women in the movies

[rm]

Like most of the finest American directors working now, Mr. Anderson makes little on-screen time for women.

Manohla Dargis says this in today's NYTimes review of There Will Be Blood. It is a perfectly accurate observation, but one that I found chilling in that to my eye, it reads as easily as a statement of necessity (much like cliches about men writing about ideas and women writing about feelings) as a benign statement of perhaps less benign fact.

But I'm not here to rant about Dargis's tonal quality (although what a thing to say casually), but rather to look at this quirk of cinema and hold it up against the fact that I too, by and large, prefer to watch the stories of men.

Part of this, surely, has to do more with the presentation of gender than any true preference -- films about women are, by and large, like women's magazines presented with a message (to call it a subtext is often generous) of what my concerns _should_ be as a woman, and lacking those particular insecurities or feeling a deep commitment to the rejection there of -- I don't want to be anywhere near those movies.

But then I suppose the vocabulary of (largely, but not exclusively American) movies remains firmly entrenched in the idea that men do things to be "real" men and women are chosen for things to be "real" women. And if I'm being honest, I have to admit it is less that I don't buy into this stuff and more that I have a personal narrative of having never been chosen for anything (especially by a man), and being an agent in my own life. That is, bad at being a "real" woman, but plausible at being a "real" man, even if not a man.

The question all of this raises, though, other than ugly insights into my gender identity issues (which, I'll thank you to note, the above aside, is definitely more complex than the "self-hating lesbian" trope I see bandied around in fandom), is whether it's possible to make the sort of films -- brutal, stark and spare and often set in a quasi-fictional West (American, European, hardly seems to matter) -- that interest me, and lately critics, in a way that includes, features and stars women. As an actor largely not cut out in face or form for women's work, this is a question that matters to me as far more than a consumer.

Oddly, the two on-screen products I can think of that have achieved this, don't, at first blush seem to be about women -- HBO's prematurely canceled Carnivale, which showed us female wrath and brutality, physical strength and casually practical sexuality even while ostensibly being about a power struggle between two or three men (without the conclusion of the series, this remains somewhat unclear), and Mike Leigh's Topsy-Turvy, which seems to be about the struggles of Gilbert and Sullivan until its last stunning moments in which you realize the women's stories that have lurked under the entire piece are actually its point.

By and large though, movies strike me constantly as if birth control hasn't made it to the screen, at least metaphorically. Women on screen are still shackled to men as deliverers of children, sexuality, wealth and personal value; they are side notes, often, it seems, inserted into films that would otherwise be entirely about men, to break up either color palettes or gay subtext. These women don't represent me, they don't interest me, and I don't want to be them at work or at home, in fact or fiction.

I wonder, a lot, if this will ever change. And if the change will require our world to change far more than it already has, into a place where no one gives a crap about whether Hilary is nice, but whether her ruthlessness is intelligent; or if it's a simpler matter that merely requires writers and directors to have more imagination.

I said once that conventionally straight men never want to date the girl who is one of the guys, no matter how hot and sexy she is, because it creates a homosocial dynamic, no matter how physically gendered she may be. Is this what's happening at the movies? If women step up into being meaningful parts of the current celebrated films of a certain tonal quality, does their splash of color become a sudden nerve-wracking poison to traditional male identity? And if so, isn't that a good thing by sheer virtue of being interesting?

Because I'm queer and gender queer, it's hard to step outside myself to look at all of this, but I do wonder what it feels like to look at someone like Tilda Swinton or Cate Blanchett or Clea Duvall in a lot of their roles. I wonder what wanting them or wanting to be them feels like for the less-/non-queered person, if it's unsettling, and if that feels good. I wonder if the movie makers are afraid to make movies about women in a way that would be disrupting to the stories we all already know about ourselves, or, if they simply believe (or perhaps realize) that even in fiction, those stories may not be there to tell yet.

Comments

[delicatetbone.livejournal.com]

I really adore Clea Duvall...and Carnivale was one of my favorite programs ever. I bare a striking body-resemblance to Cynthia Ettinger who plays Rita-Sue in Carnivale.

I haven't seen topsy-turvy, but your description of it has me putting it on my netflix queue right now.

Have you ever had a conversation with a straight man about their love for johnny depp? I have. It's quite interesting. I feel like I've had an equivalent conversation with straight-identified women about their love of angelina jolie...and in the past, she played many gender-bending roles (though I'm not sure if that's part of her film history that people are necessarily attracted to).

[hey-its-dave.livejournal.com]

Carnivale is one of my favorites, so is Clea Duvall. Speaking of Tilda Swinton and the presentation of gender in film, have you seen Orlando? I love that film, and the Jimmy Sommerville song at the very end is one of my favorite songs.

In Which I May Disclose Both Too Much and Too Little

[lawnrrd]

Regarding your last point, I suppose I count as a "less-/non-queered person." But I long ago noticed that the women I found most attractive often weren't the ones who men were supposed to want. You mention Tilda Swinton, for example: I think I once told you, only half-joking, that I wanted to re-watch Constantine with the volume turned all the way down, fast-forwarding through the scenes that she wasn't in.

I haven't found this unsettling, except for one time in my first year of law school when someone in my class quite literally took my breath away and I wasn't sure that she was a woman. (She was. She was also very much a lesbian.)

Still, even if it doesn't unsettle me, I have sometimes wondered why I often find, for example, boyish girls so attractive when real boys don't do a thing for me.

You wrote that "movies strike me constantly as if birth control hasn't made it to the screen, at least metaphorically." I think that this reflects more widespread notions of femininity and women's sexuality. And after more therapy than either of us would want me to discuss here, I have come to believe that a lot of what I find attractive relates to (WARNING! BIG SURPRISE FOLLOWS!) my complicated relationship with my own mother. She raised me and my brother, essentially on her own, and that's probably connected to why I see no tension between being a woman and being strong or an agent. But other aspects of that relationship probably explain why I am primarily attracted to less maternal—and therefore less conventionally feminine—women.

[featherofeeling.livejournal.com]

I would agree about both of those conversations. I don't know if it's easier for men to love Johnny Depp because he's outside of gender constraints in some ways, and they can be attracted to the "feminine" in some of his roles (as opposed to what Racheline was saying about the "masculine" in the roles of some women that might create *more* of the traditional homosocial dynamic that threatens), or what the gender/queer implications of it would be, but I've heard it from a lot of straight men. Likewise with Angeline Jolie and women, although a. a lot of people (not me) find her scary, and b. I don't know what men's attraction to her says about the overall point.

[manycolored.livejournal.com]

I said once that conventionally straight men never want to date the girl who is one of the guys, no matter how hot and sexy she is, because it creates a homosocial dynamic, no matter how physically gendered she may be.

OH!

... ohhhhh.

Wow. A lot of things make sense now, including the guys who DO get involved with me.

[baronalejandro.livejournal.com]

I said once that conventionally straight men never want to date the girl who is one of the guys, no matter how hot and sexy she is, because it creates a homosocial dynamic, no matter how physically gendered she may be.

I think I want to disagree with you on this. All conventionally straight men that I hang out with nowadays desire a strong, self-motivated woman way more than someone they'll have to coddle and lead by the nose.

Here's an example. I'm a biker. I hang out on biker internet forums. Predictably, there are threads about pictures of girls on bikes. And the ones that get the most comments, the most views, and marriage proposals, are the pictures of girls riding their own bikes, or working on their own bikes. Fully clothed, I might add! This class of convetionally straight men values women who can maintain, ride, and mix it up with men on any set of race track or dirt track. More so than some dumb biker bunny that they'll have to buy dinners for.

It's not just on the amazing intart00bs, as well. I work part-time at a bike mechanic's. One mechanic has a strong motivated wife, the primary wage earner. One mechanic has this cute piece of fluff for a girlfriend. Guess who gets more props in the shop......

The guy with the strong motivated wife.

[spiralflames.livejournal.com]

interesting topic. i don't know what's worse- young women thinking that their romances should somehow be like leo and kate in _titanic_ (doomed tho it might be) or poor men who think that somehow they never CAN be "Real Men"...the movies ARE all about that fantasy, and somehow, we're ALL about that failure..or when you DO have someone 'average' (sandra bullock, can they PLEASE WASH YOUR HAIR)..she bugs the hell out of me. movies are fantasy and self-hatred ALL in a row...

[spiralflames.livejournal.com]

(excuse me if this comes up twice, i think it didn't go through the first time around)

interesting what you say about biker chicks- i find it to be more like what racheline was saying, that if men accept me as a 'colleague', then that assessment can't be changed..to move it into the erotic/sensuous would be like "ewww, that'd be like screwing my sister!"

[coridan.livejournal.com]

The writings of the Frankfurt school and the situationalists that followed them hit this entire topic squarely on the head - Big Media will always, always send messages that supports the interests of those who invest money in projects or who own the property. And those interests will always include encouraging traditional gender roles that emphasize commercial consumption. Men are supposed to be leaders, bread winners, and the post around which the nuclear family evolves, and women are supposed to care for men and make children, while looking to men for direction. Not one single project gets green lighted that will not see a potential return on investment. Media owners will not act against the ultimate interests of capitalism.

Big Capital has a vested interest in seeing that traditional gender roles are reinforced, while non-traditional roles (gays, queers, transgendered folk, polyamorous folk, folk who do not engage in standard family arrangements) are excoriated or rejected, or simply ignored. You'll never see texts about these people or subjects because they stand outside the economic order under which society functions. Say, for example, Queer folk were to become a large minority, to the extant that they start to form large family units (as in, extended families.) How will transfer of assets across generations be handled? Will people start to question the right of property holders to assign property upon death to offspring? For people who raise children that aren't biologically theres but love them all the same, what counts as a child? How will this disrupt notions of class and race identity? Economic utility and sexual politics are intimately linked, since control of reproduction is control of labor.

Ironically, I look to fan fiction and other not for profit works for interesting stories and texts concerning gender, sexual and race issues, since Big Capital has less of a direct influence on these venues.

I'm sure that Noam Chomsky and related writers have more to say on this subject.

CB

[coridan.livejournal.com]

I actually dig women who are one of the guys, because that means that the girl I'm with won't roll her eyes when I goob about giant robots (a particularly guy thing.) I find a woman who is self confident and perhaps a touch agressive quite appealing.

I stand outside the norm, apparently.

CB

[manycolored.livejournal.com]

... and you sound a heck of a lot like my boyfriend and the ones that were before him. : )

[baronalejandro.livejournal.com]

Hm, maybe I didn't say what I wanted to say clearly - what I was trying to convey is that men that I associate with generally desire a stronger, more capable woman that some piece of arm-candy. I see what you're saying that sometimes men de-sexualize someone whom they see as an equal, but that's not always the case. Different strokes, of course.

[phaenix-ash.livejournal.com]

received my book from amazon today - it looks great!

[keever.livejournal.com]

Excellent post. That line from Dargis' review struck me quite hard, too, for its casual boldness.

I had Topsy-Turvy on in the background as I wrote out my holiday cards this year, and was reminded all over again how much I loved it, particularly the ending, for just the reason you mentioned.

[spiralflames.livejournal.com]

no, you WERE clear-- and i was really glad to hear that-- i'm older than you so perhaps it's an older-guy deal, but i am really happy to hear that this is happening more often :-)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yay! If you feel inspired at any point to review on Amazon, I would be most grateful.

[baronalejandro.livejournal.com]

poor men who think that somehow they never CAN be "Real Men"

That is the problem that occupies my gender-brain thinking these days. I feel that all too often we are shamed for masculinity. V. sad.

[baronalejandro.livejournal.com]

Oh, cheers then!

[spiralflames.livejournal.com]

well, either that, or forced into a cliche' of someone else's CONCEPT of masculinity.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

By and large though, movies strike me constantly as if birth control hasn't made it to the screen, at least metaphorically. Women on screen are still shackled to men as deliverers of children, sexuality, wealth and personal value;

Gods yes, and also in the even more vivid way that sexual relationships between people who are adults and not trying to have children results in pregnancy a whole lot more than one would expect in movies and TV, and the vast majority of women in TV and movies (at least in the US) do not even consider abortion.

I said once that conventionally straight men never want to date the girl who is one of the guys, no matter how hot and sexy she is, because it creates a homosocial dynamic, no matter how physically gendered she may be.

Have you actually found that to be true? If so, it may say a fair amount about men that when I was much younger and interacted with a far more conventional social circle, the only women I ever wanted to get involved with were very much "one of the guys". Now issues of gender, sexuality, and identity have become complex enough in my social group to render this issue ludicrously moot, which is definitely my preference.

[jslorentz.livejournal.com]

Another fascinating thought process. I like to see ideas of gender questioned and pushed, and I agree that it gets dull after a while, seeing women presented as strong early in a script, only to be relegated to sidearm by midpoint (Kinsey comes to mind as a recent example).

But even in real life, I have often found myself disappointed to know women whom I find strong and independently-minded but later prove appallingly domestic deep down. I struggle with it because as a guy (and a straight one at that), I have absolutely no right to tell any woman (or anyone else) how to live her life. I keep looking for those partners who have faced these questions themselves, and thankfully, I have found a few. We forge ahead with our own dynamics and I don't have to wonder how much she actually likes cooking or who gets to operate the power drill.

[jslorentz.livejournal.com]

It's rare, but growing, I think. We all have things to learn, but I'd like to think I'm a gender-progressive straight guy, and that I'm not alone.

Glad to hear about the bikers!