Wendy and Lucy – Bitch Flicks

Women Directors Week: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts from our Women Directors Theme Week here.

Women with a Camera: How Women Directors Can Change the Cinematic Landscape by Emanuela Betti

What I saw… was the problem women have faced for centuries: the popularity of woman as art subject, not as creator. What critics and award judges seem to love are not so much women’s stories, but women’s stories told by men. Stories in which women’s agency is strictly and safely in the hands of a male auteurs. … We need more women filmmakers — not as a way to fill quotas, but because women’s stories are different, unique, and need to be told.

Why Eve’s Bayou Is a Great American Art Film by Amirah Mercer

The story of a family burdened by salacious and supernatural secrets in 1962 Louisiana, the movie has become one of the finer American films in the Southern gothic tradition; but with a Black director and an all-Black cast, Eve’s Bayou has been unceremoniously booted from its deserving recognition as the fantastic, moody art film it is.

Leigh Janiak’s Honeymoon as Feminist Horror by Dawn Keetley

The film thus brilliantly puts the everyday (marriage) on a continuum with the horrifying (possession?), connecting the problem of Bea’s troubled self-expression and containment, now that she’s married, to the later seemingly supernatural plot. … Are the seemingly supernatural elements of the plot symbolic of Bea’s struggles with intimacy and the weighty expectations of married domestic life (sex, cooking, and reproduction)? Janiak’s expert writing and directing definitely leaves open this possible subtext of the film…

When Love Looks Like Me: How Gina Prince-Bythewood Brought Real Love to the Big Screen by Shannon Miller

Gina Prince-Bythewood’s choice to center these themes around a young Black couple shouldn’t feel as revolutionary as it does. But when you consider that “universal” is too often conflated with “white,” Love & Basketball feels like such a turning point in the romance genre. It was certainly a turning point for me because, for a moment, Black love and romance, as told by Hollywood, weren’t mutually exclusive.

Sofia Coppola as Auteur: Historical Femininity and Agency in Marie Antoinette by Marlana Eck

Sofia Coppola’s film conveys, to me, a range of feminist concerns through history. Concerns of how much agency, even in a culture of affluence, women can wield given that so much of women’s lives are dictated by the structures of patriarchy.

The Gender Trap and Women Directors by Jenna Ricker

But, when was the last time ANYONE sat down to write a story, or direct a project and asked themselves — Is this story masculine or feminine? Exactly none, I suspect. … Storytellers tell stories, audiences engage, the formula is quite simple. But, it only works one way — male filmmakers are able to make any film they want without biased-loaded gender questions, whereas women filmmakers always face more scrutiny and criticism.

Individuality in Lucia Puenzo’s XXY, The Fish Child, and The German Doctor by Sara Century

In the end, it is this focus on individuality that is the most striking common theme of Lucia Puenzo’s works. Each of her characters undergoes intense scrutiny from outside forces, be it Alex in ‘XXY’ for their gender, Lala in ‘The Fish Child’ for her infatuation with Ailin, or Lilith from ‘The German Doctor,’ who is quite literally forced into a physical transformation by a Nazi.

Andrea Arnold: A Voice for the Working Class Women of Britain by Sophie Hall

British director/screenwriter Andrea Arnold has three short films and three feature films under her belt, and four out of six of those center on working class people. … [The characters in Fish Tank, Wasp, Red Road, and Wuthering Heights] venture off away from the preconceived notions they have been given, away from the stereotypes forced upon them, and the boxes society has trapped them in.

Susanne Bier’s Living, Breathing Body of Work by Sonia Lupher

Women consistently make good films around the world, even if we have to look outside Hollywood to find them. Susanne Bier is one powerful example. Her vivid, probing explorations into family dynamics and tenuous relationships are fiercely suggestive marks of a female auteur that deserves recognition.

No Apologies: The Ambition of Gillian Armstrong and My Brilliant Career by Rebecca Hirsch Garcia

However, Armstrong also doesn’t mock Sybylla’s ambition or treat it as a joke. In Armstrong’s world, the fact that Sybylla has desires and wants outside of marriage and men is treated seriously because Sybylla takes it seriously. She never needs to prove herself worthy enough for her desires. … [She is] a woman who bravely acts according to her own desires, someone willing to risk everything in order to have what she wants and who recognizes that men and romance are not the sum total of her world.

OMG a Vagina: The Struggle for Artistic The Struggle for Feminine Artistic Integrity in Kimberly Peirce’s Carrie by Horrorella

Carrie is a terrifying and compelling story, but there is certainly something to be gained and perhaps a certain truth to be found in watching the pain of her journey into womanhood as told by a woman director. … But even in the face of these small victories, we have to wonder how the film would have been different had Peirce been allowed to tell this story without being inhibited by the fear and discomfort of the male voices around her.

Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark: Busting Stereotypes and Drawing Blood by Lee Jutton

Both brutally violent and shockingly sexy, Near Dark’s influence can be felt nearly thirty years later on a new crop of unusual vampire dramas that simultaneously embrace and reject the conventions of the genre. … Yet among all these films about outsiders, Near Dark will always have a special place in my heart for being the one to show me that as a filmmaker, I was not alone in the world after all.

Fangirls, It’s Time to #AskForMore by Alyssa Franke

In the battle to address the staggering gender gap in women directing for film and television, there is one huge untapped resource — the passion and organizing power of fangirls.

Euzhan Palcy’s A Dry White Season: Black Lives in a White Season by Shara D. Taylor

It is doubtful that anyone else could have made A Dry White Season as poignantly relevant as Euzhan Palcy did. Her eye for the upending effects of apartheid on Black families brings their grievances to bear. … The meaning behind Palcy’s work resounds clearly: Black lives matter in 1976 South Africa as they do in 2016 America.

Why Desperately Seeking Susan Is One of My Favorite Films by Alex Kittle

The character was created to be an icon, a model for Roberta and other women like her, an image to hold in our heads of what life could be like if we just unleashed our inner pop star. But she’s also real enough that it feels like you might spot her in a hip nightclub, dancing uninhibited and having more fun than anyone else there just because she’s being herself.

Movie You Need to Be Talking About: Advantageous by Candice Frederick

Directed and co-written by Jennifer Phang, Advantageous is a surprisingly touching and purposeful film that revitalizes certain elements of the sci-fi genre while presenting two powerful voices in women filmmakers: Jennifer Phang and Jacqueline Kim.

Concussion: When Queer Marriage in the Suburbs Isn’t Enough by Ren Jender

The queer women we see in sexual situations in Concussion are not cut from the same Playboy-ready cloth as the two women in Blue is the Warmest Color: one client is fat, another is an obvious real-life survivor of breast cancer and some of her clients, like Eleanor herself, are nowhere near their 20s anymore.

I’m a Lilly – And You’re Probably One Too: All Women Face Gender Discrimination by Rachel Feldman

Another obstacle to getting Ledbetter made is the industry’s perception of my value as the film’s director. There are certainly a handful of women directors whose identities are well known, but generally, even colleagues in our industry, when asked, can only name a handful of female directors. Of course, there are thousands of amazingly talented women directing; in fact there are 1,350 experienced women directors in our Guild, but for the vast majority of us our credits are devalued and we struggle to be seen and heard – just like Lilly.

Making a Murderer, Fantastic Lies, and the Uneasy Exculpation Narratives by Women Directors by Eva Phillips

What is most remarkable and perhaps most subversively compelling about both ‘Making a Murderer’ and ‘Fantastic Lies,’ and about the intentions and directorial choices of their respective creators, is that neither documentary endeavor chronicles the sagas of particularly defensible — or even, to some, at all likable — men.

Lena Dunham and the Creator’s “Less-Than-Perfect” Body On-Screen by Sarah Halle Corey

Every time someone calls to question the fact that Lena Dunham parades her rolls of fat in front of her audience, we need to examine why they’re questioning it. Is it because they’re wondering how it serves the narrative of ‘Girls’? Or is it because they’re balking at “less-than-perfection” (according to normative societal conventions) in the female form?

Female Becomingness Through Maya Deren’s Lens in Meshes of the Afternoon by Allie Gemmill

Her most famous work, Meshes of the Afternoon becomes, in this way, a reading of a woman working with and against herself through splitting into multiple iterations of herself. Most importantly, the film unpacks the notion that not only is the dream-landscape of a woman complex, it is bound tightly to her, defining who she is and guiding her constantly through the world like a compass.

Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy: Heartbreak in a Panning Shot by ThoughtPusher

Through the course of the film, Kelly Reichardt’s pacing is so deliberate that even the most ordinary moments seem intensely significant. Reichardt’s framing traps Wendy in shots as much as her broken-down car and lack of money trap her in the town.

Sofia Coppola and The Silent Woman by Paulette Reynolds

Many films touch upon the theme of female isolation, but I remain fascinated with Sofia Coppola’s three major cinematic creations that explore the world of The Silent Woman: The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, and Marie Antoinette (2006). Each film delves into this enigma, forming a multifaceted frame of reference for a shared understanding.

The Anti-Celebrity Cinema of Mary Harron: I Shot Andy Warhol, The Notorious Bettie Page, and The Anna Nicole Story by Elizabeth Kiy

I’ve always thought Mary Harron’s work was the perfect example of why we need female directors. I think the films she produces provide a perspective we would never see in a world unilaterally controlled by male filmmakers. Harron appears to specialize in off-beat character studies of the types of people a male director may not gravitate towards, nor treat with appropriate gravitas. She treats us to humanizing takes on sex workers and sex symbols, angry lesbians and radical feminism and makes them hard to turn away from.

How Women Directors Turn Narrative on Its Head by Laura Power

Marielle Heller (The Diary of a Teenage Girl), Miranda July (Me and You and Everyone We Know), and the women directors of Jane the Virgin are infusing elements of whimsy into their work in strikingly different ways, but to similar effect. The styles they’re using affect the audience’s relationship with their stories and with the characters themselves by giving the viewer an insight that traditional narratives don’t provide.

Wadjda: Empowering Voices and Challenging Patriarchy by Sarah Mason

Haifaa al-Mansour casts an eye onto the complexity of navigating an autocratic patriarchal society in Wadjda. This bold voice from Saudi Arabia continues to empower voices globally.

Mary Harron’s American Psycho: Rogue Feminism by Dr. Stefan Sereda

American Psycho fails the Bechdel Test. … The script, co-written by Guinevere Turner and Mary Harron, eschews any appeal to women’s empowerment. … When the leading man isn’t laughing at remarks from serial killers about decapitating girls, he’s coming after sex workers with chainsaws (at least in his head). Yet American Psycho espouses a feminist perspective that fillets the values held by capitalist men.

21 Short Films by Women Directors by Film School Shorts

For Women’s History Month, we’ve put together a playlist of 21 of those films for your viewing pleasure. As you’ll see, no two of these shorts are alike. They deal with topics like autism, racism, sexism, losing a loved one and trying to fit in and find yourself at any age.

Evolution in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and Chicken With Plums by Colleen Clemens

In a similar way to Marji (Persepolis), Nasser (Chicken with Plums) must be sent far away to have his journey of becoming. There is something in him — talent — that requires he must go beyond his home. But whereas in Marji’s case she must go away to protect herself, Nasser must go away so he can grow, get bigger and fuller and richer.

Vintage Viewing: Alice Guy-Blaché, Gender-Bending Pioneer by Brigit McCone

When was the last time we watched vintage female-authored films and discussed their art or meaning? Bitch Flicks presents Vintage Viewing — a monthly feature for viewing and discussing the films of cinema’s female pioneers. Where better to start than history’s first film director, Alice Guy-Blaché?

Kelly Reichardt’s ‘Wendy and Lucy’: Heartbreak in a Panning Shot

This guest post written by ThoughtPusher appears as part of our theme week on Women Directors. Spoilers ahead.

A version of this post previously appeared at Bright Lights Film Journal. It now celebrates the recent release of Certain Women, a series of vignettes set in small-town Montana directed by Kelly Reichardt and starring Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams, and Laura Dern.

The lateral pan 50 minutes into Wendy and Lucy kills me. The 2008 movie follows a simple enough story: girl and dog travel through a train-yard town, girl’s car breaks down, girl loses dog, girl finds dog in a better situation, girl leaves alone on a freight train. It is one in a series of stories from the writer/director about someone “passing through.” Through the course of the film, Kelly Reichardt’s pacing is so deliberate that even the most ordinary moments seem intensely significant. Reichardt’s framing traps Wendy in shots as much as her broken-down car and lack of money trap her in the town. But I cannot escape the lingering grasp of that pan. It just breaks my heart every time I see it.

Having lost her dog during a day-long stint in the local police precinct for shoplifting food, Wendy begins a search for Lucy who was left tied to the bike rack outside of the grocery store. Wendy tapes an “I’m lost” flyer with Lucy’s picture and description to a storefront window and walks away, but her movement doesn’t draw the camera’s gaze. All I see is the scene Wendy leaves behind: a soda machine and passing cars reflected in the glass that now holds the symbol of a tragic loss, simultaneously the symbol of a hopeful return. Then the camera starts to shift. Slowly. Too slowly. Is Lucy in the alley? Is there something written on that wall which seems to take minutes to glide over? What draws the camera’s gaze since it didn’t swish to keep up with Wendy when she walked away? Where is the camera taking me and where is this story going?

The distance traveled in that pan seems infinite: from the window, then along the building’s wall, and finally around the corner to see Wendy walking toward a fenced-off field (at which point she beckons to Lucy in a voice much smaller than Michelle Williams’ presence). In order to cover the apparently infinite space, that pan seems to last an eternity. Actually, it takes only a few seconds to cover a short distance, and the pan is only one among many employed in the film; but damn if it doesn’t crush me in a way no mere pan should.

A conventional pan should be a horizontal pivot of the camera which reveals a lateral view of scenery or action, particularly by following a moving subject. But Reichardt’s pan breaks the mold and imposes narrative significance to a cursory moment in Wendy’s story. The solitary pivot point of the pan doesn’t give me a stationary place of reference to make sense of the movement, and what is revealed in the course of the pan is not an environmental relationship between the storefront and Wendy. Rather, the pan shows me that I am limited in who I can see, what I can know, and where I can go. I’m just as bound to the isolation and desperation of a search without a foreseeable end as Wendy is as she calls out yet again and wonders about Lucy’s fate. (And I begin to wonder if Reichardt is telling a story about a drifter or documenting the reality of moving from film to film without a view as to her own professional future. As sad as that prospect seems, I reenter the film and think about the impact of that pan.)

The connection between Wendy and Lucy is severed, so even the story’s focal point seems lost. Wendy worries about Lucy and puts every effort into finding her, only to leave her once she is found. Wendy’s impoverished situation makes each of the choices she faces seem binary. Either she loses some of the limited money she has or she tries to steal food. Either she reclaims Lucy or she leaves her in a stable home. Either she moves forward or backward. Unlike so many other road movies, Wendy never feels the freedom of open possibilities. She is moving on a track from point A to point B, and she does not diverge from a determined path. Her journey is like that pan, slowly moving from one place to another, and whatever she experiences is just another point on a line that must be traveled in order to reach the destination.

I think the pan itself actually makes me feel the grief that follows the loss of a friend. On the surface, it is devoid of meaningful content; but maybe the effect is supposed to underscore the contextual space that opens for Wendy in a life without Lucy and foreshadow Wendy’s solitary departure from the town. The steady movement of that pan etches a line across the horizon of possibilities within the film: there is no freedom experienced in this traveler’s tale since Wendy is shackled by financial and social limitations as she journeys across the country. The function of that pan in some way binds me to Wendy as I eventually catch up to her, but the camera lacks any purpose that extends beyond finding a familiar character to latch onto. It is as if the camera’s gaze merely seeks a place to rest from this unending unknown, and that might be Wendy’s true quest in the film.

Thus attached to that pan, my motivation for attentive analysis is lost, as absent as Lucy from Wendy’s field of view. I don’t know where to find meaning and instead I find myself on shaky ground, if any at all, as if no tripod could support the weight of interpretation. The delay leading up to that pan makes the camera seem lethargic, imposing its own sigh in the midst of a sad situation. During that pan, the camera doesn’t just pivot: it floats from the flyer’s symbol of a search to the distraught searcher, both of which are disconnected from the object of the search; and I am left hanging like the flyer, one copy from a stack just like it, posted alongside other flyers for other lost dogs. Stripped of conventional purposes such as establishing a relationship to other characters or demonstrating the vastness of the environment, that pan makes me hover and drift. I am a ghost doomed to haunt the Oregon landscape, trapped alongside Wendy in this lost world.

Wendy’s ordeal in the film is comprised of just a few days in a longer journey; but that short time slowly develops into systemic uncertainty with increasingly intense vulnerability to invasions by unknown others and explores the bitter circumstances involved in negotiating the mundane details of a marginalized life. In the middle of the film, that pan evokes a sense of alienation and suggests Wendy’s lonely departure alongside an empty space. By the end of the film, Wendy has no safety net, no social network, no clarity of purpose… just like me with that pan. A life without significant attachments, an inability to escape the trappings of necessity, the meandering that accompanies an indefinite future: all conveyed painstakingly in a simple pan, an occasion fit for heartbreak.

ThoughtPusher might live somewhere near you (especially if you have a neighbor who blasts New Order or Tears for Fears most nights), but certainly is a cinephile who has no interest in being followed or asking to be liked.

A Plea For More Roseannes and Norma Raes: Addressing The Lack of Working-Class Female Characters on American Screens

Working-class female protagonists remain rare, however. More often than not, working-class women play supporting roles as mothers, wives or lovers. Their characters are invariably underwritten or stereotypical.

: Grey’s Anatomy

This repost by Rachael Johnson appears as part of our theme week on Women and Work/Labor Issues.

Noam Chomsky recently observed that America is engaged in “a long and continuing class war against working people and the poor.” I would add that American popular culture does not, for the most part, represent poor or working-class American citizens. US television shows and movies about less privileged people are exceptionally rare. This lack of representation is becoming increasingly indefensible in the face of acute–and expanding–economic inequality. It is also a vital feminist issue as women are still poorer than men in the United States. The US government itself released a report in March 2011–the “Women In America” report–showing that a wage and income gender gap between men and women still exists in the 21^st century. Poverty rates for less advantaged women are higher because they are in low-paying occupations and because they are often the sole breadwinner in their family. There are stories behind the figures, of course, but they are seldom told on the screen. Clearly, it is time for filmmakers of all backgrounds to address this unjust and frankly absurd lack of representation. The issue should also, of course, be of interest and concern to both critics and consumers of American popular culture.

: Monster

Of course, it goes without saying that there are not nearly enough American movies with female protagonists and characters in general. Even less common, however, are features with less advantaged women. An arbitrary list of films with female protagonists and important characters covering the last decade might include Lost in Translation (2003), The Kids are Alright (2010), Black Swan (2010), Under The Tuscan Sun (2003), Up in The Air (2010), Julie and Julia (2009), Secretariat (2010), Eat Pray Love (2009), Bridesmaids (2011), Sex and The City 1 (2008) and 2 (2010), The Devil Wears Prada (2006), The Holiday (2006), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) Fair Game (2010), Young Adult (2011), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Stoker (2013), Side Effects (2013) and Gravity (2013). Clearly, all these movies are about professional and/or privileged women.

The heroines of contemporary American television are, also, for the most part, professional, upper-middle or upper-class women. Over the past decade, there have been a fair number of US TV shows revolving around the lives and careers of doctors, surgeons, medical examiners and lawyers. Damages, Gray’s Anatomy, The Mindy Project, Body of Proof, Bones, Private Practice and The Good Wife are among them. Currently, there are also shows depicting the lives of women who work for, or have a history with the US government, such as Veep, Parks and Recreation, Homeland and Scandal. The heroines of 30 Rock and Nashville work in the entertainment industry. It was a similar scene, of course, in the late 90s and early part of the Millenium when shows like Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives enjoyed mass popularity.

My point is not to knock the shows and movies cited. Some are interesting, stylish and entertaining, and a number have compelling female protagonists. It is, also, of course, essential that we see female characters make their own way in professions traditionally monopolized by men. They reflect social change as well as inspire. It is equally essential that women of power are portrayed on the big and small screen with greater frequency as well as with a greater degree of complexity. American films and television programs should not, however, block out the lives of working-class and poor women. So many stories, struggles, journeys and adventures, remain unacknowledged and untold. It is a strange and troubling thought that contemporary American audiences are simply unaccustomed to seeing interesting, strong and resourceful working-class women. Whether ordinary or extraordinary, working-class women of all races and backgrounds, need greater representation.

: Silkwood

I am, of course, aware that the term “working class” is rarely used in American public discourse. The term “middle class” is, in fact, used to refer to average Americans. The definition of “middle class” is, in fact, quite a fuzzy one but that does not stop US politicians from using it. For many non-Americans, this is a curious thing. Although the US definition of “middle class” is bound up with the meritocratic ideals of the American Dream, it ultimately represents a denial that class itself exists. To quote Chomsky again, it is a deeply political tactic used to mask social division and economic inequality: “We don’t use the term ‘working class’ here because it’s a taboo term. You’re supposed to say ‘middle class,’ because it helps diminish the understanding that there’s a class war going on.” This article specifically refers to the lack of representation of working-class and poor women on the screen. I am talking about the lives of waitresses, factory workers, maids, cleaners, cashiers, childcare workers, married home-makers and single mothers as well as those on the margins of society.

I am also fully aware of the eternally repeated claim that American audiences do not like TV shows or movies about poverty and working-class life because they find them just too damn depressing. Let’s take a look at that claim. Firstly, we have to ask ourselves who’s making it. To be blunt, it smacks of privilege and complacency. Who’s the American audience in question anyway? Advantaged viewers? And what about working-class audiences? Do they not want to see their lives represented on the screen? Surely American popular culture should not merely provide narcissistic identification for the comfortable and well-heeled. Behind the contention lies the implication, of course, that working-class life is invariably depressing. This is patronizing and, frankly, offensive. Although poverty should never be romanticized, both American television and cinema should recognize that humor, love, and culture are all part of life for less privileged people. The fact that I have to even make this ridiculously obvious point is an indication of the way millions of people been obscured from the national narrative of the United States. The powers that be–and their pundits–should also, in any case, not make assumptions about what movie or show will be a great critical or commercial success. Nor should they patronize contemporary American audiences about what they can or cannot handle. Many of the best-loved shows of the Golden Age of TV have featured unsanitized, hard-hitting scenes showing human life in all its ugliness and glory. Can’t poverty be processed by TV audiences? Will class always be unmentionable?

: The Good Wife

We also have to ask if there is strong historical evidence to back up the claim. A quick study of American films and television shows over the last 40 years or so shows that working-class female characters have, from time to time, actually been celebrated in popular culture. Roseanne is, of course, the most famous small screen example. Featuring a fully realised working-class female protagonist, the hugely popular, award-winning sitcom ran from 1988 to 1997. Roseanne was, in fact, exceptional in that it gave the world a ground-breaking TV heroine as well as a funny and compassionate portrait of an ordinary, loving blue-collar American family. Memorably played by Roseanne Barr, the matriarch of the show had warmth and wit as well as great strength and character. She was that most uncommon of creatures on US television: a working-class feminist. I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that America and the world needs the wise-cracking words of characters like Roseanne more than ever. A cultural heroine is currently badly needed today to deflate the criminal excesses of corporate masculinity.

: 2 Broke Girls

In the 70s and 80s, there were even films about heroic female labor activists. Take Norma Rae (1979) and Silkwood (1983). Drawing on the real life experiences of advocate Crystal Lee Sutton, Norma Rae (1979) tells the tale of a North Carolina woman’s struggle to improve working conditions in her textile factory and unionize her co-workers. Silkwood (1983) chronicles worker and advocate Karen Silkwood’s quest to expose hazardous conditions at a nuclear plant in Oklahoma. Both films feature well-drawn, dynamic, complex female protagonists, vital, persuasive performances and compelling story lines. Meryl Streep is customarily exceptional as Karen Silkwood while Sally Field won a Best Actress Oscar for Norma Rae. The latter’s “UNION” sign is, in fact, the stuff of cinema history. Although these narratives center around the individual–in a classically American fashion–they are, nevertheless, about women who are fighting for others. There have been other female labor organizers in American history, of course. Why are filmmakers not interested in their extraordinary careers? Why can’t there be biopics about women like Dolores Huerta? And tell me this: Why is no one interested in the pioneering life of Lucy Parsons?

: Wendy and Lucy

A few mainstream films have endeavored to expose brutal maltreatment of working-class women in American society. Based on a true story, The Accused (1988) is about the gang rape of Sarah Tobias (superbly played by Jodie Foster), a waitress who lives in a trailer home with her drug dealer boyfriend. Jonathan Kaplan’s drama is actually quite unusual for an American film in that it acknowledges the factor of class in the victimization of its female protagonist. For the “college boy” rapist in particular, Sarah is nothing more than “white trash.”

Have there been more historically recent exceptions to the bourgeois rule? Over the last decade or so, there have been a small number of films that have featured disadvantaged female protagonists. Patty Jenkins’ Monster (2003) is a striking example. Monster is based on the real-life story of Aileen Wuornos, a street prostitute and killer of seven men in Florida in the late 80s and early 90s. Unusually, sexuality, gender, and class intersect in the film. A sex worker in a relationship with a young lesbian woman, Wuornos defied the gender and sexual norms of her time and place. Money–the lack of it–is also seen to play a pivotal part in her fate. Jenkins paints Wuornos as an unstable, brutalized woman wounded by past abuses. Monster is a controversial film. Some argued that provided a too sympathetic interpretation of the convicted killer. Was Wuornos an unbalanced, victimized woman or simply a cold-blooded psychopath? What is clear is that Monster tries to contextualize violence. Not many American filmmakers dare to seriously address the social and psychological effects of poverty and abuse in their portraits of murderers. Channeling the fractured psyche of this most marginalized of women, Charlize Theron’s Oscar-winning incarnation as Wuornos is, simply, a tour de force. Why Monster was not nominated for Best Film or Best Director tells us a great deal about misogyny and classism inside the Academy.

: Norma Rae

Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby (2004) is another well-known film also about a less-advantaged woman. It is the story of Maggie Fitzgerald (played by Hillary Swank in another Oscar-winning role), a waitress who wants to be a boxer. While its portrait of the movingly dogged and committed Maggie is greatly sympathetic, that of her family–including her mother–is deeply offensive. They are characterized as “white trash” welfare parasites. Maggie is depicted as a very different, noble creature who must cut loose from her nasty roots and class. In Million Dollar Baby, we have, in fact, a well-drawn, sympathetic female character of modest origins as well as an ideologically loaded, hateful take on working-class men and women. Maggie is a working-class girl who has been emptied of all class-consciousness. Audiences and critics alike always need, therefore, to ask themselves how less-privileged women are being portrayed on the screen and how class is being represented. They should call out discriminatory portraits.

More recently, there have been movies about less-advantaged women but they remain uncommon. Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone (2010) is a critically successful case in point. Set in a crime-scarred community in the rural Ozarks, Winter’s Bone is the story of Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), a 17-year-old girl struggling to save her family home. Ree’s missing father, a local meth cooker, has put the family property up for his bail bond and she must find him or risk losing everything. Granik provides the viewer with a sympathetic portrait of a determined yet disadvantaged young woman at risk. Winter’s Bone never, however, drowns in sentiment. The scene where Ree surrenders her horse–she can no longer afford to keep it–is portrayed in poignant yet understated fashion. Winter’s Bone contains intimate scenes of quiet power. We watch Ree teach her younger siblings to prepare deer stew and to shoot and skin a squirrel. This is a world you rarely see in Hollywood movies. Winter’s Bone has its flaws, all the same. The skies are perpetually grey and there is an improbable lack of humor in the community portrayed. More importantly, while it depicts hardship and shines a light on rural social problems, Winter’s Bone cannot really be said to critique class or structural inequities. Its narrative is typically or mythically American. Granik’s heroine is engaged in a personal rather than collective struggle. In the end, Winter’s Bone is a tale of a tough, sympathetic individual fighting for her family’s financial security.

: Roseanne

There are other filmmakers who are interested in the lives of struggling and dispossessed women. Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy (2008) is a deeply humane story about a young woman’s search for work in the American North West. It is a simple tale that provides the viewer with a little understanding of what life is like for a girl (Michelle Williams) who sleeps in a car, with only her beloved dog for company. Its sensitive observations and empathetic insights, in fact, make Wendy and Lucy quite invaluable. Released the same year, Courtney Hunt’s excellent crime drama Frozen River is about a store clerk who becomes a people smuggler. Its central character (terrifically played by Melissa Leo) is a strong woman who has chosen to take a criminal path to support her sons and save her home.

Working-class female protagonists remain rare, however. More often than not, working-class women play supporting roles as mothers, wives or lovers. Their characters are invariably underwritten or stereotypical. A case in point is the character of Romina (Eva Mendes), a diner waitress and lover of the male protagonist in Derek Cianfrance’s tragic though self-indulgent sins-of-the-fathers epic, The Place Beyond the Pines (2013). The purpose of Romina, it seems, is to wear a pained expression and bear witness to reactionary patriarchal sentiment. Again, we need to respond to representations of working-class women critically.

While sexual abuse and domestic violence is a fact of life for women and girls across the socio-economic spectrum, it is, arguably, more common for working-class female characters to be portrayed as victims on the screen. I am not, of course, saying that filmmakers should not shine a light on the suffering of poorer victims of abuse. What I am suggesting is that the imbalance locks less privileged women and girls into the victim or martyr role in cultural representations. As powerful a depiction of abuse Precious (2009) is, it arguably perpetuates deeply offensive classist and racist stereotypes.

: Winter’s Bone

Less privileged women are perhaps even more poorly represented on the small screen. Some may suggest that the question of money, or the lack of it, is being addressed in shows such as Girls and 2 Broke Girls. The former, of course, revolves around the personal struggles and adventures of a 20-something woman finding her way in New York. The comedy-drama, however, does not explore what it’s really like to be without money in a big city and its characters are not, of course, working-class girls with few options and no cushion. The comedy 2 Broke Girls does have a working-class protagonist. Yet while it is about women who have two jobs, and while its humor is, in part, directed at privilege, it cannot be accused of being a great satirical comedy about economic inequities. It is, in fact, both classist and racist in its humor. Are there, in fact, any contemporary US comedies that truly target economic inequality? Are there any US dramas that express anger at class divisions? What is, unfortunately, apparent is that the current Golden Age of American television does not have authentic working-class heroines.

Clearly, there needs to be a much greater representation of working-class and poor women in US popular culture. How can the lives of millions of American citizens be reflected so rarely on the screen? There should also be socially aware portraits of such women. Filmmakers should respond to the outrage of millions and confront economic inequality. They should, also, not be frightened of being political. Economic inequalities should not remain unanalyzed and unchallenged. Hardship should not be hidden but movies and TV shows that represent working-class life should capture both its joys and struggles. Working-class women need not be portrayed as angels or martyrs. Vivid, complex characters are needed. Filmmakers need to remind themselves that there have been great working-class heroines in American film and television. More stories are needed about less privileged women who work to change the lives of themselves and others. Writers and directors should portray the lives of politically active working-class women as well as the careers of great social activists. They are the stuff of great drama. The huge popularity of Roseanne illustrates that Americans have been more than willing to embrace shows about working-class life. Roseanne also showed that the lives of working-class women can be depicted with both heart and humor. Imagine, if you will, a satirical sitcom set in a Walmart-like store. If braver choices were made, and if braver filmmakers were given greater attention, a working-class feminist consciousness would be given a voice in American popular culture.