extremely intelligent and even brilliant in the machinations of her overblown patriotism. However, the severe, emotionless, tyrannical female power figurehead is also not a new trope, and there’s little that makes Delacourt a complex or engaging character.
Jodi Foster’s sterile white pantsuit blends with the sterile white walls of Elysium’s “Administration.”
What is interesting about Elysium, however, is its overwhelmingly non-white cast. Most of the characters are Latino or Black, and it seems the primary language on Earth is Spanish. Our Earth setting is Los Angeles. Many of these disenfranchised inhabitants of Earth (including Max) are employed in manufacturing, spending their days making the very robots that secure Elysium against them. (They were pretty fucking cool robots, though.) Aside from Matt Damon, most of the white characters are either privileged people of wealth or figures of authority who are shown in a negative light. In fact, all the white characters with speaking roles are coded as “bad guys.” The racial dynamics in this film crystallize its sci-fi allegory for immigration. 
Technological genius and champion for immigrant citizenry, Spider, proposes a dangerous job to Max and his friend Julio.
After showing the desolation of Earth and the dire, unequal plight of its inhabitants, what is the solution Elysium poses to the so-called “immigration problem”? Indiscriminate citizenry for all. The tale becomes a fantasy of upending a brutal system that favors the wealthy few over the needs of the many, of destroying a government that privileges whiteness, denying rights and quality of life from people of color. That is a powerful, subversive fantasy that strikes very close to home. That, my friends, would mean revolution.

It certainly bothers me that Hollywood thinks our hero, Max, must be a white dude in order for his story to resonate with audiences, in order to lay bare the atrocities of the U.S’s immigrant situation (with Mexico in particular) in such a way that audiences can understand it. Without completely shifting the racial dynamics, Elysium becomes a version of White Man’s Burden, assuming that audiences can’t empathize with a hero of color and cannot put themselves in the hero’s shoes unless they can racially identify with him. There are two fallacies in this notion, 1.) that the default human being is a man, and 2.) that the default human being is a white man.

Elysium orbits Earth.

I can only hope that one day, Hollywood will realize it’s wrong about its insistence on white male leads in films…and that Hollywood will actually be wrong about it.  Hey, a blockbuster that wears its immigration agenda on its sleeve is something you don’t see very often, so maybe we’re getting closer to the day when we don’t have to hide behind genre to tell a topical political tale and the day when we don’t need to have a white man tell us such an important story.

‘In the House’: Promising Female Characters Disappoint

In the House movie poster
Written by Amanda Rodiguez
Spoiler Alert
Francois Ozon’s In the House (or Dans la Maison) is actually quite good. It’s an intelligent film with brilliantly portrayed, complex, interesting characters along with pathos and moments of poignant humor. The film is very aware of social class dynamics, showing the interplay of working class, middle class, and the intelligentsia. Germain is a jaded teacher who sees the writing talent in his student Claude, a smart, working class kid with a sadistic streak. As Germain nurtures Claude’s “gift,” both their lives spiral out of control. Using an engaging meta-narrative to show the story-within-the-story through its chapters and revisions as Claude integrates Germain’s instruction, Germain becomes obsessed with his student and the story he writes. We begin to wonder about the potential maliciousness of Claude’s manipulations, not only of the family “in the house,” but of Germain himself. Who is really the teacher and who is the pupil? Where is the line between fantasy and reality?
Though I enjoyed the smart plot and fine performances, I found myself on the fence about the female characterizations. First, there’s Esther (played by Emmanuelle Seigner), the matriarch of the Artole family. 
Esther sleeps while Claude voyeuristically writes about her feet. Women, he finds, are easier to admire when they’re asleep and can’t challenge him or make him feel inadequate.
Claude is sexually attracted to her, longs for her as a replacement for the mother who left him, and resents and envies her for her class status. Claude mocks her as stupid, painting her in his narrative as coarse and frivolous. Germain isn’t too concerned with the lack of sophistication Claude’s writing exhibits as it turns Esther into little more than an object of desire (albeit the desire itself is rendered as complex and multifaceted). Germain, instead, insists that the key to the story is the fleshing out of the young Rapha character.
Claude derides and inwardly sneers at Esther for her obsession with the house. She constantly flits through home magazines and goes on about the drapes and building a veranda. Esther’s identity is reduced to the house. Claude never really sees or appreciates her loneliness and the deep, abiding unhappiness in the objective correlative of the house.
Esther folding laundry, noticing Claude staring at her from a park bench.
Claude never realizes that the house is every bit as much a symbol for him as it is for her, though the permutation is different for each of them. For Claude, the house is an escape into another, better life with inhabitants who he’s free to toy with and manipulate to manifest his own desires. For Esther, it is a prison and a life preserver that she continues to beautify in the hopes that she won’t have to keep staring at the bars. Not only that, but Claude never recognizes that Esther is the keeper of this house that he desires so much; she is the one who lovingly cares for its physicality while internally sacrificing much to keep its inhabitants happy and together (even, in the end, giving up the house itself so that her husband can follow his dreams).
Then we have Jeanne (played by Kristin Scott Thomas), Gillam’s intelligent, insightful wife who operates an art gallery.
Jeanne sits in bed contemplating the tale Claude weaves as well as the nature of the weaver himself.
Germain shares young Claude’s chapters with Jeanne, and while Germain becomes engrossed in the boy’s story and writing talent, Jeanne constantly reminds us to think of the troubled boy crafting the tale. Jeanne also observes the way this obsession is affecting Germain, the only one outside the story enough to keep bringing reality back into play. She cites Germain’s loss of sexual appetite, postulating that he may be attracted to his student; Germain’s prioritizing Claude’s writing over the desperate situation at her art gallery where her job is in jeopardy; and Germain’s losing his moral compass as he helps Claude and Rapha cheat in order to keep Claude within the house and writing. She is the one who breaks the fourth wall by inviting the Artole’s to an art opening at her gallery.
Germain is horrified that Jeanne has invited the Artoles, as he’d prefer to imagine them as fictitious.
To Claude, Germain mocks the art Jeanne curates as pretentious. Germain is threatened by her intelligence and effortless insight into the human psyche as proven by her astute grasp of Claude and the characters he portrays. Claude ends up weaving Jeanne into his narrative, ending their encounter with sex, a scene that is dubious in its veracity. This non-consensual representation is a violation of her personhood. Her agency disappears with her as we never find out what becomes of her after Germain murderously chokes her after reading Claude’s rendering of his meeting with Jeanne. Germain’s vicious attack is borderline absurdist in its ferocity, and I was left wondering if the scene was intended to be humorous … I assure you, it was not. Germain’s assault seems more about the loss of another thing that belonged to him (his wife is to his job is to his reputation) due to Claude’s story as well as his own obsession.

Not only does Germain become completely unsympathetic to me in that moment, but the female characters are revealed to be little more than narrative devices. The ending of In the House makes it clear that the film was always and only about the relationship between Germain and Claude. As the two sit together on a bench bereft of everything but each other’s company and their stories, it becomes clear that the narrative was always about the power play between instructor and pupil. Other people were merely obstacles that stood between them to be maneuvered like chess pieces until these two men were on equal footing, a sort of stalemate with only the kings left standing on the board.

At first, I hoped the film was calling attention to the way that both Germain and Claude don’t really see the women in their lives, don’t allow them to be full human beings, but upon further analysis, it becomes apparent that the film itself only uses the female characters as convenient props to help elucidate the male narrative replete with its masculine struggles.

Classic Literature Film Adaptations Week: How BBC’s ‘Pride & Prejudice’ Illustrates Why The Regency Period Sucked For Women

How BBC’s ‘Pride & Prejudice’ Illustrates Why The Regency Period Sucked For Women

By Myrna Waldron

Pride & Prejudice DVD Cover (Source: Wikipedia)

 

It is a truth universally acknowledged that those in pursuit of an English degree must be familiar with the works of Jane Austen. Fortunately for me, she is one of my favourite authors, and Pride & Prejudice is one of my favourite books. (And that’s saying something, as I read a lot.) It is one of the great novels of English Literature that can be utterly boring with the wrong teacher. Many times people fail to pick up on the social satire woven throughout the novel, especially since the language and culture is so different now that it’s 200 years later. Once you understand the social context in which the novel was written/published, and get used to Austen’s subtle brand of sarcasm, one can understand why Pride & Prejudice has endured so long. It doesn’t hurt that Mr. Darcy is one of the quintessential Byronic heroes too.
The 1995 BBC miniseries adaptation is by far the most popular, and the reason why can be summed up in two words: Colin. Firth. I first watched the miniseries when I was 10, and read the novel for the first time at 15. I can say quite confidently that the miniseries strongly helped me to understand the novel better, but…that’s not the only reason why it was memorable for me. Puberty already had its iron grip on me at that time, and when I saw Mr. Firth as Mr. Darcy for the first time…let’s just say I realized I liked boys. Colin Firth has had a wonderful sense of humour about his signature role, more-or-less reprising it in the Bridget Jones series (Side note: Colin Firth is an actual character in the 2nd novel.) and in an interview with a French magazine that asked him who the women in his life were, he answered, “My mother, my wife, and Jane Austen.” Unusually for a western media production, the makers knew their audience, and presented the miniseries for the female gaze. Firth is shown bathing, fencing, and, most famously, swimming in the pond near Pemberley and emerging from it with a wet white shirt.
Regretfully leaving Mr. Firth’s impact aside, he is not the only reason why the BBC adaptation is culturally important. The 6 episodes of the miniseries grant far more lenience in terms of time constraints, and thus one of the most important themes of Austen’s novel is retained: Her feminism. The protagonists in her novels were all women, and she wrote them for a mostly female audience. Her primary goal was to create sympathy for the status of women and the little rights they retained. Reminder: This is an era where women could not vote, had no bodily autonomy, could not freely marry whomever they chose, were restricted to domestic spheres, and, in some cases, could not even inherit their father’s estate.  Pride & Prejudice, and the BBC adaptation, touch on several of these issues, subtly and sometimes directly condemning them from a feminist outlook. In addition to this feminist subtext, part of Austen’s social satire is pointing out the ridiculous class restraints in which the characters had to endure.
The Bennet Sisters, From Left To Right: Lydia, Jane, Mary, Kitty, Lizzy (Source: http://ladylavinia1932.wordpress.com/)
The protagonist of Pride & Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet, usually called Lizzy, is the 2nd of 5 sisters and the favourite of her father because she is witty, intelligent, and well-read. Her older sister Jane is sweet natured and the most beautiful, middle sister Mary is plain, sanctimonious and withdrawn, and youngest sisters Kitty and Lydia are boy crazy and impulsive. Lydia most closely resembles her mother in personality and is thus her favourite. Mrs. Bennet is absolutely obsessed with the idea of marrying off her 5 daughters as soon as possible, and to rich men if they can manage it. The girls must endure their mother’s constant conspiring to marry them off – the elder sisters are resigned to their mother’s obsession, but the teenage youngest sisters are thoroughly swept up in their mother’s enthusiasm.
The major issue the Bennets face is that none of the daughters can inherit their father’s estate. They are confined to an entailment, which is a legal inheritance document stipulating that a hereditary estate can only be passed on to a certain person, usually the eldest living male relative. Unfortunately, the closest male relative to Mr. Bennet is Mr. Collins, a minister who is insufferably smug while pretending to be caring. When he suddenly descends on them for a visit, he is met with a certain degree of resentment, for when Mr. Bennet dies, Mr. Collins is fully within his rights to immediately throw out the grieving widow and daughters onto the streets. Thus, there is a practicality to Mrs. Bennet’s obsession – if her girls do not marry, they will be helpless and homeless.
Mr. Collins in this adaptation is utterly revolting. Greasy and simpering, he constantly brags about his rich patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, (who is also Mr. Darcy’s maternal aunt) fawning about her even while miles away. He has visited with a mission – Lady Catherine thinks he should marry, so he figures he might as well choose from one of the Bennet sisters. Vainly, he sets his sights on Jane first as she is the most beautiful, but after being persuaded that Jane has another suitor (more on him later) he instead moves on to Lizzy, the next prettiest daughter. His attempts to woo Lizzy are incredibly repulsive and shortsighted, for he has chosen the worst possible match for him out of the 5 sisters. A bootlicking and hypocritical minister could not possibly be happy with a headstrong and brutally honest intellectual. It’s kind of sad he never noticed Mary and tried to court the sisters solely based on their looks, for although she’s plain she would have been a far better match for him.
Pemberley (Source: austenprose.wordpress.com)
Lizzy rejects his proposal with disgust, and he quickly moves on to proposing to the next closest target – her best friend Charlotte Lucas. She accepts, not out of even remote attraction, but because she felt she had no better option. At 27, she is already considered an old maid. She is not wealthy, she has no wealthy relatives, and she is not considered beautiful. So Charlotte explains to Lizzy, with a heartbreaking look of resignation, that she took all that she could get, and that she’d at least live in relative comfort. Later, when Lizzy visits her, she admits that she encourages her husband to spend as little time as possible with her. The social commentary exhibited here is staggering – I could not help but feel desperately hopeless and sympathetic for Charlotte’s situation. How awful to have to agree to marry such a repulsive man in order to prevent a future of poverty.
Jane and Lizzy fortunately have other potential suitors. Jane falls in love with Mr. Bingley, a relatively wealthy young man who has bought a manor nearby to their home. He is charming and amiable, contrasting sharply with his best friend, the brooding and proud (and even wealthier) Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. They meet the Bennets at a ball, where Mr. Darcy offends the others by refusing to dance with anyone. He later reveals that he was feeling more socially awkward than disdainful, but he has already done the damage of appearing arrogant and snobbish, and Lizzy immediately develops a bad opinion of him (she is the “Prejudice” to his “Pride”). Jane and Bingley are very well matched, but their presumed engagement is for a time derailed due to societal restraints. At a ball held at Bingley’s manor, Mrs. Bennet brags loudly about Jane’s not yet confirmed engagement, Mary monopolizes the piano and performs poorly, Mr. Bennet publicly admonishes her for it, and Kitty and Lydia loudly and childishly flirt with the visiting soldiers. Jane is also shy and emotionally reserved, and so Mr. Darcy concludes that she is not especially interested in Bingley. He thus uses these excuses to convince Bingley not to propose to her, which is the first of many plot points where an individual is unfairly judged by the actions of her family.
Although at first Mr. Darcy is not particularly impressed with Lizzy, he quickly grows an attraction to her. At subsequent balls he asks to dance with her, compliments her to others, and will not hear any criticisms against her. Bingley’s younger sister Caroline hopes to gain Mr. Darcy’s affections by putting Lizzy down, and thus tries to find as many physical faults with her as possible. This is a commentary on how there is societal pressure for women to compete with each other, and to only value their physical attractiveness – not much has changed in 200 years. Nevertheless, Darcy proposes to Lizzy, and it is an infamous disaster. He begins by expressing his ardent love for her, but then starts ranting about how his love goes against his character, upbringing, and will. He also states that his social status is likely to take a hit since she is neither wealthy nor well-connected. Unsurprisingly, Lizzy rejects his proposal with anger and disgust. She criticizes his arrogance and pride, and condemns him for what she believes is a particularly heartless act – the cold treatment and cutting off of his childhood friend Mr. Wickham.
Mr. Darcy and Lizzy (Source: bbc.co.uk)
Mr. Wickham is one of the local soldiers, and catches Lizzy’s attention because he is of similar intellect to her and is charming. She already has a poor opinion of Mr. Darcy, so she readily believes Wickham’s sob story about how Mr. Darcy stopped his ambitions of becoming a minister, denied the small inheritance that Darcy Sr. had promised for him  (Wickham’s father was Darcy’s father’s steward), and forced him to live in poverty, despite them having grown up together. Although Darcy cannot deny that he has acted arrogantly, he defends his actions regarding Wickham in a letter to her. In a flashback, we see Mr. Darcy at Cambridge walking in on Wickham fooling around with a young woman. Mr. Darcy explains that Wickham then left university, and requested a lump sum of 3000 pounds rather than an annual stipend. He thought they had then parted ways for good, but then found out the depths of which Wickham could descend.
Wickham likes to prey on teenage girls. He locates Darcy’s much younger sister Georgiana and seduces her, promising to elope with her. Darcy was never sure if Wickham’s aim was to get at Georgiana’s fortune, or to get revenge on Darcy. Fortunately, Darcy discovers the elopement in time to prevent it (and prevent Georgiana’s being sexually exploited) but both siblings would remain traumatized by the memory of how close she came to ruin. Lizzy is forced to believe Darcy’s story since it involves his younger sister, but she and Jane resolve to keep the truth of Wickham’s behaviour quiet since they have not been authorized to reveal the details, nor do they want to damage Georgiana’s reputation. Yes, Georgiana would be the one who would suffer from this, not the grown man who preyed on a teenage girl. This decision to keep quiet would come back to haunt the Bennets in the worst of ways, for it was not just Lizzy whose attention was caught by Wickham…but Lydia’s as well.
Lydia is given permission to follow the soldiers’ regiment to Brighton and stay with a friend of hers (much to Lizzy’s reluctance). She is not supervised at all, and Wickham convinces her to run away with him one night. She believes he is going to marry her, and is excited and anticipates how jealous her elder sisters will be that she has married first. (There’s that competing between women for male affections again.) We get short vignettes of her exile with Wickham – they are staying in a small room in a disreputable part of London. Lydia is shown wearing her dressing gown, but it is never directly implied nor stated whether she had premarital sex with him. Most likely she has, as since she is not wealthy there was only one thing about her Wickham would be interested in. Notably, none of the characters even dare to directly mention the worst-case scenario of Lydia’s behaviour, but Mary sanctimoniously summarizes the inequality of gender dynamics of the time: “The loss of virtue in a woman is irretrievable … A woman’s reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful, and therefore we cannot be too guarded in our behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex.”
 

 

We interrupt this essay to bring you some fanservice. (Source: telegraph.co.uk)
The other sisters believe their chances of making a good marriage are now nonexistent, as the news of Lydia’s “loss of virtue” have tainted her family by association. The best that they can hope for is that Lydia and Wickham have at least married, preferably before his bedding her. Mr. Collins even smugly states that it would have been preferable if Lydia had died. It is very damning that a family has to hope that a possibly sexually exploited teenager has married her seducer. Nowadays there would at least be an attempt to arrest Wickham for statutory rape, but society has not changed so much that there wouldn’t still be shaming of Lydia for being a sexually active teenage girl. We can look to the recent tragic case of Amanda Todd, a very young teen enticed by an adult into posing topless on a webcam, blackmailed, and driven to suicide by the public shaming of her actions.
Mr. Darcy, humbled by Lizzy’s dismissal of him as arrogant and feeling responsible for not exposing Wickham’s character, decides to intervene. He locates the pair (Lydia is foolishly amused by this, Wickham angered), and makes Wickham agree to marry Lydia by offering to pay off his many debts. They are married with only Mr. Darcy and Lydia’s maternal aunt and uncle, the Gardiners, in attendance. Mr. Darcy insists on letting the Gardiners take the credit, and swears them to secrecy. They return home and are enthusiastically welcomed by Mrs. Bennet (whose opinion of people tends to revert back and forth to opposite extremes depending on whether they are useful to her regarding marrying off her daughters). Lydia brags about her marriage to her sisters, and never learns just how close she came to permanently ruining her reputation and her family’s as well. But she lets it slip that Darcy was involved in arranging her marriage.
These altruistic actions, and a visit to Mr. Darcy’s manor Pemberley, where he is adored and praised by his servants, gradually change Lizzy’s opinion of him. Eventually, a rumour spreads to Lady Catherine de Bourgh that Lizzy and Mr. Darcy, her nephew, are engaged. In a fury she comes to the Bennets’ home and verbally abuses Lizzy, adamant in her belief in her social superiority. She vehemently objects to the engagement as Lizzy is far beneath her nephew in both social status, familial connections and wealth, not to mention that she believes that her daughter Anne and Mr. Darcy have been betrothed since childhood. Lizzy is headstrong and defiant, however, and counters all of Lady Catherine’s insults. In reference to their social status she she states, “He is a gentleman. I am a gentleman’s daughter. So far we are equal.” Not only has Lizzie skewered the ridiculous standards of class distinction in her era, she has made a subtle feminist statement as well. She also refuses to promise not to become engaged to Mr. Darcy, which is a solid social commentary on not letting the upper classes use their status to bully others.
The Double Wedding (Source: blogspot.com)
In the meantime, Mr. Darcy has told Mr. Bingley that he was mistaken in thinking that Jane Bennet did not return Bingley’s affections, and gives his blessing to their engagement. Bingley then takes the earliest opportunity he can to propose to Jane, which makes the normally reserved girl deliriously happy. When Mr. Darcy and Lizzy next meet, she reveals she knows who saved Lydia’s and her family’s reputations, and thanks him profusely. He tells her that he was only thinking of her happiness, and restates his love for her, promising never to bring it up again if she still feels the same way she did before. She has since realized that she has gradually fallen in love with him ever since visiting Pemberley, and accepts his proposal this time. There are many interpretations of the implications of this famous ending, but this time I’m going to do a feminist one: We know that Lizzy is progressive and headstrong, and likely as feminist as her creator. She could then possibly see Mr. Darcy’s actions as feminist ones, as he has directly prevented the fallout of a misogynistic society’s double standards. He has also demonstrated generosity and a willingness to help the most vulnerable. So she and Jane have a double wedding with Bingley and Darcy – all pairs as inseparable as they have always been.
As a whole, Pride & Prejudice and its miniseries adaptation strongly posit some feminist criticisms and subtly satirize the social standards of the time. Most notably, the story condemns entailments/inheritances that favour only male relatives instead of more direct (and equally rightful) female relatives, viewing relatively young women as old maids, forcing women into unwanted marriages to avoid homelessness and poverty, judging entire families on the basis of an individual’s actions (or judging an individual on the basis of their family’s actions), encouraging women to compete with each other for the affection of men, putting a woman’s entire worth on her virginity, allowing grown men to prey on teenage girls, and condemning a young woman for having premarital sex instead of her exploiter. Whew. It really sucked to be a woman during the Regency Period. For a 200-year-old book…that’s a whole lot of feminism. Bless you, Jane Austen. (And bless you, Colin Firth.)
Full disclosure: I recognize that this is more of a literature essay than a television review. My only excuse is that throughout high school and university I have written more essays about Pride & Prejudice than I can remember. Good habits are hard to break.
 
Myrna Waldron is a feminist writer/blogger with a particular emphasis on all things nerdy. She lives in Toronto and has studied English and Film at York University. Myrna has a particular interest in the animation medium, having written extensively on American, Canadian and Japanese animation. She also has a passion for Sci-Fi & Fantasy literature, pop culture literature such as cartoons/comics, and the gaming subculture. She maintains a personal collection of blog posts, rants, essays and musings at The Soapboxing Geek, and tweets with reckless pottymouthed abandon at @SoapboxingGeek.

 

Gender & Food Week: Pop-Tarts and Pizza: Food, Gender, and Class in ‘Gilmore Girls’

Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) in Gilmore Girls

Guest post written by Brianna Low.

Throughout Gilmore Girls’ seven seasons, mother and daughter duo Lorelai and Rory Gilmore are often seen eating vast quantities of junk food and ordering copious amounts of take out, which they consume together, often in front of the TV. From the series’ pilot episode it is made clear that neither Lorelai nor Rory have any interest in cooking, and the only things in their refrigerator are frozen fish sticks and leftover take out boxes. Their idiosyncratic approach to food is framed as just another endearing quirk instead of irresponsible, unhealthy, or an example of bad parenting.
While it could be argued that it is somewhat progressive of the Gilmore Girls series to portray two women who have no hang-ups about publicly consuming large amounts of food, it is important to remember that despite their voracious appetites, Rory and Lorelai are still conventionally attractive, thin, white women. Living in the quirky, depoliticized utopia of Stars Hollow, there is no real examination of the way in which the Gilmore’s racial and class privilege exempt them from the social condemnation that is frequently directed at poor single mothers and women of color whose food choices or weight are often criticized without any real consideration to the inequalities in accessibility to healthy, affordable food. Poor single mothers who rely on social programs like food stamps and have children who suffer from obesity and other related health problems are often publicly vilified for being irresponsible, unfit mothers despite the well-documented structural inequalities in food access and affordability.
Despite their objectively unhealthy diets, Rory and Lorelai manage to escape this specific stigma, both within the context of the show and in its outside criticism; this is due largely, I would argue, to their privilege and even the size of their bodies. While I don’t personally find it problematic that Rory and Lorelai are allowed to eat whatever they want with relative impunity, I do think it is important to place their unhealthy-diet-as-plot-device into a larger social and political context when critically examining the relationship between gender and food within the series.

Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel) in Gilmore Girls; image via Emily Grenfell
Lorelai and Rory are not the only ones in the Gilmore Girls universe that have well-documented relationships with food. The diets of many of the supporting cast are intrinsic parts of their identities and function as important aspects of their characterization. The mother of Rory’s best friend Lane, Mrs. Kim, is a strict vegan who makes her daughter drink salad water instead of soda. Michele Gerard, concierge of the Independence and Dragonfly Inn, is a health nut that exhibits an almost fanatical devotion to calorie counting and exercise. The diets of these characters in contrast to Rory and Lorelai’s junk food addiction seem to highlight the drastic differences in the way the Gilmore girls like to eat.

Of all of the supporting characters that are connected in some way to food, two of the most notable examples are Lorelai’s best friend and business partner, Sookie St. James, and Lorelai’s friend and romantic interest, Luke Danes. Sookie, played wonderfully by Melissa McCarthy, is the head chef and co-owner with Lorelai of the Dragonfly Inn. She is an extremely talented cook and a compassionate and loyal friend to Lorelai. Her scenes often take place in the kitchen, where she is seen cooking and dispensing advise to Lorelai. While the kitchen has always been a stereotypically feminine space, Sookie’s fixture there does not come off as regressive. Socially, the world of cooking has been sharply demarcated along gender lines, with the personal and domestic sphere belonging to women and the public and professional sphere being dominated by men. Sookie, a master chef and a woman, is portrayed as a highly skilled and respected cook who demands perfection from herself and her employees.

Sookie St. James (Melissa McCarthy) in Gilmore Girls

Much has been said about the fact that the character of Sookie, a fat woman who is often surrounded by food, is never reduced to her body-size. It’s true that Sookie is never once shamed for her size or subjected to lazy fat jokes, nor does she express any self-hatred or desire to lose weight. It is somewhat sad and telling that Gilmore Girls has received so much praise for treating a plus-sized character with humanity and compassion, but Sookie’s portrayal is indeed remarkable in a popular culture landscape that almost always essentializes fat women to their bodies and positions those bodies as barriers to happiness and love. Sookie is portrayed as an attractive, confident, and competent woman who is deserving of both romantic attention and respect. Her burgeoning relationship and eventual marriage to Jackson, a vegetable farmer, is fully explored and is not framed as some sort of miracle or only chance at love.

Luke Danes, the gruff and grumpy owner of the local diner, possesses many stereotypical markers of traditional masculinity. Seemingly unsentimental, he is often shown shouting angrily at his neighbors and even his customers, he never changes out of his flannel shirt and backwards baseball cap, and often escapes Stars Hollow on fishing and camping trips in order to relieve his stress. Despite this potentially flat characterization, Luke emerges as a complex character that does in fact care deeply about his friends and his community despite his gruff exterior. Luke is an interesting study when looking at the presentations of masculinity and food in the fictional world of Stars Hollow, particularly in the way he is cast as a nurturer who uses food in order to reach out to and comfort his friends and neighbors.

Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) in Gilmore Girls

Throughout all seven seasons Luke is often shown bringing food to the Gilmore’s when they are in need. For example, when Lorelai’s father is hospitalized after a heart attack, Luke brings food to Lorelai and her family at the hospital. Inasmuch as food can be gendered, diners and diner food fare with its burgers, fries, and malts often tend to be coded as masculine, however Luke is an interesting case in that he refuses to eat his own food. Although he is never explicitly referred to as a vegetarian, Luke is shown refusing to eat hamburgers and often refers to meat as “dead cow”. When Luke and Lorelai start dating and eventually move in together, Luke is decidedly more active in their domestic affairs, taking charge of the cooking and their home remodel. While this might not be the most shocking or unheard of example of stereotypical role reversal in heterosexual relationships, it’s definitely interesting when examining Luke and Lorelai’s relationship with food and each other.

Luke’s Diner itself is also integral to the series as it serves as the physical and communal space in which much of the community gathers. Episodes often open with Lorelai and Rory sitting and eating together in Luke’s Diner. Throughout the series, food serves as the unifying agent that brings people together. When Lorelai is unable to afford private school tuition for Rory, she goes to her wealthy parents, Emily and Richard, in order to ask them for a loan. The elder Gilmores agree to the loan, their only stipulation being that Lorelai and Rory attend weekly “Friday night dinners”. These dinners are an attempt to fix the strained relationship between Lorelai and her parents.
Gilmore Girls
Like their daughter, neither Emily nor Richard Gilmore are ever shown cooking, instead the extremely wealthy Gilmore’s have their food prepared for them by personal chefs. The class distinctions between Lorelai and her parents are blatantly obvious and are exhibited in the type of food they consume and the way in which they consume it.

Throughout its seven series run, food plays an integral role in the Gilmore Girl’s universe. While representations of food within the context of the show seemingly transcend stereotypical gender division, food and diet choice are still used to identify and characterize the different personalities that make up the world of Stars Hollow. In the words of Lorelai herself, “It takes years to learn how to eat like we do.”
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Brianna Low is currently a student living in Chicago. She enjoys watching movies and reading about feminism.

Happy Birthday, Occupy Wall Street!

No, this is not a post about film or television. 
Today, September 17th, marks the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street’s existence. I first wrote about OWS at Bitch Flicks on October 6, 2011 in a piece called, “We Interrupt This Broadcast … for an Occupy Wall Street Update,” in which I discuss my first experience marching and protesting with OWS. I wrote two more pieces for Bitch Flicks after that–once I started to feel a little disenchanted with the misogyny in the Occupy movement: “Occupy Wall Street and Feminism and Misogyny (Oh My?)” and “Why Facebook’s ‘Occupy a Vagina’ Event Is Not Okay.”
I published another piece I wrote about OWS at the Ms. Magazine blog, and I’ve decided to reprint it here. 
Contrary to what many people think, the movement is stronger than ever, and women have taken leadership roles and created Feminist General Assemblies (courtesy of WOW, which stands for Women Occupying Wall Street) and sites like Occupy Patriarchy. Much has been written about misogyny and feminism in the movement, and I’ve included links to articles at the Women Occupy tumblr (although I’m very behind on updating this, so the most recent pieces aren’t included here).
Basically, I want to say congratulations and thank you to all the women who’ve worked tirelessly to make OWS safer for women–and to push the needs of women to the forefront of the conversation. 

previously appeared at the Ms. Magazine blog on December 13, 2011

On the November 17th national day of action for the Occupy Wall Street movement, I was interviewed by a man from a Swedish newspaper who wanted to know why I was there. I smiled and said, “That’s the question, isn’t it?” Everyone wants to know, still, even after the two-month anniversary of a movement that’s only continued to grow stronger and gain more momentum, why people are occupying, who and what they’re protesting, and what they hope to change. I regurgitated what has effectively become The Message, “We want the power back in the hands of the people.” He seemed satisfied. But as he started to put his microphone away, I panicked.

“Wait!” I said. “There’s another reason I’m out here: I’m here to represent women.”

Dozens of articles have been written about why Occupy Wall Street matters for women. It boils down to one simple fact: Women suffer disproportionately in the current economic climate, which means that a protest for economic equality is a feminist protest—whether it admits it or not. A majority of the nation’s poor and unemployed are women, especially women of color and single mothers.

But the issue is not just what Occupy Wall Street can do for women; it’s what women have already done for Occupy Wall Street.

1970s feminists coined the phrase “the personal is political” when they noticed, by organizing a handful of women and sharing their private experiences, that their everyday struggles were embedded in larger political systems. For instance, women’s unacknowledged and unpaid labor, especially as caregivers for children, directly contributes to our country’s capitalist gains, yet women see no real compensation for it, only a persistent wage gap.

And one of the things I love most about the Occupy Wall Street movement is that it borrows so much of its activism, specifically pertaining to how the protesters interact with one another, from the feminist consciousness-raising model of the 1960s and ’70s. Like consciousness-raising, Occupy Wall Street started with small groups of oppressed people who spoke to one another about their personal struggles, and in doing so, learned they weren’t alone or insane or weak or lazy, the way Those In Charge suggested. That discovery gave them the strength to channel the individual anger and suffering they experienced into a larger collective call to action.

If the personal has ever been political in this country, take a look at the concerns driving the Occupy Wall Street movement: home foreclosures, college loan debts, health problems representing the leading cause of personal bankruptcy, lay-offs and skyrocketing unemployment rates, rapidly diminishing pensions, unaffordable education, unaffordable and inaccessible childcare. On the November 17th day of action, protesters hopped onto train cars and shared their personal stories of how the current economic inequalities have impacted them. One, using the people’s mic, said:

My name is Justin. I was a teacher before my school lost its budget and I was excessed. This is the United States of America, the richest country in the world, and somehow we can’t afford public high school teachers.

And another:

My name is Troy, and I’ve been unemployed for 10 years. Both my sisters lost their homes. I am here fighting for economic justice for everybody on this train … I am united with you in your struggle to pay your bills.

Other examples of consciousness-raising at Occupy Wall Street include discussion groups reminiscent of those started by ’70′s feminists. There’s the Divine Feminine, a group in which female-bodied or female-identified women talk about the oppressions they experience; Ambiguous UpSparkles, started by Eve Ensler, where people come together and share their personal stories of oppression using the people’s mic; and similar groups, like POCcupy (People of Color), a group for people of color to talk about oppression; WOW (Women Occupying Wall Street) and Safer Spaces, two groups that focus on the presence and safety of women in the movement.

Of course, a large part of consciousness-raising exists on the Internet, and I’ve heard people refer to Occupy Wall Street as the first-ever Internet revolution. Suffice it to say, Occupy Wall Street wouldn’t exist without the fast-as-hell sharing of information over Twitter, personal e-mail exchanges among both participants and skeptics, blogs such as We Are the 99% (a site that showcases photos of people from all over the world sharing personal stories of economic struggle), Facebook (where pages for new feminist groups devoted to Occupy camps crop up daily) and YouTube footage that captures precisely how personal struggle translates into collective political action.

It’s important to note that while early feminists focused much of their energy on gender oppression—and consciousness-raising groups later formed in which women discussed the impact of race—the protesters at Occupy Wall Street have turned the conversation toward class oppression. Of course, race, class, gender and sexuality remain interconnected, but as Felice Yeskel, who cofounded the nonprofit organization Class Action, argues:

Women talked about their experiences growing up in a gendered society as girls and the differential experiences of males and females. And when the issue of race was raised, feminists started to meet in same-race groups, with consciousness-raising for white women about white privilege … But it has never happened in any widespread way about issues of class.

By raising consciousness about the economic divide in this country, the Occupy movement protesters have the opportunity to finally start a conversation about an issue we rarely discuss in the United States—how the poorest people in this country, most of whom are women, manage to survive.

The simple fact? Without the feminist movement and discourse of the ’60s and ’70s, and the consciousness-raising tactics of the civil rights movement before it, Occupy Wall Street wouldn’t exist. We owe it to the women within the movement—and our feminist foremothers—to acknowledge women’s work, and to understand that a movement claiming to fight for the disenfranchised can’t afford to erase the contributions of women. And so I’ll leave you with the words of a woman from a 1969 consciousness-raising group, words that I can see plastered all over Occupy signs everywhere, “Women aren’t in a position to make demands now. We have to build a movement first.”

The Dark Side of ‘The Dark Knight Rises’

 
Warning: Spoilers ahead!!
So I’m writing this movie review with a lot of spoilers, because well, according to my Facebook newsfeed, everyone’s already seen it. But even if you have seen it already, you’re probably desperately longing for my insightful commentary of the film; I mean, how else will you know what to think of it?
No one here is going to deny that Christopher Nolan has managed to take the superhero movie to a whole other level: the characters have far more complexity, a hell of a lot less campy lines, and a darker, grittier setting than the more upbeat Marvel comics. Even the fight scenes in this Batman film had a visceral heaviness to them, with each punch sounding so thick and weighty, you could just feel the epic-ness pounding you from the screen.
My praise for Nolan as a filmmaker however comes mostly from his dealings with evil. Most directors have laughable Lokis (The Avengers) and shapeless Sinestros (The Green Lantern) whose overwrought motivations and plans for world domination just get more tiresome with every rendition. The genius behind Nolan’s villains is in how he makes them insidious by how fascinating we find them, exploring that ever-present possibility of the darker side of humanity is so psychologically interesting that we can’t turn away. For example, Heath Ledger’s Joker was infamously brilliant and is, I think, the best superhero villian, given that his motivation was just “wanting to watch the world burn,” and it felt so…seductive.
In a similar vein, Bane was inscrutable and intense; it wasn’t about some in-your-face world domination or strawman plot of blowing up the moon. Bane’s motivations are completely hidden until the last ten minutes of the movie. And that’s the draw. That’s why we keep watching. And in the last few minutes, when we learn that motivation, it was so simple, so seemingly counter to his character, that you couldn’t help but pity him. That motivation was of course love, and it was humanizing, equalizing even.
I feel a little bad bringing up the human fascination with darkness and villains in the aftermath of the tragic shootings in Aurora, Colorado, but as with anything, it has become a media event, one where we desperately want to know the motivation of the killer. As humans we seek that casualty in those we consider perverted and ill in an attempt to validate our own humanity.
Besides the characters, the plot eerily parallels the current economic climate in the United States, looking basically like the occupy movement on crack. Even the scene of Bane breaking into Wall Street (which felt evocative of Rage Against the Machines, “Sleep Now in the Fire” video) was a reminder of our economic vulnerabilities in the West. There is a sort of palpable fear that has started to seep into the world’s economic consciousness, asking “how long can this continue?” This fear, of course, fed by the constant bank scandals that I hear about on the news every morning, the lack of any kind of new budget, and the general disillusionment with the viability of our political leaders (in both parties). Nolan did an excellent job of tapping into that fear, highlighting the destruction that can come from one good hack job on Wall Street.
The class warfare depicted in the film, with it’s disturbing scenes of makeshift courts to punish the wealthy and French Revolution style executions, brought home the problematic images of what happens when poverty reaches it’s breaking point. I especially found the violence that was present to be very familiar, reminding me of A Tale of Two Cities or Les Miserable, both stories that demonstrate the intense hatred that was turned onto the ruling classes during the French Revolution. 

The revolutionaries of this film literally destroyed the vestiges of wealth as they smashed pictures and pulled scared socialites out of their homes and yanked the fur coats off their backs. However, the film did have some subtler points on economy, most notably offered by the reluctant billionaire Bruce Wayne (who admittedly has experienced poverty in his travels) when he critiques the charity functions where thousands are spent on venues and food. A valid point, since the money spent on the charity function could probably just have been given to the charity in the first place. Similarly, Catwoman states that the “rich don’t even go broke like the rest of us,” disgusted that even without money, Wayne will be able to maintain his lifestyle.

The two women in the movie actually play an important role in the economics portrayed: Catwoman as a sort of liaison between the wealthy do-gooders and poor revolutionaries. She pretends wealth in order to achieve her thieving, but claims herself to be a woman of the people. Miranda as well comes from nothing and has managed to rise up in the ranks of the world, only intending to tear it down again. I found it interesting though, that both women seem to at first be a part of the upper classes, but instead, stand as symbols for those who are struggling (though neither seems to have a very positive way of dealing with their financial difficulties).
Ironically enough though, the movie seemed almost an affirmation of class status quo, since these revolutionaries were the bad guys, and the billionaire (granted now broke billionaire) was the one who had to save the day and reassert order. On the one hand, at the end, there were scenes of the orphan boys heading off to stay in mansions and the bravery of the policemen, working class heroes if you will. However, I felt that the film had a lot of potential to address economic disparity, but didn’t seem to come to any new resolution, just reasserted whatever economic platforms existed in the first place. 
Rachel Redfern has an MA in English literature, where she conducted research on modern American literature and film and it’s intersection, however she spends most of her time watching HBO shows, traveling, and blogging and reading about feminism.

LGBTQI Week: “All the Pieces Matter:” Queer Characters of Color on ‘The Wire’

(L-R): Detective Kima Greggs (Sonja Sohn) and Omar Little (Michael K. Williams) on The Wire
The Wire is the greatest TV series of all time. Period.
Now, I know I’m not really making some bold claim as many, many, many, manycriticshave professed their unabashed love for the crime drama. No other show has painstakingly depicted the complexities of racism, the inner city and the lives of the underclass. It’s a grandiose statement “about the American city, and about how we live together” and how institutional inequities fail social justice.
When people talk about The Wire, usually with awe and reverie, they discuss the sharp dialogue or the nuanced characters or the statement on race and the criminal justice system. And all of that is amazing. But I think what gets lost is that people forget The Wire’s depiction of queer characters and ultimately its statement on LGBTQ rights.  
The Wire portrayed complex, fully developed queer characters, something you don’t typically see in pop culture. With my absolute two favorite characters, Detective Kima Greggs and Omar Little – a black lesbian woman and a black gay man – The Wire confronted assumptions and stereotypes of heteronormativity.
Played by Sonja Sohn, an African-American and Asian-American black woman, kick-ass Detective Kima Greggs was a hard-working, smart, compassionate and loyal. Possessing integrity and earning the respect of her colleagues, she’s a fiercely shrewd and efficient police detective working in narcotics and later homicide. And she’s openly lesbian. From her very first scenes, we witness Kima better at her job than many of the men around her. She’s an indispensable member of the Major Crimes Unit. Outside of work, we see Kima with her partner Cheryl, a journalist. Later in the series, we see how work stress (especially after Kima is shot), conflicting goals, infidelity, parenthood and alcohol strain their relationship. After they break up, we see Kima and Cheryl come together to raise their son, as well as Kima’s fantastic “hustler” version of Goodnight, Moon.

The Wire‘s Detective Kima Greggs (Sonja Sohn)
With his signature trench coat, shotgun and trademark whistle, Omar (portrayed by the effortlessly charismatic Michael K. Williams) was a badass stick-up man who everyone in the hood respected, even those who wanted him dead. And he was a proud gay black man. Intelligent, brave, sensitive and funny, he abided by a strict moral code. He loved Honey Nut Cheerios and Greek mythology, loathed profanity and dropped nuggets of wisdom on the similarities between lawyers and thieves and says things like, “Ares, same dude different name” and “You come at the king, you best not miss.” The media is littered with tropes about gay men. Yet here was Omar – a tough, fearless, modern-day Robin Hood robbing drug dealers – who just happened to be gay and broke every stereotype. 
The Wire showed both Kima and Omar’s romantic relationships. We witness them laugh, kiss, have sex, and fight. In short, complete relationships. It was great to see to see a gay and a lesbian relationship amidst all the heterosexual relationships. When queer relationships are depicted on TV, they’re often sanitized and peppered with chaste kisses, when the straight relationships are not. Queer characters may be clothed or the relationships are put on the back burner, not in integral part of the characters’ lives. With The Wire, we see queer characters having sex. We see Omar naked. Passion, raw sexuality, and tenderness abound in the queer relationships. We shouldn’t be plagued by heteronormativity and just see straight relationships as the default and queer relationships as peripheral. Queer relationships were entrenched in the series.
It’s also interesting to see how other Wire characters treat homosexuality. When asked by Carver, “If you don’t mind can I ask you when was it that you first figured you liked women better than men?” To which she replies, “I mind.” Detective McNulty praises Kima, telling her the only other competent female detective he ever worked with was a lesbian (ahhh a back-handed, sexist compliment…thanks, Jimmy!) Omar is often referred to with gay slurs like the F-word and C-sucker. When drug kingpin Avon Barksdale finds out from his crew that Omar is gay, he quadruples the bounty on him.Many of the characters seem to view lesbians as masculine, the desired gender, and gay men as effeminate, denigrating the feminine. The portrayal of Kima and Omar question, challenge and subvert these stereotypes.

The Wire‘s Omar Little (Michael K. Williams)

Now, it’s great we’re starting to see more and more queer characters on-screen (Modern Family, True Blood, Grey’s Anatomy, Will & Grace, Glee, The L Word, Queer as Folk, Buffy, Roseanne). Although I desperately wish we were seeing more bisexual (although thank you for Callie Torres, Grey’s Anatomy!) and transgender characters. But usually when we see queer characters, we see white, upper class/upper middle class characters. As if no queer people of color or queer people who are impoverished or even working class exist.

Class and race are so often erased in our media (one of the many reasons Roseanne was so groundbreaking and amazing). Not every queer person lives in Park Slope or West Hollywood attending art gallery openings and having nannies. The Wire depicts financially struggling and impoverished queer women and men of color.
Stereotypes plague queer characters on sitcoms. And yes, sitcoms differ from dramas. Kima and Omar (while Omar does seem too badass to be an actual person) both seem very real. They exhibited foibles and weaknesses along with their strengths. But their relationships didn’t define them. Rather, they were an integral component of their lives. Kima and Omar weren’t beholden to these stereotypes that alert us to “Oh, this is a gay character!” Fully developed and fleshed out, they didn’t fall prey to common tropes.
But Kima and Omar weren’t the only queer characters. Major Rawls, a gay-slur-spewing jerk, is a closeted gay man as we see him briefly at a gay bar. Snoop (Felicia Pearson), the frighteningly ruthless, gender non-conforming soldier in Marlo’s crew (sidebar, my fave scene with her is when she goes to Home Depot), is a lesbian as we learn after Detective Bunk tells her he’s thinking about some pussy and she replies, “Me too.” Both Rawls and Snoop, along with Greggs and Omar, challenge gender and heteronormative assumptions.

The Wire‘s Snoop (Felicia “Snoop” Pearson)
Despite my adulation, The Wire is far from perfect. (Say what??) The Wire boasts strong, complex female characters (Kima Greggs, Ronnie, Beadie, Brianna Barksdale, Snoop) Yet it sadly suffers from a woman problem. As progressive as it is, sexism taints it. Just because a film or TV series contains a “portfolio of ‘strong women’” doesn’t automatically deem it feminist.The Wire often focus on the male characters. While we see myriad perspectives from the male characters, the women aren’t typically offered the same screen-time or scope, often existing peripherally. David Simon himself admitted that his female characters could be called “men with tits.” Ugh. While based on a couple lesbian officers he knew, Simon wrote Kima Greggs “like a man.” We often witness how institutional racism and classism oppress the male characters and how gendered notions of masculinity harm men. Yet we rarely see how sexism impacts the women from their perspective. But the flaws in its depiction of women doesn’t unravel the tremendous good The Wire has done.

“The characters on The Wiredemonstrate a departure from heteronormative assumptions in television complicated by race. The prospect of seeing homosexual minority couples has remained largely untouched by major media outlets and it is therefore worth applauding. While the series may lack a strong female presence to challenge traditional heterosexual gender roles, the work that it has done involving homosexual partnerships serves as one of the sole examples of normalized homosexuality.”
When asked why he created an out lesbian and a gay stick-up man, creator David Simon responded, “Because gay people exist.” Is there any more perfect reason than that? He went on to say that he knew lesbian detectives and openly gay stick-up men in Baltimore. Whatever failings Simon suffered from not knowing how to write about women, he knew to include gay characters. It shouldn’t be so surprising or groundbreaking. And yet it is for the media too often erases queer (and queer people of color’s) perspectives. And that’s just one of the many reasons why The Wire should be celebrated.The Wire‘s routine depiction of gay and lesbian characters conveyed queer individuals and queer relationships as normal, loving and valid. The Wire refused to make heterosexuality the default sexual orientation.

Weaving diverse voices and social justice issues together in a compelling, thought-provoking, passionate way — that’s what The Wire did best. Too often the media silences and erases queer people of color. The Wire brought those perspectives to the forefront. Quoting Detective Lester Freamon, evolving into the show’s unofficial mantra, “And all the pieces matter.” And so do all the various genders, sexualities, races and identities of the characters involved. Just like real life…or at least how real life should be.
P.S. Michael K. Williams (Omar), who’s incredibly gracious and charming – yes, I’m going to brag for a moment…I was lucky enough to meet him (!!!), as well as Andre Royo (Bubs) and Jamie Hector (Marlo) who were also super nice – filmed a PSA for marriage equality in Maryland. If you’re an Omar fan, you should totes watch it. Oh, indeed.

 

Biopic and Documentary Week: Undesired

This is a guest post from Martyna Przybysz.
It was a simple coincidence that led me to discovering this short film that you are about to watch. I was looking for a powerful story about women, in which their success or status would not be defined by their womanhood or the men in their lives. Instead, I have found exactly that, but in the worst possible scenario – a real life story of how India’s women are facing a slow extermination of the entire sex. Because in some families – especially the ones that cannot afford to pay the old-fashioned, dowry – women’s husbands, and their respective families are driven by the belief that the sole purpose of being a woman is to bring a son into the world. From the moment they are capable of bearing a child, those females are under threat of extreme violence and death if their duty is not fulfilled.

Undesired, with interviews and images shot by Walter Astrada, whom I believe to be a very courageous photojournalist, brings to light this painful and current social issue still faced by many. According to Reuters, modern day India is the fourth most dangerous place in the world for women to live, but it seems like it is also one of the most difficult ones for a female life to even begin. Gender inequality and the desire to rectify it, let alone feminism, seem like completely foreign concepts for certain classes. There is also a seeming contradiction in this entire predicament – if a woman is to be perceived as the bearer of life, how can she be made to bring about this life’s actual end? 
Read more about the issue and Astrada’s project. Watch it, share it, spread the awareness. 

In India, all women must confront the cultural pressure to bear a son. The consequences of this preference is a disregard for the lives of women and girls. From birth until death they face a constant threat of violence. See the project at http://mediastorm.com/publication/undesired


Martyna Przybysz is a Pole who resides in London, UK. She works in film production. This is her blog: http://martynaprzybysz.tumblr.com.