Tim Burton – Bitch Flicks

“We’re All Mad Here”: A Closer Look at the Children of Oz, Fantasia, and Wonderland

Though Dorothy’s relationship with her aunt improves at the end of the film narrative, she still keeps her “imaginative” self hidden from her. When Dorothy calls for her aunt to come and see Ozma, Oz’s daughter and heir, in the mirror, the blond girl just shakes her head and presses her finger to her lips. It’s a really telling a moment, a moment that opens a dialogue about the obvious division between adults and children.

This is a guest post by Ashley Barry.

When I was younger, I had an imagination that was overflowing with all manners of people and expansive lands. Entertained by my own thoughts and ideas, I would play by myself for hours and hours on end. I used to dread play dates because I much preferred the company of my rich imagination and the companions that resided within it. What was the point of interacting with an ordinary person my age when I could be taking a refreshing dip with mermaids or assisting a prince on his journey through a dense, dangerous jungle? My mother would frequently find me, an odd and pensive child, in the most peculiar places: sitting cross legged atop the kitchen counter, wedging myself behind the furnace, and, much to her dismay and frustration, climbing around in my dad’s tool closet.

I’m now an adult woman and, aside from getting a little taller and acquiring more responsibilities, not much has changed in terms of my colossal imagination and insatiable hunger for fiction. I’m a 27-year-old woman who still likes to play and pretend, a kind of mindset that we should never age out of but often do. Even when functioning within an adult sphere at my workplace, I occasionally glance out the skyscraper window and imagine there’s an enormous dragon peering in at me. I allowed my imagination, despite my age and what society may deem appropriate. Adults who continue to nourish their imaginations are, more often than not, negatively stigmatized because it’s juvenile and childish. Why? What’s wrong with stubbornly grasping onto that childlike part of ourselves? Having an imagination is one of the best things a person can possess. It should never be dismissed or considered useless. On the flip side of this issue, there are several mediums in which fictional adults attempt to rid children of their imaginations and imaginative thoughts. How come?

In Return to Oz, Dorothy Gale, the heroine of the film, is sent away by her aunt to receive shock therapy because she’s unable to sleep due to her memories of Oz. However, prior to her visit to the mental institution, there’s a moment where Dorothy presents a mysterious key to her aunt. She excitedly tells her aunt that the key bears the Oz symbol and yet her aunt dismisses her claim. Her aunt then goes on to remind Dorothy to not talk about Oz because it’s just her imagination. Rather than believing Dorothy’s claim, the scene further supports the idea that the imaginative child is a child that requires some kind of fixing. Though Dorothy’s relationship with her aunt improves at the end of the film narrative, she still keeps her “imaginative” self hidden from her. When Dorothy calls for her aunt to come and see Ozma, Oz’s daughter and heir, in the mirror, the blond girl just shakes her head and presses her finger to her lips. It’s a really telling a moment, a moment that opens a dialogue about the obvious division between adults and children.

I always envied fictional children like Dorothy Gale and Alice Liddell. How could I not? They possessed agency in their own fantastical realms, befriended magical creatures, and experienced once-in-a-lifetime adventures (sometimes misadventures). Were their friends and experiences any less real than mine? Rather than looking to fictional adults for assistance and guidance, these fictional children oft rely on their wits and inner strengths. Whether it was Atreyu’s miserable trek through the swamp of sadness or Alice outsmarting an evil Queen that’s overly fond of beheading others, fictional children are just as capable and complex as adults, but they don’t always receive the proper credit or consideration they deserve. When operating as agents outside of their whimsical kingdoms, adults commonly other them.

When it comes to the representation of children in pop culture at large, most mediums commonly illustrate the dichotomy of power between adults and children. One of the more prominent examples that I can think of is the infamous power struggle in Matilda (1996). There’s a constant battle for power between Miss Trunchbull, a shockingly abusive school principal, and Matilda, a puny girl that can move objects with the power of her mind. There’s a scene in which Miss Trunchbull, large and horrible with her mess of teeth, loudly informs Matilda that she’s big and right and overall better than our exceptionally smart heroine:

“Even if you didn’t do it, I’m going to punish you because I’m big and you’re small and I’m right and you’re wrong and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Matilda’s an interesting example because she’s mature and capable, but she’s still able to sustain her imagination and lose herself in a good book. She pushes against the idea that imaginative children are aloof, lost, or incapable. There’s a lovely instance in which Matilda, who’s much younger at this point in the film, is giggling in an oversized chair in the library, amused by whatever it is she’s reading. Viciously mean and dismissive of children and their ideas, Miss Trunchbull is a villain through and through. I always adored Roald Dahl because I felt that he was always rooting for the children in his novels. He crafted such detestable adult villains, adults that couldn’t be trusted or relied upon. He also created wonderful child characters that never lost sight of their imagination and used it as a way to succeed or solve problems.

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010) is very positive in its presentation of imaginative children and adults. Like Dorothy, Alice frequently wakes up at night because of her fanciful experiences in Wonderland. However, at the beginning of the film, there’s a moving scene between Alice when she’s a little girl and her father. When she tells him that she thinks she might be mad due to her memories of Wonderland, her father informs her that all the best people usually are. He’s one of the few fictional adults that believes in Alice and is on her side. He’s not at all dismissive of her and her “imagined” experiences.

I adore adult Alice because she’s a positive representation of a creative person with an endless imagination. Though some adults are dismissive of her and think her a dreamer, I see her as an innovator and a person who is more than capable of changing the world. When her mother discovers that her daughter isn’t wearing a corset or stockings, I couldn’t help but laugh and like her even more. She doesn’t adhere to norms or traditions, a sure sign of a person who thinks outside the box. There’s a spectacular instance at the end of the film when she’s standing atop the deck of a ship that’s about to depart. As a blue butterfly lands on her shoulder, a friend from Wonderland, she welcomes him and doesn’t deny or overlook his existence. She grows to accept that Wonderland is not a dream, but a fragment of her true self. The film is really about reacquainting oneself with a lost and or forgotten identity.

The NeverEnding Story (1984) is another film that celebrates creativity and imagination. Bastian, the boy protagonist, differs from the other fictional children in that he nearly destroys Fantasia because of what his father says in one of the first scenes. When the childlike Empress pleads for his help, frantically asking him why he doesn’t “do as he dreams,” he tells her that he has to keep his feet on the ground, which was the exact phrase his father had said to him at the beginning of the movie narrative. It’s a frightening instance because his father almost hammered his whimsical ways out of him. When he saves Fantasia and accepts himself as the dreamer that he is, he’s able to cross into Fantasia or bring the creatures of Fantasia into his own world. The ending montage is great because it shows a much happier Bastian riding Falkor, the luck dragon, in both worlds.

The children of Oz, Fantasia, and Wonderland prevailed over the adults that attempted to fix or dissuade them. These fictional children are innovative, ambitious, and victorious. If anything, their innovativeness got them through various obstacles. I’ll always fight against the stigmatization of imaginative adults and children. I sure as hell know I’ll forever have one foot in an imagined realm because that’s where I belong and love to be.

Ashley Barry works at a publishing house in Boston and holds a master’s degree in children’s literature. Though her background is in the book business, she loves writing about all mediums. She’s also a contributing writer for a video game website called Not Your Mama’s Gamer. She can be reached at abarry4099@gmail.com.

Amy Adams Talks About Her Role as Painter Margaret Keane in ‘Big Eyes’

The actress added, “Being an artist and being a mom sometimes keeps you at odds and not to say you can’t do it, but an artist can feel very isolated, very narcissistic, and being a parent needs to be something completely different and so I understood that sort of thing and trying to make the right decisions and then getting caught in a lie with your child. That was something I found really fascinating and I was really interested by that dynamic.”

This is a guest post by Paula Schwartz.

“The 50s were a good time if you were a man,” an unseen narrator says at the beginning of director Tim Burton’s latest bizarre tale, Big Eyes. The movie is based on the stranger-than-fiction story of artist Margaret Keane and her husband Walter Keane, who signed his name on her paintings of saucer-eyed, forlorn-looking waifs that were everywhere in the 60s.

Amy Adams, always terrific, and Christoph Waltz, in his usual effective turn as a weirdo, both landed Golden Globe nominations in the comedy lead acting categories. Screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who worked with Tim Burton on Ed Wood, also received an Independent Spirit Award nomination. And the Women’s Film Critics Circle, of which I am a member, gave the film the dubious distinction of citing it this year’s worst male images in a movie.

The colorful tale begins after Margaret flees her abusive husband in the late 50s for San Francisco, where she seeks a better life for her and her daughter. She meets the sweet-talking Walter at a street fair where he admires her paintings of children with sad-looking, enormous peepers. His Parisian street scene painting he claimed were inspired by his life and study in Paris. She falls for him. Soon she realizes she’s never actually seen him paint.

After they married, Walter talked Margaret into letting him put his signature on her paintings. Nobody buys “lady art,” he told her. In the beginning she was a willing but reluctant accomplice, but soon she felt the enormous cost of giving up her name and ownership of her greatest passion, her art. Walter was a genius at marketing. He bypassed the snooty gallery owners who detested the paintings and made a fortune when he mass-produced them as prints, posters and other tchotchkes.

By the time the fraud was uncovered in the 1970, Margaret’s paintings, which in their time were either adored or reviled, were no longer in style, and her story forgotten or never much known. Big Eyes, a Weinstein Company release, is as much about Margaret’s personal and professional awakening as it is about the perpetration of an art fraud. But it’s also about how Margaret’s paintings of urchins with enormously dilated pupils captured the zeitgeist of those trippy times.

Margaret, who at 87 is very much alive and still painting, attended the New York premiere last week and had a ball promoting the film, according to Adams, who participated in a press conference for Big Eyes last week at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan. Burton and screenwriters Alexander and Karaszewski also attended along with cast members Christoph Waltz, Danny Huston, Krysten Ritter, and Jason Schwartzman.

DSCN6326 — Amy Adams, at a *Big Eyes* press conference

Burton, who generally works with the same cast over and over, notably Johnny Depp, who has been in eight of his films, and Helena Bonham Carter, from whom he just separated, was asked about his casting choices for the leads. Burton replied, “Obviously they’re great actors. He’s Walter. She’s Margaret. And it was just fresh energy for me to work with new people ’cause everybody’s been getting sick of the people I was working with,” he laughed.

As portrayed in the film, Margaret is a timid woman and a single mother with few options in an era of rampant sexism. She found her voice after she left Walter and landed in Hawaii where she became a Jehovah’s Witnesses after a few of them happened to come to her door. She credits them with her resolve and determination to tell the truth. It is great fun to watch Adams portray her character’s transformation into a steely and determined woman resolved to take back her ownership of her paintings, no matter what you think of the portraits. (I hated them back in the 60s and hate them even more now that the children smile instead of frown.)

My favorite scene in the movie is the court showdown between Margaret and Walter. She sued him for slander after he insisted he was the painter of the signature works. The judge staged a paint-off and ordered Walter and Margaret to recreate a painting in front of him and the jury. Margaret produced a painting in under an hour. The unhinged Walter, who acted as his own lawyer, complained of shoulder pains and never painted a stroke. (Until his death in 2000, Walter insisted the paintings were his.)

At the press conference, Adams was asked if the appeal of playing a subtle character like Margaret was that it came after her role as the brassy femme fatale in David O. Russell’s American Hustle.

“I didn’t really think of her as a subtle person. I just thought of her as Margaret and that’s Margaret, so it wasn’t as though I was aiming to portray a thing. I was portraying a person and she’s a very understated human being although she gave us some zingers the other night,” Adams laughed. Margaret, who is conservative and dresses primly, attended a dizzying round of receptions, screenings and premieres to promote the film last week.

Adams noted she met Margaret only a couple of weeks before they began to shoot the film and the two sat down and talked. (Margaret has a cameo where she’s sitting on a park bench.) Adams said, “The thing that I liked about Margaret, and what I thought kept her from being a victim, because I didn’t want her to seem like a victim, is when you talk to her she still takes responsibility.”

Margaret has some compassion for Walter. She told Adams, “‘Maybe if I didn’t lie he would not have turned out like he did,’ she told me.” She added, “Margaret also gives Walter credit for her career, saying ‘I wouldn’t be known if it wasn’t for him and he was a genius at what he did and I would never have the following I have today.’”

In response to a question about how she related to the film and her character and how being a parent informed her performance, Adams said she read the script before she became a mother: “I saw Margaret one way and then after I had my daughter and had been a mom for about four years, I saw her completely in a totally different way.”

Adams also related to Margaret’s discomfort in front of a crowd, like the press conference in which most question were directed at her and Burton. “Like, gosh, I have to talk in front of people,” she laughed. “But yeah, it played a great deal in how I related to the role, and Margaret said something great the other day. She was asked what she wanted people to walk away from the movie. She said, “’Stand up for yourself. Be true to yourself. Read your Bible and don’t lie.’”

The movie makes meaningful comments on the overwhelming sexism of the time, and Adams was asked if by the 70s Margaret identified with the feminist movement. Margaret wasn’t part of any movement, Adams replied: “As she puts it, ‘I was in a closet making paintings,’ so I like the way that Larry and Scott brought that into the movie because I do think whether intentional or not she did do something that was very much of the moment in standing up for herself and I do like that that sort of coincided with such a great portion of the feminist movement.”

After the press conference, Adams told me, “It was nice to get to play a woman, who even if it was unbeknownst to her, really spoke for a lot of women.”

On another note, the Weinstein Company sent out a press release supporting Amy Adams, who went on the Today show the other day but whose appearance was pulled when she expressed reservations about talking about the Sony hacking scandal.

The TWC release read: “We firmly stand behind Amy Adams. We’ve been lucky enough to have had her talents grace several of our films. We are certain her fellow actors and directors would all agree, she is nothing but the consummate professional both on and off set. Amy decided to speak up for herself and express her disappointment that Today would feel the need to ask her a question she did not feel comfortable, and rather than respect her opinion or continue the discussion, the reaction was to pull her appearance from the show.”

Amy Adams took the message of Big Eyes to heart. Can anyone imagine the Today show canceling Bradley Cooper or any other A-list male actor for the same reason they pulled Amy Adams’ appearance?

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Paula Schwartz is a veteran journalist who worked at the New York Times for three decades. For five years she was the Baguette for the New York Times movie awards blog Carpetbaggers. Before that she worked on the New York Times night life column, Boldface, where she covered the celebrity beat. She endured a poke in the ribs by Elijah Wood’s publicist, was ejected from a party by Michael Douglas’s flak after he didn’t appreciate what she wrote, and endured numerous other indignities to get a story. More happily she interviewed major actors and directors–all of whom were good company and extremely kind–including Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Clint Eastwood, Christopher Plummer, Dustin Hoffman and the hammy pooch “Uggie” from The Artist. Her idea of heaven is watching at least three movies in a row with an appreciative audience that’s not texting. Her work has appeared in Moviemaker, more.com, showbiz411 and reelifewithjane.com.

‘Big Eyes’ for a Big Year

Until the release, ‘Big Eyes’ looks like a promising movie to end off the empowering year of the woman. Flexing in the face of men, Margaret Keane’s story translates to roadblocks women surpass on the daily at the workplace and at home. Depending on how Burton captures Margaret’s story, Amy Adams has the opportunity to do women justice and end off the year of feminism with a bang–a big-eyed bang.

This is a guest post by Samah Ali.

It’s been a big year for feminism. Tight throats have softened as women and men voice their opinions on equality as the fire of third wave feminism ignites in the next generation. Iconic moments like “Feminist” echoing across nations during Beyoncé’s Vanguard Performance and Emma Watson’s HeForShe Campaign uniting the sexes for a greater tomorrow clearly shows that not only was this the year of the woman, but this was the year of feminism.

As the Oscar circuit releases movies about struggling, white men on power trips, there is solace in Tim Burton’s Big Eyes to reflect on the powerful year for women and feminism. With a talented female lead and enough buzz to get nominations, Big Eyes has the means to add to the number of women who showed off this year.

[youtube_sc url=” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xD9uTlh5hI”]

Amy Adams takes on the role as Margaret Keane, a painter whose portraits of big-eyed children are falsely sold as her husband’s, Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz). Growing sick and tired of her lie and unaccredited work, Margaret takes Walter to court in hopes to gain rightful ownership and acknowledgement for her paintings. This is a timeless story applicable today as women continuously break the glass window in their lines of work.

Bullied by the fact that “people don’t buy lady art,” Margaret’s true story translates to women overcoming stereotypes and validating their creative expression today. As Shonda Rhimes casually dominates Thursday primetime, some are still threatened that an “Angry Black Woman” is capable of writing and running the year’s most successful television dramas. And as Lena Dunham’s Not That Kind of Girl book tour came to a slow halt due to right-winged, sexual assault accusations, evidently women are still receiving bigoted doubts in a male-dominated field. Fighting the power in true Public Enemy style, Shonda still ran Thursday primetime, Lena’s book tour still continued, and Margaret still fought for her paintings. Resilience and women–it’s like coffee and cream.

Since Big Eyes highlights the power relation between Margaret and Walter, the movie shows another angle to abusive relationships after countless awareness projects, essays, and declarations over the past few months. The opportunity for another angle on abuse captures how tired one grows after being caught in a web of lies surrounding rape, violence, or mental persuasion. Convinced that no one would believe her talents, Margaret allowed her husband to take credit for her work until she had the courage to stand against him in the public eye. As more victims of abuse come out as an act of solidarity, Big Eyes can be a platform to encourage similar acts and show the true victor in victims.

Nevertheless, there are some questions to be answered as the movie plays out.

Considering the story is about a female defying sexist opinions toward her art, why was Tim Burton given the directorial role as opposed to an acclaimed female director? Maybe Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids are All Right, 2010)? Maybe anyone? Even though Burton is a fabulous, wonky director, he is still a man with male experiences in a man’s world. Not quite the angle needed since the movie is about a woman with female experiences in a man’s world. Hmph.

This carries over to the point of view: expectations assume that Margaret’s story will be told how she saw it, a violation of her creative expression and plagiarism of her work. But if told from the perspective of her husband, Margaret may appear as a backstabbing housewife who overstepped her bounds. Hopefully Burton will get it right because another male-driven movie is unwanted here.

However the most disappointing result would be if Big Eyes does not pass the Bechdel Test. Let’s pray the script allows Margaret’s conversations to go deeper than the actions of her husband and more into her identity as a woman breaking boundaries. After all, if this female-driven movie can’t even pass the Bechdel Test then what other Oscar bid is there?

Until the release, Big Eyes looks like a promising movie to end off the empowering year of the woman. Flexing in the face of men, Margaret Keane’s story translates to roadblocks women surpass on the daily at the workplace and at home. Depending on how Burton captures Margaret’s story, Amy Adams has the opportunity to do women justice and end off the year of feminism with a bang–a big-eyed bang.

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Samah is a dedicated film buff seeking films that enhance the movie watching experience by provoking thought, emotions, and relation between the audience and the screen. With a passion for storytelling and ample free time, she looks for the next feature to preach about to the masses. @samahaliii

Horror Week 2012: ‘Sleepy Hollow’: Deeply Shallow

This is a guest review in conversation by Bexy Bennett and Amanda Civitello.

Lady Van Tassel (Miranda Richardson)

As a director, Tim Burton specializes in eerie, off-kilter films that frequently skirt the edge of light horror with a distinctive aesthetic; 1999’s Sleepy Hollow is one of his earliest forays into the genre. Starring Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, and Miranda Richardson, the lavishly-produced film is an adaptation of the short story by Washington Irving, and tells the re-imagined tale of Ichabod Crane and his efforts to solve a series of murders in the small New York town of Sleepy Hollow. While Sleepy Hollow effectively creates the kind of visually rich, engrossing film viewers expect from Burton, it is also full of curious decisions that cast its female characters in frequently (unflattering) lights. This review, a (transatlantic) dialogue between friends, aims to track the ways in which these narrative and directorial decisions affect the portrayal of Sleepy Hollow’s women, making problematic characters of Lady Van Tassel (Miranda Richardson) and her step-daughter, Katrina Van Tassel (Christina Ricci).

[BB]: I think the first angle we should consider is the woeful lack of strong women who aren’t insane, though Lady Van Tassel is likely better described as angry. She’s probably insane with the need for revenge, but everything she does is very cool, calculated, and intelligent. But first of all, what do we define as a ‘strong woman’? I suppose for me it’s a woman capable of acting in her own interests and making choices for herself. And, in the words of a friend, “she does what she needs to do.”

[AC]: I think that’s a good place to start. And a strong character doesn’t have to be a nice one, but I think that he or she does have to be more than a narrative device. And in this film, I think there’s only one female character who really fits that bill.

[BB]: It’s interesting that Lady Van Tassel – the wicked stepmother – is actually new to the Burton film, whose script rewrites the story.

[AC]: Lady Van Tassel is probably the first casualty of the new script. She’s not the character who’s mentioned only obliquely in the story, Van Tassel’s ‘noble wife’ who’s happily occupied with keeping her home; this character exists in the film, but she’s already dead. Lady Van Tassel is the second wife, stepmother to the sweetly angelic Katrina, Ichabod’s love interest. Obviously Sleepy Hollow is significantly different from Irving’s short story, but I can’t help but wonder at the decision to write the script they way they did. Increasing Katrina’s role is understandable – and problematic, as I’m sure we’ll discuss – but the reinterpretation of Lady Van Tassel is troubling, too. Rewriting her as the stepmotherly villain certainly emphasizes the fairy-tale aspect of the story, and that’s something that frequently fascinates Tim Burton, but Irving’s story works well as a fairy-tale, too, with the Brom-Katrina-Ichabod love triangle. I wonder why they chose to rewrite Lady Van Tassel as they did, particularly given that there’s a ready-made villain in Brom. Why make that decision, and further, why send Lady Van Tassel so far over the cusp of madness?

[BB]: This is interesting actually. It’s been so long since I read the short story I forgot all about Brom’s role as the ‘villain,’ but in Burton’s adaptation Brom, though he begins initially as something of an antagonist, actually redeems himself when he fights off the Hessian and is, sadly, killed. In contrast, Lady Van Tassel reveals her backstory, reveals how she has suffered at the hands of the Van Garretts and the Van Tassels – suffering which perhaps explains her need for vengeance, yet she remains utterly unsympathetic and is portrayed in an increasingly unflattering light. Her strength is negated by her evilness, and she becomes increasingly unhinged.

[AC]: I think you’re right in that her evilness seems to counteract her strength. She might be the only female character working with a degree of individual agency, but because she’s working toward nefarious ends, she’s not someone to be emulated. And then by pairing her opposite Katrina, we’re left with the idea that women must either be power-hungry and crazed or meek and lovesick.

[BB]: Although does the intended genre of Burton’s adaptation effect the characterisation of his female characters?

[AC]: Irving’s short story is an effective fairy tale – it’s written in fairytale language (Katrina’s described in idealized terms, her father is noble and good, etc.) and follows the basic structure of a fairytale (there’s a hardscrabble hero fighting against the establishment man for the hand of the pretty daughter of the town’s leading citizen; some past event has created the conditions for the present trouble to occur, etc.). Unfortunately, in Irving’s story, the hero doesn’t actually succeed – but endings are easy enough to alter. Burton made more far-reaching changes than that with his characterization of a new Lady Van Tassel.

[BB]: But why change the villain if Burton already had the bones of a fairytale? If he wanted it to fit into the horror genre, sure, throw in a real undead horseman, but keep the villain. Although is romance a good enough motive? I suppose we can’t ignore the plot either – for a movie requires more action than does a short story, particularly one nuanced like Irving’s – but even that explanation falls short.

[AC]: It’s actually as if Burton took the situation and the concept of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and went from there. It’s really not much of an adaptation at all; it just borrows the characters and places and reimagines them in a completely different context; there’s so very much that’s different about it that I don’t know whether we ought to be comparing the two. At the very least, Burton’s Lady Van Tassel has some agency; she has her moments of clarity and moments of madness, and ultimately, the former are most certainly at the service of the latter. When she’s not raging, she’s certainly the strongest female character of the film. But she’s beset by violent tendencies, however much a product of childhood traumas; she’ll never be a role model for the children.

[BB]: Strong women don’t necessarily need to be role models, though. I certainly wouldn’t want my children to raise the headless horseman from the dead to exact revenge for previous injustices, but I can admire Lady Van Tassel’s forbearance – she and her sister are left alone, as children, in the Western Woods, yet she ensures their survival and raises herself to a position of some importance in the village. Of course her motives are questionable but does that diminish her strength?

Katrina Van Tassel (Christina Ricci)

[AC]: Given the way that the other lead female character is portrayed, I have the impression that it’s a deliberate editorial decision to make the one strong female character into the antithesis of a role model. The audience is meant to identify – or if not identify, at least feel for – sweet Katrina Van Tassel, who does all she can to save the man she loves. But Katrina isn’t nearly as well-rounded a character as Lady Van Tassel. She’s more of a generic type of filler than anything else; to compensate for the lack of development of Katrina’s character, it’s as if they wanted to ensure that Lady Van Tassel would be so offensive and so off-putting that they made her into something bordering on a monstrous caricature. Even the costuming is meant to emphasize this: Katrina is almost always dressed in pale colors, frequently in white, whereas Lady Van Tassel is dressed in darker colors.

[BB]: Let’s talk about Katrina. I just don’t think there’s much substance to her. She’s very needy. She goes from the protection of one man (her father) straight to another (Ichabod). On the other hand, I suppose she does go into the Western Woods when most of the men won’t.

[AC]: But that might just make her reckless, not strong.

[BB]: I’m not sure she’s being reckless, but she’s not doing it wholly out of bravery, but out of love. But does that lessen her courage?

[AC]: Well, you’re right: she still does it, after all, but I’m ambivalent about Katrina in the same way that I am about Bess in The Highwayman. I don’t think doing something out of love lessens the courage or the bravery of the act, but I also don’t think that an instance of bravery is necessarily synonymous with “strong female character.”

[BB]: No, I agree: one foray into the Western Woods isn’t enough to change my opinion of Katrina’s character. Instead, I would have preferred to see Katrina volunteering her services as a “sidekick” for lack of a better word – though that term is problematic in itself – much earlier in the film, before she has a chance to fall for Ichabod.

[AC]: I agree: but there isn’t a moment where Katrina doesn’t fall for Ichabod, until Ichabod suspects her father of controlling the Horseman. Their romance is established in the first few minutes of the film, when Katrina kisses Ichabod in a game of blind man’s bluff. Katrina does assist Ichabod, but she’s acting for him, not herself, though that isn’t to say that she’s ego-centric. It’s simply that she enters the Woods to support him when no one else will go; she doesn’t go because she wants to solve the mystery. I suppose my opinion of Katrina plays into my problem with making the girl sacrifice everything for love. Consider Bess, after all: she kills herself to warn the highwayman that the soldiers are lying in wait at her father’s inn. She’s willing to sacrifice herself to save him – that’s love, perhaps, but that’s not self-worth. I wonder if we’d be having this discussion if things ended differently for Katrina: would we raise the issue of her courage at all if she died? I think if we said we wouldn’t consider her running into the Western Woods to be brave had she died (rather that it would have been the natural consequence of a foolish, lovesick, reckless action), it would be because there hadn’t been that foundation to her character. That’s a legitimate issue with the way the character is written. So my question, perhaps better phrased, would be: does the film give us enough in the way of backstory, of character development, to perceive Katrina’s running into the Western Woods as an example of strong, individual agency?

[BB]: Oh, not at all. We learn precious little about her. The only characters we actually get real backstory for are Lady Van Tassel and Ichabod Crane. Katrina isn’t considered important enough for a backstory.

[AC]: What’s interesting is that her role was greatly expanded for the film; Katrina is much more of a bit player in the short story. In this case, she really is a kind of light-horror manic pixie dream girl. She’s a young female character whose part in the story has been greatly expanded in the film adaptation solely to facilitate Ichabod’s success. She’s important only relative to Ichabod: as his love interest, as his assistant. The writing deliberately excludes the potential for a strong female character (who isn’t of questionable sanity) in favor of pumping up its male lead.

[BB]: To be fair, she’s certainly not a strong character in the short story. The screenwriter and director have a choice when adapting something: they don’t necessarily need to stick to the source material when it comes to characterisation.

[AC]: That’s what makes Katrina’s expanded role so disappointing to me: they could have done more with her, as you say, and instead, they took a minor character, turned her into a lead, but didn’t give her additional substance.

[BB]: To be honest, that seems to be the case in many Burton films: it’s supposed to be about the male lead.

[AC]: Now that you say that, I’m reminded of Dark Shadows, which has lots of female characters but basically two leads: Elizabeth and Angelique.

[BB]: Yes, I think Elizabeth could have been stronger. We had snippets of strength, but she falls flat next to the characterization of Barnabas Collins.

[AC]: Elizabeth plays second fiddle to Barnabas, ceding control of the estate and the business. She’s basically waiting in Collinswood to be rescued, and we’re meant to be grateful that her rescuer is as dashing and mysterious as Barnabas. The question becomes, how will he save the family business and not why didn’t she do so? After all, that’s what Angelique does: she builds Angel Bay; it’s not her fault that her success comes at the expense of the Collins family business. If she could do it, why can’t Elizabeth?

[BB]: Now that you mention Angelique, I find her character rather problematic also. Angelique could have been quite a strong character, but she falls short. Everything she does, we come to find out, was done out of love for Barnabas, and in the end, she ‘died’ of love for him. Never mind that she’s built up this modern empire and has a powerful position in the community. None of that matters next to Barnabas.

[AC]: We’re actually meant to despise her character for those reasons, because it’s her business that’s ruined the Collins family business, and her high profile in the town that’s limiting their own.

[BB]: She’s villainized for her strength, and I think the same can be said for Lady Van Tassel. You see it as her character descends further into madness: we understand her childhood trauma and follow her evil plotting until she’s been reduced to a caricature of a villain, shouting increasingly ridiculous lines like “Watch your head!” and “Still alive?”

[AC]: I wonder if that’s the natural consequence of making Lady Van Tassel into a strong character? Does the fact that they’ve rewritten her into a larger role – and accordingly given her power – necessitate turning her into a typical fairy-tale villain, so that she must she become the Evil Queen/Evil Stepmother/etc.? That’s how fairy tales conceive of their villainous ladies, after all, and the female characters who don’t fit that stereotype usually aren’t what we would call “strong.” In this sense, is Burton actually emphasizing this aspect of the fairy-tale genre?

[BB]: I suppose so, though fairytales do not necessarily need a female villain. As you said before, the short story itself could be described as a fairytale and did not have a female villain. Rather than creating an entirely original role (even if I think the character of Lady Van Tassel only adds to my personal enjoyment of the film) why not utilise the ready made villain the short story offers? I wonder if it’s not because the choice of a female villain gives Burton and his artistic staff more flexibility in terms of the visuals: let’s talk about costuming. What does that add to our understanding of Burton’s motivations?

[AC]: If you look at Angelique’s costuming, she’s objectified like Lady Van Tassel. As Lady Van Tassel descends further and further into madness her costumes become more ridiculous; her cleavage is more and more on display; she takes down her own hair. These are clearly purposeful choices, and they’re effective ones, too. Most strikingly, her costumes, with few exceptions, put her breasts prominently on display.

[BB]: That’s an understatement. I don’t think there’s a moment Lady Van Tassel’s breasts aren’t on display and that’s quite interesting in itself. Katrina is billed as the female lead, and as she’s the object of affection for the romantic lead I would have expected to see more of her than the middle-aged Lady of the Manor. I can’t bring myself to believe that this isn’t deliberate, so that the costuming deliberately emphasises Katrina’s purity and goodness in comparison with Lady Van Tassel’s already irredeemably corrupted soul. On that note, as well as rather prominently displaying her body, Lady Van Tassel also uses sex to get what she wants – she keeps Magistrate Phillips in line with midnight trysts in the Western Woods – and is villainized for that too.

Lady Van Tassel’s descent into madness, emphasized by her hairstyling and dress

[AC]: As I said before, the color of Katrina’s clothes emphasize her status as the good witch of the family. Yes, she is – and incidentally, so is Angelique. Would you say that this is emblematic of a larger pattern in Burton’s films?

[BB]: Perhaps. But is he really going for a strong narrative? Or just a pretty film?

[AC]: Fair point. I think in many cases, the aesthetic is of incredible importance to him. His films have a definable look; he deals in the visual, first and foremost. But on the other hand, he can’t expect us to wave away criticism of the narrative – or not look into it too deeply – when, as in the costuming, say, the aesthetics actually echo the problems of the scripts.

[BB]: Of course; you can’t sacrifice substance just because it looks very pretty.

[AC]: I think Burton would probably say that the aesthetic of the film is of equal importance, because he’s as much of a visual storyteller as a verbal one.

[BB]: I do think that Burton is motivated by his desire for an attractive, genre appropriate film, rather than challenging female stereotypes and promoting female strength within his films. And that’s fine by me: I don’t think Burton is pretending Sleepy Hollow is anything but an incredibly pretty film.

———-

Bexy Bennett is a history student at King’s College London. Her (research) interests include transatlantic marriages between 1870 and 1914 and the relationship between servant/employer in Victorian and Edwardian England. She also has a keen interest in Australian history, and when she’s not studying she’s fangirling Mrs Danvers and drinking copious amounts of tea. You can find her on twitter @madamdictator.

Amanda Civitello is a Chicago-based freelance writer and Northwestern grad with an interest in arts and literary criticism. She has most recently written on Jacques Derrida and feminist philosopher Sarah Kofman for The Ellipses Project and has contributed reviews of Downton Abbey and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to Bitch Flicks. You can find her online at amandacivitello.com.

‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’

This review by Jessica Critcher previously appeared at Bitch Flicks as part of our series on Animated Children’s Films.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

This Halloween my husband and I stayed in and cuddled up with Funfetti cupcakes and a movie. We capped off our week-long 90’s Halloween movie marathon with a favorite from my childhood, The Nightmare Before Christmas. I’ve probably seen this film a hundred times. I know all of the songs by heart. I remember watching it on VHS when it first came out, which is making me feel increasingly old. But as is the case with several things from my childhood, some of the nostalgia wears thin when subjected to critical analysis.

For one thing, as I would love to describe to my five-year-old self, the film doesn’t pass the Bechdel test. To refresh your memory, passing the Bechdel test means a film has to have two female characters (with names) who talk to each other about something besides men. That’s it, and yet even this very basic requirement is usually too much for Hollywood to handle. Sally the rag doll and Shock, the witch trick-or-treater, only talk to men. According to Wikipedia, the two witches aren’t given names in the film, only later in a video game. But even without the name part, they only talk to and about Jack. This sends the message to boys and girls alike that female characters do not have anything substantial to contribute to the dialogue or the plot of the film. Girls and women do not, apparently, have anything interesting or relevant to say to one another, and children internalize that very deeply. While this was probably unintentional, the effect is still the same.

Shock

Maybe you’re thinking that’s a bit harsh. After all, the named female characters do seem to have quite a bit of agency. Shock is frustrated with her “dumb” cohorts and seems to be the brains of the outfit. She is quick to point out flaws in their plans and ultimately decides the best method to kidnap Santa Claus. But her development as a character ends with that scene. Shock is a naughty child motivated by nothing apart from her desire to do mischief. While there is nothing wrong with this type of character per se, there is something wrong with the fact that she represents half of the named female cast. And, while Shock is admittedly fun, I feel she does not do justice to Catherine O’Hara’s talent.

This brings me to Sally, also voiced by O’Hara. On the surface, Sally is the perfect heroine. She is constantly outsmarting her doddering caretaker, Doctor Finklestein. She repeatedly slips “deadly nightshade” into his food, putting him to sleep so she can wander free. Her knowledge of herbs and potions is a serious inspiration to Jack in his quest for the meaning of Christmas. He even asks her to make his “Sandy Claws” suit, because she is the only one “clever enough” to do it. She has the foresight to know his plan will be a disaster, so she tries to stop Christmas with fog juice. Then, she rushes to the aid of Santa Claus, leading him to tell Jack, “The next time you get the urge to take over someone else’s holiday, I’d listen to her! She’s the only one who makes any sense around this insane asylum!” Jack eventually realizes that he was a fool not to listen to Sally, or notice her affection for him.

Sally

So, my five-year-old self loved Sally mostly because she is smart and resourceful. But Sally isn’t defined by her intelligence. She is defined by her relationships to the men in the story. Five-year-old me never bothered to question why she was the property of her creepy father in the first place. And while Jack is motivated by his role in the community and a quest for self-discovery, Sally is only driven by her desire to be with Jack. After Doctor Finklestein declares Sally to be too much trouble, he sets about building a new female companion who won’t disagree with him or run away. Sally’s world, which revolves around being with Jack and taking care of him, is at peace when he finally notices her and wants to be with her.

I still like the film. It gets me feeling all fuzzy inside and it serves the double purpose of celebrating Halloween and getting me amped up for Christmas. But I’m not five anymore. We live in a very complicated world where many changes need to take place, and girls and boys need to see these changes in the media they consume. Maybe someday Tim Burton could revamp the film and have Sally take over as mayor of Halloween Town (because seriously, that guy is an incompetent idiot). Maybe Shock could apprentice under the two witches and learn a useful trade to put her wits to better use. Maybe somewhere in Halloween Town, two women could talk to each other about something—anything—and the town could join us all in the 21st century. That sounds more like a Halloween classic I would want children to see.

———-

Jessica Critcher loves to write about feminism and gender issues, and she is a regular contributor to Gender Focus. While she loves living in Boston, she often misses Honolulu, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in English (and forgot that there was such a thing as snow).

The Reception of ‘Corpse Bride’

Corpse Bride Poster (Source: Wikipedia.org)

The Reception of Corpse Bride

By Myrna Waldron

Corpse Bride is that odd film that is both original and derivative at the same time. Based on a Yiddish folk tale, it is a stop-motion animated film directed by bizarre auteur Tim Burton, and featuring his three favourite people: Johnny Depp plays Victor, Helena Bonham Carter plays Emily, and Danny Elfman writes the score and the musical sequences. (The film also features other Burton mainstays such as Christopher Lee and Michael Gough.) Burton also worked with Laika Entertainment, which is a studio that would later release Coraline and ParaNorman. (Apparently they are unable to make films that are not horror-comedies.) Although it is stylistically similar to The Nightmare Before Christmas (to the point where the theatrical trailer used music from “What’s This?), Burton was NOT the director of that film – he only wrote the original poem that inspired the film, and had a producer credit. Henry Selick was the director for both Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline.

Corpse Bride is generally a charming film, with some interesting themes centered around acceptance of death, arranged marriage, and the differences of women. The score and musical sequences are catchy, and the stop-motion animation is top-notch. I often found myself thinking, “How did they DO that?” I was particularly pleasantly surprised at how well the women were developed in the story. This is something I think Tim Burton does fairly well, at least judging from the films I’ve seen of his based on original stories – the women in his films are generally proactive, multi-dimensional and serve an important role in his films. He may have started to become a parody of himself in his later years, but he is one of the few mainstream directors whose personal style makes an indelible impression on the film.

Emily, looking uncharacteristically spooky. (Source: TimBurtonCollective.com)

One aspect of the story that I want to discuss is its treatment of arranged marriage. We know that the film takes place in a European village in the Victorian era – everyone speaks with British accents (which, as we all know, is just movie shorthand for “European” and not necessarily “English”). Because the film is based on a Yiddish folk tale, I’m going to assume it takes place in Eastern Europe. Western aversion to arranged marriage is a fairly recent development, as it was a normal occurrence (especially for rich families) at least up to the beginning of the 20th Century. One can also look at the story of Fiddler on the Roof to see how important arranged marriage was to Jewish culture.

One of the first conflicts of the story is centred around Victor van Dort’s shyness and nervousness about his impending arranged marriage to the sweet but sheltered Victoria Everglot. The Van Dorts are nouveau riche social climbers, the Everglots are penniless aristocrats. It is quickly established that although their marriage would be arranged, Victor and Victoria genuinely like each other and their marriage is likely to be a happy one. This contrasts with the Everglots’ own arranged marriage – they bluntly tell Victoria that marriage is a partnership, and that they don’t like each other at all. Whether this is because they are badly matched or because they are very unpleasant people (the latter being more likely) remains to be seen. This also contrasts with Victoria’s forced marriage to Lord Barkis Bittern, who is a gold digger bragging to the Everglots about his riches. Although she is distraught by it, Victoria is forced to marry Barkis because her family is destitute. It is heavily implied that Lord Barkis planned to murder and rob Victoria just as he had done to Emily.

Victor and Emily about to (re)marry. (Source: Digitalrendezvous.net)

A further contrast to the arranged marriages are the marriages (or intended ones, anyway) made for love. Emily’s backstory reveals that she fell in love with a poor stranger, but was banned from marrying him by her wealthy (and probably snobbish) father. She makes plans to elope with the stranger, who instead robs and murders her, leaving her for dead in the forest where Victor unwittingly discovers her. Another marriage for love, though more in the agape sense than the eros, happens after Victor and Emily learn that their marriage is invalid since death has already parted them, Victor makes the incredibly loving choice to sacrifice his life so that he can make Emily happy. He is heartbroken at the time since he thinks he has lost Victoria forever, but it is a tremendous sacrifice on his part for someone he has only known for a few days. Emily halts the marriage after realizing that she cannot take the dreams away from someone else after having her dreams of love and marriage taken from her.

It is convoluted, but it is easy to interpret that the moral perspective of the film is that arranged marriage is acceptable, and love within an arranged marriage even better, but impulsively marrying for love is dangerous. However, Victoria’s two marriages and the contrast therein present a very feminist message of agency. Although distraught, Victoria is going along with the marriage to save her family. It turns out to be a sham marriage to a murderous gold digger, so Victoria’s fortuitous and quick widowing allows her to make her own choice. She may have chosen the man she was going to marry anyway, but it’s obvious that Victor truly cares about her AND will help her family (whether or not they deserve it).

Another aspect of the story I wish to discuss is the characterizations of Emily, the Corpse Bride, and Victoria, the very prim and proper Living Bride. Although there is a subtle “Betty and Veronica” dichotomy, neither is expressly presented as the “ideal” match for Victor in the love triangle. The only reason Emily does not end up with Victor is simply because she is dead – not because she is conniving, nasty, or not as attractive as Victoria. Oddly enough, it’s implied that Emily was more attractive, as she’s surprisingly cute for a corpse. She’s also got…rather defined curves for someone so otherwise decayed. When she becomes jealous of Victoria, there is a legitimate reason for her to feel this way – she points out that she is married to Victor. And notably, her anger is mostly directed at Victor, not at Victoria, which is important since the woman tends to get the blame in love triangle/cheating situations, regardless of which partner is the one who does the cheating. When Emily’s friends try to cheer her up by pointing out her presumably superior traits, she is not swayed by this – her heartbreak is not that Victor loves another, it is that as a dead woman she can never truly win his heart. However, it is implied near the end that Victor is the true love of both women. In the “Remains of the Day” sequence, it is said that Emily was waiting for her true love to come set her free. Victor’s intended sacrifice, and Emily’s realization that she can’t take away the dreams of marriage and love from Victoria after having her own dreams taken, are the catalysts that allow Emily to be set free and “move on,” so to speak.

Victoria looks at Victor after catching Emily’s bouquet. (Source: Drafthouse.com)

There is also a strong contrast in the upbringing of the women. Victoria has a severely strict mother, with the most stereotypically draconian morality of the Victorian era. She has been banned from playing the piano, as music is “too passionate” and “improper” for a young lady – a curious contradiction to social norms, as young women in the 18th and 19th centuries were expected to know how to play piano, sing, and otherwise entertain their guests. She is also dressed in a severe black gown, and forced to wear a corset tied so tightly that her mother expects her to speak while gasping. Emily, on the other hand, is wearing a rather anachronistic wedding gown, with ample cleavage and a long slit up the thigh. (Though the slit in the skirt of the dress may have just been damage from the murder/decay) She also plays piano enthusiastically, dances, and sings. She’s wholly passionate, a true capital R Romantic. Both came from rich families, but it is obvious that Emily was raised with far more love and freedom than Victoria was. It is a miracle, then, that Victoria did not turn out like her sour and nasty parents – she is shy, but sweet and strong-willed. Notably, neither woman is afraid to stand up to those who hurt them (and Emily gets the rare opportunity to confront her own murderer).

The film is fairly feminist for a horror-comedy, but it’s not perfect. There are at least two fat jokes in the story – a mean-spirited form of discrimination that needs to just end already. I was particularly annoyed that Mrs. Van Dort is portrayed as not being aware just how fat she is. Let’s set the record straight – if someone’s fat, they KNOW, thank you. There are also no people of colour in the cast at all. I suppose this is partly justified in that it takes place in Victorian Eastern Europe, and the aesthetic of the living village is severe whites, blacks, and greys, but there’s no reason there couldn’t have been minorities in the underworld village. The closest thing we get to POC representation is a skeletal parody of Ray Charles during the “Remains of the Day” sequence. I suppose Bonejangles, Danny Elfman’s showcase character, could have been black. It’s not really easy to tell when someone’s a skeleton, of course.

Emily talks with Victor’s skeletal dog, Scraps. (Source: Allmoviephoto.com)

I do recommend Corpse Bride to fans of stop-motion animation, supernatural horror, fairy tales and British-style comedy. It’s yet another Tim Burton film where he does more of the same, but it’s far more watchable than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Alice In Wonderland. The music is great, the performances are great, the humour is great. I also really like the message that death is nothing to be afraid of, that we all face it someday and the best we can do is to live our lives the best way we can. Fans of Corpse Bride should also check out Tim Burton’s early film Vincent, Henry Selick’s films like The Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline and Monkeybone, and Laika’s films like Coraline and ParaNorman. I hope to see more films about a love triangle where both women are portrayed positively, and appear to genuinely care about each other. It’s about time that Hollywood realized that women are not split into two distinct types, nor are they always likely to blame one another for a love triangle.

Myrna Waldron is a feminist writer/blogger with a particular emphasis on all things nerdy. She lives in Toronto and has studied English and Film at York University. Myrna has a particular interest in the animation medium, having written extensively on American, Canadian and Japanese animation. She also has a passion for Sci-Fi & Fantasy literature, pop culture literature such as cartoons/comics, and the gaming subculture. She maintains a personal collection of blog posts, rants, essays and musings at The Soapboxing Geek, and tweets with reckless pottymouthed abandon at @SoapboxingGeek.

Animated Children’s Films: Nightmare Revisited

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Shock

Sally