Bitch Flicks

Motherhood in Film & Television: MOTHER

2012-05-25T12:00:00.000-04:00

Mother (2009)

This is a guest post from Tatiana Christian.

This review contains some spoilers.

For the past few years, I’ve been slowly immersing myself in international cinema; specifically France, Korea and Japan. So when Bitch Flicks did a call for reviews on films about mothers, I immediately thought of MOTHER (also known as Madeo), a Korean film made in 2009, directed by Bong Joon-ho. Bong Joon-ho is also the mastermind behind another Korean classic, The Host. So naturally, I HAD to watch it, and writing a review for Bitch Flicks offered me the perfect opportunity!

Categorized as a drama, MOTHER centers about a mother, (who is played by Kim Hye-ja) who lives with her 27-year-old son, Do-joon (played by the luscious Won Bin) in the countryside. The film chronicles Hye-ja’s search, after her mentally challenged son is convicted of murdering a local girl, as she attempts to find the real killer.

As expected by the title, MOTHER focuses extensively on Hye-ja’s journey -- in the opening of the film, we see her wander out into a field and start dancing. In the next scene, we watch as she’s chopping medicinal herbs, observing her son across the street as he plays with a dog. Her gaze never shifts from him, even as we’re being led to believe that she’s going to cut herself if she doesn’t pay attention.

When Do-joon is hit by a speeding Benz, his mother rushes out to see if he’s okay – even though he’s alright and doesn’t appear to have any bruises or scratches. Even when she’s having her cut treated, she’s obsessive about finding her son, and making sure that he’s okay. And this type of concern is portrayed through the film; such as in the scene where he’s peeing outside and she holds the bowl for him to drink his medicine. This particular scene struck me as rather intimate, as she stares down at his penis for a moment or two before encouraging him.

I found this relevant because in a later scene when Do-joon comes home intoxicated, he crawls into bed with his mother (presumably the only bed in their small apartment), and immediately rests his hand on her breast. She murmurs that it’s “too late” and eventually he withdraws his hand. MOTHER never delves much deeper into the potentiality of incest, and aside from another character teasing Do-joon by suggesting that they’re having sex – that’s it.

However, I can’t really suggest that their relationship is necessarily codependent, as Do-joon demonstrates his independence several times (such as telling his mother to go to sleep when she calls because he’s out late at the bar or confronting her when he remembers that she attempted to kill him as a child). Hye-ja is shown caring and worrying more about Do-joon than he does for her, and he seems not all concerned with the fact that he has confessed to a crime he didn’t commit.

MOTHER is driven more by Hye-ja’s desire to save her child, to protect him based on the belief that he is innocent. (Portrayed as a mentally challenged character, there’s an air of innocence -- or general ignorance -- to him. For example, when he’s taken to the crime scene and there is a crowd of spectators, he looks out to someone he knows, takes off his mask and begins to wave while smiling -- seemingly oblivious to the severity of what‘s happening.)

So Hye-ja takes on the burden of caring; trying to locate a lawyer who will take on Do-joon’s case, trying to convince a police officer who is a family friend to investigate further, sneaking into Jin-tae’s (played by Ku Jin) cabin to search for clues, approaching the friend of the girl Je-Moon (played by Je-mun Yun) who has died, and so on. It’s all rather impressive actually, watching Hye-ja commit to discovering the real story behind the murder, and enlisting the help of Jin-tae (who proves invaluable in her quest) and having no qualms about getting involved, lying or impersonating someone.

Without giving away too much of the ending, she discovers who the real killer is and commits yet another crime in response to the truth she learns. At the end of the film, we see her taking a type of bus retreat with other mothers, and she’s the only person sitting as the others dance in the aisle. In her lap is her acupuncture kit, and she inserts a needle into her upper thigh in an effort to open her heart and let her emotions flow. Soon after she begins to dance with the other mothers, perhaps finally free. But this time, her dancing is more expressive, versus when we see her in the beginning of the film.

According to Horrornews.net: “She is absolutely riveting and roles like this, especially for women, are almost never found in American cinema.”

This quote ultimately summarizes my experience with MOTHER – a film about a mother willing to do whatever it takes to save her child. In many American films, mothers are often portrayed as deranged (such as the biopic Mommy Dearest) or some kind of superhero (based entirely on tropes) mom who does everything for everyone else but nothing for herself (such as I Don’t Know How She Does It, starring Sarah Jessica Parker).

In MOTHER, Hye-ja is a full-fledged character with both flaws and strengths; she’s unafraid, determined and single-minded in her purpose. In the film, we see her attend the wake of the murdered girl to insist that her son is innocent. Expectedly, the family violently confronts her, dragging her off the premises, while cursing both her and her son. In the very next scene, we see the mother has wandered into a nearby graveyard, looking into her compact and applying lipstick so that she can meet up with the lawyer who will help her son’s case.

MOTHER isn’t about the ideal or perfect depiction of a mother and her relationship with her children; MOTHER is about one individual in her search to save her son.

Tatiana loves watching foreign cinema, and thanks to Netflix, she's definitely gotten to watch a bit more of it too! Currently, she's the Marketing Director for Side B Mag (an awesome lit mag!), always on the search for literary magazines to submit to and has recently continued her self-study to help her become more proficient in French. Merci beaucoup!

Motherhood in Film & Television: Julia Roberts in 'Steel Magnolias,' 'Stepmom,' and 'Erin Brockovich'

2012-05-25T09:08:00.002-04:00

This is a guest post from Allison Heard.

J.D. Salinger wrote in his famous novel Catcher in the Rye that “mothers are all slightly insane,” typifying motherhood as a feat of strength, bravery, and oftentimes a few glasses of wine. While Salinger and many other legendary authors narrated the triumphs and downfalls of motherhood, film and television brought these stories to life. Who could forget the prim and proper Carol Brady (Florence Henderson) from The Brady Bunch, the slightly kooky Bren MacGuff (Allison Janning) from Juno, or the homemaking, badass witch Molly Weasley (Julie Walters) from the Harry Potter series. Even Robin Williams tosses his hat in the ring for mother-of-the-year in his role in Mrs. Doubtfire while disguising himself as a housekeeper in an outfit so ridiculous it could be a Halloween costume just to spend more time with his kids. Among these, another awesome on-screen mom is Julia Roberts, an actress known for her portrayal of all different mothering sorts.

Steel Magnolias (1989)

One of Roberts first major roles came in 1989 with the release of Steel Magnolias, a film about two mothers both fighting for their children. The films main characters are Shelby Eatenton Latcherie (Roberts) and her mother M’Lynn Eatenton (Sally Fields). The film opens on Shelby and her mother in a local hair salon, preparing for Shelby’s impending nuptials to her fiancé Jackson later that afternoon. Arguing with her mother about whether or not she can bear children, Shelby falls in to a state of hypoglycemia due to her diabetic condition. She quickly recovers, but this proves to her mother that she is in no state to become a mother. Despite the day’s early events, the wedding goes off without a hitch, and several months later Shelby announces that she is expecting a child with Jackson. While Shelby is ecstatic to have a child, her body does not respond well to childbirth. She goes in to kidney failure and M’Lynn donates her kidney to her ailing daughter. While the kidney responds well temporarily, Shelby’s body eventually rejects it and she slips in to a coma. M’Lynn’s friends help her move past the loss of her daughter by celebrating her life instead of remembering her death.

Steel Magnolias shows the undying love of mothers and daughters through disagreements, tragedy and happiness. Shelby exemplifies the young woman desiring to become a mother despite unruly and unpredictable circumstances. Her choice to bear children despite her physical limitations shows that all she wanted was motherhood, despite the cost. M’Lynn exemplifies the experienced mother who only wants to protect her daughter from harm. Both Shelby and M’Lynn make the ultimate sacrifice for motherhood, that being a kidney and a life.

Stepmom (1998)

Nearly ten years after the release of Steel Magnolias, Julia Roberts was thrown into a mothering role once again. This time, however, she was quite different. Stepmom portrays a businesswoman, Isabel (Julia Roberts), who becomes a stepmom after marrying recently divorced attorney, Luke (Ed Harris). Isabel lacks any maternal instinct and is further degraded by the children’s biological mother and Luke’s ex-wife, Jackie (Susan Sarandon). Their disagreements and feuds are only worsened when Jackie is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Jackie doesn’t think it’s fair that Isabel gets to witness her children grow up, while she becomes just a memory, and Isabel is secretly worried she cannot compare to Jackie. The two women eventually admit these fears to each other, and become a true family before Jackie’s death and Isabel’s marriage to Luke.

In this film, Julia Roberts plays an unwilling mother, completely opposing Shelby Eatenton Latcherie and her ultimate desire to become a mother. Roberts represents a sect of women who are thrown in to motherhood through unusual circumstances and come out successful. While there are numerous struggles and hardships for Isabel to become a mother that Jackie approves of, she eventually does so. This film not only shows motherhood as a role of importance, but also the interpersonal relationships between women, despite the circumstances. Jackie and Isabel could have continued their feuding, but settled their differences for the sake of the children, both exhibiting strong maternal traits.

Erin Brockovich (2000)

Possibly Julia Roberts most noted role as a mother, Erin Brockovich tells the story of an unemployed, single mother who loses a personal injury lawsuit after she was in a car accident. Upset by her lawyer’s failure, she demands a job at his firm in compensation. He offers her a position as a file clerk in his office, and she soon uncovers a ring of deceit surrounding a major company. Brockovich eventually reveals that the company has been destroying files and laying off its employees. This discovery leads to a huge settlement that is split between the injured employees.

Again, this film shows Roberts in a different motherly role. This time, she is a single mother struggling to support her three children. Her struggles are only furthered when her accident happens and she loses her settlement case. Despite her uphill battle though, Brockovich overcomes and shows that she can survive amongst the high-powered attorneys and deceitful corporations. Based on true-life events, this story is an uplifting account of motherhood and the struggle to survive it alone.

These three films show a variety of motherhood roles in the film industry. Julia Roberts plays a single mother, an unwilling mother and a woman desperate to become a mother. Amongst all of these films are other mothers trying to protect their children from harm, like Shelby’s mom M’Lynn or Jackie in Stepmom, who also show off their maternal instincts.

Motherhood in film and television, while oftentimes portrayed by actresses who are not real life mothers, offer a narrative for the struggles and triumphs of mothers in the audience and at home. These films offer mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and other caretakers an escape from their real life mothering to feel the comedy, tragedy, drama and sheer bliss of being a mother. Without these film and television portrayals, we would be left without the experiences and stories of other women, whether alike or different from your own personal story.

Allison Heard is a writer for HalloweenCostumes.net, and wants to remind you all that your stepmother is not the Wicked Witch of the West.

Motherhood in Film & Television: Hey, let's do some Mommy Issues! (Babies not required)

2012-05-24T18:00:00.000-04:00

This is a guest post from Glosswitch

Imagine this:

You are a beautiful single mom. You get on well with your baby's father - indeed, perhaps you are still in love with him – but you’ve decided it’s not to be. You’ve been offered a dream job on the other side of the Atlantic, in a country where they don’t even speak your language, and you’ve decided to go for it.

Do you:

a. go through a great deal of soul-searching about uprooting your daughter, taking her away from her father and managing on your own, then stoically board the plane clutching both your child and a ton of crap toys which will keep her entertained for about five seconds on a transatlantic flight.

b. go through a great deal of soul-searching because, basically, you still want to rip the clothes off your baby’s daddy, then stoically board the plane looking cool and stylish. Your daughter is off somewhere or other, maybe already in France with your mom or something. Anyhow, that’s all a bit boring. So boring, in fact, that when you have another change of heart you get off the plane and don’t give a second thought to the fact that little Emma might already be waiting, “Mommy” sign held pluckily aloft, at Charles de Gaulle airport.

Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) from Friends

Did you answer a? If so, we have established that you are not in fact Rachel from Friends. Well done, you (after all, if you were, you’d be all barren and pining for Brad Pitt by now, with all your other rom-com achievements mere ashes at your feet).

Here is another scenario:

You are a beautiful single mom (again), but this time working in a crime lab. Perhaps you are called Catherine Willows and in another life a woman called Marg Helgenberger will portray you in a biopic of your life. Anyhow, you have a daughter, possibly called Lindsey, and she can, to put it mildly, be a bit of a pain in the ass.

Do you:

a. use any and every opportunity to remind your colleagues that you’re a mom and therefore understand certain things that only a mom can understand. Stuff like other moms being sad if their kids get murdered, that sort of shit. You know about this because you’re a mom. And also because you finally got rid of that bitch Lindsey by shoving her in some posh private school.

b. tend to shut up about being a mom while you’re in the workplace. It wouldn’t do you any favors come the next round of promotions.

So, what did you pick? Was it b? Me too. That’s why no one’s offered either of us a job in the Las Vegas crime lab to date.

Catherine (Marg Helgenberger) from CSI

Now look, I’m not stupid. I know that TV comedies are meant to be funny, and dramas meant to be dramatic. It isn’t real life. That’s why we don’t see characters needing to take a piss in the middle of an important monologue, or stumbling over their words when pronouncing the dic vead, sorry, the vic dead. It’s all made up. I bet everyone working in the real Las Vegas crime lab is ugly as sin and that they all hate each other and are useless at solving crimes. Actually, that’s probably not true either. It’s probably a lot more boring than that. They probably all just plod along, solving some crimes, not solving others, then go home, watch a bit of TV (not CSI – I’m sure they hate that) and then just go to bed. No one would want to watch that. So why does this unrealistic portrayal of mommies end up annoying me so much?

The thing is, I wouldn’t mind if characters like Rachel and Catherine were just like all the other characters – ridiculously gorgeous and ace at their jobs, yet somehow flawed and kooky at the same time – while also being mommies, albeit ones whose lives aren’t that much impinged on by having a child. I wouldn’t mind that. It’s just that Rachel and Catherine seem to have MOMMY tattooed in big letters across their botoxed foreheads. You can almost hear the sound of scriptwriters patting themselves on the back. “Hey guys, relax! We’ve done the “mommy issues” bit! Now let’s send everyone off to Central Perk.” This creates an environment in which it no longer seems legitimate to assert that motherhood still doesn’t really exist as a theme in our TV programmes. But by and large it doesn’t. You wouldn’t have to do much. You don’t literally have to show shitty diapers or a woman crying her eyes out at 3am with engorged breasts and a howling newborn. It’s just the little things. Perhaps you have women who aren’t able to go to the bar with colleagues at the drop of a hat. Women who don’t always have childcare issues magically resolved by a grumpy ex who’s half new man, half self-pitying passive aggressive bully. Women who work part-time. Women who are, most of the time, in the company of children, not for one “doing the issues” childcare episode, but all the time. You can still have humor and drama in that. Let’s face it, children can be total lunatics; there’s loads of humor and drama in that.

Abby (Maura Tierney) from ER

In ER (yeah, another oldie) Abby has a full-on dramatic birth, followed by lots of trauma caring for a sick child and then gradually going back to work. See, that’s quite good. They sure milked the drama from that. But then she just goes back to being another TV mom with an invisible child. Said child is useful for hostage situations and for making the Abby character “softer” than all the other female leads, but not for affecting the actual structure of the plot itself. That would just be too messy.

I guess that messiness is a big part of the problem. Motherhood is portrayed as a women’s issue – a thing to be picked up, examined then dropped – rather than as something that structures the flow of life and shapes the plots we all live out. This is as true for real life as it is for fiction. Mothers have to fit in around everyone else’s plots, plots in which no one in paid employment really has children and no one who isn’t paid employment is ever believed to be working.

When did you last see a TV programme that treated having a job or having grandparents or being male as an “issue” to be covered? They’re not; they’re just long-term ways of being, which might sometimes be the cause of issues but without being issues in themselves. Being a mom ought to be like that. Instead, it’s “a thing.” A thing that can be covered in a half-hour show, including ad breaks, before Mommy puts her invisible child back in the closet and heads back out to spread the fake mommy wisdom that, thankfully, doesn’t prevent her heading off to an all-night club with friends at the end of the evening.

Lois from Family Guy

In Family Guy we see Lois frequently exploiting the trope of the put-upon Mommy whom no one values. Hey, good issues coverage, guys! The fact that Lois leaves her baby in the care of the family dog whenever it seems appropriate doesn’t even come into it. And yeah, this is a cartoon, and it’s silly and surreal and why should I even bother worrying about that? But the trouble is, we then get the “I am Peter, hear me roar” episode in which Lois ends up taking on hardcore feminist Gloria Ironbox and dramatically asserting her own “choice” to be a mother and homemaker. It’s here that you start to feel the scriptwriters are taking a little too many liberties. How many issues can you squeeze from a portrayal of motherhood that isn’t even remotely realistic? Despite the catfight and the stripping and the sex with Peter at the end, there’s something horribly serious and sanctimonious about Lois’s little outburst. It's like having Cleveland and Loretta solemnly discussing affirmative action, albeit with them only being permitted to be "actively" black 10% of the time.

Allison from Medium

Of all the shows I’ve seen in (fairly) recent years, the only one where I find the portrayal of motherhood even vaguely satisfactory is Medium. That is, I’ll admit, a little weird. Motherhood, for me, has not yet involved having crazy psychic dreams and then passing “the gift” on to my sons, and them getting all stressed about it, and me having to comfort them because, hey, it’s okay; it might seem distressing now but later on you could solve crime, just like Mommy! No, my experience of motherhood has not been like that. But what I like about that show is that underneath it, there still seems to be quite a lot of “normal” mess. The scriptwriters have allowed motherhood to invade the plot. Alison puts her children to bed and strokes their heads and it’s just what happens, not the chance for some once-in-a-lifetime monologue. Alison goes into the kitchen in the morning and there they are, making a mess of the kitchen table and demanding more food. In normal TV-land, she’d have the kitchen to herself, at least assuming no one was having a psychic crisis at the sight of the Cheerios. I found Medium difficult to watch while pregnant, not because it gave me funny dreams, but because I’d think “Wow! That parenting thing looks like hard work!” In truth, it’s not as bad as all that. It’s probably worse if your nights are interrupted not just by kids, but by pesky dead people. If it were that bad, I’d probably run away to France, just like Rachel. Or shove my kids in some private school, like Catherine. But hey, if I did that, you shouldn’t judge me too harshly. I’d just be following the plot.

Disclaimer: Most of the shows referred to here are from over four years ago. I'm sorry. I had a couple of those "real" babies in the interim. If only I'd had a plot device child, all this would be way more up to date.

Glosswitch is a mother of two living in the UK, hence the unfortunate mixture of US and UK spellings in this piece. She blogs at http://glosswatch.com about feminism, motherhood and anything that annoys her (i.e. anything).

Motherhood in Film & Television: Being a Good Mother in 'Gilmore Girls'

2012-05-24T12:11:00.001-04:00

Rory and Lorelai Gilmore are the Gilmore Girls

This is a guest post from Friederike Wunschik

The two main characters of Gilmore Girls are a mother-daughter pair: Lorelai and Rory Gilmore. There are two things the viewer is told almost instantly: they are only 16 years apart and actually have the same first name (though the daughter goes by a baby-version of it).

The Lorelais’ adventures and development are what propels the series forward. Their relationship is characterized by friendship, mutual understanding and respect, with only a few hiccups when the older Lorelai actually goes into mom-mode. They live in Stars Hollow (the imaginary Connecticut town that serves as the backdrop for most of the series), which is quaint, safe, and homogenous (there are practically no persons of color and income disparity is not an issue). Both are depicted as strong and independent women with the occasional romantic interest that never really threatens this independence.

Lorelai Gilmore is certainly depicted as a non-conventional mother. She has been described as a “disgraced Connecticut Brahmin teen heiress who flees prep school to keep and raise her now teen-aged daughter while estranged from her own parents” (Jennifer Crusie, Coffee at Luke’s, p. 174). But she is not the only mother in the series. Gilmore Girls spends a surprisingly large amount of time focusing on mother-characters, some of which are shown more often and more in-depth than others.

The first episode deals with Lorelai reluctantly contacting her parents (after 16 years of barely talking to them) in order to ask them for financial help. The viewer is immediately aware of the awkwardness and manipulation between Lorelai and her mother, Emily. Later we meet one of Rory’s friends, Lane, whose Korean immigrant mother is shown to be very strict and religious – she is only ever addressed as “Mrs. Kim”.

In subsequent seasons other mothers are show-cased:

Liz Danes, Luke’s sister (Luke is one of Lorelai’s main love-interests) and mother of Rory’s troubled second boyfriend Jess
Sookie (Lorelai’s best friend; she becomes pregnant in season 3)
Sherry Tinsdale (the absent mother of Rory’s much younger half-sister Gigi)
Lane, Rory’s best friend (she becomes pregnant in season 7)

This list is not complete in any way, and many of the female inhabitants of Stars Hollow take on temporary parenting responsibilities throughout the series.

Despite the various complications and problems the characters experience as mothers, motherhood is depicted as a fundamentally good thing in Gilmore Girls. Each mother in this series tries her best and finds her own solutions to various problems.

However, the different mother-models occasionally clash, causing the characters to question each others’ and their own style and technique. They even go so far as to openly criticize each other, forcing the viewer to consider both points of view and weigh the advantages and disadvantages of the parenting approaches. Nevertheless, it is important to note that every child in the series turns out alright, despite any problems it might have encountered.

In the following paragraphs I will analyze some of the issues the mothers of the series struggle with.

Nurturing and Food

It is easy – but not fair – to extrapolate the quality of parenting a mother provides from the quality of the meals she serves.

One of the most emphasized aspects of Lorelai Gilmore’s mothering, apart from her youthful mother-friend approach, is the lack of home cooking. The Gilmore girls barely use their kitchen and table. They make coffee and Pop Tarts. They order take-out – a lot. The biggest effort Lorelai ever puts into the preparation of food is when she makes peanut butter sandwiches and marshmallow and gummy bear skewers for a movie marathon or “dessert sushi” to cheer up Rory (Season 07 Episode 02; check out http://gilmoregirlsgourmet.tumblr.com/post/12420447490/dessert-sushi for more on dessert sushi).

Dessert sushi

This lack of culinary skill is a matter of pride for Lorelai. She and Rory eat quite a lot junk food during each episode, but most “real” meals are consumed either at Luke’s diner, at Emily’s house, or consist of a selection of take-out eaten in front of the television. Lorelai is a working mom and does not have a lot of time to prepare meals. Her refusal to even try can be interpreted in several ways: she enjoys her consumerist lifestyle too much, she is too much of a child herself to consider providing a healthy and balanced diet to her daughter, or she is happy to be free of a chore she doesn’t enjoy.

Emily's dinner table

Emily on the other hand uses Friday night dinners to guarantee a certain involvement in her daughter’s and granddaughter’s lives. She does not prepare meals either, she has help do that for her. Nevertheless she plans the meals and insists they be eaten at an impeccably set dining room table. Because she tries to control Lorelai’s life through the forced attendance, these dinners are often the site of conflict; in one instance Emily even tells the maid to take away Lorelai’s plate, thereby showing the viewer how much she is willing to use these meals as a means of control. (S04E06)

Mrs. Kim's dinner table

Mrs. Kim’s Korean cooking is only used to highlight her Otherness. Lane longs for the pizza and candy diet Rory is on, yet she must endure weird foreign food that none of her friends know. Because Mrs. Kim is so strict about a healthy diet, Lane is forced to hide a stash of candy bars under the floorboards in her room and is afraid to eat fried foods, convinced her mother can smell it on her later.

As a chef, Sookie is used to cooking elaborate haute cuisine meals. She likes experimenting with ingredients and tastes. When she is asked to cater a children’s birthday she serves decidedly grown-up food. This incident serves to highlight her unpreparedness for motherhood: how can she look after a child when she doesn’t even know what to feed them? (S04E03) This unpreparedness is mirrored in the final season when Sookie finds out she is pregnant for a third time. (S07E12) After giving birth to her second child, Sookie had ordered (not asked) her husband to get a vasectomy, which he failed to do. This third pregnancy freaks Sookie out and she lists all the ways she is not mentally prepared for this baby “there was less than 4000 left […] diapers! For the last year and a half I’ve been changing more than 20 diapers a day! […] There was a light at the end of the tunnel. […] Diaper rash, colic, and potty training.”

Controlling One’s Child

As mentioned before, Emily uses Friday night dinners to keep tabs on both her daughter and granddaughter. She has a history of trying to control every aspect of Lorelai’s life (Lorelai occasionally compares her mother to dictators). Lorelai says that she would have run away, teen pregnancy or not, because she had “nothing in that house; I had no life, I had no air; you strangled me.” Emily argues that she did everything to provide a good life for Lorelai “I put you in good schools, I gave you the best of everything, and I made sure you had the finest opportunities.” (S01E09) These efforts were not only wildly unsuccessful, but might have actually driven Lorelai to actively seek out activities and people her mother would disapprove of. (S07E03)

Given her reaction to her mother’s parenting, it is not surprising that Lorelai is much more lax when it comes to Rory. Lorelai tries not to pass too much judgement on boyfriends and is not too strict about curfews. However, when Rory slips up and doesn’t come home at all (S01E09), Lorelai almost lets Emily convince her that Rory will make the same mistakes Lorelai did and will “ruin everything” by becoming a teen mom.

Emily is not the only one to criticize Lorelai’s laissez-faire attitude: Mrs. Kim confronts her in S01E07 and tells her “maybe you should be less busy […] then you could keep your daughter from running around kissing boys. […]” Arguing that “Lane is a young impressionable girl, she doesn’t need to hear about your daughter’s kissing.” Obviously Mrs. Kim feels that Lorelai and Rory are undermining her efforts to raise Lane appropriately. In the end, her strict parenting does not stop Lane from dropping out of college, joining a band and marrying a man who is not Korean. Nevertheless, Mrs. Kim makes peace with that in the end, helping her son-in-law to write a song, throwing Lane’s wedding, and offering her support when Lane unexpectedly becomes pregnant. None of her religious parenting has really stuck, except one thing: Lane won’t have sex until she is married and when she does have sex she comes away believing that her mother was right when she said it is not enjoyable at all. (S07E02)

Liz Danes presumably also had her first child very early, though not as early as Lorelai, and her son Jess serves as an example of a child running wild because his mother cannot control him. She is a single mother and somewhat of a wild child herself. Because she cannot provide a stable household to her son, Liz sends Jess to live with his uncle Luke in Stars Hollow. Despite being a troubled teenager, Jess later finds happiness in running an independent publishing house. (S06E18) Liz becomes pregnant again in season 6. This second pregnancy makes Liz panic and she convinces herself that her husband, TJ, will be a horrible father and she needs to avoid the mistakes she made with Jess. (S06E21) In the end, though, she and TJ are very happy together and have fun raising their daughter.

Parental Absence

Absent parents play a substantial role in Gilmore Girls. Lorelai is a single mom, Liz was a single mom, the viewer is never told whether there is a Mr. Kim or not, even Luke finds out he’s missed the first 12 years of his daughter’s life because he didn’t know about her. Yet, the parent whose absence is seen as most problematic is Sherry’s.

Shortly after Rory’s father, Christopher, decides to be more involved in his daughter’s life, the viewer is introduced to his girlfriend Sherry (S02E14), only to find out that Christopher is unhappy in his relationship and wants to leave her. Nevertheless, when he finds out she is pregnant, he goes back to her. (S02E22) Two years later Sherry leaves Christopher and their daughter Gigi to take a job in Paris, France. (S05E06) After another two years she contacts Christopher and says she would like to see Gigi again. (S07E07) Her disappearance and reappearance drive the plot of several episodes in which Lorelai and Rory contemplate and try to make sense of Sherry’s actions. Although ultimately no real judgement is passed, the Gilmore girls are obviously baffled and alienated by this behavior and wary of Sherry’s reconnecting with Christopher and Gigi.

No Bad Mothers Here

Ultimately, none of the mothers shown in Gilmore Girls are bad mothers. Even Emily is shown to be understanding and nurturing. In the end everything turns out alright: Rory graduates from Yale, making her mother and grandparents proud; the entire town of Stars Hollow throws Rory a graduation party, prompting Emily and her husband to express their pride in their daughter for cultivating such strong friendships for herself and her daughter; Jess has redeemed himself and his mother by pursuing an intellectual life as an author and publisher; Lane has reconciled herself with Mrs. Kim and gives birth to twin boys.

Lorelai is obviously celebrated as the best mother in town, she is young, fun, independent, and interested in letting Rory be herself. But throughout the series the viewer sees that she doesn’t have the answers to all the questions and all the mothers are just doing the best they can.

Further reading:

Calvin, Ritch, ed. Gilmore Girls and the Politics of Identity: Essays on Family and Feminism in the Television Series. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008.

Crusie, Jennifer, ed. Coffee at Luke's: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gabfest. Dallas, TX: BenBella, 2007.

Friederike Wunschik lives in Germany and has an M.A. in American Culture Studies. She occasionally blogs on friederike.wunschik.net. She will become a mother later this year and is excited and terrified at the same time.

Motherhood in Film & Television: Absent Mothers in Urban Fantasy

2012-05-24T09:00:00.003-04:00

Urban Fantasy is here to stay

This is a guest post from Paul and Renee.

Urban Fantasy -- the bringing of the fantastic (vampires, werewolves, magic, fae and so much more) to a modern, real world setting -- has become ever more popular as a mainstream genre. From Twilight to True Blood to The Vampire Diaries, it is now firmly entrenched on our televisions. The books regularly reach the best seller lists - this isn’t a fringe genre. It’s here, it’s huge and it’s here to stay.

This means the portrayals represented matter. Any popular media has the power to shape culture and society; any stories that are consumed by a large number of people are going to draw upon our societal prejudices and, in turn, feed and encourage those prejudices and portrayals.

Urban Fantasy is a genre that seldom gets critical examination. At first blush, the opposite would appear to be true when one considers the social conversation around Twilight or True Blood, but these are only two examples within an extremely large genre. It is interesting to note that much of Urban Fantasy contains female protagonists and is largely produced and consumed by women. Considering the ongoing gender divide, it is hardly surprising that this immensely popular genre is being ignored by critics.

Just because Urban Fantasy is largely produced by women and consumed by women does not mean that it is free of sexism and misogyny. When it comes to motherhood, a role that most women will one day assume, it is hardly surprising that within the genre most examples are highly problematic -- when they appear at all.

The lack of representation of motherhood is so extreme that the viewer is forced to ask is, “where are the mothers?”. It seems like such an odd question, because you’d expect most characters, like most people, to have a mother lurking around somewhere; especially since most of the heroines in these stories are young women or even teenagers. Search as we might, the mothers are conspicuous by their absence.

The most common cause of the missing mother seems to be death -- indeed, it is almost mandatory for an Urban Fantasy heroine to have a tragically dead mother. In The Vampire Diaries Elena’s mother is dead. True Blood has the orphaned Sookie; Charmed killed the sisters’ mother off before the series even started; Cassie, Diana, Melissa, Jake and Adam all have dead mothers in The Secret Circle. Buffy’s mother died part way through the series. In The Dresden Files, Harry’s mother died before the series began. In Grimm, Nick is yet another protagonist with a dead mother. The whole beginning motivation of Supernatural revolves around their dead mother. In Blood and Chocolate, both mother and father are brutally murdered. In The Craft Sarah Bailey's mother is dead. In Underworld, Selene’s mother is murdered by Viktor.

This list is extremely -- even excessively -- long but it’s shocking that we looked through all the shows and movies that we’ve watched and actually found it hard to find a series where the mother was alive and present.

Even in stories where the mother is lucky enough to have dodged the bullet and is actually alive, she is still often absent. In Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, Renee, Bella’s mother, is absent, living in a completely different state. In The Vampire Diaries, Bonnie’s mother, Abby, is absent through much of her childhood and, when they are finally reunited, Abby not only presents Bonnie with a child that she raised as a replacement, but quickly disappears after becoming a vampire. Abby is well aware of the pain that her absence has caused Bonnie and yet she steadfastly finds a reason not to engage with her daughter. Once Upon a Time sets records for absent mothers -- Augustus never had one, Snow White and Ruby’s mothers are dead, and Emma grew up in the foster system without her mother.

I suppose we should be grateful these mothers ducked the Urban Fantasy plague that has put so many parents in their graves, but they still have little to no actual influence and presence in their children’s -- the protagonists' -- lives.

With such a massive pattern, we have to ask why. Why is it almost a requirement in Urban Fantasy for the young, female protagonist to be lacking a mother (and often a father too for that matter)?

One reason seems to be to make the characters sad, relatable and, frankly, angst ridden. It’s quick, cheap and easy characterisation to establish a sad, tortured or otherwise issue-laden character with “depth” to kill off a parent and have them be sad about it. These dead mothers are sacrificed for quick and easy back story for the protagonist. Take a heroine, load her up with a shiny ability, a bit of snark, a love interest -- now kill her mother so she has “depth.” The back story is established: we have a “3-dimensional character” who has suffered (which seems to be shorthand for an established character in far too much fiction).

The mother is thrown away, killed -- often violently -- for the sake of the heroine’s story. These absences (often deaths and often graphic, violent deaths) are thrown in almost casually. These mothers are disposable, convenient story points, not characters in their own right. In fact, “disposable characters” may be giving them too much credit, since they don’t even have chance to become characters before they’re cast aside to haunt their children.

We live in a world in which violence against women, while often decried publicly, is still very much acceptable socially. These deaths, even when in faultless instances like traffic accidents, amount to violence against women because of the frequency in which they occur. We can see this especially emphasised in Rise of the Lycans, when Viktor murdered Sonja when he discovered she was pregnant with a lycan’s child. Violence rates against pregnant women are even higher than against other women and this also reflects not just the disposability of mothers but also the control of men over their fertility. Men decide whether she is “allowed” to carry that child, which is often seen as a threat to the man -- in this case to Victor’s power base but often in real life to a man’s freedom or lifestyle. To be clear, there are instances in which both mother and father dies; however, the near universality of the death of the mother definitely makes it a female-driven trope. When death comes through an act of violence it serves to reify the violence that women are forced to live with.

As it stands, it seems almost as though women are being punished for being mothers. Motherhood has often served as the impetus for women to engage in civil disobedience but, in Urban Fantasy, motherhood -- more often than not -- results in death. Women are given very little opportunity for agency. These deaths deny motherhood as a site of power for women and instead turn women into eternal victims who are then responsible for the misery of their children.

This also serves to emphasise how little we regard mothers as characters or people in their own right. A mother is seen as an extension of her child rather than a person -- and since a mother is all about her child, why shouldn’t she be sacrificed to further her child’s back story? She isn’t important as a person, and if she contributes best by being dead or absent, so be it, she doesn’t matter.

Related to this lack of independent existence is the eternal trope of the Bad Mother. It is a societal constant that mother is always to blame for whatever problems a child faces or suffers. While “blame the parents” is commonplace, this by far and away falls more on the mother than the father. The mother is a constant scapegoat for any and every issue in their child’s life.

Lettie Mae in True Blood

Do we really care about the issues of Lettie Mae, Tara’s mother from True Blood? Or is her alcoholism there to reflect on how hard a life Tara has to lead? Do we analyse Bonnie’s mother, Abby, on The Vampire Diaries to consider what drove her to pursue a life outside of Mystic Falls? Or does she only appear as and when she helps her daughter’s friends? It is not accidental that Lettie Mae and Abby are women of colour. Historically, women of colour have been seen as unfit mothers, unless we are nurturing and raising White children. Lettie Mae is not only absent but she is an alcoholic and she engaged in emotionally abusive behaviour throughout Tara’s childhood. For respite, Tara was forced to flee to the Stackhouse residence. What does it tell us when a Black girl can only find safety in the care of a White family, and abuse and neglect in her own mother’s home? Ruby Jean Reynolds is Lafayette’s mother on True Blood and we are first introduced to her in a mental institution. She is neurologically atypical and we learn that Lafayette has been doing sex work and selling drugs in order to pay for her care. She is extremely homophobic and uses anti-gay slurs to refer to both Lafayette and his now deceased boyfriend on the show, Jesus. The depiction of African-American mothers who are both physically and emotionally unavailable, and neglectful and abusive, is just another negative manifestation of how the media has chosen to construct the motherhood of African-American women.

It’s also worth noting how many of these “failure” mothers are marginalised. Lettie Mae is both black and poor. Abby is black. Darla from The Crow is a poor drug user. Even Sally’s mother on Being Human (US) is only around for 2 episodes of character growth for Sally -- and in that time we learn she had an affair while with Sally’s father and wasn’t there for Sally as she wanted and needed. All the mothers we’ve mentioned are disposable characterisation tools -- but the wealthy or middle class white mothers in The Secret Circle, Charmed, The Vampire Diaries, The Dresden Files, Once Upon a Time, Underworld and True Blood are killed off or absent through forces outside their control. They are absent because they are victims -- and certainly beyond reproach. While poor women or mothers of colour are not innocently absent, they are to blame for their failure.

Finally, we have to take it to the full extreme - the villainous mother. Again, this is, in many ways, an easy characterisation. You have instant angst and pain and emotional conflict just because of the relationship between the antagonist and the hero/heroine.

It also feeds further into the prevalent theme of mother blame we see repeated so often and it is, again, used as an excuse to blame any of the problems the protagonist has. In Lost Girl, Bo’s problems of being a succubus without any guidance is down to her villainous, succubus mother’s abandonment. In Being Human (US), Mother’s smothering control over Suren is to blame for her childishness and self indulgence. In Once Upon a Time all of Regina’s evil plans ultimately stem from her mother’s ruthless ambition and destroying her dreams. They are the ultimate problem mother, to blame for everything in the child’s life - both their own personal issues and their ongoing conflict -- it’s all completely Mother’s Fault.

It is disturbing that this prevailing idea of the dead, absent or outright villainous mother is so common within the genre. It devalues motherhood, sets mother up as disposable and ultimately to blame for the wrongs in their children’s lives, and this heavy burden of blame falls all the more heavily on marginalised mothers. In the aftermath of these absent mothers we have a mob of young female protagonists who have no mothers, frequently no parents at all. They’re alone, usually much younger, less experienced, more naive than the male love interest. They are exposed to the often predatory advances of these men -- which is another topic entirely, but the seeds of it are planted by the absent mother leading towards her vulnerable, lonely daughter.

Paul and Renee blog and review at Fangs for the Fantasy. We're great lovers of the genre and consume it in all its forms - but as marginalised people we also analyse critically through a social justice lens.

Motherhood in Film & Television: Laura Petrie of 'The Dick Van Dyke Show'

2012-05-23T18:00:00.000-04:00

Laura (Mary Tyler Moore), Richie (Larry Matthews), and Rob (Dick Van Dyke) in The Dick Van Dyke Show

This is a guest post from Caitlin Moran

Before Mary Tyler Moore tossed her beret to the Minneapolis sky as Mary Richards, she was the sunny princess of sitcom wives and mothers as Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show. Laura Petrie was a different kind of TV mom. She was young, only 17 when she married on-screen husband Rob. She was perpetually fresh-faced, nimble-footed and smart, a perfect foil for the gangly, handsomely goofy Van Dyke. Laura was the young mother that young mothers wanted to be. I grew up watching reruns of Dick Van Dyke on TVLand with my parents, who had grown up watching it when it originally aired in the sixties, and we all could agree that Laura Petrie was the paragon of feminine charm.

Oh, and did I mention the capri pants? She wore capri pants. She not only wore them, but she rocked them. And she not only rocked them, but she was the first housewife to wear pants on television. The credit for that style decision goes to Moore, who has stated in interviews that while TV shows were constantly showing stay-at-home moms in dresses and aprons and heels, “woman don’t wear full-skirted dresses to vacuum in.” While it may be tempting to brush aside Laura Petrie’s forward-thinking style, her lack of skirt caused a minor flap with the network censors when the show first aired in 1961 (“but how will we know she’s a woman if she’s wearing the pants???” some capris-hating misogynists may have wondered). Laura Petrie’s signature look launched capris into the 1960s fashion zeitgeist, and earned her a spot in InStyle magazine’s Top Ten Most Stylish TV Housewives of All Time.

Rob (Van Dyke) and Laura (Moore) dancing

Laura and Rob Petrie had one child together, a son named Richie. Because Richie is in elementary school for the whole of the show, Laura’s role as a mother focuses on the challenges of raising a small child. She worries that he might be sick when he refuses a cupcake, and helps Rob explain why Richie’s middle name is Rosebud. (It’s an acronym for the names that their parents and grandparents suggested for the baby. Unsurprisingly, that was Rob’s idea.) In the episode “Girls Will Be Boys,” Richie comes home from school three days in a row with bruises on his face, and admits that a girl has been beating him up. After Rob’s visit to the suspected lady bully’s father turns up empty, Laura goes to the child’s house to get to the bottom of the strange beatings. After the girl’s mother insults and dismisses her, Laura refuses to leave until she’s said her piece. “You may not be the rudest person I’ve ever met,” she declares with her trademark quiver, “but you are certainly in the top two.” Door slam, and our girl storms off with the moral high ground and not a hair out of place in her perfect coif.

Laura was never afraid to stand up to her husband when Richie was involved. In the memorable episode “Is That My Boy??” Rob believes that he and Laura have brought home the wrong baby from the hospital. Laura, just days removed from giving birth, attempts to be the voice of reason to her emotionally overwrought husband and, when that fails, plants herself as a barricade in front of the cradle as Rob answers the door to let in the couple he believes took home his actual baby. The ending of the episode, of course, is the most famous of the entire series—the couple that Rob has invited over, the Peters, is black, and the surprise caused one of the longest uninterrupted laughs from a studio audience in sitcom history. Laura herself has a good laugh with Mr. and Mrs. Peters at Rob’s expense, and domestic peace is restored.

Laura pouring Richie a glass of milk

That doesn’t mean that The Dick Van Dyke Show’s treatment of Laura Petrie is without its problems. It is more or less assumed throughout the show that she is a mother and a housewife above everything else, leaving her former aspirations of a dancing career behind. In season three’s “My Part-Time Wife,” Rob is woefully unable to handle Laura stepping in as a secretary at his office, even though she performs her tasks at work deftly and still keeps up the house and supports Richie. When Rob throws a grown-man tantrum over her abilities, Laura apologizes and concedes that she has been “flaunting her successes.” Everyone groan on the count of three.

And the show isn’t exactly subtle when it compares Laura’s domestic bliss with Rob’s cowriter Sally’s romantic woes. Brash, hilarious single girl Sally’s search for a fella is a constant punch line for coworker Buddy, and a source of pity for Laura. Why oh why can’t Sally just find a nice man and have a kid or two of her own? It’s bad enough that Sally writes detailed letters about her cat, Mr. Henderson, to her Aunt Agnes in Cleveland, but does Mr. Henderson have to be named after a former fiancé? Do you have to kick her when she’s down? In many ways, The Dick Van Dyke Show is a product of its era, and its obvious glorification of Laura’s married motherhood over Sally’s career life speaks to a time before the women’s liberation movement, before NOW and Gloria Steinem and certainly before Mary Richards. The tension between career, marriage and motherhood has by no means disappeared (witness the recent debacle over Hilary Rosen’s criticisms of Ann Romney), but to see it played for laughs so openly is disheartening.

Though it has its faults, The Dick Van Dyke Show remains a monument to early-60s Kennedy-era optimism (in fact, the first episode aired on the very day Kennedy was sworn in as president), and no character represents the youthful promise of Camelot more than the Jackie-esque Laura Petrie. In his memoir Dick Van Dyke: My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business, Dick Van Dyke describes her charm thusly: “The first time I stood across from here in rehearsal and heard her say, “Oh, Rob!” I thought, That’s it, we’re home.”

Laura Petrie is a TV mom we’d all like to come home to.

Caitlin Moran is a graduate of Boston College with a degree in English and creative writing. After spending many years battling Western New York winters, she now lives in New York City with a cat and too many books for her apartment. Her work has appeared in the Women’s Media Center, Post Road, Pure Francis, the Susquehanna Review, Winds of Change magazine, HerCampus, and other outlets.

Motherhood in Film & Television: 'The Great Lie'

2012-05-23T15:00:00.001-04:00

The Great Lie (1941)

This is a guest post from Erin Blackwell

My mother used to sit me down to watch movies in front of a small black-and-white TV in our Southern California livingroom, not far from Hollywood, where she'd spent the happiest years of her childhood. Watching movies was part of a wide-ranging curriculum of aesthetic exercises she assigned my brothers and me. Not just any movie. The classics from MGM, the comedies from Paramount, an occasional noir from Warners. I've never been able to simply watch a movie like a normal person. I'm always evaluating the design elements, the performances, the script.

Bette Davis stars in The Great Lie

In 1941, when my mother was 17, the United States entered World War II and Warner Brothers released The Great Lie, starring Bette Davis and George Brent. Bette Davis was a great actress and George Brent was the only actor in Hollywood who hadn't gone away to war. Unthinkable today that an actor would put his high-priced face in harm's way but in 1941, the U.S. did not have a standing army, or a "volunteer" army of mercenaries, let alone private contractors. What was called “the war effort” included the publicity generated by the donning of uniforms by Hollywood stars, several of whom saw active duty.

There are two scenes in The Great Lie that made an indelible impression on my teenage psyche. One involves crossdressing, the other involves food, and both express the anxiety attached to giving birth and the difficulties modern women have integrating this biological imperative into an otherwise blithely artificial lifestyle. But mostly, these two scenes depict powerful moments of emotional intimacy between women in which conventional gender roles go out the window.

The Great Lie, despite its portentous title, was not part of the war effort, although George Brent's character, Pete, dons a uniform right after his wedding and flies off on a secret mission to a South American jungle. Pete's lackluster presence at movie's start and extended absence during movie's middle is characteristic of what was called "women's films," in which the man is merely a rag doll to be fought over by the real characters: female rivals who vie to possess him.

Mary Astor plays Sandra

Mary Astor, whose name is one-third the size of George Brent's (whose name is one-third the size of Bette Davis's — whose name is alone above the title) on the original poster, is the pivot point of this romantic triangle. She's better known for playing Brigid O'Shaughnessey opposite Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon, a truly great film released the same year. Astor's particular cocktail of beauty, eroticism, class, emotivity, intelligence, weakness, and the febrile glamour synonymous with mental instability raise The Great Lie to the level of... what exactly? Something more exciting than it deserves to be, something operatic with the frisson of a tabloid. She won an Oscar for her performance.

Astor plays Sandra, the internationally acclaimed concert pianist, whose manager (Grant Mitchell) refers to her as Madame Kovac. Unthinkable today that a concert pianist could feature as a love interest in a Hollywood film but in the 40s, classical music was part of the national dialogue and every kid in Brooklyn was trying to get to Carnegie Hall. Astor is believable as a concert artist, although the script by Leonore Coffee (revised on set by Davis and Astor) trades in clichés about the artist's life. No matter. Astor brings an innate musicality to her scenes. Her voice, a rich contralto, is itself a stunning instrument.

The opening credits roll over a series of tightly framed shots of a woman's arms banging out Tchaikowsky's Piano Concerto Number One on a Baldwin, backed by a healthy string section. The piano is muscular, the ascending chords weighty, rhythmic, obsessive. The whole sequence establishes the beating heart of passion which is the source of the great lie. (Those aren't Astor's arms, but we do get some choice glimpses of her banging away at the keyboard. She brings to it the conviction of a trained pianist.)

The production values in this film, dynamically directed by Edmund Goulding, are uniformly excellent, from the supporting cast, to the sets, props, costumes and the kind of chiaroscuro lighting you only get from Warner's. Watching it for the umpteenth time, I was struck by the pacing, how the camera patiently tracks the actors. This approach is futile when filming George Brent, who has little to give, but pays off with Mary Astor, who has the reactivity of uranium. And, of course, Davis knows exactly what to feed the camera at all times. Starting with her famous eyes.

Maggie and Pete post-wedding

Exhibiting those characteristics considered essential to the life of a temperamental musician, Sandra marries Pete while they're both on a drunken spree, but the marriage is annulled post-consummation when it's revealed Sandra's divorce from her previous husband wasn't yet final. That frees a newly sober Pete to rush back into the arms of Maggie (Davis), his true love. They marry without delay but the rivalry continues when Sandra discovers she's pregnant. The fetus is considered a powerful bargaining chip in her attempt to recapture her runaway husband.

When Pete's plane's reported missing somewhere in the South American jungle, the great lie is concocted in the head of his wife Maggie, who sees a way to preserve Pete's only known earthly remains — his DNA — by getting his ex-wife to carry his child to term. In a stunning surrogate switcheroo, it's not the paternity but the maternity that's going to be in question. Maggie shows up at Sandra's Central Park apartment in full noir regalia: wide-body fur coat and oversized black hat. Sandra's in haute bohemian chic: a stunning floorlength black dressing-gown.

Maggie arrives at Sandra's apartment in suddenly-noir lighting

Sandra leans back on her white satin bed, cowed by the interloper's assertiveness. Maggie stands looking down at her and explains, "He left us two things in this world. I have his money. You might have his child. You're extravagant. You're a woman of the world, a public figure. Your piano, your success, they won't go on forever. None of us gets younger. Let me insure your future. And you ensure mine."

Sandra asks, "Your future?" Maggie says, "His child. That could be my future. And I'd make you secure financially always." Sandra considers this, then says softly, "Money." Maggie says, "Yes." Sandra shakes her head dismissively. "It's so completely mad." Exactly what the audience is thinking.

Fifty minutes in, we're at the heart of the matter: an extended showdown between virtuous wife Maggie and vicious baby mama Sandra. Implicit to the great lie is the thwarting of an abortion but that precise issue is never raised. This kid's life only has meaning as an extension of Pete's. That's the one thing these two women can agree on. They love that man!

Their car arriving at the Arizona safe house

This scene kicks off twenty minutes of high histrionic and low comedic bliss as Bette convinces Sandra to hide out in a clapboard house in the Arizona desert, surrounded by dust and cactus, serviced by an untraveled road. Scenes of delicious intimacy suddenly erupt as the actresses sink their teeth into their new roles-within-roles. None of this would work with lesser actresses playing for laughs or, worse, camp. There's a same-sex erotic undercurrent a mile wide to these domestic scenes, under a thin frosting of glamour puss personality. Astor unleashes a volatile vulnerability which Davis parries with pugnacious charm. And I'm suddenly reminded of a similar set-up in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), where Bette Davis dominates the wheelchair-bound Joan Crawford. That's the late-career, Grand Guignol version.

Maggie deploys wifely know-how to tend the tempestuous Sandra, grown crankier in a terrycloth bathrobe through forced isolation, dietary restrictions, and the gratingly upbeat companionship of her arch rival. But is Maggie the wife or the husband? She runs errands for Sandra in town. She monitors her cigarette smoking, unsuccessfully. She even keeps her from eating a pickle during a middle-of-the-night fridge raid. This scene is unique in the canon, for the pathetic self-abasement Astor offers up in her quest for a ham sandwich.

Maggie relents and cuts a slice of ham for Sandra

Awakened by a wind storm, Maggie's attracted by the light under the door to the kitchen. She enters and finds Sandra, frozen in dread, like a mouse cornered by a cat. Maggie gestures to the table full of food. "Sandra. Ham, onion, butter. Everything the doctor said you couldn't have. What have you got behind your back? Come on. Hand it over." Sandra puts a jar on the table. "Pickles. Oh, Sandra." Sandra answers, "Yes, pickles. I like them. I want them. I'm sick and tired of doing without things I want. You and that doctor with your crazy ideas of what I can and what I can't eat. You're starving me." The martyred Sandra practically sings her lines. "I'm not one of you anemic creatures who can get nourishment from a lettuce leaf. I'm a musician. I'm an artist. I have zest and appetite and I like food. I've being lying awake in there thinking about food and now I'm going to have it." So Maggie gives in and makes her a sandwich.

Maggie alone on the deck, awaiting the birth of the baby

The greatest transgressive thrill comes when the country doctor arrives to deliver the baby. Maggie's prowling around in men's slacks and loafers, odd man out at this female ritual. When the doctor says he's used to having the father around, nervously wondering when the baby'll be born, he's describing Maggie. Then he closes the door to the bedroom, shutting her out of this women's mystery. Virile Maggie can't sit still but goes out onto the deck, alone in the night, smoking and pacing like a guy until that universal signal, a baby's cry, summons her back inside. Women, too, can be fathers! She enters the bedroom only long enough to eyeball Junior. This baby is an abstract goal for Maggie and Davis is not a convincing mom.

Sandra playing Chopin, dressed to impress

I don't think it'll spoil the movie for you to reveal that Pete is not dead and that his resurrection as a plot point reignites the women's rivalry. The Great Lie is nothing if not a primer in how to get melodramatic mileage out of a baby. That's when Pete surprises us all by declaring that he prefers a childless Maggie to a babied-up Sandra. Like the judgement of Solomon, this remark reveals the identity of the "true" mother, Maggie, who, while not the biological parent, is the one who wants to keep the kid. To cover her humiliation, Sandra sits down at the baby grand and starts banging out the same concerto we heard under the opening titles. We’re back where we started.

Violet (Hattie McDaniel) leads the celebration

The one big glaring no-no smack in the middle of The Great Lie is Hattie McDaniel’s reprise of her role of Mammy from Gone With the Wind (1939). They’ve changed her name to Violet, but her function is the same. Treating Maggie the way she treated Scarlett O'Hara (a role Davis famously fought for and lost to Vivienne Leigh) only makes sense within a regressive, racist fantasy. It’s mind-boggling to watch the scenes of happy blacks celebrating their mistress’s wedding. Did anything remotely resembling that world exist in 1941? Because it sure doesn’t exist now. But then, The Great Lie is a time capsule full of outmoded conventions. Which is what makes it so fascinating.

Erin Blackwell reviewed films for the Bay Area Reporter in San Francisco. She just finished writing a play. Her blog is Pinkrush.com.

Motherhood in Film and Television: Phoebe in Wonderland

2012-05-23T12:00:00.000-04:00

This review of Phoebe in Wonderland, by Stephanie Rogers, first appeared at Bitch Flicks on September 14, 2009.

Movie poster for Phoebe in Wonderland

For a film that wants to explore the difficulties of marriage and motherhood and, essentially, what it means to exist as a woman in a society that places so many demands on wives and mothers, I found it disconcerting to say the least that this film only barely passes the Bechdel Test. If it weren't for one scene, where Felicity Huffman's character, Hillary Lichten, engages in a brief conversation about her daughter, Phoebe, (played by Elle Fanning) with her daughter's drama teacher, Miss Dodger, (played by Patricia Clarkson), then this entire movie, a movie about women, would plod along without one woman ever speaking to another woman.

imdb plot summary: The movie focuses on an exceptional young girl whose troubling retreat into fantasy draws the concern of both her dejected mother and her unusually perceptive drama teacher. Phoebe is a talented young student who longs to take part in the school production of Alice in Wonderland, but whose bizarre behavior sets her well apart from her carefree classmates.

Well, on the surface, the movie is about Phoebe and her struggle to fit in with her peers. But it quickly turns into an examination of motherhood and parenting in general, when Phoebe's odd behavior gradually worsens: she spits at classmates, she obsessively repeats words and curses involuntarily, she washes her hands to the point that they bleed—and she explains to her parents over and over again that she can't help it. However, her mother (and father), being academic writer-types (Hillary is actually attempting to finish her dissertation on Alice in Wonderland), merely choose to see their daughter as nothing more than eccentric and imaginative.

The caretaker role falls exclusively to Hillary. She's a stay-at-home mom trying to write a book while also attempting to care for two young daughters. While her struggle to play The Good Mom definitely lends sympathy to her character—I mean, honestly, what the hell is a good mom?—I couldn't help but despise her selfishness and blatant disregard for Phoebe's needs. Even though both parents decide to (finally) get Phoebe into therapy, it's Hillary who refuses to accept the doctor's diagnosis, even going so far as to remove Phoebe from therapy, deliberately hiding the diagnosis from her husband.

The problem here, and where the movie most succeeds, is that Hillary feels alone as a parent. She believes that her children's struggles will ultimately reflect poorly on her as The Good Mom, and she even says at one point that she doesn't want her daughter to be "less than." Obviously, we live in a society that mandates the over-the-top importance of living up to an unattainable standard of proper mothering (see: any celebrity mother and the scrutiny she faces, with barely a mention of celebrity fathers), and Hillary definitely effectively represents that unattainable standard.

The movie also successfully portrays the societal trend of the working father: he pokes his head in when necessary, checking in on his daughters, and demonstrating just the right balance between quirky annoyance at their neediness and curiosity about their daily lives—he shows up to parent/teacher conferences, he consoles Phoebe when she gets in trouble at school, and he genuinely wants to participate; he's just not required to maintain the role of The Good Dad—it doesn't exist.

Click here to read the rest of the review.

Motherhood in Film & Television: Spawning the World: Motherhood in 'Game of Thrones'

2012-05-23T09:45:00.002-04:00

Game of Thrones

This piece by Rachel Redfern is cross-posted with permission from Not Another Wave.

Game of Thrones is the buzzword for this season's TV community: the backbiting, the plotting, the violence, the sex (which everyone is discussing). What horrific plot twist will the Lannisters think of next, we wonder out loud?

So I won’t really talk about those things, because to my mind, those aspects of the show have been reviewed by dozens of worthy reviewers: The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Mary Sue and Bitch Flicks, just to name a few. (If you’re not really sure of the plot or premise of the movie, you should definitely Wikipedia it, as I’m not really going to talk about that here, considering that so many other reviewers and websites have already provided a synopsis for it.)

One of the aspects that struck me in the show though, is the portrayal of motherhood. Far from being absent or swept to the side, the film’s mothers are a driving force in the plot development and are some of the most multi-dimensional of the series (credit has to be given to the actresses who play them).

There are thee instances of motherhood being portrayed here: Cercei and Lady Arryn’s obsessive, spoiling, “my child is a god” kind of motherhood, Lady Stark’s “good mom” style, and lastly, the Dothraki queen Daenerys Targaryen’s pregnancy where she is worshipped by her people.

Lady Arryn is mentally unstable, we can see that. Hell, the other characters can see that and are sending concerned glances to each other whenever she speaks and this outlandish behavior is most noticeable in regards to her son. Her child is a picture-perfect example (almost a caricature) of the spoiled child—the kind of spoiled child who still nurses at the age of ten (which, no matter what you say, is always weird). Her kind of motherhood, the indulgent nothing-is-wrong-with my child is interesting in that it also coincides with her isolation, as her castle is one that is almost completely cut-off from the world.

It’s a common trope, the mother who does everything for her son, so much so that we never see outside of the role of mother. She appears to have nothing else in her life and so instead showers him with inappropriate attention.

There is another example of spoiling a child, one in which the child is in the later stages of his aberrant and spoiled behavior. Lady Cersei, though, is a different kind of mother from the unstable and isolated Lady Arryn. Cersei is the mother to a prince, and then later to a king, and her kind of mothering seems to revolve around the difficult lifestyle of maintaining power for her son and, therefore, for her. It’s a selfish sort of spoiling, one in which the son is used as a way to protect the mothers status, a situation she is able to maintain by creating an “Us vs. Them” mentality in the cruel Joffrey.

In both instances, their treatment of their children is one way that the case for their “evilness” is created; it appears that the road to creating an evil female character is to highlight the way that she uses her children, in that here, the children become a mirror for the mother. It’s a common trope, motherhood being the most unselfish of occupations and perhaps the most revered, therefore in order for a woman to be truly evil, she must also be a bad mother.

So two examples of bad motherhood, one completely consumed by her child, the other only consumed by her child because of the power and status it offers her, both characters however revealed by their relationship to their children (something I find a little frustrating, personally).

Then there is the nice mother; there always has to be a nice mom. Someone who legitimately cares for her children and does her best to offer them a stable and happy home, free from a “take whatever you want” kind of attitude, and while that is how the lovely Lady Stark begins (every time someone says Stark in the show though, I totally think of Iron Man and subsequently, Robert Downey Jr.; it’s a happy thought), she ends up being a very different kind of mother.

I find it interesting that she decides to join her oldest son Robb on the battlefield and become his most valuable diplomat and negotiator, scoring him alliances and armies at every turn. It’s possibly the most unique portrayal of motherhood in the show, in that it morphs from kindly lady sitting by the fire, watching her sick child, to wartime confidant and adviser. The Lady Stark pounds around on her white horse, offering counsel to her son, but also taking his commands as she rushes into hostile camps and offers a truce here and a daughter there in exchange for a few more soldiers. It’s a very different kind of motherhood, one that is loving, but ultimately becomes a bit harder when she begins to bargain off her children (giving Arya to one of Lord Frey’s sons and Robb to one of his daughters) in order to keep them safe, and even to get what she wants: a little revenge for her husbands death.

I suppose you can therefore read it two ways: Lady Stark is merely caught between a rock and a hard place and is doing what she must in order to protect them, or she, like the other mothers, is willing to use her children in order to fulfill her own selfish ends. I’ll let you decide in her case.

The last instance of motherhood is rather short-lived and consists mostly of pregnancy; I’m referring to the delicate-turned-fiery (literally) Daenerys Targaryen and her unborn son. Daenerys is queen (by marriage) of the Dothraki, a war-like, horse-loving people of nomads and once she gets pregnant with a son (it’s always a son) she becomes an object of worship for her people. Her ability to become impregnated elevates and causes an outpouring of love for her amongst her people, a circumstance that I see repeated often in films and even in our society.

The worship of fertility has a huge place in our history: fertility gods, fertility idols, fertility rites are everywhere as a symbol of the divine power inherent in childbirth. Now, I am not a mother, I’ve never had children, but I see it even today, the belief that the pregnant lady can do no wrong (believe me friends, she can); I’m not trying to belittle this situation, or even criticize it, merely pointing out it’s prevalence in our society.

In the scene above, Daenerys is kneeling on a dais, surrounded by people cheering her name, while she eats a raw horse heart as a power ritual designed to give her son strength. Daenerys is in positioned above everyone else as she takes on the divine mother role; she is to be the deliverer of a mighty new son and ruler, a vessel of the future.

However, I find this problematic sometimes, as it seems to suggest that Daenerys’ worth is directly tied to her ability to be used by something else (in this case, her child). Though perhaps that analogy doesn’t work in this situation as she ends up sacrificing her own son’s life in order to save her husband. So again, in this series, the child becomes something to be used in order to achieve her own ends.

On a depressing note, I guess what I’m saying is, the mothers in Game of Thrones are not very nice mothers.

Rachel Redfern has an MA in English literature, where she conducted research on modern American literature and film and it’s intersection, however she spends most of her time watching HBO shows, traveling, and blogging and reading about feminism.

Motherhood in Film & Television: Sherrybaby

2012-05-22T18:00:00.000-04:00

Maggie Gyllenhall in Sherrybaby

This is a guest review by Gabriella Apicella.

In all areas of our lives, women are neatly packaged into stereotypes that strip us of complexity and personality. Dating back to the original typecasting of Virgin vs Whore, there are other labels that fall along the same trajectory, just as inadequate and inaccurate: Wife, Mother, Slut, Gold-digger, Victim, House-wife, Lesbian, Office Bitch, etc. All of these unhelpful words have been embodied by countless depictions in film, from “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” to “The Devil Wears Prada,” to “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.” So much so, that there appear to be very defined ideas in society of how any one of these characters may or may not behave.

What is so extraordinary about “Sherrybaby” is the main character is so completely rounded and real that she bursts free from the predictable constraints imposed by stereotypes. The film follows Sherry Swanson, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, as she tries to reconnect with her daughter after being released from prison. Yet although this provides the main motivation for virtually everything she does in the film, writer and director Laurie Collyer has brought to the screen a female character who is not just a passionate mother, not just a recovering addict, not just a victim of abuse, not just a sexually confident woman, not just a sweet primary school teacher, but ALL of these things.

Maggie Gyllenhaal in Sherrybaby

Even within my own circle of friends I have had conversations where they have expressed concern about how they should or should not behave now that they have become mothers. This revered state of Motherhood has them calling into question how much they should now drink, have sex, enjoy their careers: clearly something is very wrong if women are feeling that they are not free to be themselves, because they have become a mother. Other friends have confided to losing close friends since having a child – as if they are perceived as not even being the same person anymore!

Flaws within a mother are almost inexcusable by society: how dare they drink, have sex, work, put anyone but their child first 24 hours a day every day for the rest of their lives! Film and society at large have both upheld this unattainable expectation of virtuous behaviour, giving transgressors the harshest of punishments. In film “bad mothers” tend to end up dead, alone or insane, whereas the rates of women being imprisoned is climbing at an extraordinary rate, with nearly two-thirds of the prison population being mothers.

Director Laurie Collyer with Maggie Gyllenhaal

Watching the painstaking journey Sherry Swanson takes in “Sherrybaby” is almost unbearably moving at times. Her resolve to be with her child is steadfast throughout, yet as she makes attempts to reconnect with her, the audience is also shown the different sides to her personality; sexual, troubled, playful, over-sensitive, kind, immature, ruthless, Gyllenhaal’s performance is nuanced and raw.

Whilst she explodes into a violent rage at one of the bullying women harassing her in a halfway-house, she maintains her composure and diplomacy with the far more painful handling of a conversation with her sister-in-law, who has instructed Sherry’s daughter to call her Sherry instead of “Mom.” When her child Alexis appears to be scared of her, and is reluctant to spend a day with her, Sherry never loses her patience, and only displays love and tenderness to the child; entirely at odds with her declaration at an interview “I’ll suck your dick if you give me the job I want.”

Director of Sherrybaby, Laurie Collyer

There is no straightforward way to describe this character, as all the contrasting facets of Sherry’s personality are evident, and yet she remains consistent. Perhaps this has been the quandary of filmmakers, and the reason for stereotypes: how is it possible to reconcile so many different characteristics into one person? So “Moms” (and let’s face it, Women) are wholesome and good, or crazy and bad. But people are multi-faceted, as are Moms, and the sensationally real depiction of Sherry by Laurie Collyer demonstrates expertly that there is no need for the two-dimensional predictability we are used to from female roles.

Without using over-egged sentimentality, Collyer even affords Sherry the possibility of happiness, showing that despite her drug-taking, sexual misadventures and lack of parenting skills, she deserves a second chance. This compassion is certainly missing from film depictions of women, and is all too often missing from wider society also. Both must change so that women may smash through the stereotypes.

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

Motherhood in Film & Television: The Evolution of Margaret White

2012-05-22T15:00:00.000-04:00

Piper Laurie and Sissy Spacek (1976 film)

This piece is from Monthly Contributor Carrie Nelson.

(Warning: Contains spoilers about Stephen King’s Carrie and its film and stage adaptations.)

I love Stephen King’s Carrie, and not just because we share the same name. More than anything, I love the way that Carrie honestly explores the tensions and horrors of being a teenage girl. The details of the story aren’t terribly realistic – not many teenage outcasts have telekinetic powers, and few high school send-offs involve murdering everyone at the prom. But the anxiety around getting your first period, the fear that the boy asking you on a date is only doing it as a prank, the compulsion to make fun of others even though you know it’s wrong – these are normal parts of being a teenager. King’s book taps into those experiences incredibly well, which is why the story has resulted in numerous artistic adaptations.

Carrie was first made into a film in 1976. Since then, it has become a stage musical, a made-for-TV movie, and it will soon be made into a new film, directed by Kimberly Peirce and starring Chloë Moretz in the title role. Every adaptation of Carrie contains similar elements (notably the torturous shower scene in the beginning and the fatal prom toward the end), but other aspects of the story change slightly in each incarnation. What I want to talk about today are the ways in which the character of Margaret White, Carrie’s religious fundamentalist mother, has evolved over the years. Margaret is arguably the most frightening character in Carrie, and I believe that she has only become more disturbing in each new incarnation, but for a different reason than one might suspect.

In the 1976 Brian De Palma adaptation, Piper Laurie plays Margaret. Laurie’s interpretation of the role is iconic, but something about the performance has always rung false to me. Laurie’s Margaret is loud and bombastic and evil, to a degree that’s almost campy. In particular, the scene in which Margaret dies is significantly different from King’s novel. In the book, Carrie uses her telekinetic powers to stop Margaret’s heart, but in the De Palma film, Carrie uses her powers to send knives flying at Margaret, crucifying her and mimicking the imagery of Saint Sebastian that torments Carrie throughout the film. It’s an unforgettable image, and given the visual nature of cinema, it makes sense that this particular detail would be modified from the book. (It’s important to note, however, that the De Palma adaptation is the only version with this ending – all others I’ve seen remain true to King’s original ending.) However, the excessive spectacle of the scene (and the film as a whole) lessens the emotional impact. Laurie’s Margaret is shocking and disturbing, but there’s an emotional element missing from the performance, which has always bothered me.

Marin Mazzie and Molly Ranson (2012 musical revival)

I saw the 1976 version of Carrie for the first time nearly five years ago, and it wasn’t until recently that I realized what doesn’t work for me about Laurie’s performance – it’s entirely one-dimensional. It’s cartoonish, even. It’s hard to be frightened by Laurie’s Margaret when she seems so unlike any mother who could realistically exist. But that isn’t how the character has to be. I thought about this in March, when I saw the MCC Theater’s Off-Broadway revival of the Carrie musical. Now, I did not see the original version of the musical, which opened on Broadway in 1988 and closed after only five performances, making it one of the biggest Broadway flops of all time. I cannot speak to that version, but I can speak to the heavily revised revival, in which Marin Mazzie played an unnervingly sympathetic version of Margaret. Though the story is the same, and Margaret is still deeply disturbed and abusive, there is a greater emphasis on Margaret’s inner struggle and the reality that she truly wants to help her daughter. In the second act, Margaret sings, “When There’s No One,” a moving ballad that reveals her intention to murder her daughter and the despair she feels about that decision. Rather than solely seeing Margaret’s evil and rage, in this version we see her rationalization. We see a fully developed character, a person who truly believes she is making the right decision, which makes the decision even more horrifying. There is nothing cartoonish about Mazzie’s Margaret, which made her far more terrifying than Laurie’s Margaret ever could be.

Patricia Clarkson (2002 made-for-TV movie)

I feel similarly about Patricia Clarkson’s interpretation of Margaret in the 2002 made-for-TV movie version. In a dramatic shift from Laurie’s excitable reading, Clarkson nearly whispers all of her dialogue. Clarkson’s Margaret is completely understated, so much so that you almost believe she might come around and change her mind about her daughter. Of course, she doesn’t, and the scene in which Margaret tries to kill Carrie is shocking not because of the spectacle but because it catches you off-guard. This isn’t to say that the 2002 Carrie isn’t filled with spectacle – it is, sometimes to a distracting degree. But Clarkson’s performance as Margaret remains the calm, quiet element of the film, making her ultimate act of violence against her daughter all the more frightening.

Kimberly Peirce’s highly anticipated remake of Carrie will be released in 2013. Little has been revealed about Peirce’s plans and vision, but Chloë Moretz promises the film “really looks into the relationship of Margaret and Carrie.” Julianne Moore recently signed on to play Margaret, a decision that makes me incredibly excited and anxious to see the film. I believe Moore will be able to add subtlety and nuance to the role, adding layers to Margaret’s character that have never been present before. I look forward to reading more about the film and Moore’s work on it as it enters production.

I recently spoke with a friend who said that she didn’t think Carrie should be remade. She said the original is good enough as it is, so why change it? While I agree that the 1976 version is a classic, and nothing will ever replace it in cinematic history, I do think that much more can be done with the story. Particularly, I believe Margaret has much more room to grow as a character, and if the 2002 television film and the 2012 stage adaptation tell us anything, it’s that Margaret’s horror doesn’t come from her anger and violence – it comes from the completely calm way in which she rationalizes her beliefs and her actions. I hope to see Peirce’s version take Margaret even further as a character. I don’t know what that will look like, but I am anxious to find out.

Fan-designed poster for upcoming remake

Carrie Nelson is a Bitch Flicks monthly contributor. She was a Staff Writer for Gender Across Borders, an international feminist community and blog that she co-founded in 2009. She works as a grant writer for an LGBT nonprofit, and she is currently pursuing an MA in Media Studies at The New School.

Motherhood in Film & Television: 'Rosemary's Baby'

2012-05-22T12:00:00.000-04:00

This is a guest post from Erin Fenner.

Rosemary’s Baby, the Roman Polanski 1968 adaptation of the novel with the same name, uses minimal effects. While it is a horror story about the mother of Satan’s child, we only briefly glimpse the arm and eyes of the feature’s supposed monster. And, while the plot against Rosemary is conceived by a coven of witches, we don’t see bubbling potions. That is because Rosemary’s Baby is not a horror story about Satan or witchcraft.

Rosemary’s Baby is a horror story about being a woman.

Watch the trailer:

Rosemary, played by the waifish Mia Farrow, is a young woman excited for her role as wife and soon-to-be mother. But, even in her acceptance and celebration of traditional gender roles she is exploited, robbed of autonomy, discounted as hysterical and ultimately must give up all control of herself and her body.

Sound familiar? That’s because her terrors are real ones with just a dash of supernatural motivations.

We meet Rosemary when she and her husband, Guy, played by John Cassavetes, decide to move into a new apartment house. She is the picture of a cheerful stay-at-home wife – taking pleasure in decorating the house, filled with bubbling optimism and one who enjoys pleasing her husband. All she wants beyond her currently cozy situation is to become a mother.

She gets her wish when Guy, an ambitious actor, declares he’s ready to be a dad. The audience learns quickly that his motivations aren’t rooted in a comparable desire for fatherhood, but because he’s made a pact with peculiar neighbors we later discover are witches. He gets a shot at success if he delivers them a baby.

While the viewer can deduce this easily, we never see the world from anyone’s perspective but Rosemary’s. We spend most of the film cooped up with her, claustrophobic and powerless, in the apartment house.

The conception of Rosemary’s baby happens in a particularly brutal way – through rape. Guy drugs his wife and takes her to a ritual to be impregnated by Satan. Rosemary is semi-conscious and cries out, “This is no dream – this is really happening!” And, when she wakes up the next morning, Guy casually mentions that he had sex with her while she was sleeping. So, even though upon waking she concludes the rape was a dream, she still considers the conception of her baby as one derived through non-consensual sex. Her first step toward motherhood is one where she is deprived the right to control her own body.

Her journey into motherhood is further hijacked by Guy and her witch-neighbors who insist on her going to a different doctor – one we learn is part of the Satanist coven. Her new doctor, Dr. Sapirstein, played by Ralph Bellamy, demands she ignores the advice of her friends and books, and only listen to his instructions. Whenever she expresses concern about her pregnancy, he shoots her perspective down and shames her for self-education.

Rosemary (Mia Farrow)

We see the already thin Rosemary develop pronounced dark shadows under her eyes and become emaciated. She says she’s in a constant state of pain. It’s only when, during a party with her peers, that she is validated by other women. One of her friends even pushes Guy out of the room so that they can express their support and concern. It’s from this very brief exchange with her friends, where they insist her pain is abnormal, that Rosemary is empowered and encouraged to change doctors and take charge of her own health.

This empowerment is short-lived, because she gives up after a fight with Guy and her pain eases up. She relinquishes to her husband and her body.

Her small rebellions against others’ attempts to control her body – like not drinking the drink her witch-neighbors prepare for her – cease. She falls easily into passivity until she reads a book left to her by an old friend who we can presume was murdered by the coven next door.

The book details the history of the coven that had lived in her apartment house generations before, and helps her conclude that her pregnancy is central to a plot devised by her neighbors, husband and doctor.

With this new realization Rosemary rushes to her old obstetrician, Dr. Hill, played by Charles Grodin, to seek help. After pleading with him for assistance, Dr. Hill brings her into a room for rest, but then returns with Guy and Dr. Sapirstein to sedate her and take her away. She is dismissed as being a hysterical woman: pre-partum.

The next scenes are delirious. Rosemary is sedated, and when awake she attempts to make demands, but is denied. And, when she gives birth, she is not allowed to see her baby and is deceived about its condition.

Rosemary’s only motivation now is centered on her motherhood. It’s the only power she can claim. So, after recovering from giving birth, she sneaks around her apartment house, and finds a hidden passage to the witch-neighbors. There she finds the coven surrounding a satanic crib.

The scene is almost anti-climactic. There is no struggle and no high drama speeches. Rosemary discovers her baby is a monster – the son of Satan. She learns the truth – her husband and neighbors were plotting against her. And then, she resigns herself. She has already lost control of her body long ago and has nothing left but her role as a mother.

Rosemary lives up perfectly to the norm of womanhood. Unlike the women who we begrudgingly expect to be punished in films because they are promiscuous, independent, “bitchy” or uninterested in family life – we would expect Rosemary’s story to pan out positively because she adheres to gendered expectations.

But, Rosemary’s Baby is not a film meant to encourage a fearful narrative about the value of following prescribed roles – instead it is about a woman who is victimized by the very gender roles she had enthusiastically accepted. Rosemary accepts her societal role as a woman. Still, she is punished and suffers. And, because it is so close to reality, it is horrifying.

Erin Fenner is a legislative intern and blogger for Trust Women: advocating for the reproductive rights of women in conservative Midwestern states. She also writes for the Trust Women blog and manages their social media networks. She graduated from the University of Idaho with a B.S. in Journalism.

Motherhood in Film & Television: Three Generations of Mothering on 'The Gilmore Girls'

2012-05-22T09:12:00.000-04:00

Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham)

This is a guest post from Megan Ryland.

For me, no television mother springs to mind faster than Lorelai Gilmore of the long running show The Gilmore Girls. In fact, what is arguably so special about the show is that it offers a popular mainstream venue to focus on mothering, and especially the challenges of mother/daughter relationships. Of course mothers are a constant feature in the media (how else would mothers know how to behave!?) but teenagers are rarely depicted as having a positive relationship with their mother. Rory and Lorelai have a tight bond that remains the central focus of the show despite relationship drama for both mother and daughter. They also bring in the dual roles of mother and daughter when Lorelai interacts with her own mother, Emily.

Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel)

Lauren Graham plays Lorelai, an over-caffeinated, high energy manager of a successful inn. As her daughter Rory, Alexis Bledel is a teenager striving more for a Harvard acceptance letter than a date, who has inside jokes with her mother, and clearly thrives in this single mother household. Lorelai’s status as a single mother is important because we are reminded time and time again that Lorelai has created a life that she (and her daughter, and the rest of the townsfolk) finds satisfying and valuable. This is a very different portrayal of the consequences of teenage motherhood.

Although coming from money and privilege, Lorelai left behind the trust fund life when she had Rory at 16. She rejected her parent’s assistance, refused to marry Rory’s dad, and struck out on her own. This further soured Lorelai’s already poor relationship with her own mother, Emily Gilmore, but has not led to Lorelai being a “Bad Mother.” There are many factors that allow for this, including racial, geographic, cultural, class, etc. For example, as a young white woman with the cultural capital of high class status, Lorelai is able to dodge stereotypes and the accompanying discrimination that a young woman of colour and/or low socioeconomic standing might face. This is an unspoken advantage that may allow viewers to accept Lorelai as a successful single mother. However, I still believe that the representation of Lorelai as a mother who has done a great job raising a child without the aid of huge financial resources or a masculine figure is a major plus for the show. And of course her position as a single mother remains difficult. In fact, the impetus of the show is that the lack of financial resources for Rory’s schooling brings all three generations of Gilmores back together, because Lorelai asks her parents to help pay for Rory’s elite education and in exchange her parents re-enter her life.

Movie night with the Gilmore Girls

Rory and Lorelai have a very complex relationship. Rory is occasionally mothering Lorelai, but it is never a permanent role. Superior experience is always on Lorelai’s side and she is able to act as mentor to Rory as she grows up. Lorelai doesn’t always advise her in the most conventional ways, but I would argue that she rarely verges into juvenile territory while parenting. Her temperament is youthful, while Rory’s is much more mature for her age, but they remain a mother/daughter team, and a best friendship. Again, this sort of bond is rare. I think that it’s valuable for a show on a network aimed at young people (WB and then CW) to contain positive relationships between parent and child.

In the first season, they deal with questions of how Lorelai can date as a mother, and how she can share the space that she has carved out for herself and Rory with a romantic partner. This is an important question, and one that is realistically complicated (of course, it’s also made unreasonably complicated by the necessary hijinks of television). Lorelai and Rory are given scenes where they discuss their needs, desires and challenges. Furthermore, Lorelai is accepted as a sexual being who can also be a good mother. I would call that a win.

What is arguably more common on television is the relationship between Lorelai and her mother, Emily Gilmore. Many rants and screaming matches are conducted between them, as their relationship appears based in constant misunderstandings. However, despite estrangement and resentment, the relationship between Emily and Lorelai is arguably never unsalvageable. No one can really write off this bond, because Emily and/or Lorelai occasionally show that they do indeed care for and value one another.

Emily Gilmore (Kelly Bishop)

Emily is first seen as a stereotypical suffocating, judgmental, harpy of an older mother, except when she becomes vulnerable and shows that she works hard to keep up appearances. She is bedridden when Lorelai runs away, she attends her granddaughter’s 16th birthday despite hurt feelings, and most of all, she is concerned that she might lose her family. She is far more complex than the typical older woman caricature and Kelly Bishop does a fantastic job with the role. Viewers can potentially sympathize with Emily’s ideals (often a product of her time and upbringing) and her feelings of exclusion from her daughter and granddaughter’s lives, even if they can’t identify with her strategies for keeping them close. At the same time, fans can also understand why Lorelai ran from the privileged life that she had grown up with, as well as the difficulties that accompanied that choice.

Arguably Emily was a type of lone parent, as Lorelai’s father was a typical career man who barely had time to put down the paper or end the conference call for meals. Although Emily was privileged to have a number of servants and nannies at her disposal, the fathering provided by Mr. Gilmore appears to have been very limited. As the most involved parent by far, Emily’s mothering has not fostered an obvious bond, showing that this connection is not inevitable. What Rory and Lorelai have takes work and is very special. It’s not a natural given.

The show allows for an exploration of motherhood from a variety of angles. An important aspect is the interplay between the daughter and mother roles. Throughout its many seasons, all three Gilmore women are placed in daughter and mothering roles. For example, in one scene in the first season, Rory is missing after a dance and Emily accuses Lorelai of raising a child as wild and irresponsible as herself. Lorelai defends Rory and says that she trusts her daughter, acting as a daughter herself in a situation with her mother. However, when Emily leaves and a contrite Rory appears, Lorelai acts as the mother terrified for her missing child and admonishes Rory. The transition between daughter and mother happens in a few minutes and it’s not only beautifully acted, but also representative of the dual(+) roles that many mothers play. You are never just a mother. You are also a daughter, whether or not your mother is always present. You parent with a history as a child. It’s a fantastic scene and shows part of the complexity of a mother’s role.

Three generations of Gilmore Girls

The interactions between Emily, Lorelai and Rory Gilmore make the show Gilmore Girls a unique offering. Rarely do popular shows for young people focus on the relationships between generations of women, or the role (and challenges) of contemporary mothering. Race and class issues abound in the show, which should be unpacked, but as a forum for understanding some aspects of mothering and honouring mother/daughter bonds, Gilmore Girls is fantastic.

Megan Ryland is currently completing her BA, focusing on politics, women and gender. She writes about feminism, body image, and media analysis on her blog, http://beautyvsbeast.wordpress.com. She also releases the weekly show Hello City! Culture Cast, a Vancouver-based podcast that reviews movies, theatre, concerts and more.

Motherhood in Film & Television: 'Carrie'

2012-05-21T15:03:00.002-04:00

Jamie Lynne Grumet on Time

Recently there’s been major hullabaloo about Jamie Lynne Grumet, the 26-year-old California mom who proudly posed on the cover of Time magazine breastfeeding her 3-year-old son. Ridiculed, condemned and completely unorthodox, this shocking image continues to reverberate across the globe.

A similar effigy from the 1976 film Carrie has lingered in our minds for more than three decades. It’s near the end of the movie, when religious momster Margaret White (Piper Laurie) is at the end of her rope trying to jam some fundamentalist sense in her terribly feeble-minded teenage daughter, Carrie (Sissy Spacek).

For several minutes she’s imploring one strict value after the next on Carrie, desperately teaching her to repent for the sin she has committed. But when her daughter needs her the most, she is knee-deep in a sermon trying to shelter her from all the evil in the world. In a fit of rage, her telekinetic daughter mind-hurls several knives at her, stapling her to the wall in a perfect crucifixion. Her head tilted to her right in blissful silence.

“I should've killed myself when he put it in me…. I should've given you to God when you were born, but I was weak and backsliding, and now the devil has come home.”

A crucified Mrs. White

One could discern that Mrs. White was taken out of her misery, which enveloped her throughout her adult life and suffocated her maternal instincts. Or did it?

Often times we are quick to judge parents—especially mothers—whose values and beliefs differ from our own. We deify figures like Angelina Jolie as Mother Theresa or sacrifice them as we do both Jamie and Margaret. But both sides have their own story, and they both think they’re right.

On the surface, it’s so easy to criticize Margaret. But there is something so inherently evil yet desperately loving about Laurie’s pitch-perfect performance of the religion-stricken single mother. You know she wants what she thinks is best for her child, like all great mothers do. But she’s too terrified—or terrifying?—to really consider what she’s saying. She wanted Carrie to be God-fearing, like herself. She wanted her to not suffer the tainted feeling of self-disgust with which she was burdened every day. In essence, she wanted her daughter’s life to be better than her own, by not making the same mistakes she did.

But when Mrs. White saw her daughter developing breasts and getting her period, and even receiving interest to attend the prom, her maternal preference overwhelmed her. She had to intervene before her Carrie ended up shameful, deflowered and ungodly like she had become. It was imperative.

Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie in Carrie

However, she could never really convey her true intentions to Carrie. It was always about what Carrie shouldn’t be doing, even when Carrie herself couldn’t fully comprehend the course her life was taking. It was always about repenting, while never examining what the repenting was for.

Meanwhile, Carrie is relentlessly teased in her school for her extraordinary innocence, and became the object of a vicious stunt that escalated beyond both her and the perpetrators’ most barbaric imaginations. Her fate at school is exacerbated when news gets around about what her mother is like. While her mother’s behavior minimally explains the way Carrie is, it doesn’t end antagonistic remarks of her peers. They don’t understand why neither Carrie nor her mother are the way they are, but they do know that they must be against it.

It’s not until Carrie realizes that there’s something gravely askew about her mother’s parental guidance—really on account of her peers’ reaction to her mien—when the position of her mother’s stance becomes horribly acute. Margaret’s unusual parenting style made sense for a long while, before it was held under the light and scrutinized by those on the outside, and before Carrie knew well enough to attempt to break away from it. That was the precise time when Margaret discovered that her daughter had become the person she tried to prevent all these years, and that her long-time fear had finally come to fruition.

“All the kids think I'm funny, and I don't wanna be. I wanna be normal…. a whole person, before it's too late for me to –“ [Margaret throws tea on her face, Carrie wipes it off].

Piper Laurie as Margaret White

Laurie’s perfect portrayal of a mother obsessed with her own ideals is mesmerizing to watch unfold. She’s like a pressure-cooker that slowly percolates until she eventually boils over and quietly explodes by the end of the movie. But she never loses her cool; she barely offers any inflection in her voice. She’s calm but deliberate. It’s the very thing which unsettles you when you watch her onscreen. You know her heart is in the right place, and that she—like most good mothers—just want her daughter to grow up better than how she saw the rest of the world.

But once her fear overpowered her rationale, once her masked hysteria was put on full blast through the halls of her daughter’s high school, she became victimized by her own steeple of values. She became the monster that you delighted in only when she was sacrificed for the greater good.

Clearly Margaret is not without her faults. As stated before, she wouldn’t impose these atypical morals on her daughter if she didn’t truly believe them to be right. That’s why we see her preaching the message around the neighborhood, to even parents of Carrie’s peers—she sees nothing wrong in what she does, but everything amoral about what everyone else does, which ultimately makes her out to be a frightening proselytizer when all she wants to do is protect them. When she can’t convince others to see her view, she is comfortable knowing that her daughter will at least be saved from the fires of hell.

But by then it’s too late. Her daughter had been influenced by the kids at school, who nominated themselves as judge and jury in the case of Margaret White versus everyone else.

Whatever you think about the way in which other mothers choose to parent their children—and Lord knows some of them are real head-scratchers—is it ever okay for us to impart our notion of right and wrong on them? I wonder how Margaret would have fared if she was on the cover of Time with the cover line, Pimples are the Lord's way of chastising you.

Candice Frederick is an NABJ award-winning journalist and film blogger for Reel Talk. She’s also written for Essence Magazine and The Urban Daily. Follow her on twitter.

Motherhood in Film and Television: Mothers of Anarchy: Power and Control in the Feminine Sphere

2012-05-21T12:00:00.000-04:00

This is a guest review by Leigh Kolb.

The ancient idea that men and women inhabit different spheres based on their biological makeup is rooted deeply in Western culture. In the Nineteenth Century, however, when the Victorian era dictated behavior and the Industrial Revolution changed work, scientists and civilians defined and embraced this idea of True Womanhood. Men’s and women’s spheres were separate—his was public and political, hers was inside the home and maternal. This is certainly not an argument that has died, and one would be hard-pressed not to find the same rhetoric at houses of worship and houses of legislation today. Many representations of women in media reiterate this ideology.

Motherhood is firmly rooted in the feminine sphere—inside the womb to inside the nursery. In the critically acclaimed television drama Sons of Anarchy, the gendered spheres are clear and present. Sons of Anarchy is oftentimes dubbed “Hamlet on motorcycles” since the plot line bears a strong resemblance to Shakespeare’s Hamlet (which is an important note for feminist analysis, considering Shakespeare’s own subversive feminism). As in Hamlet, Sons of Anarchy’s audiences and critics often focus on the protagonist, the “ghost” of his father, his nefarious stepfather, and the men who surround him. The excitement of politics, public tension, violence, and man’s inner struggle always trumps the inner-workings of the home and child-rearing. The power is in the public sphere.

Gemma threatens Wendy. She makes it clear that no one will hurt her son or grandson.

The Mothers of Anarchy, on the surface, have no control. In reality, they have all of the control.

The matriarch “old lady” (the endearing term club members give to their partners) of the California motorcycle club is Gemma (Katey Sagal). She is the Gertrude-inspired character who has married one of the original members of the club, after her husband was killed. Her first husband helped found the Sons of Anarchy motorcycle club after Gemma became pregnant with their son and wanted to settle in Charming, where her parents were from. She may not ride, but her instincts and desires steered the club from its inception. The town’s police chief refers to Gemma as "leaving Charming when she was sixteen and showing up 10 years later with a baby and a biker gang."

This original group, which spawned numerous Sons of Anarchy chapters after its founding, is referred to as Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Originals (SAMCRO).

Tara and Gemma together saved baby Abel's life, and Jax, his father, holds him.

In the pilot episode, there are explosions, murders, gun runs, back room decisions, and motorcycles tearing up the streets. Of course, one doesn’t need to analyze too much to see the clearly phallic representations of masculinity in motorcycles and firearms. It is also clear that the women in the episode are revolving around the hallmark of True Womanhood—motherhood.

Gemma’s son Jax (Charlie Hunnam) has a pregnant ex-wife, Wendy (Drea de Matteo). As Gemma is driving to check on her, Wendy is in the kitchen injecting herself with a syringe-full of meth. The camera pans out to a very pregnant Wendy with her hand on her belly, relaxed. This is a fallen mother. Gemma finds her in a pool of blood, curses at her, and rushes her to the hospital. At the hospital, Tara (Maggie Siff), a surgeon and Jax’s ex-girlfriend, is tending to Wendy and Abel, who was delivered via emergency c-section ten weeks premature. Immediately the audience is presented with the powerful mother and matriarch, the bad mother (and few things are worse in our society than a bad mother), and the professional mother, who is responsible for keeping Abel alive since his biological mother could not.

Gemma's maternal instincts are fierce and stinging.

These three pivotal female characters revolve around a baby, and they are portrayed inside—literally and figuratively. The women are inside when introduced to the audience—Gemma is in her car, Wendy is in her kitchen, and Tara is in the hospital. When Gemma wields her knowledge of and power over the club to Clay, they are in the bedroom. The male characters are largely outside—riding their bikes, working on cars, and scoping out new property.

Toward the end of the episode, the men of Sons of Anarchy are engaged in club warfare, and commit brutally violent crimes (involving guns, explosives, and vehicles) as they navigate the changing waters of their club’s purpose and see their territory shifting to guns and drugs.

Tara and Jax have a son, Thomas, and they together raise him and Abel.

Spliced into this plotline are the scenes from the hospital. Gemma has slipped Wendy a syringe with an order to commit suicide (she puts the syringe in a Bible after they pray—religion and piety is also in the feminine sphere). Tara is operating on Abel, inside of him, and starts his heart after it stops.

The masculine sphere is powerful, aggressive, and largely superficial. The feminine sphere, while perceived as less important and less powerful, deals in matters much closer: giving life, manipulating life, and sustaining life. When Jax comes to the hospital to visit his son, he is beat up and bloodied from his duties outside. Tara tells him to clean himself up, and then he can see his son. Tara—who gave Abel his heartbeat, not Wendy—is in control. It’s simply a matter of time before she and Jax are in a relationship and she is clearly an old lady in training.

Gemma looks at an old photo of her and John, Jax's father and the co-founder of SAMCRO.

While the pilot episode can be examined by itself through a feminist lens, the entire series follows its women with the same watchful eye. What may sound like one-dimensional stereotypes in simple plot descriptions are actually nuanced female characters and plot lines.

Possibly the most obvious mother archetype in Western culture is the Virgin Mary. Sons of Anarchy does a commendable job of avoiding the virgin-whore dichotomy so prevalent in matters of femininity and motherhood. Gemma is a sexual creature and desires sex (one episode even deals with her battling vaginal dryness after menopause), but that isn’t problematic. The show manages to avoid the all-too-often inferred Oedipal nature of Hamlet and Gertrude in the Shakespeare original, showing that a woman can be sexual, and be a mother, and that’s OK.

In season two, Gemma is brutally raped by enemies of the club to divide and destroy SAMCRO. She is lured into the enemy’s hands when a young woman stops her on the road and begs her to check on her baby, who’s not breathing. Lured by her maternal instincts, Gemma rushes out of her car and into the woman’s van where there’s just a baby doll, and she’s knocked unconscious and taken to a warehouse where she’s assaulted. The way that she deals with the assault—secretive and ashamed, yet helped by Tara medically and emotionally—is painful and realistic. Tara was a victim of domestic violence, and the two come together not as victims, but as allies and survivors. When Gemma finally tells her family about the rape, they come together and are more united, not divided. As she explains the assault to Clay and Jax at the family dining table, Patty Griffin’s “Mary” plays softly in the background, conjuring the image of that original suffering mother; however, she is not the pure and perfect image of virginity; she is real, damaged, and whole. This is the True Womanhood, not that of silence and submissiveness. In this depiction, it’s clear that Gemma gains and keeps control and is not the one being controlled.

In an excellent piece at Yes Means Yes, a feminist blogger notes that “The strong women characters are not terminators with breasts, they’re real humans with full inner lives and complicated problems. The plots often explore women’s lives in ways that mainstream shows overlook. And the show humanizes women, like sex workers, who are too often presented as one dimensional.” Indeed, even the porn stars are human in Sons of Anarchy—not just human, but capable of mothering, and mothering well.

SAMCRO becomes affiliated with a porn production company, and club member Opie’s girlfriend (and eventual second wife) is one of its stars. Lyla has a son, and is compassionate in her role as step-mother to Opie’s children. Lyla is a caring mother, and also serves as a catalyst for conversations surrounding the topics of abortion and birth control. For motherhood shouldn’t just be about mothering children, but also about making choices about what’s best for the entire family (which sometimes means not having more children).

In season three, Lyla becomes pregnant and does not want to be (her relationship with Opie is not solid, and pregnancy would end her career in the porn industry, and she wants to work a few more years). Tara offers to take her, and she also is pregnant and decides she wants to schedule an abortion. The entire scene is without judgment or negativity—it’s a clean clinic, and a simple procedure. Tara references having an abortion at six weeks in her previous abusive relationship and that it was “not a baby” at that point. Rarely is abortion presented as realistic in popular culture. Feministing says of the episode, “Most TV shows won’t even present abortion as a viable option and if they do, it’s usually stigmatized and quickly discarded in favor of adoption or keeping the unintended pregnancy.” Later, when Opie discovers Lyla had an abortion and is taking birth control pills even though getting pregnant is her only way “out” of porn, he is angry. But it’s clear that the audience isn’t supposed to be.

Tara ends up not having an abortion, but not because of a moral awakening. She is abducted and almost killed by SAMCRO enemies, and is able to escape by telling the abductors she’s pregnant. After the ordeal, she and Jax see the unharmed baby on an ultrasound, and reconcile. At first, Tara appears to be more submissive after being held captive and choosing to have the baby. As the series progresses, however, viewers see her coming to power in the club by her own choosing. She will mother SAMCRO sons—adopting Abel and giving birth to Thomas—and she will become the matriarch.

Tara is poised to take over Gemma's position as matriarch.

As central as motherhood is to the various story arcs of Sons of Anarchy, one can’t help but notice that these strong female characters lack mother figures themselves. While Gemma had a mother growing up, she died from the family’s “fatal flaw” (a genetic heart condition). Tara’s mother died when she was young, and she inherited her father’s house and car. Father-son relationships are central to many of the storylines (certainly the relationship between Jax and his father’s letters, a.k.a. his “ghost,” and his relationship with his stepfather Clay; Opie’s relationship with his father, SAMCRO’s other founder; and Jax’s relationships with his young sons). In fiction, male protagonists are often driven by their relationships with their fathers—away from them or toward reconciliation. However, while audiences continue to see more female protagonists, those characters often have no mothers or are more influenced by their fathers or male mentors (The Killing and Homeland on television, for example, or Twilight and The Hunger Games in text and on film).

Of course this is not a new phenomenon. In Shakespeare’s works, “Fatherhood appears in full gamut, but motherhood, especially in the relationship of mother and daughter, is almost, though by no means quite, absent.” Hamlet’s Ophelia just had a father and brother to guide her (tragically), and no mother. Strong women are often portrayed as being on their own.

These reminders of the gendered spheres—men are in public, in politics, connected to their ancestors and to the world around them while women are inside, working in the home and raising another generation to fulfill these same gendered roles—continually romanticize the role of father and downplay the role of mother. So when modern women emerge on screen, even the most complex and nuanced characters such as those in Sons of Anarchy, there’s still the trouble of True Womanhood, at its core, not being rooted to power in connection. Instead, these women are lone wolves, seeking power where they can and how they can, because their mothers could not or chose not to—or perhaps because it’s simply not a narrative that’s at all woven into our culture.

In an interview, Sagal said of Gemma, ''At the core of her, she is a mother to all of these men. As tough and dark as she is - and she will slit your throat for the right reasons - she is big-hearted.'' The undertone of this quote is that Gemma cooks big meals, cleans up, and protects her “men.” Tara also grows into the role, serving as an on-call doctor for the club, bringing men back to life who would have otherwise died or been arrested. They are biological mothers to their sons, and mothers to the Sons. While the spheres are in place, the reality of the series is that these mothers may be perceived as being without power behind closed doors while the boys are killing, being killed, and making business decisions, but the power the mothers yield is monumental. Gemma has orchestrated the club from its beginning, and the fourth season ends with Tara standing over Jax at the head of the SAMCRO table. The audience knows the mothers’ roles, but the men often seem oblivious. The same can be said for Shakespeare’s mothers (it’s widely believed that Gertrude had a part in King Hamlet’s death plot). The audience will have to wait, however, to see if Western culture ever gets it right and removes the spheres that give the perception that motherhood lacks the power and strength of a twin-cam Harley.

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Leigh Kolb is an English and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri, and has an MFA in creative nonfiction writing. She lives on a small farm with her husband, dogs, chickens, and garden, and makes a terrible dinner party guest because all she wants to talk about is feminism and reproductive rights.

Motherhood in Film and Television: Nine Months Forward, Three Centuries Back

2012-05-21T09:00:00.000-04:00

Julianne Moore and Hugh Grant in the film Nine Months

This is a guest review by Tyler Adams.

Male Pregnancy

Nine Months, contrary to all expectations, is not about pregnancy. It’s about a man coping with a pregnancy. Yes. Here’s a film whose subject absolutely and biologically requires a woman – and it’s still about a man.

However, Nine Months does achieve sex equality of the most dubious sort – it’s insulting to men and women.

In the world of Nine Months, women have already accepted that their value lies primarily in their fecundity and that raising children is the only thing that matters. And now, it’s time for men to learn the same lesson.

Rebecca, whose unplanned pregnancy kick-starts the plot, knows full well the consequences of pregnancy. And she ignores them. She wants to keep the baby, immediately, after about five minutes of running time where she isn’t even onscreen.

To the film’s credit, it doesn’t demonize Rebecca for subtly, whisperingly alluding to abortion, but the film glosses over it too much to truly be considered ‘pro-choice.’

The conflict in the film’s first act is all about Samuel accusing Rebecca of getting pregnant on the sly. Yes. She tells him she’s pregnant and he turns it into an act of aggression against him. He blames it on her: condescendingly scoffing that birth control could be anything other than foolproof.

Then we get delightful dream sequences wherein Samuel imagines Rebecca as a praying mantis trying to eat him.

As Anita Sarkeesian points out in her excellent video 'Tropes vs. Women: The Evil Demon Seductress,' most praying mantis species don’t engage in sexual cannibalism. And neither do women. Except to adolescent men terrified of female sexuality.

Then there’s Samuel’s friend Sean, our childfree Straw-man. His girlfriend says she wants kids, she leaves when he says ‘no’ – a week later, he’s self-admittedly using another woman to ‘get him over the rough spots.’ He describes her breasts, calves, and skin like food, basically making her sound like a golem made of calzones, candy, and cake.

Bobbie, his ‘girlfriend’ is a stereotypically attractive young woman who literally never says a word during the whole film and has no narrative purpose other than temporary eye candy – so the film treats her about as well as Sean does. With Sean, the filmmakers are essentially equating child-freedom with misogyny. Hey, all women want kids, so not wanting to have kids means being anti-woman, right?

There certainly aren’t any major single, childfree, or independent women in the film. Gail is the only other main adult female character, and she has three daughters and one on the way. She talks to Rebecca about how ‘pregnancy is our profound biological right, something men can never experience,’ when Rebecca expresses her one, solitary note of doubt in the film (in a conversation that doesn’t even pass the Bechdel Test, given that it’s all about men and childbirth). This is pretty much the only time the film really deals with Rebecca’s perspective in a way that doesn’t relate to Samuel.

The idea is that it’s a woman’s duty to have children, which is ‘natural’ and therefore good, and a source of female privilege. Gail even frames this in feminist terms, as if Karen Horney’s ‘womb-envy’ concept was a step forward for gender equality (Enlightenment-era chauvinists celebrated women’s fecundity, too – Enlightenment-era feminists spent more time talking about women’s rights), and there’s anything empowering about the idea that women absolutely must have children regardless of their personal feelings, because, apparently, it’s the one advantage they have over men.

Rebecca calls independent single motherhood ‘fashionable,’ and ‘PC,’ basically dismissing it. She says she would rather have a family – as if a single parent family doesn’t count. All Samuel has to do is propose. Why she doesn’t just pop him the question is unexplained. Apparently, even the audience takes it for granted that that’s the man’s decision to make.

Nine Months is trying to celebrate motherhood through the eyes of a reluctant father. Rebecca’s feelings are barely addressed, and Gail doesn’t seem to know how to celebrate motherhood without also demeaning the childfree. She says of Samuel, ‘You have a baby, that means he’s gotta grow up. That’s what he’s afraid of. I mean, the baby’s the fun part…Look at all this stuff.’

She’s referring to the toy store merchandise. Yes. Apparently the joys of motherhood are not bonding with and nurturing other human beings, but buying them things. Gail has the ultimate conservative vision of motherhood – it combines chauvinism and capitalism!

Professional Parents

“What if the baby can see…your penis, coming toward it, that could scare the hell out of a baby…or what if your penis hit it in the head; it could cause brain damage…”

I’m not embellishing. That’s what Rebecca says, five months into her pregnancy, right before she and Samuel have sex. Rebecca is in her thirties, and – well, given the number of biological errors she made in two lines, I’m terrified of what else she doesn’t know about things you should and shouldn’t do during pregnancy.

What does it say about the state of women’s health education that this scene does not read as satire? And if it was supposed to be funny, well – maybe it could work as horror comedy, but I didn’t see any real commentary.

By the way, it should be mentioned that Samuel is a child psychotherapist. Or ‘kiddy shrink’ as Gail calls him. He’s a child psychotherapist and doesn’t know the first thing about pregnancy. He doesn’t know that amniotic fluid in the uterus protects the baby, and the cervix is blocked throughout most of a pregnancy, or you’d think he would have told Rebecca about it during their attempted sex scene.

He’s allegedly successful at his job, but all we see is his being clueless around children, insensitive around women, and ignorant about everything he should be an expert on. The man has to read a book like What to Expect When You’re Expecting, as if he’s never taken any classes on prenatal development. Well, he didn’t know that birth control is only 97 percent effective, so let’s just assume he’s never even taken sexual education at school.

We do see a competent, female gynecologist who more or less helps set Samuel on the right path, but for some reason, we spend a lot more time with bumbling Russian stereotype Dr. Kosevich. All the better to humiliate Rebecca with, I suppose, during her first doctor’s appointment, and later, during the world’s most farcical labor scene where Samuel nearly kills several people trying to get her to the hospital. Oh, and he starts a fistfight during her delivery. How you advocate birth while making it look horrible and playing it for juvenile laughs is anyone’s guess.

Marty and Gail are ultimately the people Rebecca and Samuel turn to for advice. No matter how poorly socialized their daughters are, they’re experts. A child psychotherapist like Samuel has to ask Marty and Gail for help, and as far as the narrative goes, they outrank a gynecologist. Even though Marty believes that you can tell the fetus’s gender by whether the mother’s carrying high or low, and that sexual positions influence sex determination. Although, the anti-intellectualism works well with the film’s overall sneering at creative and professional individuals.

Sean: “…the world is overpopulated; our society has too many starving children.”

Gail: “Well, I would say our society has too many starving artists…this was our parents’ home, but I don’t see you making any contribution…you keep this up you’ll die alone, like a dog, like a bum. Like Van Gogh.”

Sean is an artist, and Gail demeans him for it, because hey, we all know art doesn’t pay. Not like owning a car dealership like Marty, which is a much better contribution to society, of course.

Of course, Sean’s work seems irrelevant. Since he doesn’t ‘have’ a wife and kids, he’s not making any meaningful contribution to the world at all, according to Gail. She equates being single with being isolated, and being childfree with being childish. And the film takes her side.

When Sean argues that she and Marty used to have interests, and are now just obsessed with their children, she doesn’t even deny it. She just affirms that this is the way it should be. After all, earlier Rebecca instantly accepts that she has to quit her job as a dancing instructor – not just take a leave of absence; actually quit. Samuel, after his transformation, says ‘I don’t give a damn about me; I’m in love with my child.’ Apparently, parents of all genders should be denied personhood outside their children, and this is something all women want, and all men should want.

Girl Children

Ashley Johnson as Shannon Dwyer in Nine Months

Marty goes shopping for sports equipment as he’s assuring Samuel he’s having a boy, on no evidence. Apparently, all boys must be into sports, or they’ll be forced to be, and none of Marty’s daughters are athletes or could be.

When Samuel shows his distaste for being hit in the face or punched in the stomach by Marty or his daughters, Marty and the film insult Samuel’s masculinity. Especially when the daughters do it. When Marty gets into a fight with some Barney stand-in over some petty insults, Samuel doesn’t join in until he’s accused of being gay. It’s okay to be genuinely childish, apparently – like beating someone up in public over petty insults – as long as you look appropriately ‘masculine’ while doing so.

When Marty learns he’s having another girl, he complains (at the end, he relents and says, “I guess having another girl isn’t so bad.” Bravo.), and Samuel smirks about his good fortune in getting a boy. Earlier in the film, one of the reasons Samuel comes around and accepts the pregnancy is learning his child is a boy. The film obviously doesn’t value girls any more than it values women.

Samuel’s character arc is not about him overcoming his sexism – it’s about him ‘growing up’ by accepting fatherhood. When he reunites with Rebecca, he says he’s in love with his son, and is in love with her for having him – in love with her as a vessel, not a person, as Eve Kushner at Bright Lights Film Journal astutely observed. He never really misses her when she’s gone, never really asks how she’s feeling, or even has a real conversation with her – when he comes around, he comes around for the baby and not for her.

The film isn’t subverting the tropes that women, family, and children force men to lose personalities, that all women are content to be homemakers, that losing your personality is part of growing up, or that all people’s worth lies in childrearing – the film is just positively endorsing it all.

There’s nothing inherently bad about having children or getting married. One of the problems comes from the sentiment that you need a spouse and kids regardless of personal taste, or even regardless of the spouse and kids. The way many people talk about this is roughly: get a woman, or get a man, or get some kids. Any will do, apparently.

Children are not your unique children you can nurture and bond with – they’re just a burden that forces you to nobly suffer and mature. Marriage isn’t an outgrowth of a loving relationship between two complete individuals, it’s just an item on your life’s agenda to be crossed off, and establish you as an adult with a life worth living. Your spouse and children exist as objects related to you, and since that’s what you were looking for, that’s what you got.

It’s an attitude that not only reduces acceptable lifestyles down to practically nothing, but degrades the lifestyle it should be promoting. It’s a recipe for unhappy children, and unhappy marriages. Good thing Nine Months stops shortly after the nine months, and we don’t see our couple’s future. What we’ve seen – Samuel’s sullen patients, Marty and Gail’s children, as well as Marty and Gail – are evidence enough.

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Tyler August Adams is a Master’s candidate in Environmental Science and Policy, and writes decidedly unconventional reviews and reflections on the media at http://nevermedia.blogspot.com.

Bitch Flicks' Weekly Picks

2012-05-19T18:47:00.000-04:00

Stephanie's Picks:

Girls' Choice Movie Awards Survey for Adults from New Moon Girls

The Nerve of Lena Dunham by Linda Martin Alcoff for The Feminist Wire

Megan's Picks:

Geena Davis: Movies' View of Women Is Unbalanced via The Wall Street Journal

Hollywood's War on Women by Natalie Wilson via Ms. Magazine Blog

Take Action: Anti-Trans Victim Blaming in The New York Times by Jos Truitt via Feministing

Females Grossly Underrepresented and Misrepresented in Top Grossing Films of 2011 by Melissa Silverstein via Women and Hollywood

Zoe Saldana Angry About Lack of Diversity on Magazine Covers by Nicholas Robinson via Rolling Out

The Upfronts: Race and Gender in Fall Television by Alyssa Rosenberg via ThinkProgress

On Our Radar: Push Girls by Latoya Peterson via Racialicious

New TV Shows Created By Women for 2012-2013 by Melissa Silverstein via Women and Hollywood

Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival by Kjersten Johnson via Bitch Magazine Blog

Ethical Style: Vogue's Ban on Underage, Unhealthy Models Won't Solve Its Image Problem by Amanda Hess via Good

'Girl in Progress:' Female-Centric Film Tackles Strained Mother-Daughter Relationships, Single Motherhood and Navigating Adolescence

2012-05-17T16:17:00.000-04:00

Cierra Ramirez (Ansiedad) and Eva Mendes (Grace) in Girl in Progress

When I was growing up, I never felt like a child. With her continuous string of bad boyfriends, I always felt like I was the one taking care of my single mother and myself. I couldn’t wait to leave home and start a new life. So I can relate to the female-centric film Girl in Progress which tackles the topics of navigating adolescence and strained mother-daughter relationships.

Directed by Patricia Riggen (La Misma Luna aka Under the Same Moon) and written by Hiram Martinez, Girl in Progress features Eva Mendes as Grace, a struggling single mom. After reading coming-of-age books in school, her teen daughter Ansiedad (whose name means “anxiety”) decides to take a “shortcut to adulthood” and stage her own coming-of-age story. Ansiedad strives to forge her identity and chart her own course in the world.

Wait, a film focusing on women or girls? Directed by a woman? With women of color as characters?? Yes, yes and yes!

Vivacious, flawed and cavalier, single mom Grace left home after having Ansiedad at 17. Working two jobs, she struggles to pay the bills, including Ansiedad’s expensive private school tuition. Grace often seems like a big kid herself -- eating all the cereal, misplacing money, forgetting to buy shampoo. She tries her best but it’s very clear early on she has no clue how to be a mother to her precocious teen.

Played by newcomer Cierra Ramirez, Ansiedad is smart, perceptive, sarcastic and self-aware. She takes care of her mother, doing chores while her mom plays dress up in her bedroom. When her mom passes out after coming home late with her married boyfriend, Ansiedad carefully takes her shoes off. She knows (and tells) her mom she has terrible taste in men. She pushes her mom to pursue her dreams and go back to school. The roles have reversed. Even at her young age, Ansiedad is the responsible one, begrudgingly mothering her mom.

Exasperated by her childhood, Ansiedad decides it’s time to move on and grow up. But in order to do that, she believes she must reach certain milestones first. With the help of her best friend Tavita (scene-stealing Raini Rodriguez), Ansiedad plots her coming-of-age -- winning the chess tournament, becoming rebellious, drinking, transitioning from a “good girl” to a “bad girl,” having sex for the first time -- all so she can leave the mantle of girlhood behind.

Cierra Ramirez and Raini Rodriguez

Through her appearance, Ansiedad tries out various identities -- nerdy, Hot Topic-esque punk, quirky preppy -- all in an effort to find herself. Butterflies are a common symbol throughout the film, a metaphor for Ansiedad’s metamorphosis from girlhood. She yearns to grow up and escape her disappointing mother, who fails to give her the guidance and support she so desperately craves.

There’s a subplot of Tavita struggling with her weight. When Ansiedad tries to fit in with the cool girls, she betrays her best friend, cruelly taunting her weight. Later Tavita swallows diet pills in an effort to conform to thinness. A huge part of adolescence, a negative body image paralyzes many girls’ self-esteem. I just wish the message "you're beautiful the way you are" rang louder.

Beyond scenes of fat-shaming and slut-shaming, the jarring utterance of the R word made me cringe. Granted, teens say assloads of inappropriate and offensive things. But no one corrects them. There’s also a horrific “joke” about domestic violence (WTF??). Grace’s boss tells one of her co-workers she can’t be a restaurant manager because her husband beats her (someone seriously laughed at that in my theatre). He later tells Grace the server quit because she had a “fight with her stairs.” I’m not sure if the filmmakers were trying to convey characters’ douchebaggery or if they just thought ableism and abuse were funny. Newsflash, they’re not. Either way, the issues are treated nonchalantly, never given the exploration they truly need.

The film feels choppy as it vacillates between humorous moments of clarity along with bittersweet earnestness and stumbles of forced melodrama and clunky acting by some of the supporting cast. Despite the missteps and histrionics, moments of brilliance shine through. The opening scene, Ansiedad’s class presentation in which she shares her mother’s mistakes was funny and captivating. I adored Ansiedad and Tavita’s camaraderie. Mendes gave a great performance as the immature mom. But hands down, the absolute best moments in the film belonged to the fantastic Rodriguez. Her nuanced portrayal of a teen finding her way mesmerized and captivated.

With several Latino/a characters and Latinas in leading roles, the Girl in Progress effortlessly weaves class and ethnicity throughout the story. Ansiedad’s mother struggles to make ends meet while Tavita lives in a mansion with her mom sipping cocktails. Riggens said she liked setting the film in Seattle (filmed in Vancouver) as it’s not a border state or city, where most movies with Latinas take place.

Eva Mendes and Cierra Ramirez

One of the best scenes occurs between Grace and Ms. Armstrong (Patricia Arquette), Ansiedad’s English teacher. Ms. Armstrong tells Grace that Ansiedad is planning to run away and force herself into adulthood. We see race and class dynamics subtly play out as Grace believes the white educated teacher judges her and lack of education. In their exchange, we witness Grace’s insecurities about not finishing school and how her mother didn’t provide her with needed support. While we feel the sting of Ansiedad’s understandable resentment towards her mother, Grace’s ineptitude isn't demonized. Rather we begin to understand she failed to receive support from her mother too. Grace just doesn’t realize she’s replicating the same toxic pattern of neglect with her own daughter.

Ansiedad desperately tries to take a different path than her mother. But she realizes (interestingly when she mimics her mother’s hairstyle in a scene), that she’s shadowing her mother, reenacting the same shitty mistakes. But with a feel-good ending wrapped up too neat and tidy, the resolution of Grace and Ansiedad’s mother-daughter dynamic felt inauthentic. It was like, “Why are you never here for me?!” “Okay I’ll be here for you.” Ta-dah…the end! Wait, what??

I wished Girl in Progress delved deeper, exploring the role reversal and tangled relationship between Grace and Ansiedad. It does however perfectly capture that frustrating push pull of adolescence -- the desire to want your mother to support and be proud of you yet the simultaneous craving for independence and freedom.

With women only comprising 33% of speaking roles and even fewer films featuring women of color, we desperately need to see and hear more diverse women’s voices behind the camera and on-screen. Riggens said Girl in Progress "is really about females, about women" of all ages. Repeatedly passing the Bechdel Test, the movie isn't about Grace's search for love or Ansiedad finding a father figure. Despite a number of male characters, they exist peripherally; the women and girls take center stage. Ultimately, Ansiedad realizes her mother truly loves her. She also discovers the value of female friendship, something we don’t nearly see often enough in film.

No matter how nurturing, mother-daughter relationships are often fraught with tension, a complicated web of emotions. To this day, I still grapple with issues surrounding my mother, as many of us do. But Girl in Progress reminds us adulthood isn’t a destination. Rather it’s an ongoing journey where we (hopefully) continually evolve and grow.

Quote of the Day: Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards

2012-05-17T12:21:00.000-04:00

Manifesta by Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards

I've been reading the 10th anniversary edition of Jennifer Baumgardner's and Amy Richards' Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future, which was first published in 2000 and revised in 2010. One chapter in particular struck me, and in honor of Mother's Day this past Sunday--and our upcoming theme on Motherhood, starting Monday (yay!)--I'd like to excerpt from the chapter, "Thou Shalt Not Become Thy Mother."

The authors discuss the generational divide between mothers and daughters and the tension that often exists because mothers (within the past generation) raised children "with some hint of feminism in the air." Their young daughters today, though, struggle to avoid becoming like their mothers. Here are two excerpts from the chapter that delve into that theme in greater detail:

Many daughters are scared of falling prey to the indignities we witnessed our mothers suffer. This fear is a challenge to younger feminists. Young women should understand where that fear comes from, rather than simply avoiding it. Unwrapping motherhood from the swaddles of patriarchy means that we will no longer have to work so hard to be different from our mothers.

As it is, we are more likely to notice what our mothers are doing wrong than what they are doing right. We notice if Dad treats Mom like shit, if homemaking appears to be a fake job, or if Mom worked outside the home and was never there to ask us about our day. We may think that when Dad does "Mom's chores"--picking us up or doing the dishes or cooking--he's a hero. We notice if we look to Dad for decision making, and to Mom for love and comfort and mending. If the marriage falls apart, we notice if Mom doesn't know how to write checks, or dates jerks, or if her lifestyle becomes markedly poorer. We notice the passive-aggressive ways that she may work around powerlessness: the boyfriends she takes on to escape her unhappy marriage, the guilt trips, or the migraine headaches that befall her just before the guests arrived every holiday. Throughout or lives, we make mental notes, and swear on our mothers' lives not to let that happen to us or do what they did. This includes the most trivial sins: we'll never embarrass our kids, we'll never have our hair done every Friday at the same time, we'll never have a comfy-but-ugly outfit that we change into every day after work.

Our expectations of our dads are so much lower than our expectations of moms that dads don't get such a bad rap from their daughters. We also let them off the hook because their lives appear more liberated--more like how daughters are told their lives should be. (pages 208-209)

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One True Thing, a Hollywood tearjerker based on a novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Anna Quindlen, successfully analyzed this generational repulsion. In this 1998 film, Renee Zellweger portrayed an ambitious New York City journalist, Ellen Gulden, who returns to her suburban home to care for her terminally ill mother. "The one thing I never wanted to do was live my mother's life," Ellen says. "And there I was doing it." Meryl Streep, as Kate, zaftig and radiant in the housewife role, throws elaborate theme parties and makes a tabletop mosaic from her broken dishes. Creative and delightful as she is, Kate's domestic achievements are nada compared to the father's life as a sought-after English professor and would-be novelist (portrayed by William Hurt). After walking many miles (and scrubbing many toilets) in her mother's shoes, Ellen learns that her mother's accomplishments--her ability to bring the community together and make her family comfortable--far surpass her father's inflated dreams of his own literary importance.

"You spend all of your life thinking about what you don't have, and you have so much," Kate warns her puffy-eyed ungrateful daughter just before she dies. In that moment, any daughter might be shocked (as we were) into recognizing that we view our mothers in light of what we think they lack--youthful looks, brilliant careers, respectful husbands--not what they have. Finally, Ellen learns that her mother has actually chosen and fulfilled with joy the very life that Ellen had learned to disdain. The film isn't a call to join a kaffeeklatsch community group or bake up a storm as a one-way ticket to feminine authenticity. It's a warning to mothers and daughters to take a clear-eyed look at each other, rather than stealing glances and making notes about what not to do. One True Thing teases out a feminist challenge: to understand the choices our mothers made, knowing they were made in a context we will never experience. For mothers, the challenge is to realize that their daughters came of age in an entirely different era, one that makes their lives fundamentally different. (pages 213-214)

The book is fabulous. Buy it.

Guest Writer Wednesday: The Avengers: Are We Exporting Media Sexism or Importing It?

2012-05-16T09:00:00.000-04:00

The Avengers movie poster

This is a guest review by Soraya Chemaly and is posted with permission.

The Avengers opened last week and, shattering records, far outpaced all other Cineplex offerings nationally. The movie grossed more than $200 million over the weekend (compared with The Hunger Games $8 millon weekend receipts and seven week total of $380m). The movie has gotten generally good reviews for plot, witty superhero banter and some interesting character representations – not the least of which focus on the central and relatively well-fleshed out (no pun intended) Scarlett Johansson character, Black Widow. Director Joss Whedon get’s major points for featuring her not as the typical sexy sidekick, but as an actual ass-kicking superhero peer.

However, the movie’s domestic success this weekend was surpassed by its sales overseas. The movie had pre-US release openings in Beijing, Rome, London and Moscow raked in more than a quarter of a billion dollars internationally. The overseas market now makes up 70% of US movie ticket sales. It grew 35% during the past five years, compared to just 6% in the US market. This is important information for how Hollywood, already deplorably lacking in gender balanced production, will or will not portray women in films.

Jeremy Renner and Scarlett Johansson in The Avengers

Because it is a blockbuster megacomic book release there has been much discussion about the female audience for comic books and action films. Suffice to say that there are a lot of women, me included, that are huge fans of both. Despite the presence and strength of the Black Widow character however, the ratio of male to females in this movie is predictably Smurfette Principley: one female to six males and probably the same ratio or much worse in disposable character and crowd scenes. In addition, she appears to be the only character without her own franchise.

This movie’s success however illustrates the question: Are we importing or exporting our sexism? According to the Motion Picture Association, in 2009, women were responsible for more than 50% of US movie ticket sales. You might think that this would elicit some interest in the minds of the men who make movies (and yes, they are still primarily men as evidenced by the stats below). But, instead of the profit potential of American female movie goers resulting in more female lead characters (in every genre) or more female-centered stories, we have a completely different framework for estimating what will sell. Namely, the exponential growth and impact on Hollywood of the global market and the demands that growth places on production and development of content.

Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in The Avengers

Where does this global growth leave characters like Black Widow and movies with female centric stories or leads? What happens when Hollywood produces movies to meet the needs of the world’s fastest growing and most populated countries – which also happen to be those with the most skewed gendercide-based birth ratios? Cultures that habitually accept the elimination of females aren’t going to be that interested in stories about women and girls, especially those that feature powerful, culture-threatening, transgressive characters.

It means more testosterone heavy action films with women as sex-toys, pawns and eye-candy. It’s why G and PG rated movies, increasingly popular in the US, have been outstripped by R rated movies, which are often loud, violent, fight-filled extravaganzas that don’t require complex characters or plots and can translate across multiple cultures. Cross-cultural entertainment product development, in order to work and be profitable, seeks the lowest common denominator—which it seems is a certain-type of language-neutral male aggression, violence, and power. It’s much trickier, not to mention subversive, to present complex characterizations of men and women that include non-traditional representations of women who are sexually liberated and empowered. Entertainers don’t want to rock the cultural boat, they just want to sell more movie tickets. So, basically, whereas a few members of international audiences might care about the travails of a small-town girl dealing with an unwanted teen pregnancy or even an intergalactic, painted-into-her-tensile-tights, justice-seeking female heroine, all members of international audiences can appreciate being swept away in an asteroid-created tsunami from hell from which strong men seek to protect the planet’s weak, which is why a movie like 2012 made $166 million at the US box office, but made $604 million overseas.

Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow in The Avengers

As a result, it is predictable that the US movie market will see an increase in the seasonal barrage of hyper-masculine, violent super-hero and action-hero films that do much to perpetuate out-dated, harmful hyper-gendered stereotypes of both men and women. Don’t get me wrong, I love some of these movies, but there is a gross imbalance in how films are currenty written, produced and made and there is absolutely no offsetting movies like these with virtually any other entertainment portrayals of women. This sexist, dumbing down of content has real ramifications in our culture as we try to develop a more balanced and genuinely equitable society – especially in terms of entertainment and media representations of gender.

“What makes me so sad is that these films are seen as our cultural imprint,” explains Melissa Silverstein, founder of the Athena Film Festival and of the influential blog, Women and Hollywood. “This is a huge problem because we struggle for women's stories to be taken seriously, and as the worldwide box office continues to be so important it seems that women will continue to be second class citizens.”

A study released by the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism in December 2011, based on a survey of the top 100 grossing movies of 2009 revealed that 67.8% of all speaking characters (in excess of 5000) were male. In addition, female characters, usually isolated by virtue of there just being one speaking role, were consistently depicted in sexualized ways. Twenty-three percent of women versus 7.4% of men appeared in revealing clothes or partial nudity. The fact that only 3.6% of the directors and 13.5% of the writers of these films are women is particularly telling when you consider that the ratios are substantively different depending on the gender of the story teller: in movies directed by women, 47% of characters are female versus 32%. These ratios are the same as they were in, get ready, 1946.

Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, and Chris Evans in The Avengers

In reviews of seventeen “Must See” Holiday Movies for families recommended by Common Sense Media in December, only one had a female lead character—Breaking Dawn. The other sixteen feature boys or men in lead roles. The others primarily adhered to the Smurfette Principle. According to The Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media, the ratio of boys to girls becomes more extreme as they age. In the Institute’s study of the 50 top grossing family movies, females were 32.4% of speaking roles for G rated movies. That number declined to 27.7% for PG-13 movies. Boys outnumber girls in movies three to one. In addition, as in adult movies, girl characters are consistently presented with less clothes and hyper-gendered physical characteristics, like tiny waists. Almost every movie on the list for the past holiday season was told from a male perspective and reviews of these movies did nothing to systematically address the messages sent by their collective presentation.

And I saw no mention, during the reviewing process, of the impact of international ticket sales on product development. But, this is how Chris Dodd, Chairman and CEO of the MPAA put it in regards to overseas sales: "These numbers underscore the impact of movies on the global economy and the vitality of the film-watching experience around the world. The bottom line is clear: people in all countries still go to the movies and a trip to the local cinema remains one of the most affordable entertainment options for consumers."

Selected portions of this article appeared on the Huffington Post and The Good Men Project.

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Soraya Chemaly writes feminist satire. She is a regular contributor to Fem2.0, The Feminist Wire, Alternet, Role/Reboot and The Huffington Post. She is also the creator of the retired blogs: Poog, a Goop Spoof and The Guide to Manic Moms.

Women-Centric Films Opening Friday, May 18

2012-05-14T12:00:00.000-04:00

I'm happy to report that this Friday several women-centered films are opening in theaters, some in limited release. While I doubt these films will all be fabulous feminist explorations of gender constructs that also depict women's actual real-life experiences--and some of them might even be anti-feminist (I don't necessarily have high hopes for What to Expect When You're Expecting, based on the trailer)--at least we get to see women represented onscreen. Sometimes that feels like a low bar to set, but it's significant considering how rarely it occurs. So here they are, accompanied by movie trailers and film synopses (taken from Rotten Tomatoes). And remember, we welcome review submissions for our Guest Writer Wednesday series. Check out the guidelines!

What to Expect When You're Expecting

Over the moon about starting a family, TV fitness guru Jules and dance show star Evan find that their high-octane celebrity lives don't stand a chance against the surprise demands of pregnancy. Baby-crazy author and advocate Wendy gets a taste of her own militant mommy advice when pregnancy hormones ravage her body; while Wendy's husband, Gary, struggles not to be outdone by his competitive alpha-Dad, who's expecting twins with his much younger trophy wife, Skyler. Photographer Holly is prepared to travel the globe to adopt a child, but her husband Alex isn't so sure, and tries to quiet his panic by attending a "dudes" support group, where new fathers get to tell it like it really is. And rival food truck chefs Rosie and Marco's surprise hook-up results in an unexpected quandary: what to do when your first child comes before your first date? -- (C) Lionsgate

Watch on YouTube

Polisse

A journalist covering police assigned to a juvenile division enters an affair with one of her subjects.

Watch on YouTube

The Color Wheel

The Color Wheel is the story of JR, an increasingly transient aspiring news-anchor, as she forces her disappointing younger brother Colin to embark on a road trip to move her belongings out of her professor-turned-lover's apartment. Problem is, these grown up kids do not get along, and are both too obnoxious to know better. Chaos and calamity are not far behind her beat up Honda Accord. Too bad that nobody else in the world can stand either of them. Not Colin's neglectful girlfriend, nor JR's former high school friends, nor strangers they clash with at pretty much every step of their hopeless and increasingly infuriating voyage of frustration, failure and jerks. It can only be a matter of time before JR and Colin arrive at the strangest and most unsettling of resolutions and put to rest their decades of animosity, half-baked sibling rivalry and endless bickering. Resting uncomfortably somewhere between the solipsistic, unrepressed id of late Jerry Lewis, and the confrontational pseudo-sexual self-loathing of Philip Roth and shot on grainy 16mm black and white evoking the motels, diners and loners of Robert Frank's America, The Color Wheel is a comedic symphony of disappointment and forgiveness.

Watch on YouTube

Lovely Molly

When newlywed Molly Reynolds returns to her long-abandoned family home, reminders of a nightmarish childhood begin seeping into her new life. A malevolent force, whether her own haunted past or some supernatural 'thing,' tirelessly seeks to overwhelm her. Alone and isolated in a centuries-old manor, she soon begins an inexorable descent into depravity. Somewhere in the house, in the terrible space between psychosis and possession, lies an evil that will pull Molly and all those around her into darkness and death. -- (C) Official Site

Watch on YouTube

Virginia

A single mother struggles to raise her son Emmett while dreaming of escaping her small Southern boardwalk town. Her long time affair with the very married, Mormon Sheriff Richard Tipton is thrown into question when he decides to run for public office. Things are further complicated when Emmett begins a romantic relationship with Tipton's daughter. Virginia and the town-populated by Amy Madigan, Toby Jones, Yeardley Smith-are full of secrets and everyone knows Virginia can only keep things together for so long. Virginia is a funny, touching drama that looks at the American Dream and what it takes to keep it together. -- (C) Official Site

Watch on YouTube

Hysteria

Hysteria is a romantic comedy with an accomplished cast led by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, Jonathan Pryce, Felicity Jones and Rupert Everett, that tells an untold tale of discovery - the surprising story of the birth of the electro-mechanical vibrator at the very peak of Victorian prudishness. -- (C) Sony Classics

Watch on YouTube

Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel

A portrait of legendary fashion magazine editor Diana Vreeland. She was one of the twentieth century's greatest arbiters of style who dazzled the world with her unique vision of style high and low.

No Trailer Available

Bitch Flicks' Weekly Picks

2012-05-13T19:35:00.000-04:00

Stephanie's Picks:

What If the Male Avengers Posed Like the Female One? by Margaret Magowan for Reel Girl

Where Do We Go Now?: A Dramedy About Women Trying to Stop War by Mary Pols for Time

The Aristocrats: The Graphic Arts of "Game of Thrones" by Emily Nussbaum for The New Yorker

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

2012-05-09T14:18:00.000-04:00

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.

Guest Writer Wednesday: Disney: The Little Mermaid

2012-05-09T12:44:00.000-04:00

This piece by Ana Mardoll is cross-posted with permission from her site Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.

Disney. The word is so synonymous in my mind with "animated feature films" that it's like using "Kleenex" for "tissue." When children come to my house, as they sometimes do, they're invariably drawn to my huge selection of "Disney movies," only about 70% of which are actually affiliated with Disney in any way shape or form. I enjoy most of them, or I wouldn't own them. They each have their own problems, but a good many of them have something truly positive that I treasure. And what better way to start a deconstruction of animated feature films with the one I knew first and loved best: The Little Mermaid?

The Little Mermaid is possibly one of the most contentious movies I've ever loved. It was created in 1989, and has been specially beloved by many children in general and by myself in particular since then. I must have watched the movie eighty squintillion times as a child; it was one of the few videos I loved enough to manage to convince my parents to buy, and I watched it until the video literally broke from use. By that point, Disney had locked the reel in their "appreciate for value" vault and when they relaunched the movie in theaters in 1997, I was there to see it on the big screen. I have never been able to watch the movie without sobbing straight through from opening titles to end credits.

I sometimes feel like everyone I meet online has seen this movie at least once. Almost all of them have an opinion on the movie. Most of the opinions are strongly polarized: either Ariel is a free-thinking young woman who bravely rejects racism to forge her own destiny and create a lasting peace between two cultures or she's an idealized anti-feminist icon, complete with Barbie-doll figure and shell bikini, completely willing to throw away her family, her culture, and her own voice for the sake of a man she's never even met.

Those who fall between these two views tend to stay out of the flame wars. I don't blame them.

I like The Little Mermaid. I like a lot of things that are problematic, and I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with liking problematic things as long as a certain awareness is maintained that Problems Abound Therein. Art is complicated like that. But I like The Little Mermaid and I think it's compatible with valuable feminist messages. Certainly, it was my first introduction into a feminist narrative and I have always considered the problematic romance storyline to be camouflage for the real story. But we'll see whether or not you agree.

Please note that everything I say from here on in is just my opinion.

For me, The Little Mermaid is the story of an Otherkin girl living in a world that is hostile to Otherkin. Ariel is a human born into a merperson's body, and in a culture that routinely lambasts humans for the very same things that the underwater world does: eat fish. (Seriously. That shark at the beginning who chases Ariel and Flounder is clearly trying to eat them. These are not Happy Vegetarian Fishes.)

For me, The Little Mermaid is the story of a feminist girl living in a world that is hostile to feminist ideals. Ariel is a headstrong young woman who wants knowledge and growth and her own voice, but these things are being systematically denied to her. The only form of learning her father permits is that of patriarchy-approved women's pursuits: she may study music, but not other cultures.

For me, The Little Mermaid is the story of a culture-conscious girl living in a world that mandates insularity. Ariel wants to learn about cultures and peoples and practices and histories different from her own, but she lives in a world that holds even third-hand study of such things to be utterly forbidden because the power structure believes that the populace is safer if they are steeped in fear and ignorance. (Fearful merpeople won't try to make contact with the humans, and thus fear maintains their secrecy.)

And now I'll walk through the film and explain why I feel these things.

The opening titles air over singing humans as they work on the local prince's pleasure ship / wedding ship / fishing ship. Well, there are three ships in the movie, and they all look pretty much the same to me, so I'm going to assume that Prince Eric has a fleet of all-purpose boats and this is one of them. But the sailors are singing while they collect fish in their nets and Eric (and the audience!) is learning, and here are a couple of problematic things up-front.

One, everyone in this universe is white. (We're going to be seeing this one a lot in the Disney deconstructions.) Two, this is not a working class universe. Oh, the fishermen are fishing, but this is really the only work you're going to see in this movie outside of a quick shot of laundry-washing and some cooking. I think Eric's kingdom is supposed to be one of those picturesque smaller ones where the royalty aren't far removed from the common folk and don't mind getting their hands dirty, but it's kind of a muddled message and it only gets worse when we get to Triton's kingdom. Let's just place a big sign over the deconstruction that these are Privileged White People with the inherent issues that inevitably follow.

We pan down under the sea to the King Triton's Schmancy Music Hall and Combination Throne Room just in time to see Ariel completely fail to show up for a music gig that was intended largely to glorify her father while his daughters display themselves to the populace and use their vocal talents to praise his name. I can't imagine why a young woman might think she had better uses of her time than to be a public ornament to her father, nor why she might refuse to come to rehearsals (as Sebastian tells us). And when her father realizes that Ariel has failed to show up for the concert, his eyes literally turn red with rage. Yowza.

And here is an important point: Ariel's dad is abusive. Oh, I think he doesn't try to be, and I even think he doesn't want to be, but he is. And I really do think it's a function of The Patriarchy Hurts Men, Too. You see this clearly in the scenes with Triton and Sebastian: both men shore up each other's will to be harsher than they otherwise individually would be inclined to be, and they do this because they think it's expected of them. When Triton is alone and when no one is looking, his face softens, his expression is sad, and he sighs and weeps for the decaying relationship he has with his daughter. It's when others are looking -- notably, Sebastian, the only other adult male in Triton's scenes -- that Triton is at his most abusively fierce.

I don't think this is a coincidence. Triton isn't monstrous and Sebastian doesn't callously bring out the worst in him; they both reinforce each other's commitment to harmful patriarchy ideals, because they've been raised to believe the patriarchy expects them to. Neither is it a coincidence that Triton's final act of redemption comes after he and Sebastian have revisited a previous conversation and they've admitted that they were both wrong and that their actions were harmful. But now I'm jumping ahead.

By giving Triton this characterization, Ariel is immediately given a rich and sympathetic background before she even swims onto the stage. She's living in a deeply patriarchal and oppressive community where her status as "princess" is largely ornamental and wholly subject to the whims and wishes of her father. While she probably had moments of tenderness between her and her father, particularly when she was younger and could be indulged as a child instead of punished for being a woman, their relationship is strained by his insistence on publicly conforming to aggressive and abusive parenting models whenever anyone is looking. These shifts in emotional tone probably confuse and frustrate Ariel: why is her father so kind at times and yet so harsh at other times? She's coped with the on-and-off abuse by literally withdrawing. By forgetting rehearsals and the concert and pulling back into her cavern of collections, she's not passively asserting herself or deliberately catering to the patriarchy; she's trying to carve out a safe space, mentally and physically.

We are introduced to Ariel who, at great personal risk to her safety -- both from the sharks who seek to eat her and from her father who could severely punish her -- she is scavenging human items from old shipwrecks. And this... is amazing! Our protagonist is an explorer. What's more, she's a scientist, going to a direct source (albeit a bad source, since the seagull is actually ignorant of human affairs, but Ariel has no way of knowing that) to be educated on the items she finds. She wants to understand the humans, and to study the things they do and the items they create. She has a whole secret museum dedicated to all the things she's collected over the years.

Words fail me in describing how incredible I find this. In another movie, or in a book, there would be more time spent on just how incredibly subversive Ariel is being and has been, for literally years and years. This isn't a trivial hobby or a girlish obsession; she's the only person in her culture who is both willing and privileged enough (due to the fact that Triton might not blast his own daughter into tiny bits for breaking his laws) to almost single-handedly set up an entire cultural museum of study on a race of people right outside the kingdom's doorstep. The sheer bravery and gumption and intellectual devotion necessary for Ariel to have done what she's done is amazing: she's essentially created her very own Human Studies department right under the king's nose because studying other cultures is important, dammit.

I dare you to bring me a Disney heroine who has demonstrated similar levels of bravery, intellect, scientific pursuit, and proactive awesomeness within the first 15 minutes of her own movie.

Then we cut over to Ursula, and... I have mixed feelings about Ursula. On the one hand, she's a fat woman and a villain in a movie that has problematic body portrayals. Ariel's sisters are almost uniform in body type, expect for Adella who kind of sort of maybe looks a little bit bigger than her sisters, in the Lane Bryant model sort of way (i.e., same breast and hip proportions, just slightly bigger all over) and who was promptly slimmed down for the sequel because Disney got the memo that fat people are not sexeh because DEATHFATS. The only other fat women in this movie are the castle servants, who are fat in the non-threatening happy-servant kind of way, and the fat woman in the Ursula song who "this one [is] longing to be thinner." And -- rage! -- the fat merwoman's tail extends up and over her breasts like Ursula's does, but the thin incarnation of the fat woman has the bare-stomach shell-bra combo that Ariel sports. Because nude fat stomachs are obscene and ugly, but thin fat stomachs are normalized and pretty! Grr, Disney.

But! Ursula is sexy. Her breasts! Her butt! The way she moves! Her voice! I don't honestly remember really... noticing this as a child, but it's there and it's largely treated as... normal. Ursula isn't evil because she's sexy, nor does she seem really to be evil because she's fat. She's just evil and fat and sexy, all in the same package, and I guess that's kind of cool? I'm not sure. But then when I noticed that in this viewing, I realized that this movie is actually VERY filled with women's bodies. Can we say that about any other Disney movie?

I don't just mean the bikinis and the tummies; the women's bodies here move. Ursula struts realistically around her cave and gods but those breasts and butt are there and they move. And -- skipping forward a bit to Ariel's "I Want" song -- Ariel shakes her hips when she sings about "strolling along" the street; she undulates her whole body sensually when she imagines being "warm on the sand." There are bodies in this movie! And... while they are sexy bodies, I don't feel like I'm being clubbed with Male Gaze. I like it. I like how it seems to normalize women's bodies as real, as things that come in different sizes, as things that can be uncovered and sexy and yet not objectified into T&A without a head or a personality needed. I'm just sorry that we have to leave the 1980s in this regard.

Coming back to the movie, Triton yells at Ariel for missing rehearsal. He cuts her off multiple times in this scene, and calls humans "barbarians" which is a nice bit of othering to throw onto the pile of objections to Triton's character. He then tosses a tone argument at Ariel, which effectively cuts off not only what she was going to say but also punishes her for reacting realistically and legitimately to his bullying. Then Triton tells her that as long as she lives under "my ocean," she'll obey "my rules," which is totally not controlling or an abusive conflation of kingly privilege and parental privilege. And then Triton and Sebastian decide that Ariel, who is a young woman budding into her sexual awakening, needs "constant supervision." Patriarchy for the win.

And then we have Ariel's "I Want" song and it still gives me shivers. The opening lines -- "If only I could make him understand. I just don't see things the way he does. I don't see how a world that makes such wonderful things could be bad." -- reinforce that Ariel is not only longing to be human already, but she's also inherently more open-minded than her close-minded and prejudice liege-father. Her fantasies of being human conflate with her fantasies of living in a feminist-friendly society where she can speak her mind freely and grow intellectually: "Betcha on land, they understand; bet they don't reprimand their daughters. Bright young women, sick of swimmin', ready to stand. And ready to know what the people know; asking my questions and get some answers."

MORE WOMEN! The picture of fire and the wind up toy that shows dancing both have women in them. The parallel is obvious in that Ariel wants to be these women, but I'm still blown away looking at how many women are in this film in places where I frankly think nowadays they'd be edited out. Maybe it helps that this movie wasn't made or marketed with the All Important Male Demographic in mind, I don't know.

Sebastian tumbles out and informs Ariel of what she already knows: her father would be furious if he found out about the museum. Which makes so much sense, really, that his racial hatred of humans extends so far that he would deny his subjects the ability to even study them, if only to come up with more effective ways of avoiding the humans, because studying leads to understanding and understanding leads to compassion and compassion doesn't mesh well with racial hatred. And, yes, I know they've woobied him up with two decades' worth of backstories and personal tragedy, but I think that waters down the message that sometimes even people we love can be racist assholes.

We zip up to the surface for Ariel to see Prince Eric and for some character establishing shots. And I have to say that Eric is probably my favorite Disney prince. He's hanging out with his working class and while that could be seen as slumming, he doesn't seem to mind getting rope burn on his hands and he knows how to steer the boat, so he's at least not adverse to learning. And he goes back to a fiery burning ship to save his dog.

Ariel saves his life.

They didn't have to do it this way. They could have had Ariel and Eric catch a glimpse of one another and fall in love that way. Ariel could have been singing in a quiet grotto and Eric could have been drawn to the sound and seen her for a split moment before she disappeared. It would have been pretty and feminine and sweet. But they didn't do that. They had her proactively search the burning wreckage of a ship, and drag an unconscious man to safety on the shore. And that tells me two things. One, in 1989, being saved from death by a woman didn't emasculate you forever in the eyes of the (probably) male screenwriters. Two, in 1989, saving a handsome man from drowning was considered an acceptable female fantasy with all the strength, verve, and determination that accompanies that.

Haha, no, there's totally not a backlash against feminism today in 2012. IT'S ALL YOUR IMAGINATION.

Sebastian tries to convince Ariel that life under the sea is better than life as a human. He has a jazzy musical number and Ariel gives him quirky yeah-I'm-not-buying-it looks before it becomes clear that she's not really needed for this song routine and goes off with Flounder. And here is a big ol' world-building mess because apparently the fish neither work nor eat, and they all live off of plankton delivered to their doorstep every morning by magic. Or so Sebastian seems to think from his position of Privilege? I dunno. This is why deconstructing movies with talking animals is hard.

Triton calls Sebastian into his throne room and interrogates Sebastian while cheerily pointing his weaponized triton at the little crab. Haha, that is not scary at all! Sebastian breaks down and tells Triton about Ariel's museum, and Triton shows up and brutally destroys it all while she weeps and begs him to stop. And this scene? Wrecks me every time. The bit with Triton building himself into a rage -- "One less human to worry about! ... I don't have to know them -- they're all the same. Spineless, savage, harpooning fish-eaters, incapable of any feeling..." -- is both horrifying and priceless because it really gets through how xenophobic and racist Triton truly is. He doesn't care that he's frightening his daughter; the rage has built in him to a point where terrorizing her makes more sense to him than actually talking to her or doing anything other than abusing his position as both king and father.

And this scene is so utterly valuable. Because now Ariel will go to the sea witch and trade her entire life away (and her voice) to go chase after a man she's never met. Remember that anti-feminist message referenced way back up there at the beginning? But that's not what she's doing, not really. As much as Ariel laments in a moment that "If I become human, I'll never be with my father or sisters again," her father has driven her away. Ariel isn't safe under the sea, not emotionally or psychologically. Her life's obsession with studying and understanding and educating herself on human culture will never be accepted -- and if she persists in trying to do so clandestinely, it will only be a matter of time before someone discovers her secret, betrays her to the king, and all her work is destroyed. She knows that fate is inevitable, because it's just happened not ten minutes ago.

Ariel can either go home and be a good mermaid and play with her hair and go to voice rehearsal and marry a merman who will never share her interests or understand her and she can live and die frustrated and unfulfilled. Or she can take a chance and become everything she's ever wanted: a human. And she can become that human by finding true love -- "Not just any kiss," Ursula cautions. "The kiss of True Love." -- with the first human she's ever met, a man who attracts her with his courage and bravery and adventurous spirit. It's a gamble, and possibly not a good one, but it must seem like the one hope for happiness left available to her.

Human! Ariel washes up on Prince Eric's beach and is taken for a traumatized survivor of a shipwreck, which seems plausible enough. And while I'm not 100% sure I like Grim pressing Eric to woo the traumatized survivor of a shipwreck rather than, say, provide for her education and psychological care and place her in the best possible position to choose how she wants to live the rest of her life, I do love that Eric is shown as being highly reluctant to treat Ariel with anything less than courtesy and respect. A privileged man who doesn't react to a pretty half-naked woman washing up on his beach like Christmas has come early? Yes, please.

There's a scene with a French chef that is so heavy on the cultural stereotypes that I don't even know what to say. I was going to say that this was one of the only animated feature film songs that features a foreign language, but then I remembered the Charo song in Thumbelina, which is also heavy on cultural stereotypes. *sigh*

Then Eric and Ariel go on a tour of "his kingdom," which seems to basically be this one decent-sized town, and Ariel is in complete Manic Pixie Dream Girl mode, but for once this makes sense because everything she sees is literally new and exciting and amazing and a dream come true. And then he lets her drive the carriage and she loves it and clears an oddly-placed death-defying jump and once the panic passes, Eric settles back like this is the good life and Ariel is clearly having a ball. I think that's sweet, frankly.

And then there's a lot of singing and near-kissing and Ursula showing up to ruin things and Ariel being towed out to the ship which is not nearly as awesome as her swimming out there under her own power, and I get that it makes sense that swimming-with-legs would be something she's not mastered, but still it feels like the Feminism Power has run out, and then Ariel and Eric reunite just in time for it to be TOO LATE and Ariel is a merperson and Eric does not care even a little bit because Eric is not a racist asshole like Triton. And then Eric saves Ariel's life with a harpoon while Triton watches, and this is hilarious given Triton's earlier rant about humans-who-wield-harpoons.

After the exciting showdown scene, Eric recovers slowly on the shore while Ariel watches from her rock. Triton and Sebastian watch from further out, with Triton realizing that she really does love him and that this hasn't all been About Him and her special butterfly rebellion. Gee, ya think? Sebastian tells him "children got to be free to lead their own lives" and Triton references as earlier conversation where Sebastian said the opposite. And this is the moment where everything is unspoken, but for me it seems like they're saying yeah, this whole Patriarchy thing is garbage and we were wrong. And then Triton gives Ariel her legs back, she marries Eric, and there's a new era of peace for both kingdoms, and it is awesome.

And... yeah. It ends in a 16 year old marrying a guy she's known all of three days. (Assuming we don't go with the standard handwave that between cuts there could have been years and years of dating that we didn't see. Because movies don't work like that.) And, devoid of context, that is Very Problematic. Hell, even with context, it's not something that gives me warm fuzzies. I do not like the Mandatory Marriage at the ends of these movies, or the implication that it's not a Happy Ending without one. And I like the Mandatory Marriage even less when it happens to two teenagers (or one teenager and one guy in his early twenties) who've known each other only over the course of a few adrenaline-packed and hormone-driven days. I don't feel like this is a healthy formula. So there's that.

But it's also one of the few movies I can think of where an Otherkin protagonist gets the form she's always felt was really hers. And it's a movie where a brave young woman defied the racist and xenophobic laws of her homeland in order to create a greater understanding between two cultures and almost single-handedly engineer a peace between both kingdoms. And she did all this while she was sixteen, as a young woman in an abusive family where she was only valued for her ornamental status. She held on to her inner essential self and managed to forge her own path without ever once beating herself up for the abusive things that others did to her. Throughout the movie, the entire narrative seems to scream that being strong-while-female is not a bad thing: it's okay to defy your racist asshole dad, it's okay to save the life of the handsome guy who won't then turn around and act all emasculated and shun you, it's okay to own your "acceptably feminine" talents in ways that make you happy, social expectations be damned. And for a movie that is now over twenty years old, that seems kind of awesome.

Ana's Happy Feminism Fuzzies Scorecard

- Otherkin narrative where protagonist proactively gains the form she wants

- Feminist narrative where protagonist longs to be taken seriously as a cultural researcher

- Intellectual narrative where protagonist values museums and cultural study

- Racial/Cultural narrative where protagonist demonstrates that Racism Is Bad

- Body Positive (with caveats) narrative where women characters abound of different body sizes

- Patriarchy Hurts Men narrative where good men are abusive because of patriarchal expectations

Ana's Sad Epic Fail Scorecard

- Narrative that is entirely cast with white people and has a Angry French Chef stereotype

- Narrative that contains muddled class portrayal and is largely about privileged people

- Narrative that contains no openly QUILTBAG characters

- Narrative that ends with a teen marriage between two almost-strangers

Final Thoughts: The Little Mermaid is -- like most Disney movies -- rife with issues of class, race, hetereonormity, and body portrayal. But in my opinion it's ironically one of the least problematic movies in the set ("ironic" because the current cultural narrative is that we're now BETTER at those things than we were in the 1980s), and if you're a white heterosexual class-privileged girl living in an oppressive patriarchy -- as I was when I came to the movie -- it may just resonate with you. Maybe.

As a final link, here is a picture of Disney Princesses dressed as the villains in their movies. I like the Ariel/Ursula swap so very much.

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Ana Mardoll is an avid reader and writer. She loves cats, fairy tales, and intense navel gazing. She blogs on a near daily basis from an undisclosed location in the wild, untamed, and astonishingly dusty Texas wilderness. Her photo-realistic avatars are a gift from best friend and invaluable writing buddy, J.D. Montague.

To read more of Ana’s writings, including her snarktastic literary deconstructions, visit her website at www.AnaMardoll.com.

'The Avengers,' Strong Female Characters and Failing the Bechdel Test

2012-05-08T23:58:00.000-04:00

Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) in The Avengers

Cross-posted at Fem2pt0.

Smashing box office records, audiences have been swept up in The Avengers hullabaloo. Interesting and compelling, the epic superhero film based on the Marvel comics unites Black Widow, Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, the Hulk and Thor "to form a team that must stop Thor's brother Loki from enslaving the human race." It was good. Really good. It contained complex characters and funny, clever dialogue. In a genre that exhibits strong female characters yet often objectifies women’s bodies or reduces them to ancillary love interests…how was The Avengers’ portrayal of women?

With Joss Whedon, a proud feminist and Equality Now supporter, at the helm directing and screenwriting, I eagerly hoped for a feminist film. I absolutely adore Firefly, only watched a handful of Buffy episodes (I know, I know…I need to watch more), and I couldn’t stand Dollhouse (don’t even get me started on the predication of rape, objectification and misogyny…but I digress). Forever inspired by his radical feminist mother and his love for X-Men character Kitty Pryde, Whedon shows an adept talent for creating and writing strong female characters.

The lone female Avenger is Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), a “highly trained spy,” assassin and martial arts master. Haunted by a dark past, she’s a fearless warrior possessing a razor sharp mind and an impressive knack for interrogation. In one of the best scenes, she goes head to head with the film’s villainous nemesis Loki (and Thor’s brother) in a labyrinthine mind game. While I’m not thrilled that Black Widow uses “feminine wiles” as a method of manipulation, her opponents anticipate vulnerability in her because of her gender. Natasha deftly uses and exploits their stereotypical gender biases to her advantage.

Black Widow could have easily become a one dimensional character. Yet she embodies strength and depth. She’s decisive and forever in control of her emotions. Although I don't like the implication that being emotional equates weakness. She’s not technically a superhero (nor is her partner archer Hawkeye) as she doesn’t have special powers. Yet she arguably had the best fighting sequences with her nimble and dexterous prowess. There’s one where she’s tied to a chair and kicks ass…it’s seriously amazing! Johansson talked about how she would be delighted to do a Black Widow film in the realm and style of The Bourne Series. That sounds freaking awesome.

Black Widow / Natasha Romanoff

In most films and TV series, the media objectifies and commodifies women’s bodies for the male gaze, reducing a woman to her sexuality. While she dons tight costumes, that doesn’t happen here. She’s not merely a sex object. Black Widow is an integral part of the team. She’s the one who thinks they should all work together when petty arguments and inflated egos threaten to divide them. SPOILER!!! -> Natasha ultimately ends the climactic epic battle as she’s the only one who realizes they need to close the portal in order to halt the influx of the alien army. <- END SPOILER Black Widow plays with gender stereotypes but doesn’t wield her sexuality as a weapon. She uses her ridiculously impressive martial arts ass-kicking skills for that.

Aside from Black Widow, The Avengers film depicts S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders, my favorite actor on HIMYM) and two brief scenes with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). Maria is one of S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson)’s Chief Lieutenants. She’s calm, collected and authoritative, even in dangerous situations. We see Maria run the deck of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. But she doesn’t approve of controlling people as we see when she criticizes Fury for manipulating The Avengers' emotions to finagle a specific response. Pepper is the CEO of Stark Industries (Iron Man/Tony Stark’s company), as well as his girlfriend. She’s intelligent, precise, organized and charming.

When asked about Whedon’s strong female characters, Johansson called him “gender blind:”

“He wants his female characters to be dynamic and competitive and assured and confident. And it has nothing to do with anything but the fact that he just celebrates those kinds of strong female characters.”

S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders)

AlterNet’s Julianne Escobedo Shepherd thinks The Avengers possesses a “stark feminist perspective” as it differs from so many other superhero films. Even in movies with multiple female characters like X-Men, the women often orbit the male characters. Not so in The Avengers. Escobedo Shepherd goes further asserting Johansson portrays Black Widow’s “talent for manipulation as a boon for the art of spying, rather than any kind of femme fatale cliché.”

Despite three strong female characters and Black Widow’s awesomeness, I didn’t find the movie overtly feminist. I can’t help but wonder if people are looking to find feminism where not a whole lot actually exists because of Whedon’s reputation. The Avengers contains some gender problems.

Loki hurls a misogynistic insult at Black Widow, calling her a “mewling quim.” Translation, a “whining cunt.” Lovely. He reduces her to her vagina. Now, not everyone’s going to get the inference right away. I know I didn’t. Although something about the condescending tone made me suspect a gendered insult. Whedon says he often “abuses” language, depicting different vernaculars, including Shakespearan dialogue, to reveal character traits. It’s interesting that instead of writing an overt insult, Whedon subversively portrayed Loki’s sexism.

Some people apparently accused Whedon of “not being macho enough” to direct the superhero bonanza. So let me get this straight. If a guy is a proud feminist and writes strong female characters, that makes him unmanly to direct an action movie? And what does that say about women…that female directors possess too much estrogen to direct? Ugh.

Many critics and bloggers have focused on the Hulk, thanks in large part to Mark Ruffalo’s fantastic talent and the hilarious snarky dialogue, thanks to Robert Downey Jr.’s quick wit as Iron Man. Interestingly, of the 6 Avengers, Black Widow gets the 3^rd most screen time. Yet she still remains the only female Avenger in the film. And that’s a problem.

(L-R): Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chirs Evans), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) - The Avengers...and Black Widow as the one female

In the comics, The Avengers had a rotating line-up of superheroes. Couldn’t the movie portray an additional female Avenger, like Wasp or Scarlet Witch or She-Hulk? Maybe they didn’t want two green Hulks. Fair enough. Although She-Hulk, a brilliant attorney, is pretty badass. Whedon even said that when they weren’t sure if they could accommodate Scarlett Johansson’s tight schedule, an early script contained the female superhero (and founding Avenger) Wasp. He “fell in love with the character.”

So here’s my question: why did they have to scrap the role of Wasp the minute they secured Johansson’s Black Widow? Why not have 2 female superheroes in one film?? Sadly, the movie suffers from the Smurfette Principle.

Coined by feminist writer Katha Pollitt in looking at children’s entertainment, the Smurfette Principle is when a male ensemble features one female character. Think the Smurfs (before the introduction of Sassy), the Muppets and Voltron (I’m clearly showing I’m a child of the 80s here). Pollitt asserts that the problem with this trope is that “boys define the group, its story and its code of values. Girls exist only in relation to boys.” As the articulate Anita Sarkeesian at Feminist Frequency points out, it transcends children’s entertainment as we see in films like Star Wars, Star Trek, Watchmen and even Inception as well as TV shows like early seasons of Big Bang Theory and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Films and TV relegate women to “sidekicks or sexy decorations.” Luckily, Black Widow suffers neither of these fates. She holds her own as a fierce and capable character, neither shoved aside nor reduced to a dude’s love interest. But it’s still problematic that Black Widow is the only female team member. The male Avengers contain multiple male personalities: a sarcastic genius playboy, a lonely selfless soldier, a skilled sniper, and a tortured brilliant scientist. But as far as women’s representation, there’s just one female Avenger. Granted, she’s a badass. But it would have been nice to see more diverse personalities…which might have been rectified with another female superhero.

(L-R): Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson)

But my biggest problem? No women talked to each other. At all. What the hell is up with that??

Like Film School Rejects’ Gwenn Reyes, I too found the glaring lack of women talking to each other to be The Avengers “greatest flaw.” Maria talks to the other Avengers. As Nick Fury’s right-hand person, it makes sense she would interact with the Avengers. Plus Maria and Natasha have probably crossed paths before since Black Widow already worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. Couldn’t the two women have talked about the upcoming battle? Or strategized, commiserated…anything??

Just because the portrayals of the female characters were positive, doesn’t mean I think the movie smashed the Bechdel Test, a simple test that asks that two named female characters talk to each other about something other than men. With women comprising only 33% of speaking roles on-screen, The Avengers failing the Bechdel Test proves the cavernous gender gap in film and how far we still need to go.

Let me be clear. Most movies -- superhero or otherwise -- couldn't care less about portraying complex, intelligent, strong, dimensional women or gender equitable roles. So The Avengers is a step in the right direction. But if you only depict your two female characters (no matter how empowered they are) talking to men, it subtly reinforces the notion that women’s lives revolve around men.

While it’s a really good action movie with strong female roles, I still expected more feminism from you, Joss Whedon.