The Sanctimony of Diablo

Coming back off hiatus (well, not really hiatus, but rather out-of-country film shoot) and  returned to our fine land to hear much ado about the Fempire piece in the New York Times. Ryan Tate's rxn on Defamer pretty much sums up my thoughts on this:

Lady screenwriters? Just a thought: If you don't want people to fixate on your sexuality maybe don't blurt out to a Times writer, "We've all seen each other naked..."Or call your drunken limousine rides "super porno... But having talked about your work on a would-be series called Sluts, and having dubbed yourselves "The Fempire," it sounded a bit disingenuous when you all complained about "pressure to look photogenic in a way that is not demanded of male screenwriters."

Could not have said it better myself.

Suit for a Cause Weekend

Normally I'm a one-post-a-day kind of woman, but thought I'd share that this weekend is Send One Suit weekend, encouraging women to donate one suit to the nonprofit Dress for Success an organization that "gives disadvantaged women entering the workforce a leg up by outfitting them in professional business attire, providing career counseling and setting them up with professional women's networking groups."

Downturned economy leave you with suits to spare? Donate one this weekend! Drop off your suit at a local Dress Barn store (find one here) and help a good cause.

Hard News for Hardwicke, Disappointment for Women Directors Generally

Have a little backlog of posts due to the starting of a new job. Will post a couple of recent insights to sate the palate, and be back on a regular schedule next week.

So the jury's still out as to whether it was Summit's decision to kick Catharine Hardwicke out of the director's chair, or Hardwicke's decision to turn down directing the next installment in the Twilight series (based on what's she's described as a too-limiting budget). Either way it's a disappointment, especially since since the budget for the first movie was 37M and grossed 70M on opening day weekend (setting a new record for highest opening weekend gross for a film directed by a woman), and it's rumored that the modest budget planned for New Moon was increased upon hiring of America Pie helmer Chris Weitz to direct.

But now Nikke Finke reports that Summit is closing a deal for a third movie, director tbd, making it a little more bitter that Hardwicke's no longer in the director's chair.

And speaking of women directors, Defamer today railed against EW for its top 25 directors list, citing among other problems the lack of femmes at the top. They go on to post 26-50, and Sophia Coppola tops out at  no. 26, ahead of Mira Nair (46) and Mary Harron (49).

Sophia Coppola at 26? Mary Harron at 49? Where's Karen Kusama (director of Girl Fight, Aeon Flux, and the forthcoming Jennifer's Body)? Jane Campion? Jodie Foster? Sally Potter? Mimi Leder? Kathryn Bigelow? Kasi Lemmon? Patty Jenkins? There's a serioiusly flawed rubric behind the present list, one that I don't understand and that celebrates celebrity  in foregrounding Coppola at the expense of some more seriously acomplished directors, both critically and commercially.  Ugh.

But

Film Review Round Up - Badass Lead Chicks

I've been watching the reviews over the past couple of days and I must say, even if these movies are well executed, the fact that they got green-lightsays something. Here is some cinema featuring bad-ass ladies that you may not want to miss:

- Hong Kong thriller Chocolate features a martial artist savant, part autistic teen, part Muay Thai prodigy. 100% bad ass. I have to say I cannot wait to see this.

-The Countess - The summary reads "A 16th-century noblewoman turns to an unusual moisturizer for comfort after she’s been abandoned by her much younger lover" - the moisturizer? Virgin blood!! Talk about a woman scorned. Julia Delpy stars in a movie only the Germans could make.

-Cheri is about a love affair between an older courtesan (Lea) and a spoiled youth (Cheri). Okay, not as firce as the above two but still, nice to see Michelle Pfieffer in a substantial lead role.

An Up and Down Week...for Children

Let me skip right past any homage to parenthood, my own parents, past my own desire to have kids and fears of a life without, and go right back over into the my-God-I-am-sacred-out-of-my-gourd phase. A few things floating around popular culture this week have scared the bejesus out of me.

The Times Op-Ed ‘Till Children do Us Part” and the  now vintage-3-year-old Salon.com article by Mary Elizabeth Williams are fiercesome reminders of the economic and physical toils of childrearing. Add to that the economy woes, and it looks like I'm not alone, as Lisa Belkin writes in "Postponing a Baby in this Recession."

A couple other interersting issues are up in the air now too. The Balance between women and men workinging and the economic turmoil perhaps ushering a new age ofstay-at-home dads may be ne suprising outcome of this historic economic downturn, as Belkin points out in "Unemployed Dads at Home" and NPR's "Talk of the Nation" turned into a discussion about multitasking moms as host Neil Conan explored the culture of Blackberrying and the breakdowns between work at home with guest Dalton Conley, author of the book Elsewhere, USA. The current moment then raises all new kinds of questions about parenthood in the milenium. We'll wait and see I guess.

A Barbie World

On a lighter note, while there's been much talk about Barbie recently - from the giant store planned in Shanghai to Allure's article how she's changed over the years to the forthcoming book on how she was conceived - here's yet another fabulous piece of Barbie news: the Guardian reported on Friday that Mattel is announcing an Andrea Merkel Barbie.



Too bad she's one of a kind (like the real Merkel!)

Academy Awards Watch: Honoring Geek Chic

The Academy's recognition ceremony for accomplishments in the area of scientific and technical contribution to film was held in Beverly Hills last night. As part of the commitment of this blog to comment on the role of women and men in popular culture including tech, I'm obliged to report that the winners were all white dudes. This is not so surprising, as the educational and cultural institutions which promote success in science and technology have historically given been populated by given preference to white men. But I have few doubts  that as these industries become less exclusive and girl gamers and programmers are on the rise, the demo of these awards will change a lot over the next twenty years. That will not however stop me from commenting that the choice of a gorgeous woman to host (Jessica Biel this year, succeeding prior hosting hotties Jessica Alba, Scarlett Johansson, and Charlize Theron) does not = gender balance:  it's more like throwing chum to an audience of hungry sharks, hungry nerdy sharks.

A brief list of the winners is below, with details on the Academy's webpage.

Gordon E. Sawyer Award - Ed Catmull, a computer scientist, co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios, and president of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios. 

John A. Bonner Medal - Mark Kimball, a computer scientist and motion picture technologist with more than 28 years experience in the movie industry

Technical Achievement Award - Steve Hylen, inventor of the Hylen Lens System

Scientific and Engineering Award - Erwin Melzer, Volker Schumacher, & Timo Muller for the Arrimax 18/12 lighting fixture .

Scientific and Engineering Award  - Jacques Delacoux and Alexandre Leuchter for the Transvideo-video assist monitors

Scientific and Engineering Award  - Bruno Coumert, Jacques Debize, Dominique Chervin and Christophe Reboulet for the Angenieux 15-40 and 28-76 zoom lenses

A sincere congratulations to all.

The Gross Out Girls

Salon.com today has a post by Rebecca Traister which takes issued with the slate of recent gross out posts by this column’s favorite blog Jezebel, and let me just say to her: get over it. She writes  “Oversharing is in” – this isn’t oversharing – it’s simply sharing. It’s just that we’re not used to it.

Women’s bodies are complicated. The vagina is an extremely sensitive organ whose status is beholden to hormones, environmental factors, women’s grooming, and emotional state (among others). Menstruation, birth control, and hygiene routines mean we spend a lot of time working on the old pipes down there and historically there’s been little place to discuss the ins and outs of all this. I for one find this refreshing. I remember one time pitching a short film to my thesis class – a dark comedy about a woman with dyspareunia, and let’s just say that even though the pitch got laughs, the overall response was tepid. Okay, maybe that pitch was pushing it (it did involve a talking vagina), but I think in large part that’s because we’re not culturally primed to hear about these in public.

All this reminds me of the 1970’s by Gloria Steinem If Men Could Menstruate:

What would happen, for instance, if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not? The answer is clear - menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event:

Men would brag about how long and how much. Boys would mark the onset of menses, that longed-for proof of manhood, with religious ritual and stag parties.The US Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea to help stamp out monthly discomforts. Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free…Street guys would brag ("I'm a three-pad man") or answer praise from a buddy ("Man, you are lookin' good") by giving fives and saying, "Yeah, man, I'm on the rag!" TV shows would treat the subject at length…so would newspapers…and movies (Newman and Redford in "Blood Brothers"!)

Is it so shocking then that women would take the affordances offered by online communities to share and  provide a forum for our shared frustrations, triumphs, difficulties, curiousities, and questions. This is feminism 2.0, and it’s about damn time.

And let’s face it. As the Jezebel response points out – this is opt in. It’s not like Letterman or Leno are joking about this on the news, and I doubt Conan will replace the masturbating bear with the menstruating red panda (though a girl can dream).

Write on ladies!

In Defense of the Chick Flick

I really do loathe the term“chick flick.” That said, I will not let that prevent me from my post today, which is a brief defense of said genre. In the last few days there has been a spate of criticism (including today’s column from Kevin Maher in today's Times Online) regarding romantic comedies and chick flicks, led by the recent releases of Bride Wars, and the forthcoming Confessions of a Shopaholic and He’s Just Not That Into You. Before the Hollywood clitterati go on a rampage whereby we are ready to burn at the stake the writers and execs churning out this so-called this drivel - let me make an impassioned plea for some perspective.

Let’s put these comedies into context, shall we? While Maher claims that “for every smart-thinking Bridget Jones, Legally Blonde or Devil Wears Prada there appeared a slew of movies that appealed to the genre's baser instincts… 27 Dresses, Made of Honor, License to Wed and What Happens in Vegas.” Let’s compare this to a comprehensive selection of male driven comedies released last year: Tropic Thunder, Yes Man, Step Brothers, You Don’t Mess With The Zohan, Pineapple Express, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Harold and Kumar. Hancock, The Love Guru, Witless Protection – in terms of offering flattering representations of men, this pretty much spans the gamut. You may look at the success of Bride Wars or Paul Blart and make a good argument about the dumbing down of American comedic tastes, but I’m not convinced there’s a gender gap here.

Let’s face it, the real problem isn’t these movies – rather it’s the dearth of female leads and storylines in genres OTHER than chick flicks and romantic comedies. I think this IS a problem – a huge one. There’s a real lack of movies featuring female stars that don’t happen to be have storylines driven exclusively by female interests (i.e. men, shopping, and getting married). Women do not occupy the lead role in films across genres (actions, thrillers, dramas, superhero movies) with any regularity (as Jezebel's post on the Bechdel Rule reminded us) This is a tragedy.

I do worry that when we call for an end to chick flicks, we risk that chick flicks (be they good, bad, or ugly) will get a shrinking piece of the studio’s financial pie, and that I don’t want to see fewing women on screen, even if it means eduring the bad along with the good. The good ones are worth it!! So let’s not galvanize the Industry to kill the genre entirely just because of a one (or two, or three) movies that spoil the bunch.

Goodbye to My Man-Hating Literature

So it's Tuesday (almost midnight PST, just under the wire) but just wanted to get in this eulogy.

International traveling (as well as impending nuptials) have left me with a need to pare down my belongings and make room for the future. Among the many victims of this purge are my bookshelves, which have been overcrowded with many tomes that have gone unopened for years. I freely admit that many of these books are from my undergraduate and early grad school days, and I've hung onto them for ego's sake, as evidence not only that I have read them but that more importantly they serve as a sort of external proof that I am a thoughtful and well-educated person. But it's time to reckon that, though I owe many of these works deeply, it's time to let them go and trust the impact they've made on me.

As these works now sit in a pile on my floor waiting to be sold and shipped to the good people who buy used-book from Amazon.com, I realize this collection contains much of my "Man Hating Lit" as my male friends call it - literature that would scare the pants off of any possible suitor who happened to peruse my bookshelves. I have tried in vain to defend this literature as showcasing my active interest in understanding men and women (and maintain that makes me an open-minded, attractive person, no?) to no avail. While no one of these books contains any sort of misandronist message, apparently the whole lot of them say to the world that I'm a vicous man eater.

And so here it is, a compendium of mini eulogies dedicated to the books that scare the pants off single men. 

Bachelors by Rosalind E. Krauss - recommended reading for an undergraduate history of photography course.

Representing Women by Linda Nochlin - for my gender and representation in 19th and 20th century French painting class. Awesome, but unopened since '98

Male Trouble by Abigail Solomon-Godeau - ditto

Feminism Without Women: Culture and Criticism in a Postfeminist Age by Tania Modeleski - Modeleski was a celebrity prof at my school and so this was de facto required reading

Speculum of the Other Woman by Luce Irigaray - okay, I admit it - any book with "speculum" is bound to scare off men. 

Is Menstruation Obsolete? by Elsimar Coutinho and Sheldon Segal - speaking of scary titles. An interesting argument, but as a lapsed Catholic I will never not panic when I think I've missed my period. The anxiety over a potential unplanned pregnancy is just ingrained in me.

Feminist Television Criticism: A Reader ed. by Charlotte Brundson and Lynn Spigel - a great primer on feminist theory on tv (guess the title kind of explains itself)

Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality by Ann Fausto - like new! I never did get around to cracking this one (as assigned reading during the last week in a film theory classs chock full of high theory, this became optional reading) 

Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks - inspiring but also makes you feel kind of hopeless, like unless you engage in full on revolution, there just ain't no hope. Bummer.

Against Love by Laura Kipnis - purchased this after I saw the author give a talk,  enjoyed it most when I felt my own relationship was doomed. Some women turn to ice cream and Meg Ryan movies; I turned to Kipnis.

Great Women of Film by Helena Lumme and Mika Manninen - receved as a gift. A beautiful black and whote book, but a little more timely than timeless and thusly feels dated. Not doing a good job of selling this one, am I?

Daughters of the Dust: The Making of an African American Woman's Film by Julie Dash -  bought for a production class. Okay, this one may well push me into unshaven leg, bra-burning territory. 

Sex for One: The Joy of Selfloving by Betty Dodson - bought this as a sight gag for a short film, and read it years later. Betty Dodson is my favorite old-school blue-haired diva. I want to be like her when I grow up.

The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women by Tristan Taormino - what can I say? I'm just not that into it.

Still keeping some that I just can't let go of - my Feminist Film Theory Reader, Judith Butler's Gender Trouble, Linda Williams' Hard Core, Susan Hopkins' Girl Heroes to name a few.

The Ledbetter Double Edge

Last week the news was rife with coverage of Obama’s signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, Obama’s first bill which overturns legislation restricting an employee’s ability to file a pay discrimination lawsuit against their employer. Considered a bittersweet victory for women (essentially returning things to their pre-2007 state) it’s also a misstep for Obama, who promised as part of his campaign to publicly post non-emergency bills in consideration for review and commentary by the public for five days before signing. As Politifact, the organization running the “Obameter” keeping track of his campaign promises reports, he did not do this for the Ledbetter Act. Considering that I can’t even get both my computers connected to my wireless printer, I sympathize with the technical difficulties, but wouldn’t it have been smarter for them to get ahead of this with a quick press release rather than wait for it to catch up to them? Hate to think that this bill, which helps to restore equality among workers and is already being pigeonholed as a some kind of feminist (not humanist) legislation, will suffer another little blow, ultimately detracting from the good work being done here?

Pricey $ex $chizophrenia

I find these two stories in the news this week oddly disturbing: (1) Good Morning America's profile piece on Sugar Daddies and (2) the conviction of Cecil Suwal, the 24-year old woman who helped manage a high class prostitution ring (known for uniting NY governor Eliot Spitzer with paid-for lover Ashley Dupré).



Helloooooo? Anybody else see a problem here? There is little difference between services like SugarDaddies.com and Suwal's company Emperor's Club VIP - in fact, the relationships that Suwal profited from are merely a neat subset of those promoted on the web (where people are looking for all kinds of emotional and physical arrangements) - just made formal in the marketplace by a series of discrete financial transactions. I understand that people may not like these relationships or respect them or the parties involved - and that's fine, judge away -  but criminalizing them seems excessive, especially in this economy when we can be taxing them.

Samantha Powers as Obama Aide

The Huffington Post is reporting that Samantha Powers, the Obama campaigner who made some unsavory remarks about Hillary Clinton during the campaign, will become senior director for multilateral affairs at the National Security Council, supporting Obama and interfacing with Clinton. To refresh, Powers' comment to a Scottish Newspaper regarding Clinton in the campaign were that "She is a monster, too... She is stooping to anything... the amount of deceit she has put forward is really unattractive."

Keep an eye out to see how this gets characterized next week, and let's hope the media is above making this into a cat fight.

Friday update: Movies Directed by Women

Sadly, no major releases of any pics with ladies n the directors chair this week. I'll throw some support behind Slumdog Millionaire for those who haven't seen it, as Loveleen Tandan shares directing credit with Danny Boyle and it's still in the top ten.

Hot or Not - Rate the Congremmen

Oh Arianna Huffington. I love you so much thatI cry a little on the weeks that you’re absent from Left, Right, and Center. And I freely admit that I have spent more than one occasion sitting in the car mouthing your scathing political commentary so I can perfect your charming accent. But first during one of your pre-election rants, you call Sarah Palin a bimbo. You can say a lot of things about Sarah Palin, but I do think “bimbo” crosses one of those lines where it’s the kind of gross, personal, and gender specific attack ( could you not have used the more neutral “ignorant” or “airhead”?) that the left accuses the right of using all the time. If you’re gonna complain about something, you can’t go run and commit the same offense when it’s your turn. Needless to say I was a little disappointed.

And now this in the sidebar of The Huffington Post:

My heart flutters a little – I want to like this. But I just can’t abide. I know that if there were the same thing but with women instead of men, I’d be railing.

I do realize between this post and last I’m starting to sound all humorless feminist. I assure you I’m not – I’m pro porn, enjoy South Park and the comic stylings of Brad Neeley – I’m fun, I swear! I just think we can’t pursue humor like this until it’s cool to do on both sides. So, hold off for another 50 years or so till we’ve got equal numbers on Capitol Hill, capiche?

Daba Daba Do!

So I stumbled upon the Dating A Banker Anonymous (DABA) blog last night (missing the NY Times article about this on Monday). In case you missed it, the members of DABA, which started as a sort of informal social get-together/group therapy session for those whose boyfriends and husbands work/ed in the financial business, now blog about their experiences and how their upscale lifestyles have succumbed to the downturn. They refer to their beaus as FBFs, which stands for “Financial-Guy Boyfriend” (though for years I have been trying to popularize the acronym a friend penned:  IBDB, which stands for “investment banker douchebag”) Woe are they, as their loved ones  (pun intended, as may of them have broken off with their adored partners who they no longer love) lose status, job security, and discretionary income.

[caption id="attachment_22" align="alignright" width="300" caption="NYT article 27 Jan 09 "][/caption]

My problem with this blog is the tone. Lord knows that I enjoy a wry witticism, a gut busting one-liner, a silly play on words and even an occasional fart joke or two. But these postings are only kind of funny. The women themselves describe their blog as “very tongue–in-cheek,” but there’s no very here. Their posts are not dripping with over the top descriptions of the Bergdorf shopping sprees or lavish nights inebriating flitting from club to club. It’s just whining. There’s not even a nod or a self-reflexive moment to let us know that they’re being ironic – no fourth wall break, no wink to the reader or apology to clue us in as to how to read what they’re writing.

I’ll admit there’s a certain lightness to it. These women are savvy – they don’t write about their losses entirely sincerely. But the tone is more snide than sarcasm, like these women have this we-know-it’s-a-little-ridiculous-but-we're-entitled-to-our-moment-to-bitch-and-if-you-don’t-like-it-then-suck-it attitude that makes me agree with the commenter who wrote "makes me want to laucgh and punch you in the face at the same time" - good thing these ladies are anonymous.

There’s not an ounce of genuine empathy or concern for what their partners are going through: the very real loss of identity their husbands/boyfriends professions suffer as the careers they have invested their identity in crash alongside the market. That's kind of what we do to them as a society - ask them to put their emotional and personal stock in success and providing. Then these men lose that, and you're upset about not going to the ballet? If it were the other way around, the feminists would want to string these heartless folks up by their testicles.

What's worse (and forgive me for waxing too bleeding heart like the loyal NPR listener I am here), but a lot of hard working people who aspired to be homeowners were sold on the American Dream by your boyfriends and husbands and got really hurt. Really. The aspiring middle class (albeit, not entirely devoid of their own responsibility for signing on to huge amounts of debt) got taken advantage of by those FGFs.  And you, you ate and drank and shopped your way through the housing bubble, and spent the commissions and earnings and bonuses of your loved ones, income that destroyed people’s finances and jobs and retirements and drove the world’s economy into the gutter. You, yes you, have some role in that.

So have some shame, and keep your grousing to cocktail hour at Nobu. Infinte bandwith be damned, there is no room for your whimpering drivel here and that gentle dusting of what you call sarcasm doesn’t exculpate you from responsibility for what you write, or from your role in sowing this economic mess.

Inaugural Post

I write this post a little over one week after the inauguration of Barack Obama. The year 2008 has been an interesting year for women (men too) in many respects.  Certainly as politics goes the ascension of Hilary Clinton and Sarah Palin as contenders on the national political stage was a significant breakthrough for women in the mainstream. The Christian Science Monitor reports that modest gains in parity across the board were made so that Congress is now 17% women/83% men and in state legislatures the breakdown is 24% women/76% men. There’s some ways to go until we reach a sampling that reflects our society, but politics proves more promising than entertainment.

The Celluloid Ceiling Report from the University of San Diego confirmed that for 2007 (numbers for 2008 should be released in the next 1-2 weeks) women made up 15% directors, producers, writers, cinematographers and editors working on the top 250 domestic-grossing films in 2007, with directors numbering a low 6%.  These statistics are deceptive – they don’t take into account independent media production or commercial television production, and they beg the question as to what’s the ratio of women trying to make it into these fields vis-à-vis men, which is necessary to know if we’re trying to examine and root out the discrimination we assume is at work.
Every year, there is some splashy piece in the New York Times or LA Times that bemoans the state of women in Hollywood, either on the screen as the creative force behind the story, and our attention is drawn to the issue for a brief moment. Then we settle back into the status quo until the next article. This column is a response to that ennui.
I think it’s time we focus a persistent gaze onto this issue and the broader issue of how women and men are creating, consuming, and appearing in the media manifestations of our technologically-driven culture. To be clear, I don’t advocate for some sort of cultural affirmative action for chicks. Rather this blog is a critical intervention by which I aim to pose questions to make us think about who we are and what we want. For example, regarding women as directors, I don’t think that a sort of token system whereby women are handed gigs makes sense to of a sense of correcting a wrong makes sense. I DO think that women and men are underestimated as consumers of good storytelling that involves either women in front of the screen or behind the camera. I DO think that we have a marketing and genre problem – the existence of the broad genre of “chick flicks” seems to leave no space for films featuring women and directed by women that have broad and/or commercial appeal to both genders. I DO think we expect female audiences to have bi-sexual interest in protagonists (meaning they watch stories with both men and women in the lead), while we assume men are single-sex oriented (lovin’ only the male leads). I DO think television has broken some of these barriers in important ways (which somehow seem not to translate to its big screen sib). And I DO think marketing executives should be challenged to find a way to mobilize men as an audience for good stories that happen to be about/by women.  In this internet-driven micro-targeting culture, we are increasingly marketed to and treated as the sum of our properties (m/f, age, race, zip code, income, political party, etc), rather than who we are.
Thus in this inaugural post I am calling for an adjustment. We are on autopilot and in this, the so called era of change, I'm issing the rallying cry that we look at things a little more thoughtfully, or hell, look at them at all.   - TVB

Greetings and Salutations

Welcome to The Belle Curve. This site will be a forum for the provocative and sometimes funny insights into the nature of gender and culture by Tara Von Baron.