There are 3 types of movies that make me want to scream because of how they portray women:
#1 (the mildest kind): the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (term coined by Onion's AV club and analyzed on Jezebel) --think of Natalie Portman in Garden State, or my least favorite, Maggie Gyllenhaal in "Stranger than Fiction," whose character, after somehow "scraping" into Yale Law School (because she can't just be smart) dropped out and became a baker because she liked bringing cupcakes to study sessions so much. Then, of course, she spends the whole movie supporting Will Farrell's character development, because she's so nurturing. But enough has been said about this type already.
#2 : the evil bitch-woman. Movies like the new version of "Stepford Wives" and "Michael Clayton" both feature heinous women who are supposed to be particularly despicable as evil characters because they are women. (Don't get me started about "Stepford Wives," where it's considered funny that Nicole Kidman's character is shot at in the first scene by a crazy antifeminist man who's angry at her feminist TV shows (and nobody even asks if she's okay!) Tilda Swinton's character in "Michael Clayton" disturbed me because, even though the movie was about a whole evil corporation, only Swinton, the PR rep, ended up symbolizing that evil, and the movie gave only her character a deep, humiliating comeuppance because of her evilness. Only Swinton's character is shown sweating, uncomfortable, in unflattering underwear. We're supposed to hate her because she is human enough to sweat. And, mind you, she is the only woman of any importance in the movie. Another movie: "Live Free or Die Hard," the wonderful movie where Bruce Willis refers repeatedly to having killed the bad guy's "dead Asian hooker bitch girlfriend," Maggie Q, who is once again, the only woman (except Bruce Willis' lame daughter character) in the movie, who is pure evil with no motivation except having an evil boyfriend, Her extended fight-to-the-death scene seems to take extreme pleasure in violence against her.
But what I've noticed is that the scariest ones are not the ones where women are stupid, it's the ones where (#3) women simply do not exist, except perhaps as objects who do not speak. "Tropic Thunder" (also a racist movie) has no women in it, although in a nod to Shakespeare's day it has men playing women.
And the movie that finally made me write this post rather than thinking it over and over is not even that popular, but I'm still bothering: Guy Ritchie's "Revolver." There was exactly one woman in this movie with a speaking role. There were many women: naked ones in the requisite strip club scene, of course, an Asian woman assassin, a smiling and silent black assistant, and a weird scene with a whole crowd of women walking behind the one woman who gets to talk, all dressed in mild fetish outfits and having no discernible purpose in the movie except to show the power of the guy they ostensibly work for, Mr. Gold.
But the most disturbing scene with a woman in it came right after a scene where one of the main guys, a rich casino owner, is standing naked in his tanning room shouting orders. In the next section, another man's power is showed by his sitting, dressed, right next to a woman who is entirely naked, legs splayed with a beer bottle between them. And then she picks up the bottle and drinks and puts the bottle back. In the whole scene she says nothing: in fact, she has absolutely zero importance beyond a prop. She's not even a character in the movie. The tanning room guy is naked, and she's naked in the next scene, but it just underlines the different kinds of nudity. I'm ignoring, of course, the weird scene which splices another silent woman licking a lollipop and showing her white underwear with violence happening elsewhere.
What makes this worse is that "Revolver," while a terrible movie, is also supposed to be a psychological movie (complete with REAL PHDs explaining the movie during the end credits, in case you didn't get it was supposed to be deep). If a movie is all about the ego and the id fighting, about psychological development, and only men actually speak during the movie, the logical implication is that we women don't have to worry about possessing such advanced forms of consciousness as an ego. We simply have no psychological status at all. What can possibly be the reason for showing women in such an abject position in a movie that's supposedly making a point about human consciousness? I know sex sells, but this isn't sex. This is sex dolls played by real people.
But, of course, you'd never hear any of this from a review, or anything...
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I don't see a problem with Tilda Swinton's character in "Michael Clayton." I think that character could have been played by a man and it would have been the same character. And when you think of evil-corporate-lawyer-greed, you generally think of men, so "Michael Clayton" could have gone the "Tropic Thunder" route and not had any female characters.
I thought Tilda Swinton's character was the only interesting character in that movie. And I think the scenes of her sweating show that she is actually human, rather than just evil. At least my corporate law professor found her character very sympathetic...
And I was ok with new "Stepford Wives" too. It was so satirical that in the end, I wasn't bothered by that first scene. I actually liked that movie from a feminist perspective when I saw it, but that was so long ago that I can't comment intelligently on it.
But maybe I just like the evil bitch characters. They are kind of awesome.
To avoid feeling like crap about the females or lack of females or undeveloped female characters-
I suggest staying away from any film Clooney makes.
He's a misogynist (whether he's aware of it or not).
"But, of course, you'd never hear any of this from a review"
I recommend you add this to your bookmarks:
http://womenandhollywood.blogspot.com/
Excellent post!
For the character archetypes, I think the problem is that they are often the only (significant) female presence in a movie. Having a bitch woman be the villian isn't bad, but if she's the only woman there, it is. Women make up half of the population, there's no reason for a movie to have only one woman with a real speaking role, and the misogyny shows up when the role is just "supports the man" or "is evil and it's AWESOME because she has tits".
I wish wish wish there were more female oriented films. Unfortunately, the hollywood male gaze had dictated that many films oriented for women are still all about getting the guy. SO tired of it.
I stopped reading when you said tropic thunder was racist. Obviously, satire goes over your head.
I think satire can attempt to comment on race and still end up failing. I think it did in this case, I don't think they had anyone who really understands racism in American movies thinking about how to make this movie work. Aside from the blackface, they had a cartoonish stereotyped black character to comment on Robert Downey Jr's blackface and he ended up not a stereotype because...he was also gay? the evil maybe-vietnamese-but-what's-the-difference-in-hollywood "Flaming Dragon" drug gang? But out of all this, the stuff that bothered me the most was Tom Cruise's gold-chained hip-hop imitating minstrel dance at the end of the movie, a dance he clearly loved to do (others have also pointed out that Cruise's entire character is horribly, stereotypically Jewish).
We still live in a racist country, and because we do, invocation of old-school minstrelsy and blackface is still not okay, much less funny, when coming from white people. Even Dave Chappelle ended his show after white people seemed to like a particular minstrel sketch a little too much, and he wasn't sure whether they liked it for the right reason. And please nobody say racism ended this past Tuesday night.
love, a person who has noooooo sense of humor.
Reasons I Firmly Believe Tropic Thunder is a Decent Movie in Response to your criticism:
1. Its a satire of the movie industry, and so is the racism within the movie (note, racism within the movie, not racism of the movie). I rolled my eyes too when I heard about Robert Downey Jr in blackface, but then I saw it and realized you're supposed to think its ridiculous. The film is asking the audience to think its a stupid to chose a white man to play a black role in blackface. And the actual black actor is CONSTANTLY CRITICIZING Downey's portrayal of a black character as racist.
2. The butch black actor/rapper is gay, and we're not supposed to think him weak for it. Yes, the moment of this revelation is supposed to be humorous, but only because his 'butch' (read: super-metrosexual actors) compatriots find is shocking. I think its a nice subversion of the hetero-normative view of men, especially African-American men. Rock on to that.
3. The two main 'drug lords' (the younger boy and the main adult) are played by actors of Chinese heritage, but the characters do say 'We probably aren't even in Vietnam anymore' and there are extensive drug operations involving the Chinese in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.
4. The ridiculously over-the-top nature of the movie is intended to satirize the (Vietnam-era, especially) war movie genre and its often unrealistic use of violence and and its tendency to paint the local people are simple and/or cruel. Having seen a lot from this genre, I think its on the money.
5. Its not meant to be serious - that much is obvious. Not in the "oh I was only kidding way," which excuses nothing, but in the "People who actually think and act this way are ridiculous, eminently mockable, pretentious, and pretty darn ignorant" way.
I firmly believe that movies can address race without being loaded to the brim with overdone pathos and moralizing.
That, and their are bigger cinematic fish to fry. Looking at whats in theaters under "Comedy" these days, this is pretty intelligent fare.
Sorry for the spelling errors above, but I re-read your comment and wanted to address a bit more.
6. Alpha Chino's initial character development is not a cartoon characterization of black men but a cartoon characterization of mainstream rappers, up to their ears in product placement and the overwhelming weight of having to live up to a hyper-masculine, hypersexual view of male rappers, which is addressed later in the movie. And yeah, a lot of mainstream rappers are downright cartoonish, all bling and bluster and misogynism. The movie makes fun of this by making it over the top. How ridiculous to have a star push a product in a supposedly serious war movie! And yet they do all the time.
7. And Tom Cruise's dance just reminded me of being seeing my totally WASP college classmates dance to hip-hop half ironically like they were 'ghetto badasses' (their wording, also, unfortunately, only-half ironic), or a bunch of Jewish kids jump around to Kanye at an A Pi party. And its funny. Because its stupid.
And thus, we laugh.
Okay...I don't think we watched the same movie. RDJ's character wasn't gay. Alpha Chino's character was. I would make a joke about how all blacks looking the same to you, but it would probably go over your head.
And my opinion may not count, since I'm only half-black, but I wasn't even close to offended by RDJ's character. If real honest-to-goodness colored folk aren't offended by it, why are you?
Oh, looks like I misread your comment....my mind had wandered to sexier things, like RDJ.
My point still stands, though.
Her extended fight-to-the-death scene seems to take extreme pleasure in violence against her.
How did you come to that conclusion?
That's funny, I came away with very different feelings about Maggie Gyllenhaal's character in Stranger Than Fiction. I really liked her. And I liked that her character was smart enough to get into Harvard Law.
What I took from her story about dropping out of law school was that although she had the passion to want to make the world a better place that passion didn't necessarily extend to practicing law. It's possible to see her decision to abandon the law for baking as failure, or (as I did) as self-discovery. If she just wanted to bake to make people happy she could have worked anywhere. Instead her character is an ethical small business owner with a strong community connection - sounds like "making the world a better place" to me.
I haven't seen any of the other movies you listed, but I definitely feel your frustration at the roles women are given in movie scripts. I was practically grinding my teeth all through Iron Man this summer (stripper pole grinding airplane stewardesses anyone? and don't get me started on the speaking parts)
Seriously, not every women has to be a corporate lawyer to be a badass. Ethical small business owners are also badass, and female business owners face discrimination - even female chefs, despite cooking being traditionally seen as a domestic and thus female craft. You need people to litigate against discrimination on top, but you also need people to LIVE liberation among the rest of us. Feeding the homeless and berating Will Ferrell for his narrow worldview isn't anti-feminist, its awesome!
Her role was secondary because Will Ferrell was the lead. Its fair to gripe about their being fewer female leads, but for a supporting character, she wasn't to shabby.
Thank you for taking the time to write this post, I found it really entertaining and informative. I am disgusted by the way women are used in movies, as you said, "sex dolls played by real people." I completely agree. I don't really have anything useful to add, just wanted to say that I loved the post and found it totally dead on. Keep writing! =)