‘Marie’s Story’ dramatizes the real-life biography of Marie Heurtin, a deafblind girl who was taken in by a convent in the late nineteenth century. It’s an intimate portrayal of an unusual relationship between two young women.
The relationship between Christianity and disability is complex and many-sided, encompassing stigma and pity, aid and condescension, systematic exclusion and the creation of refuge spaces – and it’s not just an academic concern for scholars of religion. Societies that took shape under the influence of western Christianity still reflect and perpetuate Christian philosophical and ethical ideas, both in cultural attitudes and in policy and law. Disability is no exception. Levitical purity codes, New Testament healing narratives, and Augustinian theology of original sin all contribute to the mishmash of ableism that pervades twenty-first century US culture.
Disability scholars and cultural critics are doing some terrific work to examine and dismantle ableism. Some of my favorites include Andrew Pulrang at Disability Thinking (and his podcast, Disability.TV), the Disability Visibility Project, and the BBC’s Ouch podcast. You don’t have to spend long reading disability criticism to learn that one of the most hated forms of disability representation in popular culture is inspiration porn. The late, wonderful, deeply mourned Stella Young put it like this:
Ugggghhhhh
“[In inspiration porn] we’re objectifying disabled people for the benefit of nondisabled people. The purpose of these images is to inspire you, to motivate you, so that we can look at them and think, ‘Well, however bad my life is, it could be worse. I could be that person.’ But what if you are that person?”
Hollywood in particular loves inspiration porn, to that point that watching a movie about a disabled person is a source of dread for anyone who cares about disability studies. Will the disabled person be a precious angel, too good for this sinful earth? Will they exist primarily to teach the non-disabled protagonist a lesson? Will they be a bitter cripple who gradually triumphs over this dreadful tragedy? Will I throw up in my mouth?
I approachedMarie’s Storywith less trepidation than usual, though, both because it’s a small French film rather than slushy Oscar-bait, and because the titular Marie is played by a Deaf actress, the talented young Ariana Rivoire. For the most part, thankfully, my confidence was well-placed.
Marie’s Story dramatizes the real-life biography of Marie Heurtin, a deafblind girl who was taken in by a convent in the late nineteenth century. The convent educated deaf children, but felt ill-equipped to teach a deafblind child who had no communication skills – until one very determined nun, Sister Marguerite, insisted on giving Marie a chance.
So far, so Miracle Worker, and in the early stages the film certainly hits a lot of beats familiar from popular narratives of Helen Keller’s life: the terrible fights with the strong-willed mentor, the transformation from wildling to neatly-coiffed well-mannered young woman, the come-to-Jesus moment of language comprehension. What’s distinctive about Marie’s Story is its convent setting and the normalization of the deaf environment (how many movies have you seen that pass the Bechdel Test in sign language as well as spoken words?).
Wisely, given popular Christianity’s reprehensible enthusiasm for the doubly nauseating Inspiration Porn With Added Jesus, Marie’s Story treads lightly around the religion aspect. No miracle healings or trite theodicies here – the most explicitly theological sequence in the film is a conversation around mortality, when Marie asks in frustration: “Who is God? Where is he? I can’t touch him.” The film as a whole functions as a panentheistic affirmation that she absolutely can touch God: despite Christianity’s emphasis on sight and sound as the primary senses for divine encounter, Marie’s alternative embodiment is the locus for divine encounter through touch and scent. From the opening sequence, in which Sister Marguerite climbs a tree and, looking for all the world like The Creation of Adam, extends a hand to a frightened Marie, this film stresses the power of bodily touch.
The film doesn’t entirely escape certain inspiration porn pitfalls, primarily in voiceovers of Sister Marguerite’s diary entries where she gushes about how much she’s learned from Marie and describes Marie’s transformation in weird racialized and colonial terms of “savagery” and “imprisonment.” However, Marguerite’s own chronic illness keeps the relationship from being too one-sided. It’s in the final third that the film really shines, as Marie develops agency and character of her own, even tending to Marguerite just as the nun had previously cared for her. In perhaps the most moving sequence, Marie teaches her parents how to greet her in sign language, with Marguerite translating and facilitating but never speaking for or over Marie.
Ultimately, this is not a film about Saint Sister Marguerite and her noble civilizing mission to help a poor deafblind girl. Instead, it’s an intimate portrayal of an unusual relationship between two young women (watch for a scene where they lie in a meadow together like Bella and Edward), a quietly beautiful story of faith and female friendship.
Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, tumbles as trans substantial, and tweets at @RainicornMax. He studies theology, disability, and gender, and gets really excited when they all come together.
Directed by Margarethe von Trotta, ‘Hannah Arendt’ (2012) is not a comprehensive, A-Z biopic of the political philosopher. The veteran German director focuses, instead, on a remarkable, turbulent period in Arendt’s personal and professional life in the early sixties. Specifically, it chronicles the academic’s reporting of the 1961 trial in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann, the man responsible for the mass deportation of Jews to the death camps during the Shoah. The film begins with the capture of Eichmann in Argentina in 1960. The war criminal had settled in South America in 1950 after escaping to Austria at the end of the war. But we are soon transported to New York and introduced to the woman who endeavored to examine the motivations of the man who implemented the “Final Solution.”
Hannah Arendt was one of the leading political theorists of the 20th century. Her work encompassed political action, power, violence, totalitarianism, and the nature of human evil. A German Jewish academic, Arendt was forced to flee the land of her birth in 1933. She moved to France where she worked for Jewish refugee organizations before being interned as an “enemy alien” during the German occupation of the country. With her second husband, the left-wing philosopher and poet, Henrich Blucher, Arendt managed to secure safe passage to the United States in 1941. She became a naturalized citizen in 1950 and taught at several prestigious universities such as Princeton and The New School.
Directed by Margarethe von Trotta, Hannah Arendt (2012) is not a comprehensive, A-Z biopic of the political philosopher. The veteran German director focuses, instead, on a remarkable, turbulent period in Arendt’s personal and professional life in the early 60s. Specifically, it chronicles the academic’s reporting of the 1961 trial in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann, the man responsible for the mass deportation of Jews to the death camps during the Shoah. The film begins with the capture of Eichmann in Argentina in 1960. The war criminal had settled in South America in 1950 after escaping to Austria at the end of the war. But we are soon transported to New York and introduced to the woman who endeavored to examine the motivations of the man who implemented the “Final Solution.”
Barbara Sukowa as Arendt
Arendt covered the trial for The New Yorker and wrote a series of articles for the magazine. Her observations would be brought together in the book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on The Banality of Evil (1963). Arendt’s Eichmann was not a mythic monster but a mediocre man who entirely adhered to the murderous oaths and laws of the genocidal Nazi state. “Eichmann is no Mephisto,” Arendt observes in a Jerusalem café. According to the theorist, the war criminal was neither mentally ill nor personally driven by extreme racial prejudice. He possessed, instead, the mindset of a run-of-the-mill bureaucrat. Crucially, for Arendt, the war criminal was a conformist without imagination and remorse. He followed orders and never exercised independent thought. In such ways, Eichmann exemplified “the banality of evil.” Von Trotta skillfully weaves in film footage from the trial with the live action and we witness the real Eichmann: an inconspicuous-looking, bespectacled, middle-aged man armed with files. Arendt is struck by the war criminal’s language. Particularly telling for the philosopher is the statement: “Whether people were killed or not, orders had to be executed in line with administrative procedure.” The historical footage serves to reinforce Arendt’s thesis that the man was a disconnected, pen-pushing bureaucrat devoid of independent thought and moral responsibility. Arendt is repelled by the man and astonished by his manner and defense. As she will later say to friends in a heated debate, “You can’t deny the huge difference between the unspeakable horror of the deeds and the mediocrity of the man.”
Director Margarethe von Trotta
The articles, understandably, proved deeply controversial and Von Trotta’s film chronicles the enraged responses and intense debate that followed their publication. As many in the Jewish community thought her interpretation served to minimize Eichmann’s evil, it was seen as a defense of the war criminal. Arendt’s criticism of certain Jewish council members during the Nazi era whom she accused of collusion was also read as victim-blaming. We see Arendt lose allies and receive hate mail from both strangers and neighbors. Old friends accuse her of being insensitive to Holocaust survivors and exhibiting a lack of empathy and love towards her own people. Arendt is not portrayed in von Trotta’s film as an unfeeling, unsympathetic character but as a truth-seeking intellectual. She is moved by harrowing testimony of Holocaust survivors (distressing footage from the trial is shown in the film) and haunted by their voices when she returns home to New York but she is also focused. Arendt is characterized as an independent thinker and a woman who did not define herself in terms of race and faith although she personally suffered persecution as a Jew in Nazi Germany. She tells Kurt Blumenfeld, a German-born Zionist friend now living in Israel, that she does not love peoples, only her friends.
Eichmann at his trial
At a lecture at The New School at the end of the film, Arendt defends her thesis. Eichmann embodied a terrible “thoughtlessness,” the political philosopher underlines. In relinquishing his personhood, his individuality, he relinquished independent thought and moral judgement. Arendt states, “This inability to think created the possibility for many ordinary men to commit evil deeds on a gigantic scale, the like of which had never been seen before.” Thinking is essential, for the philosopher: “I hope thinking gives people the strength to prevent catastrophes in these rare moments when the chips are down.” Arendt was accused of being an apologist for Eichmann but she thought that he was responsible for his failure to think. During the lecture, she expresses disgust at the label “self-hating Jew,” calling it a character assassination, and angrily insists that she never blamed Jewish people for their own deaths. She contends that the role of the Jewish leaders whom she accused of cooperation with Eichmann ultimately illustrated “the totality of the moral collapse” that the Nazis brought to Europe. Arendt believed, too, in the uniqueness of the Holocaust and thought that the war criminal should be executed for his genocidal crimes (he was hanged in 1962). “Trying to understand is not the same as forgiveness,” she states at the close of the film.
It is, however, understandable that charges of insensitivity and arrogance were leveled against Arendt. Eichmann was responsible for the greatest crime–the murders of millions of innocent men, women and children–and many did not accept Arendt’s characterization of the man as a “clown” and “nobody.” They also thought her description of the man’s immeasurable evil as “banal” fantastical and offensive. Arendt’s words and tone were attacked. Her comments about certain Jewish council leaders wounded many. We may also question the philosopher’s reading of the historical figure. Was it really the case that the man who implemented the “Final Solution” was not primarily motivated by anti-Semitism? Pointing to recordings of Eichmann expressing hatred against Jews, there are historians today who underscore Eichmann’s anti-Semitism and Nazi fanaticism. The film does give voice to opposing arguments by Arendt’s contemporaries. Hans Jonas (Ulrich Noethen), a German-born friend and New School philosopher, is deeply disturbed by her “abstract” thesis and stresses his calculated evil and central role in implementing mass murder.
Students of Arendt
Arendt’s observations about people who commit crimes against humanity were, nevertheless, important and original. They have also proven influential. If you look at more historically recent crimes against humanity, such as those committed during the Rwandan genocide, her argument is arguably illuminating and persuasive. It is entirely clear that thoroughly ordinary human beings are capable of engineering and enacting the most terrible atrocities. It is an infinitely terrifying thought that people have the capacity to murder their friends, colleagues and neighbors but it is one that people today have come to intellectually “accept” with greater frequency. We understand that men in suits may plan mass murder behind their desks. In short, demystifying evil has become commonplace. Arendt’s essential conceptions about “the banality of evil” and horrifying bureaucratic “thoughtlessness” and remove have contributed to our intellectual understanding of crimes against humanity.
Because of the difficulties of representing the creative process on the screen, biopics about writers and artists can be decidedly dull and sterile but von Trotta’s film is never boring. It is a particularly difficult task capturing the thinking process on film but it is fascinating watching Barbara Sukowa’s Arendt observe, and listen to, Eichmann on the closed-circuit television in the press room in Jerusalem. The subject matter is both intellectually stimulating and important- examining evil is essential, ethical work for artists and thinkers- while the storm surrounding the publication makes for a deeply political and human drama. Sukowa is magnetic as Arendt. Although the philosopher was attacked for her dispassionate stance and tone as well as ironic manner, von Trotta’s Arendt is ultimately portrayed as a sharp-witted, warm and humane woman who enjoyed loving and supportive personal relationships. She is, incidentally, the antithesis of the stereotypical cold, sexless intellectual woman of misogynist writers and directors.
With Mary McCarthy (Janet McTeer)
We are also given intimate insights into the academic’s private and professional life in America. Arendt’s New York circle, peopled by American bohemians and German-American intellectuals who had fled Nazism, is quite vividly depicted. Janet McTeer provides support as Mary McCarthy. McCarthy was a good friend of Arendt and McTeer gives the writer sensuality and spirit. Arendt’s affectionate but unconventional marriage to the errant Blucher (Axel Milberg), an engaging fellow academic, is tenderly portrayed. There are, also, shortcomings regarding performances and characterization. Arendt’s students are cheesily adoring and a couple of turns by the supporting players are quite embarrassing.
Examining evil
Hannah Arendt is an involving portrait of the personal and intellectual life of the political theorist. Whether you believe that it offers a persuasive or hagiographic portrait of the thinker, von Trotta’s biopic chronicles an important debate in the history of modern political thought. Hopefully, it will (re)start conversations. Watching Hannah Arendt, you are also struck by how uncommon an experience it all is. There are not many biopics about thinkers and there are even fewer about history-making female intellectuals. Margarethe von Trotta, has, however, made other films about fascinating, iconoclastic figures in history (Rosa Luxemburg (1986), also starring Sukowa in the titular role, is one such biopic) and I hope the film encourages viewers to review or discover the veteran feminist director’s work.
Many chastised Sofia Coppola’s re-imagining of Marie Antoinette. Some critics complained about the addition of modern music while others thought it looked too slick, like an MTV music video (remember those??). But I think most people missed the point. Beyond the confectionery colors, gorgeous shots of lavish costumes and a teen queen munching on decadent treats and sipping champagne is a compelling and heartbreaking film that transcends eye candy. Underneath the exquisite atmosphere exists a very powerful and feminist commentary on gender and women.
Marie Antoinette chronicles the life of Austrian-born Maria Antonia Josephina Joanna (Kirsten Dunst) as she becomes the Dauphine and then Queen of France leading up to the French Revolution. Writer and director Sofia Coppola loosely based the film on Antonia Fraser’s sympathetic biography of the French queen. Coppola injected the dialogue with actual quotes from the queen’s life. Dunst skillfully exhibits the queen’s naïveté, loneliness and charisma. In an outstanding and underrated performance, she adeptly captures the jubilance of a young woman who desperately desires freedom as well as a woman burdened with the knowledge that her only value lies in her ability to bear children.
In the beginning of the film, we see Marie Antoinette travel from her homeland of Austria to France as her mother has arranged for her to be married to the Dauphin, Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman) in order to unite the two antagonistic kingdoms of Austria and France. In a heartbreaking scene, Judy Dench tells Marie Antoinette she must leave everything she knows behind to make room for her new French identity, including abandoning her adorbs dog Mops. No, not her dog! That scene seriously broke my heart reducing me to tears. Marie Antoinette is upset yet she swallows her pain and obeys. She enters a tent placed on the two countries’ borders, entering on Austrian soil and exiting on French land. In the tent, she must strip off all of her clothes in order to don her new French garb – a symbol of her having to strip away her identity.
Once Marie Antoinette marries Louis XVI, we see Versailles’ ridiculous and over the top traditions again and again. Every morning, an entourage of servants and royalty awakens Marie Antoinette, dressing her in garments with outlandish pomp and ceremony.
As she navigates royal society’s mores, we witness Marie Antoinette’s close friendships with the free spirited Duchesse de Polignac (Rose Byrne) and the reserved Princesse de Lamballe (Mary Nighy). When she is told she should choose more appropriate friends, particularly ditching Duchesse de Polignac, Marie Antoinette defends her friend saying she enjoys her fun spirit. Yes, there are moments when Marie Antoinette indulges in vapid, decadent luxuries. But people forget she’s a teenager. Um, that’s what they do! To take her mind off the constant societal pressure, she distracts herself by gambling, singing in plays and shopping. She’s so confined by societal expectations; she’s exploring her identity and experimenting as much as she can.
Marie Antoinette’s mother, the Austrian duchess Maria Theresa warns her, “All eyes will be on you.” After their wedding night, it’s clear that Louis XVI has no sexual interest in his bride. Through her constant letters, Maria Theresa perpetually reminds her daughter that “nothing is certain” about her place until she gives birth to a son. Even after Louis XVI is crowned king and Marie Antoinette becomes queen, her place is still not entirely secure until she has a son. After her sister-in-law gives birth to a son, Marie-Antoinette feels even more pressure to have a child. Her mother condemns her for not being charming enough or patient enough to entice her husband. As Marie Antoinette reads her mother’s letter, the stinging words wound her, we see and feel her solitary pain.
Women were reduced to their vaginas, only valued if they got pregnant so they could produce an heir. No one bothers Louis XVI about this, even though he’s the one who doesn’t want to have sex. Nope, just the woman; of course she’s to blame. Eventually after 7 years with no children, Marie Antoinette’s brother, the Holy Roman Emperor, talks to him. But Marie Antoinette is repeatedly blamed for not becoming pregnant. Clearly her body and reproduction are her only salient attributes in the eyes of society.
Throughout the film, we’re reminded that women aren’t desirable, lesser than men. When her first child a daughter is born, Marie Antoinette says to her:
Oh, you were not what was desired, but that makes you no less dear to me. A boy would have been the Son of France, but you, Marie Thérèse, shall be mine.
In a world where nothing, not even her own body truly belongs to her, it’s touching to see Marie Antoinette, a devoted mother, take such joy in her relationship with her daughter.
Throughout history, people erroneously vilified Marie Antoinette, attributing her with more political influence than she actually possessed. And of course she was demonized after she supposedly told starving peasants, “Let them eat cake.” As civil unrest grows inching ever closer to revolution, the film’s Marie Antoinette says she would never say such a thing. Because of her Austrian heritage and I would also argue her gender, Marie Antoinette was repeatedly used as a scapegoat for France’s financial woes and the public’s strife.
It is not a lesson of history, it’s an interpretation carried by my desire for covering the subject differently.
Would people still complain and moan if a dude was at the center of the film or a dude had directed this?? Nope, I think not. Does anyone else remember that Mozart acts like an immature douchebag in the critically acclaimed Amadeus??
This is Sofia Coppola’s third film centering on the loneliness of being female and surrounded by a world that knows how to use you but not how to value and understand you.
Told almost entirely from the Queen’s perspective, we see the world through Marie Antoinette’s eyes. Her loneliness and the pressure she faces to be everything to everyone is palpable.
With its commentaries on gender, women’s agency, reproduction and female friendships, Marie Antoinette is surprisingly deeper and more feminist than many realize. Sofia Coppola created a lush and sumptuous indulgence for the eyes. More importantly, by humanizing the doomed queen and adding modern touches, Coppola reminds us of the gender constraints women throughout history and today continually endure.
(L-R): Zoe Saldana and Nina Simone; image via Black Street
When Zoe Saldana was recently cast as legendary singer Nina Simone in her upcoming biopic, the decision ignited a firestorm of controversy. People have vehemently criticized the decision. Not because Saldana isn’t a skilled actor (she is). But because her skin is much lighter than the music icon.
I’ve wanted to write about this topic for awhile now. But how can I, a white woman, do justice to the complex issue of race?
I’ll never know discrimination or oppression based on the color of my skin. But I realized that while the whitewashing of Hollywood remains an ongoing conversation in the Black community, it’s not a discussion amongst everyone. And it should be.
Nina Simone’s daughter Simone spoke to Ebony about why skin color should matter in the casting of her mother’s biopic:
“I can guarantee that the sense of insecurity and the questioning of one’s beauty that results from a grownup telling you that as a child you’re too black and your nose is too wide, remained with her [her mother Nina Simone] for the rest of her life.”
At The Huffington Post, Nicole Moore writes about Nina Simone and the “erasure of black women in film”:
“Because Simone’s blackness extended as much to her musical prowess as to her physicality and image, it’s perplexing that the film’s production team, led by Jimmy Iovine, expects anyone, particularly in the black community, to (re)imagine Nina Simone as fair-skinned, thin-lipped and narrow-nosed? I guess if you look at Hollywood’s history of casting black female roles, especially in biopics, it’s not all that surprising.”
Hollywood has a massive race and gender problem. Black women’s bodies belong to a dichotomy suffering from either fetishization or erasure. When Black women appear in media, which doesn’t happen nearly enough, they suffer from stereotypes of mammies, jezebels and sapphires. And too many producers and directors clearly don’t understand the nuances of race, thinking any person of color will suffice.
“In the past few years Hollywood has consistently gotten it wrong when it comes to telling black women’s narratives. From the questionable choice of casting Thandie Newton as an Igbo woman in the film adaptation of the novel Half of a Yellow Sun and Jennifer Hudson as Winnie Mandela, to Jacqueline Fleming, a biracial woman, playing Harriet Tubman, when other people are in charge of portraying us, it seems like any brown face will do.”
“But this casting (with no shot taken at Saldana) manages to both erase the specific kind of racism Simone contended with and at the same time empower it.”
“Skin color and its importance around the world—and particularly in the African-American community—has been a hot-button issue for generations. The debate over skin color and its painful origins dates back to the days of slavery, when lighter skin often equaled a better overall quality of life. With more pronounced European features, bearers of a lighter complexion were also considered more attractive than their darker-skinned peers. Possessing this trait was believed to open the cracked doors of opportunity ever wider.”
Due to white privilege, white people don’t agonize over their skin color. We don’t have to worry if someone will harass us or follow us around in a department store, thinking we’re going to steal merchandise simply because of our skin. If we move, we don’t have to worry about finding neighbors who don’t like us because of our skin color. We don’t have to fret over something as simple as putting on a Band-Aid which won’t match our skin tone.
My point is this: we don’t ever have to think about race. Sure, we can if we want to. But we don’t haveto. And therein lies the privilege.
“Pushing for ownership of both the infrastructure and content that portrays our lived experiences – that is the crux of the issue; not just the politics of light vs. dark-skinned actresses. So, whereas I am completely on board with calling out the colorism behind the biopic’s casting choices (and the harmful message that’s being sent to young, dark-skinned black girls everywhere by having a light-skinned woman play Nina Simone) there aren’t enough strong lead roles written for women of color in Hollywood for me to fairly tell Zoe Saldana, a hard-working, talented brown woman to ”sit this one out.”
Here at Bitch Flicks, we talk a lot about the need for more female filmmakers and women-centric films. One of the takeaways from the Zoe Saldana/Nina Simone controversy is that we desperately need more women of color filmmakers.
The Help crystallizes Hollywood’s problem with Black women. Sure, we see strong and complex Black women telling their stories of discrimination and hardship to writer Skeeter (Emma Stone). But even in a film containing the inarguably talented Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer giving phenomenal Oscar nominated and Oscar-winning performances, it still remains a racially problematic film. Even in a film that supposedly champions Black women, it ultimately revolves around a white female protagonist’s perspective.
While women filmmakers don’t merely depict female protagonists, when more women are behind the camera, we tend to see more women in front of the camera. Looking back at this year’s movies, female-fronted films such as Brave, The Hunger Games, Prometheus, and Snow White and the Huntsman graced the big screen. We saw women-centric indies like Your Sister’s Sister, Take This Waltz, For a Good Time Call… and Bachelorette. We even witnessed strong women in male-dominated movies like Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises and Black Widow in The Avengers.
But when you look at the female protagonists — aside from Beasts of the Southern Wild, Sparkle, The Lady, Girl in Progress and Celeste and Jesse Forever which all featured women of color in lead roles — you’ll notice their overwhelming whiteness.
Perhaps if we had more Black women filmmakers, we would see more nuanced and diverse depictions of Black women on-screen.
Now, that doesn’t mean white women and men can’t or shouldn’t write strong, complex Black female characters. But it does mean white people have to stop appropriating Black women’s narratives, especially if we’re not going to take the time to attempt to understand the intricate and painful complexities of the light vs. dark skin stigma. And we’ve got to stop pretending we live in a post-racial society. We don’t.
We need more films from Black women directors like Ava DuVernay, Dee Rees and Julie Dash. But we aren’t seeing enough Black women in front of or behind the camera. In her Women and Hollywood cross-post, Evette Dionne wonders “Where are the black women film directors?” She explores the “exile of black women film directors” by studios that refuse to fund their work.
“So black women, one of the most sought after audience demographics for movie studios, aren’t behind the camera providing insight into our culture. This leads to a misrepresentation of the black community on the silver screen. Often, we are caricatures of ourselves, as evidenced in Jumping the Broom and other projects, which leads to resentment for what the media machine represents in our communities.”
Last year, I had the overwhelming privilege of meeting one of my feminist idols, Professor Melissa Harris-Perry (squee!!). After her brilliant and empowering speech on her must-read book Sister Citizen, she graciously stayed afterwards and spoke to each and every person. When I finally got my chance to talk to her, I gushed about how much I loved her and how she needed her own TV show (and this was BEFORE her fantastic MSNBC weekend show was announced!). I also asked her how to be a good ally to women of color. She gave the simplest yet hardest advice of all. Listen. When in a room with women of color, she said to be silent, listen and let them speak for themselves. When you find yourself in a space with no women of color, that’s when you need to speak up.
So we white women (and men) need to speak up against racism.
When people talk about the need for more women in media — sadly, they often mean white women. Many of us who write about the need for women’s representation in film or women-created media feel satisfaction when we see white female leads on-screen and white female writers and directors. But that’s got to change. We need films to portray women of all races, created by women of all races — not just white women and think we’ve somehow achieved some semblance of equity.
White women and men filmmakers need to realize the damage they wreak when they only cast light-skinned Black women (if they cast women of color at all), especially in a biopic of a famous Black woman with dark skin.
It’s time for us white women to listen. Listen to black women. Listen to their needs and wants and support them from the sidelines. We can’t merely be satisfied when any woman stands on-screen. Black women must be behind the camera, telling their own stories.
Women’s Equality Day commemorates the passage of the 19th amendment, women’s suffrage, which the U.S. government ratified the 19th amendment on August 18, 1920 enabling women to vote.
Too often, people say women were given the vote. Women weren’t given anything. They valiantly spoke out, organized, protested and fought for their rights.
One of my favorite films, Iron Jawed Angels captures feminist activists Alice Paul (Hilary Swank in one of her best performances) and Lucy Burns (Frances O’Connor) in their vigilant struggle to get Congress to pass the 19th amendment. While established suffragettes like Carrie Chapmann Catt and Anna Howard Shaw ran the more conservative National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA) which worked on suffrage state by state, Paul and Burns founded the National Women Party (NWP) in 1917 to rally women and demand a federal amendment. Paul and Burns organized thousands of suffragettes to march in parades in NYC and DC and protest President Wilson during wartime outside of the White House. They endured harassment, incarceration, a hunger strike and force feeding.
While I wished it had included more scenes with women of color (suffragist and anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells only makes a brief appearance), the film gives a fantastic overview of the sexism and uphill battle suffragists faced to ensure future generations of women could vote.
Here are two of my favorite quotes from Iron Jawed Angels:
“We women of America tell you that America is not a democracy. Twenty million women are denied the right to vote.” — Alice Paul (Hilary Swank) “You ask me to explain myself. I’m just wondering, what needs to be explained? It should be very clear. Look into your own heart—I swear to you, mine is no different. You want a place in a trades and professions where you can earn your bread; so do I. You want the means of self-expression, some way to satisfy your own personal ambitions; so do I. You want a voice in the government under which you live; so do I. What is there to explain?” — Alice Paul (Hillary Swank)
When we face a daily bombardment of restrictions on abortion access and contraception which threaten our reproductive rights, when legislators like Todd Akin victim-blame and slut-shame women with asinine comments about “legitimate rape,” when laws don’t protect rape and domestic violence survivors, when trans women like Cece McDonald are incarcerated for self-defense, when the LGBTQI community is persecuted for their gender identity and sexual orientation — you realize how vital it becomes to exercise your right to vote. We need to make our voices heard.
In addition to Iron Jawed Angels, if you haven’t seen it (or just want to watch it again), check out the parody of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” paying homage to Alice Paul and honoring the struggle for suffrage and equality.
French Director Luc Besson’s new biopic The Lady is a moving portrait of the life of Burmese activist and political leader Aung San Suu Kyi. However, for a movie that clearly has a political goal (to raise awareness of the situation in Burma*), it focuses mainly on Suu Kyi’s family and personal life. As a result, while I enjoyed the movie overall it still left me feeling unsatisfied.
The movie opens in 1947 with the assassination of General Aung San, Suu Kyi’s father, who had just negotiated Burma’s independence from Britain. While it’s a poignant scene and crucial historical event it’s really all we see of Suu Kyi’s early life.
From there we go forward to meet the main characters in the movie’s romance, Suu Kyi (played by Michelle Yeoh) and her professor husband Dr. Michael Aris (David Thewlis). They and their two sons are living in Oxford when she receives the news that her mother has had a stroke. When she returns to Burma she witnesses the military-run government massacring protesting students in the streets. When she is then approached to lead a pro-democracy movement she decides to stay.
From this point the film becomes a bit plodding, seeming a bit like a visual representation of an encyclopedia article. It moves through every interaction Syu Kii has with the military junta and their attempts to intimidate and imprison her and her followers, leading to her 15-year house arrest and years of separation from Aris and their children. While we also see Syu Kii touring the country and speaking to locals about democracy, for the most part her Burmese allies and followers in the film remain nameless and voiceless.
Ultimately while the film brings the audience to tears more than once, it’s not over the plight of Burma or ordinary Burmese citizens, but over Suu Kyi and her husband’s drawn-out separation.
That’s where I thought the focus did the subject an injustice. Interestingly, The Lady could be said to suffer from some of the same issues as The Iron Lady, which was also a movie about a woman politician that was criticized for being more concerned with sentimentality than political substance.
In some ways, though, The Lady has less excuse for this. Thatcher is elderly and ailing now but Suu Kyi is still fighting a crucial fight. It’s clear from the rallying cry at the end of the movie that one of the film’s goals is to get Westerners more involved in aiding the continuing fight for true democracy in Burma (Aung San Suu Kyi will finally take the oath of office to sit in the parliament this year, though the current structure still ensures the military maintains majority control and human rights violations continue). However, this could have been further advanced by giving voices to the Burmese non-military characters other than Suu Kyi: the students being massacred in the streets, the villagers in rural areas, and the monks who joined the protest.
As Yeoh’s Suu Kyi says in the film, she dislikes the cult of personality around her, and yet that’s what the movie reinforces by failing to broaden the depiction of the struggle. At the same time, it also in some ways diminishes her strength by tieing her identity so strongly to her family. At a couple points in the film people mention a lack of experience before coming to Burma, saying she was just an “Oxford housewife and mother of two”, not mentioning she also had a PhD, extensive academic honours, and had worked at the UN.
Would I recommend the movie for someone who had only a cursory knowledge of the situation in Burma? Yes. But Do I think it featured a strong woman role model and did justice to Aung San Suu Kyi’s cause? Not as well as it could have.
*Note: In case you’re wondering why I’m using Burma instead of Myanmar, that’s because many pro-democracy groups and activists refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the name Myanmar, which was introduced by the military government. It’s also the name they used in the film.
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Jarrah Hodge is the founder of Gender Focus, a Canadian feminist blog. Jarrah also writes for Vancouver Observer and Huffington Post Canada and has been a guest blogger on “feminerd” culture for Bitch Magazine Blogs. Hailing from New Westminster, BC, she’s a fan of politics, crafts, boardgames, musical theatre, and brunch.
Bassett’s was not only one of the defining performances for women in cinema; it was also one that became a benchmark for actresses of color. Her riveting portrayal role was further punctuated by the remarkable writing. Many lead roles for women of color since then are often subordinate characters. And in many other instances, they’re the tough, ever wise figures, which don’t often allow them inhabit any other emotion. Even in the heavily lauded yet divisive drama, The Help, we saw the stories of two African-American characters glossed over and unrealized, lacking the measure of which they were worthy. Overall, too many roles written for African-American actresses have them simply orbiting around the larger story of the movie without actually being a part of it and making any real impact.
The New York Times published an article by Roni Caryn Rabin in 2008 titled, “In the Fatosphere, Big Is In, or at Least Accepted.” The author highlights several writers in the blogosphere who focus on Fat Acceptance and the HAES (Healthy at Every Size) Movement.
Rabin describes the Fatosphere as follows:
The bloggers’ main contention is that being fat is not a result of moral failure or a character flaw, or of gluttony, sloth or a lack of willpower. Diets often boomerang, they say; indeed, numerous long-term studies have found that even though dieters are often able to lose weight in the short term, they almost always regain the lost pounds over the next few years.
She continues:
Fat acceptance bloggers contend that the war on obesity has given people an excuse to wage war on fat people and that health concerns—coupled with the belief that fat people have only themselves to blame for being fat—are being used to justify discrimination that would not be tolerated toward just about any other group of people.
Undesired, with interviews and images shot by Walter Astrada, whom I believe to be a very courageous photojournalist, brings to light this painful and current social issue still faced by many. According to Reuters, modern day India is the fourth most dangerous place in the world for women to live, but it seems like it is also one of the most difficult ones for a female life to even begin. Gender inequality and the desire to rectify it, let alone feminism, seem like completely foreign concepts for certain classes. There is also a seeming contradiction in this entire predicament – if a woman is to be perceived as the bearer of life, how can she be made to bring about this life’s actual end?
Grace Coddington is a former model and the creative director at Vogue. She even started working there on the same day as Wintour. She is intelligent, reflective, and an artist to Wintour’s manager persona. Coddington isn’t afraid to stand up to Wintour (whose lack of empathy was famously fictionalized by Meryl Streep in 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada) either, and flawlessly uses her every resource, including the documentary film crew, to her advantage. Viewers may see her as being cutthroat, but she’s an artist fighting for her vision, her work, and she’s earned it. She’s 68 and has spent her whole life in this industry, working for British Vogue and Calvin Klein before joining Wintour.
We know the mass-culturally-sanctioned narrative about Patty Jenkins’ directorial debut, Monster: Charlize Theron got “ugly” and delivered a tour de force turn as serial killer Aileen Wuornos that was hailed by Roger Ebert in an effective, rare use of Travers-esque hyperbole as “one of the greatest performances in the history of the cinema.” That quote made it to countless one-sheets and adorns the DVD cover of the film, and perhaps rightly so; Theron’s performance (or “embodiment,” as Ebert puts it) so overwhelms the mise-en-scène and soundscape of the film that Christina Ricci’s stern gaze on the DVD packaging seems little more than a futile attempt to market the film visually as a buddy film gone terribly wrong. Thelma & Louise, this is not.
Nesson also juxtaposes photos of Robynn prior to her Army experience–where she’s in a cheerleading uniform, smiling and having fun with friends–with the post-Army Robynn, a tattooed, pierced, PTSD victim who stares at the former photos as if they couldn’t possibly be her. And they aren’t anymore. The new Robynn is an activist who speaks out against war and gun violence, even while dealing with debilitating panic attacks.
Women were reduced to their vaginas, only valued if they got pregnant so they could produce an heir. No one bothers Louis XVI about this, even though he’s the one who doesn’t want to have sex. Nope, just the woman; of course she’s to blame. Eventually after 7 years with no children, Marie Antoinette’s brother, the Holy Roman Emperor, talks to him. But Marie Antoinette is repeatedly blamed for not becoming pregnant. Clearly her body and reproduction are her only salient attributes in the eyes of society.
It’s impossible to not love Dee–a beautiful woman, a kind and patient mother, a hard worker, and a caring friend. Her temper gets the best of her once in the film, but she’s protecting her children from their alcoholic father and his accused child molester girlfriend, and can hardly be faulted for it. I’m inclined to think the movie tries too hard to make her character likable. In contrast, Dee’s friend and neighbor Gladys–who is not a conventionally attractive woman, and does not have four adorable children trailing her–is a compelling and empathetic character, but the film completely drops the ball, even failing to credit the actor who plays her. Gladys is Dee’s inspiration for continuing to fight the DA even after her charges are dropped (because Gladys took a plea deal, while Dee would not), but we don’t get to explore Gladys or her situation. I’m curious as to why she’s part of the story, but not really allowed to be a character in the film. While the movie is about Dee, I would’ve liked to get to know Gladys a bit.
But as the film goes on, the references to beauty cease, and it becomes clear that these lines are not comments on Dian’s gender identity but on the materialism that she gradually gives up as she becomes committed to living among the mountain gorillas. The lines about clothing and make-up eventually stop, and Dian lets go of the previous signifiers of her femininity. It isn’t that she becomes masculine, as Weaver’s character in the Alien series is often perceived – it’s that she no longer needs these material possessions and outward signifiers to feel comfortable in the world and convey her identity. Dian’s transformation is subtle, but it adds significant depth to her characterization as she becomes comfortable in her new surroundings.
Rivers is an odd character. Being a superstar female comic alone is odd in the U.S.–only a few came before her–but we get a very real look at her life, at the troubles she has faced (her husband’s suicide) and continues to face, and at the loneliness that certainly helps her drive to fill her daily calendar. She is vulnerable and still nervous when going on stage, especially when pursuing what she calls the one sacred part of her life–her acting–in which she hasn’t seen a lot of personal success. I came to find her more compelling and interesting than my initial perception of her, and encourage anyone to see this film and learn more about a woman who refuses to stop.
As much as I like this movie, I can’t help but write this review through the lens of an interview Satrapi gave in 2004, in which she claimed to not be a feminist and displayed ignorance of the basic concept of feminism. I simply don’t believe gender inequality can be dissolved through basic humanism—especially in oppressive patriarchal societies like Iran. I wonder if feminism represents too radical a position to non-Westerners, and if her statements were more strategy than sincerity. Making feminism an enemy or perpetuating the post-feminist rhetoric isn’t going to help anyone. That said, this is a very good movie and I highly recommend it.
Gloria: In Her Own Words covers Steinem’s childhood in a working-class neighborhood in Toledo, Ohio and her early career as a journalist. One of her assignments involved going undercover doing an expose on the Playboy Club. Through the unfolding of her history, she discusses gender disparity in wages and sexual harassment. In 1970, women earned half of what men earned. Women were told that they couldn’t handle responsibility or couldn’t maintain the same level of concentration as men. And of course, women were told their place was in the home. She said that if you were pretty, people assumed you got assignments based on your looks. Of course it couldn’t be due to a woman’s intelligence or work ethic. Silly me. Steinem also revealed that her boss sexually harassed her at the Sunday Times.
Coming from a family of amateur drag racers (and a family where women outnumber men), it’s no surprise that my super-duper #1 female idol as a kid was Shirley Muldowney. A three-time National Hot Rod Association Top Fuel champion, Muldowney has been a part of professional drag racing since the mid-1960s and faced innumerable obstacles gaining entry into the boy’s club of the NHRA. Although not the first woman to race, she was the first to be licensed as a professional competitor and ran cars for the better part of nearly four decades, retiring only due to lack of sponsorship in 2003. Naturally, at the height of her career in the 70s / early 80s, her gender made excellent material for a biopic of her life, Heart like a Wheel (1983). And, perhaps just as naturally, the film does a pretty disappointing job of capturing the complexity of a woman who struggled to break the gender barrier in professional drag racing.
I don’t have much analysis to offer here because it feels quite obvious to me that 1) Hollywood doesn’t care that much about women’s stories (gasp!) and 2) the stories that Hollywood does manage to tell about women often get much less critical praise. Is that because the films about women are just … worse? Or is it that, again–as is the case with everything from parenting to politics–we hold women to a much higher standard, imposing a level of scrutiny that makes it impossible to focus on women’s successes in the same ways we showcase the achievements of men?
No. No to the over-abundant racial stereotypes showcased throughout the film. No to the kind-hearted southern woman as the Black man’s White Savior. No to the shallow, embarrassing, surface-level portrayal of class issues. No to the constant heavy-handed references to God and prayer and sexual morality. No to falling back on the tired tropes of wives as mommies and women as over-bearing and emasculating ball-busters. No to this film’s best picture nomination. Just … no.
Let me say up front that I’m aware that I’m supposed to feel sorry for Sandra Bullock this week. She’s purported to be “America’s sweetheart” and all, she has always seemed like a fairly decent person (for an actor), and I think her husband deserves to get his wang run over by one of his customized asshole conveyance vehicles, but I’m finding it difficult to feel too bad. I mean, who marries a guy who named himself after a figure from the Old West, has more tattoos than IQ points, and is known for his penchant for rockabilly strippers? Normally I’d absolve Bullock of all responsibility for what has occurred and spend nine paragraphs illustrating the many reasons Jesse James doesn’t deserve to live, but I’ve just received proof in the form of a movie called The Blind Side that Sandra Bullock is in cahoots with Satan, Ronald Reagan’s cryogenically preserved head, the country music industry, and E! in their plot to take over the world by turning us all into (or helping some of us to remain) smug, racist imbeciles.
The film isn’t just about living with disability, though; it’s about thriving in spite of it, about having a full life in which disability is only a part. Kahlo does not “overcome” her physical problems; she spends a lot of time painting in bed, she has good times and bad, and all of this she channels into her work. As a person who lives with disability, it’s damn near inspiring to see a character–based on a real-life person–who struggles and who achieves great things. And great things Kahlo did achieve. Her body of work includes 143 paintings, 55 of which are self portraits. One of her paintings was the first work by a 20th century Mexican artist to be purchased by the Louvre in Paris, she had a one-woman show in Paris, and has become significantly more famous since her death in 1958. Her work is intensely personal, representing most often pain and the broken self. Not only is this work autobiographical–depicting her own pain and suffering–but it is also overtly feminist. Kahlo painting herself in surrealistic representations of womanhood and pain legitimizes female experiences as worthy of high art. Like so many culturally valued enterprises (filmmaking, for one), men tend to dominate the art world. Kahlo–and the film Frida–challenges those patriarchal norms.
Aileen Wuornos’s story is the antithesis of the American Dream and highlights the causality of crime: abused, abandoned, neglected, poverty-stricken, violated, exploited, shunned, condemned, tormented and eventually killed. It seems understandable that after being repeatedly raped by a family member as a child, living homeless in woods until teenage years, turning to prostitution to make enough money for food and shelter, and then being beaten and raped brutally, that she would, in desperation, reach for a gun and kill. The mythology around serial killers demonstrates that there is a perversion and obsession that perpetrators feed with their crimes, yet in Wuornos’s case that does not appear to have been true, as the killings she committed were apparently borne from fury and, in at least one case, from self-defence. If she had not experienced so much abuse and neglect, would she have gone on to kill? This can never be known, and her crimes can never be excused. Indeed, it is not possible to know what really happened on the nights of the killings.
This piece on The Blind Side, by Nine Deuce, first appeared at Bitch Flicks on March 23, 2011.
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The Blind Side movie poster
Davetavius and I consider ourselves the world’s foremost authorities on watching movies for reasons other than those intended by their producers. As such, we go way beyond just watching “cheesy” (whatever that means) movies, 80s movies, or kung fu movies (which I refuse to watch but which every dork on Earth has been pretending to like in some attempt at letting everyone know how “weird” they are since Quentin Tarantino’s ridiculous ass popularized kung fu movie fandom as the #1 route to instant eccentricity cred in True Romance) to focus our attention on recently-released romantic comedies, those obnoxious movies in which two assholes just sit around and talk to each other for 98 minutes, and “serious” movies for which people have been given gold-plated statuettes. One can learn an awful lot about the faults and failings of our social system and corporate entertainment’s attempts to sell us its version of culture by watching movies created by and for the anti-intelligentsia, and if one were to try hard enough, I’m sure one could find the string that, if tugged, would unravel the modern world system buried somewhere in a melodramatic Best Picture Oscar contender intended to make people who refer to beers as “cold ones” feel like they’re considering The Big Issues. There was no way we were going to miss The Blind Side.
Spoiler alert: this is the worst movie I’ve ever seen, and I’m going to spoil your desire to see it yourself by writing this post. Also, I may, if I can manage to give a fuck, divulge important plot elements. But it’s based on a true story that everyone has already heard anyway, so who cares.
Let me say up front that I’m aware that I’m supposed to feel sorry for Sandra Bullock this week. She’s purported to be “America’s sweetheart” and all, she has always seemed like a fairly decent person (for an actor), and I think her husband deserves to get his wang run over by one of his customized asshole conveyance vehicles, but I’m finding it difficult to feel too bad. I mean, who marries a guy who named himself after a figure from the Old West, has more tattoos than IQ points, and is known for his penchant for rockabilly strippers? Normally I’d absolve Bullock of all responsibility for what has occurred and spend nine paragraphs illustrating the many reasons Jesse James doesn’t deserve to live, but I’ve just received proof in the form of a movie called The Blind Side that Sandra Bullock is in cahoots with Satan, Ronald Reagan’s cryogenically preserved head, the country music industry, and E! in their plot to take over the world by turning us all into (or helping some of us to remain) smug, racist imbeciles.
This piece on The Blind Side, by Stephanie Rogers, first appeared at Bitch Flicks on March 3, 2010.
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The Blind Side movie poster
No. No to the over-abundant racial stereotypes showcased throughout the film. No to the kind-hearted southern woman as the Black man’s White Savior. No to the shallow, embarrassing, surface-level portrayal of class issues. No to the constant heavy-handed references to God and prayer and sexual morality. No to falling back on the tired tropes of wives as mommies and women as over-bearing and emasculating ball-busters. No to this film’s best picture nomination. Just … no.
imdb synopsis, as composed by Anonymous:
The Blind Side depicts the story of Michael Oher, a homeless African-American youngster from a broken home, taken in by the Touhys, a well-to-do white family who help him fulfill his potential. At the same time, Oher’s presence in the Touhys’ lives leads them to some insightful self-discoveries of their own.
Living in his new environment, the teen faces a completely different set of challenges to overcome. As a football player and student, Oher works hard and, with the help of his coaches and adopted family, becomes an All-American offensive left tackle.
The real synopsis, as composed by me:
The Blind Side depicts the story of a white woman who sees a Black man walking down the street in the rain. She tells her husband to stop the car, and he obliges—oh, his wife is just so crazy sometimes!—then, out of the goodness of her white heart, she allows him to spend the night in their offensively enormous home.
Unfortunately, she can’t sleep very well—the Black man might steal some of their very important shit! But the next day, when she sees that he’s folded his blankets and sheets nicely on the couch, she realizes that, hey, maybe all Black men really aren’t thieving thugs.
Then she saves his life.
There’s a way to tell a true story, and there’s a way to completely botch the shit out of a true story. Shit-botching, in this instance, might include basing the entire film around an upper-class white woman’s struggle to essentially reform a young Black man by taking him in, buying him clothes, getting him a tutor, teaching him how to tackle, and threatening to kill a group of young Black men he used to hang out with.
Many chastised Sofia Coppola’s re-imagining of Marie Antoinette. Some critics complained about the addition of modern music while others thought it looked too slick, like an MTV music video (remember those??). But I think most people missed the point. Beyond the confectionary colors, gorgeous shots of lavish costumes and a teen queen munching on decadent treats and sipping champagne is a compelling and heartbreaking film that transcends eye candy. Underneath the exquisite atmosphere exists a very powerful and feminist commentary on gender and women.
Marie Antoinette chronicles the life of Austrian-born Maria Antonia Josephina Joanna (Kirsten Dunst) as she becomes the Dauphine and then Queen of France leading up to the French Revolution. Writer and director Sofia Coppola loosely based the film on Antonia Fraser’s sympathetic biography of the French queen. Coppola injected the dialogue with actual quotes from the queen’s life. Dunst skillfully exhibits the queen’s naïveté, loneliness and charisma. In an outstanding and underrated performance, she adeptly captures the jubilance of a young woman who desperately desires freedom as well as a woman burdened with the knowledge that her only value lies in her ability to bear children.
In the beginning of the film, we see Marie Antoinette travel from her homeland of Austria to France as her mother has arranged for her to be married to the Dauphin, Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman) in order to unite the two antagonistic kingdoms of Austria and France. In a heartbreaking scene, Judy Dench tells Marie Antoinette she must leave everything she knows behind to make room for her new French identity, including abandoning her adorbs dog Mops. No, not her dog! That scene seriously broke my heart reducing me to tears. Marie Antoinette is upset yet she swallows her pain and obeys. She enters a tent placed on the two countries’ borders, entering on Austrian soil and exiting on French land. In the tent, she must strip off all of her clothes in order to don her new French garb – a symbol of her having to strip away her identity.
Once Marie Antoinette marries Louis XVI, we see Versailles’ ridiculous and over the top traditions again and again. Every morning, an entourage of servants and royalty awakens Marie Antoinette, dressing her in garments with outlandish pomp and ceremony.
As she navigates royal society’s mores, we witness Marie Antoinette’s close friendships with the free spirited Duchesse de Polignac (Rose Byrne) and the reserved Princesse de Lamballe (Mary Nighy). When she is told she should choose more appropriate friends, particularly ditching Duchesse de Polignac, Marie Antoinette defends her friend saying she enjoys her fun spirit. Yes, there are moments when Marie Antoinette indulges in vapid, decadent luxuries. But people forget she’s a teenager. Um, that’s what they do! To take her mind off the constant societal pressure, she distracts herself by gambling, singing in plays and shopping. She’s so confined by societal expectations; she’s exploring her identity and experimenting as much as she can.
Marie Antoinette’s mother, the Austrian duchess Maria Theresa warns her, “All eyes will be on you.” After their wedding night, it’s clear that Louis XVI has no sexual interest in his bride. Through her constant letters, Maria Theresa perpetually reminds her daughter that “nothing is certain” about her place until she gives birth to a son. Even after Louis XVI is crowned king and Marie Antoinette becomes queen, her place is still not entirely secure until she has a son. After her sister-in-law gives birth to a son, Marie-Antoinette feels even more pressure to have a child. Her mother condemns her for not being charming enough or patient enough to entice her husband. As Marie Antoinette reads her mother’s letter, the stinging words wound her, we see and feel her solitary pain.
Women were reduced to their vaginas, only valued if they got pregnant so they could produce an heir. No one bothers Louis XVI about this, even though he’s the one who doesn’t want to have sex. Nope, just the woman; of course she’s to blame. Eventually after 7 years with no children, Marie Antoinette’s brother, the Holy Roman Emperor, talks to him. But Marie Antoinette is repeatedly blamed for not becoming pregnant. Clearly her body and reproduction are her only salient attributes in the eyes of society.
Throughout the film, we’re reminded that women aren’t desirable, lesser than men. When her first child a daughter is born, Marie Antoinette says to her:
“Oh, you were not what was desired, but that makes you no less dear to me. A boy would have been the Son of France, but you, Marie Thérèse, shall be mine.”
In a world where nothing, not even her own body truly belongs to her, it’s touching to see Marie Antoinette, a devoted mother, take such joy in her relationship with her daughter.
Throughout history, people erroneously vilified Marie Antoinette, attributing her with more political influence than she actually possessed. And of course she was demonized after she supposedly told starving peasants, “Let them eat cake.” As civil unrest grows inching ever closer to revolution, the film’s Marie Antoinette says she would never say such a thing. Because of her Austrian heritage and I would also argue her gender, Marie Antoinette was repeatedly used as a scapegoat for France’s financial woes and the public’s strife.
“It is not a lesson of history, it’s an interpretation carried by my desire for covering the subject differently.
Would people still complain and moan if a dude was at the center of the film or a dude had directed this?? Nope, I think not. Does anyone else remember that Mozart acts like an immature douchebag in the critically acclaimed Amadeus??
“This is Sofia Coppola’s third film centering on the loneliness of being female and surrounded by a world that knows how to use you but not how to value and understand you.”
Told almost entirely from the Queen’s perspective, we see the world through Marie Antoinette’s eyes. Her loneliness and the pressure she faces to be everything to everyone is palpable.
With its commentaries on gender, women’s agency, reproduction and female friendships, Marie Antoinette is surprisingly deeper and more feminist than many realize. Sofia Coppola created a lush and sumptuous indulgence for the eyes. More importantly, by humanizing the doomed queen and adding modern touches, Coppola reminds us of the gender constraints women throughout history and today continually endure.
Angela Bassett is one of those actresses who could breathe life into any role, no matter how flimsy—from her role as the matriarch of the Jackson family in The Jacksons: An American Dream to playing the wife of a slain political leader in Malcolm X. One could attribute that talent to the power in her delivery, the depth she gives to every line, and the gut-wrenching emotion she brings to every character.
But it is her star-making turn as rock and roll superstar Tina Turner in 1993’s What’s Love Got To Do With It? that catapulted her to the A-list. Complete with the rock star wigs, superhero body and slightly timid but ever-so-deliberate snarl in her speech, Bassett embodied the icon during her slow and steady rise to fame, and her tumultuous marriage to late musician Ike Turner (Laurence Fishburne).
It was her piercing portrayal of Tina that also contributed to the evolution of women’s roles in cinema, and one which still arrests audiences almost twenty years later. Bassett turned what could have been a whimpering, damsel in distress character in the hands of a lesser actress into a strong, unflinching woman worthy of admiration and one so memorable that it became a model for nuanced female characters for years to come.
Ike (Fishburne) and Tina (Bassett)
Because of Bassett’s performance, a new crop of fans could appreciate how a woman could be seen as more than merely a survivor, but a hero to her generation. And we’re not only talking about the female generation, or the African-American generation. We’re talking about a star whose undeniable talent and wicked charisma helped shaped the face of rock and roll, regardless of age, color, creed and gender. It wasn’t an easy feat to step into Tina’s studded stilettos, but Bassett was able to humanize the icon. She showed the world some of the lowest points in Tina’s life, and turned them into a promise, a promise to her fans that she was going to overcome all of it to remind us all of how great she is. It was an exceptional cinematic tribute to a woman who touched the lives of many, and showed that even though she might have been victimized by her abusive husband, Tina was never a victim. It’s a fine line to walk, but Bassett’s diligent performance effortlessly revealed a multidimensional woman who was still a role model for many. It was respectful, rather than downtrodden (and it really could have gone either way).
That’s not to say Tina didn’t become a punching bag for Ike in the movie. The fast-talking, egotistical producer and bandleader often battled with drugs, money woes and a failed solo career, so whenever he got really burned up about things, he’d take them out on Tina every chance he had. Struggling with his own demons and crushed dreams, he decided to take out his aggression on his wife, and attempt to dash her ambitions. But regardless of what Ike tried to do to Tina, we never saw her broken afterwards. She got right back into that recording studio and belted out some of the classic tunes we still listen to today. She got back up and perfected that firm “I’m okay” smile for her friends and family, and remained a rock for her children. Because, as Lena Horne once said, “it’s not the load that breaks you down; it’s the way you carry it.” She never let Ike or anyone else see her down; she got right back up.
Bassett and Fishburne
It also helped that she had an edge on Ike that he wasn’t willing to admit, one that made them look more like world class fighters in a ring, rather than one champion and one lightweight. In many films, we often see the female as the victim, the weakling, the one who can’t defend herself, has no mind of her own and is led to believe she is nothing without her abuser. In other words, the abuser is always seen as the dominant figure in the relationship. But in What’s Love Got to Do With It?, we’re watching two very fierce characters, Tina and her husband Ike, fight a very similar fight against each other. Where Ike uses physical force and brutality to control Tina, Tina uses her unyielding emotional strength and supersized talent to ultimately eclipse Ike.
Bassett’s was not only one of the defining performances for women in cinema; it was also one that became a benchmark for actresses of color. Her riveting portrayal role was further punctuated by the remarkable writing. Many lead roles for women of color since then are often subordinate characters. And in many other instances, they’re the tough, ever wise figures, which don’t often allow them inhabit any other emotion. Even in the heavily lauded yet divisive drama, The Help, we saw the stories of two African-American characters glossed over and unrealized, lacking the measure of which they were worthy. Overall, too many roles written for African-American actresses have them simply orbiting around the larger story of the movie without actually being a part of it and making any real impact.
Nearly two decades later, Bassett’s performance still stands as one that turns all of that on its ear by actualizing all the those things a woman (of any color) can be—timid yet fierce, bold yet shy, loud yet subdued, happy yet sad—all at once. It’s a feast of emotions, and one which as a female viewer you crave to watch. We yearn to see it unfold and go through those same emotions along with Bassett in the movie, and she delivers. She takes a celebrated icon and gently peels away her tough outer layer to reveal a vulnerable inner core that so desperately screamed to be unchained. It is heartbreaking story, but one in which few tears are shed, but ultimately turns into a victory dance. You can’t help but to want to dance with her.
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