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?

Ok..not one i#of my favorite films..but I watched 'The Killer Inside Me'..fucking hell it pissed me right off....

is that the one by that twatty mctwaterson with the long scene of the woman being beaten to death?

How did Children of Men become all about a man (including title) when the crucial character was the fertile female?

I agree with Nanny, the girl in trainspotting was in charge, wasn't she?

mcp - here

Love your initials for this thread btw

Dittany - never watch the SATC film.

LOL@ Ele...yessss it was deeply disturbing (sure it was meant to be) but it was fucking brutal..wicked and the cops were a bunch of wankers spending so much time placating/questioning the wanker serial killer that the women were like cannon fodder and the ending??? fucking LAME

Fucking hell it pissed me off...the women were punching bags for the men and even at the end ...they tried to have some kind of fucking placation (not a word)..she wimpers 'I didn't tell them nothing' and he fucking stabs her?..were cops in the 50s/60s or whenever on crack??

darlene Sorry but I don't recognise any character from 4 weddings in this: "4 Weddings and a Funeral- Man refuses to marry the love of his life and leaves a trail of broken hearts in his wake"

Trainspotting: actually quite a lot wrong with this film. All of the female characters from the book have been written out, for a start. Renton should have an on/off girlfriend called Lorraine, who has some great funny storylines herself. Lesley, the mother of the ceiling-crawling dead baby, should feature more. Nina, Renton's cousin, is a naive but nicely-written antidote to the stereotypical complicit teen nympho Diane. Irvine Welsh has little in the way of feminist credentials, but at least he acknowledges that women exist at all in his book.

Pretty Woman: the real storyline should read "beautiful woman turns trick to get out of tight financial spot, gets sympathy from boring older man. When he wakes in the morning, she is gone, with his car and all his money."

The last X Men film: Rogue, one of the most powerful mutants, gives up her powers to be able to have more sex. Blech. Jean Grey, the most powerful mutant, spends most of the film mute and motionless, and has to be killed for her own good at the end, by her lover. As well as also being horribly racist (bad mutants mostly Asian and Latino), it is a SHITE film.

Notjustapot, I thought the same thing today, I'm rereading The Handmaids Tale, and it put me in mind of other No More Babies Humanity's Doomed books. 'Men' meanings human, it seems.
Handmaids Tale, excellent, of course.

Never thought of Brighton Rock as being a particularly feminist book, and always considered Graham Greene to be a very "masculine" writer, but I've just been thinking, and realised that the male and female characterisations are really quite interesting in it.
The idea of an innocent young girl becoming the stooge/victim of a male criminal is hardly groundbreaking, but Pinky Brown is portrayed as a vile little scrote with no redeeming features, instead of being a charismatic antihero. Rose does not die, and her eventual rescuer is another woman. Instead of the innocent and chaste Rose being the protagonist, the action heroine of the piece is Ida, who is middle-aged and fond of casual sex.
For something written in 1934, it really is stereotype-busting. The older, sexually experienced Ida does not get any come-uppance, and is proved to be right. Although ingenue Rose's fate is not nice, she lives to tell the tale.
Pinky is shown as being frigid, paranoid, irrational, neurotic and plain nasty, rather than the suave ladykiller he could have been.

Indiana JOnes Temple of Doom.
I just thought it was a fascinating film when I was about 12/13. NOw I can't believe how wimpy that female character was.
What about that bit when they're in the Poorest Village in the World and the villagers scrape some food together for them to eat and HE has to force HER to eat it. Everyone knows it's men who turn their noses up at anything that's not proper meat and 2 veg, whereas women tend to graze on a wider variety of food.

The Full MOnty,
MOther refuses to allow father to see his boy unless he pays maintenance, while she shacks up with someone rich and dull.

Umm what? Many single mothers would give their right arm for the father to be a decent human being who wants to be actively involved in raising his child.
So

Trainspotting : yes in the book the male characters are far more malevolent than in the film. They seem to have been sanitised for a cinema audience so you never hear about Simon pimping girls to make money, you don't see Begbie's wife, suffering domestic violence. It's all just a bit of a caper in the film.

on the other hand Sakura - If we saw it from the single mum's POV there might be a whole list of reasons why she's refusing access and he's only telling part of the story. (Not necessarily the case in The Full Monty, but when transfered to a real life story)

Try applying the Bechdel Test

quiddity.....sadly i was thinking this the other day when i took my Ds to watch 'Streetdance' - it actually passes the test - the three main girls have names and talk about dancing, money and what they want to do with their careers...

Who knew?

Yeah it's not always the obvious films that pass/fail the Bechdel test.

Think Hairspray passes. :)

E&M - can I come and join you in your castle for 4? I loved Calamity Jane as a child, and now DS is being treated to the best of the technicolour musicals (although not sure how I reconcile Seven Brides for Seven Brothers...) Anyhoo, can I just say how much I HATE Danny? Such a prick - tremulous voice "cos she's a lady Calam". He knows that Calam loves him, and still he goes off with her best friend without a second thought - Katie would be SO much better off in a lesbian relationship. Interesting to hear what everyone has to say about Deadwood - DH has all three seasons on DVD and raves about it, but never got round to watching it. Maybe I will make time.

And to whoever mentioned The Philadelphia Story (and High Society by extension) I love, love this film, but have always hated that scene with the father (and I thought it was just me). And her mother is so wet to let him get away with it!

DH's favourite film is 'Withnail and I'; I used to worry about whether it was homophobic but then I noticed the almost complete absence of women. They appear as: woman eating fried egg in cafe (subtext: disgusting), teenage girls Withnail shouts 'Scrubbers!' at, witch-like farmer's wife and catsbumface women in cafe. So when Uncle Monty pitches up at the cottage and makes it all cosy and cooks some lovely lamb he's playing the female role and of course the main characters are quite happy to exploit that.
the message is 'women aren't people but life without them is very uncomfortable', I think.