Tag: The Smurfette Principle

“Smurfette Syndrome”: The Incredible True Story of How Women Created Modern Comedy Without Being Funny

Far more than a common trend in cartoons and superhero teams, the Smurfette Principle is an ingrained interpretative framework that limits female achievement to a model for male imitation, rather than an argument for female inclusion. In comedy, “Smurfette Syndrome” is a bias that asks whether individual women are “as funny as men,” rather than assessing women’s collective contribution as creators of comedy genres.

unnamed

This is a guest post by Brigit McCone.

Professional female comedians are still asked in interview after interview whether women are funny. The usual response is a defensive list of funny women. But proof of funny women is no proof that women are funny, thanks to the dreaded Smurfette Principle. The “Smurfette Principle” dictates that women who succeed in male fields must be interpreted as a) unique and isolated, and b) a variation on a male original. Far more than a common trend in cartoons and superhero teams, the Smurfette Principle is an ingrained interpretative framework that limits female achievement to a model for male imitation, rather than an argument for female inclusion. In comedy, “Smurfette Syndrome” is a bias that asks whether individual women are “as funny as men,” rather than assessing women’s collective contribution as creators of comedy genres. Such as…

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGj5CnPJ3QA”]

Alice Guy’s irresistible piano syncs uncannily with Ray Charles

The Comic Novel

Murasaki Shikibu not only wrote the world’s first novel in the 11th century with The Tale of Genji, she included hefty doses of humor amidst all the karmic heartbreak. Whether revealing the bulbous nose of the mysterious Safflower Princess behind the silk screen, or working out the interpersonal dramas of a womanizer’s harem, Lady Murasaki wielded realism to puncture cliché. Murasaki Shikibu, along with Sei Shonagon (“the most natural wit in the history of Japanese literature”) and fiery, erotic poetess Ono no Komachi, became literary pioneers by accident: they were adopted as models for Japanese literature because their male contemporaries wrote in stilted Chinese to show intellectual superiority. As men switched to Japanese, women writers were squeezed out, leaving only their early classics.

On film and TV: Kozaburo Yoshimura’s 1951 adaptation of The Tale of Genji is a recognized classic. Peter Greenaway’s film inspired by Shonagon’s The Pillow Book reinvents it as a modern tale of a Japanese woman and an older Japanese man sexually servicing Ewan McGregor. A memorable riff on Shikibu’s “Princess Safflower” gag is featured in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Christian Comedy

Drama was strongly condemned by the Fathers of the early Christian church as immoral, in works like Tertullian’s De Spectaculis. It was a 10th century nun, Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, who revived the tradition of playwriting by arguing that it could have a moral function. Hrotsvit became the first recognized playwright of medieval Europe, adapting the popular sex comedies of the ancient Roman Terence into an entirely new genre: virgin martyr sex comedy. Chuckle as Dulcitius attempts to ravish the virgins, but ends up humping a sooty pot instead! Giggle as soldiers attempt to strip the virgins, but discover their robes are stuck on! Then feel sorta bad when the virgins get burned alive and shot with arrows anyway. Martyrdom replaced marriage as the culmination of a female empowerment fantasy that began with immunity to rape. The subtle relationship between hermit and prostitute in Hrotsvit’s Paphnutius inspired novelist Anatole France and Oscar Wilde, while Hrotsvit’s Callimachus is identified as one of the sources for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Hrotsvit, however, gained acceptance by self-Smurfette: presenting her wit as an exceptional, divine gift contrasted with usual female witlessness.

On film and TV: Thais, a sexed-up rewrite of Paphnutius by Anatole France, was adapted into a faithful American silent film, and loosely inspired the only surviving Italian futurist film. Jane the Virgin is arguably a modern virgin martyr sex comedy.

Cabaret

In the 17th century, blacksmith’s daughter and shrine maiden Izumo no Okuni created kabuki as a mixture of cross-dressing sketches, sexual innuendo, musical performance, and titillating sensuality. It moved into the teahouses of the red-light district, allowing patrons to sit and drink while watching the show; that is, kabuki originally met the definition of cabaret. For empowering sex workers with social visibility and subversive self-expression, the Japanese authorities banned women from the stage to be replaced by all-male kabuki. Japan’s all-female Takarazuka revue, and witty writer-performers like Mae West and Gypsy Rose Lee in the Western cabaret/vaudeville tradition, carry on the legacy. Straight male comics often struggle to cross over into the diva humor of cabaret, yet it is female comic capability that is judged according to the masculine norms of stand-up.

On film and TV: Mae West defied ageism to become a Hollywood sex symbol in her late 30s, reportedly rescuing Paramount Studios from bankruptcy with She Done Him Wrong. The decadent culture of Weimar cabaret is depicted in the contemporary The Blue Angel, which introduced Marlene Dietrich, and the later musical Cabaret.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJS670okmZc”]

Mae West’s anarchic comedy of sex

Romantic Comedy

I seem to regularly rant on Bitch Flicks about Jane Austen’s role in defining romcom, so I’ll be brief: the meet-cute, the bickering couple who mirror each other, the misunderstandings, public humiliation and sacrificed ego – this is the template of Pride and Prejudice. Though her achievement is trivialized by treating “romcom” as a gendered slur, Austen’s formula is actually fundamental to the male romance of films like Fight Club, as well as classic comedies like Some Like It Hot.

On film and TV: There have been numerous screen adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, as well as updates such as Bridget Jones’ Diary, Bride and Prejudice and The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

Parody Film

“If the future development of motion pictures had been foreseen at this time, I should never have obtained his consent. My youth, my inexperience, my sex, all conspired against me” is how Alice Guy Blaché described being given her start in directing by Gaumont because no one else saw the potential of film: Alice Guy invented the close-up, she hand-painted color film in 1897, experimented with synchronized sound in 1906 and made over 1,000 films, owning her own studio (Solax). She made action films with swashbuckling female leads and boat explosions, but makes this list for creating the first parody films. Although the first comedy film is the Lumiere brothers’ The Sprinkler Sprinkled, about a sprinkler… who gets sprinkled (it predates the “don’t name it after the punchline” technique), it was Alice Guy who parodied the special effects films of George Melies with 1898 cross-dressing farce At the Hypnotist’s and the earnest scientific documentaries of her male peers with 1900 botched-surgery farce Surgery at the Turn of the Century. She brought in slapstick domestic strife with 1902’s An Untimely Intrusion and explored sexual harassment through comic role reversal in The Consequences of Feminism. Mabel Normand was an early slapstick star who directed her own films. Studio boss Mack Sennett (Keystone) is on record saying that Charlie Chaplin “learned [to direct] from Mabel Normand.” Neither Normand nor Alice Guy is regularly celebrated among cinema’s comic pioneers.

On film and TV: Though many of Guy’s films are now lost, many more can be viewed free online.

Stand-up Comedy

It’s difficult to say when the comic monologues of vaudeville transitioned into recognizably modern stand-up, but probably while Moms Mabley was headlining at the Apollo. To understand her contribution, witness the comics who acknowledge her influence: Flip Wilson, Richard Pryor, Joan Rivers, Eddie Murphy, Whoopi Goldberg, Chris Rock. Mabley exploited the freedom of old ladies to speak their mind, to confront taboos like alcoholism, poverty, racism, infidelity and sexual double standards, defining the comedian’s role as “truth teller” with a persona modeled on her grandmother, a former slave. Growing up Black and gay in 19th century North Carolina, Moms was bulletproof to hecklers before she ever hit a stage. Stand-up and fringe theater offer creative freedom to the minority perspective of queer comediennes of color, from the wild parodies of the Native American Spiderwoman Theater to figures like Wanda Sykes and Margaret Cho today. Mabley is sometimes called the “first female stand-up,” but still isn’t widely acknowledged for pioneering the modern art of stand-up itself, despite Bill Cosby admitting that “she opened that door for a different kind of solo” (Cosby should know; he was quite the groundbreaking comic before moving on to beloved sitcoms and sex crime allegations).

On film and TV: A young Moms has a brief cameo opposite Paul Robeson in The Emperor Jones, rocking a tuxedo in 1933, before starring in 1948’s Boarding House Blues and 1974’s Amazing Grace. Whoopi Goldberg made a documentary about Mabley. You can find Mabley’s later comedy routines, for the Smother Brothers Comedy Hour and the Ed Sullivan Show, on YouTube.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLg1QzdAdLo”]

When Moms jokes about being forced into marriage, it’s because she was

Improv Sketch Comedy

The comic improv created in the post-war University of Chicago shifted the culture of comedy from stand-ups telling jokes to actors performing satirical sketches. This new style was introduced to the world by comedy duo “Nichols & May,” where Elaine May’s role in creating the skits was equal to Mike Nichols’. The sharpness of their satire and the danger from their live improvs brought improv skits mainstream, like a new art of comedy jazz. You might say that without Elaine May and Mike Nichols, there would be no Steve Martin, no Lily Tomlin, no Martin Short, no Saturday Night Live. In fact, Vanity Fair did say that.

On film and TV: Many classic “Nichols & May” sketches are available on YouTube. Elaine May brought geeky charm and Jewish humor to the romcom by writing, directing and starring in 1971’s A New Leaf, six years before Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. She was Oscar-nominated for writing Heaven Can Wait and Primary Colors, wrote The Birdcage and was an uncredited writer on Tootsie, but never got another chance to direct after Ishtar flopped (despite the film’s bad reputation being exaggerated).

Sitcoms

The first sitcom on network television, 1947’s Mary Kay and Johnny depicted Johnny and Mary Kay Stearns’ marriage, of which Variety said “much of the show’s charm is traceable directly to the femme half of the team.” The couple that defined the sitcom’s template was Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Ball and Arnaz created “more tropes than anything on television before or since”--they filmed the episodes in front of a live audience using multiple cameras, a unique format at the time, making the first reruns possible and keeping I Love Lucy in syndication worldwide. Ball and Arnaz’s Desilu studios also produced Star Trek. After breaking up with Arnaz, Lucille proved she could do it solo with The Lucy Show. Jennifer Saunders’ Absolutely Fabulous, Roseanne Barr’s Roseanne (which launched Joss Whedon and Judd Apatow) and Tina Fey’s 30 Rock followed in Lucille Ball’s sitcomical footsteps.

On film and TV: I Love Lucy has many episodes and classic scenes available on YouTube.

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

Lucille Ball defining the tropes of TV humor

Supernatural Action Romantic Comedy (SARCom)

A supernaturally strong girl hangs out with her sarcastic, quipping gang – including bitchy golddigger and sweet, motherly one – while carrying on a feud/flirtation with her supernaturally strong, shapeshifting love interest, being pined over by a more impulsive, supernaturally strong shapeshifter, and fighting off demons-of-the-week and sexual harassers. If you guessed Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer you’d be right, but if you guessed Rumiko Takahashi’s Ranma 1/2 you’d be a decade earlier. Today’s explosion of sarcastic, bickering romcoms with supernatural martial arts was fresh when Takahashi developed it with 1987’s Ranma 1/2, and her later Inuyasha. Takahashi’s immense success at blending male and female genres, creating entertainment that offers integrated empowerment to both sexes, has been Smurfetted in Japan, segregating female mangakas into a female genre (shoujo).

On film and TV: both Ranma 1/2 and Inuyasha have been adapted into anime.

So that is the incredible true story of how women created the culture of modern comedy without being funny. “The Smurfette Principle” is still used to isolate female achievement, from cartoons to comedy clubs. We can only laugh.

 

Brigit McCone is grateful to the anarchic Rose Lawless and Emma Pearson’s Crash Test Cabaret for assisting at the comical birth of her cabaret alter-ego Voluptua von Temptitillatrix. Her hobbies include doodling and she will be linking to this article if anyone ever asks that bloody question about funny women again.

‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ – A Missed Opportunity for a Strong Female Lead

By far the most disappointing aspect of film is the verbal sexual objectification of April O’Neil. She may not be scantily clad, but the male characters (mostly Mikey and Vern) in the film frequently make sexual comments to her, to which her response is complete and total silence. For an actress who has expressed plenty of feminist quips and spoken so adamantly about “refusing to flirt on set,” even going into detail on how she handles it, saying “you never have to feel like someone has power over you,” I’m surprised to not see that influence on this character. There was no script when she signed on to star in the film, and from interviews I’ve watched it seems like the storyline was a collaboration between her, the director, and the producers.

April O'Neil
April O’Neil & Vernon Fenwick

 

This is a guest post by Melanie Taylor.

There has been no escaping the onslaught of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles promotion that’s been inundating every media outlet over the past few weeks. The hype has been huge and the hate has been heavy, even from the beginning back when there was first talk of Michael Bay making the turtles into aliens. Everyone protested Michael Bay “ruining their childhood.” Many fans also lamented the presence of sexpot actress Megan Fox filling the shoes of journalist April O’Neil, the protagonist of the film and the human connection to the outside world. Hate and hype aside, the film carried on, and the cast was filled out by Will Arnett playing Vernon Fenwick, her goofy cameraman sidekick, and William Fichtner as Eric Sacks, the obligatory evil genius.

I, for one, was excited to see Megan Fox in a film that does not revolve around her sexuality. In promotion for the film, Fox says that her character is “courageous” and “ambitious…fighting for the truth,” a Joan of Arc type of character. The director, Michael Liebesman, echoes her sentiment, stating that he didn’t want April to just be eye candy, that she is meant to be an integral part of the Turtles’ survival and mission. While the film starts strong and leads with April aggressively interrogating a source, determined to find an opportunity to report something beyond a fluff piece, the “ambition” teeters off and is never fully realized.

Megan Fox as April O'Neil
Megan Fox as April O’Neil

 

The first half of the film we follow her character in her quest to uncover the truth, get a story, and stop the destructive Foot Clan that has been causing havoc in the city, but in the second half of the film April completely abandons her career ambitions and is basically just along for the ride in what seems like an endless 45 minute long action scene. I say “first half” and “second half” because there is no third act in this film. There is no wrap up of the main character’s goals or problems, only a stop-the-bad-guy-and-say-goodbye-to-the-Turtles sort of ending. However, you can see from released B-roll footage that at one point there was a third act of some kind at some point.

On top of the lack of a third act, the film almost seemed like a rip off of the 2002 Spiderman storyline — bad guy scientist has a plan to take over the city and kill people with some kind of chemical and the good guys must stop him. The film was practically a parody of the action superhero genre, which actually made the generic dialog more tolerable to think of it that way.

By far the most disappointing aspect of film is the verbal sexual objectification of April O’Neil. She may not be scantily clad, but the male characters (mostly Mikey and Vern) in the film frequently make sexual comments to her, to which her response is complete and total silence. For an actress who has expressed plenty of feminist quips and spoken so adamantly about “refusing to flirt on set,” even going into detail on how she handles it, saying “you never have to feel like someone has power over you,” I’m surprised to not see that influence on this character. There was no script when she signed on to star in the film, and from interviews I’ve watched it seems like the storyline was a collaboration between her, the director, and the producers.

Vern jokes about the nice view of her rear end when she’s leaning out a window, and Mikey makes comments throughout the entire film about being attracted to her, including implying that she’s giving him a boner. Her response is to stare blankly at him like a personality-devoid sex object. Not once does she tell him to cool it, chill out, stop, or respond with some witty come back at least. Aside from the fact that he’s a teenager and she’s a grown woman, she’s there to get a story and help the turtles, not give them boners.

April leans out of a window to snap a pic
April leans out of a window to snap a pic

 

Although she does have moments of strength where she saves them, the Turtles don’t seem to care about her beyond thinking she’s hot. Fox has repeatedly stated that she doesn’t mind being the sexy aspect of a film and while a little sex appeal in an action film makes sense, it’s a bit of a contradiction to talk about April being this great role model for girls because she confronts danger and has career goals, both great traits, when that character is also painfully silent in the face of unwanted sexual attention. You can have a sexy character who is not a silent sex object.

This was a missed opportunity for Megan Fox to showcase a truly strong female action hero. When Mikey makes comments about how she can always find him “here” as he points to her “heart” aka chest, she could have shut him down with something like, “Cool it, kid. I’m here to get a story!” or something more clever like what she does in real life. Instead we got deer in the headlights silence as the audience laughs at how much he is drooling over her.

For what it’s worth, this film technically passes the Bechdel Test – April has conversations with her female boss, played by Whoopi Goldberg, and her female roommate in two cute scenes that get a laugh, but the film and entire franchise still suffers from the “Smurfette Principle.”

Shredder, the whitewashed bad guy with boomerang-like knife hands, and Splinter, the rat father of the turtles, could not have been less developed and less interesting as characters. There was little to no backstory for them. Splinter was hideous to look at and Shredder had no personality. Megan’s performance was enjoyable, but kind of weak compared to her performances in This is 40 and Friends With Kids. I’ll give her a pass though, because she was pregnant throughout the entire film, nauseous almost every day on set. Pretty badass to make an action film while pregnant.

The saving grace for TMNT was the humor of jokester Michelangelo. He got the most laughs and was the only thing to make the nonstop, over-the-top action that dominates the second half of the film bearable. He provides the much needed levity to the excessive machismo of the film. Another positive aspect of the film was Will Arnett as Vern, who was charming and likable, even if he was that sort of annoying guy-friend-who-can’t-take-a-hint type. Sexual objectification and lack of a character arc aside, Megan Fox comes off as very likable as well in this film. She’s determined and brave and her backstory and connection to the Turtles gives her character heart substance.

The film ended on a note that very much implied a sequel, and considering the big box office numbers of opening night, a TMNT 2 is inevitable. Let’s just hope that in the second installment, at the very least, that April learns to shut down sexual harassment and gets to reach her career goals and have some kind of character arc along with the Turtles and the bad guys.

Melanie Taylor graduated from CSUN with a degree in screenwriting. She writes for her blog The Feminist Guide to Hollywood and is also a musician who shares her music on soundcloud.com/phantomcreatures. Follow her on twitter: twitter.com/tigersnapp.

How to Write a Good Female TV/Film Character

As a writer, comedian, and feminist who works in television development, I am continuously frustrated by not only the lack of female characters in entertainment but also the types of female characters in entertainment. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not all bad, some are fantastic (like the ones in the above photo), but others don’t have nearly as much depth, power, or memorability as the men do, and I ask you, dear readers, why? Why? WHY?!?! I don’t have the answer but I do have a list of tips for how we can write, not good, but superb female characters. Now, I am no expert, but I am a passionate person filled with rage, and those are always the best people to bestow advice upon others. Fingers crossed I change the world with this.

The cast of Orange Is the New Black
The cast of Orange Is the New Black

 

This guest post by Jess Beaulieu previously appeared at She Does the City and is cross-posted with permission.

As a writer, comedian, and feminist who works in television development, I am continuously frustrated by not only the lack of female characters in entertainment but also the types of female characters in entertainment. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not all bad, some are fantastic (like the ones in the above photo), but others don’t have nearly as much depth, power, or memorability as the men do, and I ask you, dear readers, why? Why? WHY?!?! I don’t have the answer but I do have a list of tips for how we can write, not good, but superb female characters. Now, I am no expert, but I am a passionate person filled with rage, and those are always the best people to bestow advice upon others. Fingers crossed I change the world with this.

#1: Give her a name for god’s sake. Unless she’s literally just a background extra in one scene for five milliseconds, show her some damn respect and name her. Please note that names like “Wife #2,” “Favourite Prostitute,” and “Generic Vagina” do not count.

#2: Have her make words with her mouth. Sure, you have a female in your film, but is her role just to stand beside the penises in silence, smiling and nodding along with whatever they say, but never uttering a word herself? If so, you fail the Bechdel test. Congrats. You kind of suck. If you want to not suck, write her some brilliant dialogue.

#3: Do not make her appearance her main attribute. She’s not a doll made of plastic. She has working internal organs, one of them being a brain. Focus on that organ instead. The way we look does influence our life stories, and can impact those stories in a positive way, but our appearance does not define who we are and neither should hers.

#4: Lavish her with tons and tons and tons of gross flaws. Writers often think that a female character can’t have any negative qualities out of fear that she won’t be likable. So they write the sweetest, smartest, most perfect leading lady in town who’s never made a single mistake in her entire life and to that I say SNOOOZZEEEEEE FESTTTTT. These are fine traits, but with no flaws, she’s boring as hell. What makes her likable ARE her flaws. If she’s kind and smart, yet also a paranoid, pugnacious pyromaniac who poops her pants on the regular, well that just sounds delightful.

#5: Take it easy with the flaws, though, buddy. We also don’t want to promote the idea that women are all vile hell beasts (although I do love a good hell beast, myself). Give her redeeming qualities as well, even if she’s an antagonist. She might be evil, but maybe she’s also loyal to her minions and pays them a respectable salary with health benefits and four weeks vacation? Give her a mix of good AND bad. Make her complex, you know, like humans are. Sidenote: Women are humans, if you weren’t sure.

#6: Important one: SHE’S NOT JUST AN ACCESSORY FOR MEN. She should drive her own stories. She should be active. She should impact the plot, and distracting the enemy by walking through a scene completely naked and then never returning does not count. This is especially important if she’s THE PROTAGONIST. It breaks my feminist heart when I see female leads trailing behind a bunch of dudes like a lost little puppy dog. TRUST THAT SHE CAN LEAD because she can. Ask yourself, “Why does she, specifically, NEED to be in this story?” If your answer is “She needs to be in this story because my producer told me to put at least one chick in it so I did but I’m not happy about it,” please retire immediately and go away forever.

#7: Don’t make her the buzzkill. There is a trend happening nowadays that has female characters disciplining men for their poor choices. They say “No, bad boy! That’s wrong! Stop doing that! Stop advancing the plot!” and then they get castigated on the internet by fanboys demanding these women be killed off because they halt the action and prevent the men from “being entertaining.” Quit making females the “mean mom” who shut everything down. Of course she has a right to judge the decisions of her fellow characters and comment on their actions, but if that’s her ONLY purpose the audience is going to turn against her.

#8: Give her likes, dislikes, a job, hobbies, skills, fetishes, phobias, cheese preferences, etc. So you got a female character with a bunch of awesome traits, yet she’s still extremely dull and you don’t know why. It’s probably because she has zero interests. Add in some and suddenly she’ll be jumpin’ off the page. Maybe she likes online poker, dislikes the idea of umbrellas, has a phobia of NOT smelling pot, and just became a professional dolphin whisperer? I always ask writers, “If she were in a room, alone, what would she be doing?” and if the answer is “Thinking about balls, like not bouncy balls, testicle balls” then no. Just… no.

#9: Don’t make her hate other women. A common trope. She likes hanging out with the bros but despises club clitoris. “I don’t get along with other girls. It’s because they’re jealous of me,” is her catchphrase and she stinks. Unless there’s a reason for why she loathes two x chromosomes (like she’s a misogynist and your show is about her being a misogynist) consider having her dislike people, not sexes.

#10: If it’s a comedy, make her… um…. FUNNY. I find while watching sitcoms that the men get the best lines. The men act out the ridiculous gags. The men fall into the embarrassing situations. And the women? Well, they get to WATCH. They can’t tell jokes because they’re just NORMAL, MUNDANE WOMEN in a world filled with HYSTERICAL, ODDBALL GUYS. However, this breaks a key rule in comedy. The rule being: Everyone needs to be funny. So lets spread the comedy love around, shall we patriarchy?

#11: Write more than one woman for god’s sake. The best tip for writing a good female character is to write a lot of them and to have them talk to each other (and talk to the men, I’m not advocating segregation). A single woman in a cast of twenty guys does not progress make. That is the norm and the norm is the problem.

#12: Having a cast of women who are diverse in race, age, sexuality, body shape, gender identity, and class will result in a better show. There is obviously a glaring problem with a lack of diversity in entertainment in general, however females seem to be particularly discriminated against when it comes to this issue. Marginalized women should be more represented in the media. Their stories need to be heard as well and writers have the power to tell these stories.

#13: Still confused about how to write good female characters? Let me simplify it for you. Take your male characters and turn them into women. You’ll be surprised by how little has to change.

 

Jess Beaulieu is a stand-up comedian, writer, feminist, professional complainer, and you. She is you. Jess co-hosts and co-produces an all-female variety comedy night called CHICKA BOOM (chickaboomshow.com) and co-hosts a weekly podcast called THE CRIMSON WAVE, which is all about periods (find us on iTunes!). Jess has performed at the Boston Women in Comedy Festival, the Chicago Women’s Funny Festival, where she was featured in the Chicago Sun-Times, and was selected to perform in the 2012 Fresh Meat Showcase at Second City. She also works in television as a bitter assistant, hoping to one day become a bitter writer. In her mother’s wise words, “Jess does entertainment type things! Isn’t that… interesting?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amy Adams in The Master, looking pissed

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

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

Eeeek, bitches, can we cool it already?

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

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

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

Freddie Quell, boom

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

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

The Master and his ladies

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

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

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

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

Preach it!

‘The Expendables 2’: Masculinity Porn

Still from The Expendables 2 [source]
“You want to man up? I’ll man you up.” – Sylvester Stallone in The Expendables 2
It’s a good thing The Expendables 2 was released after the Olympics ended, or a lot of innocent athletes might have tested positive for testosterone doping.  Where 2010’s The Expendables set out to recreate the 1980’s tough-guy action genre with a straight face, its sequel is more willing to consciously dip into self-parody territory, finally giving audiences what they had wanted and expected out of the original:  The Travelling Wilburys of action movie stars running through every available cliche from the genre with a wink and a smile. [The sequel currently rated 62% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes versus the original’s 41% rotten rating.]
The Expendables 2 strives to be the Most Macho Movie of all time.  Every possible signifier of manliness is on display [spoilers ahead]: Skulls. Guns. Knives the size of small children. Nameless henchmen who explode into geysers of blood when killed.  Hip flasks. Cigar chomping. Feats of brute strength. Explosions. Tanks. Brass knuckles. Gratuitous beret-wearing.  The Good, the Bad and the Ugly theme.  Chuck Norris himself reciting a Chuck Norris fact.
What appears on screen is not driven by story, logic, or reason, but by whatever is the most Righteously Dudely.  This is the only reason I can account for Stallone’s character favoring a single-action revolver in firefights against scores of men with automatic weapons, or Jean-Claude Van Damme’s villain using a roundhouse kick to drive one of the aforementioned child-sized knives into the chest of a restrained man, or Terry Crews pausing to announce “we’ve got company” before diving to safety under a hail of bullets.  Because it looks cool, because it looks manly, because it’s how it would have happened in a twelve-year-old boy’s imagination in 1985.
To my surprise, The Expendables 2 gets very little mileage out of promoting masculinity by contrasting it against femininity.  The only significant female character, Nan Yu’s Maggie, is the Smurfette of the group. Stallone gets some macho points with his absurdly chauvinist reaction to being told to work with a woman (“I don’t have time to babysit,” yadda yadda), but Maggie shows him up by being smart and competent and tough and even proficient in torture.  She’s one of the guys. She even hits on Stallone with an awkward forced pun.  [Her advances are rejected, because of the old Spider-Man excuse of “people I love get killed”, not because Stallone is literally twice her age.]
Promotion poster for The Expendables 2 featuring Nan Yu
In contrast to Maggie, when the team comes across a village of only women (the men having been forced into plutonium-excavating by Van Damme), their attempts to defend themselves with firearms are so incompetent that they can’t hit any of Our Heroes even after they start deliberately walking into the line of fire.  Women! Can’t force them into plutonium-excavating, can’t leave them behind to defend themselves either.  Sheesh.
And that’s the only scene in the film with more than one woman in it.  The Expendables 2 is actually a bizarrely sexless film, with no nudity, hardly any expression of the male gaze, and only the aforementioned fleeting hint at unconsummated romance. Perhaps the filmmakers were worried about girl cooties.  Or perhaps women are just irrelevant to the type of masculinity relevant to the film: a pre-pubescent hero-worship of larger-than-life tough guys.
Side-stepping sexuality may have been a shrewd move on the part of the filmmakers, or we could have ended up with another Sucker Punch on our hands.  The Expendables 2 is masculinity porn that audiences can walk away from without shame and without further thought.  With its shear over-the-top silliness, it easy to dismiss the whole thing as harmless and apolitical.
But that doesn’t mean we should dismiss it as such.  Why do unbridled displays of masculinity in an of themselves provide entertainment value (or at least, why are they expected to)? What would a throwback-y femininity extravaganza of a movie look like?  Is it terrible that the idea of such a film sounds miserable to me, and I genuinely enjoyed my time watching The Expendables 2? How is the collective id of young boys from thirty years ago still such a powerful cultural force that it’s apparently imprinted on the mind of this grown-up feminist woman in the year 2012?

Guest Writer Wednesday: The Avengers: Are We Exporting Media Sexism or Importing It?

The Avengers movie poster
This is a guest review by Soraya Chemaly and is posted with permission. 
The Avengers opened last week and, shattering records, far outpaced all other Cineplex offerings nationally. The movie grossed more than $200 million over the weekend (compared with The Hunger Games $8 millon weekend receipts and seven week total of $380m). The movie has gotten generally good reviews for plot, witty superhero banter and some interesting character representations – not the least of which focus on the central and relatively well-fleshed out (no pun intended) Scarlett Johansson character, Black Widow. Director Joss Whedon get’s major points for featuring her not as the typical sexy sidekick, but as an actual ass-kicking superhero peer.
However, the movie’s domestic success this weekend was surpassed by its sales overseas. The movie had pre-US release openings in Beijing, Rome, London and Moscow raked in more than a quarter of a billion dollars internationally. The overseas market now makes up 70% of US movie ticket sales. It grew 35% during the past five years, compared to just 6% in the US market. This is important information for how Hollywood, already deplorably lacking in gender balanced production, will or will not portray women in films. 
Jeremy Renner and Scarlett Johansson in The Avengers
Because it is a blockbuster megacomic book release there has been much discussion about the female audience for comic books and action films. Suffice to say that there are a lot of women, me included, that are huge fans of both. Despite the presence and strength of the Black Widow character however, the ratio of male to females in this movie is predictably Smurfette Principley: one female to six males and probably the same ratio or much worse in disposable character and crowd scenes. In addition, she appears to be the only character without her own franchise.
This movie’s success however illustrates the question: Are we importing or exporting our sexism? According to the Motion Picture Association, in 2009, women were responsible for more than 50% of US movie ticket sales. You might think that this would elicit some interest in the minds of the men who make movies (and yes, they are still primarily men as evidenced by the stats below). But, instead of the profit potential of American female movie goers resulting in more female lead characters (in every genre) or more female-centered stories, we have a completely different framework for estimating what will sell. Namely, the exponential growth and impact on Hollywood of the global market and the demands that growth places on production and development of content. 
Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in The Avengers
Where does this global growth leave characters like Black Widow and movies with female centric stories or leads? What happens when Hollywood produces movies to meet the needs of the world’s fastest growing and most populated countries – which also happen to be those with the most skewed gendercide-based birth ratios? Cultures that habitually accept the elimination of females aren’t going to be that interested in stories about women and girls, especially those that feature powerful, culture-threatening, transgressive characters.
It means more testosterone heavy action films with women as sex-toys, pawns and eye-candy. It’s why G and PG rated movies, increasingly popular in the US, have been outstripped by R rated movies, which are often loud, violent, fight-filled extravaganzas that don’t require complex characters or plots and can translate across multiple cultures. Cross-cultural entertainment product development, in order to work and be profitable, seeks the lowest common denominator—which it seems is a certain-type of language-neutral male aggression, violence, and power. It’s much trickier, not to mention subversive, to present complex characterizations of men and women that include non-traditional representations of women who are sexually liberated and empowered. Entertainers don’t want to rock the cultural boat, they just want to sell more movie tickets. So, basically, whereas a few members of international audiences might care about the travails of a small-town girl dealing with an unwanted teen pregnancy or even an intergalactic, painted-into-her-tensile-tights, justice-seeking female heroine, all members of international audiences can appreciate being swept away in an asteroid-created tsunami from hell from which strong men seek to protect the planet’s weak, which is why a movie like 2012 made $166 million at the US box office, but made $604 million overseas. 
Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow in The Avengers
As a result, it is predictable that the US movie market will see an increase in the seasonal barrage of hyper-masculine, violent super-hero and action-hero films that do much to perpetuate out-dated, harmful hyper-gendered stereotypes of both men and women. Don’t get me wrong, I love some of these movies, but there is a gross imbalance in how films are currenty written, produced and made and there is absolutely no offsetting movies like these with virtually any other entertainment portrayals of women. This sexist, dumbing down of content has real ramifications in our culture as we try to develop a more balanced and genuinely equitable society – especially in terms of entertainment and media representations of gender.
“What makes me so sad is that these films are seen as our cultural imprint,” explains Melissa Silverstein, founder of the Athena Film Festival and of the influential blog, Women and Hollywood. “This is a huge problem because we struggle for women’s stories to be taken seriously, and as the worldwide box office continues to be so important it seems that women will continue to be second class citizens.”
A study released by the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism in December 2011, based on a survey of the top 100 grossing movies of 2009 revealed that 67.8% of all speaking characters (in excess of 5000) were male. In addition, female characters, usually isolated by virtue of there just being one speaking role, were consistently depicted in sexualized ways. Twenty-three percent of women versus 7.4% of men appeared in revealing clothes or partial nudity. The fact that only 3.6% of the directors and 13.5% of the writers of these films are women is particularly telling when you consider that the ratios are substantively different depending on the gender of the story teller: in movies directed by women, 47% of characters are female versus 32%. These ratios are the same as they were in, get ready, 1946. 
Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, and Chris Evans in The Avengers
In reviews of seventeen “Must See” Holiday Movies for families recommended by Common Sense Media in December, only one had a female lead character—Breaking Dawn. The other sixteen feature boys or men in lead roles. The others primarily adhered to the Smurfette Principle. According to The Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media, the ratio of boys to girls becomes more extreme as they age. In the Institute’s study of the 50 top grossing family movies, females were 32.4% of speaking roles for G rated movies. That number declined to 27.7% for PG-13 movies. Boys outnumber girls in movies three to one. In addition, as in adult movies, girl characters are consistently presented with less clothes and hyper-gendered physical characteristics, like tiny waists. Almost every movie on the list for the past holiday season was told from a male perspective and reviews of these movies did nothing to systematically address the messages sent by their collective presentation.
And I saw no mention, during the reviewing process, of the impact of international ticket sales on product development. But, this is how Chris Dodd, Chairman and CEO of the MPAA put it in regards to overseas sales: “These numbers underscore the impact of movies on the global economy and the vitality of the film-watching experience around the world. The bottom line is clear: people in all countries still go to the movies and a trip to the local cinema remains one of the most affordable entertainment options for consumers.”
Selected portions of this article appeared on the Huffington Post and The Good Men Project.

———-

Soraya Chemaly writes feminist satire. She is a regular contributor to Fem2.0, The Feminist Wire, Alternet, Role/Reboot and The Huffington Post. She is also the creator of the retired blogs: Poog, a Goop Spoof and The Guide to Manic Moms. 

Animated Children’s Films: Is Smurfette Giving it Away? Let Your Kids Decide

My younger daughters are obsessed with their Smurf Village. They build things, create and sustain communities, plant virtual peas that need to be watered. In general, they have an excellent pseudo SIM experience, only with little blue guys. Civilization building is fun for boys and girls. My involvement in Smurfland is limited to checking in now and then to make sure, when my kids are in school, that the plants get watered and don’t die. 
‘Til I heard the question,  “Mom, can I buy Smurfette?”
Of course she wants Smurfette. What girl doesn’t love Smurfette? I loved Smurfette. My sister loved Smurfette. She’s fabulous. She’s fun. She’s blue. Now she’s Katy Perry, for goodness sake.
“What are you buying her for?” I asked. 
Blank looks.  
“What do you mean?”
“Who else can you buy? And what for? ‘Cause your village is filled with hundreds of frantically busy little blue dudes hoeing and hammering?”
I was happy and relieved to hear that other Smurfs were also available for premium purchase: Tailor, Miner, Farmer and a handful of others, almost all eponymously named for their JOBS (a handful for their vices, like Lazy).  
But, the one female Smurf?  
No job. Not even a  personality trait like, Lazy or Vanity (who, by the way is a male, but has a pink mirror, because, please, we all know that vanity is a female trait).
Smurfette?
She’s named for her VAGINA. Know any boys or men with the diminuitive “ette” at the end of their names? It’s usually a dead giveaway. 
She does nothing except be female, the token ‘non-male’ – the one who deviates from the norm, which in this case is 50,000 blue boys with floppy white tams who apparently have magical maleparthenogenesis capabilities. Nada but little tail-wagging lusciousness. I know. I know. It’s just a game, a story, right?
And what, exactly, does the Smurf village story teach boys and girls about being Smurfette? It tells them that:
·      Smurfs are boys 
·      She’s defined by her sex, reduced entirely to her femaleness, which is after all simply not-maleness
·      She was created to wreak havoc on the utopian male world (what else is new?)
·      She doesn’t work, have a job, or serve any “real” function
·      She’s super pretty, did I say that?
·      Oh, I almost forgot, Smurfette is expensive, the most expensive one for sale
My kids get to download apps on my Ipad in exchange for cultural deconstruction credits (woo-hoo, party time in our house!). So, before they could sign on to play in Smurfland, they had to tell me what The Smurfette Principle was. They already knew that it was bad enough that there is only one female Smurf, who, by the way, serves two purposes 1) she was created to sow dissention and jealousy among the males and 2) she’s there to show that the little blue men aren’t…shhh…gay. But, actually selling her, for being female. IT SUCKS. I know, blah blah feminist blah. So boring. 
Don’t I know there are really serious things happening? And Nicholas Kristof, thank goodness, writes about them as much as possible. For example, girls being sold into slavery in other parts of the world. 
That’s right. Slavery. And why?
Because they’re perceived as sub-human. They’re commodities. Something you trade, buy and sell.  Sounding familiar?
“Are you serious???” you say. Cute, innocent, wholesome Smurfs, little blue memes of subtle but virulent sexism? No way. This is America. Not only do women have nothing to complain about, but for some people we’re destroying all the men. At the very least, we’re the good guys and gals. The genuinely most fair and equal place in the world…those are the core tenants of American Exceptionalism. We are better than the rest of the world.   
So, no, it’s not just a story. It’s our culture and we get to make it. Then it makes us. That Smurf story is no different from 80% of the hyper-gendered stories we tell our kids. And if you find that hard to believe go visit The Geena Davis Institute Web Site where you will find hard stats.
‘Cause we’re at the stage in this country where the true hard work of equality has to take place. This is the land where culture’s destructive and dangerous messages about gender hierarchies and power are not delivered with blunt force trauma (like stoning a young girl for being raped, which is so obviously wrong), but rather through fun and entertaining games and movies.
Why would I let my children play culture-shaping games involving the commoditization and sale of the only girl in the land without explaining it? It would be like serving them lard for breakfast, lunch and dinner and then pretending not to know why they were having heart attacks at 35.
Anyway, before saying anything to my daughter (in age appropriate ways, for those of you who are praying for my children’s eternal salvation), I let my daughter purchase Smurfette to see what exactly she would do once unleashed onto the Smurf Village. Turns out she sweetly and innocently skips around town blowing heart kisses and distributing power credits to every little blue boy she swings by.
She should be careful. People will talk.
Besides, I’m kinda stuck on the idea that my daughters and I, my mother and sister, my sisters-in-law, my nieces and my female friends are fully human, not deviant from anything. Silly me. I must be a bitter, angry feminist. Oh, I forgot ugly. And old.

Soraya Chemaly writes feminist satire. She is a regular contributor to The Good Men Project and The Huffington Post. She is also the creator of the retired blogs: Poog, a Goop Spoof and The Guide to Manic Moms. 


Tropes vs. Women Spotlight

Anita Sarkeesian of the Web site Feminist Frequency, a site that analyzes pop culture from a feminist perspective, recently completed her fabulous, six-part video series on Tropes vs. Women. She explains that, “A trope is a common pattern in a story or a recognizable attribute in a character that conveys information to the audience. A trope becomes a cliche when it’s overused. Sadly, some of these tropes often perpetuate offensive stereotypes.”

I highly recommend watching each of these six videos. Sarkeesian possesses a strong ability to analyze often complicated issues regarding gender roles and the representations of women in film and television, and she breaks things down into more easily understandable ideas. The run time of each video is between five and ten minutes, with many television and movie clips incorporated as examples for the particular trope she’s highlighting. They helped me! Go watch them!

Definition: “The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a cute, bubbly, young (usually white) woman who has recently entered the life of our brooding hero to teach him how to loosen up and enjoy life. While that might sound all well and good for the man, this trope leaves women as simply there to support the star on his journey of self discovery with no real life of her own.”
Example: “You might remember Zooey Deschanel in 500 Days of Summer, the non-committing love interest of the film’s star, Tom Hansen, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The story follows Tom on his journey of falling in and out of love with Summer Finn. They have the classic Manic Pixie Dream Girl scene where they are frolicking around in the world, and the Manic Pixie teaches the uptight star how to embrace his inner child.” [accompanied by film clip]
Definition: “Women in Refrigerators is a trope identified by comic book fan (and now comic book writer) Gail Simone because she was sick of seeing “superheroines who have been either depowered, raped, or cut up and stuck in the refrigerator.”
Example: “While the Women in Refrigerators trope originated in the comic book genre, it can be applied across other pop culture mediums, such as video games, TV shows, and movies. For example, Libby and Shannon on Lost were murdered specifically to push the story arc of two male characters. Or how about all of these women from Heroes who were depicted as losing or being unable to control their powers.”
Definition: “The Smurfette Principle was named two decades ago by Katha Pollitt, when she noticed that there were a disproportionate amount of male characters in programming aimed at young people. Even in adult programming, when women do appear in the primary cast of a television show or movie, they are usually alone in a group of men. Sadly, this trope has made its way into the 21st century.”
Example: “Down in the 100-acre woods, we follow the adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Rabbit, Piglet, Eeyore, Owl, and Tiger–all dudes of course; in fact, there’s only one female character, Kanga, who shows up occasionally as the mother of little Roo. Even Jim Hensen didn’t seem too keen on the women; alongside Kermit, Gonzo, and Fozzie the Bear, Miss Piggy was the only female muppet. We can even see The Smurfette Principal outside of programming aimed at young people. So, for example, you have George Lucas’ original Star Wars trilogy, where Princess Leia is the only principle female character in the entire galactic empire.”

Definition: “The Evil Demon Seductress is a supernatural creature–usually a demon, alien, robot, vampire, etc.–who is most often disguised as a sexy human female. She uses her sexuality and sexual wiles to manipulate, seduce, kill, and often eat, poor, hapless men by luring them into her evil web.”
Example: “In Star Trek: First Contact, we have the Borg Queen trying to seduce Data. Keanu Reeves is taken advantage of by the Brides of Dracula. And then some years later, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Giles meets these three sisters. In the science fiction show, Farscape, there’s the villain, Grayza, with her enchanting body sweat. There are the evil mermaids in Pirates of the Caribbean 4. And Mystique in X-Men often fulfills this trope.”

Definition: “The Mystical Pregnancy is a trope writers use to create drama and terror by invading, violating, and exploiting women’s reproductive capabilities. Often these female characters have their ovaries harvested by aliens or serve as human incubators for demon spawn. Sometimes, they are carrying the Messiah, and other times Satan himself.”
Example: “Remember back in the mid-90s on the X-Files when FBI Agent Dana Scully found herself abducted and forcibly impregnated, which, of course, later culminated in a hybrid human-alien child? More recently, on the second season of Battlestar Galactica, Starbuck had her ovaries harvested by the cyclons in an attempt to create human-cyclon embryos. Then we have Gwen Cooper, co-star of the Doctor Who spinoff, Torchwood, who is bitten by an alien one night, and the next morning she wakes up to find herself extremely pregnant with the alien’s spawn.”

Definition: “In television and movies, The Straw Feminist works by deliberately creating an exaggerated caricature of a feminist, which writers then fill with a bunch of oversimplifications, misrepresentations, and stereotypes to try to make it easy to discredit or delegitimize feminism. The goal is to make feminists and our movements look completely ridiculous, over the top, and unnecessary.”
Example: “The Straw Feminist trope is taken to a whole new level in adult animation shows such as South Park or Family Guy. In the episode, “I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar,” the Family Guy writers took a stab at feminist attorney Gloria Allred. Allred is known for taking on high-profile cases defending women who have been assaulted or harassed. In this attack, the Family Guy writers created a character coincidentally named Gloria Ironbox, who brainwashes Peter into thinking he is a woman after he’s accused of sexual assault. The emasculation and feminization of Peter–and his sudden transformation into a feminist–is played for laughs.”

This six-part video series also appeared at Bitch Magazine, and the comment threads–both at Bitch and at Feminist Frequency–always offer excellent discussions of the videos.