Tag Archives: women

Liz Lemon: Feminist Icon (Havin’ it All)

Posted on by Colleen Claes
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/jason_ff/ / CC BY 2.0

I got to thinking about female television characters after reading Salon.com: Broadsheet’s commentary, “Carrie Bradshaw: Feminist Icon?” I recommend giving it a read whenever you get the chance, but basically: Writer Tracy Clark-Flory debates whether or not the character of Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City (played by Sarah Jessica Parker, of course) can be considered a role model for modern-day women.

And then it occurred to me…Liz Lemon (played by Tina Fey, of course) of 30 Rock has to be, truly, one of the best female icons on television right now.

Essentially, Liz Lemon is a lot like Tina Fey (except “more of a loser,” as Fey herself once said.) But they seem to represent the same concepts and ideas, and the similarities are obvious when comparing Lemon and Fey’s careers and histories. (For instance, Fey started out in improv in Chicago, and this is often mentioned on 30 Rock in regards to Lemon’s past.)

There are oh so many reasons why us women looooove Liz Lemon. She strives and struggles to “have it all!” as a creative writer, business woman, single woman on the New York dating scene, and a sometimes “clock-a-tickin’” wannabe mother. While jokes are made about Lemon attempting to “have it all,” she fairs pretty well, while also pointing out to us – comically – the hardships of a successful urban woman having to date, maintain friendships, and be respected as a boss and a professional.

Women say they can relate to Lemon because they “eat like her,” or are “dorky” like she is. Or they get nervous around men like she frequently does. We can relate to her. We see her at home, not made-up, hair a mess and lounging around in un-sexy sweats eating blocks of cheese late in the night. In fact, she’s a welcome relief with her eating habits. Because unlike the Sex and the City women, you’ll never find her ordering a salad. (But instead: a meatball sub.)

Liz Lemon may be what we call an “accidental hero”: She never really set out to become a positive role model for women, but she’s become one anyway. And she’s my personal pick for the feminist icon of the small screen. Hell, maybe even beating out anyone on the big screen at this rate.

She’s smart. She’s funny. She’s independent. She’s not perfect. And she’s like us. What more could you ask for in a fictional feminist icon?

The December Issue: Women in Film

Posted on by Colleen Claes
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This month, the New York Times seems to be rampant with features about women in film. It’s funny that it should seem that way, because in the past month, only two notable articles have been published on the subject. Two very lengthy, in-depth, and important articles, nonetheless.

This all came to my attention when my friend Brittany shared an incredible Jezebel interview with me. The women’s interests blog interviewed Manohla Dargis, the Times co-chief film critic. She had some strong and honest words for Hollywood’s rejection, or even fear (see this Washington Post article by Ann Hornaday) of women’s presence and influence in the film industry.

The Jezebel interview followed Dargis up on her own Times article on the subject, “Women in Film 2009 – At the Box Office but Not Directing.”

Basically, Dargis voices the truth: There’s a severe lack of women in Hollywood, and – in the film business – men are allowed to fail in ways that women are not. Take this quote from Dargis in the Jezebel interview:

Do you think that a woman would have been able to get forty million dollars to make a puppet movie the way that Wes Anderson has been able to make, bringing to bear all the publicity and advertising budget of Fox? After two movies that didn’t make a lot of money? I think this is true for a lot of black filmmakers too – they’re held to a higher standard. And an unfair standard. You can be a male filmmaker and if you’re perceived as a genius – a boy genius or a fully-formed adult genius – that you are allowed to fail in a way that a woman is not allowed to fail.

The first thoughts that went through my mind were something like – Hell yeah! and Wow, I’ve never actually heard someone in the industry say those things before. I think it’s simultaneously crucial and disheartening for a female film expert to come out and say these things. Because now that they’ve been said by someone who knows, it’s suddenly a harsh reality and not just something for us feminists to rant about amongst ourselves.

The day after the Jezebel-Dargis interview, another female Times writer wrote about women in film. Daphne Merkin’s “Can Anybody Make a Movie for Women?” is a seven-page cover article revolving around director Nancy Meyers (Something’s Gotta Give). With Meyers’ newest film It’s Complicated (starring Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin), critics seem to be noticing an “aimed towards middle-aged women” trend. They’re either annoyed by it and dismiss it, or they try to delve into it and give Meyers some credit, like Merkin.

Similar to Dargis, one of Merkin’s points is that women are condemned for certain techniques and choices that perhaps a male director would not be. For instance, on the flack Meyers gets for doing numerous takes during filming:

John Burnham, the I.C.M. agent, has a simpler, X-versus-Y-chromosome view of the whole thing. “If Mike Nichols said to do another take,” he crisply notes, “there would never be any issue.”

There’s another point that caught my attention concerning women directors’ aesthetic choices:

Meyers herself is unapologetic about creating sets that look as if they might be photographed in a shelter magazine, most notably the mouthwatering Hamptons house in Something’s Gotta Give, which did actually make an appearance in Architectural Digest. “The fact that there is nice fabric on the chairs is fun,” she says. [and later]…”I like that stuff.”

This reminds me of the general public’s rejection of Sofia Coppola’s extreme ornamental aesthetic in Marie Antoinette. (See my post defending the film from a few months back.) Men make pretty movies all the time. But when a woman does it, it’s suddenly “too feminine,” which automatically reads as: “not real film.” There are some films that we normally “wouldn’t know” were directed by women (see: “didn’t think a woman directed it because there are so few and this one didn’t look that ‘girly’”) – such as American Psycho, for instance. But can the “for women, by women” concept in film ever be taken seriously, without the eye-rolling and the “told ya so’s” of Hollywood and audiences?

Yes, some films directed towards women are awful in terms of “good film.” These, of course, would be the “chick flicks,” though I hate the term. And though I know plenty of men who love Meyers’ Something’s Gotta Give and her other films, she is being dubbed as the director of “postmenopausal chick flicks” (as Merkin says), or middle-aged women’s fairy tale love stories. Dargis says she enjoys Meyers’ films, but doesn’t think they’re necessarily “good as films”, while Merkin applauds the director for at least making middle-aged women be sexy and fall in love in movies. (And really, what other movies really care to set that kind of standard other than Meyers’?)

But until there are more options for women to see themselves reflected on the big screen, most of them will continue to flock to the “chick flicks.” As Dargis profoundly assesses:

There’s a reason that women go to movies like Mamma Mia. It’s a terrible movie… but women are starved for representation of themselves. I go back to Spike Lee and She’s Gotta Have It. I remember going to see it at the Quad in New York, surrounded by a black audience. People are starved for representations of themselves.

Minorities are starved for images they can relate to on the big screen. Images of themselves, which are largely absent in Hollywood. Damn. I had never really looked at it that way before, but it’s so hideously true.

As for women in film, I’m reminded of something my female film history teacher once said (and I apologize for the language): “They call them ‘chick flicks,’ but do you realize that all the other movies are ‘dick flicks’?”

Yes, the rest of them are. But let’s hold out and hope that one day we will be able to count female directors on more than just the fingers of one hand.

Commercials Upset Me This Week

Posted on by Colleen Claes
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Admittedly, I watch too much cable television. However, I may have to cut back just because of the increasing amount of ridiculous material used for commercials lately. Is it just me, or is it getting worse?

For instance, look at these Reebok commercials for their new Easy Tone sneakers (which are supposed to give your butt a workout…) This first one I see all too often on TV:

Oh, but look, here’s another one that’s even better. Essentially, two breasts on a faceless woman gossip about the fact that a butt is getting more attention than them now. How? Because of Reebok’s new Easy Tone sneakers, of course! Feminist blogger Kate Harding brought this one to my attention in an article on Salon.com. (Her commentary is worth reading, as always.)

These brands are marketing their products by objectifying their objects. Oh, and women too. As Harding says: “And what’s edgier or more original than objectifying women?”

Those Reebok commercials have been getting to me for a few months, so it may seem like a delayed reaction to post about it now. But then I saw another pointlessly sexual commercial tonight, which inspired me to bring it all up again:

And no, it doesn’t make it okay that a dominatrix is perceived as “in control.” I ask you, America – Is it really necessary to use a dominatrix in your commercials to get people to eat pistachios? Before you answer, repeat the question to yourself. Hopefully, you’ll realize how ridiculous it is that a question like that need be asked.

Favorites Revisited #2: Revamped Camp (or, Why You Hate ‘Marie Antoinette’)

Posted on by Colleen Claes
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marie-antoinette

http://www.flickr.com/photos/anyaka/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Here’s why there are more people who hate Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette” than those who love it – You don’t know what it is.

I’m not trying to be condescending here, but it’s the truth. Whenever I hear someone go on about why they didn’t like the film, it’s along the lines of: “What is this movie, with no story and bare minimum dialogue and 80s post-punk music over an 18th century setting and cakes and macrons everywhere? It must just be a movie aching for a Costume Design Oscar.”

I’m writing this post to tell you that the movie is none of those things. Well, I mean, those things are definitely big parts in the movie, but that’s not what it is. I’ll tell you what “Marie Antoinette” is – Camp. It might be obvious to some, but more often than not, I think people are confused about what the film is trying to do or be. But trust me, it’s easier to like it when you look at it for what it is: aesthetic-centered, revamped Camp set in 18th century Versailles.

Don’t believe me? To keep things brief and avoid long-winded-ness, I’ll list some points from the Encyclopedia of Camp – Susan Sontag’s “Notes on Camp”:

1. To start very generally: Camp is a certain mode of aestheticism. It is one way of seeing the world as an aesthetic phenomenon. That way, the way of Camp, is not in terms of beauty, but in terms of the degree of artifice, of stylization.

5. Camp taste has an affinity for certain arts rather than others. Clothes, furniture, all the elements of visual décor, for instance, make up a large part of Camp. For Camp art is often decorative art, emphasizing texture, sensuous surface, and style at the expense of content. Concert music, though, because it is contentless, is rarely Camp. It offers no opportunity, say, for a contrast between silly or extravagant content and rich form. . .

38. Camp is the consistently aesthetic experience of the world. It incarnates a victory of “style” over “content,” “aesthetics” over “morality,” of irony over tragedy.

And finally…

13. The dividing line seems to fall in the 18th century; there the origins of Camp taste are to be found (Gothic novels, Chinoiserie, caricature, artificial ruins, and so forth.) But the relation to nature was quite different then. In the 18th century, people of taste either patronized nature (Strawberry Hill) or attempted to remake it into something artificial (Versailles). They also indefatigably patronized the past. Today’s Camp taste effaces nature, or else contradicts it outright. And the relation of Camp taste to the past is extremely sentimental.

I would like to let these definitions speak for themselves and draw their own connections. I believe Coppola’s portrayal of Marie Antoinette as a 1980s post-punk rock Material Girl is the essence of modern Campiness drawing on the past – as Camp tends to do (see #13). And the past of Versailles was almost too perfect to serve as the Camp backdrop.

That’s not to say that Coppola’s film is cinematically irrelevant. (And for me, this is where it gets touchy.) Of course one of the main purposes of the film is to be pretty. That’s Coppola’s whole film outlook – prettiness, shots through blades of grass, and Kirsten Dunsts lying outdoors in rustic white nightgowns. That’s what Coppola does. She cares about the beauty aesthetic. She chose film over the practical digital camera for Lost in Translation because digital wasn’t “romantic” enough. She wants to portray beauty and pretty things. Sorry, not to generalize here, but the men I’ve talked to don’t necessarily love this because they’re not used to it. Because 98% of the films we see are and have been made by men, not “girly” women like Sofia Coppola. Hell, who are we kidding? They’re hardly made by women period. But this aesthetic outlook should not be undermined in terms of art. Coppola said it best herself in her own defense: “You’re considered superficial and silly if you are interested in fashion, but I think you can be substantial and still be interested in frivolity.”

But back to Camp in particular – I think this whole explanation of what the film’s going to do is laid out right in front of us from the very opening shot. A French maid puts on Marie Antoinette’s shoes while the Queen sits amongst tables of cakes. The last we see of this shot is Kirsten Dunst licking cake off her finger and looking straight into the camera – breaking the fourth wall – with a devilish schoolgirl smirk. There it is. Right there. The whole film’s purpose revealed to us in one moment, and we missed it or forgot about it.  “The joke’s on you,” Sofia Coppola seems to say. The joke’s on you.