I want to give ‘Non-Stop’ the benefit of the doubt, because I truly enjoyed it, certainly more than any of the other films in the Grizzled Action Hero phase of Liam Neeson’s career. It deftly plays with audience expectations and genre-savvy to yield more red herrings than a Lenten Fish Fry to keep the whodunit simmering for most of its tight 106-minute runtime.
Liam Neeson in Grizzled Action Hero mode in Non-Stop
I want to give Non-Stop the benefit of the doubt, because I truly enjoyed it, certainly more than any of the other films in the Grizzled Action Hero phase of Liam Neeson’s career. It deftly plays with audience expectations and genre-savvy to yield more red herrings than a Lenten Fish Fry to keep the whodunit simmering for most of its tight 106-minute runtime.
Julianne Moore in Non-Stop
An example of how Non-Stop plays with tropes is its use of lead actress Julianne Moore. “The Most Famous Person Did It” is such a classic problem with mystery film and television I remember noticing it in reruns of Murder She Wrote when I was in grade school. Non-Stop knows you are wondering if Julianne Moore is slumming it here because she wants that juicy villain monologue at the end. So she gets lots of opportunities to do suspiciously weird things, but also plenty of opportunities to be vulnerable and likable, so we don’t just assume she’s the bad guy and decide to just watch Air Force One again. At some point we wonder… could she possibly be an age-appropriate love-interest for Liam Neeson? It’s almost inconceivable!
“You do know she’s ONLY eight years younger than him, right?”
Then there’s a half-dozen or so recognizable character actors taking turns being potentially sinister and/or mean enough we want to see Liam Neeson punch them, even if they might not be the terrorist in question. (Liam Neeson will ultimately punch nearly all of them). Is it the shifty businessman? The genteel captain? The John McClane wannabe who is already making fists with his toes because he’s got so much anger? The squirrelly oversharer played by that guy named Skeet or Street or Poot or something? The brown guy in the kufi (please don’t be the brown guy in the kufi)?
Maybe it is Lupita!!!
Lupita Nyong’o in Non-Stop
Spoiler alert: it is not Lupita. In fact, one of the most precious things about this movie is that it clearly got a last-minute Lupita-heavy re-edit to reflect her It Girl status. Her character is named (Gwen) but she’s really just an extra (Flight Attendant #2), with no significant dialogue (the film would even pass the Bechdel Test without her!) and zero characterization. But there are so many pointless cuts to Lupita B-Roll. Liam Neeson sneaks around the galley. But what is Lupita doing? (Checking the latch on an overhead bin.) Liam Neeson defies his superiors at DHS. But what is Lupita doing? (Picking a piece of lint off her uniform.) Liam Neeson punches a guy. BUT WHAT. IS. LUPITA. DOING!? (Making a “who is this punch-happy jackass?” face.)
Lupita ruefully thinks, “Get off my plane.”
But I digress. Everyone’s a suspect (I seriously entertained the notion that the shy unaccompanied minor would be an accessory to the terrorist plot somehow), and that’s a big part of why Non-Stop works. But scratch that seemingly clever surface and Non-Stop has a quintessential Idiot Plot, as defined by Roger Ebert: “a plot containing problems that would be solved instantly if all the characters were not idiots.” It’s cat and mouse between a villain doing asinine things for incomprehensible reasons and a hero who responds irrationally, which could all be avoided if the pilot would just make an unscheduled landing (I know from long-haul flights, and you’re not “in the Middle of the Atlantic!” When Halifax is 45 minutes behind you).
Even the characters are confused.
Often the most plausible explanation for the main character’s strange behaviors is “because that’s the way a man’s man would do it.” Liam Neeson doesn’t tell anyone he was [minor spoiler] just forced to kill his partner in self-defense because… that makes him all the more tragically guarded with his emotional pain? (He’s got the requisite dead daughter backstory and surprisingly not-inconvenient drinking problem.) I don’t really understand why being tragically guarded with emotional pain is on the Action Hero Checklist to begin with. Look, I’ve got dead family and stunted emotions too, and I’m decidedly not a badass.
Non-Stop is usually gripping enough to distract you from its various weaknesses, but it’s got no choice but to tear open its nonsensical underbelly when the villain (or villains!?!) are revealed, and no, there isn’t some hidden agenda that makes all the ridiculous stuff that’s happened make any more sense. Fortunately the movie is almost over then.
Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town. Her feelings about Lupita Nyong’o are comparable to Key & Peele’s valets’ regarding “Liam Neesons.”
Female viewers may derive psychological pleasure from watching Bridget’s erotic, self-interested shenanigans. It’s exhilarating to see a female cinematic character take sexual control and outwit her male partners. It makes a refreshing change from watching women suffer the pain of romantic love. We know that Bridget will never be a victim. She will never tolerate domestic drudgery or the compromises marriage brings. In fact, it’s pretty much a given that she will always overcome her opponents. Life is a pitiless yet entertaining Darwinian game in ‘The Last Seduction,’ and Bridget plays it brilliantly.
Written by Rachael Johnson as part of our theme week on Representations of Female Sexual Desire.
Bridget Gregory is one of American cinema’s great anti-heroines. Flawlessly played by Linda Fiorentino, she is the amoral yet captivating protagonist of John Dahl’s 1994 thriller, The Last Seduction. Fiorentino’s Bridget is a lithe, beautiful woman, and her look evokes heroines of post-war noir. Her sleek, dark hair has a Golden Age cut and style, and a cigarette is never far from her perfect lips. But Dahl’s neo-noir offers an original, post-modern female villain. She’s a femme fatale for the 90s. Bridget is, at heart, a tough, lone wolf entirely dedicated to serving her own interests and ensuring her self-preservation. A female lone wolf is rare in American movies and one of the pleasures of The Last Seduction is watching her survive and thrive. Bridget is, also, gender-subversive as well as a desiring and assertive erotic subject. It is her sexual subjectivity that enthralls, amuses, and entertains.
Made crystal clear from the very start of the film, Bridget is a colorful piece of work. She’s the manager of a New York telemarketing company, and we first see her taunting and egging on her subordinates with inspirational insults such as “maggots,” “suckers,” “bastards,” and “eunuchs.” Dahl cuts between this scene and another involving a man meeting two younger guys under a bridge. The man, we will discover shortly, is Bridget’s husband, Clay Gregory (Bill Pullman). A medical resident desperately in need of cash, he is presently selling drugs to pay off a loan shark. The dangerous, nerve-wracking deal scores the couple a handsome sum.
Clay and Bridget: husband and wife
Clay is also a piece of work. As acquisitive as Bridget, he is also capable of violence. When Bridget later calls Clay an “idiot” back in their apartment for carrying the money around in broad daylight, he strikes her. He makes the cowardly excuse that he was shaken up by the deal, and Bridget fakes forgiveness. When he’s in the shower, however, she runs off with the stash. Before she quits the city, Bridget takes off her wedding ring. The act signifies a rejection of domesticity and traditional coupling as well as a repudiation of age-old ideas of female subservience and sacrifice. It also signals that she will now drive the narrative. Although the act of abuse serves as a trigger, the viewer is, in fact, encouraged to believe that Bridget is motivated by more than vengeance. She wants total mastery of her destiny and will do anything to achieve it.
She flees north. Stopping in a small, characterless town in “cow country,” she drops into a run-of-the-mill bar. A gorgeous, svelte yet foul-mouthed New Yorker, Bridget is perceived as an exotic figure in these parts. A young, attractive man with a pleasant personality and the very ordinary name of Mike, is drawn to her. Mike (Peter Berg) buys her a drink when her ungracious demand for a Manhattan is, quite understandably, ignored by the bartender.
Bridget at a dive bar
Their first encounter serves as an amusing, outrageous antidote to the saccharine meet-cutes of 90s romantic comedies. Bridget initially refuses Mike’s quite ordinary advances in inimitably impolite fashion: “Go find yourself a nice little cowgirl and make nice little cow babies and leave me alone.” But when Mike good-humoredly makes the claim that he’s “hung like a horse,” Bridget offers him a seat. She proceeds to unzip his pants, fondle his dick, probe him about his sexual history, and, then, smell her fingers. Inspection over, the newly acquainted couple head off to his place and spend the night together. The morning after, she heads off without telling him her name or saying goodbye.
Their next meeting, at Mike’s place of work, is pure coincidence. Deciding to lay low in the town, Bridget secures a managerial position at the same insurance company as her new lover, and takes on the name of Wendy Kroy. She wants distance from Mike at work and warns him: “Don’t fuck with my image.” She is, however, more sociable when she meets him again at the bar.
They soon have sex near the dumpster behind the bar. Bridget directs their love-making and plays the more sexually dynamic part. Hanging onto the rails, in an elevated position, Bridget fucks Mike against a fence. With his pants down to his ankles and knees bent, he looks the more vulnerable partner in this al fresco erotic episode. He is also the emotionally vulnerable lover. “Where do I fit in?” Mike asks Bridget. “You’re my designated fuck,” she replies. She later rides him in her car.
Bridget is the femme fatale
Bridget, for the most part, assumes the traditionally dominant position in her love-making sessions with Mike. The filmmakers’ characterization of their female protagonist’s desire is unusual for American cinema. Bridget’s physical beauty is certainly not obscured, but she cannot be characterized as a classic Hollywood sex object. She is, instead, presented as an assertive, dynamic sexual subject. Intense physical pleasure is not bound up with the self-abandonment of romantic love. Nor does it signify psychic self-annihilation. Reproduction, furthermore, does not play a part in Bridget’s world. She and her husband are childless. Love has an ideological import, and it has often, let’s face it, been a trap for women in patriarchal society. Bridget, however, is not confined by love. Sex, for her, is about control, pleasure and play.
Mike, however, falls in love with Bridget and craves a more emotionally intimate relationship. He is flattered that she has chosen him, as he believes himself to be “bigger than this town.” Although he bemoans, in a somewhat boyish way, her arrogance and dominance. Mike realizes, a little late, that Bridget is a dangerous, amoral woman. He calls her “sick” and “deranged” when she suggests they “sell murder” to people (for example, to women who have been betrayed by their husbands), but he is ultimately ignorant of her true intentions. She becomes increasingly calculating with her lover, and he just can’t keep up. Although Mike is horrified when Bridget (falsely) tells him that she has successfully sold murder, he is eventually manipulated into agreeing to kill Clay. Note that Bridget has lied to him about the identity of his target. Mike is unaware that he has been sent to New York to murder Bridget’s husband; he believes his target to be a man who’s been driving old ladies out of their homes. I will not tell you what happens when Mike encounters Clay.
Bridget is winning at her game
Bridget’s treatment of people, particularly men, remains consistently appalling throughout the film, but it goes beyond crude invective and exploitation. Bridget admits to Mike that she enjoys “bending the rules, playing with people’s brains.” She exploits both society’s moral codes and prejudices and takes advantage of the kindness of others. She espouses a certain moral relativism. When Mike says, helplessly, “Murder is wrong,” Bridget counters, “Unless the President says to do it.” In fact, Bridget gains an almost sexual pleasure plotting her clever moves. She screws men both literally and metaphorically.
Bridget’s unbound sexuality and gender-subversive behavior make her evil more interesting and radical. She knows how to manipulate the gender order and succeed in a phallocentric world. She is unfailingly resourceful and supernaturally resilient. In a way, this amoral female protagonist functions to strip patriarchy bare. Her cynical, manipulative words and acts serve to expose the weaknesses and wickedness of men: their insecurities, secrets, and vulnerabilities as well as their aggressive, acquisitive traits.
Bridget, as we have seen, does not conform to culturally constructed norms of femininity. She also manipulates and mocks conventional expectations of gender. Her parodic skills are neatly demonstrated in one short, entertaining scene when she offers cookies to a local detective her husband has recruited. Wearing a lace apron and a smile, she delivers the sweet gift to the man watching her movements in his parked car. He does not, however, see her placing a plank of nails by his tires, and he has only himself to blame when she drives off to an unknown destination.
The Last Seduction does not, of course, endorse a reversal of domination, but the movie makes for a playfully, and knowingly, subversive viewing experience. Although Bridget’s actions should not be read in a literal, man-hating way, female viewers may derive psychological pleasure from watching Bridget’s erotic, self-interested shenanigans. It’s exhilarating to see a female cinematic character take sexual control and outwit her male partners. It makes a refreshing change from watching women suffer the pain of romantic love. We know that Bridget will never be a victim. She will never tolerate domestic drudgery or the compromises marriage brings. In fact, it’s pretty much a given that she will always overcome her opponents. Life is a pitiless yet entertaining Darwinian game in The Last Seduction, and Bridget plays it brilliantly.
An in-control Bridget
Fiorentino’s interpretation of our deeply sexy, whip-smart anti-heroine is supremely persuasive. The casting is perfect; the actress should have won an Oscar for her performance, but the movie was shut out of the nominations because it was first shown on cable television before being given a cinematic release. Rules may be rules, but it’s nothing less than a sin that both Fiorentino and John Dahl’s smart, stylish film were deemed ineligible.
The Last Seduction is elegantly shot, well-paced and cleverly constructed. Bridget is the dominant sexual and narrative subject. The story is primarily shaped by her sensual, self-interested needs. If she can be characterized as a feminist cultural icon, she’s an amusing, distinctly anti-humanist one. One thing that’s certain is that watching her at work and play is the cinematic equivalent of an empowering Manhattan cocktail.
One big problem with how this relationship is portrayed, especially its beginnings, is that it feeds into the mythology that teenage girls are temptresses who seek out older men and seduce them, applying pressure until these helpless men give in against their better judgement. This mythology has real world implications.
Spoiler Warning
The relationsip between Aria and Ezra is established in the pilot episode of Pretty Little Liars. At the beginning, I think the relationship very much represents the ultimate realization of the school girl fantasy that the older guy/teacher/pop-star that you are hopelessly crushing on will see you. Not just notice that you exist but see you for who you really are. Someone who is “different” from all those other girls, someone who is not just a child but a whole person.
While Spencer considers herself to be the most mature of the Liars, it is Aria’s relationship that is the least like most high school relationships. She and Ezra at times behave like a young married couple. She makes him tea before he goes to work, and they stay in and watch classic movies. Their problems tend to be driven by external factors, Ezra’s mother wanting him to make an appropriate match, Ezra finding out he has a child. these are challenges that we expect to see in a relationship between people in their 20s and of course Ezra IS in his 20s.
Initially their story follows a fairly well-trodden arc when it comes to older-guy younger-girl relationships. They run into each other at a cafe and get to talking. Ezra assumes she is in college and she does nothing to dissuade those assumptions. They end up kissing in a toilet. Later on in that same episode Ezra finds out pretty abruptly that Aria is only 16 when he turns out to be teaching her English class. He makes out that he wants to do the right thing and says they can’t see each other anymore. She claims that they have a special connection and is deeply disappointing with his decisions. However he reneges when Aria is sad and kisses her deeply, re-establishing their relationship.
Generally Ezra’s interest in Aria is presented as fairly unproblematic. Aria’s parents react really badly initially, and they are both conscious that if the truth comes out the consequences could be dire. A fact that doesn’t come up till season four when Ezra returns to teach at Rosewood, is that in Pennsylvania where the show is set, while the age of consent is technically 16 if the minor is under the age of 18, the adult can be charged with “Corruption of a Minor,” a misdemeanor offence, and if the adult is in a position of power (teacher, clergy, or police for example) it is a felony.
In one scene Aria imagines what would happen if A leaked evidence of the relationship to the school administration and the end result is that Ezra is arrested and ends up in jail. However these appear to be minor intrusions into their happy life of domestic bliss. Under pressure from their daughter, Aria’s parents become tacitly permissive of the relationship and they manage to avoid any problems with the school administration despite sometimes not being very circumspect on the school grounds. Ezra considers it prudent to leave his position at Rosewood High and moves on to teaching at the local college. He ends up getting fired from there in a last ditch endeavor by Aria’s father to get him to stop seeing his daughter.
The relationship lives in this sort of netherworld where it is both seen as illicit but also fundamentally acceptable because they are in love with each other and that has to mean something. While Aria’s parents react badly the question of why Ezra, a college-educated man in his 20s is attracted to and in love with Aria, a 16-year-old high school girl, the power differential between them is never ever addressed. The subtext that we are meant to swallow is that it is because Aria is exceptional, she is mature and amazing. One of the problems with this though, is that this perception of Aria doesn’t really jive with the many poor decisions she makes on the show that are pretty understandable in a teenage girl.
One big problem with how this relationship is portrayed, especially its beginnings, is that it feeds into the mythology that teenage girls are temptresses who seek out older men and seduce them, applying pressure until these helpless men give in against their better judgement. This mythology has real world implications. A tragic example of this is the case of Stacey Dean Rambold, who was convicted with raping one of his 14-year-old students repeatedly but only given a 30-day sentence because he believed that she was “older than her chronological age” and was “as much in control of the situation” as the man who raped her. The judge has since been censured but, this should never have happened in the first place. Rambold’s victim has since committed suicide in the aftermath of the case.
One could argue that for much of their relationship Ezra is not actually Aria’s teacher; they didn’t meet in that context and so the power differential is not really an issue. I do not believe that large gaps in relationships are intrinsically negative, so if you take the teacher part out of the equation does that make it less problematic? I’m not sure. I don’t want to deny Aria’s agency as a young woman but I still think we would have to question why Ezra would want to have a relationship with someone so young, It would be a little different if he was a 35-year-old interested in a 23-year-old because adolescence is a very difficult time.
The whole thing is made very (even more?) creepy in season four when it is revealed to us that Ezra knew who Aria was from the very beginning. He was aware of her age, he was aware that she was a student at the high school he was going to teach at, and he was aware of her relationship with Alison. So Ezra knowingly committed a felony in order to gain insight into Alison and her friends for his book – at least this is what he claims. He is effectively a stalker who manages to convince Aria that they have a very special relationship. He uses his prior knowledge of her to manipulate her. This pretty much sinks the final nail into the coffin on this relationship with me. I think overall I come down on the side that the Aria/Ezra relationship is highly problematic and I am interested to see how the show goes on to handle these new revelations about him.
Gaayathri Nair is currently living and writing in Auckland, New Zealand. You can find more of her work at her blog A Human Story and tweet her @A_Gaayathri.
If you hear that people hate this movie, this re-inscription of feminine expendability and excoriation is probably, I’m guessing, why. Or there’s not enough explicitly in the surface of the movie: everything’s implied, ergo too many loose ends. They probably hate what happens to the baby: I think that’s when women walk out of the movie. The fact that men regularly walk out of screenings (because of the erect penises on the victimized men–that is a whole other essay for a whole different internet venue and I want to read that essay a.s.a.p.)
Scarlett Johansson herself says the movie Under the Skinis about an “it” becoming a “her”. Not a she: subjective, but a her: objective. This is the key dynamic character shift in the film, so that you’d think this film would embody a cultural critique of how women are treated, or at least, the idea of human predation. Because the “it” is a predatory drone and becomes a “her”, it first discovers slowly and sadly the immense vulnerability and mundanity of being a human person and then of being a human woman. The attractiveness of the Johansson human body (the thing for which she was singled out) ends up completely working against the alien. Its alien culture didn’t fully understand the position it was putting “it” in by putting “it” in a female body, and the amount of thinking we can see on the alien’s face as it is preying on people amounts to what we get from watching a spider on a web. Sometimes it’s the glass of water that does in an alien (Signs); sometimes it’s Johansson’s face and body.
In the first minutes, I didn’t think of a femme fatale; I thought Johansson was acting out some revenge fantasy–the abducted woman with the very deadpan comic twist: men don’t have to be abducted by force or tripped up by a woman’s doubt of her own instinct for being in danger; you can just promise them a one-night-stand with a lost English woman who looks like Johansson, and they’ll conveniently take their clothes off. That seems like the wink from the director, past the affectless alien, to us. Except the movie has a hard time offering up meaning from the gross amount of predation foisted on men—though it sure keeps showing their demises to us, over and over again.
What do you do with the insinuation that feminine wiles are basically manipulation? Or that men are so overwhelmed they can’t pick up on the fact that her questions are faintly pushy and one-track? Honestly, if I saw a gorgeous man on a beach, and he kept asking, “What are you doing here/are you alone/what country are you from?” I’d be taking ten steps back, turning, and walking away quickly. Which to his credit, is kind of what the surfer on the beach does when Johansson’s alien accosts him. The camera hangs on his face, taking in and registering the alien’s intrusiveness: she/it asks point blank what country he’s from. Viewers may worry, thinking: Are you gonna buy this, man? Are you really not noticing this is weird? He seems to feel baited, and the whole exchange is pushed aside for his altruism in wanting to help the drowning woman and dog. This is clearly a movie by a man: because if it were a movie by a woman. But we’re seeing a vulnerability in men we don’t often see on film. Considering the way the social criticism stays on a silent, not-very-deep level in this movie, backed up mostly by silence and blackness to fill in the gaps not covered in the story-writing meetings, I’ll take this one chance to see the tables get turned and go horribly wrong.
It’s hard to say what exactly is the trigger for the alien that makes her understand humans as something other than a meat parade. Is it mundane night life, malls, and people walking on the street? The alien’s modus operandi is a blend of “hunter” as well as tedious, dutiful, and atonal. I did not think she developed feelings or pity for humans. Her project is tedious to her. Is she really having a revelation about people? Or is this actually about sentience? Is she discovering the little bugs (humans) she’s picking off are values-driven?
Under the Skin seems more focused on the dreadfulness of being in another body, constantly amongst people who will want to kill her if they discover what she is. This isn’t, however, to say the movie is about Otherness in the way speculative fiction critiques and instructs on Otherness. It’s more about the weariness of being. Of being any being. Her work is so repetitive that I almost got enraged that it was still happening narratively, much less to these poor dudes. There’s no clue of how or when it could end. This can be read as rigor of repetition or, perhaps, as art for art’s sake.
Then comes the turning point, but it’s so crazily silent that it takes the length of this very long shot to understand what’s happened. The overpowering substance of the shot is that she looks out a window or into a glass tank and we see her face move from darkness into half-light. The beauty of this is its eyes go from an examination of the human as Other to self-regard pretty seamlessly. When the eyes dip into the light, the shot really communicates reticence and an inability to accept this gaze, this human face, these eyes. Does it look gruesome to itself? Maybe it loves this face? Is it creeped out? We don’t know whether or not sympathy is in the emotional currency on the alien’s planet, but we see something blows the alien’s mind. As a result, she releases the guy with neurofibromatosis (Adam Pearson) that we rolled our eyes to see going into her trap.
Why compassion for him and not the baby? She has remorse. Because she relates to alienation? Because of job burnout?
It’s worth saying a few words here about the cinematography and the setting of Scotland. In an overwhelming number of shots, the lighting is so dim you almost don’t know what you’re looking at, and there’s neon and noise and gold and graphics. This is a nod toward Jordan Chenoweth (cinematographer for Blade Runner) from DP Daniel Landin. The alien repeatedly echoes Rachel from Blade Runner in the use of eyelights—an almost totally dark face except for eyelights and the lighting of the lower third of her face. Why are we echoing Rachel here? Because Rachel’s humanity was tested through her eyes. She’d thought she was human but actually wasn’t. Here, Johansson’s alien ascertains something through an examination of her own eyes, thinks she’s not human, but, as the symmetry of this subtext goes, is about to find out she feels just like one.
Once out of the comfortable workplace of her van, Johansson’s alien is trying to stop with the predation. Except her kind didn’t study women enough to understand that just by walking alone on a road, she’s vulnerable. Here comes symbolic and literal fog on the road. She cannot see where she’s going now that she’s acquiring a conscience. She walks through the fog until she’s just passed it. This whiteness counters the blackness attached to everything the aliens do as day-to-day business. She rides a bus, now alone, and looks utterly freaked out like a woman who is trying to get out of a traumatic domestic situation. Except, it’s the situation she was sent here to embody that she’s trying to leave. She would prefer something more domestic, it seems, as she keeps going into houses—first a man’s and then a shelter in some woods.
There’s so much to say about the most retold, re-cast tale about predation in Western culture (Little Red Riding Hood) regrouping itself into some horrifyingly corrupted archetypes here in the last fourth of the movie. The book on which this horror movie is based is a piece of Michel Faber’s Dutch/Scottish horror. Little Red Riding Hood originated from a group of sexual assault warnings that filtered through the French countryside in the 17th century. Don’t let yourself be tracked. Don’t accept people on appearances (shey could be a wolf with your grandmother in its stomach). A wolf in grandmother’s clothes. And here after an interlude of almost-happiness in which Johansson’s alien-woman checks out her body in a mirror and ventures to have consensual sex, realizes what’s between her legs, she runs out into a forest where she shouldn’t be, where she has little idea how dangerous it is, and she’s warned to follow a trail by a woodsman, who ends up being the wolf.
The woodsman hits on her just the way she hit on men for the first half of the movie. What happens next is even harder to process, because in the end, isn’t she the wolf trapped in a woman’s body?
She pays for the underestimation, but the woodsman also pays for his underestimation with a terrible surprise for his rape-impulse. But wait a minute. After all the totally lamb-like men she’s picked up and stowed in her death lake, she’s out in a forest and the ONE MAN in the WHOLE FOREST that she runs into not only hits on her while trying to give her directions, but goes to find her so he can molest her, which then turns into him chasing her in the woods to straight up rape her.
Why is this piece of crap woodsman the last human she encounters on earth? Oh that’s right, we’re re-inscribing the message we apparently don’t get enough of: lone women who aren’t protected will be raped and killed. If you’re a wolf in woman’s clothing, good luck preserving your wily alien-wolf self because this near criminally insane woodsman will immolate you for being the uncanny. What did she do to become a predator magnet instead of the predator? She started feeling stuff. She gave up her predatory sex-kitten game. She tried to back up and see how she could possibly fit in and try to consider the essence of what she was doing. And so she ends up in a fate reserved for the more spectacular pieces of murdered women porn regularly paraded between 8-11 pm every night of the year on network television in both magazine and crime shows. Back to an object save the second moment of self-regard she has when she looks on her own Johansson face as a mask in her lap. It’s the one moment that makes this ending uncanny, and I would say, ultimately about being a human.
If you hear that people hate this movie, this re-inscription of feminine expendability and excoriation is probably why. There are too many too many loose ends and surface-like implications. People probably hate what happens to the baby: I think that’s when women walked out of the movie. The fact that men regularly walked out of screenings (because of the erect penises on the victimized men) is a whole other essay for a whole different internet venue and I want to read that essay a.s.a.p.
When Johansson’s corpse is burning up into the sky, the black smoke mingles with snow that flakes down to obliterate the literal camera lens. The fog comes back. And that male body-snatching alien looks off a cliff with his back to us, seeing or not seeing this black smoke, trying to find a sign in the confounding mist. He is not unlike a Romantic hero mystified who constantly feels alienated from Nature–a more tableaux version of what Johansson’s alien, in her last look upon her human face, must have felt.
Cynthia Arrieu-King teaches literature and creative writing at Stockton College in New Jersey and has two published volumes of poetry. She has taught about 17 sections of freshman composition in which plagiarism was covered thoroughly, so beware internet magazines with sticky fingers. cynthiaarrieuking.blogspot.com.
These characters challenge our gendered assumptions about sex, trauma, and vengeance, which can make audiences uncomfortable. I was likely too young when I first watched ‘Thelma and Louise’ (Ridley Scott, 1991). However, I remember the surge of adrenaline I felt when Louise shot and killed Thelma’s rapist, how incredibly good it felt to idolize these convict women who had had enough with their monotonous lives, at an age when I couldn’t possibly comprehend patriarchal oppression, the comforts of solidarity and sisterhood, or the concept of escapism utilized not necessarily to run away but rather to find your wildest, most genuine self.
Written by Jenny Lapekas as part of our theme week on Rape Revenge Fantasies.
The rape revenge subgenre, typically within the horror realm, is a topic I’ve thought about a lot. Rape revenge offers catharsis, fantasy, and a feminist departure from the very real patriarchy, where rape is too often underreported or the victim is dismissed as “wanting it” or “asking for it” via her short skirt. The avenger of the rape revenge film appropriates the criminal act for his or her own empowerment, hence swapping gender roles. Because rape is typically perpetrated by men, women who respond with violence in the form of murder or another rape represent a wonderfully complex hero/villain binary. When male perpetrators are violated and/or killed by feminist avengers, what does their feminization mean? That rape is inherently masculine and carried out on the helpless feminine? The agency of violence is also in question within this discussion; how do viewers navigate feminine (feminist) violence? These characters challenge our gendered assumptions about sex, trauma, and vengeance, which can make audiences uncomfortable. I was likely too young when I first watched Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991). However, I remember the surge of adrenaline I felt when Louise shot and killed Thelma’s rapist, how incredibly good it felt to idolize these convict women who had had enough with their monotonous lives, at an age when I couldn’t possibly comprehend patriarchal oppression, the comforts of solidarity and sisterhood, or the concept of escapism utilized not necessarily to run away but rather to find your wildest, most genuine self.
Thelma is submissive and looks to the confident Louise as a feminist role model.
Thelma and Louise seems such an obviously feminist movie, which is why I’d like to focus on Thelma’s rape scene, which galvanizes the pair’s journey thereafter. I suggest that the film is constructed, then, around the rape narrative, amidst a postfeminist storyline of female bonding and spiritual awakening. We can easily assess Thelma’s placement as a female character who initially lacks agency; rather, she soothes her husband’s temper tantrums and manages the household. Like many unhappily married women, she hasn’t a clue what to do about her unhappiness or even how to fully recognize or own it. The murder of her rapist unleashes a crime spree, but also the act of radical surrender, from which Thelma acknowledges she cannot and will not recover. This theme of agency is birthed in the rape scene and then climaxes in the famous concluding scene of the women sailing into the Grand Canyon. Both women make the choice to respond to violence with violence, which is the feminist agency found within the rape-revenge genre. Women like Thelma and Louise who carry out these acts of violence in order to avenge a rape challenge our cultural understanding of violence as rhetoric and gendered behavior onscreen.
Thelma under the rule of her short-tempered husband and Louise involved in a complicated relationship, the duo plan their vacation with the most innocent of intentions. We hear Louise call Thelma a “little housewife” in the film’s opening scene, where Louise is introduced to us in her waitress uniform and Thelma is a floral bathrobe. As she’s packing for their getaway, we see Thelma toss a handgun into her bag as if she’s frightened or repulsed by it; she’s clearly aware of the power the classically phallic symbol boasts, even laying at the bottom of her bag. When Louise asks her why she bothered to bring it, Thelma says, “Psycho killers, bears, snakes.” Little do they know that Harlan, the man who attempts to rape Thelma, can be characterized as a “snake,” and they’re the ones who become killers as a result.
I have some trouble taking Christopher McDonald (who plays Darryl, Thelma’s controlling husband) seriously since he’s so incredibly convincing in his roles as goofy characters (see Happy Gilmore [Dennis Dugan, 1996] and Requiem for a Dream [Darren Aronofsky, 2000]). However, the film’s portrayal of Darryl doesn’t inspire any respect for his character.
Darryl finds that he’s unable to adequately care for himself in Thelma’s absence; Hal even points out during questioning that he’s standing in leftover pizza.
We’ve seen men act as the heroes who thwart rape and assault the would-be rapists (see Untamed Heart [Tony Bill, 1993] and Training Day [Antoine Fuqua, 2001]), but it seems important that in this film, the hero is a woman and a trusted friend who interrupts the crime and actually murders the man attempting to violate Thelma. Their guns–one bought by Darryl to protect his wife when alone at night and the other stolen from a police officer–are clear representations of male power and privilege; however, the women become quite comfortable appropriating these as weapons in dismantling the phallocracy that governs their choices, their bodies, and their realities while on their infamous road trip.
The rape scene takes place during the first stop on their trip as the ladies are set to travel to the mountains for a getaway. When Harlan insists that Thelma get some fresh air after a night of drinking and dancing, he tells her that he won’t hurt her, even after hiking up her dress and slapping her in the face. The level of violence intensifies after she slaps him back, and he bends her over a car and begins to unbuckle his pants. Louise holds a gun to Harlan’s neck as he puts his hands up and allows Thelma to collect herself and stand up. It seems that perhaps Harlan will walk away unscathed and even learn a lesson from the experience. However, he seals his fate when he’s compelled to say, “I shoulda gone ahead and fucked her.” When Louise turns and asks him to repeat himself, he responds, “Suck my cock,” a fitting sentiment to preface Thelma’s phallic gun exploding and hitting him in the chest. We gather throughout the film that something happened to Louise in Texas, and it quickly becomes clear that she was the victim of a rape. Gender-based violence is turned on its head as Louise assumes a position of power, and thus a codified male position. Thelma’s situatedness within this hierarchy is slow to align with that of the hot-tempered Louise, but when she does transition from “feminine” to “feminist,” she admits that she seems to “have a knack for this shit.” Shortly before their deaths, Thelma tells Louise that she’s never felt so awake, alerting us that she’s reached a sort of nirvana amidst the mini liquor bottles and desert heat.
We can appreciate Louise’s sense of humor in this moment of tension: “You let her go, you fuckin’ asshole, or I’ll splatter your ugly face all over this nice car.”
Immediately after the incident, Louise cradles the gun in her hands as the two ride away, as if she’s trying to grasp the power the small pistol carries. The naive Thelma believes that they can safely go to the police and explain that it was self-defense, but Louise offers the reality that “we don’t live in that kind of a world.” Rather, we live in a world that punishes women for attracting men and “asking for it” with our clothing or our smiles. “If you weren’t concerned with having so much fun, we wouldn’t be here right now,” Louise accusingly tells Thelma. Although Louise is the one to shoot and kill Harlan, she inevitably blames the entire incident on Thelma’s good looks and also acts as a surrogate Darryl, which Thelma even articulates early on in the trip. Thelma is almost childlike in her naiveté, which calls for a guardian or a mother to constantly reprimand her and correct her behavior. Louise maintains this role as she protects and guides Thelma for most of the film.
The men in the film seem to get themselves into hot water over the lewd and otherwise disrespectful ways they choose to speak to Thelma and Louise.
So, does Louise successfully avenge Thelma’s assault or does she have her own axe to grind? Is Louise, a killer, any better than Harlan or any other rapist slithering through crowded bars or dark streets? Thelma and Louise offers a feminist catharsis for women viewers, particularly those who are rape survivors, but also for all of us who have been cat-called as perpetual objects of the male gaze. How many of us now fantasize about blowing up a semi because its driver was making lecherous comments or gesturing with his hands or tongue? This film serves as a reminder that we deserve to live our lives in peace, free from harassment, and to stop apologizing for ourselves or assuming that our clothing is an invitation for men to put their hands on us. While Louise makes the decision to repress the memory of her own rape, she actively chooses to avenge the rape of her friend. Although a murderer, Louise is a hero as she likely prevents any rapes Harlan would have committed had she allowed him to live.
It’s gratifying to witness the transition of the pair’s feminine and feminist identities. While Thelma makes the noticeable shift from a bored housewife planning dinner to a badass outlaw with a gun, Louise comes to recognize her companion as an equal and to surrender some of her power before the two fly into the Grand Canyon in a blaze of girl-power glory. Louise identifies her friend’s rape as her own, and unlike Thelma, she is familiar with what some men are capable of in dark parking lots. The dynamic that propels the plot of Thelma and Louise is friendship, even if that entails a sort of religious awakening on the road (Kerouac style), albeit it via gender equality by way of violence and its appropriation. Notice that the women and their actions are met with disdain when they demonstrate traditionally “masculine” behavior, such as anger, aggression, and sarcasm. When Louise initially orders Harlan to stop attacking Thelma, he ignores her; when Thelma finally tells Darryl to go fuck himself, he slams the phone down in disbelief; when the horny trucker discovers that the ladies expect an apology instead of a threesome, he calls them “crazy.” The women’s actions, then, are met with resistance by most of the men they encounter on their travels, with the exceptions of Hal (Harvey Keitel), the kindhearted cop who longs to help the women, and JD, Thelma’s paramour for one rainy night.
JD steals the money that Louise calls their “future” in Mexico but also unknowingly offers a remedy to their money crisis when he gives Thelma some charismatic lessons on how to rob a store at gunpoint.
I would suggest that these actions are not meant so much to heal or cleanse the two of their pain or their own crimes, but to “right a wrong” even if it means sacrificing their freedom; in this way, the women discover a new sense of liberation that transcends the pursuit of them in their beat up old Thunderbird convertible. Toward the end of the film, Thelma shares with Louise that if Harlan had completed his assault against her, people would think that she was “asking for it,” and that she’s sorry it wasn’t her that pulled the trigger. What we can conclude from this exchange is that any course of events post-rape would leave Thelma “ruined” in some way, but she explains that because of her friend, now she’s at least having fun.
Jenny Lapekas has a Master of Arts degree in English, and she is a part-time instructor at Alvernia University. Her areas of scholarship include women’s literature, menstrual literacy, and rape-revenge cinema. You can find her on WordPress and Pinterest.
Tip to showrunners: WE KNOW you can kill anyone off. We’ve been watching TV the last ten years. It is not that shocking anymore, and not even remotely surprising when it is a woman or person of color on the chopping block. Some cast members are more expendable than others, and it’s easy to guess who you think they are. Please stop sacrificing representation on the altar of high drama.
Hettienne Park as Beverly Katz
[Spoilers for all the aired episodes of Hannibal ahoy! Yar!]
Hannibal is a show about serial killers, so it’s no shock there’s a high body count. And it isn’t the usual death parade of butchered women that crime thrillers often present. Sady Doyle wrote that Hannibal “takes on the serial-killer cop procedural—one of the most irredeemably woman-hating genres on TV—from a feminist perspective.” Crime shows so often depict women as victims, and victims as bodies. (I’ve long been fascinated by the concept of struggling actresses getting the “break” of playing a cold, naked corpse on a medical examiner’s table, and their families excitedly tuning in to see her silently horizontal in blue-gray makeup, functioning essentially as a prop.)
Hannibal has flipped this archetype. The vast majority of the nameless victims, often naked, usually incorporated into inventively macabre art installations, have been men.
Equal-opportunity artful display of dead bodies.
But women are certainly not spared from violence on this gruesome show: the twist is that Hannibal‘s female victims have mostly been strongly developed as characters before being dispatched. The most devastating deaths on the show have all been women: last season’s long-time-coming murder of Abigail Hobbes, perhaps the only person we’ve seen Hannibal kill with any reluctance, and this season’s huge loss of FBI Agent Beverly Katz.
Even the one-off characters we’ve seen murdered (or at least victimized) have been given complex characterization over the course of their episode, for example the Cotard delusion-suffering Georgia Madchen (Ellen Muth), or Anna Chulmsky’s Clarice Starling stand-in Miriam Lass (recently revealed to be alive, although deeply damaged).
Kacey Rohl as Abigail Hobbs
Because the female victims on Hannibal are well-written, sympathetic, and interesting, the audience grieves for them. They are not merely dramatic beats to generate manpain for the dude heroes. (Will Graham nevertheless suffers epic amounts of manpain. This is his design.)
Hannibal clearly takes the murder of women seriously, and uses it as a source of dramatic pathos, not titillation. But an unfortunate consequence of this pattern is that midway through the second season, only one female character in the regular cast remains: Caroline Dhavernas’s Alana Bloom. And she’s a love interest for both Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter (which is not to say she’s been weakly characterized, but does seem to explain her survival).
Last woman standing: Alana Bloom
Hannibal is also running low on women in the recurring cast. Gillian Anderson’s Bedelia Du Maurier exited early in the second season, and the amoral journalist Freddie Lounds (one of several male characters from Thomas Harris’s novels that series developer Bryan Fuller rewrote as female) has only made brief appearances in two episodes this year.
The loss of Hettienne Park as Beverly Katz is particularly devastating, and not only because she was one of the precious stereotype-defying women of color on network TV. Katz’s sardonic sense of humor provided some much-needed comic relief, and her warm friendship with Will was perhaps one of the only psychologically sound relationships presented in the entire series.
Will Graham and Beverly Katz
And yes, it is immensely frustrating that when the powers that be decide someone important “needs to die” to up the stakes or prove “anyone is expendable” for that someone to be, yet again, a woman of color. (Tip to showrunners: WE KNOW you can kill anyone off. We’ve been watching TV the last ten years. It is not that shocking anymore, and not even remotely surprising when it is a woman or person of color on the chopping block. Some cast members are more expendable than others, and it’s easy to guess who you think they are. Please stop sacrificing representation on the altar of high drama.)
So while Hannibal has a refreshingly compassionate narrative approach to the murder of women (which is a phrase I never imagined I’d write), they’ve got to cool it with killing off the ladies in the cast. And they need to replenish the ranks with more well-crafted female characters, and they’re going to have to stay alive for a while. Because right now we’ve got too many dicks on the dance floor.
Robin Hitchcock is an American writer who is now afraid of mushrooms in the wild.
Despite how blasé the plot and character development are, despite the racism and sanctioning of torture of ‘In the Blood,’ I love the opportunity to see a woman on screen who is physically capable, strong, and is ultimately tougher than every man she faces. We don’t have enough female action movie stars. But guess what? Women like action movies, too, and we want to see other women in them as the leads, kicking ass and chewing bubblegum.
Written by Amanda Rodriguez Trigger Warning: discussion of torture and violence
As someone with a not-so-secret penchant for action movies and strong female character leads, I was pumped to see In the Blood, starring Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighting legend Gina Carano. I was particularly interested in this film because, in truth, it’s your basic action film where the lead must save a kidnapped loved one from the clutches of ne-er-do-wells, using the skills of body and brain that the lead has cultivated from a former, more violent life, but in this case the lead is a woman. Carano plays Ava, a newlywed on her honeymoon who must save her injured and disappeared husband from a web of corruption.
That kind of gender role reversal hardly ever happens in action movies. In fact, the best example in recent memory is Carano herself again flipping the script in 2011’s Haywire as a secret agent on a mission for justice after she’s been betrayed by those who trained her. Sound like the Bourne series much? But starring a woman. Confession: I was also pumped to see Haywire. Neither Haywire nor In the Blood are fantastic films. The plots of both are by-the-book with little that is exciting or memorable save the serious ass kicking and stuntwork of the awesomely physical Carano.
Ava goes MMA with a takedown in a nightclub
In the Blood showcases Carano’s martial arts skill with little that’s compelling in the way of backstory. Carano’s Ava had a semi-sadistic father on the wrong side of the law who doled out lessons in toughness, survival, and inflicting brutality. Why Ava’s technique is still so strong and clean after all these years is unclear. What does she do for a living now? Unknown. After a barroom brawl, her new husband questions, “What was that?” To which, Ava buries her head in his shoulder. This is a missed opportunity for the emotional development of our characters as well as for filling in plot holes.
Ava is a stone-cold killer
Though I love a good fist, knife, or even gun fight in a film, I’m not a fan of torture, which seems to have become a staple in the hardened (wo)man rescues loved one trope, and In the Blood is no exception. Many 80’s action movies managed to have the hero get information without torturing his enemies, and torture was, instead, an interrogation technique that these enemies used, thus showcasing their inhumanity. Ava tortures and murders a series of the unnamed island residents, all people of color, which is painfully problematic. They are, however, all men who’ve transgressed against her (many of them prepared to kill her), but a white woman torturing people of color crosses a line. In the Blood attempts to save itself from its racism by having impoverished island residents rally around Ava in the end to protect her from the evil overlord who hunts her.
The unnamed impoverished island exchanges one evil, unstable overlord for another
Despite how blasé the plot and character development are, despite the racism and sanctioning of torture of In the Blood, I love the opportunity to see a woman on screen who is physically capable, strong, and is ultimately tougher than every man she faces. We don’t have enough female action movie stars. But guess what? Women like action movies, too, and we want to see other women in them as the leads, kicking ass and chewing bubblegum. I also strongly suspect that from time to time men, too, want to see badass ladies running the show in the action genre.
Though I want to see other women fronting their own action movies (like my beloved Michelle Rodriguez), Gina Carano continues to be a stellar choice. Carano has repeatedly paved the way for other women even back in her MMA days when she became “the first female fighter to earn $100,000 for a fight.” I also love that Carano always struggled to make weigh-ins before her MMA matches because she’s so damn muscly. Though Carano told Women and Hollywood that she’s more interested in emotionally rich, character-driven parts, whispers of Carano taking on the Wonder Woman role abound. As a lover of Wonder Woman with a vociferous opinion on who should or shouldn’t play my favorite heroine, I say Carano’s got what it takes: the bulky muscular physique, the screen presence, and the martial arts skills that give the role a necessary realism. Somebody sign her up, and let’s start cranking out female-led action and superhero movies already!
Gina Carano: pure powerhouse muscle
Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.
A lot of rapes that occur on film and TV are unnecessary and unrealistic while subtly serving to punish the rape victim, to pruriently show the dehumanization of victims (most frequently women), and to trigger audience members who are survivors. A show like ‘Bates Motel’ that so cavalierly uses a tired and painful device in its first episode is definitely not worth my time.
Bates Motel drawing
Written by Amanda Rodriguez Trigger Warning: Rape, Sexual Assault
Since I really liked Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho when I was younger, I decided to give the A&E prequel series Bates Motela try. Despite that the cinematography was rich, the actors were quality, and the atmosphere was a great mix of foreboding while paradoxically retro and contemporary, I was roughly halfway through the first episode when I turned it off and washed my hands of it. What makes me think I can give a worthwhile review of a series that I watched for only 20-30 minutes? A rape occurs in that first episode about halfway in, and I know enough about TV formulas, characterizations, and plotlines to safely determine that this rape was gratuitous. A lot of rapes that occur on film and TV are unnecessary and unrealistic while subtly serving to punish the rape victim, to pruriently show the dehumanization of victims (most frequently women), and to trigger audience members who are survivors. A show like Bates Motel that so cavalierly uses a tired and painful device in its first episode is definitely not worth my time.
The Bates Motel at night
I generally think rating systems, especially Hollywood’s, are for the birds (maybe even the Hitchcockian birds… har, har). The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) is a joke with its Catholic priest sitting in on viewings along with its hatred of all things involving female pleasure (check out the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated to learn more about the secret society that is America’s rating board). I’ve been known to gleefully watch trailers, waiting for the rating description only to scoff, mock, and laugh. My personal favorite is still, “Some scenes of teen partying.” However, maybe I wouldn’t mind a system that cued its viewers in a way that, say, the new Swedish rating system does by integrating the now famous Bechdel Test to judge the level of female involvement in a film. If we’re going to be given a heads up about a film or TV show’s content prior to watching it, there should absolutely be a trigger warning system. The number of survivors of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) seems to be growing every day, so the compassionate, responsible thing to do would be to let viewers know if there are scenes of combat violence, sexual assault, child abuse, etc.
Norma Bates is attacked in her home
To give you an idea of the visceral response seeing certain triggering acts on film can cause in someone with PTSD, I’m going to describe to you what happened to me while watching the scene in Bates Motel where Norma Bates was attacked and raped in her home. The former owner of the Bates property, Keith Summers, breaks into the Bates house when Norma is home alone. He attacks her with a knife, brutally beats her, and rapes her. The familiar prickling of my skin and elevated heart rate kicked in when it became clear that Keith was planning to rape Norma. My thoughts were racing; I kept telling myself that she would get away, that she would fuck his shit up because she’s a manipulative murderess, but that didn’t happen. As Keith raped Norma, I found myself in a blind panic, yelling aloud, “STOP! STOP! STOP!” while crawling across the floor to get to the TV to turn it off because I no longer had the motor functions required to walk or use a remote control. After turning off the TV, I sat on the floor, breathing heavily, staring off in a daze. I did housework then, trying to calm down, trying to lift the feeling of dark ooze filling up inside me. After several hours of this, I was lucky enough to have a kind and perceptive friend call me, discern something was wrong, and let me vent about how upsetting and unnecessary the scene was.
Norma cleans up blood.
I ask you, should anyone be forced to go through that? I’ve continued to be bothered by that scene days later and outraged enough to be compelled to write about it. If there had been a warning at the beginning of the episode that it contained scenes of sexual violence, I would’ve been prepared or, more likely, chosen to watch something else.
Despite the fact that I was triggered by this scene, I have thought and thought about it as objectively as possible to discern whether or not the scene did have value, and my conclusion is that Norma’s rape was, in fact, a broad application of a storytelling technique that is overkill. The scene is designed to render Norma helpless and to give justification to her future actions and neuroses. Guess what? Norma was already crazy before she was raped; she may or may not have murdered her husband, and he may or may not have been an abusive asshole. She already had an unhealthily sexual relationship with her son as evinced by her jealousy, possessiveness, and physicality with him. Not only that, but home invasions are traumatic events on their own. Having her home broken into and being beaten and knifed by a man are all enough to give Norma PTSD and to incite dysfunctionality. We already have all the justification for her behavior here without having Norma raped as a cheap plot device.
Bloody Norma Bates
What is the function, then, of having Norma raped? Would this have happened if young Norman, instead, was home alone and Keith had attacked? It’s hard to see Norma’s rape as anything other than bringing a powerful woman low, turning her into an object that is acted upon, divesting her of her status as a subject. I also can’t help but see Norma’s rape as an intended lesson for Norman. After Norma told him he couldn’t go out, Norman climbed out of his window to hangout at a party with some cute girls. Knowing his mother was attacked and raped and he wasn’t around to stop it does more to service the forwarding of Norman’s feelings of responsibility and male protectiveness towards his mother, which I think still would’ve been possible if Norma suffered a home invasion and not a rape. This means Norma’s rape isn’t even about her. Talk about lack of subjectivity.
Norma and Norman after the attack
Norma’s rape is also problematic in the same way that many Hollywood depictions of rape are: they are intensely physically violent. Of course, rapes like that occur, and, of course, strangers rape people they’ve never met, but these things don’t happen with nearly the frequency their coverage by mainstream film and TV would lead us to believe. In addition to Bates Motel, some key examples of these physically brutal rapes are: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Downton Abbey, House of Cards (the rape is described by the survivor…not shown), Leaving Las Vegas, I Spit on Your Grave, and Straw Dogs (a Peckinpah film that caused massive controversy and was banned in the UK because the rape victim actually began to enjoy her rape). The list goes on and on. The problem with rape scenes like these are that they obscure and delegitimize rapes that are perpetuated without physical abuse. As far as the media is concerned, rapes where the victim is beaten are more cut-and-dry. The rape that occurs between friends or a married couple where the victim simply says “no” are apparently more questionable as to whether or not the victim “wanted it.” Depictions of such monstrous acts make it hard to see our fathers, brothers, husbands, and friends as rapists, but, most of the time, that’s who they are, not the psychotic strangers Hollywood would have use believe in.
Norma Bates meets her attacker
This mentality and this refusal to show the true gamut of situations in which rape and sexual assault occur is harmful to survivors. Because their rape didn’t involve slapping and screaming, it takes a long time for many survivors to even acknowledge and accept that they were raped. Many survivors doubt that their claims will be believed. Many survivors’ claims aren’t believed. This allows many perpetrators to go free without any consequences, and because there was no kicking and crying, I suspect many perpetrators don’t even believe that they are rapists. Isn’t that a scary thought? We value nuance and realism in film and TV characterization; why don’t we place the same value on the varied experience of survivors? Rape culture insists that we only see a narrow representation of rape because if we admit that rape occurs in so many different contexts and with so many different circumstances, then we must admit that rape is a pandemic, that survivors are telling the truth, and that we need to do something about it.
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Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.
On its surface, ‘True Romance’ comes off as yet another story about a guy who saves a girl from a horrible existence as a sex worker and he protects her forever and they live happily together forever and ever, the end. But, if you’ve ever seen it, you know that this is not the case. Alabama Whitman is a hero in her own right. She’s never apologetic about her sex life or her choices; they are what they are and she’s OK with it.
Proving that love is a strength, not a weakness
This guest post by Shay Revolver appears as part of our theme week on Representations of Sex Workers.
The year was 1993. For the most part the 90s were starting out to be a good year for non-traditional female characters in film. Having sat through Pretty Woman on video at a sleepover once, I found myself not impressed. I got that Julia Roberts’s character was a sex worker, but I didn’t get the whole appeal of a character whose sole purpose was to be a damsel in distress. I was always more of a fan of stories where a woman could handle herself and it was cool if a guy came along to help but, for the most part, she had it covered. True Romance was one of those films and the first time I saw it, I loved it so much that I watched it in the theater three times that day, only breaking for meals and bathroom breaks.
On its surface, True Romance comes off as yet another story about a guy who saves a girl from a horrible existence as a sex worker and he protects her forever and they live happily together forever and ever, the end. But, if you’ve ever seen it, you know that this is not the case. Alabama Whitman is a hero in her own right. She’s never apologetic about her sex life or her choices; they are what they are and she’s OK with it. In fact, had she not met and fallen in love with Clarence, her short career as a sex worker might have continued. After their met, via set-up, and fall in love, it was Clarence’s idea to save her. Alabama was content to just stay with him, or run away, and continue living her life as she wished. Clarence, on the other hand, feeling emasculated by the idea that her pimp Drexl still existed and had somehow sullied his wife’s virtue, goes on the offensive and decides to show how manly he is by being a valiant knight, retrieving her belongings and saving her from her past. He reads her logical concern for his safety as yet another challenge of his manhood and sets off to right the wrong.
Alabama the survivor
While Clarence goes off to play night in shining armor, which in this film is code for getting his tail kicked by Drexl and his body guard, Alabama sits at their apartment watching TV. She doesn’t actually think that Clarence would be stupid enough to actually go and confront Drexl. But he does, and after a stroke of luck with a misfired gun, Clarence returns to present his lady love with news of her former pimp’s demise and her things. Alabama finds this all super romantic because he fought for her. But not in the Pretty Woman, or traditional damsel in distress film, way where she falls into his arms and thanks him for taking her away to a better life because she never could have done it in her own kind of way. She thanks him because it was a sweet gesture and she really didn’t expect him to do it, or survive if he had, and she was happy that he cared enough to try. Alabama, being the smart, capable, woman that she was, would have been totally OK with leaving all of her stuff at Drexl’s and continuing her life with Clarence, never looking back. It wasn’t the “rescue” that made it romantic for her, it was the caring. Granted, Clarence’s motives were equal parts love and a male sense of ownership, but there was still something endearing about it.
There was also something endearing about the fact that you knew that this movie was about to go all kinds of crazy and with Alabama being the only female in a film full of men, you knew in that moment that she was going to be OK and would totally be able to handle herself. From the very beginning nothing about Alabama’s character said damsel in distress. Even when she was crying about being in love on the roof, that came off as genuine emotion and guilt for starting out on a lie. She was a real person and she was about to go through some real things and you felt for her. You rooted for her and above all else you wanted her to win.
Alabama and Clarence meet
The rest of the film follows Clarence and Alabama on a cross country trek to LA to unload the drugs that they discovered in Alabama’s suitcase. Clarence has no idea what he’s doing and there is something wonderful about watching Alabama stand by her man while slowly guiding him into making decisions that are better than the ones that he comes up with on his own. He listens to her suggestions and leans on her, just as much as she leans on him. They act like pure equals. Despite Alabama’s past he never treats her like anything other than a human being. He also doesn’t allow anyone else to. There is something nice about the way the film doesn’t paint broad stroke generalizations of women who choose to be in the sex industry. Her job choice wasn’t a scarlet letter that followed her. Outside of Clarence’s initial must-save-my-woman reaction at the beginning that spawned his initial jump to action, the fact that she used to be a sex worker wasn’t really brought up. She didn’t get the usual movie treatment of women who didn’t color in the lines, or who enjoyed sex, or who needed redemption. She existed and she was OK. She wasn’t forced to feel ashamed or bad about her choices. There wasn’t the typical punishment for her “actions” of being a sexual being, or getting paid for it. She was allowed as a character to grow outside of that mold.
Alabama defiant and strong in the face of fear
Throughout the film, Alabama proves herself stronger, and often smarter, than most of the males on screen. This strength and her smarts, combined with her survival instincts, drive the film. Watching her fight her way out of her hotel room, taking down James Gandolfini’s Virgil in pure gladiator style, was beautiful. She showed no fear, no hesitation, just power. And not the brute force, masculine power that Virgil displayed as he tossed her about but mental power. She realized that physically she was outmatched and used her brain. She was able to overpower him and eventually defeat him using her mental advantage. She didn’t wait it out for Clarence or another man to show up, which I’m sure most of the audience was expecting to happen after the brutal beating she received; she defeated him on her own. To this day, that scene is one of my favorite fight scenes in a film. Half of the audience expecting Clarence to barge in at the last moment, the other half hoping she would finish him off on her own and no one being disappointed with the outcome. That scene cemented Alabama Whitman as a hero, not just another pretty face in an iconic film, or a damsel in distress. After delivering that death blow she proved what anyone watching the film had known all along: she was a force to be reckoned with.
Alabama and Clarence get married
When Clarence finally does return to whisk her away to the drug deal so that they can put this gruesome past behind them and start like anew together in Mexico; she’s battered and bruised, but still OK. She sits there during the doomed drug deal, wearing her bruises like a badge of honor and still managing to show just enough feminine charm to keep things moving along while simultaneous giving off a “don’t mess with me” vibe. It was brilliant and beautiful. She retained her wits and strength throughout the downfall of the deal when everything crumbled around her and Clarence emerges from his chat with Elvis and gets shot in the eye amidst a massive shoot out. Alabama then saves the day again as she not only grabs the money but manages to drag an equally bloody and bruised Clarence out of the hotel room, through the lobby and on to safety.
In the on-screen version, Alabama and Clarence escape together and are seen frolicking on a beach in Mexico with their son. Clarence is missing an eye from the shoot out and you can see a happily ever after in their future. You’re very happy that they made it as a couple, but you’re even happier that Alabama got the life she wanted and you can’t help but cheer. Owning the special edition version of the DVD, I have seen the ending that Quentin Tarantino wrote. Tony Scott famously shot it and didn’t use it because he didn’t want to split up the couple; he wanted them to both win. In the Tarantino ending, Alabama drives off on her own with the money and heads on to her new life. Clarence is dead and she’s upset by his stupidity in not listening to her in the first place. It was a cold ending, but you are still happy knowing that she made it, she’s OK, and she will continue to be OK because she’s proven herself nothing close to a damsel in distress. She’s strong, smart, and capable. Most people who have seen both endings have their favorite. I will go on record and say that either way is fine with me because Alabama is a character that not only resonated with me but has also stuck with me since I first saw the film. She showed that even in a “guy” film, filled with testosterone, violence, and blood that the only woman on screen doesn’t have to be scenery, a distraction, a hindrance or some”thing” that needs protecting. She can hold her own with the guys and be a true equal in the story and on screen. We no longer had to be seen as victims or damsels in distress; we could be heroes too.
Shay Revolver is a vegan, feminist, cinephile, insomniac, recovering NYU student and former roller derby player currently working as a New York-based microcinema filmmaker, web series creator and writer. She’s obsessed with most books, especially the Pop Culture and Philosophy series and loves movies and TV shows from low brow to high class. As long as the image is moving she’s all in and believes that everything is worth a watch. She still believes that movies make the best bedtime stories because books are a daytime activity to rev up your engine and once you flip that first page, you have to keep going until you finish it and that is beautiful in its own right. She enjoys talking about the feminist perspective in comic book and gaming culture and the lack of gender equality in mainstream cinema and television productions. Twitter: @socialslumber13.
If you were once a certain type of precocious, fanciful preteen girl chances are you encountered ‘Flowers in the Attic.’
Maybe it was the cover drew you in, the face of a young girl, pale and uncertain, peering through red shutters, and when you opened it, three other eerie blonde children huddled together under the spectral form of a sinister old man. Who were these strange beautiful children? And why was unquestionably evil figure about to crush them with his bare hands? If you saw the cover, surely you had to wonder.
Lifetime promoted their 2014 TV movie with full knowledge of the book’s significance to readers
If you were once a certain type of precocious, fanciful preteen girl chances are you encountered Flowers in The Attic.
Maybe it was the cover drew you in, the face of a young girl, pale and uncertain, peering through red shutters, and when you opened it, three other eerie blonde children huddled together under the spectral form of a sinister old man. Who were these strange beautiful children? And why was unquestionably evil figure about to crush them with his bare hands? If you saw the cover, surely you had to wonder.
And then you had to read it, in secret most definitely, huddled under your covers gasping, passing it around at a sleepover, maybe you snooped through your parents’ or other sister’s copies or pursed through it at the house where you babysat. Or that one loud friend who gave you all the facts on sex recapped the story over school lunch.
The famous keyhole cover for Flowers in the Attic
Even if you didn’t read it, a lot of us did. First published in 1979, V.C. Andrews’s trash-classic has since sold more than 40 million copies worldwide and spawned 4 bestselling sequels known as the Dollanganger series. It also was the beginning of a ghostwritten empire of family saga books, full of Andrews’s favorite themes: incest, child abuse, rape, imprisonment, slut-shaming and beautiful girls wandering around in flimsy peignoirs.
Flowers is the story of four children hidden away in their grandparents’ attic so their mother can inherit a fortune from her father, who will disinherit her if he ever learns she had children with her late husband, her father’s brother and her half-uncle.
Like any book that couples salacious elements with overwrought highly purple prose, it’s both chilling and laughable, part fairytale, part gothic horror story, and as its success makes clear, it’s a delicate formula. The 1987 film adaptation starring the original Buffy (Kristy Swanson) and Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) was reviled by fans for excluding one element they felt crucial to the story: the incestuous relationship between brother Chris and sister Cathy. So when Lifetime announced plans for a TV movie remake they were quick to note their version would keep the incest intact.
Despite poor reviews, ratings-wise it was a huge success; according to the Hollywood Reporter , 6.1 million viewers tuned in to the film’s premiere Saturday night. The 1950s-set drama was also the highest rated basic cable TV movie since 2012.
Like the book, the film is full of heightened emotions. Every other line is delivered with a slap and an exclamation mark and the acting vacillates between wooden and frighteningly animated. Mad Men ’s Kiernan Shipka (maybe someday we’ll see her in a modern day role) who plays Cathy does as well as she can with a poorly paced script and clunky dialogue, often lifted directly from the book. It’s really not such strange territory for Shipka after playing Sally Draper through her difficult adolescence. Mason Dye as her onscreen brother/lover and Ava Telek and Maxwell Kovach as twins Carrie and Cory gave unremarkable performances, with the twins just hovering around the room not given anything to do.
Ellen Burstyn gave a nuanced performance as the children’s grandmother
As the children’s cruel grandmother, Ellen Burstyn gave her character some degree of ambiguity and humanity, particularly in her reaction to the children’s Christmas present. Burstyn allows the grandmother to become an interesting character when she visibly struggles with her affection for the children and at the film’s end, her own fears of the attic. I’ve gone back and forth on Heather Graham’s portrayal of the children’s mother, Corrine. Her line reading range from flat and vapid to manic and bug eyed with no sane middle ground, but if it’s an acting choice, it may be a good one as it does suit the character.
The Grandmother teaches the children a lesson about disobeying her by showing them their mother’s whipped back
For a story about people tempted to inflict and endure suffering for the promise of wealth, the film has cheap production values and poor effects (such as the whip marks on Corrine’s back that look like lipstick streaks) and never shows viewers the house’s glamour or gives the sense of opulence that gave the children their hopes even in the darkest moments. We are also informed of the passage of time, but never truly feel it, so it becomes difficult to relate to the characters’ ordeal. Though most of the creepy elements from the book are there: the beatings, the taring, the poisoned doughnuts, the film never becomes creepy as it should. For all its Gothic dressing, it’s still a Lifetime movie, cheesy and tonally awkward.
There are interesting ideas about vanity and appearance carried over from the book that become more significant in the film as a visual medium. The book’s premise, that Corrine refuses to work to support her family after her husband’s death, is given more sympathy in the film thanks to the constant reminders from the backdrop and clothing that the film is set in the 50s where this would be difficult for a woman.
Corrine explains why she needs her parents’ money
Born wealthy and raised to be a wife, she is also given a sad Daisy Buchanan quality, absent in the book, as she tells the children, she can’t support four children because she only knows how to look pretty. Her assertion in the book, that her incestous marriage was not sinful because her children are not physically deformed and are “perfect” is given more weight as the viewer can actually see the children and their grandmother’s appraisal of them. Here and in Cathy’s refusal to cut her hair when given the choice of cutting it or allowing herself and her siblings to starve, vanity is heightened to hubris as it leads Chris and Cathy into their relationship, which shows they are far from the perfect children their mother had assured herself they were.
There are some changes from the original story, the addition of electric fence as a pointless obstacle, the heavy handed symbolism of the deer being shot, but the most problematic (though it does make the film easier to watch) is the change of the main incest scene from a rape into a consensual encounter between siblings. I have to wonder if Lifetime felt they could tell story of incest and imprisonment, but that incest and imprisonment punctuated by rape (a Lifetime staple) would make the story too dreary.
Chris and Cathy engage in consensual romance
Though Chris explicitly acknowledges that it was a rape in the book, Cathy forgives him saying it was her fault because she could have fought him off if she didn’t want it, leaving it unclear to young readers what they supposed to believe about Cathy’s rape and who to blame in real life. A blogger who writes as The Fifth Dollanganger runs the blog, The Complete Annotated VC Andrews Blog-o-Rama frequently posts the search terms readers use to access her blog. Some of them include things like “flowers in the attic chris and cathy make love” and “flowers in the attic sex excerpt”, showing at least some readers misinterpreted the dynamics of the scene. By making a rape scene into a love story, Lifetime lessens the gothic horror of the story, as well as romanticizing and confusing the abusive conditions Cathy faces. Though there is one scene where Chris is rough towards Cathy and grabs her wrists, he stops quickly when he is asked to, suggesting Cathy has the power in the situation and could indeed stop him if he wanted to hurt her, a very problematic message for the film to give.
The removal of Chris’s aspiration to be a doctor from the film takes away the authority the book allows him, adding power imbalance to the conditions leading up to the rape. As a would-be doctor, he approaches the removal of the tar from Cathy’s hair as an experiment and gives the excuse of clinical interest for his fascination with Cathy’s naked body and developing breasts. Whittled down to such easy gender roles, Chris and Cathy are starkly contrasted as boy doctor doll and girl ballerina doll. In caring from their young siblings, Chris’s aspiration towards this ideal 50’s husband profession casts him as the ideal masculine father, paired easily with ballerina Cathy as a feminine mother. It also allows his to take over from his father in his authority over his sister, as he frequently knows more about Cathy’s body than she does. It is Chris who tells their mother to buy bras and pads for Cathy and instigates the sex talk between mother and daughter. Cathy’s relationship with her father is given an incestous element in the film as she refers to the ring her gave her as a promise ring, a deeply creepy custom which allows him guardianship of her virginity. As Chris becomes the male head of the family, her also takes “ownership” of Cathy.
We’ll have to see what happens with the upcoming sequel based on the second Dollanganger book, Petals on the Wind, which Lifetime green-lit even before the first film aired. The book includes three additional rapists as love interests for Cathy.
Corrine lounges on the legendary swan bed, living in luxury while her children suffer
But I have to wonder who is meant to enjoy this movie. There’s no fun at all if you have no familiarity with the material, be it nostalgia or morbid curiosity. Though its suggested for teens on Lifetime’s website, the film has a mature content warning and airs on a channel targeted to older women. And anyone who read the books when they were younger is at that stage where their former interest amuses or embarrasses them, to watch it and talk comfortably about it, I think you need a mix of both.
Flowers in the Attic is ultimately the kind of story you’d act out with your Barbies, it’s appeal belongs in your youth, before you’re too self aware, too conscious of reality, the workforce and job training, of sex and money. They belong to that time when you think adult women just lie around in silks and feathers, eating pastel candies and periodically putting on gowns and dancing with gentlemen. They have to pass into your consciousness like a young girl’s daydream, Cathy’s salacious horror, her sexual curiosity, her bright ambition for attention and beauty and love. When you encounter it you have to be the type of girl who reads too much, plays elaborate fantasy games at recess and runs through long scenarios in math class of what she’d do with millions upon millions of dollars. A girl who wanted to be a ballerina, then an actress, then an artist, then a witch and then an impossibly glamourous authoress lounging around in marabou heels and furs. A girl who puts on Shakespeare plays in the backyard and wears cat’s eye sunglasses, a feather boa and jean shorts and it never occurs to her to find it crazy.
Cathy looks out the attic window, uncertain if she will ever be free
I think the film’s real failure is in its removal from the forbidden environment of taboo consumption, presented onscreen and sanitized for grown-ups where there’s nothing to fear in engaging. As with the books, the only way to give the story its enduring significance is to watch in secret, imposing your prepubescent imaginings over the narrative. It’s the type of story that needs the constant fear that someone will burst in the door and find you, engaged in the literary equivalent of masturbation.
Elizabeth Kiy is a Canadian writer and freelance journalist living in Toronto, Ontario. She recently graduated from Carleton University where she majored in journalism and minored in film.
Not surprisingly, ‘Jack Ryan’ gloriously fails the Bechdel test. While there are several female characters, they are disconnected and they spend their screen time helping Ryan in various ways. There’s the fresh-faced girl-next-door office assistant in a Catholic-school jumper (Hannah Taylor Gordon) that Ryan’s sketchy coworker ogles around their male-dominated office. On the other end of the super secret CIA cell phone there’s the phone-sex voice that arranges for Ryan’s suite to be cleaned after the assassination attempt. There’s the icy Russian assistant (Elena Velikanova) that escorts Ryan to Cheverin’s office. There’s the token female asian tech (Gemma Chan) in the spy van and the token black female tech (Montego Glover) in the spy plane.
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit U.S. Theatrical Release Poster
It’s the summer of 1990. You’ve gone down the ocean (this means you’re from Baltimore and you’ve gone to the beach). Blissfully unaware that UV light is a potent mutagen, you look upon the masses sitting in the sand. What are they reading? Does the cover art feature Bodoni typeface and a stylized tank or a fighter jet or a fucking grenade strapped to a knife carrying a gun? It does, because it’s one of the legion of techno-spy thrillers authored by Tom Clancy. Five have been made into feature films: The Hunt for Red October (1990); Patriot Games (1992); Clear and Present Danger (1994); The Sum of All Fears (2002); and now, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014). Continue reading “‘Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit’: Oil, War, Money, Movie!”
Rewatching Fargo the other day, it struck me that Marge Gunderson’s pregnancy barely figures into the film.But I challenge you to find a review of the film that doesn’t note that the character is pregnant. And If you can, I’ll find you ten more that describe her as “very pregnant” or “heavily pregnant” so as to underline this seemingly crucial detail.
Clearly, we find Marge Gunderson’s pregnancy striking and notable. But can we sit back for a moment and examine why?
Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson in Fargo.
Rewatching Fargo the other day, it struck me that Marge Gunderson’s pregnancy barely figures into the film. She gets a wave of morning sickness at a crime scene, it comes up in her small talk with Mike Yanagita, and in pillow talk with her husband. But Marge and Norm talk more (a lot more) about stamp art than their impending parenthood.
But I challenge you to find a review of the film that doesn’t note that the character is pregnant. And If you can, I’ll find you ten more that describe her as “very pregnant” or “heavily pregnant” so as to underline this seemingly crucial detail.
Clearly, we find Marge Gunderson’s pregnancy striking and notable. But can we sit back for a moment and examine why?
Marge Gunderson is curious as well
Marge was (and sadly, 18 years later, remains) a refreshing female character largely because she’s not defined by her gender. She solves the case through good police work, not some kind of “intuition.” She’s incredibly sweet, but so is nearly everyone around her: Fargo gets a lot of thematic and comedic mileage out of “Minnesota Nice.” In this setting, kindness is not a feminized trait.
Almost everyone is nice in Fargo
I suspect the Coen brothers decided to make the character pregnant, and then to make that fact so peripheral, was a way of doubling down on the irrelevance of Marge’s womanhood. And I have mixed feelings about that. Even though it is effectively refreshing to see a pregnant woman represented in film as something more than an active baby-factory, I don’t like the implication that pregnant women are somehow “extra female.”
Marge Gunderson aiming her gun
And I worry that viewers’ tendency to spotlight Marge Gunderson’s pregnancy is rooted in that concept, in direct contrast to her characterization. She’s one of the most recognizably human characters in film, and I worry we all find that so remarkable because she’s not only—gasp—a woman, but a seven-months-pregnant woman to boot. How can she be so competent and likable and human when she’s not only a woman, but a woman at seven-ninths of her peak womanliness!? It’s dehumanizing to women and pregnant women, cissexist, and (to use any feminist critic’s favorite word) all-around problematic.
Nauseated Marge Gunderson
To slightly-misquote Marge Gunderson herself, I think I’m gonna barf.
So maybe let’s all pause before we append Marge’s name or job title with “pregnant” in our discussions of the rightfully revered character. Let’s focus on her appeal, her goodness, and Frances McDormand’s wonderful performance. Let’s make her pregnancy as much of a non-issue as it is in the film.
———————————– Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town, South Africa, don’tcha know.
