Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Stephanie‘s Picks:

Brave: Pixar’s Feminist Fantasy by Andrew O’Hehir via Salon

Nike Celebrates Women in Sport with Voices Film via nikeinc.com

Women’s Film Festivals (a new Tumblr!) via Marian Evans

How Girls Challenges the Masculine Expectations of “Good TV” by Todd VanDerWerff via A.V. Club

I Literally Cannot Stop Laughing at This; I Think My Brain Might Be Broken? by Melissa McEwan via Shakesville

Megan‘s Picks:

Quote of the Day: I Wanted to Give Girls Something To Look at and Not Feel Inadequate by Melissa Silverstein via Women and Hollywood

Hollywood to Black Mothers: Stay Home by Kimberly Seals Allers via The New York Times

An Open Letter to the Guys Who Told Me They Want to See Lara Croft Get Raped by Alyssa Rosenberg via ThinkProgress

Gretchen Carlson Walks Off ‘Fox and Friends’ After Brian Kilmeade’s Sexist Comment (Video) via The Huffington Post

Adam Carolla Thinks Women Aren’t Funny by Whitney Jefferson via BuzzFeed

Magazine Unconvincingly Defends Violent Editorial, Calls Critics Sexist by Jenna Sauers via Jezebel

Kelly MacDonald Talks Voicing Merida in Brave; Her Own Childhood Heroines by Susana Polo via The Mary Sue

Girls Season One Ends: Check Out This Interview with Lena Dunham by Melissa Silverstein via Women and Hollywood

‘Lola Versus’ Not Your Average Romantic Comedy: Bad Love Life Decisions, Finding Happiness…and One of the Best Film Endings Ever

Greta Gerwig as Lola in Lola Versus

Romantic comedies usually make me want to gouge my eyes out. Now, that doesn’t mean I hate them all. Some of my favorite films are rom-coms. But every now and again, one comes along that entertains rather than enrages me. Following in the footsteps of female-fronted comedies Bridesmaids, Young Adult and Girls (all of which I love), Lola Versus follows a single woman making horrendously bad decisions yet struggling to find her way. 

Indie muse Greta Gerwig — hands down the best part of Greenberg — plays Lola, a 29-year-old woman whose life is about to unravel. Not only is she on the precipice of turning 30 (a potentially introspective time in any woman’s life), her fiancé (the effortlessly charming Joel Kinnaman…watch him as Holder in The Killing…simply brilliant) breaks up with her shortly before their wedding. Like 3 weeks before their wedding. Understandably, her world crumbles around her. 
Lola is sweet, intelligent and articulate. Gerwig imbues her protagonist with vulnerability and quirky humor. And she’s an absolute mess. A disaster. Lola doesn’t know what she wants or what to do with her life. She now has no man, no fabulous NYC loft to live in any longer, and she’s suffering from writer’s block while trying to complete her PhD dissertation.

Supporting Lola through her break-up are her best friends supportive Henry (Hamish Linklater, who I will forever think of as Julia Louis-Dreyfuss’ brother on New Adventures of Old Christine) and scene-stealing sarcastic Alice (Zoe Lister Jones, who also co-wrote the script).

Joel Kinnaman and Greta Gerwig in Lola Versus

As she tries to move on, we witness Lola ask a man to put on a condom and take a pregnancy test. Not only is it great to see aspects of sex and reproduction. It’s refreshing to see a woman exert her sexuality but not be defined by it merely an object for the male gaze.

While it started off promising, I gotta admit, the bulk of Lola Versus pissed me off.  I wanted to shout at the screen, “No, Lola!! Don’t sleep with him!” or “Spend more time with your girlfriends!” or “Don’t believe him that he’s clean…whatever the fuck that means…make him wear a fricking condom!!” or “Stop smoking weed with (and being nice to) your ex-fiancé who dumped you!”

By the end of the film, I realized I wasn’t mad at the movie per se. I was pissed at Lola’s bad choices.

But isn’t that life? Isn’t that what people do when they’re dumped? They obsess over their exes, retracing the steps of their relationship, trying to deciper the clues that led to the relationship’s unraveling. They pine for them. They strategize ways to accidentally run into them (or avoid them like the plague). Either way, there’s a lot of strategizing involved. I wanted Lola to be empowered. To stop obsessing over nice but douchey guys who didn’t appreciate her or who weren’t right for her. I wanted her to hang out with her female friends. But the way the plot unfolded rang more realistic and way more uncomfortable.

Greta Gerwig and Hamish Linklater in Lola Versus

In an interview with Collider, Gerwig shared how the script spoke to her because Lola was such a hot mess:

“Sometime female characters, especially in the genre of something that people consider rom-com, make mistakes in a cute way or they’re a mess in a way that’s palatable. I like that Lola is a real mess. She’s making big mistakes and it’s not just cute. It’s destructive and self-absorbed and not awesome and she has to recover from that. She stands to damage relationships around her. Even as this crappy thing happens to her at the beginning of the movie, she uses that as an excuse to behave badly for the next year of her life. I like movies about women behaving badly, because women behave badly just like men, and we’re not always adorable and cute about it.”  

Gerwig is absolutely right. Women in film aren’t usually allowed to be messy or unlikeable. Although that’s slowly changing.

Lola Versus made me uncomfortable because it reminded me of too many of the bad decisions I’ve made in my life. Falling back into sleeping with people I shouldn’t. Agonizing and analyzing every single conversation. Calling an ex, desperately hoping to rekindle that spark. Settling for someone not that great in a vain attempt to fill the gaping void that my partner’s disappearance has left.

I eventually stopped all this time-sucking nonsense. I thought by hanging onto relationships, I was boldly forging ahead seeking my happiness. But that’s not what I was really doing. I was placing my happiness in the hands of others. And so was Lola.

Zoe Lister Jones and Greta Gerwig in Lola Versus

The movie tackles the topic of single women and aging. As we approach or pass turning 30 (like me!), we contend with societal expectations. Not that turning 30 is some horrible harbinger of doom. Quite the contrary. I’ve been more confident and comfortable in my own skin after turning 30. But it’s still hard to silence the social cues that tell us our lives should fall into place in a certain pattern.

Here’s the thing about Lola Versus. It frustrated me and I rarely laughed out loud. Although the scene where she screams at the party…priceless. But Gerwig mesmerized me and the film enthralled me. It passes the Bechdel Test (yay!!!). And it boasts one of the absolute best endings I’ve ever seen in a film. Ever.

In every romantic comedy, it’s all about two people getting together in the end. Or if it’s really radical — and trust me, I use that term facetiously — they’re already together in the beginning and it’s about the two lovers facing obstacles but ultimately staying together. The only rom-coms I can recall that deviate from this predictable paint by numbers path are Annie Hall, The Break-Up and Kissing Jessica Stein.

I don’t want to spoil the ending. But I will say this. (Aver your eyes if you want to be completely surprised) Lola achieves happiness, something that had eluded her all along. She suffered writers’ block, not being able to silence the voices and noises in her head — ironic since her dissertation was analyzing silence in film — but now she could write again. She became happy with who she was and with her life.

And it had nothing to do with a man.

Now that doesn’t mean she says fuck you to all her relationships. While she knew how to love other people, she didn’t know how to love herself, a lesson most of us need to learn.

Lola talks about Cinderella with her mom (Debra Winger…so glad to see her in more films!). She tells her that she liked Cinderella as a kid but how fairy tales are toxic, teaching girls to wait for a man to sweep them off their feet and give them shoes. Fairy tales set women up for failure. We put these unrealistic expectations on love and romance. Now, I’m not arguing for settling, not by any means. But fairy tales teach girls that when they grow up, they should wait around for men; that they should put romantic relationships before everything else in their life even sacrificing themselves. Lola realizes that she must navigate her own happiness rather than relying on a man or some lofty romantic fairytale.

Too many romantic comedies subject women to stereotypical gender roles. Needy, passive, just out to find a man. Can’t romantic comedies be intelligent? Can’t they highlight the importance of female friendship too?? Yes, yes they can. And Lola Versusdoes.

One of my favorite lines in the film is when Lola says:

“In this world of shipwreck, there’s hope in uncertainty.”
Isn’t that what we do in this world? Try to salvage the wreckage of our disappointments, losses and broken hearts, forging ahead and charting a new course? 
Through her relationships, Lola discovers what she truly wants from life. She realizes it’s okay to have your life in tumult as long you’re happy with yourself. Throughout the film, I kept rooting for Lola — for her to find her place in the world. I was rooting for hope. And ultimately, I was rooting for myself.

Guest Writer Wednesday: The Casual Feminism of ’30 Rock’

Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) in 30 Rock

 This post written by Peggy Cooke was originally published at Abortion Gang and is cross-posted with permission.

I have had a love-hate relationship with 30 Rock almost since the show’s inception. I love it purely because it is smart and hilarious, and the Liz Lemon character is such an unabashed loser that it’s hard sometimes to remember how conventionally attractive she actually is. There are so many things about it that I like, in fact, that it took me a lot longer than it usually does to start getting annoyed with its faults.

It was an episode a couple seasons ago that did it for me; you might remember it. In the first five minutes, a man beats up and decapitates a cardboard display of Liz, and Jenna gets a book thrown at her face. Then there is a truly disgusting “joke” involving Pete raping his wife in her sleep, which gets not one, but two visual depictions. All played for laughs. Because of various elements of my privilege I was able to shrug off some of the vile sexist and transphobic “humour” of the show, but that episode really crossed a line for me.

I keep watching it, and I’m glad I do, because on Thursday night while waiting for the (in my opinion) much funnier, smarter, and warmer Parks and Recreation to start, I tuned in to 30 Rock and caught an episode that not only depicted a smart, friendly and funny little feminist child, but also involved some nuanced commentary on the American economy. But best of all was a scene in which Liz Lemon told Jack, “You are being so transvaginal right now!”.

Immediately my Twitter feed repeated the quote back to me via about six or seven different people, not all of whom are reproductive rights activists. This is the true joy of 30 Rock for me – they manage to sneak in the kind of jokes that tell you that someone is paying attention, even if it is just Tina Fey or a bunch of nerdy TV writers. Sometimes as an activist you get so wrapped up in a particular issue, you start to lose the ability to tell how much the general public actually knows about it. Is it common knowledge that these horrible transvaginal ultrasound requirements (and other ridiculous abortion restrictions) are sweeping across the US, or is this just something that abortion geeks like us pay attention to?

Not that 30 Rock making a joke about something means it is common knowledge – obviously there is an intellectual elitism that is almost essential to fully appreciating this show (another thing that bothers me about it…but also makes me feel smart when I get all the jokes). But Liz Lemon calling a controlling, patronizing, uber-privileged man “transvaginal” – it’s so, so important that she uses it in the context of calling Jack out for being intrusive – is important. It means that if this isn’t something we’re talking about, it should be. Because a lot of people are being really transvaginal right now about our wombs and lives. Liz Lemon’s got our back.


Peggy Cooke is a Canadian feminist who works for an economic/social justice non-profit. Her passions are reproductive justice activism, shark movies and proofreading. Her resume has been described as “fascinating.” She writes about abortion at Anti-Choice is Anti-Awesome and Abortion Gang, and reviews fiction set in Toronto at Smoke City Stories.

Movie Review: How ‘Vamps’ Showcases the Importance of Women Friendships

Movie poster for Vamps
Vamps, the new indie film directed by Amy Heckerling and starring Alicia Silverstone and Krysten Ritter (the upcoming star of the TV show Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23) takes the vampire genre and turns it into a fun, feminist celebration of youth culture and female friendship. The film is part spoof of the recent onslaught of vampire fare, part romantic comedy, part buddy movie—with women!—part history documentary, with some astute political commentary thrown in, and, ultimately, a film about aging, which pays particular attention to the struggles women face within a culture that values youth and beauty above all else.

Jason Buchanan on Rotten Tomatoes effectively captures the plot as follows: “Radiant New York City vampires Goody (Alicia Silverstone) and Stacy (Krysten Ritter) find their immortality in question after learning that love can still smolder in the realm of the undead. Meanwhile, Russian bloodsucker Vadim (Justin Kirk) prowls the streets in search of the next big thrill, and Dr. Van Helsing (Wallace Shawn) seeks to exterminate the creatures of the night as young Joey Van Helsing develops an unusual fixation on Stacy. As ravenous ‘stem’ vampire Ciccerus (Sigourney Weaver) presides over her dark dynasty with the help of her loyal assistant Ivan (Todd Barry), oddball Renfield (Zak Orth) strives to impress Stacy and Goody by any means necessary. Amidst all of the bloodshed and intrigue, nefarious vampire Vlad (Malcolm McDowell) works to perfect his knitting skills.” 


Alicia Silverstone as Goody and Krysten Ritter as Stacy in Vamps
It’s a fun cast of characters for sure, but Silverstone and Ritter shine as the main (women) characters. And for once there’s almost no reason to discuss The Bechdel Test; these two ladies barely talk about men for the first half of the film. Instead, we get to see them playing practical jokes on each other, hanging out in their shared apartment (often texting back and forth while inside their two side-by-side coffins), discussing their fashion choices—which is hilarious, as they struggle to make sure they’re fitting in with the latest 2012 trends (Stacy was first turned into a vampire in the 80s, and Goody lived all the way through the 1800s)—and generally looking out for each other and even (gasp) looking out for other women.

[SPOILER] Case in point: one of my absolute favorite scenes in the film happens early on, when Goody and Stacy head out for their nighttime ritual of club-hopping and imitating the new dance moves of the local youth “Day Walkers” (the term they use to refer to The Living among them). A couple of particularly horrible dude vampires approaches a woman after she bends over, ass in the air, with the word “Juicy” written on her tight pants. The dude vamps merely introduce themselves to her, to which she responds, “I’ll get my coat.” Goody chastises the horrible dude vampires—Goody and Stacy drink only the blood of rodents, not humans—and the dudes respond with, “She’s asking for it,” referring to her “Juicy” attire. It’s a pretty fucking great commentary on the victim-blaming that always accompanies any instance of the rape or sexual assault of women


Stacy and Goody on the computer
Goody walks over to the woman with the goal of getting her to stay away from the vampires, but she ultimately ends up hypnotizing her; in this film, vampires have the power to erase the memories of Day Walkers. At first Goody says something to the woman (paraphrasing), “Listen, you don’t want to leave with them. They’re really bad guys.” The woman says, “I like bad guys.” Goody begins hypnotizing her, repeating, “No, I like nice guys.” The woman walks away, passing the horrible dude vampires, while saying, “I like nice guys. I like guys who listen to me when I say things.” (I laughed out loud at that.)

This scene makes me so happy for a couple of reasons. First, a woman intervening to help another woman avoid getting killed by two horrible dude vampires—an obvious metaphor for rape in this scene, rarely happens in movies. How lovely to see that! Because women looking out for their friends certainly happens in real life—first-hand experience! Second, while I don’t necessarily like the implication that women always go for Bad Boys, I appreciate the acknowledgment that bros like this, who want to harm, abuse, and assault women, definitely exist. 


Stacy, Goody, and Sigourney Weaver as Cisserus in Vamps
Also, get this: I turned 33 six months ago. I still have my crappy 35-dollar Blackberry that my sister’s dog spent an hour chewing on. (There are bite marks on the fucking battery.) Let me just say, I could relate to the commentary about youth culture in this film. Heckerling makes wonderful observations about technology, with constant mentions of Twitter, Facebook, texting (there’s a funny reference to someone being in a “textual relationship” due to lack of real-life communication), and other technological stuff I’m probably forgetting because I don’t know what it is. While the film definitely celebrates youth culture, especially in its appreciation of women’s fashion (which reminded me so much of Heckerling’s famous film Clueless), it also juxtaposes that celebration with a critique of the value our society places on youth. That theme comes into play throughout the film, but the focus on women and aging sharpens with the introduction of the head vampire in charge.

Two words: Sigourney Weaver. Do we not adore her? The Alien films, mainly due to Weaver’s badass role as Ellen Ripley, remain one of the quintessential go-to franchises for getting that much-needed feminist fix that Hollywood movies today seem less willing to provide. (Quick shout out to Hunger Games, though!) And Weaver’s role in Vamps as Cisserus, the head vampire, or “Stem,” as they refer to the few vampires who possess the power to turn people into vampires, displays some feminist qualities—strength, leadership, and ambition, to name a few—but her character isn’t without flaws.

While the other vamps fear Weaver’s character—because she’s In Charge—they mainly fear her because she’s the evil, murderous villain. She obsesses over acquiring the love of young men, and when she doesn’t get it, well, you know, she eats them. In many ways, she reminds me of a vampiric version of Miranda Priestly, Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada. She often summons Goody and Stacy (by psychically speaking to them), and it’s almost always to make them model clothing. (Ha!) See, vampires can’t see themselves in mirrors (invisible!), so Weaver wants to look at these women wearing her very youthful, fashionable clothing so that she can visualize what it possibly looks like on her. Eventually though, Cisserus’ power goes so far to her head that she begins putting the other vampires in danger, and the tagline for the last act of the film basically becomes “This Bitch Needs to Die.” 


Vampires hanging out at the club
A woman-in-charge who becomes an evil, power-hungry bitch who ruins lives? Where have I seen that before? (Clue: EVERYWHERE.) I did get the sense from Vamps, though, that it’s making light of that trope rather than relishing in it, and casting feminist film icon Weaver in that role further pushes it toward satire. An interview with Weaver in Collider sheds a bit more light on that:
Collider: What made you decide to jump into the vampire genre with Vamps?

Weaver: Well, I’m a big Amy Heckerling fan, and I also loved the character. She was so unrepentant … I love playing delicious, evil parts like that.

Collider: How does your character fit into the story?

Weaver: She is the person who turned the girls into vampires. So, they have to do her bidding, and she’s very unreasonable and demanding. I would have to say that the one change I made was that I thought she was not really enjoying herself very much, in the original script. I thought, “What’s not to enjoy?” She’s 2,000 years old, she can have anything, she can have anyone, she can do what she wants, so I wanted her to be totally in-the-moment. So, I talked to Amy about it and she just evolved that way. She’s a really happy vampire. She digs it.

(I have to admit, I can kind of get behind a woman—vampire or not—saying, “Fuck it; I own this town.”)
Most of the descriptions and plot summaries I’ve read of Vamps say things like: “Two female vampires in modern-day New York City are faced with daunting romantic possibilities” … (from imdb). True, but not quite. It’s ridiculous to reduce the film to the status of cheesy rom-com because, while both Stacy and Goody somewhat struggle with their hetero-romantic relationships, Vamps ultimately celebrates the friendship and love between the two lead women. (I will say that I have a feminist critique of the ending, but I can’t give it away YET; the movie only recently got picked up by Anchor Bay Films and will be released in theaters around Halloween.)

Stacy and Goody at the club
Overall, it’s pretty significant that I left the theater feeling that this movie—a vampire movie that follows most of the same vampire tropes as all vampire movies—explores something new. It’s also disappointing that I left with that feeling. Because when I thought about it later, I realized what felt so new to me was the depiction of a female friendship that seemed wonderfully authentic. Their dude problems were fairly secondary; their loyalty to each other trumped all other obstacles. Their friendship, in fact, resembled my real-life friendships with women: we don’t fight over men; we don’t sit around endlessly talking about men; we don’t get together and stuff our faces with entire cakes if a man doesn’t call.

That’s why this close relationship between Goody and Stacy is so important to see on The Big Screen in 2012.

In an interview conducted with the director Amy Heckerling by Women and Hollywood, Melissa Silverstein asks the question, “Do you have any comment on the fact that only 5% of movies are directed by women?” Heckerling’s response? “It’s a disgusting industry. I don’t know what else to say. Especially now. I can’t stomach most of the movies about women. I just saw a movie last night—I don’t want to say the name—but again with the fucking wedding, and the only time women say anything is about men.”

Word.

Guest Writer Wednesday: "Love" Is "Actually" All Around Us (and Other Not-So-Deep Sentiments)

Movie poster for the romantic comedy Love Actually

This cross-post by Lady T previously appeared at her blog The Funny Feminist and is part of her ongoing series, “The Rom-Com Project.”

———-

For me, the quintessential Ensemble Romantic Comedy is Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It has all the ingredients of an Ensemble Rom-Com: all sets of characters are consumed by some form of love, and all sets of characters are connected by some overarching theme or event. In Midsummer’s case, the overarching event is the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta – an event that is of utmost important to Oberon/Titania/Puck, Bottom and the other mechanicals, and Hermia/Lysander/Helena/Demetrius, but concerning characters who are much less entertaining and engaging than the three sets of characters I just mentioned. (The play also explores themes of magic, love triangles, deception, and all sorts of interesting ideas that makes it one of Shakespeare’s best comedies.)

In the case of Love Actually, the Theseus/Hippolyta’s wedding is Christmas – or, arguably, the terminal at Heathrow Airport – and the three sets of main characters become nine sets of characters, and the themes of magic/love triangles/deception is whittled down to a Captain Obvious statement about love: “Love is actually all around us.”

Wow. Really? Love is everywhere, movie? Really?

Yes, I’m being sarcastic, and maybe I shouldn’t be. I don’t think Love Actually is meant to be incredibly deep or profound. I think it’s meant to be a movie that shows a series of fleeting moments and how people are connected to each other, and that’s it. It explores different types of (heterosexual) love, and some stories end sadly while others end happily.

The problem for me is that the only stories that worked for me were the ones that ended on a sad note.

The sad-ending stories
Keira Knightley/Andrew Lincoln/Chiwetel Ejiofor
I felt nauseous all throughout Keira Knightley’s story because I knew Andrew Lincoln was in love with her, and I was afraid that she was going to leave her new husband Chiwetel Ejiofor for his best friend. I liked that it ended on a melancholy note after the cue card scene, where she only kissed him once – maybe as a thank you, or just an acknowledgment of his feelings for her – and then walked away to go back to her husband, and then Andrew Lincoln told himself, “Enough,” and resolved to get over her. She wasn’t going to leave her husband for him just because he had a grand romantic gesture, and he didn’t expect her to leave him. It worked.

Except I couldn’t shake the feeling that it’s more than a little weird and creepy to give any kind of grand romantic gesture to your best friend’s wife regardless of your expectations, especially when said best friend is only a few feet away.

But maybe I’m being too critical.

Laura Linney/Rodrigo Santoro
Two people who loved each other from afar for years after working together for years finally connect on a romantic night, except that romantic night is disrupted when Laura Linney has to go take care of her mentally ill brother.

That one scene in the hospital where her brother has a violent reaction, the doctors come to intervene, and she quietly gets her brother under control…yes, it got to me. Perhaps on a more personal level than I wanted it to.

Except I couldn’t shake the feeling of dissatisfaction that Laura Linney and Rodrigo Santoro never shared an onscreen conversation about that interrupted romantic night, and that I didn’t understand the depth of feeling he had for her.

But maybe I’m being too critical.

Emma Thompson/Alan Rickman/tarty secretary dressed like the devil
I liked that the movie didn’t show us how Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman’s marriage turned out. In the epilogue, I couldn’t tell if they were together and trying (and failing) to make it work, or if they were separated and keeping up a good front for the sake of their kids. I liked that she held him responsible for the almost-affair and didn’t lay all the blame on the homewrecker, but on the person who was actually responsible for being true to their relationship.

Except I couldn’t shake the annoyance that the homewrecking secretary character was literally dressed like a cleavage-showing devil in a red outfit at a Christmas party. Come on. Really?

But maybe I’m being too critical.

The happy-ending stories
Keep in mind that those were the stories I liked. As for the other ones?

Hugh Grant/Martine McCutcheon
I liked that Prime Minister Hugh Grant was mindful of keeping professional boundaries between himself and the junior assistant he loved at first sight. I liked that he never overstepped his bounds and in fact had her transferred to a different job so he could uphold those professional boundaries. And, of course, I loved the dancing (although I prefer this dancing as far as Hugh Grant Dancing clips go). What I didn’t like was the unnecessary “Sexual Harassment from the American President” sidebar. It was unnecessarily political for a Christmas movie/rom-com (and somehow still had nothing to do with politics), it was a cheap American stereotype, and worst of all, it introduced a moment of sexual harassment for the sole purpose of giving the male character a Hero Moment.

Really, Love Actually? We needed a “I shall stand up against sexual harassment!” moment to see what a good guy he was? I guess it was a sign that his love for Martine McCutcheon was for real, but, well, I would hope that Our Hero would stand up for any of his employees that were being sexually harassed, not just the ones he happens to fancy.

Liam Neeson/son
First of all, watching this story was totally uncomfortable, given that Liam Neeson is playing a widower. But it’s not the movie’s fault that his real-life wife tragically died two years ago.

It is the movie’s fault that I got absolutely no sense of grief from Liam Neeson’s stepson for his mother. I get what the writers were going for – the little boy fixates on a girl his age named Joanna (his mother’s name) because he’s focusing on the one person/thing that makes him happy after his mother died. But even if that’s what the movie was going for, it’s not what I felt. What I felt was that the boy’s mother’s death was completely incidental to his life. “Mom’s dead, yeah, whatever, this American girl in my school is really cute.”

Too bad. There was real potential to explore how a stepfather and stepson might come together in shared grief for a wife and mother they both loved.

Colin Firth/Not Elizabeth Bennet
I’m sorry, but how many romantic cliches can happen in one storyline? The papers float into the water, so Not Elizabeth Bennet HAS to strip down in slow-motion while Colin Firth watches in amazement? The proposal in broken Portuguese and the acceptance in broken English? The “Hey, we’re having the same conversation and are TOTES ON THE SAME WAVELENGTH!” conversation while they speak in different languages?

And let’s not forget the delightful fake-out where Colin Firth goes to his beloved’s father to ask for her hand, and he hilariously confuses Colin Firth’s intentions, thinking that Colin Firth intends to marry the other daughter – and then we see that the other daughter is more than a size 4 and not Hollywood beautiful! LOL at the idea that the fat cow could find love with anyone, much less Mr. Darcy!

(Incidentally, I’m calling Lucia Moniz’s character Not Elizabeth Bennet only because I have a hard time seeing Colin Firth as anyone but Mr. Darcy. That is not the movie’s fault, or Lucia Moniz’s fault, or Colin Firth’s fault, for that matter.)

The comic relief stories
Meanwhile, there were three other storylines that are roughly the equivalent of “the mechancials put on a play for Theseus and Hippolyta.”

Martin Freeman/Joanna Page
I could have watched a whole movie about two body doubles finding love while they simulate sex with each other onscreen. Curse the DVD for skipping during one of their most important scenes.

Some dude goes to America to pick up chicks
Pretty self-explanatory. Praise the DVD for skipping during one of those crucial scenes.

Bill Nighy is an aged rocker who’s cynical about love
He’s cynical about romance but realizes he had love all along in the beleaguered assistant who puts up with his crap. He’s the most cynical character in the movie, and yet he inspires the least amount of cynicism in me, the viewer – that is, no cynicism at all. I have no complaints about this storyline. I loved it.

My verdict
Love Actually had a few effective comedic and dramatic moments. I appreciate the hilarity of Emma Thompson’s daughter proudly announcing that she got the part of “First Lobster” at her school’s nativity play, and I was moved by Emma Thompson trying not to cry during Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.” Keep in mind, though, that Emma Thompson is one of those performers who never fails to move me no matter what the circumstances.

The movie as a whole, though? The stories that worked for me were the ones that either ended sadly, or were played for pure comedy with no tragicomic or dramatic elements. If the movie wants me to believe that “love actually is all around us,” I don’t think it worked.

———-

Lady T is an aspiring writer and comedian with two novels, a play, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at The Funny Feminist, where she picks apart entertainment and reviews movies she hasn’t seen.

‘Best Friends Forever’ TV Series Focuses on Two Female Friends, Which Must Infuriate Sexist ‘Two and A Half Men’ Creator

Lennon Parham and Jessica St. Clair in NBC’s Best Friends Forever


 “Hey, you always have a choice when it comes to your vagina.”
So says Lennon on NBC’s new sitcom that premiered last night, Best Friends Forever. And yes, you do have a choice, when it comes to vaginas and other things. So should you choose to watch the new female-fronted show?
When I first saw the trailer, I was ecstatic. I mean, a TV show putting two women front and center, even in their title??? Yes, please! 
Written, produced and starring real-life friends Jessica St.Clair and Lennon Parham, it also features Alexa Junge as producer and showrunner. After her husband serves her divorce papers, Jessica (St. Clair) moves from California back home to Brooklyn to live with her best friend Lennon (Parham) and her live-in boyfriend Joe. As Jessica and Lennon reminisce and bond, Joe (Luka Jones) feels left out.
Best Friends Forever is witty, funny and surprisingly sweet and tender. Parham and St. Clair share an effortless chemistry. The characters are likeable and interesting. While it seems like it might suffer from predictability – a Three’s Company premise, Joe seems like he might be a stereotypical man-child (like when he creates a female video game avatar with ginormous boobs), vagina talk between Jessica and Lennon – it possesses realistic dialogue and its humor isn’t mean-spirited. Jessica is snarky but not deemed a shrew. Lennon is nurturing but not a doormat. Lennon and Joe’s relationship is refreshingly egalitarian and uber adorbs as they bond over their shared love of Braveheart and Medieval Times. Neither gender is portrayed as superior and as Rachel Stein at Television Without Pity points out, “it weighs men and women equally.”
Best Friends Forever passes the Bechdel Test, which so few films and TV shows do. The female friendship is clearly  front and center. Talking about the show’s premise:
Lennon: “Essentially it’s a story about two best friends who are so close — it’s like that romantic relationship that girls have in middle school that travels with them.”
Jessica: “Someone brought this up to us: The word ‘friendsbians.’ You’re so close you might as well be having sex, but you’re not. [Laughs.] So really it’s a love story about two women. It’s a romantic comedy, but instead of a boy and girl, it’s Jessica and Lennon.”
Parham and St. Clair hope the series “fills the void” that Sex and the City, Gilmore Girls and Anne of Green Gables has left. Okay, as a huge SATC and Anne Shirley fan, I so heart that.
You can sense that the two leads share a history, finishing each others’ sentences, discussing dinner parties and whipping up homemade Scoops (um, which sound delish btw), and using a movie (in this case weepy Steel Magnolias and “pulling a Shelby” if you rush into major life decisions) to give advice about life, which is unusual in the pilot as most shows take at least a season or two to sink into the camaraderie. 
Yes, it’s problematic the characters are white and straight, aside from neighbor Queenetta (Daija Owens), the ubiquitous precocious child and the stereotypical sassy black girl…as if all black girls must be sassy. Although I’ve got to admit, she delivered one of the funniest lines of the episode when she said, “There’s a new baby in my house and I don’t like the way it smells!”
“Enough, ladies. I get it. You have periods…But we’re approaching peak vagina on television, the point of labia saturation.”
Oh that’s right. Women shouldn’t write, create, act or do anything. Cause you know all we ladies care about? Our fucking periods. Silly me for forgetting that. Thankfully fab feminists Martha Plimpton and Lizz Winstead among others called out this douchebaggery.
While it seems that there’s been a surge in female-centric comedies, Aronsohn’s bullshit sexist comments about vagina saturation is just that. Bullshit. Because if you look at the actual numbers, it’s not so. If you look at the female-fronted TV shows, they may be ensembles but they rarely focus on female friendship. 2 Broke Girls and Parks and Recreation(although not really this season) are the only other TV shows on right now that revolve around 2 female best friends.
As Amy Tennery at The Jane Dough, using data from Women’s Media Center, points out last TV season, women only comprised 15% of writers (!!!) and “the closest we’ve ever come to having parity with guys was in 2009 when women comprised 39% of television entertainment producers.” So there must be surge of women as TV characters then for Lee’s tirade, right?? Nope. Women constitute approximately 40% of TV characters (41% according to WMC, which doesn’t include last season, and 43% according to GLAAD). Um yeah, douchebag…that’s not exactly “peak vagina” season, whatever the fuck that is.
Is it the best comedy on TV right now? No, although it might be too early to tell. Parks and Rec still holds that title for me, followed closely by Community and Up All Night. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have oodles of potential. It made me laugh out loud. Something very few comedies actually do. And we desperately need more women writers and female characters. With two smart, funny ladies at the helm, I’m curious to see where Best Friends Forever goes.

Biopic and Documentary Week: Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

This piece on Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, by Amber Leab, first appeared at Bitch Flicks on March 21, 2011.


Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (2010)
Most reviews of the documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work begin by describing how the film opens–with a close-up shot of Rivers’ face, without make-up. This is, of course, a metaphor for the goal of the film (to get behind the facade) and an acknowledgment of what Rivers has come to be most famous for–her surgically-altered appearance. While her face is surely a piece of surgical work, the far more fascinating work is that of her long life in the spotlight, and her drive to keep going, keep performing, keep selling, when the culture tells her she should stop (or that she should have stopped long ago).
I went into this film feeling ambivalent. On the one hand, it’s a documentary about an extraordinary woman, made by two women–Ricki Sternand Anne Sundberg, who are known for their previous films The End of America, The Devil Came on Horseback, and the forthcoming Burma Soldier, among others. It’s about a mouthy broad (and I love mouthy broads, women who speak their minds and aren’t afraid to put themselves out there), who is funny, and who has been at it since 1966. On the other hand, it’s yet another film about a wealthy white woman (I just watched and reviewed The September Issue, about Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour) who lives like “Marie Antoinette, if she’d have had money.”

Guest Writer Wednesday: ‘2 Broke Girls:’ How NOT to Respond to Criticism that Your Show is Racist

(L-R): Kat Dennings, Matthew Moy, Beth Behrs; ‘2 Broke Girls’ still frame

Written by Lady T. Originally published at The Funny Feminist. Cross-posted with permission.
I watch 2 Broke Girls. Do you watch 2 Broke Girls?
Watching that show from a social justice perspective is a bizarre experiment in emotional whiplash. On the one hand, it’s a show about a complementary friendship between two smart, hardworking young women, whose storylines do not revolve around dating or shopping, but about their entrepreneurship and growing bond. It’s one of the few shows in my recent memory that frequently passes the Bechdel test.
On the other hand, it’s a show about two white girls who work at a diner with a supporting cast of racial stereotypes that make the crows from Dumbo cringe in secondhand embarrassment.
That’s really the problem with 2 Broke Girls right there. Max and Caroline are allowed to be fairly complex (at least for a sitcom), but Earl, Oleg, and Han seem like they’re on a completely different program. They have very few (if any) character traits that exist outside their designated stereotypes.
Fans and critics (not that those two things are mutually exclusive) asked questions about the ethnic/racial jokes and stereotypes at the press tour, to which Michael Patrick King (co-creator of the show) essentially said, “I’m gay so that makes it okay for me to make fun of other marginalized people!”
That’s not an exaggeration. Read more here.

Of course, someone pulled out the “equal opportunity defender” card. Someone always pulls out the “equal opportunity defender” card. We make fun of all groups! FREE SPEECH STOP REPRESSING ME WAAAAH!
I’m so glad Michael Patrick King and his defenders can use the “free speech/equal opportunity” defense for their so-called “irreverent” comedy that “pokes fun at all groups.” Because if there’s something that comedy really needed desperately, it was another sexless Asian male character. Han Lee is a pioneering character in the comedy world, because Michael Patrick King said so.
Reading about this controversy over 2 Broke Girls was oddly refreshing, to tell the truth. King’s butthurt response to the criticism was not refreshing, but the criticism itself was. I was pleasantly surprised to see several members of the mainstream media push forward with the “Seriously, what’s up with all the racist stereotypes?” questions.
In response, King did what any socially responsible or creative person would do: he made a creative decision to add a “hot” Asian male character to his show so people would shut up about the stereotyping in his existing characters.
*facepalm*
This is not an exaggeration, people. Read more at The A.V. Club:

“Keeping CBS’s promises that the future would see 2 Broke Girls creator Michael Patrick King attempt to “dimensionalize” some of its racist stereotypes—this despite King being gay, which means he doesn’t have to—the show recently put out a casting call for a “hot Asian guy” to come and romance Beth Behrs’ character with some of his hot Asianness. The arrival of this hot Asian guy would provide a much-needed balance to the comedy’s Korean caricature Han, demonstrating that there are many colors in the Asian rainbow: hot, hilariously indecipherable, unable to drive, etc. Of course, the blog that first picked up the casting call, Angry Asian Man, argues that showing that Asians can also be hot and worthy of making out with Beth Behrs doesn’t exactly make up for 2 Broke Girls’ egregious, simplistic Asian stereotyping. But then, he’s probably just upset that he’s an angry Asian man instead of one of those hot ones.”

As a feminist and someone who cares about social justice, I feel like I should be outraged. But I don’t have it in me to be outraged because I’m just overwhelmed by the cluelessness behind this P.R. move.
I really need Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler (and Kermit the Frog) to help me with this, because…Really?!
King is criticized because his character Han Lee, the Asian male stereotype, is…well, nothing but an Asian male stereotype. Instead of, I don’t know, fleshing out his existing character, he decides to add a Hot Asian Guy character – like he’ll get EXTRA token points for having TWO Asian characters on the same program, and that it will shut up all those HATERZ who don’t like Han Lee!
Brilliant move, Mr. King. I’m sure Asians will be completely pacified and pleased knowing that you’re throwing in an obligatory Non-Stereotype Character whose sole purpose will be to sex up a white woman and prove that you are TOTALLY NOT RACIST.
I could point out how stereotypical characters just continue to perpetuate stereotypes and how harmful those stereotypes can be, but forget about that for a moment. When you get right down to it, the use of these stereotypes shows a complete lack of imagination.


Lady T is an aspiring writer and comedian with two novels, a play, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at The Funny Feminist, where she picks apart entertainment and reviews movies she hasn’t seen.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Stephanie’s Picks:

Keira Knightley, Charlize Theron, Others Play Women on the Edge from the LA Times

Iron Lady Falls to the Anna Quindlen Doctrine from Bloomberg

Reel Grrls Rural Transportation Fund from IndieGogo

Why Restyle Great Women of History as Cockamamie Feminist Role Models? from The Guardian

Amber’s Picks:

Letterman Comedian Booker Dropped After Comments About Women in Comedy from The Wrap

Why the Oscars should cast out The Help and Welcome in Pariah from The Guardian

Body-Shaming a Common Theme at the Golden Globes from About-Face

Feminist icons from classic musicals from The F Word

Genie Awards nominations announced from Her Film

Leave your links in the comments!

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Margaret Cho Rightfully Loses Her Shit by Margaret Cho from Jezebel

Kicking It on Kickstarter by Kathleen Sweeney from Women’s Media Center

Melissa Harris-Perry Talks MSNBC Show, Stereotypes of Black Women on ‘Colbert Report’ (video) from Huffington Post

Why “Yes, But” Is the Wrong Response to Misogyny by Greta Christina from freethoughtblogs.com

This is why we keep talking about gender in comedy by from Feministing


Leave your links in the comments!

From the Archive: Tiny Furniture

I’m still in the process of getting my shit together in 2012, so here’s a review I wrote in January 2011. Basically, I loved Tiny Furniture. Check it out if you can — it’s streaming on Netflix.
The film follows Aura (played by writer/director Lena Dunham), a 20-something self-described misanthrope who, after graduating from a film program at a small liberal arts school in Ohio, moves back to New York City to live with her famous-artist mother, Siri (played by Dunham’s real-life mother Laurie Simmons) and her budding-genius sister, highschooler Nadine (played by Dunham’s real-life sister Grace Dunham). The film wants to show that Aura is, in fact, Having a Very, Very Hard Time, as the tagline reveals, and it puts her through the typical hell that’s common in the heterosexual coming-of-age stories of early twenties womanhood: the struggle to find a reasonably paying job, a desire to make that college degree mean something, and, of course, a few random hookups with emotionally unavailable men. 
But more than anything, Tiny Furniture is a film about the relationships among women.
When Aura arrives home from college, she’s immediately confronted with her mother photographing her younger sister among a setup of, literally, tiny furniture. And, while the first indication of sibling rivalry appears, it already seems more refreshing and complicated than the traditional cliched portrayal of sister-hate and woman-on-woman divisiveness. The women converse with one another as if Aura hadn’t been in Ohio for four years; in fact, the casualness of their interaction–her mother barely looking up from her photography, her sister making sarcastic comparisons about her slender legs versus Aura’s heavier frame–suggests a comfort with one another that transcends their almost performed familial coldness. 
Perhaps most intriguingly, the on-screen relationships feel so authentic that the unmentioned absent father is hardly noticeable. Who cares, after all?  Women rock the screen, and, unlike a couple of recent woman-centric films (The Kids Are All Right, Winter’s Bone–both arguably feminist) it has nothing to do with a need to compensate for the failings of the men in their lives. 
Almost immediately when Aura moves back to New York, she meets up with her childhood friend Charlotte (played by Jemima Kirke) at a party. Charlotte is portrayed as a spoiled, drama-craving brat, but Aura clings to her, at one point even referring to Charlotte as her best friend. (Her mother later says sarcastically in response, “After two weeks?”) They hang out in Charlotte’s apartment, getting high together and talking about art, men, joblessness, addiction, their parents–and they flatter each other; the audience is never encouraged to view these women as rivals. The point of their friendship is to illustrate the absolute aloneness of being an aimless twenty-something and not knowing what the hell to do in life. In several hilarious scenes, Charlotte begs Aura not to leave, once going as far as to roll around on her bed saying, “Please stay,” which the audience is meant to find both endearing and pathetic.
And while the relationship between Charlotte and Aura works mainly because of their shared loneliness and need to connect, the onscreen relationship between the two sisters thoughtfully investigates the obstacles inherent in familial relationships. In fact, it didn’t surprise me at all when I discovered that they’re actually real-life sisters because their sibling rapport feels incredibly authentic. While Aura drinks bottle after bottle of her mother’s wine with her friends, Nadine runs on the treadmill, does crunches while reading a book, writes award-winning poetry, and teases Aura about her directionless existence. But the back-and-forth nitpicking between them is perfectly juxtaposed against scenes exhibiting such tenderness as can only occur in close relationships.
One of my favorite scenes in the movie involves Nadine throwing a party while her mother is out, leaving Aura to supervise things. Of course, the party gets out of hand–we’re dealing with a slew of highschoolers railing against Aura-as-Authority-Figure (because, let’s face it, if Aura is anything, Authority Figure isn’t on the list)–and Aura starts to have a panic attack. She does the only thing she can think to do, call Charlotte to come over and help her get the party under control. Which is hilarious. Because Charlotte is more of a disaster than Aura is. So, it isn’t surprising at all when Charlotte starts giving lap dances and Aura starts walking around the party in her underwear.
The screaming match that ensues between Aura and Nadine could’ve been taken from a direct transcript of a real-life sibling fight. I cringed at the truthfulness of Nadine’s accusations as she criticized Aura for craving the attention of high school boys. (Those boys, however, reciprocated by making fun of Aura and dissing her body.) And when Nadine starts smacking Aura with a spatula and storms off, the audience feels sympathy for both sisters; neither is the villain in this film, and Dunham’s navigation of that terrain seems effortless from beginning to end. I won’t spoil the brief make-up scene between Aura and Nadine because the film is worth watching for that moment alone.
Aura spends much of the film, when she isn’t fighting with her sister, thinking of herself as somewhat of an artist/filmmaker, as evidenced by her YouTube videos (where she usually wears only her underwear or a bathing suit). Since Aura isn’t traditionally beautiful, and isn’t a size two like most of the half-naked women we’re used to seeing onscreen, at first it’s almost shocking to watch her walk around barely clothed throughout the film (which further illustrates the level of comfort and intimacy she feels with her mother and sister). But Dunham doesn’t include those scenes merely for shock value. The comments left on her YouTube videos consistently make fun of her weight and her looks. She reads the insulting feedback aloud to Charlotte, and they both try to blow it off, but not without Aura remarking on how difficult it is to put that negativity out of her mind.
For anyone who’s ever browsed the comments on YouTube videos, it’s impossible not to notice the disgusting misogyny and homophobia that plague them. Not only does Dunham subtly comment on that, but she also manages to reinforce the importance of supportive women friendships as a way to help combat the barrage of bullshit women deal with daily, especially when it concerns unattainable beauty ideals. It’s interesting to note, too, that Charlotte is traditionally attractive, and yet their friendship never digresses into any sort of competition, least of all one that involves some stereotypical competition over men.
The film doesn’t completely shy away from the subject of men, though, and the two men Aura meets both basically suck. One spends the first half of the movie mooching off Aura–and she lets him–staying in her house, eating her food, drinking her mother’s wine, but when she tries to take their “friendship” to the next level, he refuses. For Aura to attempt to hook up with such a caricature of a loser further drives home her loneliness and desire for connection. With anyone. So it isn’t surprising either when she goes after the chef she works with, who likes “Asian tentacle rape” pornography–whatever the hell that is–and exploits Aura’s obvious crush on him to get her to give him pills (even though he has a girlfriend).
Watching the film, one can’t avoid thinking, “C’mon, Aura, you know better than this.” But the material is so impossible not to relate to–who hasn’t lusted after the entirely wrong person, and known it?–that one can’t fault her for putting herself through it.
Those interactions with men accompanied by Aura’s reading aloud of her mother’s diary (written during her twenties) give further insight into the relationship Aura has with her mother. In many ways, regardless of how often the two women clash, Aura admires her. She’s a successful artist who’s clearly independent. She’s rich. She has no apparent need for a man in her life. Yet her diary reveals many of her obsessions in her twenties: with body image–she constantly journaled her food choices, with men and their inadequacies, and particularly with feeling like she wasn’t living up to her potential as an artist.
The final scene of the film, with Aura curled up with her mother in her mother’s bed, discussing the diary, openly discussing Aura’s horrid sexual encounter from earlier in the evening (completely absent of judgment from her mother–her only concern is that Aura practices safe sex), discussing Aura’s own fears of failure, which her mother squashes with, “Oh, you’ll be much more successful than I am,” feels so heart-wrenchingly honest it’s almost difficult to watch. And the ending, which features a literal ticking clock that could’ve felt contrived and artificial, totally works. It isn’t that the two women desire to stop time; they just don’t want the obvious reminder of its passing. 
As Aura struggles with all these issues, reading her mother’s diary (and sharing it with the audience) serves to remind us that even though coming-of-age ain’t fun, particularly for young women navigating the patriarchy, it’s still possible to come out on the other end fairly unscathed. 

Top 10 of 2011: Rom-Coms Don’t Suck

#6 of 2011 comes from guest writer Amanda Krauss, who originally posted “Rom-Coms Don’t Suck” on her humor theory blog, Risatrix. Recent incarnations of the rom-com may not be our favorites, but the genre has a long history that we shouldn’t dismiss.
________
Romantic comedies have existed for literally thousands of years; the same historical genre, comoedia, is also responsible for today’s sitcoms.
But romantic comedies, especially, have suffered a great deal in the last few decades. These supposed “chick” flicks (male-authored for millennia, and still mostly male-created) get ridiculously low scores on MetaCritic and Rotten Tomatoes. Meanwhile, most “guy” comedies (e.g. an Apatow joint) or action flicks get decent scores, seemingly without even trying.
This is pure and simple sexism. You sure as hell can’t defend action flicks on aesthetic grounds. And any reviewer who accuses a rom-com of being predictable should have their license revoked — of course it’s predictable. So was that action flick, by the way. Oh, didn’t you see it coming that the hero dude was going to save the world? I did.