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

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

Got thinking about this on another thread where I was wittering talking cleverly about the problems I have with Bridget Jones's Diary (the book, the problem with the film is that stuffy faced plonker Firth).

One of her boyfriends is a total cheating dickhead, obviously. But the "nice" one, Mark Darcy, is incredibly patronising towards her, repeatedly "rescuing" her because he wants to fuck her. Which is all well and good, but whereas in Pride and Prejudice (the origin of BJD) Darcy has a lot of respect for the female protagonist, which she earns by being smart, witty, standing up for herself etc, BJD removes that whole side of her. When she stands up for herself it is something she later apologises for.

Anyway - anyone else want to join me?

Glad that the Bechdel test has got into the thread! Yes, it's often surprising what passes the test (the horrendous Sin City does), but as pointed out the test is really about things like the lack of female characters in Hollywood generally.

Film critic Mark Kermode is very sensitive to feminist aspects of films and talks about that quite often - his Sex in the Coty rant is mostly an anti-consumerism rant but includes bits about the feminist issues with it too.

On a different note, it's easy to confuse the characters / world in a film with the fact that someone made certain choices when writing it. Someone was saying up-thread that the guy who sleeps with the girl in Trainspotting doesn't know she's underage - well fine, but nevertheless someone wrote that scene, making her manipulative and him innocent (well, of something, anyway).

There are problems with any story in which someone achieves love as a reward for their own goodness - it presents the other person as some sort of cosmic prize. There's a natural feminist tendency to say either "oh the woman is just a passive object to be gained by the hero" or "oh the woman has been domesticated at the end / rewarded for conformity" depending on who's been being good, but I think it's just formulaic storytelling in which minor characters are seen as means to an end, rather than necessarily sexist storytelling (although it can be that as well, we can all think of examples like that).
Not quite sure where I'm going with this vis a vis Buffy though....

Someone mentioned Alien again -

When the script was first written, the characters only had surnames. The casting notes specifically state that all of the human/living roles were unisex, and could be cast as male or female.

Sigourney Weaver was originally cast as Captain Dallas, and Tom Skerritt as Ripley. I can't remember why they switched parts.

Hi comixminx it's me Dilys here (still haven't changed back from
Halloween, should use feminist thread to prompt regaining personal identity).

Gosh, that's fascinating Clanger. Obviously in some films gender would be relevant to the script (thinking in particular any involving pregnancy and birth, ha ha. Though of course it would translate to other areas- exploring a mother/daughter relationship is not necessarily identical to a mother/son one), but in lots of sci fi, there should actually be no reason you couldn't write a gender neutral script and then just cast it. It would certainly shake up the writer's assumptions about male and female characters.

WIth SATC, I felt that there was a more insidious message to women, rather than there necessarily being things done which were specifically anti-woman (there were a mixture of generally shitty things done to both sexes!). I thought it was quite a low for women. (Of course it's not reality for most of us, but if you've ever hung around a group of eg thirty-something London media types, you do get more than a whiff of it (including the looming yet absent presences of the Big-a-likes). Tra la la.)

Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica was a man originally. I think the decision to make that character female is single handedly responsible for the success of the series (sweeping exaggeration alert) - it's the most interesting character in the show.

I hated knowing that men watched SATC (like I hated it whenever I saw a man reading Bridget Jones) because I thought it confirmed them in their siliest views of us.

(I also hated that they ate such fatty foods and drank as much as they wanted, never walking anywhere or otherwise breaking a sweat, while being thin as pins. Setting unrealistic metabolic expectations for women over 24!)

My friend used to watch SATC "to learn more about women". He came out a couple of years later. Connection? :o

God yes Vezzie.

I have to confess, I really liked the Bridget Jones books. I avoided them initially and I remember ranting to an older woman that I wasn't interested in the view of women as shallow, vapid, man-obsessed etc. She persuaded me that they were wicked and funny, and not likely to make me turn into a twit. I enjoyed them at the time.

The film, though, that was atrocious. We weren't to laugh at her, we were to sympathise with her. They made her vulnerable where in the books she was self-obsessed. I suppose a deluded and vain character is a bit harder to make money out of, in comparison to an infantilised, cow-eyed sad-act.

(I can't even speak about the second film. I think as a culture we need to agree to forget about that one!)

My theory about SATC, which, I warn you, is based on little information and a bunch of stereotyping, is that early episodes were written by gay men, to be played by men in frocks. In later series when it took off, the stars gained more power as actors on hit shows always do, the stories became more realistic and more female writers were brought on.
I listened to the director/writer's commentary on the first film (the original creator of the series) and bless him, he loves the characters and he means well, but he has no more idea of what it's like to be a WOHM than my cat.

I loved loved love the West Wing. But it has struck me that you only see women having to balance their job with any kind of "caring role". E.g. CJ and her dad with dementia, Toby's ex-wife having custody of the kids as well as being a congresswoman. Happy to be corrected though?

Hello !Dilys - good to see you!

Bridget Jones was originally a column in (iirc) the Independent which I adored at the time - it was very original and 'everywoman'.

It was - the first book was iirc directly lifted from the columns, and the second was far more 'written'.

from Wikipedia...
'A musical version is currently in the works, set to hit the West End stage sometime in 2011. British pop singer Lily Allen has written the score and lyrics, and Stephen Daldry will be directing, joined by his co-worker Peter Darling, who will serve as choreographer. An official cast for the production has not yet been set in stone, but workshops for the show have already begun with TV actress and star of Legally Blonde the Musical, Sheridan Smith, in the title role.'

Oh dear god
(Why does everything have to be turned into a musical?)

er
££££££££££££££££??

Snigger, though, at the idea of the bad karaoke scene being featured in the musical. BJ was meant to be tuneless

fucking Twilight

Bella running round cleaning and cooking for her uncle despite the fact that he has lived alone, perfectly happily, up until she moves to Forks. Plus the violence against women by the werewolves and the 'have sex and you die' plot

But I want to defend Grease! OK, Sandy changes to get Johnny... but he changes too! He becomes a jock and buys that awful jacket and all the others laugh at him. So not sexist to me, just equal opportunities pathetic

He toys with being a jock and buys the jacket, but it doesn't survive until the end of the movie, once it looks as though she's likely to sleep with him... in fact, as soon as she turns up in the skintight black outfit the jacket comes off right away...

does it?? I want Grease to be acceptable! I love it

How about encouraging Frenchie to go back to school rather than drop out and be a beautician?

Perhaps we can grant Grease a special dispensation because, erm, well, er, because we can?

bigkidsmademe - Have you seen or read Twilight? Because it's her dad, not her uncle. I am extremely happy for you to complain about it but please the feminist-rating works much better if you are accurate.

(also sex doesn't = death - sex within marriage = eternal life and babies)

And it's Danny in Grease, not Johnny.

Actually, are you doing something subversive that I just don't get?

I agree that both try to change for the other in Grease, it's just tht he's a bit pathetic and can't change so she has to. Which is not a great message for children of either sex - you must change so the person you like will like you.