Tag: Tropes

Horror Week 2012: The Nervous Wife: Horror Stereotype or Statement on American Masculinity?

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This is a guest review by Tamara Winfrey Harris. Includes spoilers for Paranormal Activity (2007) and Orphan (2009).

There, outside the window, in the dark, are those eyes again. Yellow. Animal, but at the wrong height to be a coyote or fox–human height. And those amber, animal eyes are locked on hers. She slams shut the kitchen curtains and races to the living room window. The eyes are there, too, peering from the family’s wooded lot outside of town. Family. She thinks of her sleeping child down the hall and her heart beats faster. She shuts off the lights, hiding herself and her little girl from the gaze of whoever, whatever, is outside, and she dials the police. They arrive, lights flashing, just as her husband’s truck pulls into the driveway. They find nothing. The head cop chuckles, patting her on the shoulder, while looking at her husband, “Don’t worry. I think we just have a case of nervous wife here.”

Thank you, Paranormal Witness (Syfy, Wednesdays, 10 p.m. ET), for giving me a name for a ubiquitous horror trope. It goes like this: Woman begins to experience disturbing things. She shares this with her male partner (or other man), who responds by patronizing her, saying she is tired, silly, imagining things, nervous. It is only when the occurrences escalate and the male protagonist himself experiences something otherworldly that he will believe.

Call it The Nervous Wife, which is more concise than “women are super emotional, illogical and fearful and cannot be trusted.”

The Nervous Wife is a staple of the haunted house film genre, and now that paranormal shows are slowly taking over the small screen, it can be found there, too. In the first season of the FX channel’s American Horror Story, the character Vivien Harmon had to be committed and impregnated with a devil baby, and her teenage daughter dead and haunting the family abode, before her husband would believe that something spooky was going down.

Yes. Yes. I know. Science says ghosts and goblins and such don’t exist. True enough. It is natural for a body to be skeptical of supernatural claims. Would you believe it if you were told the portal to hell was in your laundry room? Likely not. The problem is that women in horror films are rarely, if ever, the skeptical ones. Logic is portrayed as a man thing. Little ladies are quick to believe the unbelievable. And to be frightened by it.

An example of this can be found in the horror juggernaut Paranormal Activity. In it, a young couple, Katie and Micah, live in a subdivision tract house that is plagued by threatening phenomena. Katie, who endured a brush with the supernatural as a child, is fearful and seeks relief from a psychic, who counsels that the best thing to do, until the home can be cleansed, is not to engage the spirit. In this instance, the male protagonist believes in the haunting; he does not, however, believe anyone’s advice on handling the problem. In a perfect illustration of male privilege and bullying in action, Micah dismisses the expert advice and laughs off Katie’s fear of an increasingly-menacing spirit. As his girlfriend becomes more frightened, Micah becomes more oblivious to her and her concerns. By the end of the film, their relationship feels uncomfortably emotionally abusive, with Katie withdrawing and Micah seemingly doing everything possible to provoke the thing that is terrorizing his mate.

There is often another feature of The Nervous Wife trope. Once the male protagonist (partner of The Nervous Wife) realizes a place is infested with spectres, he will not be cowed. Like a drunken dude bro outside the bar at 2 a.m., a dog protecting his territory, or Tom Petty–he won’t back down. He will rage. He will threaten to beat a demon’s ass. (The manly crew on The Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures is all about this method of posturing ghost busting, which makes them ripe for parody.) He will refuse to relocate. He will reject fear in favor of wrong-headed investigation. All this, even if it causes an escalation in dangerous activity or discomfort for his loved ones.
At first glance, the message is clear: Men are logical and brave protectors who do what needs to be done–even over the objections of lesser beings. Women, on the other hand, are emotional and fearful and need to be protected. But there is a twist. In most cases the female protagonist is proven right. And, as a result of his hubris and general assholery, the male protagonist sometimes meets a bad end, as in Paranormal Activity or Orphan, a horror/thriller where a doomed husband refuses to believe that his adopted child is really a murderous woman with hypopituitarism until he’s stuck on the end of her knife.

On Facebook, my buddy Barry pegged The Nervous Wife trope as “a statement against the traditional macho sexism of the American male.” Bravado, aggression and ignoring the needs of others is a losing approach–at least against the supernatural. I think he may be right, but The Nervous Wife trope is still troubling, even if it is a deserved jab at patriarchy.

The problem is that the trope, while weirdly subversive, is ultimately regressive. The aforementioned narratives all embrace rigid, traditional gender lines for male and female protagonists. They then reject masculinity as ultimately useless and harmful. But why are they so invested in base, simplistic and incomplete illustrations of masculinity and femininity in the first place? The women I know are far braver and more logical than their horror flick counterparts; the men more caring and thoughtful. And while I know Hollywood is not real life, I also know that it is possible to draw complex fictional characters that are not caricatures of their respective genders.

For once, I’d like to hear a horror husband respond to his wife’s concerns with “Let’s call the cops and check that out!” (because you are normally a really smart and level-headed woman and I trust your judgment), or a solicitous miss calm her demon-plagued boyfriend with a “Darling, you’ve been working too hard. Perhaps you’re just nervous.”

 

Tamara Winfrey Harris is a freelance writer living in the Indianapolis area. Her work focuses on race and gender, and their intersection with pop culture and politics. She is currently senior editor at Racialicious and a contributor to Clutch and Frugivore magazines. Tamara is working on her first book–a feminist exploration of black women and marriage, and the sexist and racist underpinnings of the “black marriage crisis” narrative.

Learn more about Tamara and her work at her website.

‘Homeland’s Carrie Mathison: A Pulsing Beat of Jazz and ‘Crazy Genius’

Carrie Mathison, a haunted yet brilliant CIA analyst.

Warning: spoilers ahead!

“I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That’s all I know.”
 

— Billie Holiday

In the pilot episode of Homeland, Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes), hurries back to her Washington D.C. apartment after a night out, and the audience sees a photo of jazz musicians and pieces of artwork emblazoned with the word “Jazz.” Jazz–the nebulous, wholly American musical genre–is improvisation. It is individualism and collaboration. It is color-outside-the-lines, boundary-pushing rhythm. It is Carrie, a CIA analyst who must push and navigate her way around the patriarchal CIA and her brilliant and bipolar mind.
Carrie shows very early on that she doesn’t strictly play by the rules. In the opening scene of the pilot, she is driving around the streets of Baghdad, headscarf down, and talking on the phone with her superior back in D.C. When she gets stuck in traffic, she simply gets out of the car and starts walking, pulling up her headscarf. She doesn’t hesitate to improvise, and is constantly navigating to make inroads that seem impossible.
The Ken Burns Jazz documentary website states,

“So while it is true that jazz is a demanding and competitive field for both men and women, it is also true that a woman who shows up for an audition or jam session with a tenor sax or trumpet in her gig bag is greeted with a special variety of raised eyebrows, curiosity and skepticism. Is she serious? Can she play? Time-worn questions about women and jazz buzz through the room before she blows a note.”

Carrie’s personal and professional lives weave together–the professional trumps the personal, but her private battles threaten her career.

When Carrie is questioning the American POW Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) for the first time, she is calm and firm, yet her pressing questions make her supervisor question her, as Brody is clearly uncomfortable. The CIA has moved past its extreme “woman problem” of the 80s and 90s, but certainly it’s not immune to continued gender bias.
The audience knows that Saul (Mandy Patinkin) has been Carrie’s mentor, and he continues to be one throughout the series. This older man, who helps guide and protect a young female protagonist, is a popular trope (Ron Swanson, Jack Donaghy and Don Draper, to name a few). It makes sense to the audience that a young woman doesn’t break into the boys’ club alone, so oftentimes these male mentors serve as powerful gatekeepers to gendered worlds. Whether this trope is realistic or reductionist, or somewhere in between, is an important point of discussion (much like the fact that Carrie’s mother is an absent character and her father shares an intense connection with her as they share the same bipolar disorder–this recurrent “absent mother” trope for female protagonists is problematic to say the least). 

Saul serves as a mentor to Carrie. (Patinkin has been outspoken about issues of television and feminism.)

While the audience can assume that Carrie has seen and felt many “raised eyebrows, curiosity and skepticism” in her rise through the ranks, her creativity and improvisational talent give her power.
“It’s ill-becoming for an old broad to sing about how bad she wants it. But occasionally we do.”

— Lena Horne

In the aforementioned scene, when Carrie rushes home after a night out, she strips down to a slip and wipes her crotch with a damp washcloth while brushing her teeth. She hurriedly slips off a wedding ring as she leaves to go to work at CIA Headquarters.
Later, she goes to a jazz bar (after laboriously–not pleasurably–putting on black lace) and tells a man in a suit that she wears the ring to “weed out guys looking for a relationship.” After some obligatory flirting, she suggests they leave and go elsewhere.
When Carrie strikes up a sexual relationship with Brody later in the first season (after drunken, raw sex in her backseat), it’s always mildly unclear whether she’s doing so for professional gain. The relationship ebbs and flows in and out of her favor, and the audience realizes that Carrie enjoys sex and some level of human connection. Even when it looks and feels like a chore (as she puts on her black lace, for example), sex is something that Carrie needs. Period.
No strings, no clear ulterior motives, no obsession with marriage. Carrie’s sexual persona is as startling–and as normal–as the crotch-wipe after a night out.
The complexity of relationships and marriages is a central theme in many subplots (Brody’s wife, Jessica, believing her husband dead, has a serious relationship with his best friend; Saul’s wife struggles with his work schedule, although she is a highly successful professional herself). The relationships all reflect very realistic scenarios, and the women–supporting characters, even–are complex and whole.
“Jazz is not just music, it’s a way of life, it’s a way of being, a way of thinking. . . . the new inventive phrases we make up to describe things — all that to me is jazz just as much as the music we play.”
— Nina Simone
When Carrie gets up to leave the jazz bar with her catch of the night, she stops and notices Brody and his family on television. She observes the finger movements of the trumpeter, pianist and bassist, and connects them to the finger-tapping motions Brody is making on his televised press conferences. She leaves her date behind and rushes to Saul’s house, more convinced that Brody has been turned.
Carrie has a wall in her apartment dedicated to unraveling the al-Qaeda terror plot she believes Brody to be operating in. Her personal life and professional life have few boundaries (and her only clear pleasures–jazz music and sex–bleed into her career as well).
Her thought processes are very rarely black and white, as are her male colleague’s. She always seems to be trying to connect new and different dots, and looking at other pieces of stories. When Aileen Morgan and Raqim Faisel were being hunted as prime terrorist suspects, the male agents assumed Aileen was the “terrorist’s girlfriend.” It was Carrie who finally said, “Maybe she’s the one driving this…” And she was. The blonde white woman was the catalyst to their involvement with a terror plot, and Carrie had to point out the possibility that their assumptions (white woman tricked and trapped by a Middle Eastern extremist) were wrong.
A Guardian blog post connected the fact that a Thelonious Monk song was playing as a backdrop when Carrie drove to attend a meeting at the CIA Headquarters. The writer notes,

“Monk was hospitalised at various points in his career due to an unspecified mental illness and there has been some debate about whether he could have had a schizophrenic or bipolar disorder. (In fact, jazz and schizophrenia have long been linked. It is argued that New Orleans cornetist Buddy Bolden, the ‘inventor of jazz’, improvised the music he played as his schizophrenia did not allow him to read music, evolving ragtime into a more free form of music in the process.) It is an association that positions Carrie, who takes anti-psychotics, as a ‘crazy genius’ like Monk.”

Carrie’s mental and emotional well-being, as is exposed in the first season, is held together by those non-aspirin pills she takes out of the aspirin bottle every morning. Her sister gives her anti-psychotics illegally, since she would not be able to be a CIA agent if they knew she had bipolar disorder. Her tenacity, her genius and her fragility (she sobs to her sister at one point, “I’ve been on my own for a while now…”) are in constant battle. She is, very often, on the edge.

Nick Brody and Carrie develop a complicated relationship, although her theories of his terrorist involvement were correct.

When she got (many) drinks with Brody before they first had sex, she told him,

“When I was a girl, my friends and I used to play chicken with the train on the tracks near our house and no one could ever beat me, not even the boys.”

One can see Carrie’s life as an endless game of chicken, whether it’s with trains, sex, surveillance without warrants or hiding a mood disorder. That constant challenge–not unlike a call-and-response jazz pattern that encourages louder and faster feedback–both energizes and limits Carrie throughout the series.

“One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.”
— Billie Holiday

Carrie’s right. She knew Brody was turned, though no one would listen. Brody’s teenage daughter, Dana (in all of her teenage angst), with Carrie’s help, figured it out as well (and some argue it was Dana who really stopped Brody).
However, Brody stopped himself (his conscience and a malfunctioning bomb stopped him, rather, or even Dana’s phone call). He reigns in the public eye as the good guy, the rising politician, and the complexities of his terrorist motives (connected to drone strikes that killed a young boy) are difficult for the audience to make right and wrong out of. (This is, of course, what good storytelling does.)
Carrie, however, has been found out. A hospitalization left her without her medication, and she chooses to undergo electroconvulsive therapy (ECT, or shock treatment, which is becoming more popular in the US, mostly with female patients) to “heal” her mental disorder. The treatment makes her forget much of what she knew, and she can’t realize that she’s helped thwart another terrorist attack. Her intense guilt after “missing something” on 9/11 certainly drove her mania deeper, yet she is compelled to give up the part of herself that drives her forward with the ECT.
Just as the song is truly falling into place in her head, she loses it.
Not to discount the real and debilitating nature of Carrie’s bipolar disorder, one must also reflect upon women’s history in terms of mental illness and the diagnosis and treatment plans women were subjected to. Carrie enters into Season 2 a more domesticated woman (teaching English, gardening, attempting “domestic normalcy”). Treatment for women’s emotional disorders–or perceived disorders–in the late 1800s and early 1900s was often the “rest cure,” when women were isolated and kept away from mental and physical stimulation. This harmed more women than anything, and Carrie being kept from her challenging mental stimulation and work is not, most viewers would argue, good for her. This feminine fragility at the hands of a mental illness isn’t new, nor is the treatment. She’s consistently second-guessed and made to feel insecure, which leads her to doubt herself. However, Saul understands their need for her at this point in Season 2, and will hopefully continue to be her cheerleader and help her navigate the waters.
Carrie’s inner conflicts, starting from her girlhood, are repeated every episode in the show’s opening credits. Dissonant jazz trumpets play in the background, and scenes showing a little girl’s hands playing the piano and trumpet are cut with professionals’ playing. As the audience sees pictures of a young Carrie growing up–in a mask, in a maze, smiling for the camera–news footage from America’s recent history is spliced in (from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, with sound bites from numerous domestic tragedies). Her sleeping eyes dart, and her panicked adult voice repeats her guilt and fear of “missing” something from ten years before. Even from this opening sequence, the audience is left tense and uncomfortable feeling and seeing Carrie’s thought patterns.
Improvising is much more difficult than reading sheet music. Jazz musicians must perform on a much different plane than classical musicians–the uncertainty, the complexity and the unexpectedness of what your fingers, or your band mate’s fingers, might do next is nothing short of terrifying. But in this game of “chicken,” the end result is a masterpiece.
Momentarily, Carrie has been relegated to the padded room of elevator music, soft and predictable.

Carrie chooses to undergo ECT, as she convinces herself in Season 1 that her suspicions about Brody are delusions.

Former CIA covert-operations officer Valerie Plame Wilson, who wrote “The Women of the CIA” nearly two years before Homeland first aired, says of Carrie Mathison:

“Carrie does not suffer from the common female need-to-please trait and, in fact, insists she is usually right. She is impulsive in a job that rewards patience and lies to the few people who can tolerate her…You root for her because those very despicable qualities also make her extraordinarily good at her mission. Danes breathes life and realism into a character who, for once, goes against the clichés of what a female CIA officer is supposed to do and look like.”

Carrie is back in action in Season 2, and Saul is listening.
Carrie, much like the female jazz musicians before her, does her best to break boundaries and succeed in the boys’ world. Perhaps she could, and hopefully she will, as long as she can both overcome her bipolar disorder while at the same time retaining the impulsive, creative, compulsive thinking that makes her brilliant.
—

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amy Adams in The Master, looking pissed

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

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

Eeeek, bitches, can we cool it already?

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

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

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

Freddie Quell, boom

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

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

The Master and his ladies

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

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

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

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

Preach it!

‘Seeking a Friend for the End of the World’: The Perfect Setting for a Manic Pixie Dream Girl Love Story

Steve Carell and Keira Knightley in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, from writer–director Lorene Scafaria (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist), is a charming and oddly pleasant romantic comedy set against the backdrop of the last three weeks before the Earth is destroyed by an asteroid’s impact. Unfortunately, Seeking a Friend seems to have missed its cultural moment: it not only comes on the heels of 2011’s limited-perspective apocalypse dramas Melancholia and 4:44 Last Day on Earth, but it unironically presents a quintessential Manic Pixie Dream Girl in the year of her deconstruction, from Zoe Kazan’s Ruby Sparks to Parker Posey’s character Liz on the television series Louie. 2012 phenomena aside, Seeking a Friend feels like it ought to have come out around the turn of the millennium, the last time the cultural collective was fixated on The End. As it is, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World feels hopelessly dated and out-of-touch. 
Steve Carell stars as the too-on-the-nose named Dodge, the Inhibited Sad Sack who needs Keira Knightley’s Manic Pixie Dream Girl Penny to deliver him from his lonely joyless life.  Penny is 100 proof MPDG, from her introduction where she literally throws herself into Dodge’s arms through his apartment window when he checks in on her during a apocalypse/breakup-induced crying session on the fire escape, to her seemingly serious medical condition that’s presented as quirky and precious (hypersomnia); her misplaced priorities (fleeing her home as a rioting mob descends, she grabs as many vinyl records as she can carry and screams to the others, “Goodbye, Friends!”) to her improbably sunny disposition (when Dodge tries to prompt her to think of things she won’t miss about the world, she even finds sympathy for her dentist).
Keira Knightley as Penny
It is unusual to find such a classic Manic Pixie in a film written by a woman, but at least Scafaria crafts Penny so that she has her own motivation outside of fixing what’s left of Dodge’s life.  After missing the last of the commercial flights to the UK where her family is, she agrees to help Dodge get to the home of his high school sweetheart in exchange for him taking her to “someone I used to know who has a plane.”  In one of the most touching scenes, Penny is able to contact her family via satellite phone (cell service has been discontinued for reasons I didn’t quite understand), and in that moment she seems like a real person with a real history, completely independent from Dodge or any other man.
But for the rest of the film (most notably, the conclusion), Penny seems to exist to save the spirits of Dodge. If Seeking a Friend for the End of the World were just a touch more artful, I would surmise it was using setting to further deconstruct the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Because what better time to meet an Manic Pixie than the last two weeks before the apocalypse, when everyone is acting on hedonist impulses, and long term consequences are not a concern?  At the end of most Manic Pixie Dream Girl films, the credits roll and the audience has to suppress cynical speculation as to how the rest of the MPDG and the Sad Sack’s relationship would play out, wondering how such a dynamic could possibly be sustained.  As Seeking a Friend for the End of the World fades to white, we’re free from these doubts.  Dodge and Penny’s whirlwind romance doesn’t have to work very hard to last until the end of time.  

Strong Boy/Smart Girl: Another Hollywood Trope in ‘The Bourne Legacy’

                                                                 Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz in The Bourne Legacy
The division of labor exists with impunity in the fine world of the Hollywood action movie, a genre that I do occasionally enjoy. Hollywood’s latest action film, The Bourne Legacy, is a continuation of the atmospheric, amnesiac thriller that originally starred Matt Damon. The new version with Jeremy Renner (Hurt Locker) doesn’t stick Renner in as the next Jason Bourne (thank goodness—this is not Batman or James Bond), but adds a new super assassin for us to chase throughout the world, while riding some rickety mode of transportation.
Renner jumps off of buildings, waterfalls, climbs mountains, wrestles wolves and basically does everything that would ever make you feel self-conscious about your own athleticism; He is offset by Rachel Weisz as the brilliant scientist who knows everything about anatomy, psychology, biology, but can’t really throw a punch.
Enter in the standard action movie plot and character trope: A very strong, good-looking guy with mad survival skills is thrown together, by some mutual need, with a beautiful and intelligent, slightly nervous smart girl who has perfect hair. These two will originally struggle with mistrust and some playful bickering before realizing their mutual respect and lust and getting together, thereby becoming the perfect team of strong boy and smart girl.
Some examples to help illustrate my point: The Saint, Batman Begins, Superman and feel free to just queue up the James Bond music as that’s the plot for every single Bond movie ever made (although, to be fair, in a Bond movie one of the girls will turn out to be an evil kickass).
                                                           Val Kilmer and Elizabeth Shue in The Saint
I can think of exceptions to this rule, but in those cases it’s usually the sort of the guy who holds all the chips: Spiderman (let’s be honest MJ was never particularly bright) but Peter Parker is brilliant and strong, Ironman (nothing wrong with Pepper Potts, she’s pretty much a layer of good, uptight, responsibility—girl style), yet Tony Stark is, of course, a genius and strong (though he has a weak heart so I suppose that equals the field or something).
The point is not to make you hate your favorite action movies and neither is this trope all-encompassing; there are dozens of exceptions and variations of the boy/girl thrown together action plot. Rather, the point is a much more fundamental question I’ve been considering lately: inequality in romantic relationships. Now, I’m not complaining about making women smart in movies, I think it’s great. I mean no one wants to see that annoying chick in The Princess Bride, Buttercup, who does absolutely nothing the whole movie but look nice. Female characters who are smart (or who perhaps represent the tough girl switch where the girl is strong and the boy is smart like in How to Train your Dragon) are interesting and (somewhat) multi-dimensional, but why does it have to be divided so transparently even?
Contradictions in character are what make characters relate-able and engaging. Again, this is not a campaign for bringing back Buttercup or making women completely smart and tough all the time in all the movies, because well, that’s just not good film-making since film is about people and everyone is different. What I’d just like to see is some variation, less of an oh-so-obvious split down the middle….perhaps, fewer tropes and more people? Specifically, I’d like to see some variation in the portrayal of women in action movies. It’s a great genre, full of adrenalin and good times, why can’t women reflect that while still being original?
Having people be so completely well matched is unrealistic. And not that a super assassin (who just also happens to be super trustworthy and great boyfriend material) running all over the world with a sexy scientist is a realistic situation, but the people in that situation are supposed to be realistic-like, as is their relationship. Why must it be that either the two characters hang there in completely balance to each other, ‘I’m smart, I contribute” and “I’m strong, I contribute” or one is at the top carrying everything, while the other lags along at the bottom just brushing their hair and making us sad?
I’ve read a few things that suggest that some people believe that heroines have overwhelmingly ascended to the top of the action movie pile; that they’re so cool that mean can’t keep up anymore. Please, just look at this year’s action movie selection to realize that’s not true. But what is true is that a lot of characters in mainstream action movies are still falling short of accurate character portrayals and stepping outside of the plot box.
Now, granted, did I enjoy the movie? Yes. Could it have been better? Yes. Are there examples of interesting, more human based characters in action movies? Yes,  (I actually think the original Bourne movies do a great job of that). Does Hollywood need to do a little better in it’s portrayal of women and actually give them a unique personality? YES.

‘The Dark Knight Rises’s Catwoman: a (Shhh!) with a Heart of Gold

Anne Hathaway as Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises [source]

While The Dark Knight Rises has had a more mixed reception than Christopher Nolan’s previous two entries in his Batman trilogy, everyone, even President Obama, can agree that Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman was the best thing about the movie. Slate’s Alyssa Rosenberg calls her, “the best Catwoman ever to grace the big screen.”

And I loved her too. The Dark Knight Rises‘s Selina Kyle is smart, sexy, and complex in her morality: the trinity of characteristics that unites all incarnations of Catwoman. The other details of Selina and her alter-ego Catwoman shift constantly (a fate common to comic book characters). She’s been an amnesiac flight attendant abuse victim (in the Gold and Silver Age comics in which she first appeared), a wealthy socialite who burgles for the thrill of the hunt (how she was portrayed in my introduction to the character, Batman: The Animated Series), a meek secretary transformed into a badass vigilante after her apparent murder by her powerful boss (in Batman Returns), and, well, whatever Halle Berry was reduced to doing with the character (who, just to be clear, was not Selina Kyle, but rather Patience Phillips, and I will waste no more words on a character and film that is best forgotten). As Rosenberg puts it in her Slate piece, “Catwoman has, in the past, been a rich well for explorations of female trauma.”

So it was inevitable that Selina Kyle be portrayed as a sex worker, at least once Frank Miller got his hands on her. Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy has always been transparently inspired by Miller’s seminal comics Batman: Year One and The Dark Knight Returns.  The former series first introduced Selina Kyle as prostitute:

Sex worker Selina Kyle in panels from Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One [source]

And over the next twenty years or so of DC comics, the prostitute origin story would be hinted at, overtly dropped, slyly repackaged, forgotten, and popped back in at the whims of various comic book writers. Brian Cronin provides a thorough overview of the waxing and waning of this storyline in his Abandoned An’ Forsaked column. When it was announced that Hathaway had been cast as Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises, speculation went wild regarding which Catwoman we’d get.

As it should be, The Dark Knight Rises offers a unique take on the character. And it stays cagey about her life’s details and origin story. But watching the film, I inferred that they were incorporating the sex worker background for the character. On the ride home from the theater I mentioned it to my husband, who is not a comic book reader, and he was bewildered how I had gotten that impression.

[SPOILERS for The Dark Knight Rises FORTHWITH]

As a comic book fan, I came in with the expectation that this movie’s version of Selina Kyle might be a sex worker. Because I knew Selina Kyle had been portrayed as one, most notably by Frank Miller, whose work has been so influential on the trilogy. So when Anne Hathaway’s Kyle seduces and absconds with a Congressperson (to provide herself with cover when she makes an illicit exchange, we discover) I figured she was doing this in the course of her business.

As that deal goes down, another character is introduced: Selina’s friend, played by Juno Temple, and according to IMDb named “Jen.” I don’t recall her being addressed by name in the film, but as soon as I saw her I thought to myself, “Oh, hey, it’s Holly Robinson!”

Holly Robinson as drawn by Cameron Stewart in Catwoman Secret Files [source]

Holly Robinson was created by Frank Miller in Batman: Year One, a fellow sex worker living with Selina Kyle.  The appearance of that character, even though they’ve given her another name, signaled to me this  character was meant to be in line with Miller’s Selina Kyle, a sex worker.

There’s also an offhand reference to Kyle living in “Old Town,” which I’ve never encountered in Batman comics (although there are many thousands I’ve never read, so maybe I am missing something) but which instantly called to mind the prostitute-run red light district of another Frank Miller comic, Sin City.

Selina Kyle’s primary motivation throughout The Dark Knight Rises is acquisition of the “Clean Slate,” a bit of technology that will erase her record, even her very existence, from the world’s databases, allowing her to escape an unspecified past where “she did what she had to do to survive.”  Her past could be anything. It could merely be the thieving she’s clearly so adept at.  But Kyle very pointedly shows no shame about her burgling, wearing Martha Wayne’s stolen string of pearls while dancing with Bruce at a gala, for example.  It stands to reason there is something else she is running away from.

If you accept that The Dark Knight Rises‘s Kyle has a past or present as a sex worker, unfortunately the dynamic character seems much less innovative and much more like yet another iteration of the trope of the Hooker with the Heart of Gold.

The stock character of the Hooker with a Heart of Gold is problematic, even from a sex-work-positive feminist perspective, because the trope itself is not sex work positive.  These characters are meant to be interesting because they are good “inside” even though they do “bad” things. The viewer is allowed to be titillated by the character’s occupation without needing to feel as though they condone it.  And because hookers with hearts of gold are so often “saved” by men, it plays to a variety of male fantasies beyond women as commodities: that women need them; that women are “correctable.” The trope also reinforces traditional gender roles  by masculinizing work for pay, often giving the hookers with hearts of gold tough, emotionally cool exteriors on the job (like men!) that when cracked (by a man!) show their soft, compassionate, womanly true self.

As we have with Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises, who steals and betrays and displays a general disdain for everyone she speaks with in the first half of the movie (other than Holly Robinson’s stand-in).  But somehow Batman cracks that ice, first getting Selina Kyle to display emotional vulnerability, and finally inspiring Catwoman to heroically help save the same Gotham she’d been keen to abandon after helping it fall to anarchy. When we spot her casually dining with Bruce Wayne in Florence at film’s end, it’s easy to imagine she’s given up her criminal ways: another soiled dove lifted to grace by a good man.

Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, in hero-mode on the Bat Pod. [source]

Even though I just wrote it, I find this summary of The Dark Knight Rises‘s arc for Selina Kyle overly reductive, and Anne Hathaway’s phenomenal performance in the role nuanced and charismatic enough that it elevates the material. Which is why I don’t so much object that The Dark Knight Rises invokes the trope of the Hooker with a Heart of Gold, I just mind that it does so covertly.  It weakens the film’s ability to twist the trope and present a feminist take on it, and wastes an opportunity to give the world an iconic, heroic, feminist character who does or did sex work.

So it doesn’t bother me that The Dark Knight Rises possibly included sex work in the character background of its Catwoman, but it bothers me that they didn’t commit to it.  The film signals dog whistles to comic book fans and enable the character and movie to enjoy all the male-id-pleasing benefits of the Hooker With a Heart of Gold trope, without actually having to go to all the trouble of crafting a modern and respectable portrayal of the sex industry in a major summer blockbuster.  It’s lazy, even cowardly, and Catwoman, Anne Hathaway, and us movie-watchers all deserved better.

—

Robin Hitchcock is an American writer currently living in Cape Town, South Africa. She had to take the long way home for weeks while The Dark Knight Rises filmed in her neighborhood in Pittsburgh. 

The Descendants: Review in Conversation

The Descendants (2011)

Amber’s Take:

 

I went into The Descendants knowing only: George Clooney, land inheritance, and Hawaii. Had I even taken the time to visit IMDb and read the one-line synopsis (“A land baron tries to re-connect with his two daughters after his wife suffers a boating accident.”), I would have known a major plot element, and I might’ve been better prepared for it — and not as successfully manipulated.
The Descendants is a tricky film. You know the kind: you’re completely engrossed while watching (and I confess to being near tears for most of the film, blindsided by the emotional devastation of the situation), but once the spell of the theatre is broken, you wonder how the movie you watched is getting such astonishing praise.
The King family and their land.
That’s not to say The Descendants doesn’t have admirable elements. The film is visually stunning and offers viewers a pleasant surprise: a portrait of Hawaii (two islands specifically: Kaua’i and O’ahu) — a state of beauty and contradictions, extreme wealth and poverty, and a complicated history. Usually the Hawaiian Islands appear in film only as a vacation destination. Here, it’s something else. Not only is the setting the site of plenty of human drama, but it’s also a character in itself–similar to the role played by California’s Santa Ynez Valley in director Alexander Payne’s previous film, Sideways.
The film is also full of excellent performances, including George Clooney as Matt King, Shaliene Woodley as 17-year-old Alexandra, and newcomer Amara Miller as Scottie. I was shocked that Clooney didn’t win the Oscar for his performance, especially considering he’d already won eight awards for the role–including the Golden Globe–and is nominated for at least thirteen more (the film has been nominated for a whopping 65 awards). The relationships between the characters are easy and believable, even if Matt’s character suffers from the “unable to look past Actor George Clooney” problem. Alexandra is rare and refreshing teenage girl, and Woodley does a tremendous job with the role and with her character’s uneasy relationship with her parents. 
The film’s biggest problem, a fundamental mistake that I can only see as entirely unacceptable, and possibly rendering the film an utter failure (are my thoughts on the mistake clear?) is this: the character of Elizabeth King. Other than a flash of actor Patricia Hastie joyously water skiing at the beginning of the film, Elizabeth spends the rest of the film in a hospital bed, wasting away until her death. That in and of itself is not the problem; Elizabeth’s physical presence is deeply unsettling, and the details of her medical condition (the clenched hands, the life-support equipment, and the gaunt face really got to me) are rendered with disturbing realism.
But Elizabeth’s presence and all this detail comes at a price to the story: with continual reminders of the tragedy, Matt King is basically forgiven all of his transgressions and unlikable characteristics. He’s unbelievably wealthy (not particularly sympathetic in the midst of a recession) and yet a penny pincher, he’s been a terrible father and husband, and the biggest dilemma in his life is how to divide up the massive wealth his family inherited amongst his not-as-attractive cousins.
Further, Elizabeth is an example of the sexist “Women in Refrigerators” trope. Anita Sarkeesian explains how this trope plays out in comics, television, and films:

Writers are using the Women in Refrigerators trope to literally trade a female character’s life for the benefit of a male character’s story arc.

Elizabeth’s tragic accident is the catalyst for Matt’s existential crisis…and nothing more.
Megan’s Take:
For me, I left the theatre thinking it was kind of meh. Yes, it was visually beautiful, I mean it’s Hawai’i, of course it’ll be gorgeous! And I loved the use of Hawai’ian music. But I didn’t really see what all the hype was about…except for the two daughters’ performances, especially Shailene Woodley as Matt’s rebellious (although what 17-year-old isn’t?) daughter Alex.
Shailene Woodley as Alexandra King
Absolutely outstanding, Alex stole every scene. The underwater scene blew me away. After Matt tells Alex that her mother isn’t just sick but dying, she sinks below the surface of the pool, weeping underwater…simply brilliant. Alex evoked so much pain and agony through her facial expressions and her body language, without ever uttering a word. She collapsed onto herself as her world began to crumble. Then she pushes against the pain and rage. For me, that heart-wrenching scene is hands down the best in the film.
I also found it really interesting that Alex realizes that she fights with her mother so vehemently yet she’s exactly like her mother. She rebels against authority and constraints, just like her mother. But Alex also resents her mother for cheating on her father. Mother-daughter relationships are so rarely depicted accurately on-screen. It would have been great if we could have seen more of their relationship in flashbacks. Alex appears to be the moral compass of the film. She has a zero bullshit meter and nothing gets past her. Even at such a young age, she’s like a parent to her father, telling him about the infidelity and advising him on how to handle her little sister Scottie (Amara Miller).
My favorite parts were the ones with Alex or Scottie or the two together. I loved when Scottie tosses the lawn chairs in the pool as Matt talks on the phone. There were a couple other humorous, and at times bittersweet, moments, like when Matt says, “Paradise? Paradise can go fuck itself,” Matt running in flip flops, and when Scottie calls Alex a “motherless whore” (not a huge fan of using the word “whore” but her delivery was flawless) and she accusingly points to Alex after Matt asks her where she learned to talk like that. But the film squanders these rare moments.
I would have preferred if the movie focused on the two sisters and their perspectives. Supposedly (as I haven’t read the book), Payne drastically reduced Scottie’s role from the book as he said he wasn’t interested in her character, wanting to explore Alex’s story. Sadly, the film isn’t really about either sister.
I felt like that was The Descendants’ problem. It never focused on what I wanted it to focus on (as if I’m the only audience that matters…ha!). The film glosses over issues of wealth/class and race/ethnicity, never really exploring these crucial societal themes. Additionally, a massive gender problem plagues the film.
Amber, it’s so interesting you mention Elizabeth and the “women in refrigerators” trope. I hadn’t even really thought about it while watching. But you’re totally right. It disturbed me how the film tried to dismantle her perfection. Elizabeth’s father tells Matt she was a perfect wife to him, not knowing about Elizabeth’s infidelity as the audience does. Her friends talk about her with such reverence as being fun and fearless. And of course no one is perfect. But I kept getting the feeling that the whole point of Elizabeth’s infidelity was to somehow excuse Matt’s bad behavior as an absentee husband and father (“I’m the backup parent, the understudy.”) Like well, see…he wasn’t that bad. At least he didn’t cheat on her like she did to him.
That’s what pissed me off about the film: its perspective and commentary on women. Matt bemoans, “What is it about me that makes women in my life want to destroy themselves?” As if the women in his life aren’t struggling with their own demons…it’s all how it affects him.
George Clooney as Matt King
Taking the “women in refrigerators” trope one step further, Jill Dolan at The Feminist Spectator talked about how dead or dying women facilitate men’s “self knowledge and redemption” as in the recent films The Ides of March and The Descendants. Even in her death, it isn’t really about Elizabeth. Or her grieving daughters, or friends, or family. It only matters how it impacts her husband, another role in which Clooney plays a man facing an emotional mid-life crisis.
It’s clear director Alexander Payne didn’t want to focus on the women in the film. I know it’s Clooney, and I love him. But it still irritated me that the movie ultimately revolves around him. I know, I know…big surprise. Another movie, an Oscar contender no less, revolving around an upper class white dude.
I think The Descendants would have been so much more interesting if told from Alex’s or Scottie’s perspective. But heaven forbid Hollywood focuses on the female characters.
So, Amber…what are your thoughts on the film’s gender roles and the interactions between the female characters? What do you think about the film’s statement on fatherhood and the relationship between fathers and daughters?
Amber’s Take:
I think Stephanie Brown does an excellent job discussing fatherhood in her Oscar review for this site. The movie’s two fathers (three if you count Brian Speer) are, in some ways, mirror images of each other: neither is particularly involved in family life, and neither seems to know his spouse or children well. Though I haven’t quite figured out what to make of Elizabeth’s mother’s absence-by-Alzheimer’s, the fact that one adult woman was fridged and another imprisoned by dementia shows at best real disinterest in women’s relationships (and hostility at worst). Perhaps the relationship between the two daughters was sidelined for similar ideological purposes.
Regardless of what we might want the movie to be about, or focus more heavily on, we’re stuck with the hero coming to terms with being a father and making what are perhaps the first serious decisions in his life: embracing his family and role as father, and keeping the land inheritance in the family (you could just say he kicks the can down the road, avoiding a decision, too). However, I think you’re spot on when you say the film couldn’t figure out what it was about (it’s not just you!).
Judy Greer as Julie Speer
I think that it’s a film that wants to be about many serious things, all while not bumming us out too much with its weight and seriousness. In this turn toward comedy–perhaps to avoid Terms of Endearment qualities, a comparison I never considered before reading Brown’s analysis–we see the subjects of inheritance, the accidental nature of being born into certain families, and ethnicity diminished, and we also see the women diminished. Not just in Elizabeth, or her mother, or the relationship between the two girls, but also in a minor character: Julie Speer (played by Judy Greer). There are two moments with this character that have stuck with me in the weeks since I saw the film. The first was the strange and unsettling forced kiss from Matt, a message from him about her husband’s infidelity and an outlet for his anger, the latter of which felt all about violation and…property. The second is the moment in the hospital when Julie first encountered the woman who had fallen in love with her husband. The film didn’t allow her an earnest confrontation; the moment was turned comedic by Matt interrupting–essentially denying her the kind of catharsis she might’ve needed. What makes this moment particularly egregious is that Matt, immediately after, was permitted a sincere, emotional, cathartic moment with her.
At almost every turn in the film, a woman was not permitted full autonomy. Except for Alex, who was permitted to be a full, complex character. What does it mean for a teenage girl to be the moral center of a story–of this specific story? I haven’t figured it out yet, but it surely doesn’t make up for the indifference and hostility toward the other women.
Megan’s Take:
I completely agree with you that having a female as the moral compass or center of the story definitely doesn’t negate the message of hostility to women. It’s a common theme as films often bestow strength and autonomy to teen female characters, as if they’re not comfortable with adult women possessing strength and wielding power.
I also agree with you about Julie Speer. I too was annoyed and I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was surrounded by men using her: her unfaithful husband Brian and Matt King and his invasive kiss. While it was incredibly uncomfortable to watch her scream at the woman who caused her pain, ripping away that opportunity felt equally cruel.
Alex is the only female character allowed autonomy. But all of the women in the film must control their emotions and behavior. Alex possesses the most freedom as she speaks her mind freely. But she must rein in her drinking/partying and hide her pain and anger, crying underwater. Scottie must stop taking pictures and saying inappropriate things to people. Matt forces her to talk to her mother to grieve. Julie must control her emotions. Elizabeth is not only chastised but vilified in absentia for her reckless actions of drinking and infidelity.
The patriarch, Matt King
While the women have their actions and emotions policed, none of the men do. Elizabeth’s father punches Alex’s friend Sid. Sid makes ridiculous comments and is ultimately rewarded by Matt coming to him for advice on his daughters. Brian Speer is fearful when he meets Matt, but it doesn’t seem like he faces any real consequences for his actions. Matt King does have to “grow up” and finally act like a father. But he’s free to behave however he chooses, following the man who had an affair with his wife, grieve however he chooses, choosing whether or not to retain his family’s land. Matt tells his daughters, even Julie how to grieve.
What message does it send that women, both as children and as adults, must stifle their emotions and urges?
Tying all the pieces of the film together – the women denied their autonomy, erasure of discussions on race and class, revolving around a male protagonist – it reinforces white patriarchy. Not patriarchy in the sense of fatherhood but rather male privilege and female oppression. Yes, Matt King evolves into a more loving and attentive father, a bittersweet transformation. Yet I can’t help but feel the underlying theme implies men can do whatever they want, be whomever they choose, while women should not only listen to the needs and heeding of men, they are punished if they don’t.
 
Amber Leab is a Co-Founder and Contributing Editor to Bitch Flicks. 
 
Megan Kearns is a Bitch Flicks Contributor and Founder of Opinioness of the World.
 

Tropes vs. Women Spotlight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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