The Sopranos – Bitch Flicks

How Upset Should We Be About Rape Plot Lines on HBO?

Let me start by saying that the title of this post is a little disingenuous – I’d never tell you how upset to be about the rape plot lines on HBO. You feel how you feel, and you get to make your own decisions about what you do and don’t watch. I do, however, find it interesting that rape’s showing up so often on TV, and I wonder whether that’s a good thing (because we’re finally talking about it) or a bad thing (because we’re slowly getting desensitized to it). I think it’s a little of both.

Written by Katherine Murray.

I remember that, when Game of Thrones first aired, and I watched the first episodes, not really knowing what it was, I was very uncomfortable with the story line where Daenerys gets sold to a warlord who rapes her repeatedly before they suddenly fall in love. I remember thinking (and writing) at that time that I was afraid to live in a world where depictions of rape were so common that they no longer had the power to shock us. I think I likened it to the festering animal corpse we saw in episode one – something that would have really freaked me out when I was younger, but that I barely even noticed on Game of Thrones, since I’m so used to seeing gross stuff on TV.

In the intervening years, I was annoyed that Game of Thrones used rape so often as a way to raise the stakes in a tense situation – during the battle of Blackwater we learn that the noble women have soldiers standing guard to kill them if the city falls, so that they don’t get raped; a bunch of total randoms try to rape Sansa because that’s what they do during riots in Westeros; we know that all the guys stationed at Crastor’s Keep are total fucking dicks because they want to rape every girl they meet; we know that a bunch of other guys in the Night’s Watch are total fucking dicks for the same reason. One of the worst examples is when we spend what feels like hours and hours of season three watching Ramsay Snow torture a male character named Theon, often in sexual ways, apparently just to impress upon us that torture is really bad news.

On the flip side of that, season three also includes the only rape plot line I’d mark as kind of legitimately good. In that plot line, Jaime Lannister slowly becomes friends with the only female knight on the show, Breinne of Tarth. When they’re both captured by mercenaries who try to rape her, the show is very clear in presenting this as a situation in which sexual violence is being used as a way to dehumanize her, punish her for gender non-conformity, and treat her as less than a person. Because Jaime’s come to see Brienne as an equal and a full human being, we see that his perception of rape changes in that moment, and that he starts to appreciate that she’s had to fight a much harder battle than he has, just to receive basic rights. (The show later destroys that character arc by “accidentally” having him rape his sister, but that’s another story.)

For me, the stuff with Brienne worked well because that story didn’t treat rape as something that inevitably follows from being female – it contextualized rape within society, culture, and power relations, showing how rape is used as a tool used to oppress people with lower status. That’s important – and it’s something worth dramatizing in fiction.

The latest rape-related plot line – the one that, weirdly, is the flashpoint for anger over rape on Game of Thrones, after everything else that’s happened – falls somewhere between gratuitous let’s-raise-the-stakes stuff and thoughtful cultural commentary, but much closer to the former. It’s easy to see why people are upset. Sansa is a likable character, Ramsay is a bastard (in every single sense of the word), and watching him viciously attack her on their wedding night doesn’t tell us anything about the characters, the situation, or the dynamics of sexual violence that we didn’t already know. It wasn’t my favourite moment, either. But is this a sign that we’re not taking rape very seriously? I’m not sure.

HBO has a pretty uneven history of using rape story lines – sometimes for good, sometimes for something a bit less than good, and sometimes for something that’s hard to parcel out.

Back in 1997, HBO launched its first hour-long drama series, Oz – a theatrical, experimental and often scathing indictment of the US prison system. Oz arguably paved the way for the renaissance of HBO original programming that followed, and it introduced a lot of the things we’ve come to expect from premium cable – lots of f-bombs, frontal nudity, graphic sex and violence, people taking drugs, and (of course) people doing crimes. Its thesis, at least in the beginning, was that it’s inhumane to lock people up in a cage and watch them tear each other apart. Its attitude toward rape, at least in the beginning, was that rape is used by dumb people with poor social skills as a way to punish, humiliate and control those they see as their inferiors. The main story arc in the first season asks the audience to identify with a man who’s raped and tortured by a white supremacist, and to watch as he slowly loses his humanity. It’s very uncomfortable, but it’s also a powerful depiction of what’s wrong with something that a lot of people see as being a normal part of prison and have the bad taste to make flippant jokes about.

Oz ran for six seasons, though, and things got weird toward the end. The show seemed to learn the wrong lessons from itself (and from The Sopranos, which launched two years later) about what was successful with viewers and, rather than being a focused piece of cultural commentary, it turned into The Super Gross-Out Everyone Rapes and Stabs Everyone Hour with subplots ripped from the headlines, in which the prisoners became telemarketers and seeing eye dog trainers. Meaning, if we take Oz as a whole, it was both a valuable examination of a serious issue that wasn’t often talked about and a crass attempt at turning sexual violence into a shocking and sometimes titillating spectacle. It didn’t score 100 percent in either category, and many of the premium cable shows that followed have also been a mixture of the two things.

It bears mentioning that a few shows have actually just been a mixture of the worst kinds of things. At the shallow end of the entertainment pool, True Blood scored a hat trick by: a) including gratuitous, shock value rape that served no purpose in the story; b) acting like it’s impossible to rape a man because men are always up for sex; and c) acting like rape can be a funny joke under the right circumstances (for reasons that I don’t understand, those circumstances are: if the victim is promiscuous and if the rapist has a weird personality – WTF?). On Showtime, Shameless has also gone the route of it’s-impossible-to-rape-a-dude-and-it’s-kind-of-funny-if-you-try, and I’m told that the current Starz series, Outlander, is basically built from rape fail of the isn’t-this-sort-of-erotic variety.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Sopranos episode “Employee of the Month” is routinely cited as one of the best in the series, and that’s an hour all about the rage that Tony Soprano’s therapist, Dr. Melfi, feels after the man who rapes her is released on a technicality. She struggles with the ethical decision of whether to use her mafia connections to exact some vigilante justice, and the audience understands how she feels. We can debate whether or not the show “needed” the attack on Dr. Melfi to be rape, or what it means that that was what was chosen so that we could sympathize with her position, but it’s a good piece of television. And it’s a good piece of television from a show that also has no problem setting its scenes in a strip club and using women’s bodies as a backdrop to the action.

In that context, Game of Thrones reads more like Oz and The Sopranos than like True Blood, Shameless, or Outlander, to me. Sometimes it’s contributing something of value; sometimes it’s indulging an ugly desire to see people suffer for our entertainment; sometimes it’s uncritically replicating our conflicted cultural attitudes toward rape – it’s a mixture of all of those things – so, how should we feel about that?

There was a time, not long ago, when rape was basically Voldemort – you couldn’t say its name without making everyone uncomfortable, or risking that they’d blame you for making them uncomfortable, by speaking the forbidden. When rape was a stigmatized topic and had the power to bring an uncomfortable hush, it arguably seemed like a more serious subject. But, because it brought that hush, and because we didn’t talk about it – because it was shrouded in so much shame and secrecy – we couldn’t have the conversations we’re having now about what consent looks like, and what it is and isn’t OK to expect from a partner. We couldn’t talk about rape culture – we couldn’t talk about the way that rape relates to other forms of violence against women; we couldn’t publicly discuss the systemic reasons why it happens. We couldn’t even say, “It’s a form of misogyny.” It was just shadows peeling out of the dark – a horrible, inexplicable thing that just happened without any explanation, or any way to make it stop.

Now, it’s at the top of our cultural radar. Now, it’s lost some of its power to hush, and we’ve gained more power to speak about it. We’re at a stage where we have to confront rape somehow, and we’re watching that confrontation play out on TV – it’s a confrontation that isn’t over yet. It’s a confrontation that’s really just starting.

The reason there’s so much rape on television now is that we’ve realized the issue is important. It occupies a place in our minds – it’s something that we’re actively struggling with, and that’s good. It’s better than accepting rape as normal; it’s better than treating it as some big mystery thing that nobody can ever talk about or change.

At the same time, when we didn’t talk about rape, we could all sort of silently believe that we agreed with each other about how it worked. Now that it’s holding more space in public discourse, we have more opportunity to encounter ideas about rape that offend us. If the presentation of rape on TV seems schizophrenic – if it seems like it’s this weird, random mixture of insightful observation, crass enjoyment, gross misunderstanding, sympathy, minimization, titillation, gender theory, cultural criticism, ignorance, spitefulness, and confusion – that’s because, culturally, we have a fractured, complicated, self-contradictory relationship with this topic. It’s actually possible for the same person to be kind of turned on and kind of grossed out by rape scenes – it’s possible for the same person to think it’s wrong for men to rape women and that’s there’s nothing you can really do about it because it’s just something that happens. It’s possible for somebody with really good, enlightened, thoughtful views of gender to just not notice sexualized violence against women, because we’re all so used to seeing it.

It’s also possible for someone to be a straight-up misogynist dick bag, and we get some of that, too, but the point is that we’re in the middle of a discussion that it’s worth our time – all our time – to have.

To say the least, it’s absolutely annoying – and, for some people, hurtful and traumatizing – to feel that you can’t watch TV anymore without risking that the story will suddenly turn against you by presenting sexual violence – violence that you may have experienced in real life – as something that’s either Not A Big Deal or is Kind Of Fun To Watch – but it’s also an opportunity for dialogue that we weren’t always able to have.

I would be more disturbed if every depiction of rape on TV were dismissive, normalizing, gratuitous, or uncritical, but we’re fortunate enough that that isn’t the case, and fortunate enough to live in a time when audiences have an unprecedented ability to publicly respond and speak back to what they’ve seen.

It sucks to be reminded that not everyone has a very sophisticated view of how gender and power dynamics influence rape – it sucks to be reminded that there are some people who’ve literally never had to think about this at all, and others who have to live in fear and think about it all the time. But it’s also amazing, because at least now we’re talking about it. Now, no matter how little you usually think about gender, you’ve heard the words “rape culture” before. Now, no matter how little you usually think about TV, you’ve had to ask yourself whether you think it’s right or wrong to have a plot line about rape – and why, and what makes it that way, and what having that plot line says about culture.

It’s up to you to decide how upset you are about any individual plot line on any individual show, but the pattern, I think, is not so discouraging. The pattern shows that this is a subject that’s become important to us – that it’s something we’re trying to understand. That we find it worthy of our attention. The discussion is still really messy, and it includes ideas that are pretty off-putting at times, but I think it’s a positive sign that we’re talking about this at all.

Links of interest:

Dominick Mayer on confronting rape culture (The Daily Dot)
Zerlina Maxwell explains that rape culture is a real thing (TIME)
Alyssa Rosenberg on how rape plot lines have changed to focus on women’s experiences (Washington Post)
Eliana Dockterman on TV confronting the long-buried problem of rape (TIME)
Todd VanDerWerff’s analysis of “Employee of the Month” (Onion AV Club)

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

The Fat Stardom of James Gandolfini

What’s clear is that, in our contemporary society and culture, the male body is not invisible. Although the female body continues to be more heavily regulated and controlled, particularly in terms of weight and appearance, the male body is no longer removed from similar considerations. As we continue to look more intensely and critically at the male body, we can anticipate a time when new images of masculinity become not only realized but embodied.

James Gandolfini and his formidable body

Written by Sarah Smyth as part of our theme week on Fatphobia and Fat Positivity.

Early in his career, James Gandolfini starred in Tony Scott’s blood-pumping, adrenaline-rushing military action film, Crimson Tide. Like Scott’s cult-classic, Top Gun, the construction and display of the male body within Crimson Tide symbolises the “masculine” tensions centralised within the narrative. Set in an American submarine, the film follows Captain Frank Ramsey (Gene Hackman) and Lieutenant Commander Ron Hunter (Denzel Washington) who butt heads throughout a series of nuclear missiles crises. Particularly, through the racial dichotomy between the two lead characters, Crimson Tide explores the ideas and ideals of rationality, logic, nationalism, supremacy and power, inverting the traditional racist narrative of the irrational, brutal and animalistic black man through Lt. Commander Hunter triumphant ending. However, although the film challenges conventional depictions of racial embodiment, its investment in the young, slim, athletic body as the traditional symbol of (masculine) strength, restraint and power remains prevalent. Compared to Capt. Ramsey’s ageing and paunchy body, Lt. Commander Hunter remains slim and fit with key scenes depicting him running, skipping and boxing in the submarine. Despite the (literal) visibility of Gandolfini’s overweight body throughout his career, Gandolfini’s weight is not central to the role he plays in this film; another actor takes on the role of the “excessive” and “revolting” fat crewmember. Nevertheless, in this piece, I use the symbols of masculinity imbued in the male body, particularly the fat male body, suggested in Crimson Tide as the starting point for my analysis into Gandolfini’s stardom. Particularly, in the piece, I will look at the specificity and uniqueness of Gandolfini’s fat stardom, asking what his literal fleshy embodiment reveals about the masculine image portrayed on screen.

In his most famous role, playing Tony Soprano in the hit HBO series, The Sopranos, Gandolfini embodies the complex relationship contemporary Western culture has with male fatness. One the one hand, Tony’s fatness most obviously represents his over-indulgence and lack of control. He constantly eats, smokes, drinks and sleeps with numerous women. His body, therefore, is a reflection or extension of the excessive bodily desires in which he continually indulges. Gandolfini’s body was particularly used to represent this in the 2012 film, Killing Them Softly. He plays Mickey, an ineffectual hitman to Brad Pitt’s partner-in-crime, who spends the film a slave to his bodily desires, smoking, drinking and sleeping with prostitutes throughout. He fails to complete a single hit and make any money. He’s lazy, stupid and a slob – and the film represents this through Gandolfini’s body.

Mickey (James Gandolfini) enjoys a drink or three with Jackie (Brad Pitt) in Killing Them Softly — Mickey (James Gandolfini) enjoys a drink or three with Jackie (Brad Pitt) in *Killing Them Softly*

In contrast, Brad Pitt’s character, Jackie Cogan, touches neither drink nor women. He’s an effective and successful hitman who maintains his authority within the Mafia throughout the film. Although Pitt doesn’t display the slimness and athleticism of his body in the same way as Washington in Crimson Tide, Pitt’s stardom or, more specifically, the stardom derived from Pitt’s much desired and desirable body imbues the character with the symbols of power and authority. At its most ambitious, Killing Them Softly attempts to link this to the American dream. At the end of the film, Jackie claims, “[Barack Obama] wants to tell me we’re living in a community? Don’t make me laugh. I’m living in America, and in America, you’re on your own. America is not a country; it’s just a business. Now fucking pay me.” The ultimate self-made man, Jackie/Pitt literally and figuratively embody the ideal of the American dream. In the twentieth and twenty-first century, fatness symbolises defiance against the middle-class interest in constraint, discipline and moderation; as consumerism became the site of approved indulgence, fatness became the site of necessary restraint. Within this indulgence/restraint paradigm, then, Pitt/Jackie represent the successful image of masculinity through the very slimness of his body.

Yet, male fatness is not always disempowering. As the gangster genre demonstrates, the fat cats really do get rich. Although Mickey may not exploit his potential monetary earnings, Tony certainly does. Throughout the show, Tony maintains a powerful position because of, rather than despite of, his fat body. This is done in two ways. Firstly, through the figure of Bobby Bacala, The Soprano transfers any of the disempowering features of fatness away from Tony. A carer to Tony’s uncle, Bacala is domesticated, feminised and removed from the main action of the mobster activities. In contrast, Tony looks aggressive, powerful and masculine. Secondly, like other fat figures in the gangster genre, which was epitomised by Marlon Brando’s Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather, The Soprano’s foregrounds Tony’s body as a crucial indication of his excessive financial greed and the violent measures he will take to pursue them, enabling him to maintain control over the mob.

The Sopranos plays into the tradition of the fat gangster figure as epitomised by Don Vito Corleone in "The Godfather" — *The Sopranos* plays into the tradition of the fat gangster figure as epitomised by Don Vito Corleone in *The Godfather*

Throughout the show, Tony’s embodiment of financial greed becomes embroiled with the complexities of class politics. Whereas Jackie’s embodiment of the American dream in Killing Them Softly was warped, Tony’s embodiment of the American dream in The Sopranos is completely corrupted. In the pilot episode, as Tony collects his newspaper at the end of his drive, his sloppy appearance – all dishevelled dressing gown and protruding belly – contrast hugely with the wealthy middle-class neighbourhood in which he lives. Tony may have the money to afford such a house, but his illegal and immoral mobster activities and the excess of his consumer consumption continually place him outside of this social order. The Sopranos makes clear that, rather than failing to embody the successful image of the self-made man, Tony, in fact, embodies it too much. Through the excesses of his fat body, Tony embodies the extremes of consumer and capitalist culture.

Tony Soprano's "excessive" body contrasts with the social values of restraint and moderation — Tony Soprano’s “excessive” body contrasts with the social values of restraint and moderation

The Sopranos also makes clear that, despite Tony’s fat body, he’s never considered undesirable by women. He never fails to get laid by women inside or outside of his marriage, and, in this way, never “fails” as a heterosexual man. Furthermore, when on display, the slim and athletic man has to deal with the potential feminizing and queering repercussions of his body; within traditional structures of on-screen looking, the heterosexual male body looks but is never looked at. The Soprano’s undermines this potential emasculation by refusing to position Tony’s fat body as something to-be-looked-at. Instead, through his fatness and male privilege, he has full autonomy over his body and sexuality.

In contrast, in Enough Said, the relationship between Gandolfini’s weight and desirability is centralised and discussed primarily by women. In a very different role, Gandolfini plays Albert, a divorcee who starts dating Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Eva. During the film, we see Albert’s body through Julia’s eyes as she starts off uncertain about him, claiming “he’s kind of fat,” to discovering she enjoys sex with him. Nevertheless, the problems that arise in their developing relationship are consistently linked to Albert’s weight. As Julia (unknowingly) befriends Albert’s ex-wife, Marianne (Catherine Keener), she lets Marianne’s fat-phobic opinions influence her attitude toward Albert and his body. Marianne was always repulsed by Albert’s weight, calling him a slob. Similarly, Julia jokes about buying Albert a calorie book which deeply upsets him. Likewise, Marianne always hated the way Albert picked the onions out the guacamole. When Julia sees Albert doing this, she can’t help but comment on it and remind him that guacamole has a lot of calories in it. By opening up a new space of (heterosexual) female desire and looking and by consistently linking Albert’s flaws to his weight, Enough Said refuses to excuse the male body, particularly the fat male body, as some thing not to be examined, as something not to be looked at.

James Gandolfini's body becomes subject to female scrutiny in Enough Said — James Gandolfini’s body becomes subject to female scrutiny in *Enough Said*

The representation of Gandolfini’s body on-screen continues to reveal and contribute towards the hugely complex and often contradictory image of masculinity within our contemporary culture. He is as much powerful as powerless, effectual as ineffectual, desirable as undesirable. His untimely death in 2013 demonstrated just how polarizing his body is. For every fat shaming response to his death, another person celebrated him for being an inspiration and an icon. What’s clear, however, is that, in our contemporary society and culture, the male body is not invisible. Although the female body continues to be more heavily regulated and controlled, particularly in terms of weight and appearance, the male body is no longer removed from similar considerations. As we continue to look more intensely and critically at the male body, we can anticipate a time when new images of masculinity become not only realised but embodied.

The Real Hated Housewives of TV

Naturally, we are all on these anti-heroes’ sides, despite their bad deeds. And Tony Soprano, Don Draper, and Walter White all have an antagonist: their wives. They call their husbands out on their lies, moral failings, and oppose them. Thus, they are seen as the nagging wife that everyone hates.

This guest post by Caroline Madden appears as part of our theme week on Unlikable Women.

On August 23, 2013 Anna Gunn, who starred as Skyler White on Breaking Bad, published an article in The New York Times titled “I Have A Character Issue.” Her article discussed the cruel and sexist online backlash that her character–and even Anna herself–received.

She wrote, “My character, to judge from the popularity of Web sites and Facebook pages devoted to hating her, has become a flash point for many people’s feelings about strong, non-submissive, ill-treated women. As the hatred of Skyler blurred into loathing for me as a person, I saw glimpses of an anger that, at first, simply bewildered me.” She continues, “It’s notable that viewers have expressed similar feelings about other complex TV wives — Carmela Soprano of The Sopranos, Betty Draper of Mad Men. Male characters don’t seem to inspire this kind of public venting and vitriol.”

Gunn writes that she understands that since Walt is the shows protagonist, the audience will root for him. These male anti-hero dramas and character studies started with The Sopranos, and Mad Men, and Breaking Bad continued on with the genius success that changed television forever. Naturally, we are all on these anti-heroes’ sides, despite their bad deeds. And Tony Soprano, Don Draper, and Walter White all have an antagonist: their wives. They call their husbands out on their lies, moral failings, and oppose them. Thus, they are seen as the nagging wife that everyone hates.

Anna Gunn as Skyler White in Breaking Bad — Anna Gunn as Skyler White in *Breaking Bad*

There are many hate groups for Skyler White, including the “I Hate Skyler White” Facebook page with over 30,000 likes. On these boards you can find typical comments like Skyler is a “controlling shrew,” and a “shrieking, hypocritical harpy who doesn’t deserve the great life she has.” (Umm…what? Did you even watch the show? Their life got progressively worse each episode.) And that she “needs to die, hate her strongly.” They even remark on Gunn’s appearance, saying how Skyler “got fatter as the show progressed.” So the consensus among viewers is that Skyler was a drag, a ball-and-chain, and overall an annoying bitch. All because, in Anna Gunn’s words, “Skyler didn’t conform to a comfortable ideal of the archetypical female, she had become a kind of Rorschach test for society, a measure of our attitudes toward genders.” And that attitude looks pretty horrible.

But Skyler’s arc of the show is just as captivating as Walter’s Mr. Chips-to-Scarface transformation. She had a loving husband and a quiet suburban life in a nice home, while still struggling to make ends meet. And then by the end she’s the shell of her former, self- trapped in a shitty apartment with two children. Her reputation is ruined, her brother-in-law killed, and her sister she loved dearly now hates her. Her life turned completely upside down. All because of Walt.

Of course Skyler is not without flaws or faults; she had an affair to deal with her shattered home life, and she was insensitive to Walt’s feelings when he did not want to receive cancer treatment. She and Walt already had underlying tensions in the marriage before he broke bad. But Walt has just a few more faults with all that murder, manipulation, and that little meth cooking habit. Think of all the lies she had to deal with, over and over again from Walt.

All she was doing was trying to protect her family from the danger, and what more of a dilemma when that danger is someone they all once knew and loved. How do you make the right choice in that situation? Why do audiences not even give her ANY shred of understanding? Why is she just vehemently hated? Viewers cannot put themselves in her shoes and think of how they would handle those life-changing events? Nope, she’s just a bitch.

January Jones as Betty Draper in Mad Men — January Jones as Betty Draper in *Mad Men*

Betty Draper is not only hated as a character, but many hate January Jones’ acting. Many feel that she is a bad actress, too wooden, bland, one-note and cold. But regardless of your opinion on her acting, I think she is good at the part, for Betty is cold and blank. Now whether this is intentional on January’s part or it just ends up fitting because January is wooden all on her own, that’s up for debate.

Betty Draper receives tons of online hate, bloggers calling her to be killed off, articles entitled “No Sympathy for Betty Draper” and montages of Betty’s worst parenting moments titled “Ugly Betty.” Online comments on Reddit and other sites include a high number of c-bombs, and comments like “Betty is a fucking, annoying, immature, bitch.” and “I want to slap that bitch every time she is on the screen”

It is very easy to dislike Betty Draper. Is Betty a bad mom? Yes, she is 90 percent of the time. But Don Draper’s a bad dad. Is Betty terrible to most people? Yes. Isn’t Don just as terrible to people? Answer: most definitely yes. With Don being the main character, we are able to see flashbacks of his childhood, letting the audience understand why Don causes so much damage to his family and friends, and why his inner psyche is so troubled. But we do hear from Betty’s as well. And if you’re really listening, you can see why she is the way she is.

Her mother focused terribly on her appearance, telling her “You’re painting a masterpiece, make sure to hide the brushstrokes.” In other words, you can be nothing but perfect. Isn’t that a lot of pressure to put on a child? Can’t you see how that would affect Betty? We do see that throughout the show. Betty must always maintain her trophy wife status, meaning be beautiful and thin. (She has extremely disordered eating habits throughout the show.)

Betty is literally a character ripped from the true-life 1950s/early 60s housewives Betty Friedan studied in her book The Feminine Mystique. Like many housewives of that time, Betty Draper went to college, (anthropology at Bryn Mawr) just to buffer the time until she found a man, and then went on to literally do nothing with that degree. Taken from Freidan’s book, “Each suburban wife struggles with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night- she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question– ‘Is this all?”

We see Betty’s trapped in the confines of domesticity described above in the earlier seasons. Don convinces her it’s better for her not to work at modeling, so we see Betty’s ‘busy day’ at home. Breakfast for kids, a load of laundry and housework done by 1 o’clock, then sitting alone smoking and drinking wine at the kitchen table. This is the monotony of her day, nothing to do with her life but wait until Don comes home. If he even comes home that night.

That blankness that Betty has is exactly described in The Feminine Mystique, the hundreds of housewives she interviewed who were trapped in their homes with nothing to feed their minds, just like Betty. I think why people loathe Betty the most is because she doesn’t change. She starts out as a frail oppressed housewife filled with anger and bitterness, but never combats her oppression. Even with a new husband and new life, she still gets worse. She doesn’t learn from her mistakes.

But neither has Don, really. He makes small steps throughout the show, but he still has a long way to go. Mad Men seems to be culminating in the idea that although times and decades may change, people don’t. And both Don and Betty are on that same trajectory. It may be easy to hate Betty because of the way she acts, but she has inner wounds as Don does. And they both have moments of cruelty and honesty, steps back and forward.

Edie Falco as Carmela Soprano in The Sopranos — Edie Falco as Carmela Soprano in *The Sopranos*

The online community was not as potent in the late 90s early 2000s as it is today, so viewers did not have a platform to express their negative opinions as much as they do today. But there are still comments to be found, from DVD rewatches, like, “I wanted nothing more then to see Carmela shot in the face!” or “She should have been whacked from the start!” And, “Carmela Soprano, the whiny bitch who deludes herself into thinking she can have a mafia boss husband and expect her family to lead a moral life at the same time. She wants the luxury but not the consequences. It’s hard to imagine somebody to be so dense, and it hurts the show in my opinion.”

Hard to imagine? Hurts the show? How can someone not see Carmela Soprano as a complex, intriguing character? She is a woman who deals with Catholic guilt over Tony’s sins; she knows she is just as guilty as he is for standing by him. Carmela Soprano is dense? This woman knows her husband has sex with nearly everything that walks. She knows that all those old friends aren’t in the witness protection program- they’re dead. And that is her whole inner conflict. She knows all this but chooses to stand by Tony anyway. No one’s interested in that dynamic? At all? If Carmela was whacked from the start where would the show even go?

These sexist jabs show that some fans have the inner desire for the show to be all whacking all the time. No diversion into the “soap opera” marriage and family boring stuff. And it’s hard to separate that from sexism, since relationship stories are considered “girly things” These viewers are deluded if they think the family stories were a waste of time. Some of Tony and Carmela’s arguments are incredible works of acting from Edie Falco and James Gandolfini, such as this one.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9oY7zpan18″]

Without these familial conflicts (in addition to his childhood flashbacks and explorations) why would Tony even be in therapy, the entire point of the show itself? Carmela Soprano “hurts the show”? I think not.

I’m not denying that the men, despite all their flaws are complex characters, they truly are, and are a testament to the rich and nuanced writing of these brilliant television shows, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, and Mad Men. But the wives are, too. Without these women, where is Tony Soprano’s story? Don Drapers? Walter White?

Walter’s loving family is what drives him to start the meth business. At the beginning his only defense is that he did it all to “take care of his family.” Don Draper’s arc and story about the effects of his childhood on his relationships with women and family is nothing without his wife Betty. Tony Soprano’s therapy sessions, the crux of the show, deal with his conflicts between his two families- the mafia, and his wife Carmela.

Online, you can see tons of battles between these female characters of who is the bigger bitch, Skyler Vs. Carmela Vs. Betty. You certainly don’t see who is the bigger Dick? Tony Vs. Walt Vs. Don anywhere. One has to wonder if we had complex shows where female characters were the protagonists, the flawed anti-heroes…would their husbands receive such hate online?

You can hate a character, and you can hate a female character. But do you have to express that hate with such highly sexist remarks? These sexist remarks are oversimplifying these complex female characters that the brilliant writers of The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men have given us. These comments show why audiences can’t handle a complex female character, which Carmela, Betty and Skyler are.

Tony Soprano, Don Draper, and Walter White will forever remain heralded as the most complex and fascinating television characters of all time. But the women? Just a bunch of bitches.

Caroline Madden writes about film at Geek Juice, Screenqueens, and her blog. You can usually find her watching movies or listening to Bruce Springsteen. She has a BFA in Acting from Shenandoah Conservatory.

The Soundtrack for ‘That Thing You Do!’ Withstands the Test of Time

‘That Thing You Do!’ with its sly humor, strong performances and ultimately heartwarming romance makes for satisfying viewing. It’s a meditation on the tension between art and commerce that manages to acknowledge what can be good about temporary fame. It’s also a squeaky-clean antidote to sordid, drug-filled “Behind-the Music”-type stories, both fictional and real.

That Thing You Do movie poster — *That Thing You Do!* movie poster

This guest post by Lisa Anderson appears as part of our theme week on Movie Soundtracks.

What makes a film’s soundtrack memorable? Some beloved films, such as Pulp Fiction, pull together varying songs to capture the essence of a film, while others, like O Brother Where Art Thou? have artists covering existing songs specifically for the movie in question. That Thing You Do! (1996) took a novel approach somewhere in the middle. Writer/director Tom Hanks collaborated with others to create original songs in the style of various musical genres of the time and record them under the name of fictional musical acts from the movie. Despite its initial popularity and the success of the movie, the resulting album has fallen into relative obscurity, but I believe it still holds up.

The movie itself tells the story of a fictional “One-Hit Wonder” band from 1960s Eerie, Pennsylvania. Young Guy Patterson, played by Tom Everett Scott, is asked to sit in with a band for a local contest after their usual drummer (Giovanni Ribisi in a bit role) breaks his arm. Guy brings a new tempo to the band’s signature song, “That Thing You Do!” and also gives them their new name: The Oneders, which is pronounced “Wonders” but hilariously mispronounced “Oh-nee-ders” on multiple occasions.

The pepped-up version of “That Thing You Do!” becomes a hit, and the Oneders go from local radio play to the state fair circuit to the Billboard charts and national TV. Along the way, they have help from Andrew White (Tom Hanks), their manager with the fictional Play-Tone records, and Faye (Liv Tyler), the lead singer’s mistreated girlfriend, after whom Guy pines. Success turns sour, as it inevitably must (at least in the movies), but not before the audience is treated to many great songs that sound like they’re lifted straight from the 60s.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPMLG8mnCRM”]

As the film opens, we hear “Lovin’ You Lots and Lots,” by the Norm Wooster Singers — a shout-out to the tame, almost muzak-like sound that’s about to be supplanted by rock ‘n’ roll. As the Oneders play gigs, we hear them perform not only “That Thing You Do!” (of course), but also “Little Wid One,” “Dance With Me Tonight,” and “All My Lonely Dreams.” The first two are up-tempo 1960s rock, while the latter is a slow ballad of the sort that the lead singer, Jimmy, apparently has a proclivity for. His post-Oneders band, the Heardsmen, also has two songs on the soundtrack: “She Knows It” and “I Need You (That Thing you Do),” although the latter is also attributed to the Oneders.

It’s when the Oneders go on a state fair tour with other Play-Tone artists that the music gets even more varied. “Hold my Hand, Hold my Heart” by the Chantrellines captures the sound of Black all-girl groups such as the Supremes. “Mr Downtown,” by Freddy Fredrickson, combines a lounge-lizard sound with the feel of a James Bond title song and a dash of Raymond Chandler. Diane Dane sings in the tradition of female soloist torch singers on “My World is Over.” The Vicksburgs, a rock band much like the Oneders, alludes to the era’s fascination with the automobile in “Drive Faster.”

The world of the Oneders is full of instrumental music, too. “Voyage Around the Moon,” by The Saturn 5, is a spot-on homage to surf music. Cap’n Geech and the Shrimp Shack Shooters provide the sound for the Beach-movie phenomenon in “Shrimp Shack,” and are portrayed by the Oneders in a metafictional movie. Not least of all, Del Paxton, Guy’s favorite jazz musician, performs “Time to Blow.” My only regret is that “I am Spartacus,” Del’s Jam session with Guy, didn’t make the cut.

The movie presents some interesting challenges to those interested in social justice analysis, and it’s hard to say whether that’s a weakness of the script or due to the restrictive cultural environment in which the story takes place. The only named Black characters are somewhat stereotyped — the sage Jazz musician Del and Lamar, the cheerful hotel concierge. But Guy expresses a deep respect for specific Black musicians on several occasions, and the movie seems very conscious of how much American music owes to Black musicians.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJZQzUuN7Eo”]

The movie does less, in my opinion, to redeem its depiction of women. Most of the female characters seem shallow and hyper-focused on their romantic relationships, with the exception of Faye, who is also very relationship-focused, but is given more substance and seems more genuinely interested in music. Unfortunately, this sets her up as an Exceptional Woman — the kind who you know is better than the rest because her friends are all men — and the movie only passes the Bechdel test by a brief early exchange between her and Guy’s girlfriend. She could have more agency in terms of her relationships, too, but the movie does a nice job of contrasting how Jimmy treats her with how Guy treats her. (On a more subversive note, “Little Wild One” is basically all about the sexual double-standard.)

Liv Tyler as Faye in That Thing You Do! — Liv Tyler as Faye in *That Thing You Do!*

In the end, Guy must reconnect with his his love of making music in order to decide what to do with his life after the Oneders. That Thing You Do! is not the least predictable movie ever, but with its sly humor, strong performances and ultimately heartwarming romance makes for satisfying viewing. It’s a meditation on the tension between art and commerce that manages to acknowledge what can be good about temporary fame. It’s also a squeaky-clean antidote to sordid, drug-filled “Behind-the Music”-type stories, both fictional and real.

The soundtrack to That Thing You Do! was released by Epic Records under the name of the label from the movie, Play-Tone Records. Hanks later spun off Play-Tone as his own label, to release other movie and television soundtracks, including Bring It On and the soundtrack to The Sopranos. Almost 20 years later, I remain impressed by the quality of the songs and how closely they imitated the genres of the era, and I heartily recommend both the movie and its music.

In Honor of ‘Veronica Mars’: A Spotlight on Father-Daughter Relationships

Mainly though, the movie’s release has reminded us of all the supposedly simple and universal the show portrayed so well, the things that shouldn’t be notable in today’s movies and TV, but somehow are: a platonic male-female relationship, a strong friendship between teen girls who never came to blows over looks or boys, a willingness to hold its heroine accountable for her flaws, and above all, an amazing father-daughter relationship.

Frequently repeated lines:
Keith Mars: Hey…who’s your daddy?
Veronica Mars: I hate it when you say that

There was a lot of talk about Veronica Mars this week.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve read countless tributes. 1000 words here, 500 there on the class wars , miscarriages of justice and police corruption on the show that got us talking, agonizing and gleefully applying story lines to our own political climate. Tumblr raves praising the series for taking its audience seriously: delivering compelling season-long mysteries as well as episodic ones, developing character far beyond labels of good and bad, rich and poor, and committing to a dark, noir tone not often seen on a teen drama. As explored elsewhere on Bitch Flicks, Veronica Mars was also unprecedented for putting a rape survivor at the centre of a high school-set series.

Mainly though, the movie’s release has reminded us of all the supposedly simple and universal things the show portrayed so well, the things that shouldn’t be notable in today’s movies and TV, but somehow are: a platonic male-female relationship, a strong friendship between teen girls who never came to blows over looks or boys, a willingness to hold its heroine accountable for her flaws, and above all, an amazing father-daughter relationship.

No matter what, Keith will always support Veronica

Sadly neglected in the movie, where Keith Mars (Enrico Colantoni) stepped in periodically to guide Veronica (Kristen Bell) between set pieces, their relationship was notable for the great deal of understanding within it. Throughout the series, Keith was a great friend to trade sarcasm and snark with, a colleague to discuss investigations with, a partner to help make major life decisions, but never forgot his role as a parent. Even when it led to fights and weeks of radio-silence, Keith was capable of stepping out of his friend role to dish out groundings, forbid self-destructive and often criminal antics, and (attempt to) quash romantic and platonic relationships he believed capable of robbing his bright, shining daughter of her light. He always respected Veronica and her interests, independence and what’s more, genuinely liked and appreciated her as a person. Back in season one, the depth of Keith’s unconditional love was clear when we learned he had been unsure whether Veronica was biological daughter for quite some time though never let the uncertainty color his feelings for her.

It bears repeating that nuanced, complicated and respectful relationships between fathers and daughters are disturbingly rare on our screens these days. As most of us know from our everyday lives, there’s no shortage of great stories within the father-daughter (or father figure-daughter) dynamic.

Sure mother-daughter stories are important too and there are so many movies, so many TV shows that have given us mother-daughter relationships to cherish. And in every variation: jealously of the daughter’s youth coming from the mother, jealously of her mother’s independence from the daughter, disturbing romantic rivalry, close friendship that borders on symbiosis, a mother’s disappointment that her daughter is not a mini-version of herself and the mother who worried that her daughter will make the same mistakes she did (Lauren Graham seems to have made a cottage industry out of these roles in Gilmore Girls and Parenthood), and many more. You name a variation and someone’s made something about it.

All the talk about the Veronica Mars Movie got me thinking about the kind of story lines we generally see between fathers and daughters. The general population of TV dads are bumbling idiots, who don’t know their kid’s bedtimes or whether or not to give them sugary snacks. As a group, they lag behind TV mothers, who are most often called upon to play bad-cop against the over-grown man-children they married.

Fatherhood in movies brings to mind disapproving curmudgeons, gruff off-duty cops wielding a shot gun on their daughter’s dates or an absence commonly used as a ham-fisted explanation of why the female character likes older men or works as a stripper. In a growing sub-genre of action movies, it falls to a father to get revenge for his daughter’s rape or murder or try to save her (Taken, The Limey, Traffic ). 2010’s Winter’s Bone was notable for reversing this common narrative.

A young woman’s relationship with her father is rarely the focus of a narrative unless the mother is out of the picture. Usually she’s been killed off, sometimes she left the family or is somehow ill, often she chose to focus on work over family (a plot line used to make a negative point about women in the workforce).

It seems like his role is only allowed to be prominent in his daughter’s life if he is the sole parent, he can shape her only if there are no other options. Most often the single father as a character is used to explain why the female lead is a tomboy or to delve into his discomfort addressing the sex talk and menstruation. As a character, it’s unusual for the married father to do the heavy lifting or even do his share in an equal partnership. Sadly these story lines may mirror mainstream ideals of real life, where a man taking care of his children or showing an interest in his daughters is seen as effeminate or labelled as “Mr. Mom”.

Thinking about this, I made a list of notable and interesting father-daughter relationships, presented here in no particular order. Got any additions to the list? Let me know in the comments.

Scout and Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird: Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) is really a prince among fathers. Determined to teach his children to be good citizens who believe in fair treatment for all and are willing to take a stand for it, Atticus provides a great example. As a father to Scout (Mary Badham), he respects her tomboy identity and tries hard to allow her to have a childhood fun of innocent games, in the midst of important lessons. But he knows the way to raise her right is not shield her from tragedy and allow her to be naive about the injustice in the world. Notably for the time period, he doesn’t hold Scout and his son Jem to separate standards or unduly protect Scout as a member of the ‘weaker sex’. He holds both his children to a high standard and expects them use what they have learned in the adult world.

Howard and Samantha Newly, Samantha Who: In a twist on a common rift between fathers and daughters, Howard (Kevin Dunn) explains to an adult amnesiac Samantha (Christina Applegate), that they stopped being close when she hit puberty and stopped being the bright eyed little girl who followed him around and wanted to inherit his chicken farm one day. Unfortunately for Howard, the changes in Samantha went further than a concern for boys and fashion and she became a truly vile person, attempting to humiliate her parents at every opportunity. Rebuilding her life and trying to becoming a better person, Samantha must make amends with her father and gradually teach him to trust her again.

Richard and Olive Hoover, Little Miss Sunshine: Though he’s striving to be a motivational speaker, Richard (Greg Kinnear)’s greatest challenge may be supporting his seven-year old daughter, Olive (Abigail Breslin), who wants nothing more than to be a beauty queen. Like every father, he wants to believe his daughter is the most beautiful little girl out there, but the very fact of a beauty pageant makes it clear to him that she can’t compete and he’s certain she will be humiliated. But Olive has a trick up her sleeve, a risqué dance performance and the uproar caused by it, leads Richard to abandon his worries and join her on stage, preventing official from stopping her. Richard truly becomes a supportive father, after, when instead of lecturing Olive, he tells her how proud her late grandfather would be of her.

Tony and Meadow Soprano, The Sopranos: Tony (James Gandolfini)’s relationship with his daughter is complex: on one hand, she’s his smartest, most hard-working child, the one who reminds him of all the things he likes about himself, but on the other, she’s the girl. In the world of old-fashioned, frequently misogynistic values Tony inhabits, this means she’s always going to be second best and must be kept virginal. Like other fathers with Tony’s value system, protecting his daughter drives him to do despicable things, like threatening her half jewish, half black boyfriend. But the degree to which Tony values Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) and sees her as his great hope for a legacy (he dreams of her becoming a pediatrician), is one of the areas where he chafes against his mob lifestyle throughout the course of the series.

Mel and Cher Horowitz, Clueless: As a modern day update of Jane Austen’s Emma, Beverly Hills schoolgirl Cher (Alicia Silverstone) plays nursemaid to her father (Dan Hedaya), reminding him of his high cholesterol, planning his wardrobe and his birthday parties. A successful litigator, he scares and intimidates nearly everyone he comes into contact with, except Cher, who has learned to use negotiation tactics against him and usually gets her way. As no mention is made of Cher’s college prospects or the value she personally sees in good marks, her efforts to raise her grades seem intended to make him proud of her, something she values above all else.

Matt and Alex and Scottie King, The Descendants: It takes an accident that leaves Elizabeth, his wife, comatose to bring Matt (George Clooney) together with his daughters. Alex (Shailene Woodley), his elder daughter is a rebellious teenager that he was previously unable to understand, while Scottie (Amara Miller) behaves inappropriately with other children. The real story of the movie, is Matt’s connection to Alex which strengths through the tragedy as he comes to respect his daughter and she her as a person independent from him. In the search for Elizabeth’s lover, Alex reveals her ingenuity and her continuing loyalty to him even when their bond was troubled. Ultimately restructuring their family as a three-person unit, the King’s learn to rely on each other and find solace even in the hardest times.

Mac and Juno MacGuff, Juno: Mac (J.K. Simmons) supports Juno (Ellen Page) through two adult situations she is in no way prepared for: having a baby and falling in love. He’s always there for her and his wise, though ornery talks help her to work towards mature decisions and provide turning points for her character. He has a sense of humor about everything that’s happening, something he’s clearly passed down to his daughter and provides just the right balm to soothe, (though realistically not eliminate) her pain.

Homer and Lisa Simpson, The Simpsons: Homer (Dan Castellaneta)’s struggles to connect with Lisa (Yeardley Smith), lead to some of the most heart-warming episodes of the series. Homer is cartoonishly dumb even for a cartoon and Lisa’s genius IQ and sophisticated interests make her completely alien to him. On several occasions he breaks his back to make her dreams come true, notably taking a demeaning second job to get her the pony of a little girl’s dream. When he becomes temporarily intelligent after removing a crayon from his brain, Homer is able to see what Lisa’s life is like and comes to respect her strength in a way that was impossible before. Likewise, in each Homer-Lisa episode, Lisa gains a new appreciation of the sacrifices Homer makes for her happiness. However, because of the show’s format, any progress Homer and Lisa make understanding each other, resets by the end of the episode.

Clancy and George Lass, Dead Like Me: It is only after her death that grim reaper George (Ellen Muth) comes to understand her father, a man she hasn’t given a lot of thought to since she was a child. Sitting in on the poetry class he teaches, she comes to understand him as a person and to identify with him. Clancy (Greg Kean) is never shown as a great dad, already introverted to a fault, his grief over George’s death leads him to shut everyone out and ultimately, he has an affair and leaves his wife and surviving daughter. But George’s glimpse of him as an imperfect person, who loved her very much but had no idea how to show it, mirrors the realizations many of us have about our parents at some point as we grow up.

Jack and Andie Walsh, Pretty in Pink: To a teenager’s mind, anything wrong in her life her parents’ fault. As the chief conflict in Pretty In Pink is Andie (Molly Ringwald)’s status as a girl from “the wrong side of the tracks”, it’d be easy for her to see her underemployed father as a one-dimensional villain, keeping her from a better life. But through a painful confrontation scene, it becomes clear that Jack (Harry Dean Stanton) is still depressed about Andie’s mother leaving them and is so broken he is unable to move on and give his daughter what she needs. So far in her life, Andie has been the more mature of the pair, the one who’s forced to take care of him. It’s a difficult situation, but it’s an honest one and Jack and Andie’s conversation gives hope that things might get a least a bit better in the end. As Andie prepares her new look for prom, attempting to change her life, it’s clear Jack has also changed, symbolically moving on from his wife by putting her picture in a drawer.

More fathers and daughters:
Harold and Lindsay Weir, Freaks and Geeks
Sam Sotto and Carol Solomon, In A World…
Jake and Daria Morgendorffer, Daria
Damon and Mindy Macready, Kick-Ass
George and Tessa Altman, Suburgatory
Murray and Vivian Abromowitz, Slums of Beverly Hills
Disney Movies: Fa Zhou and Fa Mulan in Mulan, Maurice and Belle in Beauty and the Beast, King Triton and Ariel in The Little Mermaid

Also on Bitch Flicks: A Long Time Ago, We Used to be Friends: The Veronica Mars Movie, The Relationships of Veronica Mars

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Elizabeth Kiy is a Canadian writer and freelance journalist living in Toronto, Ontario. She recently graduated from Carleton University where she majored in journalism and minored in film.