Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Up

Overall - a beautiful film, interesting story, a few too many action sequences for me.

Treatment of females? In my opinion, not so good. Sure, Ellie, especially as a child, is a GREAT character. She's more adventurous than her husband and LOOKS about as different as you can get from a typical animated heroine. She also lives a very fulfilling life without children (although I could argue that she's presented as taking the news that a family won't be in her future worse than her husband).

But after the first 15 minutes of the film, girl and woman characters disappear. We've got an old man, a young boy, a male villain, and a bunch of talking male dogs (how did all the dogs reproduce over the generations at Paradise Falls without females, I wonder). This isn't a problem in and of itself. It's obviously fine if a director wants to make a movie about men, just like it's fine if another wants to focus specifically on women. In Up, it's really touching how Carl kind of becomes a new father to Russell, and the dynamic would be different if either character had been written as female. The problem here is the overall trend. Think about every Pixar film you've ever seen. Here's the list I found on Wikipedia.

Take a look. Sure, there are girls and women, usually children, wives, or girlfriends, but not a SINGLE FILM has a dominant female character in it. They are always sidekicks to the leading men.

The only female in Up after Ellie dies is "Kevin" the bird whose sex we know only because she has babies to take care of. And, by the way, couldn't the filmmakers have revealed her gender less stereotypically? Not every animal relies on females to care for the young. In fact, in several bird species the males share the role.

I've read research from the See Jane Project that for every one female protagonist in children's movies and television there are two to three male protagonists. Pixar seems to have as bad or even worse a ratio. A lot of people don't see this as a problem, but as an educator, I just don't think it's fair or healthy for girls and women to be consistently presented as secondary to males. I believe the heroines and heroes we see in the movies and on TV and those we read about in books can inspire us. If females rarely get to see people like themselves in powerful roles, it's no wonder they lag behind in these roles in the real world.

I'll probably harp on the female/male divide in movies a lot in the future, so I'd love to hear your comments so I can consider your ideas before I do! No one wants to hear someone make the same rant over and over. :)




***Go to Up's Website***

Monday, June 15, 2009

Gran Torino

I know Gran Torino doesn't seem like a movie that would give me much to say about the portrayal of females. Very few girls or women have even a speaking role in the film, as the entire story is centered around an aging white male. However, I think the racism and occasional sexism that's purposely presented in the movie is issue enough to write about.

I heard rave reviews about the film and was overall a little disappointed when I saw it myself. I thought the writing was kind of obvious, always telling the audience things it had already figured out from Clint Eastwood's excellent acting. The racist and, much less often, sexist comments and actions produced by Walt Kowalski, Eastwood's character, added to this feeling. I understand that showing Walt's racism was important, but it was almost as if the filmmakers went out of their way to put as many ethnic slurs into the script as possible. Just off the top of my head I can remember him using politically incorrect terms for the Hmong, Chinese, Italian, Polish, Jewish, African-American, and Irish. There were probably many more instances I'm just not thinking of right now.

I don't think I'm 100% against these kinds of words in films, movies, books, or art. If it's done well and done in the service of saying something important, I believe it can work. The TV series The Wire, where characters use sometimes unbelievably inappropriate language, has convinced me of this. However, I don't think it's done well enough in Gran Torino. The dialogue is sloppy, and even Eastwood seems a little too uncomfortable with the slurs to really commit to saying them. The film also treats this language like it's not really that big of a deal. In one scene, in fact, Walt teaches Thao, a Hmong teenager, how to talk to other men, a skill that apparently always involves using racial insults. What's pretty shocking, I think, is that the scene is portrayed as kind of a sweet bonding moment between Walt and Thao.

I know this blog is just starting and not many people are reading it yet, but I'd love to hear comments if anyone has them. If you've seen Gran Torino, what do you think of the ethnic and racial insults? Do they add or take away from the film? Are they overused?

Also, in general, does dialogue that includes words for peoples' race or gender that are now considered unacceptable to use have a place in films? I'm torn myself and am curious what others have to say.



***Go to Gran Torino's Website***

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

The Secret Life of Bees

The Secret Life of Bees is a solid, well-made film that leaves audiences feeling great. I’d recommend it purely for enjoyment’s sake, its nearly flawless portrayal of girls and women aside. What makes me genuinely enthusastic about it though, does have to do with how females are presented and begins not in the world of film, but of politics.

When Hillary Clinton became a serious candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, I read an excellent post by Marie Wilson, the President of The White House Project, about the perils of being a “one and only” – the only woman or minority trying to enter into a field previously dominatd by white males. You can read the entire post here.

In it, Wilson describes a study by The White House Project that shows how difficult it is to succeed as a “one and only,” and how as the sole representative of your sex or race (or both) you are expected to speak and act for others to an unfair and unrealistic degree. She ends by arguing that a “critical mass” of female and minority leaders is the only way to truly level the playing field and benefit from the diverse viewpoints new kinds of leaders bring.

Back to The Secret Life of Bees. The writer and director, Gina Prince Blythewood, is a black female. The five main characters are female, four of them black. Males play peripheral roles at most, and the ratio of black characters to white ones is high. This is exciting because females and African-Americans appear much less often than white males in big, important movie roles. A black female writer/director is even rarer. This film contributes to the overall “critical mass” in Hollywood.

Including five excellent lead roles for women, four of them for African-American women, allows The Secret Life of Bees to avoid the pitfalls of the “one and only.” It gives audiences a richer understanding of what it means to be female, and it gives girls and young women a variety of role models to choose from. Someone watching the movie doesn’t think, even subconsciously, “This black female character behaves in a certain way, so all black females must behave similarly.” She thinks something like, “This black female character behaves in a certain way, but this other black female character behaves differently. And this white female character behaves in some ways like the first black female character but in other ways like the second.”

I was really intrigued by this idea, so I did some more research. I found an NPR interview with Prince Blythwood. Her commentary made me realize that the audience reaction to having diverse role models has an actual parallel in the movie. Prince Blythwood points out that if you pay attention, you’ll notice that Rosaleen, one of the African-American characters, begins the movie with straight-ironed hair but as she spends more and more time with the confident, proudly black Boatwright sisters she adopts a more natural, curly style that looks a lot like June’s Afro. Likewise, Lilly, even though she’s white, asks for her hair braided like August and May wear theirs.

Lilly and Rosaleen take on less superficial qualities of their new role models as well. For example, Lilly learns beekeeping from August and becomes interested in her black godson. Rosaleen starts to speak like the cultured sisters do and eventually moves in with with, taking on the new name “July.”

Both Rosaleen and Lilly, then, meet three women who are unlike any they’ve never known before. They try on parts of their personalities and live happier, more fulfilling lives because of it. I really think that the same thing can happen to a member of the audience of this film. We encounter characters like we rarely see and end up more balanced people because we learned their story.



***Go to The Secret Life of Bees' Website***

Mulan

Mulan is arguably Disney’s most feminist animated film. The story is based on a Chinese poem called “The Ballad of Hua Mulan,” about a girl who may have existed in real life. In the poem as well as well the movie, a young woman takes her father’s place in the Chinese army by disguising herself as a man, fights valiantly, and wins the emperor’s favor.

For the most part, the film fulfills its role well. The filmmakers handle gender issues pretty solidly and often draw attention to sexism surrounding Mulan. The film does, though, resort too often to easy quips about women and men just to get a laugh, and this tendency undermines what is otherwise a beautiful and inspiring story.

To begin, the film has a great story arc. Mulan commits treason by impersonating a man in the Chinese army so her aging father won’t have to fight. Once she’s in, she uses a combination of smarts and the strength she gains through training to fight more courageously than any man in her unit and defeat an entire army of Huns. I could have done without the love interest between her and the captain, Shang, but that subplot didn’t damage the positive messages about women the main story provided.

Throughout the film, Disney includes sexist lines in dialogue and song to draw attention to Mulan’s predicament. These moments usually highlight the ridiculousness of certain expressions, all of them modern ones and used widely today, when their meanings are truly considered. When Mulan first arrives at boot camp, for example, her commanding officer boasts, through song, how he’ll “make a man out of you.” When Mulan becomes one of the most skilled soldiers, it become clear that being a “man” simply means being physically strong, brave, and capable.

In another instance three of Mulan’s fellow soldiers catch her bathing in a pond near the training camp. One, Yao, climbs on top of a nearby cliff and yells, “I am Yao, king of the rock. And there’s nothing you girls can do about it.” The fact that, unbeknownst to him, one of the soldiers he’s taunting is a girl makes this a comical moment that calls attention to the fact that he’s using the word “girl” as an insult.

Perhaps the scene in which when unfair comments about gender become most clear is when Mulan, now discovered as a female, can’t get anyone to pay attention to her when she tries to tell them the emperor is in trouble. When she complains to Mushu, her dragon sidekick, he explains, “Hey, you’re a girl again, remember?”

There are time during the movie, though, when these kinds of moments work the to the opposite effect. Jokes about men having bad hygiene and a sleazy, weak male character “squealing like a girl” take a too-easy route to get laughs at a wonderful story’s expense. By putting scenes like these in the film, Disney undercuts the progress it makes in other parts of the film. It also shows that the company accepts the double standard that women can act like men, but there is something fundamentally wrong with men who act like women.

On a final, positive note, I was impressed with the thoughtfulness of the producer and directors when I listened to the audio commentary about the film. They acknowledge they “battled with tone” throughout the movie and seemed to want to tell Mulan’s tale with the dignity it deserved. Something I noticed, though, is that the only female who spoke – Pam Coats, the producer – was also the only person who consistently mentioned gender issues in the movie and explained why the filmmakers made the choices they did. This is certainly one good example of ensuring women are well represented in media and the arts can qimpact the products we view.



***Go to Mulan's Website***

Juno

The film Juno, has been both celebrated and criticized for its unique portrayal of a pregnant 16-year-old. Those who criticize it argue that the movie makes Juno’s situation look easy, even fun. Others applaud the film for showing, without resorting to stereotypes, how real people behave in a situation like this – whether they be cheerleaders, stepmothers, married couples, fathers, or the pregnant teenager herself.

Although I understand the concerns of the first group, I fall firmly in the second. In fact, I don’t think the true message of Juno has much to do with pregnancy at all. Instead, this film concerns itself with breaking down common assumptions about people and their relationships. In doing so, it becomes a movie full of reals – real people, real relationships, real moments.

Real Girl

Yes, Juno talks like no one you’ve ever met. Beyond that, however, she really looks and acts like a completely unique, real high school girl. Her hair and wardrobe are far from perfectly put-together – she’s actually kind of a mess. She decides to have an abortion, and then does a 180 and chooses adoption instead without really considering the consequences of either– the kind of decision-making a lot of young people engage in. And she deals with her pregnancy day-to-day without a lot of angst, tears, or heart-to-heart, spill-your-guts conversations. A lot of movies and TV shows get mileage out of clichés about pregnant women – crazy food cravings, dramatic moods swings, or an attachment to the unborn child that is unbreakable. Juno resorts to none of these, and the result is a much more satisfying story.


Real Relationships

The makers of this movie didn’t rely on tired stereotypes of different kinds of people when they built the relationships between characters. For example, lots of teen movies love to hate on the cheerleader-type because it tends to be a crowd-pleaser. Juno, however, made the lead character’s best friend happy and beautiful and popular and…actually a really good person. This is not only a more fair portrayal of a certain kind of girl, but also a more realistic and interesting one.

Juno’s stepmom is another example. Stepmothers are often written as mean or manipulative. Bren MacGuff loves her stepdaughter and is a huge support for her during her pregnancy. That doesn’t mean there are lots of gooey moments between the two of them – just the kinds of interactions that happen between real adults who care about real teenagers.

In the characters of Vanessa and Mark Loring the audience sees most obviously the filmmakers’ joy in dismantling stereotypes. At the beginning of the movie, the audience is led to believe that Mark is cool and laid-back while Vanessa is uptight and a pain-in-the-neck. By the end, many viewers’ opinions have shifted to favor Vanessa, and Mark’s coolness starts to look immature and, in one scene, even predatory.


Real Fathers

The dads in this film, Juno’s dad Mac MacGuff and Paulie Bleeker, provide two different but entirely realistic perspectives on fatherhood.

Juno’s dad stands out from typical movie fathers of sexually active teenage girls. He doesn’t chase the Bleeker down with a shotgun or, out of shame, threaten to disown his daughter. While her pregnancy disappoints him, he supports Juno like most fathers would if their children were in the same situation.

Paulie Bleeker also provides a realistic, although less positive, portrayal of a father. Bleeker plays only a minor role in Juno’s life during her pregnancy and no role in their child’s. In fact, his judgmental mother never even discovers that the baby is his. This is true of many of the girls I knew who became pregnant in high school or college. Whether by their choice or the males’, they went through the ordeal without the fathers’ participation.


Real Discrimination

Juno rarely faces outward discrimation or shaming because of her pregnancy. Instead, her differentness is represented in more subtle ways. She is shown over and over walking the opposite way of other kids. She doesn’t go to prom. She only spends time with the guy she likes a couple of times during the course of the movie.

Again, with the real pregnant girls I knew, few people came out and criticized them to their faces. However, their lives were fundamentally different from their peers. People whispered about them. The young mothers were excluded - sometimes to keep them and their children safe and sometimes to punish them - from the activities they used to participate in at school. Just like Juno, they lived outside of their normal social circles but because of discrimination that is less outward than how it’s often presented in pop culture.


Real Ratio

The soundtrack includes as many songs fronted by women as by men! In an industry dominated by male voices, that is truly an accomplishment. One complaint – most of the women on the soundtrack are, in fact, one woman – Kimya Dawson. There is a much larger variety of male artists.



Juno is full of characters who are fully developed and who therefore act differently than characters do in a lot of less thoughtful stories. Whatever you may think about the decisions made in this film, it’s got to be a positive thing for viewers to witness how these characters act. It gives all of us an alternative to stereotypes that we may hold about others. Cheerleaders CAN be nice! Step-moms CAN be supportive! Uptight women might not be as obnoxious as you think they are! Dads might not be as overly protective as we expect! And pregnant teenagers just might continue to live their lives despite the situation they find themselves in.




***Go to Juno's Website***

Enchanted

Most of us have grown up hearing fairy tales. We can recite by heart all the times the prince came to the rescue of the princess, whether she was stuck in a tower hanging her long braid out the window, in an enchanted sleep from a bite of a poison apple or a prick of the needle of a spinning wheel, or imprisoned at home with a pile of chores to do and an evil stepmother watching her every move. These stories, as our parents and teachers may have pointed out to us, tend not to allow the girl to do much but wait for the guy to come and get her.

But what happens when a princess from one of those fairy tales has to live in the real world? Will she be any braver, more capable, or more independent?

According to the movie Enchanted the answer is…. kind of.

Enchanted is a charming movie that makes you feel really good. And it’s hard to say anything negative about the lead character, Giselle. She is kind, sincere, curious and, at the end of the movie when she chases down the dragon who wants to kill her true love, brave, too. I also applaud the filmmakers for making Giselle on two separate occasions admire the looks of non-white women (although one of them is a statue).

But Enchanted isn’t perfect. It’s true that Giselle defies some stereotypes of fairy tale princesses. During her time in New York City, she learns that a prince will not always be there to catch her when she falls and that she will occasionally have to fight for what she wants. However, the movie includes a couple of scenes that disappointed me even as I enjoyed the movie.

For example, in one scene Giselle goes shopping with Morgan, the daughter of Robert, the man she eventually falls in love with. This is a sweet scene in which the two characters bond because neither has ever been shopping with her mother. However, it relies on stereotypes of females to allow this bonding to occur. Why is it shopping and a trip to the beauty shop that brings Giselle and Morgan together? Couldn’t they have done something less traditional?

Also disappointing were Giselle’s only talents: cleaning and sewing. Even in the closing sequence of the film we see that she has chosen to open a store that makes princess dresses for little girls. While there’s nothing wrong in theory with that career path, Giselle’s not blazing any trails – for fairytale princess or real-life women – by choosing such a traditionally female, appearance-focused way to spend her life.

Finally, at the end of the movie after all she has experienced and learned, Giselle’s life is still just about a man and a child, not about any dreams she may have that exist outside of a marriage and family. Even though the person she falls in love with isn’t who she expected, her life follows the fairy tale script very predictably. Sure, the movie is a love story, but it would have been great to find out a little bit about Giselle’s interests beyond Robert and Morgan.

All in all, Enchanted truly is a fun, mostly positive film. If these few old-fashioned portrayals of females would have been left out, though, the movie would have been even more interesting and less typical of the limiting fairy tales it seemed to try to leave behind.



***Go to Enchanted's Website***