Whit Stillman talks Damsels. [via]
Cracked speaks truth to power on cine-lady cliches with "6 Obnoxious Assumptions Hollywood Makes About Women." I know, right? Who woulda thought there'd be a Venn diagram where that august mag overlapped with Dykes to Watch Out For's Bechdel test? Anyway, one of the six:
The problem with putting a character on the screen that a normal woman can identify with means that they'll have to be Hollywood fat (average sized) and Hollywood ugly (normal looking), and people don't pay ten bucks to go to a theater and see that business.
But if you make your lady character too perfect, nobody in the audience can identify with her. You can't compromise on the looks or the weight, obviously. You can't compromise by giving her a realistic job. She can't be a jerk, or the audience won't root for her. If you're doing one of those career vs. personal life plots, then her flaw is that she loves her career too much, so you got that cut out for you. Any other plot, the only option you've got left is to make her clumsy.
That's why pretty much all romantic comedy women are clumsy. Like Jessica Alba in Good Luck Chuck, Amy Adams in Leap Year, Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality... oh hell here's a montage.
Not entirely unrelated, Thelma Adams calls bullshit on Carey Mulligan's Drive 'do:
And then enter Carey Mulligan as Irene, exsqueeze me, a Denny’s waitress with a kid. And a husband in prison. Living in a squat downtown motel suitable for Charles Bukowski. No offense to Mulligan, but she’s so miscast –so dewy not dingy. It’s a reflection of the filmmakers’ enormous blind spot that they think no one will notice, or care.
Irene’s blond highlights and bob alone would cost $500. And what’s she doing with that thug Standard (Oscar Isaac) for a husband? He’s in prison and runs with a gang. She says they met at a party, and I had to wonder where was the party? Oxbridge? When Gosling’s Driver takes her and her kid for a spin on the L.A. River, she reacts with a level of joy that borders on the autistic spectrum, as if she’s an alien experiencing her first day in a human body.
Perhaps it only goes back to what the actress Patricia Arquette said to me before her career revival on Medium: men cast women on the basis of fuckability. Mulligan is new meat.
Yowza! Speaking of fuckability, Nicholas Barker builds a case for the "romp-com":
For the past decade, most Hollywood rom-coms have been devoid of both comedy and romance. They’ve had elaborately contrived plots involving bets, tricks and lies. They’ve featured endless misunderstandings, all of which could have been cleared up if the characters had ever been honest with each other. They’ve had tearful fallings out, followed instantly by tearful reunions. Of course these films are not really about love, or even about romance. Rather, they are showcases for perfect bodies in fabulous clothes and designer apartments—the real stars of every other scene.
<snip>
For a modern rom-com to be even halfway decent, it has to have some vague resemblance to reality—just one what-if away from our own lives. Watching “When Harry Met Sally”, we know that two platonic friends could fall in love. Watching “Chasing Amy”, we accept that a repressed man could be discomfited by his girlfriend’s bisexuality. Watching “Four Weddings and a Funeral”, we sympathise because, in the pre-Facebook age, a man could be smitten by a stranger at a wedding and then have no contact with her until another wedding weeks later. But no one, before or after watching “Life As We Know It”, has ever asked, “What if your best friends were killed and you were granted joint custody of their baby along with an attractive, single person you hated—oh, and you had to share an immaculately furnished mansion with them?” Rarely has a title been less appropriate.
Amen. Moving along... My pal Penny Pascal did a whole thesis on the concept of the girl crush, so I guess it's OK for me to crush out on Rookie [which is looking for a new managing editor! Holler at your girl, Tavi! I would gladly give you my copy of Sassy with Juliana Hatfield on the cover for that gig!] in public, and especially its movie and TV posts thus far.
There was "How to turn your life into a coming-of-age movie," yes. But the one you should start with is "Keep your eye on the girl to the side":
On television, you’re supposed to keep your eyes on the heroine. She’s the one breaking rules and beating odds, the one falling in and out of love, the one with the affectations that are swallowed up and internalized by millions of enamored viewers, who tuck their hair behind their ears and bite their lips just so for years in her honor, sometimes without even knowing it. She is the twisted mirror, and you are supposed to see in her all of the things you see in yourself, or all of the things you hope are within you, somewhere under a layer of apprehension. She is supposed to be everyone. And she always has at least one great friend.
I am going to ask you a favor: will you do this for me? The next time you watch a show with a female lead, keep an eye out for her sidekicks. Watch the way she treats them, and how they treat her. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat their friends. And you can learn a lot about heroics by watching more than the heroine of the story. The best friend, the sidekick, has heart, wisdom and kindness. It is important, I think, to remember that just as much as you are the hero of your own story, you are also, at times, the supporting cast. Not that I’m telling you to take a backseat, you superstar, you: I am telling you that you have many roles in your life, and any real heroine can recognize the importance of learning how to be a good friend.
Awwww! Seriously, I love this site so far. Haters can take it elsewhere.
