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Problematic Patriarchy in Jackson Katz’s ‘Violence and Silence’ TED Talk

Jackson Katz’s incredibly popular TEDxFiDiWomen talk has a lot of people excited and I understand why. He’s engaging and passionate about his incredible support for feminism and minorities and that’s an amazingly positive thing. However, upon review of his solutions to the great problems of patriarchy in the United States, there are actually some very problematic ideals that he’s promoting.

The first ten minutes of Katz’s talk is filled with effusive praise for feminism and what it’s accomplished. Past that though, during the last 10 minutes of his talk he says that he wants to change people from the level of leadership. He suggests that we work within the existing framework to change patriarchy by teaching patriarchs (CEOs, coaches and other leaders) to stick up for women.

Say hello to corporate feminism.

This corporate feminism is basically the patriarchy co-opting feminism and using it, not only as a way to make money for their leadership seminars, but also as a way to continue to promote the status quo of women being taken care of by their male leaders in jobs that are notoriously difficult for women to get. Within Katz’s idea, women are still held apart from the leadership positions that could help to make the changes that directly affect them.

What ‘leadership’ should look like. I suppose.

Worse than that, those leadership seminars continue to promote ideas of hierarchy and authority. What do these expensive leadership courses say to their students? “Someone has to be in charge.” “Life is like a boat; there has to be a captain, otherwise it would be chaos.” “People need to listen to you because you’re in charge.” “Take control of a situation.” Hierarchy, hierarchy, hierarchy. Move within the system: Maintain, maintain, maintain.

Katz believes that these leaders of men should be held accountable for the disparaging and inappropriate things that they say. I agree; of course men in powerful positions should be held accountable for their actions and for the things that they say. I hope that media, bloggers, and viewers will continue to go further in demanding such levels of accountability from those around us. And then comes the sales pitch: “We need more leadership training.” Guess what Jackson Katz does for a living? Leadership training. He wants to teach men in power to stand up for women. Are we, as a culture, saying we live in a world where in order to attain a level of common human decency men have to participate in weeklong, over-priced corporate leadership training programs?

Are we so naïve that we believe adult men don’t already know that they should be nice to women? These men (the ones in those amazing and out-of-reach-for-thousands-of-qualified-women leadership positions), are most likely men of education and world experience, and they know that disrespecting women is inappropriate. It’s like telling a group of college kids to not answer their phone during a lecture. Everyone knows you shouldn’t answer your phone during a lecture and we shouldn’t even give the idea credence by positioning it as an option of ignorance. They know better and cries of, “my leadership training program didn’t teach me not to say sexist, disrespectful things about the other half of the population” just isn’t a good excuse and we shouldn’t allow it to become one.

If people say sexist, racist, homophobic, and other offensive remarks, more conveniently placed “corporate feminism” isn’t going to save the day. The day is going to be saved when good people speak out (yes, even those who don’t get to become NBA coaches) using a strong sense of justice and morality without relying on leadership training to do so.

Katz states (timestamp 16:37) that it is “institutional authority” which will save us all. In a larger sense, perhaps it will, as in the case of policemen who arrest perpetrators of domestic abuse, and violence and the justice system which tries and judges them. However, propagating “institutional authority” and its intense vestiges of patriarchy and hierarchy are the problem. We can no longer be happy with the meager scraps of freedom that these ideologies continue to throw at us; we need to be more assertive, more demanding of our rights and the need for respect for others and ourselves. Don’t worry; I’m not calling for torches and pitchforks to storm the castle, but I am saying that we shouldn’t rely on the overblown theories of benevolent authority and patriarchy.

Demotivator® genius. Demotivator® truth?

This leadership training is a minor subversion that ultimately still reinforces the establishment of control that is already in place.

I’ll be honest. I resent the notion that I have to rely on the good will of university presidents, coaches and CEOs to lead the way in my own beliefs of right and wrong. I don’t need their leadership though; rather, I need them stop doing bad things and getting away with it. I’m freely capable of knowing good from evil, offensive and inoffensive, without Joe Paterno’s expertise, thank you very much. This idea puts down everyday, good people and robs them of the ability to make powerful changes, by placing that ability on the shoulders of other, more distant folks.

Now, on a few things I do agree with Katz: these issues affect everyone and they should not be designated solely as women’s issues or men’s; rather they are overwhelmingly society’s issues, humanity’s issues, human rights issues. And I believe that there are wonderful men and women out there desperately trying to fix these problems; even Katz’s sincerity and excited approach is necessary. But continuing to perpetuate the systems that are doing the damage by reinforcing so many structures of control and hierarchy is not the way to fundamentally change all the problems inherent within those systems.

Katz closes with this statement: “We need more men with the guts, with the courage, with the strength, with the moral integrity to break our implicit silence and challenge each other and stand with women, not against them.” I would posit that we should change that “men” into “people” and say that just as much as we need people with the courage to speak out, we also need people with the courage to tear down and rebuild the systems of privilege and hierarchy, not reinforce them.

What do you think? Is the Katz talk a brilliant harbinger of change and feminism? Or relying too much on patriarchal authority?

Rachel Redfern has an MA in English literature, where she conducted research on modern American literature and film and its intersection, however she spends most of her time watching HBO shows, traveling, and blogging and reading about feminism.

The Occasional Purposeful Nudity on ‘Game of Thrones’

Written by Lady T.

Much has been said about the gratuitous nudity on Game of Thrones. Several feminist critics (such as yours truly) have written about the objectification of the female characters, and how the writers use naked women as objects for male fantasy or to develop male characters.

Challenging the use of nudity in a TV show or film will predictably result in accusations of prudishness and pearl-clutching, as though feminist critics are nothing but live-action versions of Helen Lovejoy.

“Won’t somebody please think of the children?!”

It’s easy to assume that critics are ranting because they’re too squeamish and repressed to look at pictures of naked women without feeling embarrassed. Leaping to that conclusion is much more comfortable than acknowledging the problematic aspects of using naked female bodies as decoration and masturbatory fodder.

The accusation of prudishness is also a strawman argument, assuming that viewers who object to objectification can’t tell the difference between gratuitous nudity (where naked bodies are used for spank bank material) and nudity that serves an artistic purpose.

In fact, the difference between gratuitous nudity and artistic nudity is not that difficult to discern. Even Game of Thrones, the show that puts the word “tit” in “titillation,” occasionally uses nudity in a way that isn’t exploitative and adds to a scene rather than detracting from it.

One such example can be found in the story of Daenerys Targaryen, a character who is more frequently naked than most other characters on the show. The very first time we see Daenerys, she is a pawn in her brother’s game to earn the throne he feels is rightfully his. Stripped naked, Daenerys steps into a bathtub, her eyes haunted and her expression blank. She is the sacrificial lamb and she knows it, and her nakedness is symbolic of her status as an object.

The last time we see Daenerys in the first season, she’s naked again–except this time, she has just emerged from flames and hatched three dragon eggs. The fire that consumed her enemy and her clothes has left her skin smudged but unburnt. Her nakedness is no longer a symbol of her vulnerability–it’s a symbol of strength.

The Mother of Dragons, Daenerys the Unburnt

Daenerys doesn’t have to be naked for the viewer to understand the change in her character, but the nudity in both scenes highlights and reinforces the dramatic growth she’s had over ten episodes.

Another scene that includes purposeful nudity takes place in the third season, where Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth, captive of Stark family allies, bathe in the tub (though sitting on opposite sides). Jaime, having lost his swordfighting hand, is even more sarcastic than usual, insulting Brienne’s prowess as a fighter and implying that her former king died because she wasn’t a good enough knight. At this, the maid of Tarth leaps to her feet, completely naked in front of the Kingslayer, staring him down until he apologizes for impugning her honor.

This is a great moment for Brienne’s character–only moments before, she was embarrassed to share a bath with the Kingslayer, but when he insults her, she wastes no time in asserting herself. When she rises to her feet, naked as the day she was born, she isn’t subject to the same male gaze as the chorus of nameless prostitutes on Game of Thrones. She’s still a warrior, and being stripped of her armor doesn’t change that fact one bit.

And the scene only gets better from there. Jaime Lannister, used to being the strongest and most skilled person in the room (in both swordplay and wordplay), is stripped in every sense of the word. He’s vulnerable in a way he’s never been before, confessing the truth about his reasons for killing the Mad King, and he eventually faints into Brienne’s arms, whispering, “Jaime. My name is Jaime.”

Brienne hears Jaime’s tale of killing the Mad King

Much like Daenerys’s scenes at the beginning and end of season one, the nudity in this scene represents both strength and vulnerability. In this scene, Jaime Lannister reveals more of himself than he’s revealed to any other person, and this only works if they’re both literally stripped bare.

Now imagine how much MORE powerful these scenes would be if the frequent use of gratuitous boob shots hadn’t turned this aspect of the show into a running joke.

Despite strawman arguments that claim the contrary, it’s really not all that hard to discern the difference between gratuitous nudity and nudity that serves an artistic purpose. People who claim otherwise are not confused; they’re deliberately disingenuous.

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

Choose Your Own Sexist Adventure: Victim Blaming, Domestic Violence, and the Glorification of the Nice Guy™ in ‘Mud’

Matthew McConaughey all over the movie poster for Mud

Written by Stephanie Rogers, who spoils the entire movie.

I wanted to see Mud because it looked like an interesting film about the cult of masculinity. It is, in fact, a film about masculinity and father-son relationships, but it goes out of its way to avoid offering an actual critique of masculinity. If anything, Mud celebrates the masculine by demonizing the feminine. The women in this film carry the sole responsibility of ruining every dude character’s life, and Mud screams through a megaphone its Women Are Awful message from the first scene all the way to “Help Me, Rhonda” playing over the closing credits. And I thought Side Effects was bad.

I hated that I had to hate Mud; the young boy who plays Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and his best friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) blew my mind, and Matthew McConaughey as Mud gave his best performance since Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (ha). Reese Witherspoon somehow even managed to garner sympathy for a second with her ten minutes on screen, a serious feat given the fact that the character she plays (Juniper) gets blamed by everyone for Mud’s predicament as a fugitive in hiding. Ellis’s parents, too, particularly Sarah Paulson (as Mary Lee) of recent American Horror Story: Asylum fame, gave moving performances, and I especially liked Michael Shannon’s three brief scenes as Galen—not because anything other than sexism and man-childness occur—but because he always commands the screen (see Take Shelter and Revolutionary Road). The actors, specifically the two young boys, save this film from entirely shitting all over itself.

Jacob Lofland (Neckbone) and Tye Sheridan (Ellis) in Mud

Matthew McConaughey plays Mud, the title character, and I keep reading everywhere that Mud is a retelling of Huck Finn, so okay. Two 14-year-old boys, Ellis and Neckbone (best. name. ever.), live in a poor yet quaint and lovely town on the Mississippi River. In conventional boys-as-adventurous-explorers fashion, they sneak their small boat off to an island down the river where they find an abandoned boat stuck in a tree. After climbing up there and sifting through a treasure trove of Penthouse magazines (because that’s necessary) and finding a bag of canned beans, they realize someone lives on the boat. Mud! The rest of the film shows men bonding with one another by objectifying women, beating up men to defend the honor of women, and blaming women both for the abuse inflicted upon them by men and for the problems they “cause” for the men around them. It’s a real win-win for the ladies of Mud.

Ellis goes to find Mud on the island

Brian Moylan of Hollywood.com describes the film as follows:

There is not a woman in this movie who doesn’t betray her man, cheat on him, use him, steal his home, rob him of his authenticity, make him move to a boring condo complex in the suburbs, or otherwise force him [out] of his natural and driving male essence … This thing might as well be a river fort with a giant “No Girlz Allowed” sign out front.

Hard to argue with that. Here’s why.

I guess I knew in pretty much the first scene (and in the first lines of dialogue), when Ellis told Neckbone he had a crush on a girl and Neckbone responded with, “She’s got nice titties,” that Mud might walk a fine line between either existing as a coming-of-age tale or offering up a sexist piece of shit under the guise of a coming-of-age tale. It’s a little bit of both.

The freakshow Ellis and Neckbone see when they first meet Mud

The neatly tied up plot goes like this: “Two teenage boys encounter a fugitive and form a pact to help him evade the bounty hunters on his trail and reunite him with his true love.”

Sounds romantic, right? See, I definitely teared up during its most manipulative moments, and I definitely came to care about the characters, and I definitely wanted to leave the theater feeling okay about that rather than feeling guilty for liking a movie that portrayed my gender (and even men), with such simplicity and disrespect. I psychically begged Mud to reverse all its misogyny in the end, to somehow invalidate the sexist ideology it spent nearly two hours enforcing, so that I could write about its complexity and nuance and be all, “Wow, what a smart deconstruction of Southern masculinity!” No dice.

Instead, I get to write about typical Hollywood gender-trope drivel, except it exists in a fucking semi-indie film, and, according to me—a genius—indie films ain’t supposed to rely on Hollywood gender-trope drivel anymore. Let’s begin.

Best Fucking Friends Ever

Every man in this movie tells a story about a woman who wronged him. Every. Single. One. The opening scene (juxtaposed with the “nice titties” comment and the Penthouse porn) shows Galen, Neckbone’s uncle and sole caretaker, getting reamed by his girlfriend. She bolts from his home, whips around to find the two boys sitting on the porch, and says something like, “You make sure you always treat girls like princesses!” We quickly learn that Galen tried something in bed that his girlfriend didn’t like, so when she throws a handful of gravel at him and yells, “I’m a princess!” Galen and the boys (and the audience) laugh at her “irrational” reaction and prudishness. Boys will be boys, honey.

Michael Shannon as Galen, aka Misogynist of the Year

Ellis and Neckbone then leave the house carrying Galen’s book on how to understand the opposite sex (because that’s necessary), and the film officially begins its Women Are Awful message with not even a hint of fucking subtlety or irony: welcome to prudes, princesses, titties, Mars/Venus, hysteria, virgin/whore nonsense, and porn, all within the first five minutes of screen time.

Not surprisingly, we learn that Mud finds himself stuck on an island and running from the law because of Juniper, a woman he fell in love with as a young teenager. The film pulls no punches in its insistence on blaming Juniper for Mud’s situation; she involved herself with an abusive man—a pattern for her—and since Mud lurves her so much, he obviously needed to murder the man responsible for beating her and causing her to miscarry. Juniper’s beating also destroyed her reproductive system (why not?), and that factors strongly into Mud’s decision to kill. The message here, and Mud all but says it, is that robbing a woman of her God-given responsibility to bare children is unforgivable and punishable by death.

I wish that were the only instance of blaming a woman’s reproductive capacity for another man’s misery, but, alas, Tom (a possible former CIA assassin, played creepily by Sam Shepard) can barely stand to interact with anyone ever since his wife and son died during childbirth. He raised Mud as his own son (only Ellis knows his biological father, played by Ray McKinnon), and sits on the river shooting his gun every now and then like a hater. Basically, women are misery-inducing killjoys who suck at performing their duties of procreation.

Sam Shepard waiting to … kill … something?

When women deign to momentarily stop holding hostage the broken hearts of men everywhere, they fall into the coveted category of Desired Object, going from active life ruiners to passive beauty queens.

Reese Witherspoon as Juniper with Smeared Mascara

We first meet Ellis’s girl crush (presumably the one with the nice titties) when Ellis sees an older boy put his hands all over her in the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly. May Pearl (the next best character name after Neckbone and Mud) pushes away the sexual harasser, but do you think that stops Ellis from charging through the parking lot with reptilian stealth and jacking a high school senior in the jaw? No way. That would mean not employing the Damsel in Distress trope, and, in turn, allowing women to wield their own authority and agency. But Mud gives no fucks about women other than how they push the male-focused plot forward. As Megan Kearns notes in her review of Iron Man 3:

The problem with the Damsel in Distress trope is that it strips women of their power and insinuates that women need men to rescue or save them. And yet again it places the focus on men, reinforcing the notion that society revolves around men, not women.

That’s Mud in a nutshell, although many reviewers—and most people in the history of everywhere—still manage to confuse misogyny with Nice Guy™ acts of “chivalry.”

The Piggly Wiggly: after-school hangout

Interestingly Upsettingly Predictably, the moment that moves Ellis away from rescuing May Pearl—after she rewards him with a kiss and tells him to call her, in typical Damsel in Distress trope fashion—relies on even more misogyny. The congregation of boys in the lot stops their commotion cold when Juniper suddenly appears—in all her blonde-haired glory and cut-off daisy dukes—and saunters into the Piggly Wiggly. The boys gape at her. The teenage girls squirm all jealous. And my brain jerks from all this Sexist Whiplash.

To rewind and parse: a boy street harasses a girl; another boy saves her from said harassment (Damsel in Distress); she publically rewards him for saving her; Juniper shows up as Desired Object; women become jealous of one another over male attention; and Ellis and Neckbone begin their inevitable lightweight stalking of Desired Object. In the span of three minutes.

Okay.

Juniper as Desired Object with Black Eye

It gets worse, though, way way worse. Later, Ellis and Neckbone find one of Mud’s bounty hunters, who was hired by the father of the man Mud murdered (hi, alliteration!), beating the crap out of Juniper in a motel room off the highway like, “Bitch, tell me where Mud’s hiding OR ELSE.” (Stalking women comes in handy sometimes, for both bounty hunters and young boys.) Naturally, the boys save our resident Damsel in Distress by bursting through the motel room door at just the right moment and pretending to sell a cooler full of fish (ha). The mob thug smacks Ellis down too, though, and that’s when the film finally turns into the Southern gothic crime thriller I’d been hoping for—but not before Juniper rewards Ellis with a kiss for saving her.

LIKE, ARE WE IN FUCKING SUPER MARIO BROTHERS?!?!?!

May Pearl smiles at her knight in shining armor

The abuse of women in Mud, which serves no purpose other than to normalize domestic violence for the viewer, is horrifying in its own right, but I ultimately found the Blame the Victim ideology the most disturbing aspect of Mud. Not only does the film voyeuristically depict the harassment and physical abuse of women at the hands of men with no critique or analysis, but it also shows the male characters verbally blaming women for the abuse inflicted upon them. Tom, who acts as a father figure to Mud, delivers a lengthy monologue to young Ellis all but calling Juniper a no-good whore for getting involved with so many abusive jerks and ruining Mud’s entire Nice Guy™ life. (You know, because Women Are Awful and consequently at fault for all the choices men make, including their choices to beat the shit out of women.)

Sarah Paulson as Mary Lee in Mud

The film’s message devolves even further to insinuate that—because Mud hasn’t been physically abusive toward Juniper and has even heroically punished the men who have been—he has both earned and deserves her love. And so, the audience can’t help but dislike Juniper when the boys catch her slutting it up at a bar with a billiards-playing bro instead of sailing off to Mexico with Nice Guy™ Mud in his fixed up former tree boat. A small part of me waited for the film to pause on Juniper’s face for a moment and toss up an UNGRATEFUL BITCH title card, just to make sure the audience got the point.

Juniper, aka UNGRATEFUL BITCH

Moylan of Hollywood.com also talks about the harmful messages Mud sends:

The takeaway to the story seems to be that the only people you can count on in this world are your male friends and your father figure. At the end of the movie, after all hell breaks loose as Ellis and Neckbone’s entanglement with Mud gets crazy and deadly, we see each male character have a touching moment with his father figure. None of them are any good—Ellis’ father can’t make money, Mud’s adopted father is a deadly “assassin,” and Neck’s uncle treats women possibly the worst of any of them—but, heck, in a man’s world it’s the man who teaches you how to man like a man that man man man. And some of the man manning that men masculine you with is hatred of women. Ellis’ father … tells him at one point, “Women are tough. They set you up for some.” Eventually, when Ellis confronts Mud about how much girls suck, Mud replies, “If you find a girl half as good as you, you’ll be all set.” See, a woman can never be as good as a man.

Ellis and Mud talk about Being a Man probably

I can already hear the arguments. Mud exposes the hyper-masculinity present in Southern culture! The boys don’t know any better! That’s just how it is down there! Maybe. But, an intelligent film might consider taking that harmful social construct to task rather than rewarding the male characters for their sexist behavior. Mud presents misogyny as endearing for fuck’s sake, and art—in my opinion—possesses a responsibility to challenge those constructs because it also possesses the power to change them. The dudes in Mud experience no consequences for their bullshit; the film, in fact, revels in their Women Are Awful blues and invites the audience to participate. I’m less interested in whether the depiction of Southern masculinity is authentic. Why not make a statement about how that authentic Southern masculinity hurts women and men?

It never comes close to saying that. But it does manage to deliver a much more cynical message.

Ellis and Neckbone, rightly looking a little terrified of Mud

Halfway through the film, Galen says to Ellis, “This river brings a lot of trash down. You gotta know what’s worth keeping and what’s worth letting go.” Sure, he’s referring to literal trash (as he points to a newly repaired chandelier he found in the river), and he’s referring to Mud, a known fugitive (because he’s seen Ellis and Neckbone hanging out in the river with Mud), but—make no mistake—he’s also referring to women. The film never stops telling us that Women Are Awful, worthless, disposable.

In the end, Ellis’s dad comes to terms with his wife leaving him; Mud finally moves past Juniper; Ellis ogles a new girl (in slow motion!) after May Pearl breaks his heart in public; even Tom learns to leave the death of his wife behind. The men’s collective triumph becomes the fact that they finally learn to let go of The Trash in their lives and hold onto what’s most important—their relationships with other men. So while Mud is a coming-of-age tale in the traditional sense, and coming-of-age tales deliver all kinds of important messages for their young protagonists to absorb, the film mostly wants Ellis to learn that sometimes you just need to fucking drop a bitch.

How sweet.


How sweet, indeed

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‘Girl Rising:’ What Can We Do To Help Girls? Ask Liam Neeson.

Girl Rising (2013)

This is a guest post written by Colleen Lutz Clemens.

Girl Rising unites prominent female authors, such as Edwidge Danticat from Haiti or Aminatta Forna from Sierra Leone, with girls such as Wadley or Mariama from their respective countries. Together, Danticat and Wadley, Forna and Mariama, and seven other pairs have their stories of oppression, resistance, community, and family narrated by the likes of Beyoncé or Meryl Streep. Each story works as a discrete unit in the film, using animation, music, and images to give the viewer a glimpse into each girl’s reserve of resilience.

Wadley from Haiti

Mariama from Sierra Leone

Connecting the nine stories are interludes which show other girls in school uniforms as they hold us up signs sharing dreary statistics about girls in the developing world, such as boys outnumber girls in primary schools by 33 million. The stories teach the audience that these girls live in families that love them—even if that love looks different than it does in “the West”—and that education, poetry, art, and organizing are the keys to giving each girl the tools to recognize her own importance and to find her voice.

One of the interludes.

Girl Rising knows and plays to its audience: women in “the West” with access to basic services and education who have some extra money in the bank and a desire to help other women. The documentary works to connect audience members to a movement with the lofty goal of raising money to ensure more girls are educated worldwide.

I love the idea of educating girls. LOVE IT. I love any movie that takes the time and attention to tell the stories of girls to an audience that otherwise would not hear such narratives. I want every girl who wants (and maybe even doesn’t want) to be sitting on the floor or on a chair wearing a hijab, burqa, or baseball cap in a classroom to be there. If that movie is working toward that goal, then I am just about all in, which as a scholar and critic is pretty much as “in” as I can get. However, what proves potentially problematic is the way in which narrator Liam Neeson offers the convenient promise that once girls are educated throughout the world, then global issues will diminish and all will be right.

Thus, two things are still bothering me after seeing the movie a few weeks ago. First, fixing the world via education seems like a pretty big burden to put on the shoulders of girls. The implication of the film is that if girls would just have access to education, so many of the world’s problems such as poverty and malnutrition would disappear. To me this rings the same bell as when people say, “If only women ran the world, there would be no more wars.” There would be wars. There isn’t some kind of natural peace sense linked to the X chromosome. I want girls and women to have the agency that women around the world have been working for—I believe in that idea and in the movie’s thesis that if girls have education, the world can be better. But I don’t think it is just or fair to expect girls to fix all of the problems the movie seems to think they should fix.

Second, the film exploits the burqa to make its point about women’s suffering. It should be no surprise that the last segment is the one that Western audiences will be most eager to witness: the story of Amina in Afghanistan. This young girl is forced to marry at an age when an American girl would still be hanging One Direction posters on her pink walls. Watching her story takes the viewer’s breath away. The girl seemingly has no agency, no voice, until Western filmmakers come and listen to her. She lives in fear of violence, of becoming shamed by expressing her desire to live a life different from the one prescribed to her by virtue of her gender. She is the image of the Aghani woman Westerners are so familiar with but know little about.

Amina

Here’s my concern: I don’t think any of these problems will go away if she rejects and sheds her burqa. So when (spoiler alert) veiled girls start to run up the hill tearing off their burqas as the music crescendos and the voiceover offers us the idea that liberation is just around the corner once the girls reveal their identities, I cringe. This gesture is a bravery manufactured for the audience. Taking off a burqa is a solution that makes the audience feel good. It echoes the rhetoric of post-9/11 warmongering when suddenly we needed to invade countries in the name of women who needed liberation, a convenient excuse when those same women’s plights were completely ignored up until September 10, 2001. Of course, the movie does this on purpose, allowing us to feel justified all over again in our simultaneous invasion and ignorance.

I admire the girls. I want Amina to have everything she wants, even after only meeting her for ten minutes in the film. Yet I fear the other girls’ stories get lost in the noise of the past decade’s war with countries where “brown, veiled” people live. I was thrilled to be invited to co-lead a discussion after the film, yet the moment the lights went up the audience only wanted to talk about Afghanistan, about the Taliban, about Islam. Ten minutes into the discussion I gently steered the conversation back to the girls, as they had already been forgotten in the audience’s desire, and I might say selfish desire, to forget the bigger issue and make the suffering and anxiety all about ourselves again.

But Amina’s section also contains my favorite part of the film: when she looks at the camera and accuses the audience of being silent. She pointedly asks: what are “you” going to do? Of course, right after this segment, the film gently supplies an answer: text GIVE to 5515 and donate money to the 10×10 organization. I didn’t see a flood of phones light up in the theater. But this move of Amina looking at an audience filled with Americans and calling them out for staying silent in regards to her actual issue—“I have no school to go to, my family married me off at 13”—gives me the greatest of hope. Not her running up a hill taking off a burqa that she probably put right back on when she got to the other side of the hill: I can only imagine that she was forced to put her veil back on, although the film’s website says it cannot offer information about her current status as it may endanger her. But that she would look the West in the eye and say “You cannot forget about me. I will not forget about you. We are in this together”: that kind of girl rising is the kind of movement I want to be a part of, one what works toward greater access to education and doesn’t need to make me temporarily feel good or justified in the process.

Azmera

Colleen Lutz Clemens is assistant professor of non-Western literatures at Kutztown University. She blogs about gender issues and postcolonial theory and literature at http://kupoco.wordpress.com/. When she isn’t reading, writing, or grading, she is wrangling her one-year old daughter, two dogs, and on occasion her partner.

Miyazaki Month: Princess Mononoke

Written by Myrna Waldron.

You will find few well-known directors as overtly feminist as Hayao Miyazaki. Of the 10 films he has directed, only two, The Castle of Cagliostro & Porco Rosso, have male protagonists. The others have dual male and female protagonists (Castle In The Sky, Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle and Ponyo) or female protagonists (Nausicaa, My Neighbour Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Spirited Away). And not only are many of the main characters in his films female, they are also well rounded, realistically flawed, and given a great deal of agency in their stories. When I think of the Strong Female Character feminist media critics are always hoping for, I think of Miyazaki’s characters first.

For the month of May, I will be writing about 4 films directed by Hayao Miyazaki: Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. The first three are my personal favourites of his work, and it will be my first time watching Nausicaa. It is my plan not only to discuss feminist aspects of the films, but also to discuss other themes/messages present in Miyazaki’s work (environmentalism and pacifism most commonly) and to compare the Disney/Miramax English dubs of the films to the original Japanese dialogue.

The Deer God gives life and takes life away

Princess Mononoke was the first Hayao Miyazaki film I watched. It came out a couple of years after Sailor Moon had introduced me to anime, and all of my nerdy peers were excited about the film because it was by this great, talented animator, and in Japan the film was even more popular than Titanic. It was refreshing for me to watch an animated film with complex themes, moral ambiguities and some decidedly un-kid friendly violence. I was already fascinated by animation, and Princess Mononoke showed me just how broad a medium it could be.

This is why I found the comparisons of Hayao Miyazaki to American films & filmmakers particularly frustrating. He’s been called “The Walt Disney of Japan,” which, frankly, reeks of a statement by someone who doesn’t really understand or respect animation that much. About all the two have in common is that they directed critically acclaimed animated films. Miyazaki’s films are steeped in Japanese culture and mythology, Disney’s films are distinctly American (even when they’re adapting other cultures’ stories). One particularly annoying thing is on the original Princess Mononoke DVD release, they’ve got the usual banal blurbs from film reviewers that marketers insist on ruining their DVD art with. But the quote they chose baffles me. “The Star Wars of animated features!” says The New York Post. I know the Post is a goddamn travesty of a newspaper, but what does that even mean? What does a film about Japanese mythology, environmentalism and industrial progress have to do with giant spaceships and lightsabers? (Best that I can come up with is that they’re both films popular with nerds.)

Sigh. Anyway, here are my observations about Princess Mononoke:

The first glimpse of San

I was able to simultaneously compare the English dub script (written by Neil Gaiman, a name that should be familiar to any fantasy literature fan) with the Japanese script by having the audio be in English and the subtitles be a literal translation of the Japanese script. For the most part, Gaiman’s adaptation was very accurate (which is what Disney promised Studio Ghibli upon offering to distribute their work in North America), and he was able to convey the general meaning of most of the dialogue. There were some parts I was disappointed with, however. There was a lot more exposition in the English dialogue, especially in the opening narration, which makes me feel like the people in charge of the English adaptation didn’t trust their audience. Ashitaka’s dialogue kind of had a Captain Obvious element to it, as well. In one scene, he wakes up, sees his demon scar is still on his hand, and says “The scar’s still there,” as if we can’t tell. In the Japanese script, he said nothing, just sighed. The biggest loss in this adaptation was that a great deal of Japanese culture – geography, history and mythology – was removed from the English script (especially from Jiko’s dialogue). I imagine this was done to help localize the setting for a Western audience, but it seemed a bit disrespectful, considering how distinctly Japanese Miyazaki’s films are. Gaiman also made the inexplicable choice of changing the Deer God’s name to “Forest Spirit.” I suppose Forest Spirit sounds a bit more poetic and more-or-less describes the Deer God’s role, but considering the other large animals are referred to as Gods, and the Deer God is a DEER, why the change?

The marketing for the initial DVD release sucks. I have mentioned the bizarre “Star Wars of animated features!” reviewer blurb. Another problem is that they gave the film the world’s most cliched and inaccurate tagline. “The fate of the world rests on the courage of one warrior.” First off, it’s not the world, it’s just that particular area of Japan. Second, the fate of the “world” doesn’t just rest on Ashitaka’s shoulders, it is equally San’s burden too, AND the people of both the forest and Irontown. Don’t give Ashitaka all the credit. The DVD artwork is pretty boring too – a picture of Ashitaka in a sword fight, which paints the film as more action-oriented than it actually is. And note that the title character, Princess Mononoke/San, doesn’t even appear on the cover. She’s just given a small section of the back cover that she shares with Eboshi, and her mouth is wide open in it! She does appear on the cover artwork for DVD releases for other markets, which, unfortunately, yet again shows how little female characters matter to North American marketers.

Ashitaka as a protagonist isn’t nearly as interesting as the other characters. I get that he’s meant to be both the audience surrogate and a neutral party between the endless war between the beings of the forest and the residents of Irontown. But he doesn’t seem to have any of the fascinating flaws that the other characters have. His mission is to see the truth with eyes unclouded by hatred, which he tries to stick to, but his cursed scar has other ideas. The scar’s super strength forcing him to dismember his attackers seems to be the only flaw Ashitaka has, and it’s not even a natural flaw. He seems to exist mostly as a mouthpiece for pacifism – he continually asks the forest dwellers and the people why they can’t live in peace, and refuses to accept their cynical answers. His complete goodness in a story full of moral ambiguities makes him seem like he doesn’t even belong in his own tale.

San, on the other hand, fascinates me. As the adopted human child of a Wolf God mother, she is both human and animal, and neither human nor animal at the same time. She has grown up hating humans, as her mother Moro has witnessed them acting as selfish and disrespectful beings that continuously defile her forest. The first time Ashitaka sees her, she is sucking the blood out of a wound Moro has suffered in an attempt to get at the iron bullet within her. She is wild, defiant, and free. She continually tries to reject her own humanity – her war mask is grotesque, and when she is at war, she considers herself an animal. A female protagonist with complete agency, she makes several difficult moral choices throughout the film and drives her own story forward. Like many of the other characters, her morals are in shades of grey. We can sympathize with her fervent desire to save the forest which has been the only home she has ever known. Less sympathetic is her tendency to blame all humans for the actions of a few, and her obsession with executing Lady Eboshi.

Unlike how other films present love stories, San and Ashitaka’s relationship subverts all the cliches. Notably, he does not get the girl, because she is a being in control of her own life, and not a prize to be won. They agree to part as friends, because she cannot forgive humans for what they have done to her forest. He accepts this, and tells her that he will help the people rebuild Irontown, and also promises to visit her whenever he can. This is the best possible outcome for their relationship, for if San were to be with him, she would be rejecting the animal side of her, and it is so ingrained in her, body and soul, that she would be giving up a part of herself. Another important aspect of their bittersweet love story is that, rather than San’s actions being influenced by her relationship with Ashitaka, it is HIS actions that are influenced by his knowing her. That reversal of gender roles is itself remarkable.

San vs. Lady Eboshi

Lady Eboshi is another well-rounded female character who is just as fascinating as San. On the positive side, she is a genius tactician, a revered leader to the people of Irontown, and a compassionate and generous benefactor to those most vulnerable. And yet she is also realistically flawed, as she is greedy, overconfident, and sometimes smug. To have won the respect and deference of everyone in Irontown, men included, already makes her unusual, and she is an interesting example of a capable woman in a position of leadership. It is initially implied that Eboshi is an antagonist, for it was she who killed the God Nago, and it was because Nago became a demon that Ashitaka was cursed in the first place. Yet as we meet her, she very quickly becomes just as sympathetic and just as morally ambiguous as San. As the men in the village tell Ashitaka, she has bought up the contract of every brothel girl she can find, which has incredible feminist implications. Whatever your personal opinions are of sex workers, Eboshi has saved these women from a very hard life, and granted them more agency than they ever would have had normally. She was also the only person to treat lepers with kindness and compassion, as she washed them, cleaned their wounds, and gave them employment and a purpose for living. And yet, on the other hand, she ambitiously wants to clear the entire forest so that she can transform it into one of the richest lands in Japan. She also knows full well of the destructive capabilities of the guns and flares that the lepers design for her, and uses them ruthlessly against both the forest animals and invading samurai warriors.

Irontown seems to have developed an almost matriarchal society as a result of Lady Eboshi’s influence. Not only is she the undisputed leader of the people, it is the women of the town that drive the economy. The men do the trading, mining and warring, and the women pump the bellows of the ironworks and defend the village from attackers. Together, they have made Irontown incredibly prosperous. Eboshi fears humans (particularly men) far more than she fears Gods, so she specifically requests that the lepers design guns light enough for the women to wield. Eboshi has more than enough reason to fear men in this case, as Lord Asano’s samurai continuously attack the village, and she specifically rescues brothel girls to prevent them from having to submit to the worst kind of men. She has given these former brothel girls a tremendous amount of freedom and agency. They have a great purpose and pride in their work, choose their own husbands, do not have to conceal their sexualities, and have as much input on how Irontown is run as anyone else does. Here, under Lady Eboshi, the women are equal.

The most important theme in the film, by far, is its message of environmentalism. Because the film takes place hundreds of years in the past, we feel the modern tragedy that what the Gods feared most did come to pass – the forests and their spirits have all but disappeared because of the onslaught of consumerism, industrialism, and capitalism. It emphasizes that there must be a balance – each side has to be willing to give something to survive, and that living together in peace is the best solution for everyone.

There are a lot of fascinating dichotomies at play in this story – animal vs. human, nature vs. industry, spiritual vs. secular, life vs. death, war vs. peace, men vs. women, etc. Most interestingly, we are not meant to pick a “side” in any of these dichotomies, but are meant to understand that there are reasons for everything in the world. Morality is not black and white. Even the most pressing dichotomy, nature vs. industry, doesn’t have a clear “side” expressed in the film. Letting the forest thrive and not destroying it is preferable, but the people of Irontown have to eat, and have to sustain their economy somehow. It’s a difficult choice, and the film respects its audience enough not to make it for them.

Princess Mononoke is a fascinating film with many layers of dichotomies, moral ambiguities, and complex themes. In the eternal battle of men vs. women, this film posits a strong message of equality, and of both men and women working together. Notably, in the climax of the film, it is both San and Ashitaka who return the Deer God’s head – they are equals working together, and without each other, they could not have saved everyone. And out of the death that the headless Night Stalker caused, it granted life instead. Life and death are as natural as everything else. The film also explicitly argues that there should be a balance between economic industry and preservation of nature. Human beings have to survive, but animal beings must survive as well. Princess Mononoke is a masterpiece of animation, and an overtly feminist themed media. Its strong female characters are given agency, dignity, independence from men, and realistic flaws. Everything that a feminist media critic hopes for.

———-

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.

Good Hair From Root To End: Why Is Nappiness Still Considered A Sin?

An advertisement for Good Hair.

Written by Janyce Denise Glasper

“Why should you get a perm?” asks Chris Rock, narrator and co-writer of Good Hair, speaking to a little girl who has endured the burning sensations of relaxers–“the nap antidote” and/or “creamy crack” since age three.

“Because you’re supposed to,” she replies.

Good Hair.

It has been stimulated since birth that European straightness is a coveted desire for its sleekness, bounce, and venerable marriage to a fine toothed comb. In Rock’s documentary that often seems more mockumentary dives into why this is the way of the world for African American women and how men must come to terms with this high cost of hair shame.

I remembered my first perm at age seven. It hurt like the devil. I didn’t get it because I wanted to. I was bullied into it- girls my own age hated my lovely braids coated in Vaseline sheen. So I hated them too and begged my mom for that perm, for that beautiful acceptance. I thought the pain was worth it. But often I regret being brainwashed early and wondered who influenced those same girls to get their heads “straightened.”

Good Hair reveals African American women allowing their children to endure unbearable excruciation at such an elemental age and it is horrendous, especially with “it’s hard to comb” being a prime excuse. We’re not raised to treat natural hair properly. As witnessed in scenes at Dudley School of Beauty- only the science of perming and hot comb techniques are taught. Is it any wonder why parents consider relaxers to be an “easy way out?” It’s an ignorance issue that a rare few want to unlearn.

When I went natural, many African American stylists didn’t want to do my heaping head of feral strands. Often I heard, “I cannot do that!” or “I will only do it if she put a relaxer on that head!” Always spoken with nasty disdain and cruelty. These comments (there are some unmentioned Rated R kinds) built negative self reflection for years.

A six-year-old girl gets her second perm in Good Hair as Chris Rock watches.

When Rock enters hair salons, hairstylists talk about nappy roots like it’s the ugliest catastrophe known to man, while applying burning white “elixir” from root to end to their clients. It strikes an emotional nerve. Those bullying days come back at full force at each wince and laughter from women spending so much time and money burying the truth.

A good friend once told me, “I don’t know why they make fun of your kind of hair when they’re hiding the same thing.”

It has been so heavily ingrained in African American society, in our culture, that all elements of black don’t necessarily equate to beauty and that some elements must be bought. In this instance, hair flown in overseas is much more valuable than attempting to honor and appreciate kinky curled existence.

Rock is also gearing up for a behind-the-scenes hair competition and funnily enough, every stylist feels threatened by Jason, a Caucasian man considered to be the “Rosa Parks” (adding insult to injury) of the contest because he knows African American hair so well. This seems to be the metaphor, the pink elephant in the room that African American competitors “fear” him.

Dr. Melayne Maclin, an expert dermatologist speaks out against the negative factors attributed to relaxers- its harsh, unreadable chemicals and brutal realities set upon little girls. Yet Dudley thrives on this exploitation, being one of the few African American owned hair businesses marketing to ironed out ideology. Strangely enough, in this billion dollar industry, Caucasians make more off African American’s insecurities with Asians being second. How odd is that? It’s as though hair has ultimately become another chain, another barrier and this time, no one is marching around with signs and chanting, “we shall overcome.” A perm is a normal rite of passage- straight hair is victor and nappy roots are a curse.

Her definition of good hair- “something that looks relaxed and nice.”

Rock laughs with them all at the perm’s downside- the murdering scalp sensation, reddened ears, ugly patches where skin has been scorched off. But these women beam proudly, acknowledging worth like a soldier’s battle scars.

After I gave a presentation on black hair’s manifestations in art and design history class, someone asked me, “does black people hair really grow out like that? I’m so used to it being straight like ours.”

The documentary is a cruel implication that only one type of hair is acceptable and defined as “good.”

Rock didn’t find enough women who aren’t being imprisoned by relaxed and European culture. Alopecia survivor, Sheila Bridges bravely chooses not to wear wigs and showcases her bald head beauty proudly. “I never want to feel like I was hiding something,” she speaks articulately.

Tracie Thoms discussing why she loves being natural.

Actress Tracie Thoms appeared to be one of the few celebrity champions. She spoke up on celebrating forbidden other side. She believes that a freedom comes from natural beauty, embracing God given gift while the other Hollywood women were bluntly bragging about their expensive weaves like it gave them confidence and prestige. Thoms, however, was an anomaly. She raises an important question- “to keep my hair at the same texture as it grows out of head is looked at as revolutionary- why is that?”

Whether shaven bald, out free in afrocentric glory, braided, twisted or locc’ed, this “I’m not stressed” hair movement has been gradually rising for years. With entrepreneur women like Lisa Price, owner of natural hair line, Carol’s Daughter, things are shaping up into a new form of Angela Davis/Pam Grier inspired reformation thanks to hair bloggers and urgent call for earthly, less chemical ingredients in haircare.

“If my daughters wanted to wear weave one day, I had to see where it came from,” defeated Rock says, giving up on the idea that his children would actually want to remain natural, continuing to instead expose more vanity of oppressed black women and their disgrace.

He travels as far as to India where women, even crying babies are sacrificed in head shaving rituals called Tonsures- an exchanging of hair for God’s blessings. Sometimes Indian women are robbed of hair in sleep just to appease black market greediness- hair is such a valuable commodity that it is perceived to be wealthier than gold. Clear packages of long, glossy Indian roots are wrapped up like bundles of cocaine and shipped to people who probably know little about the history of this hair, of the person who was shaved bald intentionally or otherwise.

Rock tries, but with no success in trying to sell African American haired wigs. It’s both comical and sad, worsening when an African American woman working at an Asian hair store says, “black people don’t wear their hair nappy anymore.” Her agreeable boss with hands widening (wild “scary” afro), “they don’t want to look like Africa.” He points at the Indian hair and waves down his hands. “They want to wear their hair straight. It’s more sexy, more natural.”

But it is not natural. It is a preconceived, very contrived notion stimulating from white men’s rule that whiteness embodies beauty and thick, coarse, matted naps opposes that law.

And where is the sexiness when it becomes a production, a choreography in a relationship?

Despite men joking and women testifying, weave does get in the way of real life- financially, physically, and emotionally. It is an expensive venture and some women actually do attend to themselves more than paying mortgage and car notes on time. Touching is a natural occurrence in intimacy and to have a law where hair isn’t a part of deal sounds quite preposterous. As these men showcase scandalous stories and speaking of preferring other nationalities, African American women are appearing shallower and less desirable than ever.

But alas this documentary is written by three men and told through the eyes of a man.

Chris Rock talking to scandalously clad women about hair.

It is difficult to watch because this isn’t a one hundred percent honest depiction. These women loving their weaved safety nets aren’t very likeable or representational of a whole culture. Hair is a sense of pride, power, and creativity- as seen in the hair/ fashion show taking much of Rock’s attention. In the natural hair world, severely lacking here, there is no hiding, no masquerades.

“Hair is a woman’s glory,” says Maya Angelou who got her first relaxer at seventy years old. She couldn’t be anymore right.

Rock may close with the fluffy, “it’s what’s inside their heads that matters most” philosophy, but it is a contradiction- what positively reflects on the outside should match what’s within. If there were a sequel to Good Hair seen through the scopes of an admirable African American woman who knows fierce, independent trendsetters worthy of worship and inspiration, most of the men featured in Rock’s production will wish they never defamed her character.

Let’s Re-Brand "Disney Princesses" as "Disney Heroines"

Written by Robin Hitchcock

A piece of fan art and the particularities of French to English translation may have solved our Disney Princess problem:

Disney Heroines Simple Lines, by David Gilson

Feminist parents (and grandparents and aunts and uncles and siblings) often worry about their young girls getting sucked into Disney Princess culture, and not just because of the intimidating price tags at the Disney store. We don’t want our kids growing up with female role models solely labelled with the coveted status of “princess,” and therefore defined by their relationships with men (be they fathers or husbands), and admired largely for their status over others. It’s pretty much the last thing a feminist would want for their kids.

A more typical (but still very clever) piece of fan art depicting
Disney Princesses as cover models on women’s magazines. Artist unknown.

However, criticism of Disney Princess culture often overlooks that Disney has created a battalion of strong female characters who are in fact fantastic role models for children, particularly since the dawn of the Disney Renaissance.

There’s a recurring theme of headstrong rebellion against societal expectations (Ariel, Jasmine, Mulan, Merida), which might sound a little scary from a parenting point of view but is certainly a vital part of a developing feminist consciousness. Disney Heroines are accepting of people their peers reject and other because of their differences (Belle, Pocahontas, Esmerelda, Jane). And Disney Heroines are self-assured even though they themselves can be awkward and not really fit in (Ariel, Belle, Mulan, Lilo, Rapunzel), even when they are actively scorned by society (Esmerelda, Vanellope Von Schweets).

Particularly in the most recent films, Disney Heroines expressly have their own interests, skills, and goals completely unrelated to romance and social status (Tiana, Sgt. Calhoun). And they’re smart and sassy and lovable (pretty much all of them, but I just want to give a special shout-out to my homegirl Megara).

These are characters we should want our kids to be obsessed with. Shifting from “Disney Princesses” to “Disney Heroines” widens the field on a semantic level to include a lot more fantastic characters, but more importantly highlights what really makes these women special. It’s not their status as princesses; it is who they are.

———–

Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town, South Africa. Disney movies are her favorite cold medicine, hangover cure, and anti-depressant.

‘Stoker’ and the Feminist Female Serial Killer

Move poster for Stoker

Written by Amanda Rodriguez

Spoiler Alert

(Read my fellow Bitch Flicks writer, Stephanie Roger’s, review of Stoker here.)

The first time you watch Stoker, it’s something of a perplexing experience because the narrative is such a genre-bender. I spent at least half the movie wondering what kind of movie I was watching. Not to toot my own horn overly much, but I’ve got a bit of an eye for formulas and am pretty good at spotting them. A film that can keep me on my toes like Stoker did is a rare, commendable animal. The direction Stoker did end up taking was also surprising, unique, and oddly feminist.

Ultimately, Stoker is the coming-of-age tale of a blossoming female serial killer. A “true” female serial killer is not only rare in cinema, but in real life as well. You’re probably thinking, “What the hell is she talking about? There are a slew of female serial killer movies and real-life figures I can think of off the top of my head.” In truth, women serial murderers kill for reasons different from their male counterparts. Typically, women kill for money or revenge, targeting people they know or to whom they’re related. Whereas male serial killers tend to predominantly kill strangers with the motivation being sexual in natural. To clarify, male serial killer motivation surrounds power and usually displays itself in sexualized killings or in the sexual response the killer has to his murders. Not only that, but some of the world’s most famous female serial killers work in partnership with a male serial killer, thus simulating that psychosexuality inherent in their murders.

India Stoker (portrayed by the amazingly talented Mia Wasikowska) meets her creepy serial killer uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode), and the more strangely he behaves and the more evidence India has of his murderousness, the more attracted she is to him.

Finds housekeeper’s dead body in the basement freezer. Starts hanging out with Charlie more.

Their unsettling, incestuous flirtation culminates in their joint murder of India’s classmate, Whip. The boy and India make out in the woods, and when she decides she’s had enough of him, the boy tries to rape her. Charlie swoops in to rescue her, and, together, the two kill India’s assailant. The movie makes it clear that Whip is an utter piece of shit and totally has it coming, so there’s little moral ambiguity in this kill, which differentiates it from Charlie’s prior murders (the housekeeper, an aunt, and, at this point, we suspect India’s father). India’s actions of self-defense and the shittiness of the victim leave the lingering possibility that India is not, in fact, serial killer material.

The following scene is the classic post sexual assault shower scene with a twist. We see India hunched over and whimpering in the shower intercut with flashbacks to the assault and Whip’s death. It gradually dawns on the audience that India isn’t weeping, she’s masturbating. This scene is pivotal and is, in fact, one of the major climaxes of the film, which makes the structure of the film itself more feminist. Feminists have noted for many years that the typical story structure with the single climax near the end of the film followed by the denouement more closely resembles the pattern of male sexual pleasure. A more feminist structure would allow for multiple climactic scenes, which Stoker does. (There are more climactic moments nearer the end of the film, which I’ll get into shortly.) Not only is the film’s first climax a scene that ends with a woman actually orgasming, it is a masturbation scene wherein India is pleasuring herself.

That’s a boat-load of female agency right there.

India comes to realize in yet another climactic, pivotal scene that Charlie is mentally ill (perhaps even more than she is herself), that he wants to take her away with him, and that he has always wanted to be with her. Not only that, but the film reveals to the audience what India strongly suspects: Charlie murdered India’s father in order to be with her.

India goes through the stack of Charlie’s letters addressed to her over the years. She realizes that though Charlie claims to send them from around the world, in fact, they’re all sent from a mental institution.

Despite her realization that Charlie is insane, India agrees to leave with him because his presence and guidance have triggered her coming-of-age and shown her that she isn’t alone in her proclivities. It turns out, though, that a prerequisite for running away with Charlie is allowing him to kill off her mother, Evelyn (Nicole Kidman). Because India and Evelyn have a difficult relationship in which they don’t relate to one another with no love lost between them, Charlie supposes this is an easy enough task to get out of the way before spiriting his beloved India away. While he brutally strangles Evelyn with his belt, India calmly puts her rifle together, aims her sights (at who? Evelyn or Charlie?), and fires.

Let’s take a quick second to examine Charlie and India’s choice of weaponry. Charlie favors a belt, stolen from his brother/India’s father, with which he strangles his victims to death. India, we learn, favors her hunting rifle. Not choosing the tool of her mentor differentiates her from him, allowing her an identity unique to him despite their overwhelming similarities. Not only that, but you could get all psychoanalytic on this shit and view their weapon choices as a form of gender role reversal. Charlie’s belt, which encircles and constricts could be viewed as vaginal, while India’s gun with its shape and its firing of bullets is a common phallic symbol. Within our world that views masculinity and masculine symbols as superior, India’s weapon of choice subtly establishes her dominance over Charlie, a fact that is further reinforced when she kills him.

In spite of the sexual connection India has with Charlie, in spite of their shared interests and secrets, in spite of the estranged relationship she has with her mother, India chooses to save Evelyn and nonchalantly shoots and kills her uncle. I admit I was worried for a minute because it’s not a very strong feminist statement when a young girl must essentially murder her mother in order to come into adulthood and into her sexual identity, even if we’re talking about a budding serial killer. India, unlike her mother, does not choose a man fresh on the scene over the woman with whom she’s been sharing a home and life for 18 years. Neither, though, does India stick around to live out the rest of her life trapped in a mother-daughter dynamic wherein neither one of them is capable of loving the other. Instead, she takes off in her new black pumps wearing her father/Charlie’s belt with her rifle and her uncle’s flashy convertible. If it’s unclear which path she’s chosen, we have a final climactic moment in which India shoots the sheriff (har, har) who pulls her over for speeding.

India with the rifle

The more I think about this movie, the more I like it, and the more feminist tropes I see in it. The Freudian parallels, genre subversion, and feminist subtext (or just regular text?) didn’t happen by accident; director Chan-wook Park is meticulously deliberate about his imagery, symbolism, and delivery of dialogue. The strict, generally accepted, masculine definition I gave above for what constitutes a serial killer is, in itself, a gender-biased, sexist definition that gives legitimacy and near rockstar status to men who murder multiple people (predominantly women) in order to feel a sexualized rush of power. By this definition, serial killers are an elite boys club of He-Man Woman Haters who don’t allow female participation. Trying to make a woman fit into this masculine mold is a dubious honor, but I can’t help but appreciate the deft skill with which Park makes this a believable possibility. Not only is India a multifaceted character, but she is strong, smart, independent, and finds her own path while creating her own moral code outside the patriarchal strictures that Charlie attempts to impose upon her. India may transition from heroine to anti-heroine throughout the course of Stoker, and she may be a scary-ass serial killer, but she is, nonetheless, a powerful, feminist figure.

#FemFuture Roundtable with Bitch Flicks Editors

Amber: Hi, all!

Megan: Hola!!

Amber: I’m reading the report now, so I’ll let you two take the lead in the convo.

Stephanie: So, FemFuture … not to get narcissistic right off the bat, but where do blogs like ours fit into that discussion?

Megan: I don’t think that’s narcissistic at all. I think it’s a pertinent question.

Stephanie: Because funding IS important, but who decides WHO gets funding — the “connected” people? Because that’s certainly what it seems like.

Megan: Very true. But even the “connected” people are often times not funded either.

Stephanie: No one is funded now.

Megan: Or are not funded enough to make it their primary job. Feministing comes to mind.

Stephanie: The FemFuture discussion was about HOW to get funding for bloggers, right?

Megan: It was about the future of online feminism, part of it was funding as well as meeting annually and networking. But yes, a big thrust of it was the argument that online feminists aren’t getting funded and should be.

Stephanie: Right. So … I mean, they really didn’t even mention Shakesville? LOLOLOL

Megan: I KNOW. Ridiculous. How could you ignore Shakesville???? One of the most influential and prolific feminist blogs???

Stephanie: So, the “connected” people are the ones deciding whose blogs are important and who gets funding.

Megan: Shameful. I saw their argument or conversation more as everyone should be funded. BUT by leaving Shakesville out, which as Melissa McEwan states in her post about FemFuture, is not in NYC or DC, it does make it seem that is what is happening, even if not explicitly stated.

Stephanie: Trans blogs, vegan blogs, etc.

Megan: YES!!!!

Stephanie: That report was a fucking shitshow.

Megan: I mean c’mon, ridiculous.

Amber: From what I’ve read, I agree!

Stephanie: It was SO OUT OF TOUCH and that’s what scares me.

Megan: YES!!!

Stephanie: Like, you’re The Leaders of this and you have no fucking idea what’s going on with blogs right now.

Megan: I really, really, really like that a report like this was done. However, and that’s a ginormous however. If you’re going to do it, and discuss how marginal online feminism and feminist blogs are, shouldn’t you strive to be as inclusive as possible? And not perpetuate exclusion??

Amber: I also think that what we’re doing is at the intersection of film and feminism, which doesn’t really fit their precise definition of what feminist online activists are and what we do.

Megan: YES, Amber!!! People don’t often think of feminism and the arts as part of the “feminist online community.”

Amber: Same as what Steph said, with regard to vegan feminists, et al.

Megan: Well, as a vegan feminist, I can tell you there aren’t a whole hell of a lot of vegan feminist blogs but that’s beside the point.

Stephanie: It’s true, and it’s funny … because (not to be ridic) but I think what we’re doing is important because it’s challenging media portrayals … and media portrayals are what feed these fucking stereotypes about people/women/etc.

Megan: They should be reaching out to ALL kinds of feminist blogs. Omg you are so NOT being ridiculous AT ALL. I agree. Media starts shaping our lives inculcating us into sexism and patriarchy at an early age.

Stephanie: It’s like, how is this NOT where we start? Especially with kids (which is why I liked the animated films week so much).

Megan: Yes, yes, yes.

Stephanie: Maybe they felt like they already involved Women’s Media Center and Jenn Pozner’s media site.

Megan: And as we age, media shapes how we view the news, and what news we see and hear.

Amber: As someone who does not, and has not ever, lived in a major media center, the clubbishness and exclusiveness of the fem community has always angered me.

Megan: If you’re going to write about how online feminism needs to be more inclusive and funded and not treated as a fringe thing, then maybe you should be, oh I don’t know, INCLUSIVE.

Amber: YES.

Megan: Amber, I live close to NYC and still feel that way too.

Amber: There’s such a contradiction in the very premise of it: we’re diverse and living all over the place, yet only the NYC fems (no offense, NYC) get to determine the future???

Megan: I mean, the NYC feminist community, the people who are a part of it are super nice and friendly and welcoming. But it can still feel cliquish.

Amber: Shouldn’t this have been a big organized teleconference? THAT would have been historic.

Megan: I had a very brief convo about this on Twitter. About how all feminist bloggers live in NYC. When I replied that I don’t, they were like yeah but you’re in the Northeast. True but trust me, Boston and NYC are not the same.

Stephanie: So read this….this is from the new FAQ from FemFuture report/site: “We chose people whose work we knew about and respected who represented a diverse range of perspectives and kinds of work. Our hope was to see if in-person conversation and convening could add something to the conversation that already existed online. One particular regret was, we weren’t able to bring much geographic diversity to the convening—which we wanted to be in person and intimate. While so many of us originally come from different areas of the country (and world), and have built online communities of readers, followers and colleagues worldwide, the majority of the convening attendees currently live on the east coast. This was a gap we acknowledge and hope will be filled in follow up conversations—either online or in person—and welcome ideas.”

Megan: Also, I checked on the geographical location of most of the speakers…They don’t just live on the East Coast…They live in NYC or NJ.

Stephanie: Bwwahahhaahah NYC/NJ equals all of the East Coast now!

Megan: I KNOW!!!! I mean, what the fuck. Just talking about cities, fuck you, Boston, DC, Atlanta, Miami, Baltimore, Charleston. Bleh.

Stephanie: I love how I’m getting even MORE pissed.

Megan: LOL right????

Stephanie: Also, they apparently didn’t even CONSULT with people who don’t live there (like Liss) … and it’s funny because the Flyover Feminism blog they started together is important in addressing that not all feminists live in these metro areas.

Megan: I KNOW!!!!

Stephanie: ALSO, I fucking live in NYC, and I don’t have a big networking personality, so fuck that.

Megan: You were exactly who I was thinking of!!!

Stephanie: Our bloggers live ALL OVER (the country/world LOL) so fuck that too.

Megan: So it’s exclusionary to you too despite your physical proximity.

Stephanie: Exactly.

Megan: EXACTLY.

Amber: YES. And doesn’t that create a more diverse perspective? Our bloggers being everywhere, I mean.

Stephanie: I mean, like 5 people came to our party, and we’ve been around for 5 years in NYC.

Megan: Yes to both of you! Did either of you read Flavia Dzodan’s reply US Centrism and Inhabiting a Non-Space in FemFuture? So, so good.

Amber: I have Flavia’s piece open now.

Megan: Basically she talks about living in Europe and how she doesn’t fit the U.S. feminism mold.

Stephanie: “I sincerely have no thoughts because I don’t belong in this.”

Megan: Yep. And THIS! “To call what is going on in an Anglo centric environment ‘online feminism’ is to cast me (and millions like me) away from the umbrella. We live elsewhere.”

Stephanie: Love.

Amber: “My resistance ends up being a double bind: I need to resist the policies, racism, discrimination, etc of a State that considers those like me disposable and I need to resist the absorption of the ‘Mother Ship’ that owns the discourses around which feminist issues matter the most.”

Megan: Mmhmm

Stephanie: I wish I knew how to express my emotions about this but I don’t wanna be all “they didn’t incluuuuude uuuuuus” LOL

Megan: LOL I know. And part of me feels like we should band together. But a larger part of me is like fuck that noise. There’s nothing wrong with being critical of our own community, even a community that we’re kinda sorta not even really a part of because it doesn’t speak to us, include us or address us.

Amber: They’re not speaking to us or for us, and maybe that’s okay?

Stephanie: YES. No, YES to Megan, not Amber. LOL

Amber: I mean, it pisses me off.

Megan: Zerlina Maxwell tweeted that FemFuture is not a zero sum end game. It’s a starting point. Amber, I hear you but I don’t think it is okay.

Stephanie: It is absolutely not okay … but maybe people’s anger/disappointment about the whole thing could change it.

Megan: I think if you’re talking about “feminism” or “online feminism,” then you need to be as inclusive and diverse as possible.

Stephanie: A real inclusive way to handle it would’ve been to tweet or blog or something to get the word out and have bloggers send in their responses about what the blogosphere is like for them.

Megan: YES!!!

Stephanie: I mean fucking DUH.

Megan: LOL

Stephanie: You get together in a closed room like a bunch of fucking Republicans and try to discuss some shit you know nothing about?

Megan: Did either of you see MAKERS, that documentary?

Stephanie: Nope.

Megan: Okay so the documentary is really good, chronicling the history of the women’s movement and feminism in the U.S. BUT…

Stephanie: It’s like, bloggers are already discouraged. What isn’t helping is you getting up there with your very successful blogs and being all “how do we get funding for ourselves”? LOL. Sorry, go ahead …

Megan: …it leaves only 5 or 10 mins for feminism in the past 10 years and doesn’t even fucking talk about online feminism!!! This pissed off a shitload of people on Twitter because duh. We were written out of this documentary’s history of feminism. But now it feels like that’s exactly what’s happening here. Bitch Magazine has a compilation of people’s responses to FemFuture. And Feministe does too.

Amber: I’ve been much less engaged in the overall FemFuture convo, and I’m honestly on the fence about my anger. On one hand, RAGE, you know? But on the other, this is just more of the same. It’s anti-feminist to create this online feminist hierarchy. But that’s what’s been happening for years, and that’s what FemFuture is continuing. I’ve never wanted to be part of the Professional Feminist Club, because that entire fucking notion is anti-feminist. What Steph said about them acting like a bunch of fucking Republicans is true.

Megan: Yes, yes to all of this. I’m not even sure they realize what they’re doing. Which is shitty. You need to recognize and check your privilege at the door. And living in NYC and having a huge feminist blog or backing organization gives you privilege. It kinda reminds me of the arguments I’ve heard when people critique anti-choice laws in the South or Midwest…”Why don’t they just leave?” Um, fuck you. Who are you to tell someone to leave their home??? But I digress.

Amber: No, it’s all the same. Not a digression.

Megan: Thank you. And true, it stems from the same argument.

Amber: I grew up in the Midwest and live in the South. Shouldn’t FemFuture be reaching out, not to ME, Amber, but to people/orgs/blogs who are slogging through in hostile areas? Rhetorical Q, duh.

Megan: YES. I mean to not reach out to Shakesville or Flyover Feminism, bare minimum, is just shameful.

Amber: Totally.

Megan: I keep saying or rather writing shameful because it is. I mean I know they (Courtney Martin and Vanessa Valenti — both of whom I respect) know about them because Feministing did a piece on Flyover Feminism. And um hello, google??? But I know what you mean about feeling torn. I do too. I feel like we’re not supposed to complain or critique because women and feminists get torn down all the time. But this is seriously wrong. Just thinking about urban areas for a moment, I also don’t like the argument that all urban areas are the same. Because living in Boston, which is only 4 hours away from NYC, has different challenges. For example, for our Bowl-a-thon to raise money for abortion funds, Boston has to do a Triathlon instead of karaoke and Wii Bowling because no bowling alley will host us.

Amber: I remember us chatting about that a while back.

Megan: Yeah, it just bugs me.

Amber: It bugs me, too.

Megan: It’s like I adore NYC. Love, love, love. But the sun doesn’t rise and set only on NYC. What else should we discuss about FemFuture? How do we move forward??

Amber: Well, that’s the real question. We could chat all day about the exclusionary aspects of it. But I still can’t get over the fundamental flaw of the “report.” And the marginalization of pop culture blogs as an “entry point.” We’re doing important, challenging work. Not just Bitch Flicks. Taking culture to task is a central issue.

Megan: YES!!!! It infuriates me how people see pop culture, media and art criticism as fluffy entertainment. It’s not. That’s why it’s such crucial work, because people don’t recognize and appreciate its insidious power. But are there other aspects of the conversation or report that bother you that we haven’t discussed?

Stephanie: Just jumping in on that last comment — um, yeah! If people saw abortion depicted in a humanizing way on their fucking TV shows (which people increasingly watch more and more), then our entire political discourse around the subject would CHANGE.

Megan: EXACTLY.

Stephanie: Talking about political discourse without talking about media representations is completely BACKWARDS in 2013.

Megan: Yes, I don’t know how you can divorce the two.

Stephanie: Our society is run by media devices.

Megan: Yes, advertising, media outlets, film studios….everything. What else do we want to say? What are the solutions?

Amber: Treat it like any other media we critique. Take the authors to task for their exclusiveness.

Stephanie: It might be a better use of our time to discuss writing a new “ABOUT” manifesto for Bitch Flicks and tie the FemFuture thing into it. Like, why is BF important…

Amber: LOVE!

Megan: That’s a great idea!

Stephanie: …and make people fucking understand WHY it’s important, because even some feminists seem unclear on that.

Megan: Some…seems like almost all!

Stephanie: I was working on something like it for a while, behind the scenes. Here’s an excerpt: “That’s both the biggest challenge and the greatest opportunity of blogging about film and television from a feminist perspective—learning to understand how the images we’re fed by the media pretend to reflect back the current cultural climate in an effort to maintain it. And what the predominantly white, patriarchal, heteronormative industry insiders want to maintain is a white, patriarchal, heteronormative status quo.”

Megan: That quote is AWESOME. That quote meaning your quote

Stephanie: Haha! Thx. Well, let’s start a document and add some stuff to it. We need a new manifesto!

Megan: Sounds great! Anything else we want to say about it?

Stephanie: “Because, more than anything, we believe the blind and uncritical consumption of media portrayals of women contributes to furthering women’s equality in all areas of life. And the absolute most challenging aspect of blogging about the portrayal of women in film and television is finding a way to make those connections, to reinforce the fact that watching a TV show, for instance, in which a woman is violently beaten onscreen—for voyeuristic, entertainment purposes only and without critical commentary—helps to desensitize us and normalize violence against women.” That’s another section [of the BF manifesto].

Megan: YES, love!

Stephanie: I don’t want a group of elite privileged feminists speaking for me. It’s the same set-up that feminism tries to work AGAINST. So why are we recreating it? We’re supposed to be looking for new ways of doing things. It reminds me of all the Occupy Wall Street in-fighting … the people with the loudest voices (usually dudes), with the most confidence, automatically took over and spoke for everyone. I’m glad FemFuture is having the conversation, but they should’ve asked under-the-radar bloggers to contribute and, you know, Shakesville. LMAO.

Megan: And yes to what you said about Occupy Wall Street and in-fighting and how we’re supposed to be doing it differently so why are we perpetuating same hierarchical bullshit??

Stephanie: yes — HIERARCHICAL is the word. Sit back and fucking LISTEN.

Megan: YES.

Stephanie: They should’ve had Women & Hollywood at least. I mean c’mon.

Megan: You can’t be truly diverse or truly inclusive if you don’t reach out to as many groups, blogs, individuals as possible. And having women of color participants doesn’t automatically equate diverse representation.

Stephanie: YES!!

Megan: So what else can we do? Are there any other solutions to FemFuture? Besides to keep doing what we’re doing writing about female filmmakers and critiquing media.

Stephanie: I think we need to 1) write a new ABOUT page that we publish on our site and that emphasizes why what we’re doing is so important 2) mention the FemFuture discussion and how media bloggers need to be (and absolutely are) at the forefront of online feminism’s future, and 3) talk about how talking about media is an important way to reach people who aren’t necessarily thinking intellectually/theoretically about Feminist Issues all the time.

Megan: Love it all. You know what else we can do??

Stephanie: The future of online feminism absolutely cannot be White Feminists in an intellectual Ivory Tower talking to other feminists. No, WHAT?!

Megan: We could put out a call to have people send us who should have been on that report

Stephanie: YES!!!!!!

Megan: All the under the radar bloggers and even not so under the radar (hello Shakesville and Flyover)

Stephanie: We could just make a fucking list … with a link and a description of their blog.

Megan: YES, exactly. We could start a list and ask people to contribute. I’m just so tired of complaining (although I do love to complain LOL) and not having solutions.

Stephanie: LET’S DO IT

Bart Simpson’s Feminine Side

Written by Lady T.

Bart Simpson appreciating some gay culture

In my umpteenth viewing of episodes from season four of The Simpsons, I noticed something that never occurred to me in my first viewings of the show: Bart Simpson has a feminine side.

This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. An episode in the eighth season, “Homer’s Phobia,” shows Bart becoming appreciative of gay culture (much to Homer’s dismay) after the family befriends a delightful gay man named John. The episode has an important lesson where Homer learns a lesson about acceptance, but Bart’s development isn’t explored in detail, as his appreciation of gay culture is just a catalyst for Homer’s (temporary) growth as a person.

Earlier (and later) episodes, though, show that Bart’s feminine side is more than just a passing trend. It’s a trait that appears sporadically during the series, and is amusing every time.

In “Lisa the Beauty Queen,” Bart shows his little sister how to walk in heels for the competition. When Lisa asks Bart if he really thinks she could win, he strikes a pose and says, “Hey, I’m starting to think I could win!”

Heel, toe, heel, toe…

In “Marge in Chains,” Bart shares his plan to break his mother out of prison: “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll bust you out of there as soon as I get a cocktail dress and a crowbar.” Then we see Bart’s dream sequence of dancing with the warden, who says, “Oh, Bartina — before I met you, I was a lonely man.”

[True story: I watched that episode with my roommate when she was resting on the couch with a sprained ankle, and she laughed so hard that she almost fell off the couch and sprained it again.]

“Fresh!”

Two seasons later, Bart reluctantly signs up for ballet class when there are no other P.E. electives available. He’s not happy about wearing tights or being in a sport “for girls,” but he soon realizes that he has a talent for ballet — and loves it!

“Put on this fuschiatard! You are a fairy.”

Several seasons afterwards, Bart and Milhouse raid his parents’ closet when they have nothing else to do, and when Milhouse suggests they “dress like ladies,” Bart quickly notices that his mother’s dress hides his thighs, and soon they’re jumping on his parents’ bed.

“Sisters doin’ it for themselves!”

Clearly, Bart’s feminine side is more than just a one-episode gag or a prompt for Homer to get over his phobia. It’s a recurring character trait. But what does it mean?

Probably not much when considering the writers’ intents. The writers of The Simpsons are fond of having characters act in unexpected ways, where the punchline is simply the character acting out of character (Nelson loving Andy Williams, Jimbo being a fan of The Joy Luck Club, Ned Flanders having lax beatnik parents). Bart knowing the “ancient art of padding” is funny because we wouldn’t expect him to know about it.

Still, writer intent aside, I love the moments where Bart slips on a pair of heels, dons a dress, or fantasizes about seducing a warden to get Marge out of jail. Even a character who prides himself on being America’s bad boy has a girly side.

———-

Summer Movie Preview

Written by Max Thornton.

Time’s relentless onward march has brought us to the end of April. In just a few days it will be the first weekend in May, which is – in the strange, terrifying minds of Hollywood executives – the first weekend of summer.

Summer movies are an odd and frustrating bunch. I have taken a cursory glance at some of 2013’s biggest, emptiest spectacles and pre-judged them with extreme censure, so you don’t have to.

Iron Man 3 (May 3)

The deal: The first Iron Man was a pleasing diversion for a world with low expectations of a second-tier-superhero film. The second Iron Man was much like the first, but bigger, louder, and overlong. If other superhero trilogies are anything to go by, the third Iron Man will be even bigger, even louder, and – 130 minutes, are you freakin’ kidding me? Why does no one heed Hitchcockian wisdom re: film lengths and bladders?

Likelihood of passing the Bechdel test: 25%. Rebecca Hall has third billing after Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow, but I’ve seen a superhero movie before, and I don’t really expect anyone to talk about anything other than Iron Man.

Likelihood of general intersection!fail: The inestimable Andrew Ti of Yo, Is This Racist? says 100%. Who am I to dissent?

Will I see it?: Eventually, probably on DVD. I don’t care very much about Iron Man, but I am a little stoked to learn it’s directed by Shane Black, writer-director of my beloved Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

The Great Gatsby (May 10)

The deal: You went to high school. You don’t need me to tell you what The Great Gatsby is about. (But, if you need a refresher, it’s boring and the plot is basically the same as R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet.)

Likelihood of passing the Bechdel test: Like no percent, unless they change stuff from the book I guess.

Likelihood of general intersection!fail: 100%. It’s about straight white rich people, like fully all of big Hollywood movies.

Will I see it?: No. I don’t like Gatsby and I don’t like Baz Luhrmann. If you have a different opinion on either or both of these things, you will feel differently.

Star Trek Into Darkness (May 17)

The deal: Much like the first Iron Man, the 2009 Star Trek reboot was a slight popcorn delight for those of us with low expectations; much like Iron Man 2, this latest Trek will probably sink under the weight of current heightened expectations. If nothing else, it’ll be jolly to once again witness Karl Urban channel DeForest Kelley (and cringe at Simon Pegg’s Scottish accent, oy).

Likelihood of passing the Bechdel test: 25% if I’m generous. There are fully two lady-type humans in this movie, and as much as I’d like the writers to overcome the failures of the original series, that’s a lot of failure to overcome.

Likelihood of general intersection!fail: High. See above re: failures of TOS.

Will I see it?: I don’t see how I can possibly avoid it.

Spaceship! *starts salivating*

The Hangover Part III (May 24)

The deal: No.

Likelihood of passing the Bechdel test: 0%.

Likelihood of general intersection!fail: 1000%.

Will I see it?: Oh fuck no.

Man of Steel (June 14)

The deal: Superman is boring and zzzzzzzzz.

Likelihood of passing the Bechdel test: Low.

Likelihood of general intersection!fail: High.

Will I see it?: Yawn.

World War Z (June 21)

The deal: World War Z is probably the greatest zombie novel ever written and you should go out and read it, like, yesterday. I am so over how enormously boring this film adaptation looks, and I mourn for the TV miniseries that was once talked about and would have been a much better way of adapting the sprawling complexities of the book.

Likelihood of passing the Bechdel test: 10%. If Brad Pitt is the core linking the story together, I can’t see much happening without him. Also, I’m very afraid that this movie will do the horrible Walking Dead/ Stephen King / every apocalypse story ever thing of taking the apocalypse as an excuse to revert all of humanity to gross reductive caveman gender roles.

Likelihood of general intersection!fail: 90%. A summer Hollywood blockbuster in which a white dude travels all around the world trying to save it? Racism, xenophobia, and neocolonialist paternalism pretty much guaranteed.

Will I see it?: I expect so, and I expect I’ll hate it.

Seriously, read the book.

Monsters University (June 21)

The deal: While I hear the argument that Pixar needs to take a step back from the sequel-ing and prequel-ing, they had me as soon as this website rocked up months and months ago. And tell me that any TV enthusiast could look at the list of voice talent involved without squeeing: Nathan Fillion! Aubrey Plaza! John Krasinski! Charlie Day! Dave Foley! And that’s just the people who are on TV shows I like!

Likelihood of passing the Bechdel test: 5%. Pixar is awesome at so many things, but representing the non-male demographic is not one of them. I will continue to dream of a scene in which Aubrey Plaza’s character and Helen Mirren’s character hang out and shoot the shit, but I don’t hold out hope.

Likelihood of general intersection!fail: I mean, it’s a movie about monsters? I don’t know to what extent I can really hold it accountable for, say, race!fail.

Will I see it?: HELL YES.

Pacific Rim (July 12)

The deal: I may have mentioned this before, but I am losing my mind over how impossibly amazeballs this movie looks. ROBOTS VS. ALIENS. GUILLERMO DEL TORO. IDRIS ELBA. My fingertips are tingling just typing about it.

Likelihood of passing the Bechdel test: 5%. Women are not so much with the being in this movie.

Likelihood of general intersection!fail: 70%. Rinko Kikuchi is in this movie, and if God loves me she will share scenes with Idris Elba and my eyeballs will burst into flames from so much hotness onscreen at once; but I know better than to expect, say, queers or PwD to be represented meaningfully in mainstream SF.

Will I see it?: HELL EVEN YES-ER.

Hee hee

This summer in sum: Not every forthcoming blockbuster looks to be entirely egregious in every respect – some of them I might even enjoy quite a bit – but women are conspicuously, depressingly, appallingly underrepresented in the big popcorn flicks. As usual, Hollywood utterly fails to notice or care that women comprise half the human race, and we’ll have to look to smaller and independent cinema for acknowledgment of that basic, yet still somehow controversial, fact.

———-

Max Thornton blogs at GayChristian Geek, tumbles as transsubstantial, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax.