The Curse of the Damsel in Distress

As a kid I was obsessed with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Jack Sparrow’s antics kept me glued to the TV to the point where my brother would come into the living room and yell at me to turn it off claiming I had just watched this same movie last weekend. Knowing this was one hundred percent true, I adamantly denied it and clung to the argument that anything was better than Simpsons reruns. And so, I happily continued to watch Captain Jack save the day while guzzling rum and sailing the open ocean.

A few years later, Curse of the Black Pearl showed up on Netflix and, feeling nostalgic, I decided to relive my childhood. As I started to watch, something was not the same, something was bothering me. Then I realized… Elizabeth Swan was bugging the shit out of me. Without even realizing it, I was employing the oppositional gaze into my own critical analysis of her helpless character which is primarily portrayed as the damsel in distress and love interest.

The opening scenes of the movie portrays Elizabeth as an intelligent, well respected woman of her time. But, this is short lived. Within minutes, Elizabeth is shoved into a corset and toted off to her husband to be’s coronation ceremony. There, not being able to breath due to the torture device she is wearing, she passes out and falls off a cliff into the ocean where she is quickly rescued by none other than Captain Jack Sparrow. What follows is an uncomfortable scene where Jack holds Elizabeth hostage and forces her at gunpoint, to re-buckle his belt and even put his hat back on for him. Historically, pirates are crude, rowdy criminals who steal things and are mean to girls. This is understood and these attributes cannot be left out of a movie about them. Except maybe the last one. Especially when that particular film is deemed fit for thirteen year olds. This is where Greg M. Smith’s “It’s Just A Movie” essay becomes important. Smith states, “Examining a film can give us clues about the meanings and assumptions shared by the members of a culture (pg 132).” Young girls watch this movie and assume they should wait for a man to save them.

This scene effectively plops Elizabeth into the well known role of damsel in distress. But it does not end here. In the next scene, pirates invaded the town and she is captured. William Turner, her longtime admirer, sets out to rescue her. Damsel in distress and now the object of Will’s affection. I wish I could say there is more to Elizabeth’s story but unfortunately there is not. Throughout the rest of the film, Elizabeth is harassed while aboard the ship by the pirates who abducted her. At one point, she is coerced into a risque red dress under the threat that if she did not wear it she could attend dinner naked (again..thirteen year olds?! come on). This scene brings to mind Mulvey’s argument of woman as a sexualized image whose primary function is to be the object of the man’s look. Meanwhile, Will and Jack have all the fun sailing across the sea on a heroic quest to rescue her.

As I rewatched my favorite childhood film I kept hoping Elizabeth’s character would redeem herself in some way. The directors do throw her a couple bones. When she is first being attacked by the pirates she tries defending herself by attempting to arm herself with a sword that is hung on the wall. Additionally, she almost succeeds in outsmarting her captors by invoking the right of parley. They are shocked and somewhat impressed by her knowledge of pirate code. Another thing Elizabeth has going for her is her link to the pirate world. Years ago, she stole a cursed medallion from Will when they rescued him from a shipwreck. Ever since, Elizabeth was fascinated by pirates and oddly in tune with their activities. Furthermore, on the pirate ship, she steals a butter knife and stabs Barbosa in the chest. Unfortunately for her, Captain Barbosa and the rest of the crew turn out to be ghost pirates and cannot be killed because they are already dead. Bummer. All of this aside, the truth is, these small acts of defiance and supernatural edge do little to elevate Elizabeth from her main function in the story line as stereotypical damsel in distress love interest.

The dismal depiction of women in Curse of the Black Pearl comes as no surprise after one trip through the animatronic ridden Disneyland attraction. The film was actually based on the ride. Hopefully Disney does not get the same idea with Splash Mountain because personally I find the animatronics in that one to be even more terrifying. Anyway, one disturbing segment of the Pirates ride is the notorious auction scene where numerous women are being sold to pirates as wives. This year, Disney finally addressed this sexist portion of the ride and instead replaced it with a female pirate named Red auctioning off treasure. Took them long enough.

In the movies that follow the Curse of the Black Pearl, Elizabeth’s story does evolve. One particularly redeeming moment is in the third movie, “At World’s End”. She disguises herself as a man and sneaks onto a ship. No longer in need of the dress she was wearing, she plants it where she knows the crew members will find it. Once they do, their first thought-as Elizabeth expected- is that the ship is haunted. Taking advantage of the crews thick headedness and blind superstition, she ties strings to the arms of the dress and makes it into a puppet. One foggy night, she plays puppet master to both the dress and the crew convincing them to change their course bringing Elizabeth closer to her goal of finding Will.

Wherever Elizabeth’s story takes her in the rest of the franchise, the fact remains that in The Curse of the Black Pearl, Elizabeth’s main role is the girl who needs saving.

References:

Elizabeth, Devon. “Disney World Finally Updated a Very Sexist ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ Ride Scene.” Teen Vogue, TeenVogue.com, 21 Mar. 2018, www.teenvogue.com/story/disney-world-replaces-sexist-pirates-of-the-caribbean-ride-scene.

Greg Smith, Greg M. Smith: It’s Just a Movie, www2.gsu.edu/~jougms/Justamovie.htm.

“LUX Online Template.” Luxonline – Educational Resource about British Film and Video Artists, http://www.luxonline.org.uk/articles/visual_pleasure_and_narrative_cinema(printversion).html.

The Bisexual Woman Tango

Introduction

A work in which a version of me was represented with problematic elements is the film Rent. In Rent, there is a female bisexual character named Maureen who consists mostly of bisexual woman stereotypes. Being a bisexual woman, I have experienced the stigma against us firsthand and am all too familiar with the ideas of what bisexual women are supposedly like. Films that spread stigma, especially a film so widely known as progressive for tackling queer issues, are incredibly harmful. The argument that it is simply a movie and has no harm is extremely misguided, and it is essential that we turn the gaze on bisexual women in Rent back on the film and address the issue of stereotyped bisexual women. Maureen’s character is a fragmented portrayal of what it means to be a bisexual woman. The main pieces of her character that are known to the audience are that of her promiscuous sexuality, while the other characters are developed much more thoroughly as having emotional pain, struggles with disease and addiction, and experiences with impoverishment. Maureen’s character reflects the stereotypes of bisexual women that have been constructed within U.S. society, and it is essential to address the stereotypical portrayals of marginalized groups in order to end those stereotypes.

Maureen

In the film Rent, the first time Maureen is mentioned is when her ex-boyfriend Mark confesses to his ex-friend Benny that she left him for a woman. Mark’s friend Roger and Benny proceed to tease Mark, because his ex-girlfriend now dating a woman somehow implies that Mark is de-masculinated. This teasing implies that lesbian relationships are inferior to heterosexual relationships and invalidates the relationships of bisexual women that are prior to their current relationship, as if our sexuality flips with each partners sex. Shortly after that, Mark gets a call from Maureen where she asks him to come help her fix the audio equipment for her show. Mark eagerly agrees and his friend Collins implies that Maureen has him whipped. Maureen is shown as Mark’s ex who is using him and he is her defenseless victim. This portrayal of Maureen demonstrates the stereotype that bisexual women are manipulative. This scene portrays Maureen as a predator to the poor, helpless, straight Mark. When Mark goes to help Maureen, he meets her girlfriend Joann and they proceed to sing a song called “The Tango Maureen” about how promiscuous she is and how she has the tendency to cheat, but they are unable to leave because of how much they are entranced by her. This portrays bisexual women as predators to heterosexual and homosexual partners. During the song, Maureen is shown tangoing in a tight, red dress with a bunch of people and at the end she kisses and leaves with two of them. This shows her as promiscuous and manipulative of her partners. This depiction objectifies bisexual women and portrays them as seductive antagonists that the protagonists cannot overcome. During the song “Take me or Leave me,” Maureen expresses to Joann at their engagement party that Joann can either accept her as promiscuous or leave because it is who she is. This depicts bisexual women as driven by and unable to control their promiscuity so much so that they will dispose of their partners.

It’s just a film, right?

It is a common argument against feminist film studies that films are for entertainment and should not be criticized so harshly as the negative aspects of them were not intended. On the contrary, media greatly impacts society’s perceptions and films are very intentional. In Smith’s “It’s just a movie,” he asserts that films are “one of the most highly scrutinized, carefully constructed, least random works imaginable,” (Smith, 128) as they are quite expensive to produce and there are many people involved in the production of every film. Some argue that accidents are made during filming and that results in some of the problematic content. Smith reminds his readers that “even if something occurred on film without their planning for it, they make a conscious choice whether to include that chance occurrence. What was chance in the filming becomes choice in editing,” (Smith, 128) which emphasizes how many times during the production process intentional acts are taken to edit the content and remove anything that the film makers did not intend. Thus, Maureen’s very stereotyped character was intentional and needs to be addressed so that film makers are held to higher standards in the future when attempting to depict marginalized identities.

Oppositional Gaze

An oppositional gaze is when the group that has been gazed upon (i.e. black women for their sexuality) looks back on the gazers. hooks in her piece “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators” explains that those being gazed upon are “afraid to look, but fascinated by the gaze. There is power in looking,” (hooks, 247) which expresses the urge to look when you know you are not supposed to. In order to provoke change, groups that are gazed upon need to turn that gaze around and confront the ways they are portrayed. hooks asserts that “even in the worse circumstances of domination, the ability to manipulate one’s gaze in the face of structures of domination that would contain it, opens up the possibility of agency,” (hooks, 248) which emphasizes the choice that altering gaze provides. Thus, in order to break away from misconceptions about bisexual women, we need to address the stereotyped ways we are portrayed in film.

Visuals in Film

The way things look in film are very impactful in audience perceptions. Mulvey in her piece “Visual pleasure and narrative cinema” explains that “film reflects, reveals, and even plays on the straight, socially established interpretation of sexual difference which controls images, erotic ways of looking, and spectacle,” (Mulvey, 28) which emphasizes the way pre-existing norms impact the way films look and what is eroticized and made into a spectacle. The majority of the stress put on Maureen is about her sexuality and how attractive and ‘sexy’ she is. The things that audiences enjoy looking at are impacted by what society claims is attractive or exotified. Mulvey argues this in saying “as an advanced representation system, the cinema poses questions of the ways the unconscious (formed by the dominant order) structures ways of seeing and pleasure in looking” (Mulvey, 29). As bisexual women are largely believed to be promiscuous and hyper-sexual, that is how Maureen was portrayed to resonate with the audience’s preconceptions of bisexual women.

Conclusion

In the film Rent, Maureen’s character is portrayed as hyper-sexual and unable to control her promiscuity. Maureen falls into stereotypes of bisexual women as being overly sexual and cheating, as well as treating their partners as disposable. Maureen’s visual pleasure in the film is largely associated with her sexual orientation, which contributes to the sexualization of bisexual women in society. The way films are made is very intentional and film makers need to be held to higher standards of non-stereotyped portrayals of identities. In order to gain the choice in changing the stereotyped perceptions of bisexual women, we have to confront film makers by putting the gaze back on them as media largely impacts the perpetuation of societal perceptions.

 

 

Works Cited

hooks, bell. (2002). “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators,” in Black Looks: Race and Representation, 115-131.

Mulvey, Laura. (1975). “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen 16(3), 6-18.

Smith, Greg. (2001). “’It’s Just a Movie”: A Teaching Essay for Introductory Media Classes.” Cinema Journal 41(1), 127)134.

This is America

As a nation we are divided, we judge people for their race, religion and sexual orientation. I am slightly pessimistic that things will not change in this country because the people that spew destructive rhetoric even though they are dying out they are spreading their seed of evil into the youth. And are in effect implementing their mindset into the future. To me, the answer to our problem is simple but getting there would be the issue. We have to show each other love and accept one another, no matter who or what the next person is you have to show each and everyone respect. Nevertheless, I decided to examine the film Freedom Writers. For anyone who has not seen this great piece of film, I can give you a brief synopsis. This film depicts a new teacher named Erin Gruwell transferring to a new school named Wilson High School, full of inner-city kids in Long Beach, California. A lot of the students have troubled pasts because of the neighborhoods they come from. This happens to be a time after the LA riots in 1992, so relations between blacks, Mexicans and Asians are complicated at this point. In the beginning, every minority student in the class literally hates each other. The Mexican students sat with the Mexicans, the black students sat with the blacks and the Asians sat with the Asians. The class is literally divided, with the exception ironically of the one white student. In this case, he happens to be a minority (Go Figure!).

The main reasons I chose this movie was because the teacher Erin Gruwell provides a support system for her students. I can personally relate to when someone believes in you even though you may live in a bad neighborhood, or you might have a lot of friends and family that you have lost. Whether that means that they are dead or in jail, when somebody believes in you internally it really can change who you are for the better. When you have extra motivation outside of your parents it can really be beneficial for your success. Erin could have easily given up on these kids and moved on. She even loses her husband behind the scenes because she cares about her students so much. I respect that level of dedication, she went above and beyond and helped all of them in their unique individual situations. In the film, even some of the staff at the high school attempt to impede Erin from attempting to help these students succeed. They refuse to give Erin’s class newer books and they have new books just sitting in the back. To remedy this she has to go out of her own pocket to buy new books for her students. It is bothersome to me that some of the people that are supposed to be here to help us are holding us back from our full potential.

From that concept, I see this as my oppositional gaze from society. Bell Hooks is critical of this type of issue in her writings of black female spectators. “Film theory as a critical “turf” in the United States has been and continues to be influenced by and reflective of white racial domination” (Hooks, 257). Throughout the film, it seems like there is a systematic effort to block progress for Erin and her students. Some of the faculty at the school seemed to have a personal vendetta with Erin or in my view simply envious of the progress she made with a group of problematic students.

Clip from the film “Freedom Writers”

It seems that underneath being shunned by her colleagues at work for taking the extra step in helping her students, there also seems to be a lack of respect for who she is as a teacher because she is a woman. And oddly enough the main antagonist is another woman. You would think that a female teacher would understand the plight of another female teacher. Oddly enough it seems as if in terms of the staff of teachers she’s the minority. I can pull similarities once again from what Bell Hooks discussed in the “Black Female Spectator”. She writes how the gaze is “Wherein we can both interrogate the gaze of the Other but also look back, and at one another, naming what we see” (Hooks, 248). If you didn’t know what ethnicity Erin Gruwell was just by hearing her story you can almost compare it to that of a black woman. I use that comparison in terms of how she is treated by some of the men and women in her workplace, how even though she is having personal issues at home she does not bring it to the workplace. To me, Erin is the elite in terms of teaching and going the extra mile to make sure that her class succeeds. She’s focused, passionate and nurturing to her students.

Erin is more than just a pretty face in terms of her look in this film, and she should be taken seriously. As we’ve discussed in class, women, in general, have been objectified and sexualized in almost every film they have been a part of since the beginning. Laura Mulvey discussed this same concept in her article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”. She speaks on this very topic,  “The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure… In their traditional exhibitionist role, women are simultaneously looked and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness,” (Mulvey 33). Women in films aren’t taken seriously, but I choose this film in particular because of that fact. Out of the many films I have seen there are only several films where women aren’t naked or compromising themselves in some way for their role. I wish we could have more teachers like Erin, It’s easy to just do the bare minimum, but going above and beyond is what really can bring together our community.

 

References:

Hooks, Bell. “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators.” Movies and Mass Culture, 1996, pp. 248, 257.

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Issues in Feminist Film Criticism, 1990, pp. 33.

Artsy Fartsy Poopy Diaper: The Florida Project

I understand that the somewhat childish title seems silly but I think it reflects the immense tension I possess with The Florida Project. A low budget original script from a famous art house director is typically the kind of movie that I go for. Plus it was “snubbed” by the Oscars, thus giving it heaps of experimental art value. Plus plus, it had female leads so I could look forward to an original and progressive story. As soon as the movie opened, however, I had doubts. I began to see that these fantastically shot characters were predictably falling into the same stereotypes of most women in poverty on film. The Florida Project, while posing as an artful and avant garde look into gritty realities, is undermined by how it performs the standard caricatures of women in poverty.

This is supposed to be our critical examination of impoverished womanhood?

Let us first dig into what the reviews say. The praise is almost unanimous: A beautiful indie film that portrays the harsh realities of American poverty. Roger Ebert observed, “It is an all-too-common story of a single mother and her daughter on the edge of the social ladder, but it is told in a way that embraces its details instead of trying to achieve some sort of universal statement.” In the audience reviews I read, little criticism appeared from either gender. I have seen much about the tragedy of its Oscar snub which was furthered by a slew of salty tweets about how lackluster the rival nominees were. (A reminder: TFP was released in 2017). It’s the kind of movie where in descriptions “heartwrenching” and “heartwarming” are used interchangeably.

Perhaps the most famous shot of the film, this attempt to showcase the small joys of childlike wonder is what most critics praised TFP for.

For context, the film follows Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), a kid in the 8-10 range, and her single mother, Halley (Bria Vinaite), as they deal with the everyday life of living in the commercialized centers of poverty within walking distance of Disney World. Moonee–being young and bored–gets into all kinds of trouble with the kids who live in the same hotel. The inevitable messes are cleaned up by Bobby (Willem Dafoe), the hotel manager who also spends a lot of his time scolding Halley, whose go-to reaction to criticism is a teenage-style eyeroll. Slices of life from Moonee’s troublemaking and Halley’s attempts to pay the bills while still having fun are juxtaposed, creating what would appear to be a beautiful and artfully-made tale about the impact of poverty on young lives.

The movie does not hold up under any critical social analysis. Halley is an amalgamation of everything the American middle class thinks of “white trash” and women in poverty. She is unable to hold down a “real job” and instead sells perfume to tourists in parking lots and eventually prostitutes herself while locking Moonee in the bathroom whenever she has a customer. As anybody who has seen Les Miserables knows, prostitution has been canonized as the rock bottom job for the poor woman. The film tries to balance out the destitute poverty by showing Halley and Moonee having a good time, but the moments where Halley is out partying with her friend and smoking weed in front of Moonee read as displays of the stereotypical “irresponsible poor”.

Rather than creating what Kara Keeling delineated as an “impossible possibility” that “escapes recognition” and offers an image both foreign to the current temporality and true to life, The Florida Project fell back on old ideas of what positions for women in poverty exist (566). A critical investigation of what women in poverty are forced to do to help their children and how they manage to maintain inner stability at the same time would have been enlightening. The film could have confronted the stereotypes placed on women for being victims of an unfair capitalist system and could have been aided by a unique aesthetic that also defies the status quo.

E. Ann Kaplan speaks of a practice of “translation”, or the process of two separate cultures forging new definitions in their encounter with each other (Hollinger, 195). Sean Baker, an artist renowned for his unique artistic sensibilities, had an opportunity to grapple with people whose story is different from his. Instead, The Florida Project stakes a claim in the story of women in poverty. It relishes in the gritty aesthetic of the dilapidated urban environment and natural sentimentality created by a impoverished child protagonist. The identities presented are used as textures and props, artistically and thematically interesting but socio-economically uninvestigated.

Where the film really shows its hand is specifically gendered moments when Halley expresses anger. There are two of these when the belligerence and devil-may-care attitude that is used to define Halley’s character erupts into moments that illuminate the film’s carelessness. During one particularly intense back-and-forth between Bobby and Halley, Bobby literally counts down like a beleaguered parent, threatening to evict Halley from the hotel if she does not leave the front office by the time he gets to three. Not only is Halley infantilized by this condescending tactic, but, after she exits through the front door, she reaches into her pants and slaps a bloodied Maxi Pad on the front window. Anxiety about menstruation has long been a theme of misogyny and this gendering of Halley’s emotions dehumanizes and belittles her character.

The example par excellence of TFP’s artisanship and use of stereotypes colliding occurs in Halley’s final moment in the film when Moonee is being taken from her by Child Services. Halley lets out a primal scream that is zoomed in on so that there is little but her mouth in the shot. She is reduced to a screaming mouth, the quintessential image of the male-centric view that women are overly emotional. The heightened and technical zoom serves the underlying prejudice of the film, not its subject.

I’m not sure there is more perfect picture for how the system perceives female anger.

I immensely enjoy what is considered “art film” and dammit if this isn’t a beautiful film. Watching the kids simply be rascally kids tugs at the heartstrings and the actor’s performances are compelling. No filmmaker can watch The Florida Project without recognizing the immense technical skill with which it was made and the artistic risks that it took.

Simply gorgeous

I cannot speak to the realities of women in poverty. I cannot say for sure how “accurate” the movie is. I do know that the film fits its female subjects into many of the same boxes that have been set for women before. My oppositional gaze comes from my identity as an avant garde artist, an identity protected and often reserved for and by people like me (White men). I take issue with people I identify with offscreen. Artists on the fringe have to do better. We must create work that takes artistic and social risks in what is put in front of the camera and who is put behind the camera. We must also interrogate the work of our peers and not allow skill to become an excuse to allow the reinforcing of the status quo, the same status quo that experimental artists often rave against as being constrictive and oppressive. bell hooks references film theory as a, “critical ‘turf’ in the United States [that] has been and continues to be influenced by and reflective of white racial domination” (257) and the art world is no different. What is designated as artful and what is curated by the academy is currently ruled by affluent white men, undermining the very idea of the avant garde.

References

Ebert, Roger. “The Florida Project.” Rogerebert, 6 Oct. 2017, https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-florida-project-2017.

Hollinger, Karen. Feminist Film Studies and Race. Routledge, 2012.

Hooks, Bell.  “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators. Movies and Mass Culture:, 1996, pp. 247-269.

Keeling, Kara. “Looking for M– Queer Temporality, Black Political Possibility, and Poetry from the Future.” A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, vol. 15, no. 4, 2009, pp. 565-582.

Focus: Let’s Focus on anything other than sex

Focus is a movie with many flaws, however the most blatant, problematic one is the film’s treatment with it’s main character; Jess Barrett, played by Margot Robbie. In this essay, I will use oppositional gaze to examine the film’s consistent undermining and exploiting of Jess Barrett. The film portrays Jess as a sexual object, the bud of every sexual joke, the object used to distract and attract the male gaze. She is the person deemed to be conned by the male protagonist for no discernible reason. The film doesn’t shy away from these aspects as she’s blatantly referred to in the movie as a the “blind mouse” and a “race skank.” Had she not been shown screwing the main character the audience would have a hard time believing she was even a ‘good guy’ or a main character. I will be exploring the film’s irreverence toward Jess’ character and the implications of portrayal. Warning there are plot spoilers ahead.

Focus begins it’s story by introducing us to Jess, a beautiful woman being hit on by some handsy guy at the bar and is saved by Nicky Spurgeon, played by Will Smith. Nicky is charmed and ultimately seduced by Jess or the other way around we soon find out. This is the first example of Jess using her sexuality as a tool then being undermined by it. And so begins the film’s sexualizing and undercutting of it’s female lead. Then, when the film throws Jess a bone and allows Nicky to teach her, they decide to throw sexual innuendos and advances in. During this scene, Nicky is showing Jess how to successfully pickpocket someone through taking and controlling their focus. In this scene, Nicky steals items from different areas of her body then finishes it off by putting his hand on her ass. The exploration Jess’ abilities being undercut by the need to show that Jess is a women and sexual object is a repeated situation throughout the movie. No scene showcases this better than a scene later in the movie where Jess is given a chance to prove her abilities as a thief. In this scene, she attempts to show her pickpocketing skills and does this by using her body to draw the focus of the men. She wears an outfit to showcase her body; a mini dress that defines the breasts and six inch heels. In this scene, “she holds the look, plays to and signifies male desire.” (Mulvey 33)  This sexualization continues throughout the movie and even features moment of stopping the entire flow of a scene just for the male protagonist and on occasion male antagonist to gaze over her body. Mulvey states that a women’s presence in a film “tends to work against the development of a story line, to freeze the flow of action in moments of erotic contemplation” (Mulvey 33) and this blatant in Focus as Jess’ presence in the film consistenly is restrained to meer provactive scenes to hold the male gaze. These scenes range from the rom com cliche, walking down a spiral staircase to an awaiting dumbfounded Nicky or to literally stopping the entire plot of the movie to introduce the sexual tension and sex scene between Jess and Nicky. These scenes are catered for the male gaze of viewers. Jess is reduced to an “erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium.” (Mulvey 33)

On top of continuous exploitation of the female protagonist’s body, the film also undermines her at every turn. The film uses Jess to introduce every plot point and major heists yet, makes a point for her to be irrelevant to it. The two main heists of the movie are a “failed” bet at the Superbowl and a selling of a race formula. The Superbowl situation is brought on by Nicky and Jess betting on random situations happening throughout the game because surprise! She doesn’t like football, even though she’s already sitting watching the Superbowl. This betting draws the attention of an avid billionaire gambler. As soon as he is introduced Jess is pushed to the sideline, only being shown on screen to show her anxiety and stress of Nicky betting all their money. The bet gets up into the millions and finally Jess is brought back into the picture to be the one to discover this was a con all along and was set up by Nicky. Jess had worked and had multiple scenes of successfully conning people only for her abilities to be undermined and become completely irrelevant. She’s then dumped by Nicky and sent off on her own (This may seem like a quick and non established explanation, but that’s literally how it happens in the movie). The next major con job is one where Nicky is hired to pose as a disgruntled worker of a race team who has an algorithm to shave off a few seconds of race time and sell a fake version of this to another team to give an edge to Nicky’s employer. Jess comes in not long after this after it’s revealed she sleeping with Nicky’s employer. (Which is then revealed not to be true. Bad writing? I know.) Her only appearances in the movie after her big reveal are ones for Nicky to try and win her back, to be called hoe (they literally have an entire scene focused on calling her a skank), and to be completely shocked (again) by the con Nicky is actually doing. Throughout the movie they focus on making Jess always being one step behind Nicky and undermining her abilities and choices. They condemn her for her only motivation to be making money, and call her a hoe and a skank, but portray him as brilliant con man and businessman for doing the same.

These portrayals of Jess are problematic as they produce an overly sexualized image catered for the male gaze and choose not to acknowledge the capabilities of Jess, but rather undermine them to make her inferior and always one step behind Nicky.

 

Sources:

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Feminisms, 1975, pp.33.

Pictures:

http://meetsobsession.com/2015/film-animation/film-in-review-film-animation/action/film-the-big-deal-about-focus/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2381941/

 

New Girl, Old Ideas

“Hey girl! Whatcha doin?” is the playful and whimsical intro tune to New Girl, but it’s also what I find myself asking concernedly when I watch some of the episodes, particularly “Table 34” (Season 2, Episode 16). This episode’s plot is about Cece, a woman of Indian descent, who goes to an Indian marriage convention to meet an eligible bachelor. As a fan of the show, who is also a woman of South Asian descent, I was excited to finally see an episode revolving around Cece, one of the few Indian American female characters on TV. However, I was deeply disappointed in this episode, due to its problematic portrayal of women and Indians.

The episode’s first offense is against women as a whole. Jess and Cece, the two female characters in the show, are depicted as one-dimensional characters that care for nothing except the attention of men. This episode doesn’t even pass the Bechdel test, which is ironic considering that the show itself is called “New Girl”. Every single conversation that takes place between these two women is about men: either Cece’s dating life or Jess’s kiss with Nick.

As Laura Mulvey writes, “An active/passive heterosexual division of labor has similarly controlled narrative structure…The man controls the film fantasy and also emerges as the representative of power in a further sense: as the bearer of the look of the spectator, transferring it behind the screen to neutralize the extra-diegetic tendencies represented by woman as spectacle” (34). The characters of Cece and Jess fall prey to this exact division of labor, wholeheartedly. Cece and Jess are not the catalysts of this episode; they are passive, meek, and helpless.  

Cece isn’t approached by many suitors and instead of standing up for herself, it takes Schmidt, a man, to tell the room full of men why she is worth the other men’s time. It not only removes agency from Cece but validates Schmidt’s apparent reverence, especially when the other men only engage with Cece after his speech. Similarly, Jess watches as Sam punches Nick, and as Sam breaks up with her. In the already reductive conflict concerning the kiss between Nick and Jess, Sam, a white male doctor, is the only one who really exercised autonomy. The passiveness that Jess exhibits perpetuates the dangerous idea that a woman should wait around for a man to act, instead of living and taking action for herself.

In addition to the active/passive division of labor, this episode also poses some serious problems with the overlapping ideas of male entitlement to and objectification of the female body and consent. The true episode plot (this will be further addressed later with respect to race) is about Nick kissing Jess in the previous episode, with no acknowledgment that this kiss was non-consensual. Yes, Nick and Jess are the show’s ‘will-they-won’t-they couple’, but to introduce that pair in a romantic setting for the first time and to force the audience to experience that catharsis while witnessing a non consensual kiss is extremely dangerous and normalizes the idea that a man can go around grabbing and kissing whomever he pleases. When Jess faults Nick for the kiss, he starts yelling and says, “You have to take a little responsibility, tarting around in that little soft pink robe, not expecting to get kissed. I’m a man Jessica!”

This quote exemplifies the exact male entitlement that is used to justify non-consensual acts, placing blame on the woman for the man’s objectification of her body, as if it is something for him to lay claim on if he so wishes. This falls in line with Mulvey’s assertion that “woman displayed as sexual object is the leitmotif of erotic spectacle…she holds the look, plays to and signifies male desire” (33). Because Nick’s line is delivered in a comedic way, as he waves his arms about, it lessens the gravity of the implication, but the message sent is that it is okay for a man to prey on a woman because she deserves it, by being in her female body. This normalization is what leads to this quote being listed under “Laugh-Out-Loud Quotes” in online Huffington Post episode recaps.

The show’s second offense is against Indians. As mentioned before, what the entire episode is really about is Nick and Jess, two of the white characters in the show. The one episode supposedly about Cece’s South Asian heritage is overrun by white people, littered with racist stereotypes, and full of negative depictions of Indians. Despite the majority of the episode taking place at an Indian marriage convention that Cece is attending, the show manages to make it about Nick and Jess. In fact, Cece has minimal screen time and minimal impactful lines. Her most powerful moment onscreen is arguably when she has an epiphany about her impulsiveness and life choices. However, her own self-reflection happens in parallel with and serves as a vehicle for Nick’s revelation about his kiss with Jess. This tiny semblance of character development and complexity in the one Indian main character is never addressed again and never resolved. 

There are obvious stereotypes in the episode, from Schmidt donning a kurta and turban to telling Cece, “[Our sex] was about history and memory and thousands of years of colonial suffering all being released in one moment of pure ecstasy”. I have seen this episode four times now, and it shocks me every time. Ryan McMahon captures my thoughts when watching this episode when he writes about The Revenant:

“Is the truth…that it is time the world hear indigenous voices? If so, why were there so few speaking roles for indigenous people in The Revenant?…Will audiences believe that indigenous people shop at The Gap, drink Starbucks, and have really, really normal, boring lives that we’d like to talk about in a simple rom-com– without horses, eagle feathers in our hair, or dirt under our fingernails?”

Though Indians or Indian Americans don’t have quite the same history of decimation and genocide as indigenous peoples, the sentiment of representation being robbed from a minority echoes just the same.

Further than the obvious racism, though, is the dark skin stigma and negative depiction of Indian women. For an episode taking place at an Indian marriage convention, there is an impressive lack of Indian characters. When the episode isn’t focusing on white people, Indians are used as the backdrop, without any real roles. Just as Julien Gignac notes that The Revenant’s indigenous characters “have unexplained roles”, we don’t see many Indians with positive characteristics. The episode purports the stigma against dark skin when the only dark skin Indian woman with a presence is being shushed by Schmidt. He immediately dismisses this unnamed, dark-skinned bachelorette by saying “Oh, I’m so sorry, sweetie. Pass.” Not only is any possible depth to this character being literally silenced, but she doesn’t stand up for herself, perpetuating the white savior complex that Karen Hollinger discusses in Feminist Film Studies and Race:

“Spivak argues that colonialist powers justified their conquest and domination of the Third World by seeing colonized nations as ‘previously uninscribed’ and completely silencing subaltern peoples, especially women, who are regarded as subjects of oppression and nothing more” (193).

The only Indian depicted as desirable is Cece, who is a light-skinned Indian, which just sublimates gaze theory which emphasizes the white woman above all other women. Hollinger also writes “gaze theory posits a monolithic male perspective without any recognition that the power of this gaze in invested not in all men, but in White men, and that the object of this gaze is not all women, but White women” (194). While Cece is not white, her light skin, straightened hair, and European features serve as the vessel for the concept of the White woman.

While New Girl is a funny show, it has a lot of work to do in the areas of representation, consent, and sexism. The employment of the oppositional gaze reveals the show’s weaknesses but also highlights the weaknesses of the society that accepts these flaws as comedy.

References:

Gignac, Julien. “The Revenant’s White-Saviour Complex.” The Globe and Mail, 16 May 2018, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/the-revenants-white-saviour-complex/article28320619/.

Hollinger, Karen. Feminist Film Studies and Race. Routledge, 2012.

McMahon, Ryan. “Indigenous People’s Stories Need More than Just Leonardo DiCaprio’s Speech.” Vice, VICE, 11 Jan. 2016, http://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kwx53z/indigenous-peoples-stories-need-more-than-just-leonardo-dicaprios-speech.

Mulvey, Laura. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. 1999.

“Table 34.” New Girl. Fox. 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. 5 Feb. 2013. Television.

 

Scott Pilgrim’s Toxicity vs Women in the World: An Oppositional Gaze

The comic book adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. the World came out in 2010 and in re-watching it (yet) again, this time employing an oppositional gaze, I was reminded of the reasons I have loved it for nearly a decade, but I was also reminded of all of the reasons why it is important it be viewed with an oppositional gaze or at the very least, a critical lens. 

If you have not yet indulged in the comic book movie adventure, with visual onomatopoeia and commentary and a (WHITE) cast composed of now extremely well-known actors that is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World I will warn you there will be spoilers throughout the remnants of this essay (all for contextual purposes). Scott Pilgrim follows Scott, an awkward 22-year-old trying to navigate this awkwardness within his love life. Scott then goes on to battle the seven evil exes of his new object of desire, Ramona, so he can win her as his girlfriend; he must defeat them if he is to date her.

In this essay by employing an oppositional gaze and utilizing various psychoanalytic feminist perspectives from Laura Mulvey’s essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, I will highlight how Scott Pilgrim vs. the World trivialized the dangerousness of an abusive relationship by using woman as an object of gaze and desire for man and placing her in a position of off-limits so that male viewers can resonate with Scott as he fights to win her for himself.

One important dynamic of this film that I have yet to mention is that of Knives Chao. While not the direct focus of this thesis, I still feel it’s important to recognize her role in this film with a female oppositional gaze and how she further develops active looking and protagonist identification in male viewers.

Not only is she the only non-white character (besides her briefly shown best friend and one ex (whose role is also brief)), she is the 17-year-old Scott is dating at the movie’s open. The movie itself acknowledges the stereotypical trope Knives portrays of a young, innocent, Asian school uniform girl, unknowledgeable about the world. She falls hard for Scott who ultimately ends up cheating on her with Ramona. Knives’ role as object varies throughout the movie. Significantly, she is the object of Scott’s sexual desire until another woman becomes the new one. We watch how Knives’ actions once adored by Scott quickly turn to perceptions of annoyance and uncomfortableness though only after having found his new desire of Romana. Knives’ presence in the film, as Mulvey explains, a woman’s visual presence in the film, “…tends to work against the development of a story line, to freeze the flow of action in moments of erotic contemplation” (Mulvey 33). Knives’ heartbreak spurs her desire to win Scott back and gain vengeance on Ramona, but she does this by slowly transforming herself to look more and more like Ramona as she schemes, as Ramona is clearly the object of Scott’s desire. Knives freezes Scott’s and the male viewers story line of triumph in winning Ramona with her presence once her “to-be-looked-at-ness” (Mulvey 33) in the film was transferred to a white woman.

In continuing with more direct focus on my thesis, some more context is required to understand what exactly Scott must do to win Ramona. After beginning to fall for each other the first battle begins, without even Scott really understanding what’s happening. Matthew (our other non-white character) arrives and proclaims his position as Ramona’s first evil ex before their battle ensues.

Upon clarification Ramona explains this is true with little detail as to why.

Skip ahead to five battles later (one of which super problematically addresses the above quote, when Scott’s forced to fight Ramona’s ex-girlfriend, a relationship she promptly dismisses as being just a “bi-curious” phase) we learn why Scott is forced to fight all of these exes to obtain Ramona as his girlfriend.

Gideon, is number seven of the evil exes. Early in the movie Gideon comes up and we learn that leaving him behind was the reason Ramona came to town in the first place, but not much else. When we finally meet Gideon, it is right after a slight riff between Ramona and Scott, we see Gideon talking with Ramona. To Scott and male viewers for whom she is the object of desire, this scene being the first unveiling of her brand new green hairstyle, she appears to be receptive and just slightly reciprocal of his flirtation/seduction, despite her actions that more so mimic compliance out of fear. Quickly after, Ramona tells Scott she cannot date him, that she must be with Gideon. Stuttering saying “I just can’t…I just can’t help myself around him”. To someone for whom  Ramona is the object of desire it’s easy to ignore the toxic language used by Gideon and the way it impacts Ramona’s behaviors.

Viewing with an oppositional gaze as a white woman and as someone who has experience with toxic relationships, it’s easy to see that Ramona is trapped within her own. It’s then learned that it was Gideon who formed the league of seven evil exes. With an oppositional gaze as a female, this indicates an abusive power dynamic between Gideon and Ramona, making him a subtle enemy to Ramona all women while to Scott and male viewers this makes him an enemy competing for their object of desire. By employing more of Mulvey’s psychoanalytic feminist perspectives, it’s possible to observe how the male unconscious tries to escape castration anxiety in this situation by “the devaluation, punishment, or saving of the guilty object” (Mulvey 35). Ramona still serves as object to Gideon as he devalues and punishes her for being the source of both his desire and anxiety, forcing her close, and still serves as object to Scott who believes he can still win her for his own. This is significant in seeing how the abusive relationship is trivialized through this pure objectification. When we assume that male viewers are taking active pleasure in viewing the same woman as object as the male protagonist Scott, we know that Ramona’s well-being and safety is not the question they’re preoccupied with for the rest of the film; rather it is will they be able to be triumphant and obtain their object?

In the scripted sense there does need to be some sort of outcome that may directly or indirectly the answer male viewers question, in other words how will the protagonist they’ve been identifying with, Scott, end up? I will now focus on Scott’s final battle against Gideon and how Ramona isn’t able to play a part nor have a say in her own liberation from an abusive relationship save for one physical action. In this last battle, which focuses on Scott finding his sense of confidence and utilizing it to obtain his intense desire of possession gives him endless dramatic fight shots. After one dramatic blow, Ramona softens her expression and puts her arms around Gideon. He says arrogantly “Yeah. Still my girl” with a smirk” before Ramona says “Let’s both be girls” and kicks him in what he cares about most, only before of course he slaps her and she falls again, this time literally to his feet at the bottom of the stairs. Even when a woman’s desire in film is to liberated from abuse and fear, as Mulvey states “women’s desire is subjected to her image as bearer of the bleeding wound, she can exist only in relation to castration and cannot transcend it” (Mulvey 29). In the end it is Scott of course who defeats Gideon, meaning finally he has reached the top of the hill he has been climbing to reach his object of desire (even though she’s still laying on the ground below them).

I will not explicitly state what occurs finally between Scott and Ramona. However, I will state that the male viewers taking active pleasure in looking throughout this film, for whom Ramona too was their object of desire for 113 minutes (minus the few where Knives was object) likely left the theater feeling triumphant, not because Ramona was finally safe, not even because there was success in the physical battles, but because the object of their sexual desire was finally obtained.

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Feminisms, 1975, pp. 28–40.

Tony Soprano and his Problematic Relationships with Women

I recently started watching The Sopranos, a show about the mob in New Jersey during the early 2000s. The show focuses on Tony Soprano, a middle aged mobster who has the makings of the next mob boss. He begins having panic attacks while trying to balance his criminal organization with his home life. Because he starts having these attacks, Tony goes to see a therapist which is why the audience gets a chance to see inside his real life. While watching the second episode in season one, I found that each woman Tony has a relationship with is portrayed in a problematic way.

From the man’s point of view, Tony’s interaction with his wife in the following scene may not seem problematic. He doesn’t complain when Carmela asks him to do something, he’s in a good mood, he goofs around with her, and he clearly cares about his kids. What bothers me in this scene is that he doesn’t really listen to her and he brushes her off in a way that looks acceptable in front of his children. He wants to solve the problem his way, an illegal way, instead of listening to Carmela and her request. To make her forget about the fact that he fully intends to do things his own way, he briefly dances with her around the kitchen and smacks her butt on his way back to bed, which brings a smile to his son’s face.

 

On the surface, the next scene shows Tony talking to his therapist about the love he has for his mother. Like any good son, he feels guilty about where his mother will end up. Digging deeper, one can see that the idea that he should be worshiping his mother has replaced his true feelings of resentment towards her. That is what Dr. Melfi is hinting at anyway. Tony can’t accept the idea that his mother might still have power over him even though he is a grown man.

 

The next scene is at the end of the episode after Tony has Pussy boost a different car and put Mr. Miller’s plates on it. Anthony Jr. brags to his classmates that his dad is a hero. Even though Carmela is the one who encourages Tony to find Mr. Miller’s car, Jr. forgets that his mother had any involvement in solving this problem.

I find this episode troubling for the image of women for a couple reasons. Firstly, the women in this episode are only present to further develop Tony’s character or to give him a problem to solve. In Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Laura Mulvey quotes Budd Boetticher writing, “She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself the woman has not the slightest importance,”(Mulvey, 33). This certainly rings true in this episode. In the beginning Carmela presents Tony with a problem in Jr.’s life that he will need to solve. Later when Tony is in therapy, he discusses his love for his mother and blames Carmela for not allowing his mother to live with them, but there is a point in this episode where Carmela personally invites Tony’s mother to live with them and she declines. He holds power in all aspects of his life, but only chooses to give Carmela power when it is convenient for him, and gets him off the hook. Tony refuses to acknowledge the fact that his mother is the one being a stick in the mud and not his wife. His mother and Carmela add depth to his character by presenting him with these unpleasant situations. Even his therapist brings another dimension to his character by suggesting that he may actually have feelings of hatred towards his mother. All of these women add to the stress in his life and the rage that comes with it. The audience sees very little character development of the women in this episode and focuses more on the pile of problems that Tony now has to deal with. In this sense each woman represents a problem; he needs to find Mr. Miller’s car for his wife, he needs to find a home for his mother, and he needs to find a way to open up to Dr. Melfi in order to overcome his panic attacks. 

Secondly, this episode tells young men that they can count on their father’s to get things done, but not their mothers. I want to address the second part of a different quote from Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, “the function of woman in forming the patriarchal unconscious is twofold, she first symbolizes the castration threat by her real absence of a penis and second thereby raises her child into the symbolic,”(Mulvey, 28). Mulvey is saying that by raising children in the patriarchal society, the woman inadvertently contributes to it. By letting Tony silence her, Carmela shows her son that it is okay for a man to dismiss his wife’s suggestions as long as he still gives her attention. Carmela tolerates Tony goofing off and finds it charming in the moment, but her face at the end of the scene in the kitchen suggests she is still worried/annoyed. When her son comes to her with a problem she automatically turns to her husband to solve it, which eventually leads to Jr. believing Tony is the hero. She cements the idea in her children’s minds that Tony is the one in the family to ask for help if someone really wants to get something done. Tony’s mother also contributes to the patriarchal society because she depends on Tony to take care of her. She has become Tony’s responsibility while his sisters have chosen to sever ties with her. This makes it look as though women run away from an unpleasant situation, but a tough guy like Tony can stick around to solve the problem.

Despite the problems described above, I have to admit I fully intend to keep watching the show. As Greg smith states in, It’s Just a Movie, “I can still root for the good guy while admiring a film’s editing and thinking about the plot’s social ramifications,”(Smith, 133). In this case, I don’t know if I can label Tony Soprano as the good guy, but he is definitely the protagonist and I am 100% hooked on this show. I do think it is important to be aware of how this show feeds into stereotypes about women and their roles in our society, but I can still appreciate that it is well made and accurately depicts other aspects of life. I can’t relate to the dominant male roles thus far, but I have heard that Carmela’s character becomes more complex throughout the show, so I am excited to see how the women change and if any progress is made in regards to the way they are portrayed throughout the series.

Sources:

-Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Feminisms, 1975, pp.(28; 33).

-Smith, Greg M. “‘It’s Just a Movie’: A teaching Essay for Introductory Media Classes.”    Cinema Journal, 41, Number 1, Fall 2001, pp.(133).

 

A Gay’s Gaze: The Normalization of Homophobia in The Office

Ahh, yes, The Office. Although it may be a favorite of mine and many other college students, this series is definitely not without its problems. For those who haven’t yet seen The Office, let me give a quick summary. This exceeding popular series, which aired in 2005, follows the everyday work lives of employees of a mid-range paper supply firm called Dunder Mifflin located in Scranton, Pennsylvania . The series is filmed using a single-camera setup, which gives the show a documentary feel. The regional manager of the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin, Michael Scott, is portrayed by Steve Carell. Although his optimism and dedication to his job is at times admirable,

his need to always be the center of attention is typically deeply irritating. Michael is an extremely immature, inappropriate, and ignorant character who has an idealized self-image, and, although it is very untrue, believes that his employees idolize him. Throughout the nine seasons of the show, Michael Scott and other Dunder Mifflin employees voice a great deal of problematic opinions though insensitive comments.

I’d like to take some time to focus on one episode of The Office in particular: Season 3 Episode 1, “The Gay Witch Hunt.” More specifically, how this episode harms the LGBTQ community by an inaccurate representation of queerness by using humor to normalize homophobia.

This episode begins with Toby Flenderson, the head of human resources, confronting Michael about an issue that was brought to his attention by an accountant in the office name Oscar. Apparently, Michael had been making homophobic comments in the office. Michael states, “I call everyone f*ggy. Why would anyone find that offensive?” Moments later, Toby informs Michael that Oscar “is an actual homosexual.” Michael immediately becomes defensive saying that he “would’ve never called him that if [he] knew.” During an attempted apology to Oscar, he says, “if I don’t know how to behave, it is because I am just so far the opposite way.” This comment is meant to be a reassurance of Michael’s straightness and demonstrates his awfully heteronormative viewpoint. But if a man in a position of power is so intensely straight, then obviously people all non-straight sexualities should be considered weaker, right?

 

This is unfortunately not the only incident of a homophobic or heteronormative comment being made in “Gay Witch Hunt.” Just to show the extent of these types of comments or actions that are present in this episode, here is a quick list. Let me also mention that an episode of The Office is only 20 minutes long, so something on this list is being said just about every sixty seconds.

• “I-I can’t even imagine, the… thing. Maybe we could go out for a beer sometime, and you could tell me… how you do that to another dude.” -Michael, to Oscar
• “Well, he’s not dressed in women’s clothes, so…” -Dwight
• “You could assume everyone is [gay] and not say anything offensive,” “Yeah, I’m sure everyone would appreciate me treating them like they were gay.” -Dwight and Michael
• “What about Angela? She’s hard and severe. She could be a gay woman…. I can imagine her with another woman. Can’t you?” -Michael
• “Jim told me you could buy a gaydar online.” -Dwight
• When Michael outed Oscar to the entire office
• “Sure, sometimes I watch Will and Grace. And I want to throw up.” -Angela, as she sanitizes her hands while staring at Oscar
• “I watch The L Word, okay?” -Michael, in response to being accused of being ‘obtuse about sexual orientation’
• “Nothing wrong with this stuff. At all. This is fine.” -Michael, while watching gay porn in front of the entire office to prove he isn’t homophobic
• “Gays aren’t necessarily who you think they are, people.” –Michael
• “That’s a good point, she has a good point. Because gay marriage, currently, is not legal under U.S. law.” –Michael, defending a homophobic comment made by another employee
• “Anyone can be gay. Businessmen. Like antique dealers, or hairdressers.” –Michael
• When Michael implied that gay men have “torrid, unabashed, monkey sex” as much as they can
• “I think all of the other office gays should identify themselves or I will do it for them.” –Dwight
• “What about Phyllis? She makes absolutely no attempt to be feminine.” -Dwight, trying to figure out who else in the office is gay
• “Look, if I were gay, I would be the most flamboyant gay you’ve ever seen.” –Michael
• “Michael appears to be gay, too.” –Dwight, after seeing Michael crying while hugging Oscar

And let’s not forget the famous kiss scene, where Michael engages in an incredibly awkward and non-consensual kiss with Oscar in front of the whole office the prove that he isn’t bothered by Oscar being gay, reinforcing the stereotype that gay people are attracted to all members of their sex.

There is certainly a lot that could (and should) be explored here, but for the sake of time, I’ll only discus . Let’s start here:

“What about Angela? She’s hard and severe. She could be a gay woman…. I can imagine her with another woman. Can’t you?” -Michael

Firstly, there is the stereotype of a lesbian being a stone cold butch woman. Secondly, the idea that women are women are meant to be viewed and looked at for male pleasure. As Laura Mulvey stated, “her eroticism is subjected to the male star” (Mulvey, 35).  These two aspects depicted in Michael’s comment assist in maintaining negative perceptions of women and LGBTQ folk.

As a gay woman, it was impossible not to see the problematic elements of this episode. Obviously, it is important to remember that The Office is a comedy and heavily relies on satire, making it difficult to discern whether some of the comments made during this episode were meant simply as a satirical commentary on issues present in our society, or if there is a deeper relevance. Greg Smith, however, urges us to not recognize that movies are not telegrams, and there are many possible and equally correct interpretations of the content (Smith, 129). Nevertheless, the way in which gayness is portrayed and reacted to is incredibly harmful. Although this episode aired in 2006 when humor using homophobia was likely the only way to make having an LGBTQ character more socially acceptable in mainstream media, it is still necessary to recognize that we shouldn’t be content with mere representation. We want (and need) not just representation, but positive and accurate representation free of homophobic undertones. As stated by bell hooks, “there is power in looking” (hooks, 247).  By watching this episode with a critical eye, we can be assured that The Office‘s depiction of the LGBTQ community is not who we are and does not accurately represent our place in society. In order to “know our present and invent our future” (hooks, 264), we must first recognize and understand our past.

 

Sources

hooks, bell. “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators.” Movies and Mass Culture. Rutgers University Press. 1992. pp. 247-264.

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Feminist Film Crisicism. Indiana University Press. 1990. pp 28-40.

Smith, Greg. “It’s Just a Movie: A Teaching Essay for Introductory Media Classes.” Cinema Journal  41. University of Texas Press. 2001. pp 127-134.

Murderous Gays: Rope and the Trope of the Coded Gay Villain

A film that caused me to use the oppositional gaze was a film that I had never thought about critically until recently as I had watched it many times as a child, this movie was Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope. Rope was made around the late 1940’s and during those times, explicitly gay characters were rarely seen in Hollywood films. This was mainly due to the Hayes Code, but the studio system was able to get around this restraint with the use of coding. Rope utilizes this tactic in order to create a greater sense of villainy within its characters by coding them as the “other,” in this case non-straight men. The tropes in this film are used to subconsciously exacerbate the fear in heterosexual men that gay men are inherently trying to seduce them, and therefore dangerous to their family and power structure.

The film in question revolves around the characters of Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan, two well-off “friends” who decide to create the perfect murder merely to see if they can get away with it. They kill a close friend of theirs, hide the body, and then invite their other close friends to a dinner party over the hidden dead body to prove how well hidden their murder was. One of the invited guests is Rupert Cadell, Brandon and Phillip’s old prep school professor and the man who inadvertently gave them the idea in the first place. Throughout the course of the film Brandon and Phillip subtly tease their party guests with the fact that they have not caught them, such as them literally holding dinner over the hiding place of the body. This causes Rupert to suspect them of something and seeks them alone after the party. In the end, this causes Rupert to discover the body under the dinner table and turns them into the police.

The film’s most clear use of gay coding is within the relationship between Brandon and Phillip: the film officially calls them friends, but everything from the way they act towards one another to the way their friends talk about them suggests them to be more of an old bickering couple than a pair of platonic friends. The coding is also seen in the staging: Phillip and Brandon are often seen standing extremely close to one other with an air of sexual chemistry between them through the performances. This type of relationship is often seen in film with “secrecy and confession [being] typically associated with gay identity” (Sullivan, 455). This use of coding is also shown in how the two discuss the crime they committed. When Phillip asks Brandon how he felt when killing their friend, Brandon responds with very sexual language. He claims when their victim’s “body went limp [he felt] tremendously exhilarated”, with his body literally shaking as he says it. This shows a sexual nature in him murdering his straight victim.

Also given sexual subtext in the film is Brandon’s relationship to the film’s hero, Rupert. Brandon throughout the film shows a kind of obsession with Rupert and tries to draw Rupert into Brandon and Phillip’s ideology of murder, a type of ideology that Brandon seems to agree with. This introduces a seduction element into the relationship between Brandon and Rupert. This is a reinforcement of the common fear seen within Straight men of being seduced by Gay men that is seen often in media. This dynamic is often seen in many other Hitchcock films as well, as Mulvey says in “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”; Mulvey claims that Hitchcock’s “heroes are exemplary of the symbolic order and the law… but their erotic drives lead them into compromised situations”(Mulvey, 36-37). This is seen in Rope with Brandon attempting seduce Rupert into their evil ways. However, this trope is not simply seen in the films of old Hollywood, on the contrary, it is relevant as ever from films as old as Ben Hur to shows as new as Sherlock, as well as almost every Disney Villain ever.

The problem with this type of depiction is rather clear, coding your villains to be gay creates a connection within a heteronormative society that queerness is equal to villainy and should be seen as other. Depictions like this are what cause the constant violence against LGBT people and “gay panic” laws that create a defense for gay people being murdered when they are discovered to be gay. These violent impulses are rooted within the fear of gay seduction seen in films like Rope. The movie itself makes this philosophy clear when the hero, Rupert resists Brandon at the end saying to him “There must have been something inside you at the very start let [Brandon] do this thing, but there’s always been something deep inside [Rupert] that would never let [Rupert] do it”. This quite clearly shows the root of the two villains evil being connected to their queerness, making Rupert a symbol of good as a result of his straightness.

Contemplating on all of these aspects in the film has redefined how I experience it. I created an oppositional gaze to this depiction through knowing of this film’s impact. I watched this movie many times as a kid and never thought twice about any implications it was having, I just thought of it as a fun thriller to watch. But now that I am older and have come to learn that I am gay myself, I have taken the movie in a different light with my new experiences. I still enjoy the movie greatly, but I now always have a critical eye while watching it and notice the different ways it subtly presents this image of the deviant gays seducing the moral straight man. As Hooks says, the idea of oppositional viewing is “a theory of looking relations where cinematic visual delight is the pleasure of interrogation”, so my pleasure from this film has changed from simply taking it in without thinking to deconstructing it and thinking about what it is saying and how it is saying it (Hooks, 258). By viewing the movies with this lens I am able to remove some of its power by knowing it can have an effect on me. It’s important to have a better understanding of a film’s effects and ideologies in order to have a better grasp on what the work in question really is.

Sources:

Laura Sullivan “Chasing Fae: The Watermelon Woman and Black Lesbian Possibility” Pg. 455

Laura Mulvey “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” Pg. 36-37

Bell Hooks “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators” Pg. 258