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Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

How Cartoons Inform Children’s Ideas About Race by Federico Subervi at Huffington Post

TV can make America better by Jennifer L. Ponzer at Salon

“Where’s the female Woody Allen?” by Heather Havrilesky at Salon

There’s No Excuse For Misogyny In Space by Helen O’Hara at Empire Online
Pondering Roseanne on its 25th Anniversary by Alyssa Rosenberg at Women and Hollywood
What have you been reading/writing this week? Tell us in the comments!

Bitch Flicks Weekly Picks

How Cartoons Inform Children’s Ideas About Race by Federico Subervi at Huffington Post

TV can make America better by Jennifer L. Ponzer at Salon

“Where’s the female Woody Allen?” by Heather Havrilesky at Salon

There’s No Excuse For Misogyny In Space by Helen O’Hara at Empire Online
Pondering Roseanne on its 25th Anniversary by Alyssa Rosenberg at Women and Hollywood
What have you been reading/writing this week? Tell us in the comments!

The Bronies Documentary is Borderline Propaganda


Professor Pony educates the audience about “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic”



Written by Myrna Waldron.

I watched My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic for two seasons. It’s a genuinely good show, with influences from Powerpuff Girls, Sailor Moon, and other television intended for young girls. It occupies an important cultural spot, since we all know just how hard it is to find well made, well written and non-condescending entertainment for young girls. Having been born in the mid-80s, I did watch at least one of the earlier generations of My Little Pony, but all I can really remember of it was that I found it pretty saccharine, (and I couldn’t have been older than 5 at the time, so that’s saying something). Lauren Faust, the original creator for MLP: Friendship is Magic, is a self-proclaimed feminist, who explicitly intended to create a series depicting female friendship. So thumbs up to the show just based on that.

Unfortunately, on the internet, the show isn’t really known for its quality. Nope, it’s known for its vocal teen/adult male fanbase. I commend these adult male fans (known as “Bronies” – bro + pony) for being willing to ignore traditional gender roles, and appreciate a show aimed at young girls, for what it is. “Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Male Fans of My Little Pony” is a feature-length documentary exploring these fans (and was financed by them via Kickstarter), and was executive produced by Lauren Faust (the series creator), Tara Strong (VA for Twilight Sparkle, the main protagonist) and John de Lancie (VA for Discord, a Q-like villain in the first two episodes in the 2nd season). de Lancie’s intent with this documentary was to provide a contrast to the strongly negative media depiction of Bronies and depict them positively. This documentary was also intended to serve as an introduction to the fandom for those unfamiliar with Bronies.

Unfortunately for them, I’m already familiar.

I honestly tried to come at this documentary with an open mind, knowing that much of the negative media attention is directed at Bronies simply because they are men who like a thing intended for little girls. I know a few Bronies and consider them friends, so I’m well aware that many Bronies are perfectly decent people. It’s also not really THAT rare for adult men to like cute things for little girls. Hell, go into any anime convention and you’ll stumble over guys like this everywhere you go.

But it’s very hard to shake my generally negative opinion of Bronies – at least, my negative opinion of the bad ones. And there are a lot of bad ones. The fandom started on notorious forum 4chan, when the first fans decided to watch the show as a joke and ended up loving it. 4chan is a hive full of racism, sexism, ableism and just about every other “ism” you can think of (mainly because posts are automatically anonymous – anonymity turns people into assholes so easily), so it’s not surprising that there are some shitty people amongst Bronydom. A few months back on Tumblr, someone asked me to explain why I have a generally negative opinion of Bronies. I am yet to see any sort of improvement on that front, and every time I speak out against shitty Bronies on Twitter, someone always inevitably replies to my tweet and complains that “We’re not ALL like that!” as if I wasn’t aware. Not one of them has ever said to me, “Yes, there are a lot of terrible people. And if I see someone acting like that, I’m going to call them out on it.” It’s always defensiveness rather than proactive behaviour to genuinely try to improve Bronies’ reputation.

This film sets out to present Bronies as decent people who are inspired by the show’s messages of friendship to be kinder, friendlier, and more accepting of people. Okay, great. I’m all for that. But this film is unfortunately borderline propaganda, because there are some editorial decisions that blatantly come off as disingenuous to anyone who actually pays attention to the media they consume. As I said after finishing my livetweet of the film earlier this week, this film would have been so much better if it were honest. It tries so hard to solely present Bronies as great people that it’s just insulting. It’s been a long time since documentaries had any sort of obligation towards objectivity, but there’s a limit.

THE GOOD:

  • I genuinely liked the Bronies they decided to interview for the film. I sympathized with how each one felt like a social outcast before discovering the series, and how much they appreciated how the fandom introduced them to friendships they never would have had otherwise. I was expecting to want to loathe these guys, (especially since within a minute of the film’s beginning there was already a stereotypical fedora) but, I didn’t.

  • A main objective of the film was to demonstrate how the series inspired creativity from its fans. “The Living Tombstone”’s music didn’t do a thing for me, but I could see why people liked it. There was one Brony who created custom laser shows, which were really cool. The lone female Brony (or Pegasister – more on her later) they interviewed also creates custom figurines for the characters. There’s an enormous amount of talent shown here, and it’s great that they found something that inspired them.

  • Two teenage Bronies who were extensively interviewed (one from Bar Harbour, another from England) have wonderfully supportive parents. The parents admit they don’t completely understand their children’s hobby, but they did what they could to make their sons happy. The Bar Harbour Brony’s parents actually came with him to BronyCon, and his father had an extensive conversation with another father of a Brony, and ended up enjoying the show when he finally sat down to watch it.

  • The English Brony also happens to have Asperger’s, which is depicted fairly here. Much of his “storyline” is concerned with his solo trip to the UK Brony convention in Manchester, and how he was trying to avoid as much social contact with others as possible until he got to the con. I wondered how this was going to work, since if he was too petrified to even ask for directions, how was he going to handle interacting with hundreds of strangers in an enclosed space? The happy ending to this was that he realized that asking strangers for directions was no big deal, and having met tons of other like-minded people, it gave him confidence he’d never had before. The latter event didn’t surprise me, as I’ve seen lots of introverted people blossom into confident and exuberant people while at geek cons. The drawback to this, though, was that they regressed back to their “usual” selves once they were back in the real world.

THE BAD:

  • Another teenage Brony, this time from North Carolina, had ordered some pony decals which he’d put in his car’s rear windshield. Unfortunately, a gang of rednecks accosted him while he was driving, and started bashing up his car with baseball bats and tire irons, and smashed in the rear windshield. This was a borderline hate crime, since the rednecks demanded that he give up his “gay Pony shit” (if I’m quoting them correctly). This was awful enough to hear about, but how the Brony decided to deal with this incident made me feel a further combination of sadness and anger. Instead of telling his father the truth, he told him that he’d gotten into an accident. He also did not report this crime to the police. I can certainly sympathize with how ashamed and mortified he must have been feeling, but his lying probably cost his parents extra in insurance costs, and allowed those rednecks to go on to attack someone else. He lives in a small town – he wasn’t obligated to report the crime, but he would have had an easier time than others identifying the perpetrators. I fear for those rednecks’ next victim, because I know there will be one.

  • More than a few of the Bronies were willing to lie to their parents about their hobby. And I see this as a failure on the parents’ part, because they should be willing to accept any of their children’s interests and not immediately jump to the “He’s gay/He’s a pedophile” conclusions. If there’s that little trust over merely liking a children’s television show, something’s broken there.

  • Near the beginning of the film, a “Professor Pony” (who is implied to be de Lancie’s character Discord in disguise) gives a quick run-down of the previous generations of My Little Pony. And bashes every single one. There were fans of the earlier generations of the show before Bronies came along. And he just insulted them. Film, meet finger. It was played off as comedy, but he actually refused to discuss the third generation of MLP entirely. The Professor Pony is supposed to be giving facts, not opinions. That whole “LOL the previous generations sucked” thing just put a bad taste in my mouth.

  • At no point did any of the fans discuss how they felt about the characters, their interactions, go in-depth about the messages of the show, etc. It was all “This show is good and it makes me want to be a good person.” None of them talked about how they gained a new appreciation or respect for girls/women. It was only a writer on the show who expressed that she liked that Bronies were learning that girls/women are capable of doing awesome things just as much as boys/men are. I would have liked to hear that from a BRONY.

THE UGLY:

  • I get that the film was about the unexpected male fans. But to ignore the female fans for a show intended for GIRLS was just insulting. There were two “Pegasisters” interviewed: “Purple Tinker,” the founder of BronyCon (so, not an average fan) and Nadine, a fan from Germany. Wanna know why Nadine was interviewed? Because she met her future fiance at a Brony meetup. (facepalm) And she was the fan designated to bring cupcakes to this meeting. (double facepalm)
  • And it got worse. Midway through the film, a quartet of female ponies interrupted the Professor Pony and angrily pointed out that Pegasisters contribute to the fandom too. Professor Pony stutters that “Girls liking ponies is expected.” And…then no examples of the Pegasisters’ creative efforts are explored, beyond Nadine’s figure sculpting. SERIOUSLY? A few female fans are interviewed at BronyCon, but NONE of them are named. Not one. Not even the one who discussed how the show helped her cope with cancer treatment. If I were a Pegasister I would have been insulted.
  • The subtitles used for some of the dialogue were inconsistent and even condescending/insulting. “The Living Tombstone,” a musician Brony from Tel Aviv, had every one of his lines subtitled, even though he was speaking ENGLISH. And his accent wasn’t that strong. I understood what he was saying just fine. Nadine’s stepfather was expressing a negative reaction to MLP and his stepdaughter’s hobby, but his words were not subtitled. For god’s sake, do they think the audience is stupid? His body language was angry/exasperated, and I understand enough German to know he wasn’t saying good things. Crap like that is why I consider this film borderline propaganda.
  • The Professor Pony briefly references fanfiction shipping and “clopping.” Clopping is masturbating to Rule 34 porn of the characters, sort of like “yiffing” for furry porn. But although the class halts and looks horrified, the Prof just skates right past the reference and ploughs on. Yeah, no. If they’re going to comedically reference the darker side of the fandom, it’s disingenuous to deliberately ignore it.
  • And that is my biggest issue with this film. It’s dishonest. It doesn’t acknowledge the racist, misogynistic, pedophile, homophobic, transphobic etc ponies. Purple Tinker is a transwoman, but they never discuss the hatred some Bronies have thrown at her. They don’t discuss the torrents of Brony abuse that was thrown at fanartist yamino because of the mistaken belief that she had something to do with Hasbro changing the in-show depiction of fan character “Derpy Hooves.” (I JUST checked her deviantART page and someone had actually posted a comment within the last few days saying “You killed Derpy. I hate you.” Oh my god.) Speaking of Derpy, they show her in the front row of the university scenes, but they don’t discuss her at all. Probably because she’s a creation that is ableist as hell and the producers know that if they bring that shit up it’ll make Bronies look bad.


There is merit in pointing out that there’s nothing wrong with adult males liking a well-made show for young girls, and there’s definite merit in trying to break down the gender barriers of entertainment. But I don’t like many of this documentary’s editorial decisions. If I were a Brony, I would have felt uncomfortable that each one who was interviewed was a social outcast, which perpetuates a nasty stereotype. If I were a Pegasister, I would have been insulted at how little the producers valued my contributions to the fandom. As an outsider with a large amount of familiarity with the series and its fandom, I’m insulted at how stupid the producers appear to think their audience is. If this is supposed to change public perception of Bronies, it’s doing a terrible job.

—-

This will be my final column for Bitch Flicks, at least for now. As I mentioned earlier this summer, my chronic illness is making it more and more difficult for me to write, and to keep to a regular schedule. I do not intend to stop blogging, but any future posts from me will be on my personal blog and will not be subject to any kind of deadline. (I may cross-post some of them however) The last few months have been much too stressful for me, and my condition is so unpredictable. I had to make a tough call, and reluctantly decided to walk away. But this is an “indefinite hiatus” as opposed to a “goodbye forever.”

I am tremendously grateful for the opportunity to share my thoughts with like-minded feminist film fans, and I’m grateful to every person who reads my work. I am hoping that someday my fibromyalgia will go into remission and I can go back to regular blogging, but for now, I have to put my health first.

Thank you.



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 can be reached on Twitter under @SoapboxingGeek.


‘Bend It Like Beckham’ And The Lesbian Hate Debate

Bend it like Beckham film poster.

Written by Janyce Denise Glasper

“You bitch!”

This thunderous exclamation seems to occur every five minutes. If a girl is way prettier, she’s a bitch. If a girl “steals” a man of a girl who isn’t even dating that said man, she’s a bitch. If a girl is thought to be a lesbian, she’s a bitch. Twice Jesminder “Jesse” Bharma, Bend it Like Beckham’s football loving protagonist, has been on the receiving end of the blow, but I started to lose sight of this supposedly empowering feminist sports movie due to the infinitely alarming amount of lesbian hatred disguised as harmless humor. To be a lesbian is a bitch? Really? Why?

Joe the coach (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) makes damn sure that Jesse (Parminder Nadra) is no lady lover.

Lesbianism appeared to be an invisible villain to both Jesse and her equally talented teammate, Juliet “Jules” Paxton—a horrendous nasty vile “disease” that could only arise from women who enjoy contact sports.

In Gurinder Chadha’s debut feature film, Jesse is inspired by David Beckham and has his posters and jersey decorating bedroom walls. She wants to emulate his prowess and expertise on the football field and certain people think that it’s not only his athleticism that propels her. She might just like women too. Jesse’s mother hates that she doesn’t want to be called “Jesminder” or act more feminine and domesticated.

“We aren’t lesbians! We both love Joe!” Jesse (Parminder Nagra) and Jules (Keira Knightly) should have chanted.

Jules notices Jesse’s skills against the boys and asks her to join a local team. Jesse eagerly agrees and plays in secret, knowing that her parents would greatly disapprove. Jesse and Jules start to build a positive relationship with Jules schooling Jesse on the amazing Mia Hamm, one of many American women football players in action. The close twosome begin sharing dreams of becoming an active member of the overseas sports team.

Jesse’s parents and Jules’ mother Paula are horrendously incomprehensible characters for sexist views about women’s lock length.

“They wear their hair so short these days, you can never tell,” says Jesse’s mother, twice.

This supposed to be a joke, but why?

Hair length is such a sensitive topic to women, especially when length is close cropped and called “boyish.” No one ever seems to really comprehend the meanings behind hair and what it truly says about someone. Whether a woman likes it away from their face, hate strands touching their butts, donates tresses to worthy causes, wears a protective scarf, or battles cancer or other form of loss, hair is worn differently by all women of all cultures and creeds and shouldn’t be a mark set against them if it’s above shoulders or just plain bald. Feminism should not be marketed towards hair, but unfortunately it always has and will be. Lesbians also wear their hair in various styles and the short hair cut is so beyond stereotypical. It isn’t that powerful to make fun of a group of women or use them as a catalyst to drive laughter. Lesbians also are people too– not a dirty circumstance.

When Pinky’s wedding is called off due to her fiance’s parents seeing Jesse and Jules “kissing,” Pinky is enraged and calls Jesse a bitch for ruining her life. So yes, lesbianism is so treacherous, it gets in the way of events like holy matrimony. Chadra’s co-written screenplay entails all the wrongs of same sex pairings, using misunderstandings as trivial humor– seen by both Jesse and Jules’ reactions to hearing that their families believe them to be drawn together and not to boys. It fails miserably at being sentimental to lesbians as a whole.

Jesse (Parminder Nagra) and her sister Pinky (the awesome Archie Panjabi) both look surprised by Paula (offscreen Juliet Stevenson) announcing that Jesse is part of a lesbian couple with Jules.

“Mother, just because I wear trakkies and play sport does not make me a lesbian!” Jules tells Paula, as if lesbianism the most foul label ever.

Bitch is fine. But lesbian is a slap to the cheek.

Paula was the absolute worst.

Now what if Jules really were a lesbian? If I were in Jules’ shoes (or cleats), I wouldn’t explain a damn thing to rude, insensitive Paula. For Paula to coldly burst into Pinky’s wedding and “call out” Jesse wasn’t exactly classy even if she tells Jules that she wouldn’t have minded Jesse and Jules being a couple. However, didn’t she not just yell for Jesse to get her “lesbian feet” out of her shoes? That doesn’t sound like someone who would’ve been supportive.  Perhaps this is to be a humorous notion (still finding it hard to laugh), but politics on a woman’s style of hair and dress to be considered masculine instead of powerful and sophisticated is outrageous! Not only can’t women have short hair without being labeled manly, we cannot wear pants everyday because that’s an acute sign of lesbianism! Oh and if we play sports especially football, we might not like boys…..

It’s a shame that Jesse and Jules’ fallout had to be over a man– Joe, the coach.

Joe is going to see Jesse (Parminder Nagra) in a new light thanks to “The Makeover” by Jules (Keira Knightly) and Mel (Shaznay Lewis). 

Joe trained Jesse hard on the playing field and shared a couple of his old football glory days prior to injury, but the moment Jesse wore makeup, a form fitting nearly backless number, and long wavy hair cascading about shoulders, he gazed in that beseeching manner that is supposed to be considered romantic. Awww. He really likes her outside of uniform and ponytails.

Pish posh!

This just truly means that her fuckability status moved up and sports took an immediate backburner!  All of a sudden Jesse is hot stuff and Joe wants to have his sample, asking her to dance and almost taking advantage of her drunken state at the club celebration. Now the film has switched over from thrilling lady sports to a man getting his power on–  thankfully for a few minutes at a time. A friendship gets spat on over a man. It becomes war between Jesse and Jules and that “you bitch!” comes bursting out like a launching torpedo—expected but crappy nonetheless. Jesse and Jules make it abundantly clear that they don’t want each other, but they sure do want that Joe.

However, pissed over the typical women falling for the same man BS, I respect that they don’t battle over the spot for the American team. Irate Jules took the time to seek out Jesse because she knew that Jesse was needed. When they played football, they were in it together, functioning, reacting, and showcasing talents together, victorious champions on the field, telling the world that women can kick around a soccer ball, that their dainty feet can work just as craftily and aggressively as a man. They put differences aside with cleats, game faces, and their other female counterparts to take on one hell of a win! Jesse and Jules prove that just because playing sports is considered a masculine way of showcasing aggression, women too can be rough, wield scars, and sweatiness.

Those kisses? Those hugs? That’s a female’s version of the butt taps that male athletes do. Why factor more into that?

The girls win big!

After all, the moral of the story is that girls can play sports and like boys– not be one of those scary lesbians!

I applaud Chadha’s direction, but let’s lay off the meanness next time.

The Bechdel Test and Women in Movies

The original Bechdel Test

This piece by Magda Knight originally appeared at Mookychick and is cross-posted with permission.

A 1985 comic strip by US cartoonist Alison Bechdel, Dykes to Watch Out For, features a character who says they’d only go to see a movie on three conditions:

  • The film has at least two named women in it 
  • Who talk to each other at some point in the film
  • About something other than a man
The idea of the Bechdel Test caught on, and you can now visit the Bechdel Test Movie List, a giant community-run resource that catalogues over 4,000 films which have women talking to each other about not-man things. I highly recommend you check out it out. Partly because it’s really interesting and eye-opening (Straw Dogs just makes it), but mainly because you’ll see passionate and lengthy discussions of the merits of My Little Pony: Equestria Girls and whether the lead females, being ponies, pass the test. AND OH, THEY DO. THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS IS RESTORED.

My Little Pony: Equestria Girls

How do I feel about the validity of the Bechdel Test? My only reservation about it is that I think it’s terribly neat, and I fear tidy things because, as Erma Bombeck said, “My idea of tidy is to sweep the room with a glance.” Tidy is not something I demand of my hair, my house, my film theory or my beliefs. Tidy is rigid, and life ebbs and flows like a vast, floppy, wet and ultimately quite messy ocean teeming with potential and things with too many legs and other things, also with probably too many legs, all of which I’d honestly rather not have to tidy up. If you’re something with that many legs, you can tidy up after yourself. I’ll be on the sofa reading a book.
Einstein believed the universe would eventually boil down to just one universal constant, but I don’t even think art can be condensed into one neat little set of rules, however awesome they are. After all, Fight Club is one of many excellent movies that fails the Bechdel Test, and I’m not going to harsh on Marla the Magnificent’s buzz for not talking to any women in the movie. Hot damn, Marla.

Helena Bonham Carter as Marla in Fight Club

  
Bride Wars, on the other hand, gets a flying pass, and it’s a hideously cynical chick flick about two “best friends” who have sculpted their life ambitions around weddings. They discover they’re booked into the same hotel for a wedding on the same day and turn on each other like rabid dogs and dye each other’s hair blue without asking first because HEY THAT’S WHAT WOMEN BEST FRIENDS DO. The first rule of Fight Club is you don’t talk about Fight Club (unless it’s to gush about the wonderfully dark things it says about the human condition). The first rule of Bride Wars is, obviously, to just not watch it.

What I really do love about the Bechdel Test is the wonderful questions it encourages us to raise. I think it’s excellent for filmmakers and screenwriters to have in the back of their minds: Hey, wouldn’t it be nice if this film I’m creating had some women who talked to each other? Whose lives didn’t triangulate around men like bogeys on a radar screen?

Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson in Bride Wars
A study by the University of California looking at the 100 most successful box office films in 2012 found that just under 30% of the speaking roles were for women, and nearly 30% of those had revealing clothes, a figure which jumped to 56% for teenage girls. And never mind the clothes–how many of those speaking roles were for first or second billing, I wonder, and how many of them involved saying something other than, “We showed each other our private parts yesterday so let’s talk about where this relationship is headed, Dave,” or “Honey, of course you’ll make it through the robot jungle alive. I knitted you a robot handkerchief for good luck; now kiss me, you great big loveable robot fool”?

Helen Mirren
2013 has been a particularly tricky and vocal year for women in films and visual entertainment: 
  • In March, Helen Mirren publicly criticised Sam Mendes for not including any women filmmakers in his list of inspirations and spoke out against the lack of women in the film industry when accepting her Empire Legend Award. BOOM.
  • Professor Maggie Gale of the University of Manchester revealed to the Daily Telegraph that more plays were written by women in the Sufragette era than there are today.
  • Thandie Newton told CNN how she’d been forced to have a movie camera stuck under her skirt as a teenager for a screen test. And how the resulting footage had been played to other people privately. Eurgh.
  • Audrey Tatou (Amelie, The Da Vinci Code) told the Radio Times that she decided not to pursue a Hollywood career because she did not want “every single millimetre” of her body being scrutinised, because the Hollywood approach to an actress’s figure was “unforgiving.” If even Audrey Tatou feels she can’t aspire to be Audrey Tatou, what chance does a young female actress following in her footsteps have?
  • It’s not just western cinema, either; Aruna Irani has spoken out against the lack of good roles for middle-aged women in Bollywood, saying, “There is no role for female characters, especially of my age group. Actresses like Hemaji, Rakhiji and Moushmiji, they all are just at home. And if sometimes they get the chance to be part of a film, then that is for three or four scenes.” 
Audrey Tatou

It’s almost a case of: if you’re a young and talented actress, you better make the most of those apples in your cheeks while you’ve still got them, apple-face, because only three women of your generation will get to be Maggie Smith or Helen Mirren, and you’re going to be expected to fight other actresses tooth and nail–almost as if you’d booked a wedding in the same place on the same day–to be one of them. And that percentage of women with speaking parts in film? The number’s been going down since 2009, not up. Speaking roles for women in film are currently at their lowest in five years.

Sony’s Amy Pascal, who ranks 14th on Forbes‘ 20 Most Powerful Women in Business list, gave a really interesting interview on closing the pay gap between men and women in Hollywood, and why women get paid less than men. I literally couldn’t figure out how to fit that into this article tidily (see above), so I’m just going to throw it in there. Enjoy!

Sony’s Amy Pascal

If we take some positives from this…
  • If you’re creating a film or play, consider the Bechdel Test. Could your script do with more speaking parts for women? Even older women? About non-man things?
  • If you’re not creating a film or play but have always wanted to, give it a go. There are more Jane Campions and Kathryn Bigelows out there in the filmosphere, and one of them might be you.
  • If you’re an actress, ALL POWER TO YOU. Things will be addressed, and they will get better. If it gets to the point where you’re giving an interview to CNN or accepting an Empire Legend Award? It’s not just acknowledgement for your talent and hard work, it’s a platform. If you speak out, people will hear you… 

@MagdaKnight is the Co-Founding Editor of Mookychick. Her YA fiction and other writings have been published in anthologies and in 2000AD. She likes you already, so Email her and say hi, or visit her blog. She is on Google+.

Queer Infatuation in ‘Farewell, My Queen’

Farewell, My Queen

Written by Erin Tatum.

Farewell, My Queen has been on my to-watch list for a while. I’m a sucker for the opulence and pretty costumes of period pieces. Really, you could assemble the worst cast imaginable and I’d probably still watch to drool over the outfits. The narrative chronicles events in Versailles on the eve of the French Revolution from the perspective of the Queen’s reader, Sidonie Laborde (Léa Seydoux). Sidonie displays fervent loyalty towards Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger) and jealously monitors the ups and downs of her intimate friendship with Gabrielle de Polastron, Duchess of Polignac (Virginie Ledoyen). Personally, I loathed Sofia Coppola’s airheaded incarnation of Marie Antoinette and found Kirsten Dunst to be insufferable. I understand that there is a popular perception of Marie Antoinette as childish and self-indulgent, but there’s a difference between that and feeling like you’re watching the 18th century equivalent of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl drop a tab of acid and run through fields for two hours while rap music plays in the background. Anyway, I digress. The point is that I was excited for an authentically French take on the story.
Marie Antoinette (left) and Sidonie (right) bond over medical treatment.

The trailer for the film would lead you to believe that the central plot is the lesbian love triangle to end all lesbian love triangles. As such, for once I may have gone into a film with my queer expectations a little too high. Sidonie has an ambiguously romantic obsession with Marie Antoinette, who in turn is fixated on Gabrielle, although none of the women’s feelings for each other are ever made explicit. Neither Marie Antoinette nor Gabrielle seems to notice their admirer in that way. This always ends well. Sidonie’s official duties include reading aloud to the Queen, which is a gangly metaphor for the former’s intellectualism and the allegedly cerebral bond between the two. Sidonie’s infatuation with the Queen is ignited after Marie Antoinette insists on rubbing rosewood oil on Sidonie’s pesky mosquito bites. Only in the personal hygiene vacuum of the 1700s would this gesture be considered sensual or sexy.
Sidonie takes a ride on a gondola and the suave gondolier attempts to hit on her by sharing juicy Versailles gossip. He mentions Marie Antoinette’s preoccupation with Gabrielle and insinuates that he has been sleeping with Gabrielle, all the while still trying to smooth talk his way into Sidonie’s stockings. Was it really that easy to sleep around in the 1700s? I’m assuming it’s meant to be a commentary on the boredom and hedonism of the French upper-class, but still, given the religious zealousness of the time, it’s difficult to believe that adultery is idle chit chat. Sidonie pouts in response to the outside confirmation of her worst fear – that Marie Antoinette loves someone else. The most bizarre thing is that we’ve barely been introduced to the women or any of their dynamics at this point, so her wounded reaction feels unwarranted. 
Sidonie approaches a group discussing a propaganda pamphlet. 

Meanwhile, the atmosphere at the palace becomes tense when everyone gets word of the storming of the Bastille. This is truly the heart of the film’s main thrust, as servants, aristocrats, and the royal family alike wait for their gilded world to come crashing down around them. The atmosphere teeters between nervous anticipation and chaos, even as the lavish rituals continue as normal. Farewell, My Queen really comes into its own as a critique of the vacuous and self-destructive denial of the elite with regard to the shifting status quo, which would have been more than substantial enough to carry the premise. I don’t understand why the love triangle was marketed and propped up as the core drama of the narrative, other than for poetic depth. Whether or not you buy into the rumors that Marie Antoinette was queer, the idea is undeniably fascinating. As a society, we tend to view Marie Antoinette’s lifestyle as the pinnacle of our materialistic fantasies, so it’s titillating that the woman who has it all would only find true fulfillment in love objects that were doubly forbidden by way of lesbianism and adultery. However, the execution is lukewarm and its intrigue pales in comparison to that of say, I don’t know, the French Revolution.

Everyone starts leaving the palace in droves as they fear the collapse of the government. Nonetheless, Sidonie repeatedly pronounces loyalty to the Queen and refuses to leave her despite the protests of her more levelheaded peers and superiors. Using this love triangle as the overarching B-plot doesn’t quite work because we get a lot of telling and not showing. Sidonie constantly talks about her devotion to the Queen and other characters comment on it, but we don’t see any interaction other than the early rosewood oil scene to justify her obsession. Maybe that’s the point. Infatuation requires very little kindling. Sidonie is falling in love with her own imagination and who she projects Marie Antoinette to be – not who Marie Antoinette actually is. The exact nature of Gabrielle’s relationship with Marie Antoinette is also unclear, but the Queen and Sidonie appear to be birds of a feather in that both women worship a mirage. This isn’t so much a love triangle as it is a chain of unrequited emotional overinvestment.

The Queen laments that Gabrielle is leaving her behind.

The king and queen hold court to announce they will not be leaving the palace. Gabrielle rushes up to the Queen for a dramatic embrace. They press their foreheads together in unspoken intimacy, ignoring the spectators as the rest of the court watches uncomfortably. Marie Antoinette pulls Gabrielle aside for a more private goodbye and Sidonie follows to eavesdrop. After some coquettish banter, Marie Antoinette abruptly changes the tone of the conversation to insist that Gabrielle leave Versailles. Gabrielle reluctantly agrees, causing Marie Antoinette to angrily accuse her of abandonment before sobbing uncontrollably. What a drama queen! Haha, bad monarchy puns.
Although Sidonie is discouraged by the clear extent of Marie Antoinette’s affection for Gabrielle, she remains determined to prove herself. The Queen asks her to go on one last, very important mission. She instructs Sidonie to dress in Gabrielle’s clothes and escape with Gabrielle and her husband in disguise so that any potential assassins will mistake Sidonie for Gabrielle and attack her instead. Sidonie balks at this plan and Seydoux effortlessly portrays the slow encroachment of betrayal and disillusionment across her features. She realizes too late that Marie Antoinette perceives her as little more than an expendable pawn to be manipulated to protect those whom she actually loves. Adding insult to injury, Marie Antoinette orders Sidonie to strip on the spot. A moment that may have once been erotic becomes filled with powerlessness and shame for Sidonie as the Queen carelessly glances over her nude body with disinterest.
Marie Antoinette pulls Sidonie back in for a little more humiliation.
As Sidonie prepares to exit Versailles as the decoy Gabrielle, Marie Antoinette calls her back. She asks Sidonie to tell Gabrielle that she’ll never forget her and gives her a chaste kiss on the lips. Given how much Sidonie purported to care for the Queen, the exchange is heartbreaking because it’s very obviously meant for someone else. The fact that the kiss is devoid of passion and occurs while Sidonie is passing as Gabrielle just pours salt in the wound. For all her starry eyed daydreaming, Sidonie learns that Marie Antoinette is just as callous and self-serving as everyone else. The Achilles’ heel of infatuation lies in the fact that you’re falling in love with your own self-constructed idea of the person and not the actual person in reality. Against the odds, Sidonie goes across the Swiss border unscathed with Gabrielle and her husband. In voiceover, she claims that she will be a nobody now since acting as the Queen’s reader was her whole identity. I guess old habits die hard.

Don’t Ignore ‘Trophy Wife’

Written by Robin Hitchcock
I probably could have gone an entire season, or, network willing, three or four, without really paying any attention to the existence of upcoming ABC sitcom Trophy Wife. To begin with, it is an ABC sitcom not called Happy Endings (RIP). And my cynical side assumes it got an instant greenlight for its passing resemblance to Modern Family:
The cast of Modern Family Trophy Wife
And it is called Trophy Wife. But do not ignore Trophy Wife! 
1. It is co-created by Sarah Haskins.
Of Target Women fame. I know you’ve missed her. You’ve probably cried while staring out a rainy window, silently begging for her to come back to us. And now she has. Haskins has an uncanny ability to hilariously dissect tropes, and family sitcoms are begging for the Target Women treatment. (She already got a head start with her Doofy Husbands segment, above.)
2. It is loosely based on her own life.

Bradley Whitford and Malin Akerman in Trophy Wife
Haskins married an older man who has three ex-wives, which is even one more ex than Trophy Wife‘s heroine Kate finds herself dealing with. But the important takeaway from this real-life inspiration is that Kate is loosely based on Sarah. Seeing Malin Akerman in the pilot was like watching Sarah Haskins wearing a very convincing Swedish supermodel mask. Akerman clearly sees what makes Haskins so charming and has adeptly built her character on those quirks. And the script sings with Haskins’s awkwardly funny voice.
3. The rest of the cast is also awesome! (And full of women!)
Supporting cast of Trophy Wife
The ex-wives are Oscar-winner Marcia Gay Harden and Michaela Watkins, who, incidentally, was in the same lass of short-tenured and utterly wasted SNL featured players as Casey Wilson. Right now their characters are broad stereotypes (Stern Doctor First Wife and Hippy Dippy Second Wife), but this is only the pilot, and the actresses have enough talent to develop these characters as the writing finds its footing. And it’s clear from the pilot that they aren’t just going to be antagonists to Kate, but co-parents and maybe unlikely friends.
Natalie Morales (the Middleman one, not the Today Show one) plays Meg, Kate’s best friend, still in carefree youth mode when Kate suddenly becomes a frazzled stepmother. It’s sort of the reverse of the dynamic that between Mindy and Anna Camp’s character on The Mindy Project. While that subplot never found traction, I hope we see a lot more of the changing relationship between Meg and Kate.
And the trophy husband, so to speak, is Bradley Whitford, if you’re into that sort of thing.
4. We are all getting older and maybe need to surrender to family sitcoms instead of “friendcore” (TM Emily Nussbaum) shows.
Ugh, and like, buy life insurance and wash our sheets more than once a month and stop eating Doritos for breakfast. NEVERMIND I hate this argument.
4, Take 2. It’s really funny.
You can watch the pilot now on ABC’s website.

Unconventional Women

Screening of Like the Water in Rockland, Maine
This is a guest post by Emily Best.

I am lying on the floor of a small bedroom in an East Village mansion in New York City. It’s the holding room of a site-specific production of Hedda Gabler in which I am playing Thea, and Caitlin FitzGerald (who is soon to co-star in Showtime’s Masters of Sex) is playing Hedda. We have been playing for about two weeks to sold out, packed crowds of 28 people who sit around the living room while the show happens so close to them they can feel us breathing (and we them).

We are warming up. I am reading over some sides that Caitlin is preparing for an audition the next day–for the role of a chronic masturbator. The dialogue is trite, the character non-existent. This woman who stands across from me every night in full possession of the force of her intelligence, complexity, delicacy, beauty, humor, and wrath is auditioning to play a trope. 

Director Caroline von Kuhn on set with Like the Water cast
I remember that day as the deciding factor for me. For Caroline von Kuhn–who wrote a piece for Bitch Flicks about directing Like the Water, the film we would eventually make together–I’m not sure what it was. Or for Caitlin, who was perhaps tired of being asked to audition for parts like that. Or for the other seven women who would join the production of our film, all of whom I count as dearest friends. But somehow, together we decided we would attempt to make a film about women we recognized. We would attempt to make a film about women who do not fall into one of two categories we typically see in films: the mouthy, too-smart for her own good teenager, or the emotionally stunted 35 year old for whom the solution to the world’s problems is a man. (You could add to this perhaps the oversexed Other Woman and the mean mom/stepmom.)

We wondered what it would be like to make a movie about situations familiar to us, with characters who react the way they do in life: imperfectly. But it was also important for us to include something about the nature of our friendships: funny, challenging, loving, and absolutely necessary.

DP Eve Cohen — Like the Water and Mana O’Lana: Paddle for Hope
We made Like the Water to lean against what we felt like were the conventional portrayals of women in their 20s and 30s. Until we made the film, I hadn’t gone out of my way to seek out the ways other directors were pushing the boundaries of female characters. It was only through my own experience producing Like the Water that I realized just how difficult a task it is to fund and lock down distribution for a film that bucks these conventions. So when we started Seed&Spark, I suppose it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that most of our early submissions both for crowdfunding and distribution were from women. It’s so exciting to be able to bring together a slate of films that I hope adds to the conversation about those conventions, and also what it means to be unconventional.

My good friend Anna Kerrigan made her directorial and acting debut with the film Five Days Gone, an exceptional screenplay she wrote which she turned into a feature film about family, sisterhood, and the subtle complexities in relationships between men and women. In The Sound of Small Things, Pete McLarnan found an actress who possessed so much of her own life, he turned the camera on her and for the most part, stayed out of her way. (This film has one of the most beautiful, intimate scenes of a deaf woman finding an unconventional way to connect to her musician husband.) In Café Regular, Cairo, Ritsh Batra trains the camera on a Muslim woman testing her relationship by playing with taboo. In I Send You This Place, Andrea Ohs opens her creative world to the audience as she explores her relationship to her brother’s schizophrenia. And in Mana O’Lana: Paddle for Hope, documentarian Eve Cohen enters into her mother’s story of arduous ocean paddling with a group of determined breast cancer survivors.

Film posters and stills
None of these women can be put in a box or labeled, reduced or diminished. In many ways, all of these films are political acts, though I am sure few intended them to be. I look forward to adding films to this conversation and learning from the discussions that ensue. Hopefully those teachings will filter back up through the chain, and the next generation of studio writers will give us new, broader conventions–ones we will happily defy with the next generation of independent films.
Like the Water, inspired Seed&Spark. Before producing Like the Water, Emily produced theater, worked as a vision and values strategy consultant for Best Partners, ran restaurants, studied jazz singing at the Taller de Musics, tour guided and cooked in Barcelona, and before that, was a student of Cultural Anthropology and American Studies at Haverford College. Recently, Emily was named one of the 2013 Indiewire Influencers, dedicated to 40 people and companies who are asking the big questions about what the independent film industry is today (and why) and, more importantly, what it will become. Emily is touring film and tech festivals around the world, Sundance and SXSWV2V to Sheffield and Galway, to educate filmmakers and learn their best practices in connecting with their audiences to build a sustainable career. Emily founded Seed&Spark to make a contribution to the truly independent community in which she would like to make moving pictures. In 2011, she had the great fortune of producing her first feature with a remarkable group of women. The spirit, the community and the challenges of that project.

I Love ‘Whip It!,’ But You Probably Shouldn’t: A Roller Derby Athlete Reflects

The cast of Whip It!
This review by Sarah Chamberlain originally appeared at her blog Sarah Chamberlain Does Things and is cross-posted with permission.

Whenever I meet a fellow skater, and they ask me how I got into roller derby, I get a little sheepish.

“I was in college and I saw Whip It!, and I decided I wanted to do that,” I say every time, hoping for a nonjudgmental reaction. Joining the sport post-Whip It! is not the coolest thing for a derby athlete to cop to. Unfortunately for me, my simple derby origin story is true. I walked into a movie theater expecting to see a frothy girl-power flick with my friend, and I did—but I also walked out figuring starter skates into my college budget. For at least the first year and a half of my derby career, until I was well past the point of knowing better, I’d watch Whip It! the night before every bout while I painted my nails in my team colors and sipped on a healthy, nonalcoholic beverage. And while I know that Whip It! Is not the best roller derby film out there, when I sat down a few nights ago to re-watch it for the first time in over a year, I cried at the same parts that always made me weepy. I love Whip It!, but I’m a sucker for it.

The cast of Whip It!

Whip It! Was Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut. Based on a young adult novel by Shauna Cross, the screenplay centers around a seventeen-year-old misfit named Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page), who spends a lot of time screwing up at the beauty pageants her mom (Marcia Gay Harding) makes her do, until she discovers roller derby while on a shopping trip to Austin. Without permission from her mom or her sports-loving dad, Bliss lies about her age, joins the 21+ league, and becomes star jammer Babe Ruthless. Problems arise when she starts dating an indie rocker she meets at a bout, when she clashes with a member of an opposing team, and when her parents find out about her secret double life. While the plot is heavy on teen and sports movie cliches, it’s also generously sprinkled with esoteric cultural references and cameos. Jimmy Fallon has a minor role as Hot Tub Johnny Rockets, a perpetually hungover announcer who just wants to get laid, and Andrew Wilson (the elusive third Wilson brother!) faces off against opposing coach Har Mar Superstar. Many of the extras, skaters, and non-speaking roles are respected real-life derby skaters, including one of my coaches, who plays the deaf Manson Sister #1—hi, Krissy!

It barely broke even at the box office and drew mixed reviews. Mainstream critics were on point about the film’s predictability; however, their reviews lose credibility when they make uneducated comments about derby aspects of the film. For example, one critic questioned Page’s casting in the lead role, saying she seemed too small to play roller derby. Never mind the fact that Bliss is a jammer, a position traditionally (though certainly not always) assigned to small, agile skaters. More interesting criticism came from within the roller derby community. If you ask a skater about Whip It!, she’ll probably complain about the “Play #3” scene, when Wilson’s character fields a strategy combining an elbow and a 180-degree turn. In real-life regulation play, this move is grounds for immediate ejection from a bout.

Not okay.

However, the biggest problem with Whip It! isn’t the punches and elbows—if you watch closely, you’ll notice that Barrymore’s Smashley Simpson is always ejected, anyway—it’s the erasure of certain people and philosophies that make roller derby unique among modern sports. No visibly queer characters are included in the film, which is unrealistic for a sport known for its LGBTQ superstars and being relatively trans-inclusive a few years before anyone had ever heard of Fallon Fox. The grown women who drive both the skating and business aspects of competitive roller derby are weirdly two-dimensional. A big reveal happens when Bliss learns that her team captain, Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig), skips afterparties because she needs to be with her young son, and another occurs when league bully Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis) snarls that she’s earned her derby stardom at age thirty-six—but after that, the film lets those characters return to the background. A large part of the criticism Whip It! received from the roller derby community regarded the age of its protagonist. Roller derby is so transformative and special for women who find it in their 20s, 30s and 40s, the criticism goes. Why make teenage Bliss the heroine, when Maggie’s and Maven’s stories are much more compelling?

Juliette Lewis as Iron Maven in Whip It!

This is where I begin to get soft on Whip It! When I started playing roller derby at twenty-one (not quite a grown-ass woman, to be fair), I became a teenager again. My body changed and I was hungry all the time. I worried about what to wear to practice. My new passion worried my mom, and I had to be a little bit sneaky to keep everybody happy. I had to make choices about relationships and priorities that I’d never had to make before. And I could think of nothing but roller derby: after class, I’d sit in my room ogling gear, watching and re-watching league promo videos. In class, I’d doodle pictures of skates and myself wearing a jammer star on my helmet. I felt about roller derby the way I felt about my crushes in middle and high school. Maybe it’s easier to translate that giddy feeling to non-skaters if you just make the main character a typical teenage girl who is still figuring things out.

Don’t give up on film depictions of roller derby if you’re less sentimental than I am. There are better representations of derby in film, but you have to go looking for them. Brutal Beauty, a documentary which follows Portland’s Rose City Rollers through their 2010 home and travel seasons, is a great introduction to the sport and is available for streaming on Netflix.

Trailer for Brutal Beauty

An upcoming documentary that promises to take a different approach to the topic of derby is Erica Tremblay’s The Vagine Regime, which will profile the titular pan-derby LGBTQ all-star team.

 Trailer for Vagine Regime

Finally, my current favorite roller derby film is Turner Van Ryn’s dialogue-free short film Skater 26, which follows San Francisco skater Chantilly Mace through the weekend leading up to a high-stakes home bout. It’s breathtaking to watch, and does an incredible job of quietly creating a detailed narrative out of what is still a niche subject. Best of all, it’s available in full on YouTube.

 Skater 26 (full movie)

Personal reasons for loving Whip It! aside—I’ve sat in the penalty box on delicate technical fouls enough times to scoff at “Play #3”—I can detect the tense, rehearsed quality of a new skater in many of the actors’ jumps and sprints. Johnny Rockets’s announcing places a little too much emphasis on the fishnet stockings the players wear, a trope that still crops up in mainstream coverage of derby. The underwater sex scene is truly unnecessary–so unnecessary that I won’t link to it. I cringe when Page’s Bliss tells her mom to “stop shoving your psychotic idea of ’50s womanhood down my throat,” because who actually says that?

But right after that, she throws out her hands and says, “I am in love with this.” I believe you, Bliss. I just understand why a lot of us don’t. Fortunately, there are just enough film options out there for the derby-curious.

Sarah Chamberlain (twitter.com/SChamberlainLA) graduated from DePauw University with degrees in creative writing and flute performance. She lives in Los Angeles, where she works in a charter school and skates and coaches for the Angel City Derby Girls. Her work has been featured on The Billfold and LAist.com.

‘Passion’ and ‘Crime d’amour’: Women and Corporate Power Plays

Brian de Palma’s Passion
Written by Amanda Rodriguez

Brian De Palma’s film Passion is a sleek, sexy, beautifully shot neo-noir thriller remade from Alain Corneau’s 2010 French film Crime d’amour (or Love Crime in English). 

Crime d’amour
I always think it’s valuable to examine how films deviate from their source material because those are indications of deliberate choices that can say a lot (whether accidentally or intentionally). Honestly, the films aren’t tremendously different in an overt way, as most scenes are shot-for-shot, line-for-line identical, the basic differences being the languages of each and the uniquely lush, decadent darkness De Palma brings to his works. However, there are a few intriguing, telling differences that bear noting, and therein lies the meat of my analysis.
In Crime d’amour, the manipulative, power-wielding character Christine is played by the acclaimed Kristin Scott Thomas, who is considerably older than her protege, Rachel (pictured above). This creates a more maternal relationship between them, giving Christine the additional power advantage of age. The sexual energy between the two is therefore more illicit and is unreciprocated by the younger Rachel. However, in Passion, the actresses Rachel McAdams as Christine and Noomi Rapace (whom I always love, love, love) as Rachel are much closer in age, so the power dynamic between them rests purely on the weight of Christine’s corporate power and her ability to manipulate people however she sees fit. The sexual energy between the two is complicated, but palpable with love, hatred, desire, and emulation thrown in the mix. This dynamic ensures that the entire film, including the “love crime” that occurs, is about the relationship between these two women and not the man between them (with whom they’re both having sex). He remains ever a pawn they both use against each other.
Christine and Rachel kiss and later, at Christine’s insistence, profess love for each other.
I won’t go into too great detail about the next difference between the two films because it’s spoiler-ridden, but they both approach the story’s murder in opposite manners. In Crime d’amour, we watch the plotting of the crime, unsure as to the perpetrating character’s sanity, motivation, and the final outcome of conviction versus acquittal. De Palma’s Passion, however, is more of a classic noir whodunit, where we’re constantly questioning guilt versus innocence, genuine emotion versus manipulation, and reality versus insanity/fantasy. Both approaches are engaging and enjoyable to watch, so I’ve got no complaints for either interpretation.
The murderer wears a mask that’s a mold of the victim’s face to chilling effect in Passion.
The last most significant change between the original film and its remake is the gender shift for Rachel’s assistant. In Crime d’amour, her assistant is Daniel, a man, and in Passion, her assistant is Dani (played by Karoline Herfurth), a woman. This shift makes only women the major players in Passion. We are left with a power struggle among three femme fatales, all smart, driven women who know what they want and use whatever means necessary to achieve their desires. This triumvirate of femme fatales, full of intelligence, secrets, and cunning, all battling for supremacy, is something I’ve never seen before on the silver screen. Their deep-laid game is impressive in its scope, and it is so exciting to watch three strong female characters unleashing their power. 
The power dynamic shifts as assistant, Dani, reveals her knowledge to Rachel, mirroring the power play between Rachel and Christine.
My major critique of both films, in particular Passion, is the very stereotypical female-ness of the power plays the films explore. Love, sex, desire, humiliation, as well as the manipulation of people and emotions for revenge or personal gain are all tactics traditionally coded as female. Though this tale takes place in the male-dominated corporate world, many (if not all) of the female characters’ actions are dictated by emotion. We are given to see the cycle of mentor and protege being corrupted, ending with the protege on top, first with the relationship between Christine and Rachel and then with Rachel and Dani. It is brutal, cutting deeper than the loss or gain of a promotion due to a superior’s greed, insisting that a hierarchy must exist between women; equality is not an option. Christine says to Rachel, “There’s no back-stabbing here. It’s just business”, and Rachel later repeats it back to her. Both times, the statement is a lie. Both times it shows the opposite to be true. The implication, of course, being that women aren’t capable of divorcing their feelings from business, that the manner in which they gain and keep success, even in a corporate setting, is through ruthless manipulation and, its darkest permutation: out-and-out emotional blackmail.
Rachel devolves after Christine emotionally violates and humiliates her.
Both Crime d’amour and Passion pass the Bechdel Test with flying colors. Unfortunately, these women are slaves to emotion, which is their ultimate weakness, their fatal flaw. I don’t think the films go so far as to suggest that women don’t belong in a highly competitive corporate work place and aren’t capable of being powerful, high-level executives, but I also think the films stop just short of insinuating that. However, Passion, in particular, really showcases strong female characters who are smart, successful, and ambitious without masculinizing them as is common in film portrayals of powerful women, especially in a corporate setting. These women are complicated and morally ambiguous people replete with compelling layers, leaving viewers wondering whether we hate or love them for their brash disregard for the rules and their deeply ingrained self-preservation instincts. Despite the films’ weaknesses (and our heroines’), it’s always refreshing to see powerful, multifaceted women taking charge of the big screen because it happens not nearly often enough.

‘Passion’ and ‘Crime d’amour’: Women and Corporate Power Plays

Brian de Palma’s Passion
Written by Amanda Rodriguez

Brian De Palma’s film Passion is a sleek, sexy, beautifully shot neo-noir thriller remade from Alain Corneau’s 2010 French film Crime d’amour (or Love Crime in English). 

Crime d’amour
I always think it’s valuable to examine how films deviate from their source material because those are indications of deliberate choices that can say a lot (whether accidentally or intentionally). Honestly, the films aren’t tremendously different in an overt way, as most scenes are shot-for-shot, line-for-line identical, the basic differences being the languages of each and the uniquely lush, decadent darkness De Palma brings to his works. However, there are a few intriguing, telling differences that bear noting, and therein lies the meat of my analysis.
In Crime d’amour, the manipulative, power-wielding character Christine is played by the acclaimed Kristin Scott Thomas, who is considerably older than her protege, Rachel (pictured above). This creates a more maternal relationship between them, giving Christine the additional power advantage of age. The sexual energy between the two is therefore more illicit and is unreciprocated by the younger Rachel. However, in Passion, the actresses Rachel McAdams as Christine and Noomi Rapace (whom I always love, love, love) as Rachel are much closer in age, so the power dynamic between them rests purely on the weight of Christine’s corporate power and her ability to manipulate people however she sees fit. The sexual energy between the two is complicated, but palpable with love, hatred, desire, and emulation thrown in the mix. This dynamic ensures that the entire film, including the “love crime” that occurs, is about the relationship between these two women and not the man between them (with whom they’re both having sex). He remains ever a pawn they both use against each other.
Christine and Rachel kiss and later, at Christine’s insistence, profess love for each other.
I won’t go into too great detail about the next difference between the two films because it’s spoiler-ridden, but they both approach the story’s murder in opposite manners. In Crime d’amour, we watch the plotting of the crime, unsure as to the perpetrating character’s sanity, motivation, and the final outcome of conviction versus acquittal. De Palma’s Passion, however, is more of a classic noir whodunit, where we’re constantly questioning guilt versus innocence, genuine emotion versus manipulation, and reality versus insanity/fantasy. Both approaches are engaging and enjoyable to watch, so I’ve got no complaints for either interpretation.
The murderer wears a mask that’s a mold of the victim’s face to chilling effect in Passion.
The last most significant change between the original film and its remake is the gender shift for Rachel’s assistant. In Crime d’amour, her assistant is Daniel, a man, and in Passion, her assistant is Dani (played by Karoline Herfurth), a woman. This shift makes only women the major players in Passion. We are left with a power struggle among three femme fatales, all smart, driven women who know what they want and use whatever means necessary to achieve their desires. This triumvirate of femme fatales, full of intelligence, secrets, and cunning, all battling for supremacy, is something I’ve never seen before on the silver screen. Their deep-laid game is impressive in its scope, and it is so exciting to watch three strong female characters unleashing their power. 
The power dynamic shifts as assistant, Dani, reveals her knowledge to Rachel, mirroring the power play between Rachel and Christine.
My major critique of both films, in particular Passion, is the very stereotypical female-ness of the power plays the films explore. Love, sex, desire, humiliation, as well as the manipulation of people and emotions for revenge or personal gain are all tactics traditionally coded as female. Though this tale takes place in the male-dominated corporate world, many (if not all) of the female characters’ actions are dictated by emotion. We are given to see the cycle of mentor and protege being corrupted, ending with the protege on top, first with the relationship between Christine and Rachel and then with Rachel and Dani. It is brutal, cutting deeper than the loss or gain of a promotion due to a superior’s greed, insisting that a hierarchy must exist between women; equality is not an option. Christine says to Rachel, “There’s no back-stabbing here. It’s just business”, and Rachel later repeats it back to her. Both times, the statement is a lie. Both times it shows the opposite to be true. The implication, of course, being that women aren’t capable of divorcing their feelings from business, that the manner in which they gain and keep success, even in a corporate setting, is through ruthless manipulation and, its darkest permutation: out-and-out emotional blackmail.
Rachel devolves after Christine emotionally violates and humiliates her.
Both Crime d’amour and Passion pass the Bechdel Test with flying colors. Unfortunately, these women are slaves to emotion, which is their ultimate weakness, their fatal flaw. I don’t think the films go so far as to suggest that women don’t belong in a highly competitive corporate work place and aren’t capable of being powerful, high-level executives, but I also think the films stop just short of insinuating that. However, Passion, in particular, really showcases strong female characters who are smart, successful, and ambitious without masculinizing them as is common in film portrayals of powerful women, especially in a corporate setting. These women are complicated and morally ambiguous people replete with compelling layers, leaving viewers wondering whether we hate or love them for their brash disregard for the rules and their deeply ingrained self-preservation instincts. Despite the films’ weaknesses (and our heroines’), it’s always refreshing to see powerful, multifaceted women taking charge of the big screen because it happens not nearly often enough.

An Emotional Response to ‘Lovelace’

Amanda Seyfried as “Linda Lovelace”
This is a guest post by Gabriella Apicella.
When was the last time you cried in a movie theatre? The last time you were so moved by a film you needed everyone else to leave before ungluing yourself from the seat and attempting to process what you’ve experienced? Or the last time you saw something that made you feel that if enough people saw it, the world could be changed for the better?
None of these things happen to me too often, but this evening while watching Lovelace, I experienced all three.
I’ve been following the release of this film with some interest. As a dedicated feminist with a fiercely anti-porn stance, I was certainly not expecting anything particularly groundbreaking when I saw the movie posters plastered on the walls of my local underground station. Showing an objectified Amanda Seyfried in a lacy bra with wide eyes and an innocent pout, I very quickly assumed this would be a film for me to try and forget existed (much like the endless Fast and Furious rehashes). And then I heard that Gloria Steinem and Catherine Mackinnon were involved. For those who hadn’t heard, they were both consultants on the film, in their roles as caretakers of Linda Boreman Marchiano’s estate. 
Linda Boreman Marchiano (aka Linda Lovelace)
(This excellent article by Catherine Mackinnon explains a bit more about their involvement and is well worth reading.) 
Dreadful acts of abuse feature all too regularly on our screens. Even on television it has become increasingly common to see ever more graphic gore and sadistic violence. As Lovelace has an 18 certificate (equivalent to R in the US) and being superficially familiar with the story beforehand, I had braced myself for a barrage of scarring images, expertly shot and edited and due to reappear in my nightmares for weeks to come. This is one of the quandaries that I have wondered about as a screenwriter – how to depict scenes of distressing acts without compromising your viewer, or making them complicit with the abuse, or, in fact, abusing them as well. However, it may be that by their sensitive and elegant handling, the filmmakers of Lovelace have actually revolutionised an area of storytelling that has prevented some of the most shocking and distressing yet crucially important films from either being made or from being seen.
The film intelligently portrays a great deal of what Linda Boreman Marchiano experienced and yet does not subject the audience to the horror. Not only does this make it a safer viewing experience, it also puts the audience’s emotional identification with the protagonist first. Linda remains a whole character throughout rather than becoming a body upon which hideous acts are carried out. We do not shift into passive voyeur or spectator, as traumatising scenes in The Accused, Monster, Straw Dogs, Irreversible, or any number of other films depicting domestic and sexual violence force the audience to do. 
Adam Brody and Amanda Seyfried in Lovelace
One of the defending arguments the Director Michael Winterbottom employed when graphically depicting the violent beating of both female characters in his film, The Killer Inside Me was that: 
“It was intentionally shocking. The whole point of the story is, here is someone who is supposed to be in love with two women who he beats to death, and of course the violence should be shocking. If you make a film where the violence is entertaining, I think that’s very questionable.”

What Lovelace opens up is the possibility that it is not actually necessary to show violence – shocking, entertaining or otherwise, in order to interrogate these issues on film.
For people affected by domestic or sexual abuse and violence, either personally or otherwise, films about these subjects are of huge interest. The matters are of enormous concern, and knowing the power of the media, it is only natural that these same people would wish to watch any major productions tackling these issues. And yet, viewing violence onscreen has the potential to trigger traumatic responses, so this same audience frequently stays away from this material and is thereby excluded from the conversations (as if they need to be silenced any more than they are already!) 
Amanda Seyfriend as Linda Boreman Marchiano in Lovelace
As I attempt to process the devastating story of Linda Boreman Marchiano, only a fraction of which is actually covered in the film Lovelace (her activism and later years are not depicted), I am struck by the excellent performances, my enduring loathing for uber-pimp Hugh Hefner, and the exceptional influence of two feminist icons on the making of this important film.
What kept me sobbing in my seat throughout the credits and for some time in the lobby after the film, however, was the knowledge that this is not a one-off case, nor was it the worst case scenario. Porn has grown in both financial terms and in the levels of violence and degradation performers endure. What Linda experienced was horrifying. It continues, on an industrialised scale, and yet we are so very far from ensuring the safety of those who are exploited by it. Linda Boreman Marchiano’s mission was to raise awareness around domestic violence and the realities of the porn industry so that people who are being abused can reach safety. As part of realising her legacy, I urge you to watch this film and take a skeptical friend: they may just start to think differently after seeing it … 

Gabriella Apicella is a feminist writer and tutor living in London, England. She has a degree in Film and Media from Birkbeck College, University of London, is on the board of Script Development organisation Euroscript, and in 2010 co-founded the UnderWire Festival that aims to recognise the raw filmmaking talent of women. Her writing features women in the central roles, and she has been commissioned to write short films, experimental theatre and prose for independent directors and artists.