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?

DP is French and loves Nouvelle Vague films.

Oh no, I love Withnail too. You are right, Seth.

I have a problem with The Accused. Why does she never get to tell her story? They guy in court tells it for her. My guess is because the audience won't believe her unless she is backed up by a guys account of what happened. Also I didn't need to see the bloody flashback to the rape to believe her.

Alien with Sigourney Weaver.
Wasn't there a subtext about how disgusting impregnation is, a sort of incredulousess that living things grow inside other living things, in most cases, females.

My big issue with the Accused from what I remember, is that you got to see the rape scene from the observer's POV, not from that of the victim.

And all the critics raved about what a great honest true portrayal of rape it was.

re SATC - i liked the episode where you saw a penny dropping moment for Charlotte and Carrie. Samantha blithely pointing out that she always orgasamed from penetrative sex.

Made her adventures OK rather than needy i thought!

Also good that Charlotte and Carrie were clearly not managing to do that was well observed.

re GWTW - the door slamming "i'll show you what a man can do" sex scene was meant to culminate in orgasmic bliss for Scarlett which is why she was then in thrall to Rhett. hmmmm

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.

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).

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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).

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)

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