Call for Writers: Biopics/Documentaries About Women

March is Women’s History Month. In honor of that, we’ve decided to feature reviews of biopics and documentaries about women. Many biopics about women tend to focus on their relationships and love lives exclusively, in a way that biopics about men usually don’t. So, we’d love to read reviews that praise these films, but feel free to write about biopics and documentaries that seriously fail the women being depicted. (Check out Gabriella Acipella’s analysis of the Margaret Thatcher and Marilyn Monroe films for an example of this.) There are currently TWO Linda Lovelace biopics in the works, yet we rarely see biopics or documentaries about women who changed lives (and cultures) … and there are plenty of women who did.

Here’s a very, very brief list of biopics–many of which are terrible, ha, and include lots of singers and entertainers–to think about, but please propose your own ideas for film reviews–including reviews of documentaries about women, too.

Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen

Meryl Streep as Julia Child in Julie & Julia

Angela Bassett as Tina Turner in What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Julia Roberts as Erin Brockovich in Erin Brockovich

Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose

Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash in Walk the Line

Diana Ross as Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues

Angelina Jolie as Gia Carangi in Gia

Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde

Jennifer Lopez as Selena in Selena

Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner’s Daughter

Charlize Theron as Aileen Wuornos in Monster

Halle Berry as Dorothy Dandridge in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge

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Here are a few basic guidelines for guest writers on our site:

–We like most of our pieces to be 1,000 – 2,000 words, preferably with some images and links.
–Please send your piece in the text of an email, including links to all images, no later than Friday, March 23rd.
–Include a 2-3 sentence bio for placement at the end of your piece.

Email us at btchflcks(at)gmail(dot)com if you’d like to contribute a review. We accept original pieces or cross-posts.

Call for Writers — UPDATE!

Last week, we put out a call for writers to submit reviews and character analyses of both the Independent Spirit and Oscar nominees in the best picture and acting categories. We’ve gotten a wonderful response, so I want to give up an update on what’s left. 
All submissions must be received no later than Friday, February 10th. Email us at btchflcks(at)gmail(dot)com if you’d like to contribute a review. We accept original pieces or cross-posts.

If you’d like to submit a piece, you can still choose from the following: 

Movies

Circumstance

Hello Lonesome

The Dynamiter

An African Election

Bill Cunningham New York

The Interrupters

The Redemption of General Butt Naked

We Were Here

A Separation

The Kid With a Bike

Tyranno Saur

In the Family

Natural Selection

A Cat in Paris

Chico & Rita

War Horse

Kung Fu Panda 2

Puss in Boots

Rango

Hell and Back Again

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory

Undefeated

Bullhead

Footnote

In Darkness

Monsieur Lazhar

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Character Analysis

Jessica Chastain – Take Shelter

Janet McTeer – Albert Nobbs

Harmony Santana – Gun Hill Road

Lauren Ambrose – Think of Me

Rachael Harris – Natural Selection

Adepero Oduye – Pariah

Elizabeth Olson – Martha Marcy May Marlene

Michelle Williams – My Week With Marilyn

Glenn Close – Albert Nobbs

Viola Davis – The Help

Jessica Chastain – The Help

Octavia Spencer – The Help

Call for Writers: Independent Spirit and Academy Award Nominees

For the past several years leading up to the Academy Awards ceremony, we’ve published reviews of all the nominees for best picture. (Go here for roundups of each series: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011.) However, we’ve decided this year to also include nominees for the Independent Spirit Awards. Why? Because the Oscars are basically a fucking joke. The main reason we give any credence at all to an awards show that recognizes the film contributions of heterosexual white men is because, as we’ve said many times in the past, studying and analyzing pop culture means studying and analyzing what our society currently values as “important.” And let’s face it:  the Academy Awards are The Biggest Deal in the movie industry.
I highly recommend checking out Megan Kearns’ post, “The 2012 Oscar Nominations … a Sea of White Dudes,” in which she discusses this year’s disappointments, and some disappointing facts about the Oscars in general:
The Oscars are a white male bonanza. In 84 years, only 4 women (!!!) have ever been nominated for a Best Director Oscar. Only one, Kathryn Bigelow, ever won. In producing, only 7 women have won the Best Picture award, all as co-producers with men. Only 15 women have won Best Screenplay (7 women for Adapted Screenplay with 1 woman winning twice, 8 women for Original Screenplay). Only 4 women of color have been nominated as screenwriters. No women of color have ever been nominated as a producer or director. These stats are shameful.

Exactly. So this year, we’re highlighting the Independent Spirit Award nominees too. The Oscar ceremony airs Sunday, Feb. 26th, and the Spirit Award ceremony airs the day before. So we’ll publish all reviews two weeks prior, beginning Monday, February 13th.  
BONUS! We’re also accepting character analysis pieces for the women nominated in the acting categories! For an idea of what we mean by “character analysis” definitely read the fabulous (and very popular) piece on Parks & Rec‘s Leslie Knope by Diane Shipley. 
All submissions must be received no later than Friday, February 10th. Email us at btchflcks(at)gmail(dot)com if you’d like to contribute a review. We accept original pieces or cross-posts.
The following list contains a mix of all the nominees in both categories. We’ll be crossing them off as people claim them, so email us right away if you know which film review/character analysis you’d like to contribute.

NOTE: An UPDATED list appears at this link.

YouTube Break: Meryl Streep on 60 Minutes

I love this 60 Minutes interview with Meryl Streep. She won the Best Actress Golden Globe on Sunday for her performance in The Iron Lady (stay tuned for our review!), and she talks here about sexism in Hollywood and what drew her to the role of Margaret Thatcher. (I’ve linked to the clip above in case the embedding doesn’t work.) 
Amber will have a recap of the Golden Globes later today.

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. 

Once Again, the Director’s Guild Nominates All White Men

If it wasn’t so offensive, it really would be funny. In fact, if you want a laugh, you really must check out The Guardian‘s article on the nominees, in which a picture appears (at the top) that you have to see to believe.
The Director’s Guild of America (DGA) released their nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2011 yesterday, which often predicts the Academy Award nominees for Best Director (and certainly influences Best Picture noms). 
It’s difficult this time of year to keep up with all the nominations and awards, and there are certainly arguments to be made that negate their importance (we’ve made them before). However, when there is such a disconnect between the people being lauded as Artists and Masters of Film and the cultural, racial, and ethnic makeup of our society, well, my friends, we have a serious problem.
I’m not making any arguments here about the quality of the films for which these men are nominated. There may be arguments to be made about some/all being excellent. There might not be. What I’m talking about is that it is, yet again, “these men” we’re discussing. 
In the four years since we started this website, there has been a significant rise in the number of people and sites dedicated to women in film in particular, and the lack of diversity in film generally. However, year after year, we see little or no change, and we continue to make the same arguments, to ask the same questions.

  • There are women who make excellent films. Why aren’t they being recognized?
  • Why can’t Hollywood see that diversity–in storytelling, in actors, in filmmakers–is a good thing?
  • Why is it the same faces we see, year after year, being rewarded?


Here are the nominees:
Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris

David Fincher for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Michel Hazanavicious for The Artist 

Alexander Payne for The Descendants

Martin Scorsese for Hugo
Readers, what are your thoughts on this year’s nominees?

Top 10 of 2011: Seriously? These Are the 100 Greatest Female Characters?

Total Film raised our ire twice in 2011, and both posts proved very popular. One of the facts we fight against is that there is a lack of great female characters in film. However, Total Film‘s list of the 100 greatest female characters illustrates so clearly the kinds of roles available to women and rewarded by male audiences. Here is our #3 post of 2011.
__________
This past Monday, Total Film published its list of the 100 Greatest Female Characters. As everyone knows, these Best Ever lists tend to have the pretty obvious problem of not being able to include everyone and, therefore, not being able to please everyone. But we here at Bitch Flicks found this particular list more problematic than usual. For a variety of reasons. Before we discuss the WTF-FAIL of this, check out the list below and/or scroll through the photo-list at Total Film (especially if you’re interested in their use of sexist language and images).
[…]
Basically, compiling a slew of antifeminist characters from antifeminist films and putting them on a list called The 100 Greatest Female Characters–while ironic–is kind of unacceptable. I’ve only barely grazed the surface of this nonsense. If you want to see some really messed up statistics surrounding this list, check out The Double R Diner for a much more in-depth analysis, including a look at the many characters who are victims of violence and sexual assault. 
So, readers, what female characters would you include on a list of the 100 Greatest?

See also: #10 in 2011, #9 in 2011, #8 in 2011, #7 in 2011, #6 in 2011, #5 in 2011, and #4 in 2011.

Top 10 of 2011: Seriously? These Are the 40 Greatest Movie Posters?

Back in April of last year, Stephanie Rogers took issue with the way women are discussed in Total Film‘s selection of the “best” movie posters. Not only are women rarely present in the posters, but when they are featured…well, we’ll let you read what she had to say.
Here’s #7 of 2011.
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Look, it’s not like I want to keep sending traffic to the Total Film site. Especially after they treated us to their list of the 100 Greatest Female Characters. But last Wednesday, they published another list of greatness, this one involving movie posters. Well, I love movie posters, and I understand that my Greatest Ever list won’t match Amber’s Greatest Ever list, or anyone else’s Greatest Ever list, and that one’s reaction to and appreciation of all forms of art is subjective and often deeply personal. So I’m not here to discuss whether these are, in fact, the 40 Greatest Movie Posters. I’m here to talk about how Total Film talks about the posters that feature women.
[…]
I take it back. I am going to talk about the offensiveness of these shitty selections. Out of the nineteen posters above–and that’s nineteen out of Total Film‘s forty that actually contain some semblance of a woman’s image–most either sexually objectify the woman or show her getting attacked. Or she’s dead or dismembered. I mean fuck, out of Total Film’s list of 40 Greatest Movie Posters, Bitch Flicks has previously criticized the posters of American Beauty, Choke, The Silence of the Lambs, and Secretary for showcasing dismembered women. That’s bad enough. But the way the Total Film writer, George Wales, talks about the women/characters in these posters is just … problematic at best.

‘The Muppets’ Treads a Fine Line on Women’s Roles

the muppets

This guest review by Jarrah Hodge previously appeared at her blog Gender Focus.

Can I just say I’ve been ridiculously excited about the new Muppet movie for months? The fact that Flight of the Conchords‘ Bret McKenzie would be writing songs, and all the parody trailers only psyched me even more:
Luckily, the film was just as awesome as I had hoped. The Muppets tells the story of Walter, a Muppet with a human brother Gary (Jason Segel). As they grow older, obsessed Walter, who’s become a big fan of The Muppet Show starts to realize he doesn’t fit in in their small town. When Gary decides to take his girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) on a trip to Los Angeles, he brings Walter along knowing he’d like to see Muppet Studios.
When they arrive in LA, Walter overhears a plot by the evil oil tycoon Tex Richman (Chris Cooper), who wants to raze the studio and drill for oil. Walter’s only hope to save the studio is to re-unite the estranged Muppet Show cast members for one final fundraising performance.
The Muppets was hilarious with just the right amount of Muppet cheese, and the way its storyline evoked nostalgia for The Muppet Show struck a chord with those of us who grew up watching it and the early Muppet movies.
(Besides, if the Fox Business Network thinks the movie is communist propaganda, that only makes me respect it even more.)
Unfortunately, the movie seemed to struggle a bit with how much independence to give its women characters. While Miss Piggy continues to use both karate chops and more traditionally feminine wiles to get her way, and Mary repairs cars and electrical circuits without breaking a sweat, the two have the same ultimate goal: marriage.
As J. Lee Milliren says in her review at Bitch Flicks:

One of my biggest issues with these two having the same motivation is that they both only have One motivation and goal. All the other (male) characters have more than one goal and motivation throughout the movie. Walter wants to save the theater, reunite the Muppets, and find his place. Gary wants to be with Mary, and he wants his brother to be happy but struggles with maybe having to let go of him. Kermit wants to save the theater, be with the family that is the Muppets and re-kindle his relationship with Miss Piggy. Even Animal has two goals: wanting to save the theater AND to control his wild side.

Avital at Bitch Magazine Blogs took a slightly more positive view, saying:

Fight it all you want, but Miss Piggy is a feminist. While she does play into some poor stereotypes (being a little boy-focused…or rather frog-focused), the thing most folks remember her for is her fierce, take-no-shit, strong personality.
Overall I think the movie didn’t stray too much into gender-regressive territory. At one point Mary and Piggy even sing a girl-power independence song: “Me Party/Party for One”:
Even though Piggy/Mary’s goals are centered around marriage, the movie does show that they’re independent and unwilling to put up with bad treatment from boyfriends. With all of the movie’s other awesomeness, that makes it a big success in my books.

—–

Jarrah Hodge blogs from New Westminster, BC. Jarrah graduated from the University of British Columbia with a B.A. in Women’s Studies and Sociology. In addition to running Gender Focus, Jarrah is currently a guest blogger on feminism and nerd culture for Bitch Magazine Blogs. She writes a column on gender issues for theVancouver Observer and is a regular blog contributor to About-Face. She’s a fan of politics, crafts, boardgames, musical theatre, and brunch.

Why We All Need to See Young Adult, a.k.a. How Diablo Cody Shines a Light on the Cost of Beauty

This guest review by Molly McCaffrey previously appeared at her blog I Will Not Diet

I’m thrilled that it’s finally Oscar season, and I get to see DOZENS of outstanding movies between now and Sunday, February 26th when I’ll walk the red carpet with The Help‘s Viola Davis and The Ides of March‘s Ryan Gosling (also of Feminist Ryan Gosling fame).

Okay, so I won’t really be walking the red carpet, but a girl can dream, right? And who knows? Maybe I’ll spring for a long roll of red tissue paper and unroll it in front of my flat-screen.

I’ve already seen The Descendants (loved it) and Hugo (bleh—too slow for me), and last night I also got to see Young Adult from the Juno writing-directing team of Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman.

First, let me say that Young Adult is an outstanding piece of filmmaking—it’s dark and funny and intelligent and honest in a way that not many films are anymore when they’re this entertaining.

But the reason I want you all to see Young Adult is not only because it’s such a good film, but also because it’s an important film for woman—a film that explores issues central to our identity such as beauty, gender, marriage, motherhood, and family among others.

Of course, the issue most relevant to this blog is beauty, which is one of the main themes of the film. Without giving anything away in terms of plot, I can tell you that the main character, Mavis—played with heartbreaking gravity by Oscar winner Charlize Theron—is obsessed with the way she looks and seems to gather a good deal of her self-worth from her looks.

At one point in the film—and the preview—Mavis tells a Macy’s clerk that she wants an outfit to help her seduce her ex. The clerk says, “You want to remind him of what he’s missing,” and Mavis responds by saying something like, “Oh, he knows what he’s missing. He’s seen me.” The implication is that Mavis’ value is completely derived from her looks: her gorgeous, heart-shaped face and her fit, flawless body.

But though other characters see only the physical manifestation of Mavis’ beauty, the viewer is treated to the lengths Mavis must go to to achieve that beauty.

In fact, Mavis spends a good deal of her time (probably a third of most days) primping in some fashion or another—she spends hours styling her hair, applying her makeup, shopping for expensive clothes, shaving her legs, and visiting a salon where she gets manicures, pedicures, facials, waxing, and various other treatments on a daily basis.

Yes, I said daily.

After all this is done, Mavis looks fabulous—almost as good as the real-life Charlize Theron. But when she doesn’t devote that much time to her looks, she is a disheveled mess—she walks the streets in sweats and a t-shirt, gulping from a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke and pulling at her matted tangle of hair.

The implicit message is frighteningly clear: a woman doesn’t look this good—at least not at the age of 37 like Mavis—without a hell of a lot of help. And money.

I especially love that these two versions of Mavis—the Mavis who takes hours of time and piles of cash to put together and the Mavis who rolls out of bed in the morning—are shown in such stark contrast to each other.

She is both the former Homecoming queen who has held on to her looks as she approaches forty…

and the lonely, depressed divorcee who can’t be bothered to change out of her pajamas…
I greatly appreciate this depiction of the two sides of Mavis because I think it’s incredibly real.

We all know what it’s like to want to spend the day in our pajama pants and favorite t-shirt, and we all know that some days we want to go to the trouble of getting dressed and made up for a night out on the town. Yes, we know the value of both of these extremes, but most of us—unlike Mavis—also understand that our worth isn’t wrapped up in our ability to do the latter. But Mavis, sadly, is obsessed with this aspect of herself.

It’s equally sad—and interesting—that Mavis is also depicted as a fast food junkie who hits what she calls the local “Ken-Tac-Hut” (a combo Kentucky Fried Chicken/Taco Bell/Pizza Hut) whenever she needs an emotional pick-me-up. I’ve known for a long time that many thin women eat as much as anyone else (even those who are overweight), so it was incredibly refreshing to see a thin and beautiful woman depicted this way—well, refreshing and painful.

But it is Mavis’ slavish devotion to her looks that is one of the more alarming part of this film.

In one particularly gruesome scene, Mavis is shown applying her makeup. I like to wear makeup as much as the next girl, but watching Mavis Gary put on what can only be described as a face-altering mask frightened me so much that I still haven’t gotten the image out of my head. Like a particularly poignant episode of The Twilight Zone, her beauty regime is scary enough to make us rethink our own. Her physical machinations are, in fact, so arduous that only a masochist would embrace them.

Clearly that’s what Mavis is—a masochist, a person who tortures herself regularly and doesn’t know how to be happy. She is like this in more ways than one, but I don’t want to give away the whole film.

In this way, she is a perfect role model for the kind of person we should all not want to be—beautiful, successful, and miserable, reminding us yet again that there is more to life than physical perfection.

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Molly McCaffrey is the author of the short story collection How to Survive Graduate School & Other Disasters, the co-editor of Commutability: Stories about the Journey from Here to There, and the founder of I Will Not Diet, a blog devoted to healthy living and body acceptance. She teaches English and creative writing classes and advises writing majors at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Guest Writer Wednesday: A Fine Frenzy: With an Outspoken Anti-Heroine and a Feminist Lens, ‘Young Adult’ Is My Favorite Film of the Year

 
This guest review by Megan Kearns previously appeared at her blog The Opinioness of the World.

We so often see men as wayward fuck-ups. Ben Stiller in Greenberg, Zach Braff in Garden State, Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets all fill this role. Selfish asshats who do the wrong thing, lack ambition, or screw someone over for their own selfish needs. And yet they’re somehow loveable and charming. You champion them, hoping they’ll succeed and grow…just a little.

Audiences want female leads nice, amiable and likeable. Not messy, complicated, complex and certainly not unlikeable. Heaven forbid! But that’s precisely the role Charlize Theron steps into in Young Adult.

In this witty, hilarious and bittersweet dramedy, Theron plays Mavis Gary, an author of young adult books living in Minneapolis. Mavis’ life is a hot mess. She’s divorced, drinks her life away and the book series she writes is coming to an end. She was the popular mean girl in high school who escaped to the big city. Mavis returns to her small hometown in Minnesota full of Taco Bells and KFCs intending to reclaim her old glory days and her ex-boyfriend, who’s happily married with a new baby. As she fucks up, she eventually questions what she wants out of life.

Young Adult is a fantastic film, the best I’ve seen all year. I seriously can’t say enough good things about it. Diablo Cody’s feminist lens and sharply funny dialogue fuse with Jason Reitman’s knack for bittersweet direction, buoyed by stellar portrayals.

A force of nature, Theron gives both a subtly nuanced and bravura performance. In her Golden Globe-nominated role, she makes a flawed, cranky, bitchy, selfish, alcoholic charismatic and likeable. When she’s doing something despicable (which happens all too often), I found myself cringing yet simultaneously rooting for her. That’s not easy to do. Theron, who’s been called a transformational chameleon, particularly for her award-winning role in Monster, melts into this role. She imbues Mavis with depth, caustic wit, raw anger and vulnerability. It’s hard to see the boundaries where Theron begins and Mavis ends.

Suffering from depression, Mavis tries to drown her sorrows, unleashing a destructive tornado of chaos. Even though Mavis fled her small town, she’s haunted by the prime of her youth. Most of us have moved on from high school. But Mavis hasn’t grown up yet. With unwavering determination and delusion, she thinks if she can recapture the past, all her problems will be solved.

With her popular girl swagger, you can picture how she sashayed down the halls in high school (and probably shoved people into lockers or hurled insults). That same bravado fools her into thinking she can bend the world to her will.

She finds an unlikely ally and confidante in nerdy, sarcastic yet tender Matt (Patton Oswalt), a former bullied classmate in an achingly touching performance. Some of the best scenes contain Mavis and Matt volleying their biting banter.

What made the film brutally funny is Mavis tosses retorts people think but would never dream of actually saying. She says hilariously wrong things. Matt asks her if she moved back to town, she replies, “Ewww, gross.” She shamelessly throws herself at a married man. When Matt reminds her Buddy has a baby, she retorts, “Babies are boring!” And trust me. I’m not doing Theron’s comic abilities justice.

Uncomfortably funny, hilariously heartbreaking, Young Adult passes the Bechdel Test several times. In one scene, the bandmates in the all-female group Nipple Confusion (love that name!), who also happen to be Mavis’ former high school classmates, briefly debate Mavis and her dubious intentions. Mavis confronts compassionate Beth (Elizabeth Reaser), her ex-boyfriend Buddy (Patrick Wilson)’s wife and the object of Mavis’s vitriolic hatred. Also, Mavis confides in Matt’s sister Sandra (Collette Wolfe), who desperately wants to escape small-town life, about the course her life has taken.

I felt a sigh of relief while watching this film. It felt fantastic to have a woman quip snarky comments that maybe she shouldn’t say but she does anyway. Because Mavis doesn’t give a shit what people think. She doesn’t conform to other people’s standards of who she should be. Most movies suppress women’s rage. Not this one. As the awesome Melissa Silverstein at Women and Hollywood wrote:

This film is a fucking bitchy breath of fresh air.

Hollywood purports a double standard that only men can play unsympathetic roles. If a female actor portrays a complex character, she’s too often labeled a bitch. People don’t usually want to see complicated or unsympathetic women on-screen.

Besides the fabulous Kristen Wiig in the hilarious Bridesmaids, Lena Dunham in Tiny Furniture and Julia Roberts in the god-awful My Best Friend’s Wedding (which Young Adult strangely parallels – both contain selfish female protagonists struggling to recapture the past, hoping to break up a wedding/marriage), there really aren’t many examples of women in this kind of unlikeable or flawed role.

In an interview with Silverstein, outspoken feminist (woo hoo!) Diablo Cody shares her inspiration for creating an unlikeable character:

The idea of a cold, unlikeable woman or a woman who is not in control of herself is genuinely frightening to people because it threatens civilization itself or threatens the American family. But I don’t know why people are always willing to accept and even like flawed male characters. We’ve seen so many loveable anti-heroes who are curmudgeons or addicts or bad fathers and a lot of those characters have become beloved icons and I don’t see women allowed to play the same parts. So it was really important to me to try and turn that around.

With female writers comprising 24% of ALL writers in Hollywood and women in only 33% of speaking roles in films (god that makes me cringe), it’s vital to have more women writing scripts to yield women’s diverse perspectives and stories.

Young Adult is entirely told from Mavis’ perspective. As Mavis scribes the last book in Waverly Prep, a Young Adult series, her writing mirrors events and feelings in her own life. It could have easily veered off course to examine how Mavis’ inappropriate flirting (or rather throwing herself at him) affected Buddy. But the film astutely anchors itself to Mavis, a unique female voice.

I often lament the lack of female-centric films as most either feature men in the spotlight or have women as merely secondary characters. If we want more diverse films, including those where women are front and center, we need to support those films by voting with our dollars and going to the box office.

At first, it seems Young Adult might succumb to the same fate as so many other films and end up revolving around Mavis finding love. Men go on quests and emotional journeys. They learn. They grow. Women often stagnate. Or more common, their lives revolve around men. They wait around for love, seek love, find love, and turn themselves inside out for love…and ultimately a man. We don’t often see them doing things for themselves.

That’s the rare beauty of Young Adult. It’s not really about Mavis finding love. It’s about confronting your mistakes, letting go of the past and growing up. Too many movies reinforce the notion careers and friends don’t count. It’s only your love life that matters. Only love can save you. But sometimes, you can save yourself.

Life is messy, complicated and difficult. Women can be too. It’s about time we see more roles reflecting that on-screen.

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Megan Kearns is a blogger, freelance writer and activist. She blogs at The Opinioness of the World, a feminist vegan site. Her work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion, Fem2pt0, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, and A Safe World for Women. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. Megan lives in Boston with more books than she will probably ever read in her lifetime.

Megan contributed reviews of
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Something Borrowed, !Women Art Revolution, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Kids Are All Right (for our 2011 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), The Reader (for our 2009 Best Picture Nominee Review Series), Man Men (for our Mad Men Week), Game of Thrones and The Killing (for our Emmy Week 2011), Alien/Aliens (for our Women in Horror Week 2011), and I Came to Testify, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, Peace Unveiled, and The War We Are Living in the Women, War & Peace series. She was the first writer featured as a Monthly Guest Contributor.

From the Archive: The Bechdel Rule, aka Ripley’s Rule

As we near four years (!) since the inception of Bitch Flicks, this week will feature some reprints of early posts. I spent some time in our archive and can honestly say that nothing we’ve posted in the past is now irrelevant. In other words, the same issues with gender representation in movies, tv and other media in 2008 are issues today.
Here’s a piece, originally published on September 30, 2008, on the Bechdel Rule, or, as we like to call it, Ripley’s Rule.

* * *

It seems there should be a test to evaluate the role of women in any given movie.
A comic, from 1985, lays out a simple set of criteria for its characters to choose a movie to see:
1. There must be two female characters (some say two named female characters)
2. Who talk to each other
3. About something other than men.
Check out the original comic below and click on it to visit Alison Bechdel’s blog and learn about the original source of the comic and idea. NPR’s All Things Considered ran a story on the Bechdel Rule and posted an entry on their pop-culture blog, Monkey See, about new Bechdel-like rules.

How many movies actually pass the test?

Thanks to Unapologetically Female for cuing us in!