Ruin your favourite books/films with a spot of feminist analysis

yeah but she wasn't born an ogre, the curse was put upon her so a handsome prince could come and save her

but i get the dual argument...

Fiona is offered the opportunity to be a storybook princess and decides against it, twice. She stays true to who she is rather than to an idea of what a princess should be in fact her decision is to not change who she is at heart, rather than change who she really is in pursuit of some abstract idea of what she should be. She has a dual nature from the start bear in mind that she's always spent half of her life as an ogre -- and chooses one side of that nature. She doesn't change who she is to be like Shrek.

In Shrek 2 Shrek does very specifically change how he is in order to conform to what he thinks Fiona wants but she rejects that offer not just because she knows it will make him unhappy but also because it isn't the life she chooses, either. In Shrek 3 she goes further chooses not to be Queen at all because it isn't what she wants.

At least in Shrek he (and donkey :) )is also prepared to change to be how he think she wants him to be too.

am another studio ghibli fan (no wonder DS can watch totoro over and over), even where there are strong male characters the girls pull them through (spirited away, howl's moving castle, princess mononoke), and yes brilliant that the baddies are usually female too, no gender stereotyping there!

on thelma and louise - they did try to make it more uplifting (apparently) because it was going to be fade to black but by making it fade to white it creates a more ambiguous ending and potential for hope (film studies part of degree)...shame though about the mexican coctails

Shrek - Fiona changes herself, even when offered the opportunity TWICE to be the princess she wants to be (though could be argued at least she's not conforming to male visions of the perfect woman) she still changes who she is to be like him

Sex and the City - mentioned above. But it deserves another mention - it does me in because it is positioned in a Spice Girl Girl Power type of crappy feminist empowerment.

When actually it was about shopping for ridiculous shoes and clothes forgetting about the politics of that, and chasing boys.

Positioning Samantha as a women in charge of her sexuality and unembarrassed about being promiscuous, imo, just played right into the hands of misogyny. It was no coincidence that she also dressed as the fantasy porno women.

Back to Mary Poppins - mother gives up her suffragette principles (ties her sash to the kite), which is seen as a good thing.

Natalie in Memento is interesting without being dead (but is the only named female character I can think of. Even Leonard's wife (a) doesn't have a name that I can recall and (b) is dead. Although there are very few named characters of either sex, so it doesn't seem to matter as much; it's very much a three-hander)

Oh! Oh! Mr Darcy and Mr Gardiner definitely have a conversation about fishing at one point.

I think JA wrote very much from personal experience, so all her viewpoint characters are young women of good, though not particularly elevated, birth and she never adopted an omniscient narrator style instead so she only writes about what that character experiences or thinks, which means by and large no conversations without women (although there is a conversation between Darcy and Bingley that Elizabeth eavesdrops on early in P&P wouldn't count towards a reverse Bechdel test as they are talking about women, but it is a conversation without a female participant).

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. That one only needs a molecule of feminist analysis, unfortunately.

I remember reading once that "Jane Austen never wrote a conversation that didn't have a woman in it". I'm not sure that it's true, but it suggests that JA was strongly inclined to present things from a female viewpoint.

Sorry, misread that. A reverse Bechdel test in JA? Hmm. I think those conversations do happen but are heavily paraphrased (e.g. the conversations that Mr Woodhouse and Mr Knghtley have every night, or Mr Collins and Mr Bennet have about the entail). Hard to decide how to apply a Bechdel test to a book -- does dialogue need to be spelled out? But yes, means that adaptations tend to not include any such conversations explicitly because the dialogue isn't there in the books to crib.

I'm pretty sure that Elizabeth Bennett and Mrs Gardiner discuss the Derbyshire countryside, and that Elizabeth and Georgiana Darcy discuss music. Actually, Lady Catherine de Bourgh interrogating Lizzy over her accomplishments and family probably counts. Emma will probably pass at an early stage if only because of Mrs and Miss Bates' insistence on talking to her about Jane Fairfax at every opportunity. It's been too long since I've read the others.

But yes, absolutely. It's not that the Bechdel test is any mark of quality, but it's such a low threshold of showing-the-slightest-interest-in-women-as-individuals that it's flabbergasting the first time you realise quite how few films manage to pass it.

What ProfLayton said about Rizzo. "You" is giggling girls and/or the audience.

Jane Austen pretty much fails a reverse Bechdel throughout her work, and hence so does any faithful adaptation - but of course the point of the BT is not so much that pass=good and fail=bad: all sorts of great films fail and crap films pass, but it's all about the balance of numbers, the paucity of films that pass, and the films that have no good reason to fail but yet do, due to consistently sexist scripting decisions.

I thought in the Grease film version the song was triggered by a couple of girls looking at Rizzo and giggling? Then she sings it to herself (the "you" being "you bunch of smug holier-than-thou gits") and the footage of Kenickie is to flag up the contrast that there's a double standard here with no one making equivalent value judgements about him? Not that I will hold up Grease as any kind of feminist masterpiece (boyfriend putting pressure on you to have sex with him when you aren't keen? Obviously your solution of choice should be to forget your misgivings and vamp it up a bit...)

I think the Smurfette effect and the failure of so many films to pass the Bechdel Test are closely linked. I've been trying to think of films that would fail a reverse-Bechdel (for not having two named male characters who talk about something other than a woman) and can think of very VERY few, and those largely seriously "girly" pictures.

I thought Cameron Diaz showed that she had acting talent in Being John Malkovitch. SHe was really funny

Good thread.
I noticed that too about Elizabeth (someone mentioned it down the thread). It was pushed as 'look at this astonishingly strong woman, what a role model!' and then every single decision she makes during the film has to be checked by a man. I don't know if that's a nod to the niceties of the era, but it detracts horribly from the thesis.

My favourite film is Being John Malkovitch. I suspect there's a lot going on there but it's all so bonkers I couldn't do it justice.

I find that quite mindblowingly interesting Granhands. It makes me want to go and watch Alien again now and I absolutely hate that film!

I may be wrong, but I think the lead role in Alien was written to be played by a man. That is probably (and sadly) why it is such a fully rounded character.

I think Sigourney Weaver has said this was the case in interviews, and that she was given the role inspite of being a woman, not because she was one IUSWIM.

I'm not hearing a word against Alien or Aliens. The original Bechdel test cartoon actually uses Alien as the last film our heroine had been to see, and Aliens is chock full of brilliant female characters (I love the pilot, low key but a great example of a woman just doing her job and doing it well, in a role which doesn't have to be female in plot terms).

was the observers point of view not necessary to the point of the film though? That everyone there was culpable due to their incitement or lack of action - both equally blamed?

I did think the portrayal of the rape was a bit lingering though.