Deborah Lipp

Apparently, Juno is all controversial. It’s unkind to people who were adopted as well as to birth mothers to create a comedy about adoption. There’s a lot of discussion about whether Juno is anti-choice.

Shut! Up!

This is where I part ways with many feminists and other activists; where they start criticizing or trying to restrict art based on content. It’s not better to object to a movie based on its supposed anti-choice values than it is to object to a movie based on its supposed liberal values. It all feels like Social Realism thinking to me. I get that a birth mother might not want to see Juno, and might find it painful. And I sympathize. But that doesn’t mean that the subject matter should be off-limits. There are definitely things I never want to see in movies, and movies I avoid as a result. Comedies that everyone loves that I’ve never seen because they feel like they would trigger some serious pain for me.

But that doesn’t mean those comedies shouldn’t be made, nor that they are “not funny” by some objective standard. There is no objectivity with humor.

The more touchy the subject, the harder to do it right. One of my problems with Waitress, which was basically very charming, was the attempt to have a humorous abusive husband. This wasn’t triggering for me; I’ve never been the victim of domestic violence, but it made me uncomfortable.

I didn’t come away from that movie thinking this subject should never be addressed in a comedy. I came away thinking that maybe it can’t be done well, and this movie definitely didn’t do it well. But who knows? If beautifully written and acted, maybe it could illuminate the characters without feeling way out of line. Maybe.

If so, some people will choose to skip that movie anyway, because it hurts too much, and it’s not funny for them. I get that. I just don’t feel like it should be censored in advance, and I don’t feel that people who do find it funny should be accused of being less enlightened or feminist or socially responsible than thou.

This week, I saw two movies that satisfy Bechdel’s Rule. It is remarkable to see women who seem real in the movies, and then again remarkable that it is so remarkable, if you know what I mean. The movies are a true-life drama (A Mighty Heart) and a ditzy, sexy romantic comedy (The Truth About Cats & Dogs). They share a deep feminist sensibility without ever doing that “I’m talking about feminism” thing (see: Something’s Gotta Give).

A Mighty Heart (2007) 8/10
When Daniel Pearl (Dan Futterman) is kidnapped in Pakistan, his wife Marianne (Angelina Jolie) and his colleague Asra Nomani (Archie Panjabi) work with the authorities to try to find and rescue him.

Asra Nomani has written that she is unhappy with the way A Mighty Heart is not about Danny Pearl; she felt betrayed by that. But the movie feels to me like it isn’t meant to be about Danny, who is, after all, off-stage for the drama being shown. Indeed, his story might be told, and told beautifully, but this is a different story.

I struggled with the chaos of the movie; a legitimate portrayal of what it felt like to be in that situation, or needlessly chaotic film techniques?

But in the center of the chaos are two remarkable women, and as I watched, I was struck by how not-movie these women were; they seemed like women I might know. They were smart, thoughtful, aggressive, angry, needy, analytical, focused, and compassionate. They were simply human. They were never “the women” cast in a movie to add a little color and costume and tits. There was nothing cliché about them. This was particularly striking for Marianne Pearl, who was never reduced to “the wife,” or “the pregnant wife,” and with that growing belly, that had to be a challenge to the filmmakers. Because yes, she was a pregnant wife, but also a journalist and, well, a human being.

And again, I reflected that this shouldn’t be so striking. That human women shouldn’t be such an oddity.

The Truth About Cats and Dogs (1996) 8/10
Dr. Abby Barnes (Janeane Garofalo) is a veterinarian with a pet advice radio show. When an attractive caller (Ben Chaplin) wants to meet her, she convinces him that she looks like her gorgeous neighbor Noelle (Uma Thurman). Complications ensue.

People kept telling me to see this movie, but the identity-switch plot made me cringe. I finally broke down, and yeah, there’s a couple of cringes, but it’s somehow nothing like the description sounds. First, because the self-consciousness of the cringey switch is a reflection of Abby’s own self-consciousness. Second, because there’s a crucial scene on the phone between Abby and Brian (Chaplin) that is so warm and lovely that it legitimizes the ensuing shenanigans, and finally, because the friendship that develops between Noelle and Abby as they weave their ridiculous lies is lovely and rare.

Seriously. Two women thrown together. Attracted to the same man. And…choosing friendship as a priority? Did you see that coming? And not necessarily, y’know, being martyrs, but recognizing the value of it. Considering it. Exactly as if they were human.

Because they are. Human women. In a script, get this, written by a woman. That includes female masturbation (and someday soon I’m writing a whole post on that subject).

Seeing these movies made me a little sadder about movies in general, because I shouldn’t be writing this post. It shouldn’t be, hey I saw movies in which women were actually friends. And human. And thoughtful. Two of them! Made only eleven years apart!

The Namesake (2006) 6/10
Ashoke Ganguli (Irfan Khan), a Bengali professor living in New York, marries Ashima (Tabu) and brings her to the United States in 1974. Their American-born son Gogol (Kal Penn) struggles between his family’s traditionalism and his desire to assimilate. Directed by Mira Nair.

The Namesake is a movie struggling to find itself. Although I haven’t read the novel, and so have no idea how close it is to its source, it feels like a movie trying to slavishly follow a novel’s plot and pacing. It has a novels way of rising and falling around events, without a clear flow of character or narrative arc. I wanted to take it apart, shake off the loose pieces, and put it back together with a more sound structure. Almost everything about the movie is appealing except its inability to tell a story.

This is the sort of movie I see all the time and don’t bother to write a full review of. (After all, most weeks I see two or three movies and only review one here.) But it has some very good qualities that are worth discussing. First, of course, is the modern immigrant experience; arriving not on Ellis Island but at JFK International Airport, treated symbolically (if clumsily) in the movie as a sort of waystation; each time the Ganguli family passes through JFK they pass between worlds; between states of being. Ashoke and Ashima are always aliens in their adopted country, their traditions don’t fit in. And looking at it, you can certainly see how most of our traditions didn’t fit in at one point, and how the first generation born here struggled with a foot in each world.

There’s a fascinating anti-feminist feminist component about The Namesake. I realize that sounds contradictory, so hang in there.

In the course of the movie, there are two women in Gogol’s life. They are incredibly poorly-written characters, stereotypes of Evil Feminists or Evil Modernism or something else Evil and Female. Their evils are variously independence, informality, premarital sex, wearing short skirts, and disrespecting tradition. The feeling at the end of the movie, when the family comes to a particular sort of resolution but the Evil Women are cast aside, is of misogyny.

Rethinking my position involves spoilers about the end. Continue at your own risk.

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Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) 7/10
Three women embark on a haphazard crime spree after killing a young man and taking his girlfriend prisoner. Directed by Russ Meyer.

I saw this movie several weeks ago, but I have to say, I’m at a loss as to how to review it. Certainly the rating is a shot in the dark, because it’s impossible to choose a standard by which to judge. The acting is sometimes so bad that I burst out laughing. On the other hand, the movie is suffused with a raw vitality that is thrilling to watch. As Varla, Tura Satana is bursting at the seams; literally, in her painted-on clothes, and figuratively, too bombastic an actress, but also too angry, to hyper-energized a character. She is utterly evil, but also fully alive; a kind of oversexed, murderous, Übermensch. Her only motivations seem to be to keep moving, keep fighting, keep grabbing, keep controlling, and keep fucking. Her companions are not happy when she turns them into a gang of killers; Rosie (Haji) is interested only in her lover Varla, while Billie (Lori Williams) wants to fuck, get drunk, fuck, party, fuck, dance, and fuck.

So these characters are repulsive and yet compelling, and their opposition, a vile old man and his two passive sons, are never given the opportunity to gain our sympathy. Ultimately, Arthur and I found we were rooting for the “pussycats” despite ourselves, even with (or especially with) the annoyingly innocent Gidget-esque Linda (Susan Bernard) as their victim.

Arthur had this idea when we sat down to watch it that this would be a great movie to blog, kind of figuring with the title and the theme I could really sink my feminist chops into it. But that didn’t turn out to be the case. You could twist yourself into a pretzel arguing that the pussycats are empowered, or that they’re exploited. Clearly their cleavage is exploited. But if this movie has a theme, it is (on the positive side) vitality and life force, and (on the negative side) power and the abuse of power. As vital women, the pussycats are sexual and sexualized, but because they are all tall and busty and forceful, they don’t seem objectified. Their gaze is direct and outward, not meek and askance, and their presence dominates the scene and the screen. They keep thrusting themselves forward and taking the lead in every experience. And it is definitely true that Meyers is interested in making sure this is “symbolized” shall we say, by their enormous breasts in tight outfits and all that. But these women have both agency and power, especially Varla, who is excited by abusing her power.

The most stereotypical woman is Rosie, who is going along with a lover who pushes her into situations with which she is unhappy. She is basically silent in the face of abuse and disloyalty; a lesbian battered partner. Her presence seems mostly designed to point to Varla’s negativity; lest we enjoy her wildness too much, we are reminded that her own lover in her own gang is hurt by it.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this, not just for its camp value, but for the waves of imagery and energy, the cleanly-constructed story, and the smart use of low budget to make minimalistic sets and locations really count.