Talk to Her: Films Put to the Bechdel Test

IT'S COMING BACK.

2010-01-04T12:57:00.000-08:00

After a really long hiatus (because life got BUSY), I've decided I should really try to get this back up again. Reviews/criticisms will probably be much more streamlined and will probably feature more than one review per post. Apologies for being away so long.

We take a break from our regularly scheduled programming...

2009-03-13T19:29:00.000-07:00

This blog will be taking a brief hiatus for a week, until my spring break. :) Enjoy your break!

Girl, Interrupted - PASS

2009-03-09T08:55:00.000-07:00

*Spoil--interrupting cow!--ers.

Girl, Interrupted features one of my favorite Dorothy Parker quips, entitled Resume: "Razors pain you/ Rivers are damp/ Acids stain you/ And drugs cause cramp./ Guns aren't lawful/ Nooses give/ Gas smells awful/ You might as well live." Featuring pre-shoplifting Winona Ryder as said interrupted girl, this film provides an interesting slice of what female mental illness was like in the 1960's. As it takes place in an all-female ward of a mental institution, it passes the Bechdel test quickly and often.

Based on a true story, Girl, Interrupted revolves around Suzanna (Winona Ryder), a young woman placed in a mental institution after she downs a nearly fatal mix of a bottle of asprin and vodka. She is defensive and unhappy with her placement, fixating on the fact that she is certainly not crazy and only had a headache. Over time, she bonds a bit with her fellow patients (who each comes with their own set of neuroticisms and disease), and finally meets Lisa (Angelina Jolie), who is a wild, incorrigible sociopath. She finds a place for herself with the patients, finding real friends for the first time in perhaps her entire life. She's diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, and a few events occur within the asylum--a past boyfriend comes to visit, she ends up escaping with Lisa once before being caught and finally committing to getting better.

Girl, Interrupted questions what it means to be crazy, and to be a woman and be crazy. There's a great line where one of the doctors informs Suzanna that her being "promiscuous" is a symptom of her disorder. She questions her doctor about what that means--and if any boy who slept with as many women as he wanted would be labeled as "promiscuous." These definitions obviously need revisiting, as does the definition of "crazy," or perhaps even "borderline."

Each resident crazy of the asylum's female ward is remarkably three-dimensional--and it's no coincidence, as these experiences are based on a true story, a book of the same name. Lisa in particular is incredibly interesting as a sociopath ("We are very rare and we are mostly men"). She effectively manipulates the other patients into smiles, laughter, or complete depression. She even inspires a former patient to kill herself, revealing a scalpel-like insight into others' lives and abuses. One wonders how much is the psychological disorder, and how much is actually Lisa. She is capable and obviously rather efficient with her manipulations.

There are very few men in Girl, Interrupted. One is Suzanna's father--a typical out-of-touch parent. Another is Suzanna's boyfriend, a young man who drives to the asylum in hopes of taking Suzanna away to Canada and dodging the draft. The last is another out-of-touch man, one of Suzanna's psychologists. These men are, overall, portrayed as a bit out of touch (and perhaps rightly so, as they are apparently real and Suzanna is living with a mental disorder), but maybe that's where her unstable and rather "casual" relationships come from. Suzanna needs people who are in-touch with her sensibilities, and that's where her fellow patients come in: they're her first friends.

These intrinsic human relationships are really what make Girl, Interrupted a worthwhile watch. Angelina Jolie actually won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Lisa the sociopath, and rightly so. It's a character study of what it means to be crazy, even promiscuous, and we find those terms re-defined within the movie's sphere.

Persepolis - PASS

2009-03-04T14:30:00.000-08:00

*This is probably one of the best movies ever. Of course I'm going to spoil it.

Marjane Satrapi has said that the reason she chose a black-and-white animated style to convey the story of Persepolis because it erased the relatable context of the film, citing that many people would just dismiss it as just another Middle Eastern movie. Instead, this film emerges as the portrait of a young woman coming of age in a country where a female's coming of age has been rendered impossible.

The movie is the memories of Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian comic memoir-ist who came of age during the Iranian Revolution, the reinstatement of Islam fundamentalism and the subsequent war between Iraq and Iran. She grows up in this harsh environment surrounded by a protective coccoon of family, in a world where the veil really is law and window washers can become heads of state because of religious belief. After tragedy strikes too close to home, Marjane's parents send her to Vienna, where after a couple of years of loneliness and soul-searching, she returns to Iran to attend university. The film ends with her leaving Iran again, too cloistered by its fundamentalist practices and is forbidden by her mother to return.

The authenticity of this movie is what captures its audience so grippingly. Marjane is a completely earnest heroine, getting into hijinks and misadventures just like any child. One can can easily admire her personality--there are memorable scenes where she combats the forces of "sit down and shut up" versions of tyrannical rule. But she makes mistakes too--she can be selfish and unable to see the big picture of what this means to her country. However, since we see her age from four year old to twenty-two year old, the audience is granted a rare insight into a fictional character, and one can sense that Satrapi isn't leaving a single stone unturned.

While the movie does diverge from the books (skipping over parts, but never changing them), the element of family relationships crosses from comic to screen effortlessly. Marjane's mother and grandmother are figures of very honest strength and vulnerability. It's the mother that decides Marjane should get as far away from Iran as possible, fearing for her daughter's future in the eyes of Islamic fundamentalism. And it's the grandmother who cuts Marjane down to size in a moment of supposed-survivalism.

At any rate, Persepolis passes the Bechdel test with flying colors and should be seen by any girl (or boy) looking for one of the most authentic coming of age stories in a long, long time. The animation is gorgeous as well as the intricate plot line.

The Stepford Wives (1975) - PASS

2009-03-02T18:51:00.000-08:00

*Stepfordian spoilers.

The Stepford Wives is not so much a thriller in this day and age--as it was probably meant to be, given it's written by Ira Levin--but is much more a piece of social commentary, a sort of living expression of Betty Friedan's "Problem with No Name." It definitely passes the Bechdel test, and presents a very interesting problem that is a bit timeless.

Summarizing The Stepford Wives: A young, beautiful woman named Joanna moves with her husband and two children from Manhattan to a small suburb town called Stepford. She feels constrained by the picture-perfect lifestyles--most of the women are weirdly content with cleaning, cooking and childcare. She finds solace with a fellow recently-moved-New-Yorker named Bobbie, who also notes the strange attitudes of the fellow housewives, and also that most of the town is run by a Men's Association--a sort of town council/board idea.

Joanna and Bobbie really dislike how everything is run so "archaically" and try to make a consciousness group of their own. What few members they do have slowly begin turning stranger and stranger--one by one, they dress differently, talk differently and about domestic things only, and seem to be completely different people. Joanna and Bobbie search for an answer until Bobbie herself is changed, and Joanna finds out the terrible truth: the Men's Association is making robot versions of their wives and switching them out, one by one. Why? "Because we can."

As I have said before, the social commentary in The Stepford Wives is highly engaging. There's a very conscious decision in the costuming--pre-robot women dress with individual style and flirtatiousness, while their mechanical substitutes all wear the same lace-and-plaid-apron get-up, or some variation of the same thing. Women who don't want to be part of this social system are treated like crazies, as seen when Joanna goes to her husband after Bobbie becomes what she is not. He treats her as though she is insane, though one can attribute that to his being intricately involved in these rather unpleasant doings.

The fact that the problem of women wanting more than to pleasure men is solved by robotic intervention is interesting--one is reminded of "housewife syndrome," or women so intellectually unstimulated by their roles as home-makers that they were prescribed anti-depressants and tranquilizers by doctors, or became addicted to alcohol and prescription pills. Perhaps, it can be said, they eventually were programmed into submission with the aid of the popular culture of the time, and of course, some mind-altering substances. There's also a rather loud message here: these wives of Stepford seem to be better off dead. None of them desire the life that their husbands require of them. It is dehumanizing to a point of caricature, both male and female.

The Stepford Wives is definitely worth checking out, as it quickly passes the Bechdel test and presents many rather thought-provoking ideas that are sure to spark a bit of life in your programmed brain.

The Bridges of Madison County - PASS

2009-02-23T09:36:00.001-08:00

*Note: Wednesday's blog post will be on Friday. Apologies all around.

*Spoilers!

Sweet tap-dancing Jesus, a film starring Clint Eastwood where he doesn't shoot some criminal in the face or beat the shit out of anyone? Sign me up. The Bridges of Madison County is a rather sentimental movie that barely passes the Bechdel test, but still frames the relationship between two people rather beautifully.

Set in the 1960's, Francesca (Meryl Streep) is an Italian war bride who lives on a farm in Madison County, Iowa. Robert (Clint Eastwood, who also directs) is a National Geographic photographer on an assignment to photograph the famous covered bridges of said county. He drops by Francesca's house to ask for directions, and "one of those electric things between people" happens. Francesca's family is away for four days at a fair, in which Francesca and Robert fall passionately in love and carry on an affair.

I enjoy Robert and Francesca's relationship in the sense that it's very much an equal animal. To explain, because they are both adults they understand the brevity of the affair and the consequences of it becoming permanent. Francesca has enough sexual agency to both begin her affair with Robert and realize the consequences of it--she's very much the unhappy housewife, though it takes meeting someone who's traveled Africa to make her realize it. But when she realizes what she wants, she goes for it. It's refreshing.

She's very down to earth and realistic about her priorities--she wants to run away with Robert, but her duties as a mother and a wife come first. Also, marriage and children aren't sacrificed to preachy beatnik gobbledygook. Robert tries to persuade her to leave her husband because she's unhappy and her kids are almost grown--and even I hoped she would, so she could truly be happy--but the guilt of leaving her commitments would destroy their relationship. I really appreciate the level of realism that is invested in her character. Ironically enough, Francesca's affair becomes a lesson to her two children--do what you want for yourself, or forever let real love pass you by. The story is told by the two reading her journals after her death.

It also duly examines the "scarlet woman" syndrome that is typical of the small towns--Francesca's greatest friend becomes the woman who had an affair with a married man, and so they become two women bonded by their romantic choices. And they live with these things until the day they die. It's a resounding message about both judgement and the freedom of women in society--it's the woman the town gossips about, not the married man.

But really, The Bridges of Madison County is a character study of a brief, incredibly passionate affair that goes on to shape lifetimes to come. It's a movie well worth checking out, as it passes the Bechdel test and also features a woman willing to take control of her own life and the consequences that follow.

Academy Award Wednesdays: Changeling - PASS

2009-02-18T19:59:00.000-08:00

*Spoilers for yet another sad movie with some wha-pow shock factor.

I'll start this review with something that's been said by many who review Clint Eastwood's Changeling: do not watch this film if you are an expectant mother. That all said, Changeling is, despite its great despairing weight, a nearly inspirational story that is currently nominated for three Academy Awards, and passes the Bechdel test to boot.

Again, a synopsis: Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie, Best Actress nominee) lives in a strangely-nice-for-a-one-woman's-single-income-in-the-1920's-house with her young, nine-year-old son Walter. One spring Saturday, she's called into her job as a telephone operator supervisor because the staff is shorthanded. She leaves Walter at home alone, returns to her house in the evening to find that her son is gone. The police are called, and Christine and the LAPD search for her son for a good while. After about five months, the LAPD find him, but upon reunion at the train Christine discovers a shocking truth: this boy is not her son. And so unfolds the rest of the film, with Christine desperately trying to persuade the police that this newly returned boy is not her child and that they should keep scouring the states for her "real" son. Unfortunately, the LAPD is completely corrupt and are afraid this one more failure will set the entire city off against them. They paint Christine as delusional, and after she persists, an LAPD captain has her sent to the psychopathic ward under Code 12, which in our modern colloquial stands for "this woman pissed us off, so we need to send her to the psych ward to make her shut the hell up." Oh, the twenties.

While she's locked up, a juvenile comes forward to confess his forced involvement in a series of random child slayings by his uncle. When a police officer asks the boy to go through a series of missing children photos and identify which ones were victims of the murderer. He identifies about twenty young boys, including a picture of Walter Collins. The paper gets hold of it, Christine's supporters get her out of the psych ward, the murderer's arrested, the city council takes the LAPD to task by removing the chief of police and that shitty police captain that sent Christine to the mental hospital. Unfortunately, even though Christine helps bring down the corrupt police force, she never finds her son.

Changeling belongs to that vein of one-woman-goes-up-against-lots-of-power-playing-men movies, and it brings its own nuance to the table. Christine isn't fighting for legal equality, not really, she's just fighting to bring her son home. It doesn't even seem that courage is a factor she considers, so whole is her devotion to this cause. Something I noted is that Christine never goes to other men for help--she tries and tries on her own until a pastor with a vendetta against LAPD forces approaches her, ends up helping to bust her out of the psychiatric ward and gets her a lawyer when the LAPD are taken up in front of the council. In her "everyday" life, it's nice to see her portrayed as a capable supervisor who's even being offered up for promotions---though I don't understand how she'd be able to afford the sprightly little twenties house she lives in. Regardless, she is an ordinary women in extraordinary circumstances, and she rises to the occasion, even as the police snap at her abilities as a parent.

Her true character and situation comes out when she's imprisoned in the psycho ward. She is "escorted" there by police, stripped down and searched--(something I always wonder: when men get tossed into the psycho ward in a film, do they have scenes of them being sprayed nakedly with firehoses or the body cavity search?). She meets Carol (a lovely turn by Amy Ryan), a prostitute who was thrown in because a police cop client was smacking her around and she dared to file a complaint. She fills her in on all the other "Code 12s," even coming to her defense and punching the head doctor in the face when they try to force sedation pills down Christine's throat. She gets put through some pretty nauseating electroshock therapy treatments for doing it. Christine sneaks into her room afterwards, and Carol gives her some advice: "Fuck them and the horse they rode in on." When Christine spits the same quip at the head doctor later, it seems a little out of character, but its her only weapon now against the tide as she's dragged off for electroshock. One of the movie's few fulfilling moments comes when Christine comes back with a hoarde of lawyers and lets every Code 12 woman out of the psycho ward. At least someone gets saved in all these dark turns of events.

Overall, Changeling tells a dark period story that ends on a note of hope despite its rather deep, desponding story arcs. It features a woman fighting for what's hers and she eventually suceeds...though...not really. It also passes the Bechdel test. Also, it features Angelina Jolie still somehow retaining eyeshadow and mascara on her face. In a mental hospital. After a fire hose sprays the hell out of her. You make the call.

Boys Don't Cry - PASS

2009-02-16T15:19:00.000-08:00

*Apologies for no blog last Wednesday. I was ill, plus my movie...failed. Unfortunately, these things happen. But onward!

*Occasionally, people who read spoilers cry. I'm sorry these lines are always so lame.

I can say, very honestly, that Boys Don't Cry is the saddest movie I've seen in a long, long time. It pretty much slugs you right in the face with its complete, raw, devastating honesty. It's an intense film and a brave piece of cinema. And it passes the Bechdel test.

Boys Don't Cry is about a female-to-male transsexual who goes by Brandon Teena (Hilary Swank, who won a well deserved Academy Award for this part). He leaves his home of Lincoln, Nebraska for Falls City on basically a whim. There, he finds the love of his life, Lana (Chloe Sevigny), and an atmosphere where his fellow friends John (Peter Sarsgaard), Candace (Kimberly Pierce), and others have no reason to suspect that Brandon is, at least in flesh, not what he appears to be. He and Lana have a rather idealistic and beautiful relationship that sparks up the jealousy of John. This, combined with some unfortunate misdeeds of Brandon's past (he's wanted in court because he stole a car back home in Lincoln) end up "revealing" his biological identity by saying he's a hermaphrodite to Lana, but she accepts him as he is and bails him out of jail.

And then...shit happens. Really intense, atrocious, gag-reflex-inducing, eyes-tearing-up, gut-punching shit happens. While Brandon was in jail, his sort of surrogate family have discovered his secret by discovering hidden tampons, suspicious stains, etc. When they return, a drunken John and friend strip Brandon down, exposing him to Lana. When Brandon leaves the house, the two snag him in their car and rape him by a meat-packing plant. They drag him back to the house, Brandon escapes, and goes to the hospital and police station, where he is mistreated by police because of his sexuality. Eventually, he is making plans to leave town and staying at Candace's place, when John comes in, shoots Brandon and Candace in front of Candace's toddler...and...yeah.

Boys Don't Cry is painful to watch, as it frames hate and ignorance in a raw, no-holds-barred way that grabs the viewer by the throat and pulls them into the action. Brandon is particularly poignant. He, like so many people, is confused about who he is, but he has the courage to at least try and be who he thinks he might be. It's inspirational. His confusion is relatable in terms of any age, gender or sexuality. I appreciate how brave the film is with how raw and terrible Brandon's particular experience is. There's no sugar-coating, and for that his true honesty shines through, giving us a real look at a transgendered life.

Lana and Brandon's relationship is also admirable in their acceptance of each other. Even though Brandon is unable to tell her the truth until it is literally shoved in her face, Lana still accepts him. There's a theory that one day we will not fall in love with people based on gender, but solely on personality. Perhaps these two are an example of that idealism. We see lots of straight relationships that have fallen out of happiness in the movie--John and his wife, John and his creepy obsession with Lana, Candace and her husband--but Brandon and Lana have this sweet note of hope to them. It's something to hold onto in a movie about what happens when hate is let loose.

Boys Don't Cry is a wrenching film that explores the very reaches of what we call a sexual identity, commemorating one wo/man who didn't need to die, and shouldn't have had to. It also successfully cruises through the Bechdel test, rating this film a well-deserved pass.

Knocked Up - PASS

2009-02-09T15:28:00.002-08:00

*Some rather pregnant spoilers.

I don't mean to turn this into Katherine Heigl mondays, but after a friend told me about a Vanity Fair interview where Heigl states Knocked Up is sexist towards women, and then went on to make the pile of shit that is 27 Dresses, the reviewing of Knocked Up seemed both necessary and inevitable. While obviously Heigl has the right to critique her own work, this is just too hypocritical to let pass (if you recall, it was also Heigl who withdrew her name from the Emmy nominations pool because she felt the Grey's Anatomy writers hadn't done her justice).

But back to Knocked Up: Alison (Heigl) goes out to celebrate a promotion at E! with her sister Debbie (Leslie Mann) and meets Ben (Seth Rogen). After Debbie leaves, Alison and Ben proceed to drink themselves silly, go back to her place (which is some kind of guesthouse in Debbie's yard) and have drunken, condom-less sex, the latter of which is a misunderstanding. Eight weeks later, Alison is puking and pregnant. She calls Ben--who's nothing like anything she'd want, as his idea of a job is working on his Celebrity Skin website and is constantly high--and the two begin their slow and steady nine month journey in which they fall in love, fight, talk about marriage, double in size, smoke pot, and have a baby. Knocked Up reminds me of a quote from the great columnist Dan Savage: the best, committed relationship you will ever have is the one night stand that sticks. Neither Alison nor Ben expected this kind of development, and it's what inevitably brings them together.

Notably, Alison considers abortion but obviously doesn't go through with it, but Ben has no say in the matter. Nor does Alison go through giving up her career as an on-camera host at E!. Of course, throughout the movie she does go through her slightly crazy spurts of over-protective motheringness, but isn't that to be expected from someone carrying a child? Is it really considered bitchy to ask that if your boyfriend wants to help support the relationship, that he stop smoking weed all the time and get a job? And is it just 'goofy and fun-loving' for guys to blow off their families and do shrooms in Vegas? Nope. Knocked Up is about growing up, and both Alison and Debbie get their healthy dose of reality at a club while Alison is pregnant.

Knocked Up paints these characters and relationships in such a way that is both comical and really quite balanced. The women aren't shrews, and the men aren't free-loaders. I liked Alison quite a lot---she's a bit unconventional in terms of reality, with deciding to break up with Ben and raise the baby by herself and to keep on with her career. If that's not something independent and empowering, I don't know what is. Debbie, her sister, is a bit more tightly wound after two children, but she still seems a free spirit and speaks her mind in her marriage about it's flaws--better than repressing it and pretending everything is a-okay, in my opinion. Both Alison and Debbie have their own minds about things, and they're interested in relationships, not roles. And so are the two men--Pete (Paul Rudd), Debbie's husband, and Ben are a bit archetypal as men shouldered with burdens. They smoke weed, do drugs, and cling to youth and cool like it's the last thing they have to live for. Ben, at least, does not resign himsef to the role of father but at least has some realization of his place in the world.

Between gynecological antics and bong hits, Knocked Up still has time for some non-guy oriented conversation between Debbie and Allison, which rates this movie a pass in terms of the Bechdel test. At the very least, Knocked Up is quite superior to it's Heigl successor 27 Dresses, with its comical and introspective look at man-woman relationships.

Academy Award Wednesdays: Doubt - PASS

2009-02-04T14:59:00.000-08:00

*Spoilers! Spoilers about nuns!

I've been fortunately seen Doubt both on the stage and in film form. John Patrick Shanley, the writer of the original play, both directed and adapted his work for the big screen. The changes are starkly different between the two, but both are effective works of moral qualm and question. It's nominated for five Oscars, including three for it's female actors' performances. It also passes the Bechdel test. And it's about nuns. Check, check and check.

To surmise, Doubt has a relatively unfettered plot, though that's not a criticism of the film. Set in the 1960's at a Catholic school run by clergy, the nun principal Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) suspects that the relationship between the only black boy in the school and the priest, Father Flynn (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), may be turning into something less than permissable. Amy Adams plays Sister James, a young nun who has the boy in her class and brings her suspicions to Sister Aloysius, who launches a campaign against him. Her convictions bring about a host of conversations, confrontations and of course, doubts. By the end of the movie, no one, not even the characters, truly knows what has been done. Literally! Apparently, Shanley only told Phillip Seymour Hoffamn whether or not Father Flynn was guilty. How cool. But back to the subject at hand.

Doubt possesses female characters of lovely intensity and depth. Most notably, even though Doubt is a film about one man and what that one man may or may not have done, each one is driven by multiple, complex motivations other than Father Flynn or the boy. While Sister Aloysius is quite tough and uncompromising, Sister James in particular shines as a nun stuck between compassion and necessity. There's a scene where she attempts to emulate Sister Aloysius in her classroom, and it's rather heartbreaking to see tears in her eyes after she makes a child cry. Her crisis of faith is also absorbing--there's a well-known line in the script where Sister Aloysius informs her that when one attacks wrongdoing, one takes a step away from God. Sister James' reaction and consequent transformation--no longer the compassionate nun we once knew--is imperative.

Sister Aloysius is another story, and a rather complicated one at that. Regardless of whether or not she's doing the right thing, she is compelled by what one might call a higher power. It's refreshing to see a nun that isn't quiet as a mouse, one that is willing to break the rules of the church if necessary. It's pretty much dripping with her discontent with the patriarchal doings of the church---she complains again and again about how she has to go through so much red tape to get something accomplished, even in a time of need like this where a child's well-being is at stake. Sometimes the performance is a little over the top for my tastes, but Aloysius' attitude is admirable. Her convictions are unflinching and unrelenting out of a sense of grave duty to both God and her fellow person.

Viola Davis has a brilliant turn as the boy in question's mother. Her role redefines what it means to do what is best for her children, and injects the movie with a sense of both urgency and hopelessness. In the only scene where she speaks, she reveals to Sister Aloysius that her prerogative is to get her boy through school and on to a better life, even if she has to sacrifice his safety and general well-being to do it. It's a complete shocker: if this is the way that Father Flynn chooses to help her boy, so be it. It completely takes Aloysius off guard. But she embodies such a strength--it's similar to Aloysius, though more emotional and again, we don't know if it's the right thing to do.

Doubt in it's original form was called a parable, and it certainly raises questions of faith, emotion and morality. It's a cinematic experience well worth watching, and as it also passes the Bechdel test, happens to portray these females as motivated and well drawn out.

27 Dresses - YELLOW LIGHT!

2009-02-02T14:25:00.000-08:00

*27 spoilers. At least.

The best part of this movie are the actual dresses. They are outlandish and ridiculous pieces of clothing. They don't actually make Katherine Heigl look ugly, but they're at least slightly titillating. And that's where the laughs pretty much stop.

The premise is Katherine Heigl starring in another movie about a "female rite of passage" (except Knocked Up was way better) as a wedding-obsessed woman named Jane who's madly in love with her boss George. She works tirelessly as his personal assistant, and is pretty much stuck in a rut of watching him from afar until her sister Tess (Malin Ackerman) comes to town and quickly scoops up George into her clutches with a whole host of lies that totally make or break a marriage, such as being a vegetarian or an animal lover. Jane is totally heartbroken, and in comes Kevin (James Marsden) a wedding columnist with a rather cynical and dark view about weddings. The two meet, fight, sing "Benny and the Jets" together, and it's totally a match made in heaven. Jane, who's an incredibly placating figure, ends up ruining the wedding by exposing her sister's lies to George but everybody ends up dandy, successful, married, whatever. Hooray?

Jane. Jane's the problem with this movie. Jane is supposed to be some kind of monkish older sister who's sworn off all kinds of human contact in order to make everyone around her happy. It's so ridiculously overdone that she basically becomes a characature of a desperate woman--she's apparently gone to college and is starting to make a career for herself, but the only thing we see her reading is Bride magazine and the weekly bridal column in the paper. The only topic she talks with the only friend we see of hers in the movie (played by an actually rather entertaining Judy Greer) is her unrequited crush on George. And that's the only reason she's stayed in her measly job as his personal assistant. Talk about a glass ceiling, ladies. And of course, even though George treats her...like a personal assistant (nicely, but disposably), she insists on staying in her post. I mean, if she can't be close to him, at least she can be close to his dry cleaning. What a beautiful, wholesome relationship. I'm enamored already. The only funny/compelling/worthwhile thing to come out of that whole perverted relationship is Casey smacking Jane right in the kisser. I actually laughed at that part. Also, I find it also rather ridiculous that even though she has all these "close friends" to whose weddings she attended...none of them show up as characters in the movie outside of the bridal sphere. But I digress.

And then there's her whole "transformation." She gets pissed at Kevin because he exploits her for a column (because she's been to 27 weddings without one of her own...yeah), gets pissed at Tess for lying to George about who she really is, and gets pissed at herself for being such an awful character...I mean, for being so agreeable and placating. Then she ruins Tess and George's wedding by exposing her baby sister but they all get over it after some wonderful fighting that unfortunately makes this movie pass the Bechdel test. Promptly after, George kisses Tess (no one acknowledges how skeevy this is), but they don't "feel anything." Yeah, me neither. Me neither.

For some reason, Kevin is really impressed with how Jane ruined her sister's wedding and confesses how much he feels for her and how much he wants to "take care of her for once." She rejects him, but then after her little "Oh wait, George is actually not the one for me" moment, she chases him to a boat where he's covering a wedding, and they kiss and make up.

Jane celebrates her new-found independence and backbone by...getting married a year later. This film might have had a chance, just a chance at possibly working if it didn't fall to the same wretched conventions--it doesn't prove anything, especially not about the character. There's really no point to the movie. Maybe if Jane left George in the dust, realized that Kevin is sort of a weird, exploitive freak, and went out on her own to find someone worthy, then I would buy this movie's concept. But no. Marriage isn't even about love in this movie. Tess accepts George's proposal because he treats her nicely. Jane's focus is on the rite of passage and the spectacle (though she denies it by the end). Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce, and if people are watching this movie for ideals, I can see why.

27 Dresses is a ridiculous yellow light, even a red light: it may pass the Bechdel test, but nothing in here speaks to women realistically or even with a degree of intelligence.

Academy Award Wednesdays: Slumdog Millionaire - HONORABLE MENTION

2009-01-28T14:51:00.001-08:00

*A million...spoilers.

Slumdog Millionaire is fantastic in a lot of respects. Currently nominated for Best Picture (amongst several other awards), it's received with a lot of critical acclaim and has picked up lots and lots of statues already. It doesn't pass the Bechdel test, but don't lose hope yet. It still gets an honorable mention.

To summarize: the story is centered around two brothers, Salim and Jamal, and charters their entire lives from childhood on out. Salim is older, and as he grows up he becomes more aggressive, conniving, angry, brutish...and so on. Jamal is the scrappy one, and the story is his story. Salim and Jamal live in the slums of Mumbai; the film documents their sometimes horrid existence. They are they are chased by guards, orphaned, exploited, spat on, beat up--but they somehow come out of it alive and whole. After a riot orphans them, the duo takes in another street urchin girl named Latika--the third main player in the story. Jamal is infatuated by Latika even as a child. All three are taken in by a sort of orphanage, and when it turns out their caretaker has some rather sinister plans for them, they run. Latika is left behind. And so starts a pattern of reunion and abandonment that echoes for the rest of the film. The storytelling is what's really lovely--after finally finding Latika after many years, he goes on the gameshow Who Wants to be a Millionaire? to show her he's made something of himself. The story begins with him being interrogated by the police because everyone thinks he's cheated. But the twist is each question he answers is intricately linked to his past.

Slumdog Millionaire suffers from one-woman-show syndrome. There's only one girl in the film with an actual character name--Latika--while the rest are simply designated as "Jamal and Salim's mother" and "American tourist." Obviously, none of these women hold conversations together about something other than men. More alarmingly so, these women are constantly painted as victims in their hostile Mumbai environment--it strikes in the same vein as The Dark Knight. Here is a seemingly realistic, full-fleshed, tough-as-hell environment...and again, the only roles women play are victims (or they're brief and ignorant, such as the tourist). They don't serve a purpose other than pity.

Latika attempts to stand on her own, but it's rare to find a situation where she isn't forced into making a choice or is able to do something that isn't made possible by the charity of others. When the two brothers find her again, she's a dancer who's value grows in worth every day that she remains a virgin. Salim kills her keeper and the two save her, so Jamal and Latika are reunited once more, albeit briefly. Salim, intoxicated with guns, power and money, points a gun at Jamal's head, telling him to leave. Jamal insists rather heartbreakingly that Latika come with him, but Salim has his own plans for her. Jamal doesn't leave, and it seems that for a moment brother will kill brother. But Latika says no. She elects to stay with Salim, the door closes, and Jamal and Latika do not see each other for a number of years. She does it to save Jamal, but what does this say? That she is only a victim of circumstance, that she has to accept the inevitable in order to preserve others. When Jamal is on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Salim is the one who lets Latika out of the compound to escape.

But she is not simply a plot device--something that sets her clearly apart from other one-woman-shows. She has inner conflict between the choices self-preservation and love. When Jamal and Latika are finally reunited after many years, though she spurns Jamal at first she runs away from the life she's basically been forced into (the mistress of a very powerful gangster) but is captured and immediately brought back. She does fight back, recieving a rather nasty slash on the face with a knife and is pulled kicking and screaming back to the compound. There's something to be said for a lone girl standing up to a mob boss by running away.

And one must acknowledge Jamal and Latika's relationship, which is the factor that makes this movie an honorable mention. Jamal is willing to do anything for Latika. And Latika is willing to do anything for Jamal. It isn't about Jamal saving Latika, it's about finding and convincing Latika. It's about love, not roles or getting swept off your feet. The result is somewhat analogous to if both Romeo and Juliet had taken the potion and ended up in the crypt together. It's earnest, authentic, and most of all: equal. At one point, Latika says something along the lines of "I was sure we'd only be happy together in death." But it's obvious that because they are so wholly committed to one another that they somehow defy the scores of odds against them.

That being said, Slumdog Millionaire still fails the Bechdel test. But I give it an honorable mention--a film still worth checking out.

Monster - YELLOW LIGHT!

2009-01-25T18:51:00.000-08:00

*Monstrous spoilers!

Monster passes the Bechdel test within the first ten minutes of the film. It's a nice feat, but the romantic prelude is a stark contrast to the rest of the film. The tag line for this movie should have been "What one will do for love." Or whatever the character of Aileen Wuornos (Charlize Theron) considers love. It's a twisted movie, and though passing the Bechdel test really isn't one that I would recommend to others.

Monster is a biopic surrounding a short period in the life of Aileen "Lee" Wuornos, a prostitute-turned-serial killer in which she meets the one and only love of her life Selby Walls (Christina Ricci). Selby is the first person to love or really just show affection towards Lee, and this connection between them sets off a rather catastrophic chain of events that ends in Lee sentenced to the death penalty for the murders of seven men.

The film does start out rather sweetly, and the romance and chemistry between Lee and Selby is earnest and almost touching. However, this fantasy is soon shaken when Lee goes to "hook" herself out on the streets to get money for a hotel room. She gets beaten up, raped, and takes her revenge rather instinctively as she takes shoots the man responsible before he can hurt her further. It's an incredibly intense scene, and one that invoked a lot of empathy, at least from me. However, the subsequent murders don't fit into this category.

The major flaw with Monster is that nobody, not even the makers of the movie, tries to understand the main character, and constantly paints her as a victim of circumstance. One can, of course, completely empathize with the various, grueling hardships of Wuornos' childhood. However, the film paints her murders as an all-too-simple inevitability. She has to do it for money. She has to do it for Selby. She has to do it for love. There's no hard eye to these claims, and it seems as though the movie is constructed to make the rest of the world pity the injustices against her.

There's a difference between analysis, understanding, and sympathy. Every male character in the movie (save one) is either a jackass or betrays Lee to the authorities. It's misandristic at best. Feminist film blogs aside, the elimination of men from the moral spectrum doesn't make a film any more representative of women. It takes the easy way out, making it a much less complex movie than it should have been. The relationship between the two women is equally strange to comprehend---it's nearly abusive, and I couldn't comprehend throughout the entirety of the movie exactly why Aileen Wuornos was killing these men for her, or why she took the fall. Was it simply because she let her in and showed her some affection? If so, it seems to cheapen the film as a whole.

Even though Monster passes the Bechdel test, it's not a film I feel is representative of women, love, or even Aileen Wuornos. A documentary would have portrayed her with more vision and clarity, and is really what is needed here. Thus, it gets the "Yellow Light" rating--a Bechdel test-passing movie that I would really not recommend to anyone.

Aliens - PASS

2009-01-23T20:22:00.000-08:00

*Spoilers ahoy.

Any woman who calls her cat "little shithead" is all right by me. Ellen Ripley---just Ripley, really--is one of the greatest science fiction film heroines of our time, as well as practically the first one to appear on our theater screens. Aliens, the second film of "The Alien Trilogy," is a gory, horrific study on strong women in lots of trouble. It's also the best out of the series, picking up seven Academy Award nominations (including one for Sigourney Weaver's performance as Ripley) and packing quite the empowering emotional wallop for what could have been just another sequel to a hit horror film.

In a nutshell, the film takes off mostly from where the other left off---Ripley has been in hypersleep for something like fifty years and upon returning to the real world finds that her daughter has grown up and died without her, as well as the fact that no one seems to believe her tale about the systematic decimation of her crew from the first movie. Her license to pilot a ship is revoked, she's humiliated in front of a commissioner's panel, and is forced to take a normal 9-5 job at the loading dock.

Fortunately? Unfortunately? A colony that settled on the planet where Ripley's ship picked up the first alien has gone off the wire, and Ripley is nabbed as a consult on the mission to check out what happened on the planet. She's sent to LV-something-or-other with a detail of several "Marines," and upon sweeping the colony find that all the colonists are dead (except for one--a little girl named Newt), and that there are about seven million of those nasty, acid-spewing aliens nesting all around them. The rest is acid spit and thermo-nuclear explosions.

There are three female characters of note in Alien, the first one being Private Vasquez, one of only a couple of women on the Marine detail. Now, the Marines as a whole are remarkably stereotypical and annoying---Bill Paxton in particular, who does a great job of screaming the word "badass," as loud and as often as possible. But as they're picked off in bunches, Vasquez emerges as a heroine in her own right. Obviously regarded in her squad as one of the tougher dogs, Vasquez keeps a remarkably cool head as they explore the eerie colony and try to outlast the hive of aliens, not hesitating to tell her comrades, both male and female, to shut the hell up when necessary. She also gets the biggest gun. In her most memorable scene, Vasquez is escaping the hoard of aliens through a maze of air ducts with the few survivors ahead of her. One of the aliens leaps onto her through an air vent from above. After tangling with it for a moment, she actually holds the alien down with her foot and shoots it in the face with a handgun. Bill Paxton said it best: badass.

Then there's Newt. Clever, little Newt--the one living survivor of the colony after its takeover by vicious aliens. Newt seems rather unremarkable: she's a scared, dirty child but a child who nonetheless managed to outlast the aliens making food and slaves of her home. Newt is obviously there for Ripley to find a sort of foster daughter within her, but the conversations the two have are sobering and emotional. These conversations are, in fact, what qualifies Aliens to pass the Bechdel test. In one scene, when Ripley puts Newt to bed, they talk about the terrible monsters haunting them and how Ripley will never abandon Newt. It's touching, and it's easy to see how Newt is simply an extension of Ripley's fears---of the alien, of being left alone. But they are connected by Ripley's overwhelming need to care for her, and she certainly does that, even journeying down to the depths of the alien hive to rescue her.

Ripley herself is, in short, a wonder. She's both the voice of reason and the hands of action in Aliens--she will do what she has to do to get the job done. It's never a question of whether Ripley can or can't do something; the fact is that she has to do it. What amazes me most about Ripley is how seriously the movie treats her. She has an actual character arc that examines the depths of fear and bravery. And no clunky, dumb, cliche action movie lines. Ripley doesn't run around screaming, "Let's torch these bitches!" a la her Marine companions. There's a certain subtlety to her character that is both absorbing and empowering. Even in her most fearful moments, she's in control of herself even if she can't be in control of the situation. She has sides of tenderness with Newt, of authority with the Marines and her comrades, and even earnest chemistry with a fellow man---the closest and most intimate they get is when they reveal to each other their first names as Ripley runs off to save Newt.

It's clear what her character intends: she's not Ellen Ripley, or even Ripley at all. She's just someone here to do her job, to do it as best she can and to prevent the deaths of many more civilians at the hands of the monstrous aliens. And it's this clinching realization that makes Aliens all the more empowering, and all the more worthy of a passing grade on the Bechdel test.

Juno - PASS

2009-01-21T20:17:00.000-08:00

*Spoilers, of course.

Ellen Page once said in an Entertainment Weekly interview that one of the reasons Juno was so outrageously successful was due to the fact that the character of Juno MacGuff is the Holden Caulfield of our generation: "Girls haven't had that sort of character before. We don't have our Catcher in the Rye."

And it's absolutely true. No matter how much hipster babble comes out of her mouth, Juno is smart, snarky and strangely liberated by a rather life-affecting situation. She does what she wants. She deals with the consequences. She finds foster parents for her unborn child. She barfs blue slushie into her stepmother's urn. She spouts off ridiculously clever and obscure retorts that have been labeled as both genius writing and complete hipster nonsense. Most of all, she has a mind of her own. What a nice change of pace.

Juno's supporting females, though a little overshadowed by Juno herself, are also lovingly written. Leah (Olivia Thirlby), Juno's best friend, is earnestly sweet and manages to chat with Juno about something other than the opposite sex, along with loyally sticking by her side through her pregnancy. Bren (Allison Janney), Juno's stepmother, is also rather entertaining and gets one of the best scenes in the movie: at an ultrasound appointment, the technician makes some offhand remarks about how a baby born to a teenage mother grows up in a "poisonous environment." Bren verbally backhands her in response, sticking up for her stepdaughter with a certain parental wit. It's a good moment in the movie--a moment of reality.

And it has need of more realistic moments. Juno is by no means the perfect feminist-friendly movie for any adolescent girl. I very clearly recall walking out of the theater with some friends to have one of them inform me, "Oh my God, this movie makes me want to have a baby now!" No. I would like to remind everyone who watches Juno and has had this thought cross their mind that no amount of witty dialogue can save you from the possible emotional devastation of an unwanted pregnancy. This is a movie, and one that does a rather obvious job of eliminating obstacles from the waddling path of pregnant Juno. Her stepmother and father accept her pregnancy immediately. She finds parents willing to take the baby without a hitch. The only time Juno seems to be stressed out by her condition is during a trip to an abortion clinic where she decides to keep the baby (the well-known "fingernails" scene). She has the baby, gives it away, cries a bit, and the movie ends with her singing the praises of boyfriend Paulie Bleeker (the ever-adorable Michael Cera).

This flaw weakens the movie---who's world is this, anyway? It's certainly not mine, where girls drop out--or are forced out--of high school by things much worse than the stares of their classmates. Juno seems to be focused on keeping everything about itself young-at-heart: Juno's parents even slip into her cheeky hipster backlash lingo, and this overbearing youthfulness manifests itself into the would-be adoptive father of Juno's baby, Mark Loring (Jason Bateman). Mark makes his living as a commercial composer and sustains himself on old memories of his long-gone 90's grunge band, something that connects both him and Juno from the very start. Eventually, Mark confesses to Juno that he's dropping both his wife Vanessa (a fantastic Jennifer Garner), and his sold-out suburban existence.

It's another dose of reality and seriousness that the movie really needs: the father with cold feet. The two adults argue in front of Juno, with the baby-obsessed Vanessa cutting Mark down to size: "If I have to wait for you to become Kurt Cobain, I'll never be a mother." This is another great scene: Vanessa isn't just an obsessive baby-monger mother wannabe, she's a real and sincere woman with real and sincere wishes for her life. This isn't even touching on Juno and Mark's relationship--often labeled a little creepy by movie viewers, accented by Juno calling Mark at school and an uncomfortable moment of the two closely dancing to Mott the Hoople just before Mark drops the bomb.

At any rate, these few moments of "adult" reality aid the movie in it's credibility as a female story, though Juno does its best to remain as young-at-heart as possible. Plus, hopefully the emergence of female antihero Juno will pave the way for additional movies featuring well-written ladies. And with multiple conversations happening between women about something other than men (including a lovely exchange between Juno and Vanessa at the local mall), Juno passes the Bechdel test with flying colors.

The Dark Knight - FAIL

2009-01-19T15:51:00.000-08:00

*Spoilers from here on out.

It's unfortunate that what I would call the most popular movie of 2008 a complete and utter failure in terms of the Bechdel test. The Dark Knight made $997,027,799 at the box office and is also regarded as Heath Ledger's best role as well as his last as the joyously sadistic Joker. It's already picked up a Golden Globe and is certainly on the road toward Academy Award territory. Rather sadly, The Dark Knight fails to address its female audiences with any real seriousness.

Our lone female on the scene--Rachel Dawes, played in this sequel by Maggie Gyllenhaal--is a sore departure from her adventures in Batman Begins. That Rachel, portrayed by Katie Holmes, is a sharp lawyer who takes on the mob in the name of justice. True, she is saved by Batman multiple times but she seems to have some semblance of independence. This new Dark Knight Rachel is reduced to the well-meaning sidekick (and girlfriend) of do-gooder district attorney Harvey Dent. She is reduced to sitting on the sidelines, watching him take on mob bosses in court and following him around to nag at him. The only scene where she seems to act both strongly and alone is when she interrogates...Lau, the Chinese businessman, and it doesn't take much for him to crack. She does get to knee the Joker in the balls at Bruce Wayne's fundraising party for Dent, but just in time for the Batman to save her.

To get to the point, Rachel's major purpose in the movie is to die, getting blown up by the Joker after she and Harvey are kidnapped in a sick game. Her death leaves Harvey heartbroken, disfigured, insane and ripe for villainy, and devastates Bruce Wayne/Batman. Dent becomes "Two-Face," a mad villain with an incredibly warped sense of justice who must take his revenge on Batman for failing to save his love. Thus unfolds the rest of the movie, with lots of violence and gross deeds done in Rachel's name. End scene.

The Dark Knight was filmed in Chicago, taking a leap from gothic mysticism onto the grimy, all-too-real streets of the windy city. It's a great technical choice by director Christopher Nolan, but the audience sees it as a man's world. There just don't seem to be any strong female characters that can survive in this environment: they're either martyrs, betrayers, or just on the sidelines. A female policewoman on Detective Gordon's staff sells them out to the mob. Gordon's wife sobs when policemen bring news of her husband's death and curses the Batman. A "tough" judge gets blown up by the Joker before we ever get to see her in action. Rachel dies for a plot twist. Women are only victims in this sooty city. And it doesn't have to be that way. It's ludicrous to assume that a harsh urban environment is only conducive to female dependence on the opposite sex.

Oh, there's one more female character who appears for a line or two: a mob boss' whore. She complains in a loud club that she would rather go somewhere quiet. The mob boss replies, "What makes you think that I want to hear you talk?" The Dark Knight seems to have similar aspirations for it's female characters. And since the sparse women in this film don't actually talk to each other, much less about something other than the Batman, The Dark Knight fails the Bechdel test.

What is the Bechdel Test? What is this blog? Why am I reading this?

2009-01-19T15:27:00.000-08:00

It's come to my attention that there are fewer and fewer films today that are passing the Bechdel test. What is the Bechdel test, you might ask? It's a joke-turned-theory from the feminist comic "Dykes to Watch Out For" by Allison Bechdel (actually created by her friend Liz Wallace), in which one of the characters alleges that the only way she will watch a movie is if:

1. It has at least two women,

2. Who talk to each other,

3. About something besides a man.

Upon reviewing the depths of the Internet, it seems that there is no archive of movies that pass the Bechdel test, or somewhere to evaluate films by the test's standards. Thus, the purpose of this blog. Tune in for (hopefully) in-depth movie, television, theatre and possibly even book reviews about women talking to each other about something other than a man.

Also, each one of these reviews comes with a major spoiler warning.

This blog updates every Monday and Wednesday, and occasionally on Fridays.