As some of us discussed in class on Friday, Time Magazine made the disastrous decision to include “feminism” as one of the choices for a reader poll of words that should be banned in 2015. (Article for reference here.) They’ve since apologized in a way that tried to shift blame on angry readers for not understanding that Time meant the pejorative version of the term (which only makes Time look worse for lack of taking responsibility) but the damage has already been done. (For reference, here’s a collection of highest liked responses to the poll on Time’s Facebook page.)

I read an interesting response to the way Time collects words for this annual poll not just this year, but in years past as well. In it, the author discusses how the poll has a history of including words that not only heavily imply the ingrained annoyance with terms stereotypically viewed as feminine. What’s more is that a good number of words from each year have their roots in black culture. This article and Time’s poll in general, then, serve as a culturally relevant examination of what we’ve been studying with regards to intersectionality.

After watching The Righteous Babes in class today, a lot of the discussion was geared towards the female musicians’ “aggressive”  and “angry” nature. While I noted in class that part of this comes from the era the film dealt with and certain genres of music that were more popular then than they are now, I wanted to point out an example of how a current musician in a different genre advocates for feminism without the type of “anger” we were referring to.

Continue reading On “Aggressive Feminism” in Music →

Here are my notes for the “Feminist Film Theory” article as well as the discussion questions for class:

Continue reading Feminist Film Theory Notes and Discussion Questions →

I really enjoyed Christine Vachon’s visit to campus, not just because of her attitude and approach to producing films, but because it provided an insightful look to yet another aspect of filmmaking. We’ve already covered female directors, actors, and cinematographers, but getting the perspective of the person who puts everything together for production to occur was something that was quite enlightening. (I actually had no idea that producers worked so closely with casting and directors prior to Christine’s discussion, so her anecdotes about her work alone made the event worth it.)

Something that Christine’s visit made me curious about was the representation of women in film production altogether. Obviously, the field is far from being as welcoming to women as we’d like it to be and hearing from women in every step of a film’s production would be helpful to identifying the institutionalized problems in the industry. For the rest of you, I’m wondering: What jobs within film that we haven’t delved as deeply into would you like to hear more about in this regard? (I, for one, would like to learn more about female editors since that position holds a great deal of power over the final cut of a film.)

There’s a subtle element to Boys Don’t Cry that I really think elevated the film and its intentions in creating a sympathetic biopic about a transgender subject: how the characters around Brandon refer to him. One of the first scenes in the film follows Brandon fleeing from some Lincoln residents and calling him a “dyke.” Right away, we have a clear sign of who the antagonists are and what defines them: their unwavering attempt to define another’s gender, even to the point of violence when that person does not share that same definition.

I realize that the class might be somewhat confused in how to refer to Brandon within the film (especially due to the fact that he’s played by Hilary Swank and at one point refers to himself as intersex). Given that he introduces himself as male to complete strangers and presents himself in a typically masculine fashion, I think it’s safe to say that he prefers to be called “he,” “him,” etc.

With this in mind, the other characters’ shift in pronoun use after they learn of Brandon’s biological sex marks their nature as ancillary protagonists or antagonists within the film. Lana is the only character unfaltering in her referring to Brandon as a “he.” (Like Ellen, I too noted the complaint the real-life Lana had when I did outside research and believe that Kimberly Peirce, the director, chose to reformat Lana into this role for its dramatic heft in the film’s conclusion.) Lana’s mom generally refers to Brandon as “it;” this is manifested in her complicit nature to Brandon’s murder, refusing to house Brandon after his rape and telling John and Tom of Brandon’s location. John and Tom, as primary antagonists, strictly misgender Brandon as “she.” In this film about freedom and identity, it’s rather fitting that those who serve as the antagonists are those who deny our protagonist the freedom to self-identify, a denial that ultimately proves fatal.

Level with me for a second and strip away the elements of “historical accuracy” that come with The Help. Now imagine starting from scratch, having to tell the story with the same theme, and creating the same final product. I don’t know about you, but in that light, the film seems very condescending to me.

What we’re examining is a work of fiction. As much as we cry out, “This is reflective of the historical period of the time! Black women couldn’t tell these stories so they needed a white woman (who we see benefit mostly career-wise and not as a person of moral standing) to do it for them!,” the film we watched is a fictional story set in a historic setting. In theory, Kathryn Stockett, the author of the novel (or even the writer/director of the film, Tate Taylor, both of whom are white) could have made either Aibileen or Minny the ones who wrote down their stories. And what would have changed thematically? Nothing.

The primary response I expect to get from something like this is, “But they’re just portraying reality!” Well, no. They’re taking  (very loose) inspiration from real life events (here’s a noteworthy tidbit: the real-life inspiration for Aibileen in the novel criticized Stockett for comparing her skin color to that of a cockroach; yikes), but fabricating a narrative. Black writers could (and did) write during the height of the civil rights movement. What’s stopping the black characters in the film from doing the same? What’s to stop them from being more invested in the civil rights protests and injustices of the time, showing them be more upset with the systemic problems that cause the personal troubles they face? In reality, all that’s stopping them are those are writing the film.

I think it’s reasonable to be able to criticize the author/filmmaker for their conscious decisions. They made Skeeter the savior. They reduced the subjects of racism and hatred to supporting roles in a film about racism and hatred. They perpetuated the negative stereotypes about blacks that we used to oppress them (don’t even get me started on Minny’s insultingly stereotypical love for fried chicken).

We can’t just simply defend the conscious creators of this fiction using the shield of history. They purposely chose the perspective, the focus, and the characterizations. We know this and we simply shrug and say, “That’s the way it was.” And that’s what disappoints me, especially when we could have much better depictions of race in film.

But we can demand better. Better treatment of black characters. More active roles for black actors. The most autonomous decision made by a black character in a movie about racism is tricking a white woman into eating her own feces. How is that progressive?

Look, I know I’m being negative on this movie, but that’s just because I see the potential in it and it can be so much more. Just for the sake of fairness, here’s some constructive criticism. Make Aibileen the writer of the book. Why can’t she be? She’s most likely literate (she gives no indication otherwise). She has aspirations to write. And, to defuse one of the only arguments the film gives as to why Skeeter has to be the one to write the book, she can still make it anonymous. Think about it: No one knows the race of the writer. If anything, it would be assumed to be a white author. Aibileen is actually more unsuspecting than Skeeter.

So, with this in mind, I ask you: What’s preventing this film from giving its black characters more autonomy?

Klute seems like a bit of an oddity in noir genre. The stoic, serious male protagonist is there, there’s the femme fatale who’s liberated sexually and whose arc hinges on the male’s, but some of the deviations the film makes from the standard tropes of the genre make it stand out to me.

Firstly, there’s the vastly different levels of nuance between Klute and Bree. Bree is the one providing the voiceover narration from time to time (Klute would fill this role in a typical noir film) and we see every aspect of her life, even those when she is alone and living her life outside of the plot. One could argue that this adds to the voyeuristic layers of the film, since we pry into her activities in a way we do not with anyone else, but I believe that this helps strengthen and build her character. Bree’s character is built upon complexity, from the various ways she fills her time (sex work, acting, therapy, etc.) to the conflicted thoughts that run through her mind (the one that particularly stood out to me was her weighing the positives of her detached sex work with the intimacy of her relationship with Klute).

Compare this to John Klute. By the end of the film, we know nothing about his life, have not seen him without some relation to another character, and don’t get any major insight into his thoughts or ulterior motivations. It’s almost a wonder that he is the film’s titular character.

Bree’s character arc does ultimately occur due to Klute’s role in the film, but, if the ambiguous ending hints towards her parting ways with Klute, it shows that it is not entirely dependent on him. Bree is the one that holds the film’s attention, the one who has the most layers, the one that we end up remembering the most. The film is really about her and that, in itself, is a noteworthy deviation.

One of the issues I had with with the ending of Blonde Venus portrays is that the subversion of economic status that Lea Jacobs brought up in her article carries some unfortunate implications that prevent Helen’s actions from being an entirely positive display of strong, independent femininity. Jacobs implies Helen’s decision to stay as one that is ultimately the best of the possible endings, partially because it goes against “[conformity] to a general trajectory of class rise that was conventionalized and extremely popular in this period.” (24)

However, I see Helen’s decision to remain with Ned at the end to be one that’s simultaneously baffling and contradictory to the film’s own visual language. In the scene wherein Ned confronts Helen about her affair, his face is cast entirely in shadow by the brim of his hat and Helen is, contrastingly, placed in a bright light. Despite what Jacobs says about the “[surmising] that the studio” are the ones who find “Ned’s harshness toward his wife unsympathetic,” the creative direction behind the film itself is pushing the viewer towards that same conclusion (24). This perspective isn’t as unfounded as Jacobs makes it out to be; rather, it’s quite actively suggested within the text of the film.

It’s that single instance in which Ned is demonized (versus the overall neutral stance the film takes in portraying Nick) that makes the ending particularly uncomfortable for me. I have a variant on the studio’s ending in mind that I’d actually prefer over any of the three endings written: Helen returns home to see Johnny once more but realizes that she cannot stay with Ned based on how he has treated her, remaining steadfast in her decision to be with Nick. The arbitrary infidelity and judicial subplot would be erased and, despite the unhappy ending regarding her maternal side, Helen gets to maintain her independent nature. As it stands, the canonical ending leaves the unsettling implication that Helen makes the sacrifice of returning to her verbally abusive husband to be with her child.