Recently I've been wanting to devote some time to the little bits of casual ways that the people around us can make us feel icky (microaggressions, anyone?).
For the record, I really do mean casual. Not big issues, or blatant displays that make my blood boil. These are more tiny things, things that we might not usually notice but are all the more dangerous because of this. It's these casual things, the comments and actions that demean us but are considered too small to get angry about, that reinforce how society knocks people down on a daily basis.
If anybody has examples of this that they would like to share, feel free to comment or, if you think your example deserves its own post, send me a message. Again, I'm looking for the types of things that would usually get you an exasperated look and a "Oh my god you're such a feminist" (or whatever label) from your friend/family member/goldfish who's tired of hearing you complain about the ways society oppresses women. Side note: if your goldfish is talking to you, you either need more friends or to ask it for three wishes.
So! Our first example! Aren't you excited to hear the comment that inspired the idea for this? I know I am! The most excited!
Last week NPR's program Fresh Air featured an interview with Nate Silver, a statistical analyst who writes a blog for the New York Times. It was a respectable interview that covered statistics in sports, politics, economics...everything (you can listen to the program here). I wasn't actually paying much attention (we all know ladies hate things like sports and politics, amirite????) when suddenly Silver, who had been talking about how much data we've generated in the past two years, said, "most of it [the data] is unimportant, like youtube videos of people's cats or texts between teenage girls". Ahh, what a beautiful sentiment. It warms the cockles of my little, cold feminist heart.
Now, my teenage years were not so long ago, and so I do understand it when people think that teenagers have trivial concerns. I'm not going to address whether this conception of teenagers is right or wrong (But really, we all went through that phase, we just didn't all have unlimited texting plans when we did, and besides, are we really going to waste energy deciding what is important enough for other people to care about? And are we really going to knock already insecure teens down because their problems aren't "important enough"?) but I want you all to notice the fact that Silver specified "girls". He could have just as easily said "texts between teenagers," as it means pretty much the same thing. Could have. But he didn't. In order to emphasize his point that the data in question was trivial, he added in the word "girls" for good measure. He probably didn't even think about it! Just like most people wouldn't question the comment itself. If I wasn't in such a grouchy mood I probably wouldn't have noticed it, either.
For a moment though, think about this: what would it have sounded like if Silver had said "texts between teenage boys"? That sounds weird, right? For me, at least, the phrase doesn't generate an image in my head, whereas thinking of texting teenage girls generates an image of airheaded teens giggling over gossip on their cell phones at the mall. It feels more comfortable. Do teenage boys text any less? By the way, not to undermine myself, but apparently studies have shown that teenage girls text more than teenage boys. That's not really what I'm talking about. More than that, I'm concerned that this goes deeper than who texts more. I'm afraid the real issue is that we're dealing with the instinctive feeling that teenage girls (and girls, or women, in general) are just sillier and more trivial than boys.
And are they, really? Think about the teenage boys you've known. I'm sure some of them are very responsible (just as some teenage girls are very responsible) but aren't some of them quite silly as well? Aren't we all super silly all the time? But I digress. Basically, going along with the belief that teenage girls don't deserve to be taken seriously not only undermines all women, but also affects the way that we teach the teenage girls around us. If we don't believe that teenage girls should be taken seriously, we are going to treat them that way, and that is the message that they will receive. Some of them might even believe that message and internalize it. "Little" comments like Mr. Sliver's really do matter.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Looper
Sometimes I watch movies or TV and can't stop my brain from the broken record of "Ladies! What about the ladies? What are they doing with ladies?!" I do get tired of this. Frequently. But somebody needs to be thinking it until one day we stop having to (I'll let other people do the same thing with other problems, like racism, which is super important, but...my broken record drowns out most other noises a lot of the time. And other people talk about those things better than I ever could). In the meantime, I'm just gonna have to be That Girl. The one who's all "yeah, I guess that was pretty good, but what about the ladies?!" What a bummer. It's okay, my friends are mostly bummers in the same way. My mom is too. We can all be bummers together.
By the way, I'll warn you if serious spoilers come up, but this whole post is going to be mildly spoilery, so consider yourself warned.
Anyway, when I saw Looper, my brain wasn't really doing that. There were some blips, but the movie is so damn engrossing that I never really got the chance. It wasn't until I was walking out of the theater that something started stirring in the back of my brain. Something was wrong...terribly wrong. What was it? Before I really get to it, though, I should just say that I really did like Looper. It was smart and did lots of unexpected things and I had a fun time. That's a conversation for a different day, though.
Over coffee afterward my friend said something along the lines of "hey, do you wanna know when my feminist self got angry?" (okay she said something pretty different, but I can't remember what and it was basically that). Before I answered I ran a few moments through my head and realized what bugged me so much about the movie. Her moment wasn't the same as mine. Hers was when Main Female, Sara (Emily Blunt) is all "I'm a strong tough woman with a gun! But I need a man to save me! Save me, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, save me!" It's totally something to get grumpy about. But from thinking about this, I identified a more over-arching problem in the movie.
This paragraph is pretty spoiler-rific. Tread with caution, if you care.
I realized that all three female characters in the movie (that's right there are only three, no, nobody ever expected this movie to pass the Bechdel Test) are only identified in terms of motherhood, or their relationship with their children. Oh, my favorite trope of all time. One woman is a hooker but you know she's relatable because she's only doing it to make money for her kid. And the other is a Tough Woman With a Gun but then she saves everyone with the power of her motherhood. I am not joking, that really, truly happens. The last one we actually get ZERO details about except that she helps the Bruce Willis character get over a drug addiction and also wants kids but can't have them now because of Bad Stuff. She is supposed to be the love of Bruce Willis' life and his motivation for everything he does in this movie and that is all we know about her. My friend pointed out that the kid detail actually could be taken out with little emotional impact on the movie. But let's just leave it in because if a woman doesn't have children she must want them or else she can't be the nurturing lady you've always been looking for to save you from yourself, etc.
I'm sorry, I forgot, there's also a waitress who gets a couple lines of dialogue. Her name is Beatrice and she is basically just a humanoid plot device. We don't know if she has a baby or not, but I bet she wants one real bad.
I've been down this road before. The way that women must always want children is basically my favorite thing to moan about. But a new thought hit me this time that was so glaringly simple I was shocked I'd never had it before. Actually, I have had it before, as have many others, but I'd never really, truly thought about it.
I'm so used to thinking of women in movies in TV as tropes, as in "why can't we craft female characters that don't fall into these tropes?" This is somewhat true. We like to see characters in terms of tropes, going all the way back to commedia dell'arte (okay, probably even before that). So if we sometimes slip into those tropes, it's not The Worst Thing. Men get abused by tropes, too (see: stupid sitcom dad who can't do anything). The problem is that often that's all women get in a movie. There are the Token Trope Lady(ies) and then...nothing else. That's all. Men get their central figures, which may or may not be character types we recognize and then they also get...Everybody Else.
EVERYBODY ELSE!
In Looper there are a bunch of ensemble characters, some of whom have names, some of whom do not. They run around, waving guns and shouting. Some of them are loopers like the Joseph Gordon-Levitt character (I'm sorry I'm not calling him by name...his name is Joe, so you might understand why I don't bother. Besides, with Joes running around I figure I'll just use actor names.) Any of these other loopers, or the other men with guns, could have been a woman. Here's a shocking thought: they wouldn't even have to be a super sexy badass woman. They could have just been a pleasant looking, well-dressed woman with a gun, the same way that Joe is a pleasant looking well-dressed man with a gun. It would have been easy. Hire some actress, give her a pantsuit or whatever and a gun. Done. You don't even have to change the script. Crazy, right? And don't even try to tell me that women wouldn't run around with guns. Have you seen that Sarah Palin reality TV show? She effing loves guns and lots of people think she's a totally normal woman (we won't address the issue of whether or not she's actually a normal woman).
So here's the thing I finally realized, the thing that others have been pointing out for so long that never quite stuck: women are half of everybody. Sure, maybe we show up in some places more than others, but we still show up. Don't tell me that in the not-so-distant future there are zero ladies with guns. Especially not in the dog-eat-dog world that the future seems to be in Looper. It almost looks like you've got to have one.
So why not just throw a few women in there? I can't say, I don't work in the movies. Maybe there's one guy whose job is to stand in the corner and say things like "Ladies hate guns! They could never be hit-men...women! That is so unrealistic!" Maybe. I just like to think it's sheer laziness.
By the way, I'll warn you if serious spoilers come up, but this whole post is going to be mildly spoilery, so consider yourself warned.
Anyway, when I saw Looper, my brain wasn't really doing that. There were some blips, but the movie is so damn engrossing that I never really got the chance. It wasn't until I was walking out of the theater that something started stirring in the back of my brain. Something was wrong...terribly wrong. What was it? Before I really get to it, though, I should just say that I really did like Looper. It was smart and did lots of unexpected things and I had a fun time. That's a conversation for a different day, though.
Over coffee afterward my friend said something along the lines of "hey, do you wanna know when my feminist self got angry?" (okay she said something pretty different, but I can't remember what and it was basically that). Before I answered I ran a few moments through my head and realized what bugged me so much about the movie. Her moment wasn't the same as mine. Hers was when Main Female, Sara (Emily Blunt) is all "I'm a strong tough woman with a gun! But I need a man to save me! Save me, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, save me!" It's totally something to get grumpy about. But from thinking about this, I identified a more over-arching problem in the movie.
This paragraph is pretty spoiler-rific. Tread with caution, if you care.
I realized that all three female characters in the movie (that's right there are only three, no, nobody ever expected this movie to pass the Bechdel Test) are only identified in terms of motherhood, or their relationship with their children. Oh, my favorite trope of all time. One woman is a hooker but you know she's relatable because she's only doing it to make money for her kid. And the other is a Tough Woman With a Gun but then she saves everyone with the power of her motherhood. I am not joking, that really, truly happens. The last one we actually get ZERO details about except that she helps the Bruce Willis character get over a drug addiction and also wants kids but can't have them now because of Bad Stuff. She is supposed to be the love of Bruce Willis' life and his motivation for everything he does in this movie and that is all we know about her. My friend pointed out that the kid detail actually could be taken out with little emotional impact on the movie. But let's just leave it in because if a woman doesn't have children she must want them or else she can't be the nurturing lady you've always been looking for to save you from yourself, etc.
I'm sorry, I forgot, there's also a waitress who gets a couple lines of dialogue. Her name is Beatrice and she is basically just a humanoid plot device. We don't know if she has a baby or not, but I bet she wants one real bad.
I've been down this road before. The way that women must always want children is basically my favorite thing to moan about. But a new thought hit me this time that was so glaringly simple I was shocked I'd never had it before. Actually, I have had it before, as have many others, but I'd never really, truly thought about it.
I'm so used to thinking of women in movies in TV as tropes, as in "why can't we craft female characters that don't fall into these tropes?" This is somewhat true. We like to see characters in terms of tropes, going all the way back to commedia dell'arte (okay, probably even before that). So if we sometimes slip into those tropes, it's not The Worst Thing. Men get abused by tropes, too (see: stupid sitcom dad who can't do anything). The problem is that often that's all women get in a movie. There are the Token Trope Lady(ies) and then...nothing else. That's all. Men get their central figures, which may or may not be character types we recognize and then they also get...Everybody Else.
EVERYBODY ELSE!
In Looper there are a bunch of ensemble characters, some of whom have names, some of whom do not. They run around, waving guns and shouting. Some of them are loopers like the Joseph Gordon-Levitt character (I'm sorry I'm not calling him by name...his name is Joe, so you might understand why I don't bother. Besides, with Joes running around I figure I'll just use actor names.) Any of these other loopers, or the other men with guns, could have been a woman. Here's a shocking thought: they wouldn't even have to be a super sexy badass woman. They could have just been a pleasant looking, well-dressed woman with a gun, the same way that Joe is a pleasant looking well-dressed man with a gun. It would have been easy. Hire some actress, give her a pantsuit or whatever and a gun. Done. You don't even have to change the script. Crazy, right? And don't even try to tell me that women wouldn't run around with guns. Have you seen that Sarah Palin reality TV show? She effing loves guns and lots of people think she's a totally normal woman (we won't address the issue of whether or not she's actually a normal woman).
So here's the thing I finally realized, the thing that others have been pointing out for so long that never quite stuck: women are half of everybody. Sure, maybe we show up in some places more than others, but we still show up. Don't tell me that in the not-so-distant future there are zero ladies with guns. Especially not in the dog-eat-dog world that the future seems to be in Looper. It almost looks like you've got to have one.
So why not just throw a few women in there? I can't say, I don't work in the movies. Maybe there's one guy whose job is to stand in the corner and say things like "Ladies hate guns! They could never be hit-men...women! That is so unrealistic!" Maybe. I just like to think it's sheer laziness.
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