Tag: Theme Week

‘Tootsie’: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Woman

So what’s feminist about it? Although the word “feminist” is never uttered, Michael plays Dorothy as a bold, liberated woman. At the audition, slimy director Ron Carlisle (Dabney Coleman) tells Dorothy she’s too “soft and genteel” and “not threatening enough” for the part. Dorothy replies: “Yes, I think I know what y’all really want. You want some gross caricature of a woman. To prove some idiotic point, like, like power makes women masculine, or masculine women are ugly… Well shame on the woman who lets you do that.” Right out of the gate, Dorothy not only speaks her mind, but also openly protests sexism.

Movie poster for Tootsie
Movie poster for Tootsie

 

This guest post by Rebecca Cohen appears as part of our theme week on Male Feminists and Allies.

Have you seen the 2012 AFI interview with Dustin Hoffman, where he gets emotional about his role in the cross-dressing 1982 comedy Tootsie?  In the video clip, Hoffman relates his disappointment in discovering that, although makeup artists could help him pass as a credible woman, he would never be a beautiful woman. Hoffman says he cried, realizing that if he were at a party he would never approach a woman who looked like him. He concludes tearfully, “There’s too many interesting women I have … not had the experience to know in this life because I have been brainwashed.”

The video of those remarks went viral recently, and most reactions were enthusiastically positive. Hooray for Dustin Hoffman, breaking through his social conditioning to see the world from a woman’s perspective. Thank you to Dustin Hoffman, for expressing the harshness of beauty standards in such a concise and heartfelt way. Making Tootsie made Dustin Hoffman a feminist ally.

Right?

Well… yes and no. Hoffman’s statements, like the movie Tootsie itself, are a good start. They’re a sincere attempt by a well-intentioned man to address feminist issues. Still, both his words and the movie fall short in many ways.

The Good

In Tootsie, Hoffman plays unemployed actor Michael Dorsey, who disguises himself as a woman to land a job on a daytime soap opera. After winning the role, Michael must continue to pretend to the world that he’s actress Dorothy Michaels. Hilarity, as you might expect, ensues.

So what’s feminist about it? Although the word “feminist” is never uttered, Michael plays Dorothy as a bold, liberated woman. At the audition, slimy director Ron Carlisle (Dabney Coleman) tells Dorothy she’s too “soft and genteel” and “not threatening enough” for the part. Dorothy replies: “Yes, I think I know what y’all really want. You want some gross caricature of a woman. To prove some idiotic point, like, like power makes women masculine, or masculine women are ugly… Well shame on the woman who lets you do that.” Right out of the gate, Dorothy not only speaks her mind, but also openly protests sexism.

Michael non-apologizing to Julie
Michael non-apologizing to Julie

 

Although the role she’s auditioning for, Emily Kimberly, is written as a ball-busting harridan, Dorothy plays her with both fire and vulnerability. Director Ron remains unimpressed, but producer Rita Marshall (Doris Bellack) is obviously moved by the portrayal, and Michael/Dorothy gets the job.

This in itself is pretty layered and rather feminist, if you think about it. The role of Emily Kimberly is written as a sexist stereotype, a cardboard cutout of an unfeminine woman – basically, a man in a dress. But when presented with an actual, literal man in a dress, Ron declares him too feminine. The film thus (probably unintentionally) unpacks some complex ideas about gender and performativity. In order to pass as a woman Michael must play Dorothy as delicate and refined; in a way, he has to present as more feminine than a “real” woman. And this, ironically, almost costs him the role.

From there, the movie continues to develop an overtly feminist narrative. In order to avoid kissing a male co-star, Michael refuses to perform a scene as written. Instead of swooning, the character asserts herself. Producer Rita loves it. Michael/Dorothy continues to depart from the scripts, insisting on making Emily Kimberly feisty and self-assured, and Rita continues to allow it. The character’s popularity grows, Dorothy’s fame grows, and soon Dorothy becomes an outright feminist role model, even appearing on the cover of Ms. Magazine (and Cosmopolitan too, perhaps so we can be assured she’s not that militant). At one point, Rita marvels at what Dorothy has accomplished:  “You are the first woman character who is her own person, who can assert her own personality without robbing someone of theirs. You’re a breakthrough lady for us.”

Dorothy also becomes a personal role model for co-star Julie (Jessica Lange). Through her friendship with Dorothy, Julie gains the strength and self-confidence to break up with Ron. She tells Dorothy, “You wouldn’t compromise your feelings like I have. You wouldn’t live this kind of lie, would you?… I deserve something better, you know? I don’t have to settle for this.” Through the movie, Julie repeatedly expresses how Dorothy has taught her to stand up for herself.

At the same time, Michael learns his own lessons about feminism, drawn from his experiences living as a woman. He’s taken aback by the effort and expense required of women to keep themselves attractive. He attempts to voice concerns on set, but gets frustrated when Ron dismissively talks over him. Experiencing the world as Dorothy, Michael comes to believe he really has a new understanding of what women endure. He tells his agent, George (Sydney Pollack): “I feel like I have something to say to women, something meaningful,” explaining how he knows what it is to feel helpless and not in control.

In one of the most memorable moments of the film, Michael/Dorothy, fed up with Ron’s patronizing treatment on set, stands up to him:

Michael/Dorothy: Ron, my name is Dorothy. It’s not Tootsie or Toots or Sweetie or Honey or Doll.

Ron: Oh Christ.

Michael/Dorothy: No, just Dorothy. Now Alan’s always Alan, Tom is always Tom, and John’s always John. I have a name too; it’s Dorothy. Capital D, O, R, O, T, H, Y. Dorothy.

Titling the film Tootsie emphasizes that Michael’s experience of being marginalized, of struggling to demand respect, is meant to be understood as a focal point of the film.

So, clearly it’s a feminist movie. In some ways.

Dorothy and Michael
Dorothy and Michael

 

The Bad

So why does Rita Marshall, a seasoned and capable TV producer, never include independent, assertive women on her show until Dorothy Michaels comes along and steamrolls her into it? Did it never occur to her that such a thing was possible, or that her mostly female audience might enjoy it? Similarly, why is Dorothy the only woman who stands up to Ron’s harassment, even though it’s evident he’s been behaving this way with impunity for years?

The film seems to imply that Michael, coming from a position of male privilege, is uniquely positioned to call out sexism. He isn’t accustomed to enduring second-class status. Women deal with it grudgingly, because, you know – that’s how the world works. But Michael hasn’t been conditioned to accept it. So he doesn’t.

Here’s the thing. This situates Michael as the White Knight, the male savior of women’s rights. Spending only a few months experiencing how the world treats a woman, he’s better able to challenge the status quo than the women who’ve spent their entire lives experiencing it. Like many cross-dress comedies, Tootsie falls into the trap of implying that a man is better at being a woman than any woman knows how to be.

Also, what does Michael do with his newfound understanding of the struggles women face? He sees how Ron mistreats Julie, lying to her yet claiming it’s to spare her feelings. But Michael does essentially the same thing to his longtime friend Sandy (Terri Garr). He sleeps with Sandy to cover up his secret, then lies to her and strings her along even as he’s steadily falling in love with Julie. It’s women, specifically Sandy and Julie, who bear the brunt of the harm caused by Michael’s deceit. Recognizing how men use lies to abuse women doesn’t stop Michael from doing it himself.

Dorothy shaving
Dorothy shaving

 

Even after the truth is revealed, Michael never apologizes to Julie for deceiving her. (Interestingly, he does apologize to her father in suitably man-to-man fashion.) He tells Julie, “I just did it for the work. I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.” In other words, instead of acknowledging her hurt and owning the harm he caused, he tries to explain and justify. He tells her, “I was a better man with you as a woman then I ever was with a woman as a man.” This is the lesson Michael draws from his experience as Dorothy: it has made him a better man… somehow.

Thus the film undercuts its early feminist promise. Michael never has to answer to the women who admired him as a feminist icon, only to find out he was a man all along. He never apologizes to the women he deceived on a very intimate level. He doesn’t, when all is said and done, make anything better for women. But that’s not important. What matters is that he has become a better man. “I just gotta learn to do it without the dress,” he explains.

Terri Garr, speaking to the Onion AV Club in 2008, shared her thoughts about Dustin Hoffman’s Tootsie-inspired insights about gender: “They put a man in a dress, and he’s supposed to know what it feels like to be a woman. But of course he doesn’t. I think what Dustin [Hoffman] says is, ‘I realize now how important it is for a woman to be pretty. And I wasn’t pretty.’ God! That’s all you realized? Jesus Christ. Oh well. Don’t quote me. Actually, quote me.”

Dustin Hoffman’s epiphany about women being judged based on their looks is most certainly A Good Thing. So is his acknowledgment of his own role in marginalizing women who don’t meet a certain beauty standard. But even as he laments all the interesting women he never took the time to know, Hoffman’s comments still center on himself. It’s about his loss in not getting to know these hypothetical women. It’s about his regret. And fundamentally, as Terri Garr points out, something is still missing.

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/Ch57pIuYhbM”]

I’m genuinely pleased to know that making Tootsie taught Dustin Hoffman to be a better man, just as his character Michael Dorsey learned to be a better man. But being a male feminist or feminist ally isn’t primarily about men’s personal character growth. It’s supposed to be about liberating and empowering women. And it’s frustrating to see people respond as though Hoffman has discovered some earth-shattering truth, when women have already spoken and written about these issues at length. Why does it carry more weight when a straight, white, cis, wealthy, famous man expresses it?

Of course, like it or not, people listen when straight, white, cis, wealthy, famous men speak. So I can’t criticize Dustin Hoffman for using the platform he has to amplify a feminist message, even if what he says should be obvious to everyone by now. Terri Garr is absolutely right: Dressing as a woman for a day does not convey the entirety of what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal society. But I wouldn’t object if more men wanted to give it a try.

 

Rebecca Cohen is the creator of the webcomic “The Adventures of Gyno-Star,” the world’s first (and possibly only) explicitly feminist superhero comic.

 

Matt Damon’s On- and Off-Screen Feminism

My first introduction to Matt Damon was the same as many movie viewers – Good Will Hunting, a film that he starred in and co-wrote with Ben Affleck. It was my favorite film of 1997 and still holds a special place in my heart for its humor, poignancy, and moving portrayal of the lasting effects of abuse.

Written by Lady T as part of our theme week on Male Feminists and Allies.

Where's Matt Damon's "hey girl" meme?
Where’s Matt Damon’s “hey girl” meme?

My first introduction to Matt Damon was the same as many movie viewers–Good Will Hunting, a film that he starred in and co-wrote with Ben Affleck. It was my favorite film of 1997 and still holds a special place in my heart for its humor, poignancy, and moving portrayal of the lasting effects of abuse. While the main focus of the film is on Will’s character development and his relationship with his psychologist, Sean Maguire (Robin Williams), the romantic subplot plays an important role in the story and features an intriguing love interest.

Skylar, played by Minnie Driver, is one of the more fleshed-out female supporting characters I’ve seen in film. Because she is a supporting character, she is, by definition, in the movie to assist with Will’s development, but she’s still a fully developed human being rather than an obligatory “girlfriend” archetype included in the script to throw a bone to a female audience. She loves Will and is committed to their relationship but is primarily motivated by her academic and career ambition, and we’re encouraged to sympathize with her when Will lashes out at her. While much of the success with Skylar’s character lies with Minnie Driver’s performance, Damon and Affleck share credit for writing a woman who has a backstory and motivation beyond, “Hey, this movie needs a girl in it.”

Damon and Minnie Driver in Good Will Hunting
Damon and Minnie Driver in Good Will Hunting

Considering the level of care put into the writing of Skylar’s character, it’s no surprise that Damon is an outspoken feminist ally and supporter of issues that directly affect women.

Public education is one of Damon’s major political causes, largely inspired by the lifelong work of his mother, Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Professor Emerita of early childhood education at Lesley University. Outspoken advocates for teachers and education, Damon and Carlsson-Paige were questioned two years ago by libertarian ambush reporters who alleged that job insecurity was motivation for teachers to improve their performance, to which Damon gave this now well-known response:

“So you think job insecurity is what makes me work hard? I want to be an actor. That’s not an incentive. That’s the thing. See, you take this MBA-style thinking, right? It’s the problem with ed policy right now, this intrinsically paternalistic view of problems that are much more complex than that. It’s like saying a teacher is going to get lazy when they have tenure. A teacher wants to teach. I mean, why else would you take a shitty salary and really long hours and do that job unless you really love to do it?”

As a former public school teacher who left the profession largely because of this “intrinsically paternalistic view of problems” that Damon speaks of, I appreciated this interview on multiple levels. I appreciated that Damon deferred to Carlsson-Paige’s superior knowledge in the field (even though the interviewers only referred to her as “Matt Damon’s Mom”), challenging the reporter’s incorrect assumptions by reminding her that an expert in the field was proving her wrong. I appreciate that Damon is so invested in a field where over 70 percent of teachers are women, showing that he believes women’s work is valuable.

Most of all, I love that Damon criticizes the “intrinsically paternalistic” nature of education reform, pointing out that problems are very complex, and solutions need time to grow. Similar to the way many people would like to pretend that complex problems like racism, sexism, and homophobia are of the past, many leaders in education reform would like to believe that the next set of standards or change in tenure policy will fix all the problems in public schools. Acknowledging the complexity of systemic problems is a key component, regardless of whether or not Damon is directly tying his public school advocacy to women’s rights.

She has a name, "Reason".tv!
She has a name, “Reason”.tv!

There is, however, at least one cause where Damon specifically advocates for women, and that’s through Water.org, a nonprofit organization that he co-created with Gary White. Water.org’s main goal is to improve access to safe water and clean toilets. The website makes a point of saying that “We believe people in developing countries know best how to solve their own problems,” showing that there’s a level of respect for different cultures that is sometimes absent from other charities.

Perhaps even more remarkable than the lack of a “white American savior” attitude is the fact that Water.org has its own page for “the women’s crisis,” showing how the water crisis affects women specifically. The page also details the organization’s approach to helping women:

“Around the world, women are coming together to address their own needs for water and sanitation. Their strength and courage transforms communities. With the support of Water.org and its local partners, women organize their communities to support a well and take out small loans for household water connections and toilets. They support one another, share responsibility. These efforts make an impact, taking us one step closer to ending the global water crisis.”

There are many wonderful things about this organization’s work, and one of my favorite aspects of this activism is the language used. “With the support of Water.org and its local partners, women organize their communities.” This careful phrasing shows not only investment in issues that directly affect women, but respect for women’s empowerment. The language used shows a key understanding of effective ally work: not to rescue or save a marginalized group, but to give the support needed so that people in that group can improve their own lives. Given Damon’s other criticisms about an “intrinsically paternalistic view of problems,” I can’t think that the phrasing is a coincidence.

Whether he’s advocating for causes that affect women on a global scale or simply writing a decent female character, Damon has proven to be an ally to women. No wonder Sarah Silverman was so proud to be f***ing him:

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSfoF6MhgLA”]

________________________________________

Lady T is a feminist blogger, sketch comedy writer/performer, and author of Fanged, a young adult novel available for purchase today.

Sandy Cohen: Father, Husband, Friend, and Feminist Ally

When you think about feminism in television, The OC and teen soaps in general are probably not the first example to come to mind. If you’re not familiar with The OC, it’s about a troubled youth named Ryan Atwood (Ben McKenzie) who is taken in by the Cohens, a very wealthy family, after his own family has abandoned him. I’m very passionate about The OC and it is much more than that, but I shall not digress (or at least try not to). The Cohens are comprised of Kirsten (Kelly Rowan), a wonderful mother as well as a successful architect and businesswoman, Seth (Adam Brody), the awkward and endearing pop-culture-referencing son, and Sandy (Peter Gallagher), a righteous public defender, father, and husband.

rbk-tv-dads-love-OC-lgn

This guest post by Victor Kirksey-Brown appears as part of our theme week on Male Feminists and Allies.

When you think about feminism in television, The OC and teen soaps in general are probably not the first example to come to mind. If you’re not familiar with The OC, it’s about a troubled youth named Ryan Atwood (Ben McKenzie) who is taken in by the Cohens, a very wealthy family, after his own family has abandoned him. I’m very passionate about The OC and it is much more than that, but I shall not digress (or at least try not to). The Cohens are comprised of Kirsten (Kelly Rowan), a wonderful mother as well as a successful architect and businesswoman, Seth (Adam Brody), the awkward and endearing pop-culture-referencing son, and Sandy (Peter Gallagher), a righteous public defender, father, and husband.

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Now that we’ve got some of the basics down, I’ll get to why Sandy Cohen is a feminist and an ally to the movement. First of all, as previously mentioned, he is a public defender and is always fighting for the underdog. He strives for equality and justice for all, even if it’s for his ruthless neighbor Julie Cooper (Melinda Clarke) or coldhearted father-in-law Caleb Nichol (Alan Dale). He simply never refuses to help and always tries his best to do what’s right. Judging from that description alone, it’s clear to see that Sandy is an ally.

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When it comes to married life, Sandy and his wife Kirsten break all conventions. Kirsten is the main and sometimes sole financial provider. She helps run her father’s company, the Newport Group, a company mostly involved in real estate and housing development, making her and her family millionaires. Kirsten is also a terrible cook and by far the stricter parent. She does the majority of the grounding and often says Sandy has a “hippie” way of parenting. However, Sandy is always supportive of her; he loves that Kirsten is successful at what she does. The only time he ever wants Kirsten to quit her job is when he sees that it’s making her unhappy, and still he doesn’t tell her to quit and stay at home, he knows she values work and suggests she goes into business for herself and get away from her manipulative and controlling father. As long as Kirsten is happy with what she’s doing, Sandy could care less about who makes more money. He’s happy doing the cooking and being a stay-at-home dad. When Kirsten’s ex Jimmy Cooper (Tate Donovan) tells him, “You live in a fantasyland, you’re married to the richest girl in the county, you live in a house you’ve never paid for, you get fired–Kirsten wouldn’t even notice it! You have no idea what it’s like to provide for a family!” Sandy simply responds, “I think there’s more to providing for a family than money.” This stands out because it not only displays that a father can have a role in a family other than bread winner and still be a great dad, but it also says the same for mothers. This statement stands up for all the stay-at-home moms, arguing that just because you may not bring in a lot of money, doesn’t mean that your role is any less important in the family.

Another testament to Sandy and Kirsten’s marriage as well as Sandy’s inner feminist, is the way that they dealt with their marital problems. When another man threatens to come between them in the second season, Sandy never goes the route of slut shaming Kirsten or attacking her character in anyway. He chooses to trust Kirsten, to look at the things he’s done wrong that could have caused a rift between him and his wife, and he and Kirsten work together to fix their problems. No matter what issues they’re facing, whether it be Sandy’s law firm suing the Newport Group, differences in parenting techniques, Kirsten’s drinking problem, or deciding whether or not to move back to their small home in Berkley (small being relative to their Newport mansion), Sandy never tried to pull being the alpha or “man of the house.” Sandy and Kirsten always effectively communicated with one another and made decisions together as a team.

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Sandy was a man that many people went to for help, and he would provide guidance time and time again without judgment. Instead of vilifying Dawn (Ryan’s biological mom, played by Daphne Ashbrook) and casting her out as a bad mother, Sandy searched for her and when he found her, he sympathized and tried to understand the reasons she left Ryan. Sandy never judges her for her decisions, even when Kirsten does. He and Kirsten do their best to help Dawn get back on her feet and reunite Ryan and his mother. In the end, for the sake of the show, Dawn decides that Ryan is better off with the Cohens, but Sandy never attacks her character and he and Kirsten continue to encourage Ryan to reach out to Dawn when he’s ready.

In the second season, when that ruthless neighbor Julie comes to Sandy for help because her ex, a porn producer, is trying to extort her with a pornographic film she starred in, Sandy helps her without question. Despite Sandy and Julie being far from buddies, Sandy never judges her for making a porn film and doesn’t think any less of her for it. He understands why she made it, and understands why she would like to keep it secret from her husband and two daughters (,though he does encourage her to tell her husband and allow him to help her.) He also lets her know that, even though she may view the film as a mistake, she shouldn’t be ashamed of it and she should try to trust her family with it.

Also in the second season, when Renee Wheeler (Kathleen York) reveals that she and Caleb have a love-child together, Lindsay (Shannon Lucio), from an affair they had while she was his secretary, Sandy helps her. Even though she’s going to cause a major divide in his family, he doesn’t attack her or judge her, he helps her do what’s right and pushes to make the reveal as easy of a process as it can possibly be.

Sandy never tires to coerce or manipulate any of the women who he helps. His help isn’t always selfless, but he doesn’t try to use his help as a play for power which is a route often taken by men in positions to help women on television.

ryan-and-sandy

Another great thing about Sandy is that he does his best to dissuade Ryan from being hyper-masculine and thinking he always has to save the day. To Ryan’s defense, this doesn’t come from him thinking he has to be a macho man, but rather from the fact that he grew up being the most responsible person in his household. He’s used to stepping in and taking control of a situation and Sandy helps him to realize that that isn’t always his job. When Sandy sees that Ryan is involving himself too much with Marissa’s (Mischa Barton) problems in the first season he tells him, “Marissa is going to have to figure this out on her own, and you gotta let her. You’re here with us now. You don’t have to be the parent anymore.” When Ryan finds out Theresa’s (Navi Rawat) boyfriend is physically abusing her, Sandy encourages Ryan not to resort to violence to try and resolve the problem, but to use his head. “Theresa has to decide on her own to leave Eddie. You can’t force her. …I’ve seen way too many kids just like him and I know that it will not be you to suddenly make him change.” Though it takes Ryan until the third season to fully take these teachings to heart, he does eventually get it. With Sandy’s help Ryan realizes that women are fully capable of handling their own problems and that he doesn’t always have to step in. Everyone needs help now and then, but you have to also allow people to help themselves.

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There are a other, more obvious male feminist allies I can think of in television, Ron Swanson, Eric “Coach” Taylor, and Cliff Huxtable to name a few, but I grew up watching soap operas with my mom and I LOVE teen soaps. Seeing a character like Sandy Cohen in the teen soap genre is rare and something I consider very important. It shows young women (the core audience of this genre) that they should not allow the men in their lives, whether it be their brothers, fathers, uncles, boyfriends, teachers or whoever, to view them as someone always needing to be guided and saved. It allows them to see that a relationship should be a partnership and that they shouldn’t be expected to aim low to avoid hurting some guy’s ego or stand on a higher moral ground because they’re a woman.

I grew up surrounded by an abundance of strong female role models and seeing a male character on television that respects women, doesn’t consider powerful women to be a threat to his manhood, and just generally treats women as equals is something that stood out to me and that I admired. As a male viewer I looked up to Sandy Cohen because he exhibited all these traits and helped to further instill them in me. I still strive to one day be at least half the husband, father, and friend that Sandy is.

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If you’ve never seen The OC, I highly recommend giving it a try and if you have, I recommend watching it again…and again…and again. I’ve learned a lot from it and fell in love with its characters and I think that you will too. I’ll leave you with a mash-up I found of some of Sandy Cohen’s best advice.

 

 Victor Kirksey-Brown lives in Minneapolis, Minn.

 

‘Slumber Party Massacre’: Deconstructing the Male Gaze

Slumber Party Massacre came up while I was searching for female directors in the exploitation genre. Although it came off as yet another sensationalistic and gory 80s slasher, it stuck out, mainly due to its ridiculous title or the fact that most of the characters were female. Upon viewing it, what shocked me was not so much the gore and violence, but I was surprised by the clever humor, the funny characters, and most of all the incredibly veiled feminist satire.

The women of Slumber Party Massacre in the locker room
The women of Slumber Party Massacre in the locker room

 

This guest post by Emanuela Betti appears as part of our theme week on Cult Films and B Movies.

Slumber Party Massacre came up while I was searching for female directors in the exploitation genre. Although it came off as yet another sensationalistic and gory 80s slasher, it stuck out, mainly due to its ridiculous title or the fact that most of the characters were female. Upon viewing it, what shocked me was not so much the gore and violence, but I was surprised by the clever humor, the funny characters, and most of all the incredibly veiled feminist satire.

The movie was written to be a mock parody of exploitation movies, as well as a satire of masculinity in the slasher genre. However, the movie was marketed as a straight slasher movie, which ended up causing a lot of mixed opinions: while reading through reviews, some critics brushed off the movie as a boring slasher with gratuitous T&A, while others actually caught the humor and satire, and revered its feminist perspective. Slumber Party Massacre is actually a very feminist movie, and it’s a biting satire of the male gaze that exists in cinema. Through its witty and clever humor, the movie deconstructs the prevailing sexism and masculinity in the slasher genre, offering one of the most entertaining feminist exploitation movies ever made.

The women hanging out
The women hanging out

 

Slumber Party Massacre is very women-centric: both in the characters and the women behind the scenes. The film was directed by Amy Holden Jones, one of the few female directors to delve into the exploitation genre, and written by feminist Rita Mae Brown. This fact alone should make you want to pay attention to the small details, which in this movie are actually not that small but thrown right into your face.

The story revolves around Trish, a young high school girl who throws a slumber party at her house, and Valerie, Trish’s neighbor, who doesn’t attend the party and spends a boring evening at home. As you can already guess, the girls at the slumber party are eventually harassed by a silent killer. The movie begins in a typical suburban neighborhood, and we are introduced to Trish’s bedroom. Trish is the stereotypical image of innocence and femininity: her bedroom is full of plush toys and fluffy pinkness. We then move to a school setting in which we are introduced to Valerie, who is somewhat of an outsider to the popular group of girls led by Trish, but is an essential character in the story.

She doesn't see the dead body
She doesn’t see the dead body

 

One of the first scenes that made me raise an eyebrow was the shower scene: after gym class, the girls are in the school showers, where we see a lot of T&A, and not even in a clever or artistic way. That scene confused me—I couldn’t understand why a movie directed and written by women would objectify the female body in such a demeaning way. Maybe, at the end of the day, the director just wanted to make a buck? And didn’t really care? I later realized that nudity (and objectification) is actually a very important element in the story, along with sexual innuendos. An example is the killer’s weapon of choice, a 12-inch drill which he sometimes holds in suggestive places (like his crotch, as a phallic metaphor). Also, there are countless instances in which boys from Trish’s high school, or the killer himself, are staring, spying, or quietly watching the girls. I realized that the gratuitous nudity was not so much for the gratuity, but to directly point out how this group of girls is the target of a voyeuristic threat, and are purposely being objectified through these male character’s gazes to show that they are in fact the victims of the killer’s drill, but also of the male gaze. There is a scene that says it all, in which the kids walk past a dumpster where the body of one of the victims is lying in the trash, unnoticed. The movie is about what we see and what we don’t see, or more specifically, knowingly watching and unknowingly being watched. This is the basis for the concept of the male gaze in cinema, which is finding pleasure in looking at a person as an object, who becomes the unwilling or unknowing victim of the gaze.

Meet the killer
Meet the killer

 

What makes this movie such a clever satire is the twist placed on the male gaze, which we see in Valerie. The objectification of Trish and her friends is emphasized by the contrast with Valerie and her younger sister Courtney (probably the most interesting female character in the whole movie) who are actually the ones doing the objectifying. During the evening, Courtney pulls out an issue of Playgirl from under her sister’s bed, and later on, both girls casually look at full-page spreads of naked men. Trish and Valerie are opposites, not only in their personality and social life, but also in their role with the gaze. Throughout the movie, we never see Valerie naked, and there’s a good reason why; while Trish is the passive victim of the gaze, Valerie is the bearer of the gaze, she enjoys looking at pictures of naked men and is immune to the killer’s gaze. Valerie is the true heroine of the movie, and she saves the day by finding an equally phallic weapon (a machete) and “chopping off” the killer’s drill, basically castrating him metaphorically.

If there were are any doubts on whether Slumber Party Massacre is an intelligent feminist satire or just a regular slasher, all questions are answered when finally, after the killer goes on a bloody rampage without speaking a single word, he finally utters some of the most horrifying lines: “All of you are very pretty… I love you,” and “you know you want it, you’ll love it.” Those seem like the words of a rapist, and although the killer didn’t rape any of the girls, he did violate them: just like a rapist victimizes a woman by violating her body, the male gaze, which roams rampant in Hollywood cinema, violates women on the screen by turning them into objects.

Reading alone
Reading alone

 

Along with sharp satire and sharp commentary, Slumber Party Massacre is full of clever humor. There’s the scene where Valerie is relaxing at home, watching an old slasher movie while she’s a character in one herself (and the events on TV seem to sync up with what’s happening next door). Then there’s Courtney grabbing a drink from the fridge without noticing a dead body inside, or one of Trish’s friends eating a slice of pizza over the delivery boy’s dead body. Amy Holden Jones and Rita Mae Brown do a wonderful job at providing entertainment and humor, alongside a refreshing and sharp feminist viewpoint. If there’s any movie that made me respect cheesy exploitation movies, it’s this wonderfully cheesy slumber party slasher full of pizza, nudie magazines, and girls chopping off metaphorical penises.

 

Emanuela Betti is a part-time writer, occasional astrologer, neurotic pessimist by day and ball-breaking feminist by night. She miraculously graduated with a BA in English and Creative Writing, and writes about music and movies on her blog.

 

Call for Writers: Women & Gender in Cult Films & B-Movies

For this theme week at Bitch Flicks, we want to read about your favorite Cult Classics and B-Movies. These are usually our most popular theme weeks—people love any iteration of the horror genre, especially with a little comedy thrown in—so I won’t spend time defining Cult Films and B-Movies. You know what they are. Instead, I’ll leave you with lists of some of the most popular Cult Films and B-Movies, according to all those other lists out there.

Call for Writers

My mom tells this story sometimes about how I—when I was five years old—snuck out of my bedroom in the middle of the night because I heard Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” playing on the TV. I remember my simultaneous fascination with and terror of that video, with its dancing zombies and decrepit dead people digging their way out of graves. My mother remembers me crouched down in the corner where she saw me through a reflection in the mirror, scaring the shit out of her while she wrapped Christmas presents and watched Michael Jackson change into a werewolf. For me, that “Thriller” video, performed and parodied in prisons, on film—in 13 Going on 30 (led by Jennifer Garner)—and by me and my younger siblings, remains one of my all-time favorite Cult Classic moments in popular culture.

For this theme week at Bitch Flicks, we want to read about your favorite Cult Classics and B-Movies.  These are usually our most popular theme weeks—people love any iteration of the horror genre, especially with a little comedy thrown in—so I won’t spend time defining Cult Films and B-Movies. You know what they are. Instead, I’ll leave you with lists of some of the most popular Cult Films and B-Movies, according to all those other lists out there.

That said, we want to avoid as much overlap as possible for this theme, so get your proposals in early if you know which film you’d like to review. We accept both original pieces and cross-posts, and we respond to queries within a week.

Most of our pieces are between 1,000 and 2,000 words, and include links and images. Please send your piece in the text of an e-mail, including links to all images, and include a 2- to 3-sentence bio.

Please be familiar with our publication and look over recent and popular posts to get an idea of Bitch Flicks’ style and purpose. The final due date for these submissions is Friday, October 25th by Midnight.

Your Not-At-All-Definitive-List of Cult Films and B-Movies

The Big Lebowski
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
The Evil Dead
Quadrophenia
The Toxic Avenger
Fight Club
Withnail & I
It Came from Outer Space
This Is Spinal Tap
Freaks
Them!
Harold and Maude
Pink Flamingos
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
The Room
Office Space
Eight Legged Freaks
The Warriors
Dazed and Confused
The Class of Nuke ‘Em High
Rushmore
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
C.H.U.D.
Badlands
Night of the Living Dead
Zombie Strippers
Yellow Submarine
Night of the Comet
Sleuth
Repo Man
Wet Hot American Summer
Eraserhead
Heathers
The Stuff
The Harder They Come
Bladerunner
Dr. Giggles
Clerks
Barbarella
A Clockwork Orange
The House on Sorority Row

Older Women in Film and Television: The Roundup

This is a Roundup of all pieces that appeared during our theme week on Representations of Older Women in Film and Television.

The Ruthless Power of Patty Hewes from Damages & Victoria Grayson from Revenge by Amanda Rodriguez

Older women in film and TV are generally a stereotypical lot. They’re usually sexless matrons or grandmothers who perform roles of support for their screen-stealing husbands or children. These older women are typically preoccupied with home and family, lacking a complex inner life because they are gendered symbols of, you guessed it, home and family. Occasionally we see older women who go beyond that trope, even defying it to focus more on power, prestige, winning, and their own personal success and public image rather than that of others. Two potent examples of this are Patty Hewes from Damages and Victoria Grayson from Revenge.
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Aging and Existential Crisis in 3rd Rock from the Sun by Jenny Lapekas

Because Mary is teased for her old age, especially since she’s no longer viewed as the sexual being she was once known as, it’s at the forefront of particular episodes. In season three, Dick hounds a photographer who once took “tasteful, artistic” nude photos of Mary when she was younger, and he comes to terms with them only after he begins shredding them. He discovers that the shots are beautiful and capture how beautiful Mary was, but he also realizes that she’s still sexually appealing because he loves her; he tells her that she has aged “like a fine wine.”

 
The First Wives Club: “Don’t Get Mad. Get Everything.” by Jen Thorpe

There is a scene where Brenda is walking past a department store with a friend. She stops to look at a tiny black dress in the window. “Who’s supposed to wear that?” she rhetorically asks her friend, “Some anorexic teenager? Some fetus?” Her rant continues with her intent to lead a protest by never buying any more clothing until the designers “come to their senses.”

Charlize Theron: Too Hot to Be Wicked? by Katherine Newstead

In a scene toward the beginning of Snow White and the Huntsman, during Ravenna’s and the King’s wedding night, she tells of how she has replaced his old (emphasis on the “old”) Queen, and how, in time, she too would have been replaced. Thus, Ravenna speaks of the “natural” cycle of youth replacing age and appears to blame patriarchy for this situation, as men “toss women to the dogs like scraps” once they have finished with them.

“When a woman stays young and beautiful forever, the world is hers.”

Telling Stories: My House in Umbria by Amanda Civitello

“We survived,” Emily is fond of saying to a number of characters in the film – and while she’s obviously referencing the terror attack when she speaks to her fellow “walking wounded” – it’s apparent from its very first utterance that Emily has survived far more than the explosion in carrozza 219. As her story unfolds, we come to discover that Emily is a survivor of childhood abandonment: she was sold as an infant to a childless couple by her parents who had no place for a child in their circus-act lives. She’s a survivor of sexual abuse and a survivor of a succession of abusive relationships. 

Notes on a Scandal: The Older Woman As Predator and Prey by Elizabeth Kiy

Her loneliness is compounded by this narrative technique, as Barbara is often given no one to play off of and instead watches interactions from a distance, remaining an entirely closed off person with a rich internal life she only reveals in her private writing. For an older woman, whose age, unmarried status and perceived lack of attractiveness leave her virtually invisible and of no value to society, this narration allows her to express her resentment. But underneath her malice is the profound loneliness of a woman who seems to have never learned how to connect to people and to remain in their lives without manipulations.

How Golden Girls Shaped My Feminism by Megan Kearns

Golden Girls was ahead of its time. We rarely see female actors over the age of 50 portraying characters embracing and owning their sexuality. Reduced to our appearances, women are told time and again that beauty, youth and thinness determine our worth. When the media body shames and bodysnarks female actors’ bodies, it’s clear how how far we need to go in featuring women’s stories. And so in our youth-obsessed society, it’s revolutionary to see women over 50 on-screen as beautiful, vivacious and sexual. 

 

You Don’t Own Me: The First Wives Club and Feminism by Mia Steinle

As a 12-year-old, my life bore little resemblance to theirs, but The First Wives Club gave me one of my first, delicious glimpses into womanhood — a womanhood that includes sassy retorts and getting drunk at lunch and hanging out with your best friends (and also with Bronson Pinchot and Gloria Steinem). It’s a version of womanhood where we know that Maggie Smith, no matter how old, is always cooler than Sarah Jessica Parker. Where finding out that your daughter is a lesbian is no big thing. (“Lesbians are great nowadays!” Annie remarks after hearing the news.) Where female empowerment isn’t just a nebulous buzzword, but something you achieve and celebrate.

Kind Grandmothers and Powerful Witches in Studio Ghibli Films by Eugenia Andino

The Castle in the Sky includes an ambiguous character which is probably the funniest and most groundbreaking of all of Ghibli’s older women: Captain Dola, an air pirate. She initially appears to be a villain, but later she joins forces with the protagonists, Sheeta and Pazu, against Muska. With her sons as henchmen, stealing treasures is her main objective. She shows a great love for her sons, companionship with her husband, and kindness to Sheeta while still fulfilling the role of reckless, greedy pirate. She’s arguably the most memorable element in the whole film.

Fried Green Tomatoes: A Celebration of (Older) Women by Amanda Morris

In American society and in Hollywood films, too often women are invisible, much less a force to be reckoned with. Older women in particular are meant to be hidden away, not viewed as holders of wisdom or desired as sexual beings or feared as people who could create change or cause damage. And when women ARE a force in film, there tend to be dire consequences for demonstrating independence and strength. This is not the case in Fried Green Tomatoes. Ninny and Evelyn are older female characters who not only carry the film with their stories but also demonstrate real strength and determination in the face of denial, obstinacy, and youthful swagger. 

 

Funniest After Fifty: Four Comediennes to Love Forever by Rachel Redfern

Betty White, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, and Helen Mirren… At first, when writing this article, I thought about pointing out the ways in which Hollywood has shorted these prolific and amazing actresses, and while I’m sure that’s happened to them at some point in their careers, in reading about their lives, I realized that would almost be a disservice to all that they’ve accomplished. Rather, this piece is meant as a tribute to these enduring female comediennes, who have not only flourished but also paved the way for so many other actresses and actors.

Pretty Little Zombies — The Lure of Eternal Youth in Robert Zemeckis’ Death Becomes Her by Artemis Linhart

This is the turning point of the movie. All the conflicts revolving around jealousy, beauty, and, of course, youth, are henceforth turned into a spirit of sisterhood. The dependence on Ernest transforms into a friendly co-dependent relationship between the two women. However much of a love-hate sentiment resonates throughout the final part of the movie, friendship and solidarity triumph. The special bond that Madeline and Helen share is still based on the wish for eternal youth, but they have finally turned to each other.

Judi Dench Carries Notes on a Scandal Amongst Other Badass Accomplishments by Janyce Denise Glasper

There’s an imperative reason why Dench was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a film for Notes On a Scandal. The Academy can be a load of BS with their ageism and racism, but sometimes, they get it right. It’s also quite wonderful to point out that Dench scored her first nomination at 64, her first and only win at 65, and four nods after– the last being Notes on a Scandal. For people to say that she is too old for anything is simply wrong on all counts. She truly is at her artistic best.

The Extraordinary Romance of an Ordinary “Old Girl”: Thoughts on Ali: Fear Eats the Soul by Rachael Johnson

Of course older women have traditionally not been allowed to be sexual beings, and mothers have always been held to a higher sexual standard than fathers. In fact, when a woman of any age does not conform or transgresses sexually she customarily suffers greater social condemnation. What Ali: Fear Eats the Soul makes clear is that the Whore-Madonna complex still reigned supreme in 1970s Germany. When Emmi first tells her daughter and son-in-law that she has fallen in love with a much younger man, they laugh. The thought of an old mother in love and lust is so impossible, so unnatural–horrific, in fact–that laughter is the only fitting response. When she introduces her children to her new husband, one son calls her a whore and another kicks in her television. In the eyes of her deeply conventional, racist children, Emmi is guilty of the most profane double betrayal–racial disloyalty and defilement of the maternal role.

Classic Literature Film Adaptations Week: ‘Farewell My Concubine’

Official movie poster for Farewell My Concubine
 This is a guest post by René Kluge.
[Trigger Warning for rape and sexual violence.]
The protagonist in Farewell My Concubine (PR China, 1993) is a woman. Or is it? On the one hand the lead role is played by the famous male Hong Kong actor Leslie Cheung. On the other hand, since being a little boy in a Bejing Opera training school, Cheng Dieyi gives up his male identity and plays the female parts in renowned Beijing Operas. The rest of the movie shows him adapting femininity not only on stage but also in real life. In fact, he struggles with telling the Opera world and real life apart. Even his stage name – Dieyi, which loosely translates to Butterflydress – has a female connotation. His femininity is contrasted with the hyper masculinity of his stage partner Duan Xialou. Between him, Xialou and Xialou`s wife Juxian, a complex ménage à trois with changing relationships develops. According to some commentators[1] the asserted analytical solution to this scenario is to take Dieyi as a symbolic woman. Dieyi is male, but in the context of the movie, he performs the function of a woman.
Leslie Cheung as Cheng Dieyi
The interesting part is how he becomes that symbolic woman. It is not his own decision based on sexual preferences, as in known trans* movies like The Birdcage or Boys Don´t Cry; it is also not cross-dressing as in Some Like it Hot or Mulan. Instead, Dieyi suffers through a violent process, which forces him to adapt a female identity and give up his masculinity. Right in the beginning of the movie, Dieyi´s own mother cuts of his sixth finger with a butcher knife in order to make him acceptable for the opera school admission standards. Dieyi´s mother is a prostitute and even in the brothel there is no place for him. He has to go through this act of “straightening” to be fit for any kind of social community. While the sexual connotation of this brutal amputation is not outright obvious, the next initiation Dieyi has to endure has a clear symbolism. Dieyi starts training to become a Bejing Opera actor. It quickly transpires that he is exceptionally gifted in all the required skills and talents. The only problem is, when asked to recite a passage from a traditional play, he refuses to sing the correct line I am by nature a girl and not a boy and stubbornly sings, I am by nature a boy and not a girl. In the presence of an influential opera producer, this behaviour risks the future of the whole company. Consequently Xiaolou, who is by now Dieyi´s close friend, forces a pipe down his throat. He does this so vigorously that a small stream of (defloration) blood flows out of Dieyi´s mouth. As a result, Dieyi dutifully sings the role and uses the correct words: I am by nature a girl. Dieyi has to submit to this procedure in order to become a successfull Opera actor – a Dan, male actors who only play female roles. After Dieyi´s and Xiaolou´s first big and successful opera performance, the two get seperated. Dieyi is led to the chamber of an old eunuch who rapes the still very young boy. Right after this, Dieyi finds an abandoned baby on the street side, which he decides to take with him. Continuously disciplined with brutal beatings by the harsh opera teacher, Dieyi runs the gamut from castration, penetration rape, and accidental motherhood to complete his way to a female identity. The symbolic woman is not born, but the product of (violent) social conditions. It is therefore not completely absurd, as some commentators argue, to see Farewell as a filmic interpretation of the feminist philosophies of Judith Butler and Simone de Beauviour.
The young Deiyi after the penetration with a pipe
To get a broader view of the filmic representation of femininity in Farewell we have to take a closer look at Juxian, the other (biological) woman in this movie. Juxian is played by Gong Li. As with other movie stars, Gong Li brings with her the aura of her prior roles. She is particularly known for starring in Zhang Yimou’s so-called Red Movies. In Red Sorghum, Judou, and Raise the Red Lantern, she playes women who are unwilling to passively accept the rigid social roles that the traditional Chinese society reserved for them. Whether through deceit, protest, escape or inner refuge, all those female protagonists fight against the oppression of women by men. Juxian herself is proud and strong. She is a prostitute, but buys herself out of a brothel to marry Xialou. While Xialou is unemployed and suffers from depression, she runs the little inn they own by herself, and when Dieyi struggles to overcome an opium addiction, she is the one who brings up the emotional and physical strength to lead him through detoxification. In an enigmatic scene at her wedding, she takes the red veil – which serves as the symbol of domestic oppression in all the Red Movies – off herself, signaling that it is she who initiated the wedding and that she is no victim of an arranged marriage. But if we look closer, it becomes obvious that her goal is not independence, but rather seeking Xiaolou´s love and companionship. The women in the Red Movies were trapped by the social institution of marriage and struggled to get out. Juxian, on the other hand, is a social outcast and seeks to find her way into mainstream society and into marriage. She needs Xiaolou; she needs the male to accomplish this goal. The emancipatory impetus of Juxian is therefore a double-edged sword.

The same double-edgedness can be found in the portrayal of homosexuality in Farewell. There is no mention or depiction of homosexuality in Farewell, but the connotations are very clear. While there seems to be some underlying homoerotic tensions between Dieyi and Xiaolou, Dieyi engages in an escapade with an influential opera patron. Homosexuality was virtually absent from Chinese cinema up to that point, so having a homosexual protagonist in a big and expensive production movie seems like a big step forward. Sadly, this protagonist is teemed with homophobic stereotypes: he is timid, soft, and jealous. In contrast to A Lan, the protagonist in the Chinese independent movie East Palace West Palace, that premiered just three years later, Dieyi is not openly homosexual. He has no self-confident homosexual identity. Instead he hides his preferences from society and from himself. Most importantly, he plays the role of a woman. Probably the most common prejudice that gay men have to tackle is the imagined coherence between femininity and homosexuality. Dieyi becomes gay when he takes on the female identity. Masculinity and homosexuality still seem to be mutually exclusive phenomenons. Zhang Yuan, the director of East Palace West Palace is not a homosexual. In an interview, he explained that he still felt capable of identifying with the stigmatization and hardship that gay men in modern Chinese society have to endure because he himself, being an underground artist, often faces similar problems. On the other hand Chen Kaige, the director of Farewell is not an underground artist. The commercial and critical success of Farewell made him one of the most popular Chinese directors today, who seldom has problems with funding, obtaining filming permits, etc. One could argue that Zhang Yuan´s marginalized social position enabled him to show an attitude of solidarity toward homosexual men and create a filmic image of them, which is free of discriminating stereotypes. In contrast, Chen Kaige was incapable of obtaining this position of solidarity. Thus his portrayal of homosexuality is more abstract and artificially detached.

Gong Li as Juxian
A gender conscious reading of Farewell hence raises a question that seems to play a big role in many contributions on Bitch Flicks: In light of a film history that has in big part either ignored women or made them the objects of the male gaze, is the sheer visibility of women and/or trans* people already a step forward, or must we pay closer attention to the substance of the representation? This is a question that is not easy to answer, especially for me being a white heterosexual male with no shortage of role models and media idols. Maybe this question is actually very personal and revokes an abstract theoretical analysis. Maybe every female, trans* and/or homosexual person has to choose for her/himself. If they can relate to Dieyi or Juxian, identify with them and understand their personal emancipation and empowerment through them, then no detached scholarly interpretation could argue with that.
[1] For example Wendy Larson: The Concubine and the Figure of History. Chen Kaige´s Farewell my Concubine. In: Sheldon Lu: Transnational Chinese Cinema. Identity, Nationhood, Gender. Honolulu: 1997.

———-

René Kluge is a German PhD. student. He studied Philosophy and Chinese Studies in Berlin, Potsdam and Beijing. His main interests lie in questions of labour, gender and interculturality. 

Women and Gender in Musicals Week: That Glee Photo Shoot

This piece by Fannie previously appeared at Bitch Flicks on October 27, 2010.

No
So, there is this. View the slideshow (warning: might not be safe for some workplaces).

I love Glee. I sometimes am annoyed by it, but generally, I appreciate its ode to geekiness. I also do sometimes like looking at photos of attractive women (and men), if the photos are tastefully done and don’t seem like they’re completely exploiting the person. And subtlety is good. Subtext, to me, is often sexier than in-your-face displays of sexual availability.

Those disclaimers aside, I could now go on about how these photos at once infantilize adult women by portraying female actresses as sexy schoolgirls while also inappropriately sexualizing these characters, who are supposed to be under the age of 18.

I could also talk about how annoyingly predictable it is that, of all of Glee’s diverse cast members, it is the two women who most conform to conventional Hollywood beauty standards who have been granted the empowerful privilege of being sexified for a men’s mag. For, despite Glee’s idealistic and uplifting message that It’s What’s On the Inside That Counts, the show’s resident Fat Black Girl With A Soulful Voice is noticeably absent from the shoot.

And then there’s the fact that it’s titled Glee Gone Wild! a not-so-subtle allusion to that paragon of klassy art that made Joe Francis a pimp wealthy man. Yeah, I could talk about how that’s not my favorite.

We could also explore how the photos are clearly intended for the heterosexual male gaze (or, say, the gaze of a sexually abusive photographer who talks about how his “boner” compels him to want to “dominate” girls) and his sexual fantasies.

And I will talk about that for a minute, actually.

GQ is a men’s magazine, so while some lesbians and bisexual women might be titillated by such images, they should not be so naive as to think it is they who are the intended recipients of these images. Finn, the football player, is perhaps the one dude on the show who Average Joes most identify with. In GQ’s slideshow, he is almost fully clothed in regular streetwear throughout and often adorned with the Ultimate Straight Male Fantasy of not one, but two, hot chicks who might first make out with each other and then subsequently have sex with him.

As for the women depicted, the images predominately feature the two actors wearing the sexy-lady Halloween costume known as Sexually Available Schoolgirl, thus letting gay men know that this photo shoot about characters in a musical TV show is not intended for them, either.

Which brings me to the self-indulgent, possibly shallow, item I really want to talk about.

See, well, Glee used to be our thing.

The geeks, the losers, the queers, the disabled, the atheists, the dudely jock who likes to sing and dance, the pregnant girl, the teen diva, and the male Asian actor who is supposed to be geeky-cool but who never gets a speaking part in Glee solo. The popularity of Glee has been Revenge of the Nerds all the way and for that reason it has been pretty, dare I say, special to a lot of marginalized people and teenagers in all its campy dorkwad glory.

But now, the GQ photo shoot has subverted geekiness to give heterosexual men yet another thing in this world that can be, erm, special to them. And what’s supposed to special about Quinn and Rachel in these photos is not their voices, their struggles, their dorkiness, their self-centeredness, their insecurities, or their dreams, but rather, the never-been-done-before message that it’s women! Who are hot! And young! And thin! Who men want to fuck!

GQ, on behalf of its straight male readership, flaunts Rachel and Quinn in these photos like Sue Sylvester boastingly displays her ginormous cheerleading trophies as yet another reminder to the geeks that “not everyone can be champions” because some people are meant to dominate and others to be dominated. The photos are the equivalent of a major studio finally producing a Xena movie, writing in that long-awaited for Xena/Gabby actual make-out scene, and then having the two main characters end up married. To men, that is. Because what heterosexual men would like to see happen to two female characters is, let’s face it, always what is most important when it comes to TV and film and to hell with any other major fan base.

Glee should know better.

Trying to be popular by catering to the “I only watch shows with multiple major female characters if they’re hot” crowd might make a couple of dorks cool for a while, but it’s also why the rest us can’t have nice things.

———-


Fannie, author of Fannie’s Room, who, when not hanging out at her blog, can probably be found planning the homosexual agenda, twirling her mustache, plotting a leftist feminist takeover of the universe, and coordinating the recruitment effort of the lesbian branch of the Gay Mafia. Her days are busy.



Women and Gender in Musicals Week: Glee!

This review by Cali Loria previously appeared at Bitch Flicks as part of our Emmy Week 2011 series.
Not since E! has any one thing on television been so damn exclamatory. Glee! celebrated its everyman song-and-dance style before its slushy flying face-offs ever aired. After a Journey-style breakthrough and myriad episodes featuring pop music gone oh so right, the show ended its first Emmy award-winning season and began a second. Can the plotlines featuring teen pregnancy, teen love, and a bitter gym teacher make it with a little Britney Spears mixed in? The answer is: yes. However, following the line of Britney logic, all its women have had to suffer in the meantime: bitches be crazy (e.g. writing underdeveloped characters who become caricatures of themselves, ending in a mockery of those whose very geekiness Glee attempted to celebrate).

In the beginning Glee made a brand out of celebrating the insecurities, joy, and passions of a group of social outcasts. Quickly, however, Glee called into question its treatment of women, prompting the New York Post to ask “Does Glee! Hate women?” In season one alone a woman is shown to be conniving enough to fake a pregnancy to “keep her man” and another, this time a teenager, grappled with pregnancy until, poof, the storyline magically disappeared. Luckily Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach” was able to get into the mix first, or I would have been pissed.

Besides the stereotypical portrayals of women-as-girls-as-GQ-cover-models-being-schoolgirls that this show offers, Glee goes further by, perhaps unintentionally, mocking its characters. Vitriolic gym teacher Sue Sylvester (who eerily resembles my elementary school gym teacher) relies on her bitter use of the pretty girls and exploitation of the token special needs child as a means to succeed to her ultimate end. As their most fully fleshed-out character (and perhaps most accomplished actor) Jane Lynch does a great job being angry but does nothing for the stereotype of the angry lesbian gym teacher taunting kids to make herself feel better. Coach Beiset’s introduction furthered this by presenting this gem of a storyline: no man wanted to kiss her so what was a woman to do but become an angry, middle-aged football coach: the better to scream at you, my dears.

Mixed in with the older women who suffer to fall in and keep love and affection, the teens of Glee keep the teenage dreams coming faster than Katy Perry’s hits. Puck, the number one misogynist/baby daddy/Neil Diamond Crooner and the show’s resident sometimes Gothic sometimes snarky, always shown eating or wrestling, Lauren, are just one of many unconventional couples Glee has drummed up. Lauren’s morbid obesity might once have proven to be a means for character slander, as Puck himself proclaimed when he said to then pregnant Quinn “I’m not breaking up with you. I’m just saying please stop super-sizing because I don’t dig on fat chicks.” Now, however, it is the stuff of fetishistic pop preening. First, Puck serenades his new love interest with a rendition of “Fat Bottom Girls” and, shock, she finds it offensive. To make it better he sings the original number “Big Ass Heart” because it is okay for the organ that pumps our blood and, symbolically, falls us in love to have a “big ass” even though a heart has never won a pie eating contest or needed two seats in an airplane. We get it–there’s a size difference here.

Having a character on TV who does not fit into the mold of being a perfect Westernized ideal of beauty would, in someone else’s hands, be refreshing. Glee, however, focuses on the extremes of women, enjoying the overt and campy hyperbolization of its characters which, in essence, detracts from actual storylines and only serves to render the women flat and one-dimensional: Jewish starlet, slut, dumb blonde, conniving cheerleader, sassy black woman, an Asian, and, now, a full-fleshed female. Glee has a recipe with every ingredient, but stirred together it’s one big lump of heterogeneous stereotypes. I’m not saying this couple should not exist; I am simply implying that it may have been beneficial to give her a love interest that does not appear to be ten seconds from dumping pigs blood over her head at prom.

Two other prominent female characters central to Glee’s narrative arc are slutty Santana and dumb blonde Britney. These two rarely have lines, and, when they do, it is solely to enforce these two personas. What they do have, however, is a girl on girl on glee make out session. Of course Glee would need to have two of its beautiful, popular women fall in love and make out, why not? Glee loves Katy Perry and she kissed a girl and, damn it, she liked it. The issue is not girls kissing girls; it is the exploration of lesbianism in a trite and frivolous manner.

The trials and tribulations girls in high school are facing today are by no means easy. From eating disorders to bullying, the very struggle of learning who you are as a woman, inside, out, sexually, emotionally, is a process. Women today are barraged with images of who they should be, how they should act, and whom they should kiss. Glee, in an attempt to make it okay to be whomever you are, has simply created an hour of sing-along to the pain and pleasure of all the versions of themselves  that girls see when they look in the mirror. We are all sexy and scared, stupid and skinny, fat and fabulous–but fleshing out these various facets to frivolous plotlines and self-mocking monologues is akin to giving every girl a Barbie with adjective occupations. Women deserve more than this style of characterization. 

 
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Cali Loria is a thug with unbelievable scrabble skills. She is mother to a King and a lover of film, food, and feminism. 
 
 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Week: Xander Harris Has Masculinity Issues

Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon), cavalry guy with a rock (not pictured: rock)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer has a great cast of characters that includes many flawed, admirable, psychologically complex (white) women. Two of them (Buffy and Cordelia) are some of my most beloved television characters ever. Another (Willow) fascinates me and infuriates me in equal measure. The rest of the female cast resonate more with other people than they do with me, giving a variety of watchers (as in television watchers, not the Council of Watchers, hey-o!) a large selection of women to relate to and find inspiring.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer also has Xander Harris, a character who is, perhaps, not as inspiring for a feminist viewer of the show. After all, he’s a bit of a Nice Guy. He’s slut-shamed his romantic partners and female friends. He’s been a judgmental jerk about his friends’ lives. He’s my favorite character on the show.
*record scratch* Wait, what?
Seriously? This guy?
Yes, it’s true. Despite Xander’s many flaws, despite the fact that he’s said and done a few things that have made me want to reach into the television screen and shake him a little, I still count him as my favorite of the many characters on Buffy that I love.
Some of the reasons I love Xander are obvious to anyone who knows me or has read my writing: he’s funny and a loyal friend, and I tend to be attracted to that particular character archetype (see Weasley, Ron and Gamgee, Samwise). I also love him for his bravery and the fact that he always fights the good fight despite not having any superpowers. Other reasons are less obvious, because I’m a feminist and Xander has, let’s say, issues with women – but if anything, my feminism has made me appreciate him as a character even more than when I first started watching the show.
When I look at Xander through a feminist lens, I find him fascinating because he’s a mass of contradictions. He’s a would-be “man’s man” – obsessed with being manly – whose only close friends are women. He’s both a perpetrator and victim of sexual assault and/or violation of consent. He’s both attracted to and intimidated by strong women. He jokes about objectifying women and viewing sex as some sort of game, but in more intimate moments, seems to value romance and real connection. He’s a willing participant in the patriarchy and also a victim of it.
The last point is the main one I’m going to address in this post. I hesitate to wring my hands and go “what about teh menz?!” but I think deconstructing traditional masculinity is an important part of feminism, and while Buffy has excellent commentary on the way gender roles have negatively affected women, it also shows us, through Xander, how these gender roles are no picnic for men, either. 
Xander and a phallic symbol. He has a complicated relationship with these things.
Xander is a boy who struggles with his relationship with masculinity, and the source of much of this struggle can be traced back to his childhood. In the first few seasons, we’re given brief glimpses into Xander’s home life, and even though we never see his parents onscreen, what we dosee isn’t pretty. His mother doesn’t recognize his voice when he calls her at home. During the holidays, he spends his nights on the lawn in a sleeping bag to avoid his family’s drunken Christmas fights. He watches movies with Anya, Buffy, and Riley in his family’s basement as his parents fight loudly above them. When Buffy expresses shock that a villain of the week turned out to be a cruel children’s baseball coach, Xander replies, “Well, you obviously haven’t played Kiddie League. I’m surprised it wasn’t one of the parents,” showing a disturbing familiarity with the way adults can be harmful to children.
The show leaves little hints about Xander’s upbringing throughout the first four seasons, but the first time we see one of his family members is in “Restless.” During Xander’s dream sequence, he constantly finds himself returning to his parents’ basement, and we’re left with the impression that his biggest fear is to be stuck aimless, drifting from job to job, and being a loser.
Then the basement door opens, and we see the shrouded, partially obscured vision of Xander’s father. A physically imposing man, he walks down the stairs and berates Xander for being ashamed of his family. And Xander, who has fought vampires, who stared down a vicious bully with a quiet smile on his face, who has saved the lives of each one of his friends at one point or another, can’t look his father in the eye. He’s at a loss for words, offering only a weak “You don’t understand” before hearing the rest of his father’s tirade: “The line ends here with us, and you’re not gonna change that. You don’t have the heart.”
And his father reaches into Xander’s chest and pulls out his heart.
Xander and his father (Michael Harney)
Yes, the person who really ripped out Xander’s heart was the spirit of the First Slayer, but the point is clear: his father is the scariest, most threatening figure in Xander’s life. He is literally the source of Xander’s nightmares, and his speech speaks to Xander’s biggest fear: that he will never escape the cycle of abuse from his family, and that he might someday become just like his father.
Presented with an unhealthy example of abusive, aggressive male behavior throughout his life, Xander struggles with his masculinity as a teen and a young man. He doesn’t have a healthy relationship with his father, the only male authority figure he admires (Giles) mostly views him as an annoyance, and after Jesse dies in the second episode, he has no male friends.
Xander is essentially left to his own devices to construct his version of masculinity, and seems to have pieced lessons about “what it means to be a man” from his father, the media, and pornography. However, Xander’s ideas about how to be manly often run counter to Xander’s actual desires and needs, and he’s in constant conflict between what he, as a young man, is supposed to want, and what he actually wants. 
Xander is confused. He gets that way a lot.
Real men get into fights. One of Xander’s many admirable traits is his willingness to fight the good fight no matter what. He’ll pull Cordelia out of a raging fire. He’ll shove Willow to safety as he takes on a vampire without the aid of any weapons. This is a good quality of his, but sometimes he gets into physical altercations when he doesn’t have to and has a negative opinion of himself when he fails to be macho “enough.”
Case in point: the episode “Halloween.” Xander stands up for Buffy when Larry calls her “fast,” and then grabs him by the shirt with a vow to do something “manly.” Larry is quickly about to get the upper hand in the fight, but Buffy twists Larry’s arm behind his back and sends him limping away. Xander is furious – at Buffy, for humiliating him in front of their classmates. He’s convinced that everyone will make fun of him for being rescued by a girl, even though the person made to look most ridiculous in that situation is Larry. He’s terrified of being seen as weak and cowardly and would rather lose in a fight than be rescued by a girl.
And this is hardly the only incident where Xander shows insecurity over his lack of physical strength and fighting power. He hero-worships Riley for possessing the fighting skills he lacks, even though Xander has probably fought and killed more vampires and demons while fighting next to Buffy than Riley did during his time in the Initiative. He comes down hard on himself for not having superpowers and not being able to “contribute” to the group the way Giles, Buffy, and Willow can, even though he’s saved all of their lives on several different occasions. He doesn’t fit his own ideal image of a macho man. 
Who says his Snoopy Dance isn’t manly?
Real men want swooning, submissive ladies.The audience has been witness to some of Xander’s sexist fantasies regarding women. We’ve seen him fantasize about rescuing a trembling, victimized Buffy from a vampire and then leaping onstage for a guitar solo that makes her eyes flutter and her panties wet. We’ve seen him fantasize about two younger, submissive potential Slayers coming into his room to have a threesome with him while other potential Slayers have a Sapphic pillow fight in the background. We’ve seen him wax rhapsodic about the idea of a submissive sexbot, and when his girlfriend and friends look at him with disgust, he says, “No guys, huh? I miss Oz. He would’ve gotten it. He wouldn’t have said anything, but he would have gotten it.”
Xander is wrong, of course – Oz never took the bait when another man invited him to sexually objectify a girl. But he’s also wrong about himself. Xander may talk a good game about wanting a submissive woman to serve him, but his dating history points to an opposite trend of being attracted to assertive – sometimes even aggressive – women. His first girlfriend is Cordelia, the former queen bee of the high school, a girl who defeated a vampire simply by threatening him. His second girlfriend is Anya, a former vengeance demon who spent one thousand years eviscerating men, a woman who never shied away from expressing an opinion even if others found it rude. He’s attracted to both Buffy and Faith, Slayers with physical strength who also know how to fight with their words, but any attraction he had to Kendra died when she couldn’t look him in the eye while speaking to him.
Xander and Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), his original acid-tongued sweetheart
There’s a part of Xander that wants the stereotypical male fantasy of a girl who will serve at his whim, but the larger part of him seems to crave a woman who will speak her mind and banter with him. If he ever did find a girlfriend who only wanted to serve and please, he’d be bored within a few hours, though I’m not sure he has the self-awareness to realize that yet.
Real men always want sex. Xander can be gross when it comes to women. He makes sexually objectifying comments about his female friends. He thinks about sex all the time, as confirmed when Buffy gains the ability to read minds and gets wind of his inner monologue. He sees nothing wrong with making comments about women’s bodies in front of his female friends, and fantasizing about Willow and Tara’s sex life in front of Buffy and Dawn.
Yet there’s another side of Xander when it comes to sex, one that doesn’t come out as often: he values and craves intimacy. When he dreams about Joyce Summers in “Restless,” he confirms that he’s more interested in comfort than in conquest: “I’m a comfortador.” After he has sex with Faith, he doesn’t brag to his friends the way we’d expect him to, but tries to prevent Buffy from finding out and only spills the beans when he thinks the information might help – and he’s crushed when Faith dismisses their one-night stand as meaningless to her: “I thought we had a connection.”
It’s clear that intimacy is more important to Xander than merely getting his rocks off, but the side of him he chooses to show with his friends is the side that’s gross and reducing women to sex objects – even though his friends like the sweet side of Xander a lot more than the pig he often lets out.
Real men get into fights. Real men want submissive women. Real men want sex. These are the lessons that Xander internalizes, and where does that leave him? It leaves him feeling inadequate. It leaves him feeling unloved. It leaves him angry, and when he’s angry, he uses his words as weapons and cruelly lashes out at the people he loves the most – in short, repeating some of the behavior he learned from his father.
The worst part is that Xander often isn’t self-aware enough to see what he’s doing, even as he can recognize this detrimental behavior in other men. He criticizes his friend Riley for acting too macho and blowing up a crypt without waiting for backup. He’s disgusted with Spike for creating the Buffybot. He thinks Warren, Jonathan, and Andrew are creepy and gross. He’s right about all of these things, but if someone were to point out the similarities between his behavior and theirs, he’d be in deep denial to hear it – because as much as Xander wants to be like other men, he wants even more to not be like those men, those jerks who take advantage of women and try too hard to wow people with their macho behavior.
Xander has many wonderful qualities. He can be very brave, loyal, selfless, and loving, and the boy knows how to turn a phrase. He can also be insecure, angry, sexist, cruel, and judgmental. Close to the end of the series, he becomes more at peace with himself and lets go of much of his anger and judgment, but if we didn’t live in a culture that fetishizes and celebrates the most aggressive and disgustingly macho versions of masculine behavior, maybe he would have reached that point much earlier in his life. 
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Xander becomes more at peace with himself – and becomes a better friend – when he gets over the need to be our culture’s definition of a man and instead does what he does best: take on the more traditionally feminine role of comforter and emotional support for the people he loves. 
Xander embraces his comfortador role, helps Willow (Alyson Hannigan), and saves the world with a hug.

Lady T is a writer and comedian with two novels, a play, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at www.theresabasile.com.

Horror Week 2011: The Roundup

Sleepaway Camp by Carrie Nelson

The shock of Sleepaway Camp’s ending relies on the cissexist assumption that one’s biological sex and gender presentation must always match. A person with a mismatched sex and gender presentation is someone to be distrusted and feared. Though the audience has identified with Peter throughout the movie, we are meant to turn on him and fear him at the end, as he’s not only a murderer – he’s a deceiver as well. But, as Tera points out, the only deception is the one in the minds of cisgender viewers who assume that Peter’s sex and gender must align in a specific, proper way. Were this not the point that the filmmakers wanted to make, they would have revealed the twist slightly earlier in the film, allowing time for the viewer to digest the information and realize that Peter is still a human being.

The Silence of the Lambs by Jeff Vorndam

Starling must unfortunately endure many such difficulties because she works in the male-dominated institution of the FBI. As an attractive woman, Starling receives lascivious looks from nearly every male in the movie. When she and her roommate go jogging in one scene, a group of men jogging the other way turn around to ogle the women’s behinds. Earlier, when Starling is looking for Agent Crawford’s (her boss) office, the men gaze at her as if she were an exotic delicacy. Hannibal Lecter’s psychiatrist Dr. Chilton tries to pick her up initially, “Are you familiar with the Baltimore area? I could show you around.” When she explains she has a job to do, Chilton becomes angry, “Crawford sent you here for your looks–as bait.” Lecter surmises that Crawford fantasizes about Starling and that is why she was selected for the assignment. Even the bespectacled etymologist asks her out. In fact, it is only Lecter who is more interested in getting in her head than her pants.

The Sexiness of Slaughter: The Sexualization of Women in Slasher Films by Cali Loria

The whores in horror are the signature flesh of the slasher flick.  Women in this genre have long been given the cold shoulder: cold in as much as they are often lacking for clothing.  Often a female character’s dearth of apparel becomes prominent at the pivotal point of slaughter: in cinema, women dress down to be killed. Filmmakers pair scopophilia with the gratuitous gore of killing–leaving viewers to male gaze their way into a media conundrum: When did sexual arousal and brutality towards women pair to become the penultimate money shot?

Amanda Young, Gender Erasure, and Saw’s Unexpected Pro-Woman Attitude by Elizabeth Ray

There are many things that set Amanda apart from most villains in horror movies, the most notable one being that she’s a woman. But more than that, she’s a woman who is not driven by: jealousy, vanity, or obsession over a man. She doesn’t indulge in vampiric, Sapphic tendencies meant to titillate male viewers. And she isn’t sexualized: while reasonably attractive, she isn’t a young, nubile twentysomething, and she dresses in plain, normal clothes, which neither accentuate nor hide her feminine features. And she isn’t demonized either: she’s a not a “bitch” or “whore” who deserves what’s coming to her. Her mundanity is what makes her so appealing: she’s not just an “everygirl,” she’s an everyperson, who, like Jigsaw, is a character that all genders can identify with and sympathize — but her femininity isn’t taken away from her in order to make her stronger or more appealing (she is not given a boyish nickname like “Chris” or “Billy” and doesn’t adopt masculine traits like Ripley did in Alien), which is the most important thing.

Hellraiser by Tatiana Christian

Julia is an interesting character because unlike Kirsty – who experienced a mutual loving relationship between both her father and Steven (her love interest) – Julia had no such thing. Instead, Julia experienced rejection from Frank, her main obsession/love interest and killed off all the men who showed any interest in her (Larry and her victims).

Drag Me To Hell by Stephanie Rogers

I vacillated between these two women throughout the movie, hating one and loving the other. After all, Christine merely made a decision to advance her career, a decision that a man in her position wouldn’t have had to face (because he wouldn’t have been expected to prove his lack of “weakness”). If her male coworker had given the mortgage extension, I doubt it would’ve necessarily been seen as a weak move. And even though Christine made a convincing argument to her boss for why the bank could help the woman (demonstrating her business awareness in the process), her boss still desired to see Christine lay the smack-down on Grandma Ganush. I sympathized with her predicament on one hand, and on the other, I found her extremely unlikable and ultimately “weak” for denying the loan.

The Blair Witch Project by Alex DeBonis

But the film itself denigrates Heather because she accepts responsibility, almost agreeing with the taunts. The most famous scene in The Blair Witch Project is Heather’s tearful confession into the lens. The substance of this confession is that she is responsible for what’s happening to them, but it’s infuriating that Heather takes responsibility and does so at this point. The confession scene tries to make Heather an Ahab-like figure. On the one hand, her tendency to tape allows the narrative conceit of the film to operate. When events take a turn for the eerie and tense, Heather’s obsession with documenting the experience keeps the cameras rolling and allows us to see the ensuing tumult. On the other hand, it puts her energetic striving for a quality film on trial and coaxes from her a confession for a crime she doesn’t actually commit.

The Descent by Robin Hitchcock

While a cave setting evokes female reproductive organs almost inherently, the set design here takes this metaphor to extremes. The women descend into the cave through a slit-shaped gash in the earth, and then must crawl head-first through a narrow passageway into the greater cave system, where the true danger of the monsters await.
The monsters, depicted as the products of evolution motivated only by a primal drive for survival, are the perfect elaboration of this cave-as-womb horror metaphor. And as a cherry on top, they rip the guts out of these women.
In their landmark study, “Madwoman in the Attic,” Gilbert and Gubar embraced the figure of Bertha Mason (the insane, ghostlike previous wife of Jane Eyre’s hero, Mr. Rochester, whom he has locked up inside the attic…apparently for her own good and out of the goodness of his heart!) as somewhat of an alternate literary heroine, and started to analyze exactly what was at work in the common themes found in the literature that women were writing during that time period. As women attempted to write themselves into the purely patriarchal forms of literature that they had grown up reading, they faced the limits of the representation of women in heroic roles. So the gothic heroine emerged as somewhat of a compromise: a heroine who is perpetually endangered and perpetually courageous in the face of that danger. This is the precursor of the modern horror movie heroine who, against all logic, insists on checking out that pesky sound in the middle of the night or following the creepy voices outside of her room.

Let This Feminist Vampire In by Natalie Wilson

While the original film was also excellent, it lacked some of the more overt gendered analysis of the U.S. version. Though this may be due to discrepancies in translation (I saw the film both in Swedish with English subtitles and dubbed in English), the bullying theme running throughout the narrative was framed very differently in the Swedish version. In it, the young male protagonist, Oskar, was repeatedly told to “squeal like a pig” by his tormentors. In contrast, the male protagonist in the U.S. version, now named Owen (played by Kodi Smit-McPhee), is attacked by bullies with taunts such as  “Hey, little girl” and “Are you a little girl?”
House of 1000 Corpses by Dierdre Crimmins
Inevitably the college kids pick up a hitchhiker, which is where the plot starts to get interesting. This hitchhiker, Baby Firefly (played by Zombie’s wife Sheri Moon), seems odd and off in her own world. She messes with the radio and giggles at the college kids. Both Denise and Mary instantly despise her and are obviously threatened by her sexuality, and as expected both Bill and Jerry like her. While this little battle starts to play out, and Baby is loudly drumming on the car’s dashboard, the car gets a flat tire. Of course the sexy female hitchhiker is a local and her brother can help fix the car. It is when Baby insists that the whole gang come over to dinner that this story finally becomes interesting.

A Feminist Reading of The Ring by Sobia

At the center of the mystery are Samara and her mother, Anna, both women whose sanity is questioned by the narrative. At first glance, the movie seems to be Anna’s creation, and it’s her face that we see in the images on the tape. Anna is implied to have been driven to the brink of insanity and eventually to suicide by Samara, who somehow creates images that burn themselves into the minds of those around her. Samara herself is an ambivalent figure that the movie does not seem to be sure about, which leaves her open to interpretation. While I was convinced of her pure evilness initially, subsequent viewings have made her emerge as a less sinister figure, especially given her portrayal in the Japanese version of the story.

Ellen Ripley, A Feminist Film Icon, Battles Horrifying Aliens…And Patriarchy by Megan Kearns

While both Alien and Aliens straddle the sci-fi/horror divide, one of the horror elements apparent in Alien is Carol Clover’s notion of the “final girl.” In numerous horror films (Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, The Descent), the resourceful woman remains the sole survivor, the audience intended to identify and sympathize with her. Oftentimes sexual overtones exist with the promiscuous victims and the virginal survivor. While Alien and Aliens display sexual themes (we’ll get to those in a moment), Ripley isn’t sexualized but remains the sole survivor in the first film. She’s also never masculinized as Clover suggests happens to final girls in order to survive.

Rosemary’s Baby: Marriage Can Be Terrifying by Stephanie Brown

Rosemary’s Baby is one scary movie. It’s about a woman’s lot in a hostile world. It is about a terrible marriage to a narcissistic and selfish person. It is about the fear of motherhood and giving birth. It is convincing as a terrifying movie about the supernatural, and as a life lesson about selling your soul to a metaphorical devil. I like horror to convince me that I have learned something about the dark side of human nature…not just play with gore, or supernatural themes, or catastrophic nightmares. It has to name a fear that we really have, or a truth we find hard to believe, and the best horror enlightens us by showing us the darkness that haunts our lives.

Thanks to all our Horror Week 2011 writers! (Previous Theme Weeks include Mad Men Week and Emmy Week 2011.)