I’ll admit some of my reasons for writing this post are rather selfish. Parks & Recreation has quickly become my new favorite comedy (I’m sorry Community. I still love you), and I want others to understand its awesomeness (or at least give it a fair shot). Regardless, the show has a lot of good traits that I think are worth talking about. So here I give a few thoughts on what makes this show so fantastic.

Leslie Knope is Awesome!

I am not the first to fall in love with the charming, good-hearted, optimistic Deputy Parks Director. I could tell you what makes her so amazing, but others have said it so much better. Sady, over at Feministe.com, wrote a list of why she loves Leslie and it included things such as “You invented Galentine’s Day” (an annual celebration during which Leslie tells all the women in her life how much she loves and appreciates them), “you love your job without shame or reservation,” “you have a best friend, and she’s a GIRL!” and “you care.” Sady expands on all these ideas in her post, and she also takes some time to explore the differences between Leslie Knope and Liz Lemon.

Liz Lemon, the oft-discussed lead on 30 Rock has been the subject of much debate. Is she a feminist icon or not? What do we do with her? Sady suggests Leslie Knope may be a less frustrating alternative to serve as fictional feminist role model, and she offers a lot of convincing support. I recommend you read it if you haven’t. But then I recommend you read an article written by Kate Dailey on Newsweek.com. She echoes a lot of the same sentiments Sady expresses and offers some her own reasons for admiring Leslie. Dailey points out that Leslie is competent, and admired and supported by her colleagues. Leslie is also concerned with more than weddings and babies and the relationships she has are mature and genuine and they end just because they’re not right for each other, not because either party is crazy or neurotic. Many of these things are brought up specifically because they are the opposite of what we see from Liz Lemon, so Dailey takes things a step further and asks the question, “So what would Leslie Knope think about Liz Lemon?” and I think her answer is awesome;

That’s the best part, and the most telling: Leslie would be proud of Liz’s accomplishments. She would respect her desire for a husband and baby, and admire her career achievements. She’d encourage her efforts to get more respect as a female executive, while encouraging Lemon to reach out to the other women in her office. Leslie Knope understands that women’s advancement is about the advancement of all women, and that women need support from one another just as much—in fact, much more—than they need approval and access from the men that surround them. She might get frustrated with Liz; they may butt heads or disagree on certain points. But at the end of the day, Leslie realizes that she doesn’t need to compete with “Liz Lemonism,” and she’s not interested in besting Liz, shaming Liz, or proving Liz wrong. Instead, Leslie wants for Liz exactly what Liz wants for Liz: the freedom and confidence [to] make choices, the ability to command respect, and the opportunity to achieve all her goals.

Because Leslie Knope, overambitious dreamer that she is, believes that all women deserve those same advantages.

The other characters rock too

Leslie’s boss, Ron Swanson doesn’t care at all about his job, but he supports Leslie. He gives her a Woman of the Year award that an organization gave to him as a media stunt because Leslie was more deserving. In the finale he even refuses to let some budget slashers fire her, because despite his love for cutting budgets, he knows that Leslie needs this job, and more importantly Pawnee needs Leslie.

Tom Haverford wants to be the kind of guy that could grace the cover of GQ and as a result is a smarmy womanizer who is (not surprisingly) quite bad at actually appealing to the ladies. At first glance he seems like an obnoxious pig, but the more you see him the more you see of his heart. He’s a little lost puppy who keeps trying to pretend to be a purebred because he’s sure no one would have any interest in a mutt.

Ann Perkins, although occasionally cynical and frustrated with small town government, is a great friend to Leslie. And Mark Brandanowicz (who won’t be returning as a regular next season) encouraged and defended Leslie every chance he got, realizing how capable and well-meaning she is. April is a cynical, apathetic teenager whose cold demeanor is warming the more time she spends with her zany coworkers and as begins to fall for big-hearted Andy, Ann’s formerly selfish, lazy boyfriend who throughout the second season has seamlessly evolved into a character whose intentions are so sweet and naive you can’t help but forgive his unintentionally rude or offensive remarks.

When it gets down to it, all the characters are so fleshed out and so real that I understand their faults, and I’m excited to see them change and stumble into new situations, and I’m more than happy to welcome them into my home every week.

The show represents a shift in television comedy

Lately I’ve been considering some of the shows that are on now and the way they collectively show a shift in American comedic sensibilities that I think is also reflective of the general way people approach each other. In other words, we’re going from snark, irony and cynicism coated with absurdity to a much more positive, lighthearted acceptance of everyone’s weird quirks. Seinfeld was near the beginning of snark curve, but you see it in other shows including The Office. The humor comes from the audience or one of the characters being above someone else. We laugh because the close-talker is so awkward and so unaware. We laugh at Michael Scott because he’s so ignorant and embarrassing. The humor comes from us being better than other people. Not that that makes these bad shows…

But now we’re starting to see sitcoms that are much more positive, where no one really has the upper hand, or at least that’s not where the humor comes from. Community, another great show on NBC (which has unfortunately replaced Parks and Rec reruns for the rest of the summer) is a great example because the entire premise is based on it. Everybody is weird and neurotic, but they all recognize the role each plays in their little community, and the one character that thinks he has the upper hand is often forced to re-evaluate his life or rely on these other people he thinks he’s so much better than.

Parks and Recreation continues this trend. All of the characters have their own brand of crazy, but their most obnoxious (yet ultimately harmless) qualities are overlooked and they’re recognized instead for what they have to offer to everyone else. Due to the changes in the show after the first season you can practically see the shift in comedic sensibility from laughing at to laughing with just by watching the show from the beginning. It can be seen in the slightly awkward characterization of Leslie and in the softening of some of the more negative and cynical characters. Some of the people behind the show say part of the reason for the shift in Parks and Rec was because they realized how much more fun it is to watch Amy Poehler smile than to watch her squirm. As Chris Pratt (Andy) said in an interview, “Maybe it’s not that funny to watch her be uncomfortable the way it is with Steve Carell, but it’s so goddamned endearing when she smiles. And you see her and when she’s enjoying herself, so is the audience.” He’s totally right, but I wonder how much of it is Amy, and how much of it is America getting sick of laughing at everybody else.

I feel it necessary to acknowledge that Parks and Rec isn’t perfect, although my only real complaint is that I wish they’d lay off the Jerry-bashing. At least it was acknowledged in one episode that he’s more or less okay with it, but it still makes me sad whenever someone laughs at his expense. Other than that, though, I love it.

While watching the show I’m constantly reminded of something one of the people behind the The Office (and now Parks and Rec) said in a Q&A I attended a few years back (I think it was Ken Kwapis, but it might have been Greg Daniels). He said the tone of the office was “vaguely depressing.” That was what they were going for, and I think that’s what they’ve nailed. But now I keep trying to come up with a similar phrase that captures the tone of Parks and Rec. The best I can think of now is “pleasantly optimistic.” The creative minds behind the show have crafted a ridiculous, hilarious little world in which a kind-hearted, well-meaning group of people have ample room to participate in all sorts of crazy humor-filled shenanigans for years to come. I just hope NBC lets them.

Back in high school I occasionally watched the first couple of seasons of Everwood on the WB. I found it enjoyable but when I moved away to college my tepid devotion to the show got lost in the transition. Due to a summer without work or school I’ve recently rediscovered the series, and I’ve found particular enjoyment in watching the relationship between bumbling but well-intentioned womanizer Bright Abbott and sweet, unassuming book worm Hannah Rogers. And lately with all the talk of body image on the site, I thought it would be interesting to take a closer look at an episode that deals specifically with that topic; the season 4 episode “Getting to Know You.”

By this point in the series high school senior Hannah and 20 year-old community college freshman Bright have been dating for a few months. Their relationship began after a year of the two developing a friendship. Hannah spent much of that year pining after Bright and suffering through some awkward dates with her first boyfriend, and Bright spent most of that year sleeping with every eligible woman in Everwood and getting fired twice for sexual harassment. They were certainly not the most obvious match, but that’s part of what makes it so interesting.

“Getting to Know You” begins with Hannah helping Bright study for a psych exam in a restaurant where she watches him check out a waitress. We learn later that this stresses Hannah out, and she explains her feelings to Bright (you can watch this scene and Bright’s later reaction to it here);

Look, I know I’m not as pretty as the girls you used to date…. I’m okay with how I look. You know, to be honest I never really thought about it much before. I figure there’s no point in getting upset about it since it’s not like I can do anything to change it…. I’m not beautiful, and it’s okay, because I’ve got other stuff, and, and eventually I will remember what that stuff is and, and why it’s more important. It’s just taking longer than I thought.

The intent of Hannah’s monologue is to explain why she’d rather not go to a party hosted by one of Bright’s female classmates whom Hannah is sure she’ll feel inadequate next to, and Bright, seeing the discomfort Hannah is feeling agrees to forego the gathering. But he also wants to do something to help her improve her self-esteem and body image. After reading Our Bodies, Ourselves and learning about the impossibly high physical expectations established by Barbie dolls, Bright takes action.

When Hannah comes to his place to go out for dinner, Bright locks her in his bathroom; ”Don’t worry. It’s clean in there. I spent all afternoon scrubbing stuff. I’d like you to pay close attention to how clean that mirror is. You’re about to use it.” He then begins explaining to Hannah just how beautiful she is. He makes a distinction between girls like the one at the restaurant (and likely many that he’s dated) and Hannah, calling the others “typical” and pointing out, “Yes, I used to go for that kind of thing. But you know what a girl like that looks like at 3 in the morning? Craptastic. Requires way too much maintenance. You on the other hand, you have all this other stuff that is so important.” He continues to explain what makes Hannah special; “You are truly beautiful. You know what I think about when I’m kissing you. I think about your skin. I think about your eyelashes, how long they are when they’re, like, touching my face. I think about the dimples you get when you’re laughing. I think about how cool it is that, like, I might be the only person out there who knows how hot your body is. And I bet you at 3 in the morning, I bet you you look amazing.” He then insists she give herself a good look in the mirror. “You need to see what I see when I look at you. So, go, look into that mirror right now. Just keep looking until you face the truth that you are truly beautiful. Do it.”
The scene takes a strange turn of events after that considering what we know of the characters. Hannah stares into the mirror for a few moments before starting the shower, stripping off her clothes and asking Bright to join her saying, “If I’m going to see me the way you see me, I want you here with me.”

The whole thing is adorable to watch. As someone who has felt the way Hannah’s feeling it was nice to see her explain her feelings and the conflict that exists when you know in your head that there are more important things than the way you look but your heart aches when you see the world doesn’t always operate under the same understanding. And Bright’s earnestness, both in his desire to help and in his choice of words is the kind of thing designed to make viewers swoon.

As sweet as it might be to watch, however, if you’re like me, you feel like crap afterward. You remember that these are fake characters that exist in a totally constructed world. The actors are cast, dressed, styled, and made up to appear as a hot jock and self-conscious wallflower, respectively. In reality, even the “ugly” characters are played by the same people we judge ourselves against. The next time you leave the house you look around you and are reminded that in reality the Brights of the world don’t associate with the Hannahs, and now that truth somehow seems more severe because TV showed you how sweet and adorable it would be if it were possible.

What’s interesting about this Everwood example is the distinction that Bright brings up. He doesn’t say that Hannah is better looking than the girl in the restaurant, he says that the girl in the restaurant is constructed. He points out that she puts a lot of energy into looking like that, whereas Hannah just goes along being Hannah, occasionally putting a little more effort into her hair, or donning a little lip gloss. That doesn’t make Hannah more genuine than the girl in the restaurant, but rather suggests that the two women put emphasis on different aspects of themselves. It’s a twist you don’t always hear, but it’s something that’s important to remember. Each of us could probably look like those people in the magazines, if we spent as much time working out, deprived ourselves of all our favorite foods, had stylists primping us and photo artists airbrushing our imperfections. Conversely, those same faces in the magazines would blend in with ours on the street if they didn’t spend an hour and a half in make-up or have wardrobe people tailoring clothes to their specific shape.

It’s interesting how much attention and emphasis is put on one of the most dynamic and changeable aspects of a person. I mean, just look at the unemployed, couch potato turned shoe-shiner Andy Dwyer on Parks and Recreation to see how different Bright can look just three years later. Everyone changes, and many of those people we’re constantly comparing ourselves to simply spend more time invested in their looks. It doesn’t make them better people (nor does it make them worse–and it’s important, but sad, to remember that many of them have the same feelings of inadequacy and negative body image we do). The problem is it’s really hard to remind ourselves that living up to societal understandings of physical attractiveness isn’t the most important thing in the world when the only people who seem to be aware of this fact are a few fictional characters on random episodes of television shows produced by the same people that are constantly feeding us their skewed definitions of beauty.

But, as always, I would love to hear some other opinions. Are there any other Brannah fans out there? If so, how do you feel about the way Hannah’s body image issues were addressed? If you never got into this particular show, what are other examples of TV shows or episodes (good or bad) that deal with similar issues? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I have been really into Tegan & Sara lately (in particular their fifth album, The Con), and I have always had a soft spot for Hayley Williams (Paramore).  So when I stumbled across this interview over at autostraddle it was a match made in heaven (there is also a fascinating bit about Lady Gaga at the link, which I’m sure I’ll address sooner or later).  Enjoy!

Last week I was absent for very exciting reasons.  First, my mom came out to visit and then my partner and I headed over to Lyons, Colorado for Planet Bluegrass’s 20th Folks Festival.  And it folked my socks off.  Old favorites were there, like Ani DiFranco and Jenny Lewis, and I found some new favorites, too, such as Girlyman and Dala.  Consider the following to be souvenirs I brought back for you!

Ani DiFranco - Her new stuff keeps getting better.  Which is astonishing.  Check out this sweet folk ditty (sorry about the poor visuals, but the sound is great and this vid is from the festival!):

Jenny Lewis - Jenny had me at Rilo Kiley, and her solo stuff continues to win me over.  She played Silver Lining at the Folks Festival, but this clip is from a different performance:

Girlyman – Girlyman is my new favorite band. They were fantastic free-stylin’ banterers. If you ever, ever, hear about them coming near your town, go see them. This is their official vid (made with the help of comedian Margaret Cho):

Dala – Dala is a Canadian duo made up of Amanda and Sheila who are great musicians, and fellow Beatles lovers.

Liz Longley - Liz Longley also blew me away, especially with her intense song The Gun and The Gold.  Liz was the winner of last year’s songwriter showcase, earning her a full set this year:

Alas, after two days of full sun my northern heritage was showing.  And by that I mean I had a nice little sunburn going, plus some general exhaustion from hot days, cold nights, and fanatical festivarians.  So we headed home on day three, missing a couple of pretty cool acts:

The Waifs – From Australia.

Joy Kills Sorrow – I was excited that this band had a guitar, bass, banjo and mandolin.  The more strings the better, right?  And voices to match.

It was an all around great festival, and I wish that we would have had the energy to stay longer.  Next time we’ll need to get a whole crew together – the campsite next to ours was having a great time…  Any recommendations?

This is a cross post from a good friend of mine.  It originally appeared at team berlin.  If you are interested in guest or cross posting at feministhemes.com, send a line with your idea to ms.wizzle@feministhemes.com.

Inception was not that good of a movie.  It wasn’t that BAD of a movie either.  Leonardo DiCaprio did a mediocre job with a mediocre movie.  There were two female parts in the entire movie, one of which was an antagonist.  Maybe three if you count the not-so-pretty lady at the bar who steals the wallet, but then turns back into a man immediately afterward.

This was a heist movie.  Yes, the heists may have taken place inside of dreams, but let’s dissect the elements of the movie.  First, it starts out with a theft in process.  Then, the person who was being robbed offers the thief a job…something that’s seemingly impossible.  Then a chunk of the movie is used up setting up a team, including the ever popular outlier that doesn’t really belong.  I will summarize Dane Cook’s description of this.  “The guy that is a last minute replacement and somebody vouches for him.”  Of course, they need to find the guy who they need to pull out of retirement for “one last job.”  Now the movie is done assembling the team, and they begin doing their training, plotting, planning, and preparing.  Is it important?  Yeah.  Does the movie spend too much time on it?  Yes.  If it is necessary to set up some background information on characters, it may be useful to actually spend time on it.  While it is nice to allow the audience to have their own imagination on what has gone on in the past with these characters and their interactions with each other, it is unnecessary if we don’t pay attention to any of the characters or if their roles are overshadowed greatly.  In this case, there’s no point in telling any story on any of the other characters because DiCaprio’s character is the only one who has even the slightest growth during the entire movie, and the only one that has closure at the end.  The actual heist was good.  It had multiple levels with different times going.  It would’ve been interesting for them to show the watches working at different speeds (see: beginning of the movie) just for reference sake or for a cheap gimmick.  A quick note on when they did this at the beginning of the movie: they showed the watch and time difference before explaining it.  That’s fine and dandy.  Then they explained it and never showed it again.  Though they did make it rather obvious that time was moving at different speeds on different levels, so that’s fine.

Was there character development?  A bit, I suppose.  DiCaprio’s character is haunted by his dead wife…and in the end he gets over it.  Otherwise, the other characters are hardly in the movie with active parts to really even tell if they have character developments or not.

Speaking of the rest of the team, there isn’t really much on what their purpose is.  We know that there is the architect who builds the worlds of the dreams.  We know that there is the chemist who made the extremely potent sedative.  We know there is the forger who can appear to be somebody else.  And we know there’s that kid from Third Rock from the Sun/10 Things I Hate About You, who…does something important…explosives apparently.

How many women were in the movie?  3ish.  Ellen Page’s character is the only one who has any sort of positive influence in the movie, though, like most of the other characters, she hardly does much in the film.  She gets trained as an architect, does some cool things, but there’s no real point in showing anything she does or builds.  Once the heist starts, she doesn’t influence anything.  The third woman simply steals a wallet, but turns out to be a man.  To the defense of the movie, there were less than 10 men in the film anyway.  It didn’t have a whole lot of characters really.  That was nice.

What was the difference between men and women in the movie?  Nothing really.  There was only one partially romantic scene where Ellen Page gets kissed.  The purpose of this scene?  I honestly have no idea.  Comic relief?  I don’t think comic relief would have been necessary there, as a moment later, a woman turns into a man.  So, thankfully there was no romance at all, besides in Leonardo’s mind.  All the characters were pretty gender neutral and we have no idea of their sexual orientation.

That was one of my favorite parts actually.  The only character we have any idea about a sexual orientation is Leonardo DiCaprio.  He’s straight.  He has/had a wife and two children.  All of which he loved quite a bit.  All the other characters?  We have no idea.  They could be gay, straight, bisexual, or even transgendered.  In fact, one of the interesting ideas from the movie, is that you could probably live out any fantasy you really wanted in the dreams.  You and your partner want to switch genders for a romp in the dream world?  That’s cool.  You can do it!

The part that frustrated me the most though, was the complete fantasy of it all.  No, not the extraction or inception of dreams.  No, not the characters or their jobs and roles.  The most unbelievable part of the movie is the Kobel or Cobalt Engineering.  No engineering firm is that badass.  Engineers are lame, and would never be capable of doing anything like that.  They don’t HAVE lackies or henchmen.  They don’t work for evil corporations.  Ok, so MAYBE Cobalt Engineering had some military contracts, and there was some violence involved.  But let’s face it, has an engineering firm ever held a grudge?  No.  I don’t think so.  If somebody disagrees, I’d like references so that I can find a more exciting engineering company to work for.  I’m not joking about this references thing.  Working for engineering companies is boring.  We never get to do the cool/evil engineering the movies depict us as doing sometimes.

Positives?  Good mix of story lines.  DiCaprio’s wife plot along with the heist plot.  Though, there wasn’t really much with the wife plot.  Just “she’s dead, she haunts me, and I have to deal with it.”  Whateves.

Suggestion: Make this show a tv series.  It would be compelling and fun.  It would give it more time to explore the backgrounds of the characters or have their own plots.  Instead, the movie starts out feeling drawn out, and then rushed.

A couple of weeks ago I set out to find an air-conditioned escape from my 90 degree house (hooray for no a/c in the desert!), and lo-and-behold, I ended up at that frigid complex known as “the movie theater.” I faced the daunting decision of choosing a movie I knew little to nothing about in order to eat junk food and not turn into a puddle of sweat on my carpet.  It came down to “Despicable Me” versus “Inception,” and once I took a look at each of the trailers it was clear: Ellen Page for the win.

So there we were: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tommy from 3rd Rock, Juno, and me.  And it was cool, and it was action-y, and it was not overtly disturbing or offensive.  So I walked out cool, happy, and jonesing for an Ellen Page marathon.  This probably doesn’t bode well for the impression that Inception itself made on me, eh?

None of this is to say that I didn’t like the film.  It was interesting – I’m always intrigued by films about altered states of consciousness and the dream within a dream (within a dream) thing was cool, except for when it was really just confusing what with the different experiences of time and all.  I could have done with a lot more exploration of dream states and dream architecture and a lot less of the car chases and shootouts and all, but I’ve come not to expect much from summer blockbuster flicks.

I liked Leo well enough as Cobb, the angsty ringleader who wants to get back to his kids, guilt ridden with the responsibility he feels for his wife’s death.  I really liked Joseph Gordon Levitt as his level headed sidekick.  And I loved Ellen Page as the new architect.  I loved that she was an intelligent, beautiful woman who existed for purposes other than the sexy prop or romantic interest.

But man was I disappointed when I sat back and thought about what I had watched.  Essentially, this whole film is about Cobb’s journey to forgive himself for his past mistakes and grieve the loss of his wife, whom he keeps imprisoned in his dream-state or something like that.  And the only person who can help him come to terms with this, of course, is the only other female character in the film.  At first I thought oh cool, any of these roles could have been played by a man or woman without losing anything important – gender neutrality rocks! Except that despite this, only two of the roles were women.  And Ellen Page’s architect really turned out to be DiCaprio’s therapist.  Because one of his dude pals couldn’t have helped him get in touch with his emotions or anything, and if she didn’t need to do that for him they could have just as easily cast another dude.

I guess what bummed me out the most about the film was the potential it had.  The majority of the roles really were androgynous.  The dream-state-shapeshifter guy could have easily been cast as a woman.  The sedative-specialist could have easily been cast as a woman.  Cobb and his wife’s roles could have easily been reversed.  Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon Levitt’s roles could have easily been reversed.  None of these changes would have really revolutionized the movie (except that if DiCaprio’s part were played by a woman the film would never have had the budget or the interest to become anything more than a movie for ladies).  They wouldn’t have been exceptionally risky moves.  But Nolan elected not to take the road less traveled, and here we are with another bland summer flick that was predictable from beginning to end.

At least it looked cool.  And that theater was perfectly chilly!

Check out some other sweet perspectives on the film:
Snarky’s Cinemachine: Five Non-Spoiler-y Things About Inception [bitch]
Review: Inception Hotwires But Doesn’t Quite Hijack Your Brain [autostraddle]
Girls on Film: Ellen Page, Gender, and Cinematic Sexuality [cinematic]

I love Felicia Day.  I loved her as Vi during season seven of Buffy.  I loved her as Penny in Dr. Horrible.  I loved her as Mag during the postapocolyptic Epitaph episodes of Dollhouse.  And I love her as the star and creator of The Guild.

The Guild is an awesome internet series focusing on the in-game and real-life exploits of the members of The Knights of Good, a guild in an online RPG only referred to as The Game (it’s essentially World of Warcraft).  The series focuses on Day’s character, Cyd Sherman aka Codex.  The series pokes fun at stereotypes regarding online gamers, but is filled with enough in-jokes that gamers are the core audience and not just the butt of the joke (ahem, not that I’d know).

However, that’s not to say that it’s perfect (after all, nothing regarding MMORPGs is).  So allow me to express one (of many) of my concerns:

My biggest problem with The Guild hit me right in the face early on in season 1.  Codex is essentially stalked by her fellow guild member, Zaboo.  Zaboo searches her online, finds her real identity and shows up on her doorstep.  He reveals that he knows just about everything there is to know about her, including the layout of her apartment, and proceeds to invite himself into her home.  He makes numerous, painful sexual advances on her and makes Codex feel powerless in her own home.  Which made me feel uncomfortable and pretty sick.  Stalking isn’t funny or cute or a harmless plot device for a short online mini-series.  It isn’t an example of Codex’s social shortcomings, or the bad boundaries of stereotypical gamers.  It’s a real thing, even online as described in this real-life experience:

Internet Trolls to Real-Life Stalkers [borderhouseblog]

The guild should’ve been able to rein him in and correct his behavior, if not kick him out, and those whom he had joked to about confronting me ought to have prevented him from going through with his decision to pay me a visit. There is no reason why anyone, for the sole virtue of their gender, should have to deal with a potentially dangerous encounter with a misogynistic or homophobic guild-mate, workmate, or stranger. It’s a situation unfathomable to most male members of the gaming community, and society at large, because it isn’t an issue they have to deal with at all in their entire lives–but one that so many others have to deal with on a daily basis.

Zaboo wouldn’t have described himself as misogynistic, and Codex probably wouldn’t have either.  But his assumption that she would, as a passive object, accept (or even enjoy) his unexpected appearance on her doorstep and his self-invitation to her bedroom is misogynistic.  And the fact that no one else in her guild seems to understand (or give a sh*t about) what is happening is extremely problematic.

In the context of the series, this is supposed to be an example of Cyd’s social shortcomings.  In the context of reality, it’s sad and frightening.

]]> http://feministhemes.com/the-guild-season-1/feed/ 0 http://feministhemes.com/dr-horribles-sing-along-blog/ http://feministhemes.com/dr-horribles-sing-along-blog/#comments Mon, 26 Jul 2010 20:18:54 +0000 Alethea Joy http://feministhemes.com/?p=3551

My introduction to Felicia Day came when one of my favorite geeks, Wil Wheaton, posted the trailer for Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog on his website and told me to watch it. I did. I even waited up with anticipation waiting for the final installment.

The Trailer:

It was (and is) easy to love Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. It’s a well-written, well-acted, well-produced 45 minutes of entertainment. It was also rather groundbreaking in the fact that it was independently produced by highly-respected professionals and proved that you don’t necessarily need the big studios to make something good or profitable.

Dr. Horrible also spawned a lot of discussion, most of it surrounding the character of Penny (played by Ms. Day), and the role she plays in the story.

(If you haven’t seen all three parts of Dr. Horrible yet, you should be warned: there will be spoilers.)

Penny is first introduced as the girl Dr. Horrible is in love with. She quickly begins being pursued by Horrible’s nemesis Captain Hammer, and after the two of them fight over her for a while, she ends up being accidentally killed as a result. While she’s not the only female in the web show, she is the only one in a starring role, credited alongside the two men, and throughout the story we learn very little about her: she’s charitable, kind, idealistic, and she always sees the best in people. She can also seem somewhat naive (a more negative way of reading her idealism) and a little shallow in her romantic relationships (she never seems all that into Captain Hammer). The men’s stories are much more fleshed out. Because of this disparity, when Penny is shot dead, her death is not so much mourned in and of itself, rather it’s mourned for the way it affects Dr. Horrible. The audience isn’t necessarily pained at the loss of Penny as they are pained at the loss being felt by the protagonist they’ve been taught to care about.

I’ve learned since seeing Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog that this killing of characters to create an emotional response from the hero is so common it’s been given a name by some fans: “Stuffed into the Fridge,” or “fridging.”

I don’t know that I had any negative reaction to the portrayal of Penny as I watched. I really liked heroptimism and her kindness. I hoped Dr. Horrible’s attraction to her might lead to his own conversion away from evil. Instead it had the opposite effect, driving him further into the fold and giving him the pain, bitterness and anger to fuel his future evil exploits. Before he was doing it for show, now he’s doing it for real.

That’s the thing with fridging, though. For it to work, the character needs to matter. They need to be someone important, and Penny was important even if all we really know about her is that she cares about the homeless and really likes frozen yogurt.

Of course, if the story continues there’s not really much hope Penny would return, seeing as how she’s dead and all. Then again, that just opens the story up for the introduction of new female characters who, hopefully, will not suffer the same questionable demise.

And we’ll just have to get our Felicia Day fix somewhere else, like The Guild which Ms. Wizzle will be talking about soon.

Readers, what were your thoughts on Penny? Did you see her as disposable or was she more developed than I’m giving credit for? Share your thoughts.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has recently appointed actress Geena Davis to a state commission aiming to promote women’s equality.  Sweet!

According to Wikipedia:

In 2004, while watching children’s television programs and videos with her daughter, Davis noticed what she thought was an imbalance in the ratio of male to female characters. From that starting point, Davis went on to sponsor the largest research project ever undertaken on gender in children’s entertainment (resulting in 4 discrete studies, including one on children’s television) at the Annenberg School for Communication of University of Southern California. The study, directed by Dr. Stacy Smith, shows that there are nearly 3 males to every 1 female character in the nearly 400 G, PG, PG-13, and R-Rated movies the undergraduate team of Annenberg students coded.

In 2005, Davis teamed up with the non-profit group Dads and Daughters to launch a venture dedicated to balancing the number of male and female characters in children’s TV and movie programming.

It’s nice to see someone with power, and with a background in the entertainment/film industry no less, acknowledging that this is a problem worthy of attention and taking steps towards change.  Let’s hope that Geena is able to really get the ball rolling and that change starts to happen!

(Check out Alethea Joy’s post on research inspired by Ms. Davis.)

While Stieg Larsson’s literary Girl trilogy has received generally positive reviews, reactions to the Swedish film have been mixed.  Having finished the first and second books, and now having viewed the film, I feel ready to throw my two-cents out there.  But first, the disclaimer-y stuff: There are certain to be spoilers, but I’ll try to keep it to book one and the film.  Also, be aware (if you aren’t already) this series contains graphic depictions of violence against women and sexual assault.

I’ll start with my summary and conclusion in case you’re using this to determine whether or not to read the series or watch the film:

If you’re the kind of person who likes psychological thrillers, non-slasher horror films, and murder-mystery style suspense, you’ll probably like this series.  If you like those types of things AND choose to view the themes of the series through a feminist lens, you may well be impressed.  But if you can’t handle violent films on the principle of the matter, this film will overload your system.  If you can’t handle violent films AND choose to view the themes of the series through a feminist lens, you’ll probably be pissed.  And revolted.

Let’s take a look at the first installment in the series.Of the three books, Dragon Tattoo stands most firmly on its own.  Sandwiched between a couple-hundred pages of boring financial conspiracy exists an intriguing, decades-old murder mystery, which only grows deeper and more sinister from page to page.  Very dark, very Silence-of-the-Lambs, what with the evolving picture of a misogynistic serial killer who very intentionally targets women.  Which is investigated by our journalist hero, Mikael Blomkvist.

In fact, we spend most of our time reading about Kalle Blomkvist’s adventures, the many women he gets with, and his attempts to connect with and understand the enigmatic Salander.  In Blomkvist’s (and Larsson’s) defense, I do appreciate the way that sexuality is handled in the series.  Sexual relationships are both casual AND mature in the series – Blomkvists “affairs” are always open (ex. Blomkvist has an ongoing affair with a married woman, whose husband is both aware and accepting of the arrangement) and pretty average (against the stereotype that no women over 30 ever have sex or are desireable, Blomkvist – who is 40-something – regularly has sexual relationships with women older than himself).  The lack of hang ups about sex are pretty refreshing.  Of course in the film, the only (consensual) sex is with the Hot Young Thang so this aspect is pretty much lost.  Ahh movies.  But what about the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, you ask?

Well, she’s in roughly a third of the book, being sexually assaulted by her legal guardian.  Graphically.  Really graphically.  This is also her role in the first half of the movie.  It’s stomach turning to read and to watch.  Over the course of the series we are constantly reminded of the many ways that Lisbeth Salander has been done wrong by The System since childhood (more on that in the second and third books), resulting in being deemed mentally incompetent and assigned an evil guardian who takes atrocious advantage of his power against her.  The theme of Salander’s life seems to be that anyone with power cannot be trusted.  Ultimately, the series is her tragedy, even if she seldom seems to be the true main character.

But Salader is not exclusively a victim – she is also a vigilante.  Many of the criticisms of the book and film are tied to the two violent rapes that Salander experiences, and her violent revenge.  Certainly things here are messy.  No one here is advocating for victims of sexual assault to take justice into their own hands.  No one is suggesting that this is preferable to taking legal action and seeking other forms of help.  However, in the context of Salander’s story – where police have never protected her, doctors have betrayed her, and guardians have exploited her – these options do not appear to be worthwhile.  And while I vehemently oppose prison rape jokes and eye-for-an-eye type humor, I will admit that there was something… satisfying about seeing a woman take the power back from her abuser and place him at her mercy. (In the spirit of full disclosure, my favorite movie as an adolescent was The Crow, so maybe there’s just something about me that approves of sadistic mofo’s getting their comeuppance.)

So we get it – Salander is a scrappy goth/punk cyber-genius who doesn’t take crap from anyone and whom you don’t want to cross.  She teams up with good-natured Blomkvist to solve the disappearance of a 16 year old girl in the 60s.  Through the course of their investigation they learn that the victim had uncovered a pattern in a series of rapes and murders long preceding her birth, and which were committed by a member of her family.  This misogynistic sadism was passed down from father to son, and Blomkvist finds himself very compromised (as he’s fully restrained and nude) in the basement torture chamber of the villain.  And is promptly rescued (or at least rescued in time) by a golf-club wielding Salander.

Is it violent?  Yes.  Is it disturbing?  Yes.  Is it feminist?  Maybe.  Is it exploitative? …Also maybe.  Here is how I came to the conclusion above:

Larsson’s Salander trilogy is oozing with violence against women (domestic violence, rape, incest, sex-traffiking, and societal neglect of these issues).  But it also has strong characters who oppose the status quo.  There are women and men in these books who are appalled at what they see and who seek to make these atrocities public (Blomkvist is constantly publishing material that reveals the conspiracies he uncovers), to seek justice for the victims, to demand consequences for the perpetrators, and to prevent these blind spots in social consciousness from carrying on.  Even in smaller storylines, we see men and women fighting sexism in their day-to-day lives (in the newsroom, in the policeforce).  But the central plot revolves around men who hate women (the first book’s true title).

So if you’re the type of person that just doesn’t understand violence in entertainment, the violence against women as the central plot is pretty problematic.  That’s reasonable.

But if you’re the type of person that can handle violence in entertainment (either just because you can or because you can in the context of a social commentary), the story is pretty engaging.  And if you take that a step further, the direct confrontation of misogyny and attention to putting an end to these direct forms of violence against women paired with the strong feminist women and men in the books could be viewed as… pretty feminist. (RAINN seems to agree?)

It seems to me that The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is another one of those feminist Rorschachs.  And I see feminism in the big dark mess.