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Ahh, the late 90s.  ‘Twas an era of platform shoes, belly shirts, pastel nail polish and high-waisted mini skirts.  We loved our teen flicks, and we especially loved our teen romances about the bro who took a bet that he could get a date with the untouchable misfit.  Two primary examples of this theme are the hit films 10 Things I Hate About You starring Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger and She’s All That, starring Rachel Leigh Cook and Freddie Prinze, Jr.

10 Things I Hate About You is a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew (but Shakespeare merits his own post so we’ll gloss over that here).  In the movie, younger sister Bianca desperately wants to date but Dad (who spends most of his time delivering babies to teen mothers) won’t allow her to until older sister Kat, who couldn’t care less about dating, does.  Enter the exchange of money to a dude (Patrick) to take out the untouchable female.  What works about this film is that although Kat is supposed to be a “heinous bitch” according to her peers, she is very likable to the audience.  She listens to riot grrls, she reads feminist literature, she’s socially conscious, she’s an independent thinker, she’s courageous and outspoken, and she is (rightfully) cautious in terms of relationships.  I can’t think of another teen film character that is as openly feminist.  And she gets the hunk in the end, who initiated their relationship as part of the deal but genuinely fell for this complex and charismatic woman.

On the other hand, there’s She’s All That.  When Zack, the most popular boy in school, is dumped by his girlfriend for a reality star he makes a bet with his buddies that he can turn any girl in the school into the prom queen.  After gruesomely critiquing every female to walk by for the remainder of the scene, the guys settle on Laney, the weird artsy nerd.  Like Patrick and Kat, Zack ends up falling for quirky Laney, but only after he has erased her eccentricities and given her a makeover (including haircut, eyebrow wax, low-cut slinky red mini-dress, and platform heels that she can stumble around in).  Laney discovers the bet, goes to the prom with another tool who has placed another bet on Laney (that he’ll sleep with her that night), and ends up in her romantically lit up back yard with Zack, who confesses that he developed honest feelings for her once he changed “got to know” her.

I don’t know what it is about betting on girls that hollywood deems a worthy plot, and the thought of this being a common high school phenomenon is nauseating.  However, in 10 Things we see that although this was a rocky way to initiate a relationship, Patrick comes to find (and quickly) that Kat is a fantastic woman as is, and is torn about accepting payment for taking her out.  He ends up using the money to buy her the guitar she had been dreaming of throughout the film and they get a happily ever after in which he is honest with her and she remains true to herself.  In She’s All That, we have a even shallower, more hurtful motive behind the initiation of the relationship, and ignorance of Laney’s value as a person, multiple and recurring betrayals, and Zack loses the bet (resulting in a nude graduation walk), but he “wins” the girl.

I remember watching these movies as an adolescent and thinking how cute the boys were, how cool the music was (in 10 Things, anyway), and how magical Laney’s makeover was.  The makeover is a classic adolescent fantasy – that with the tweeze of an eyebrow, trim of the hair, stroke of eyeliner and splash of lipstick any girl can be transformed into the popular, beloved prom queen.  And somehow the idea that that will garner male interest is romantic, not pathetic.  What if young women instead were bombarded with stories more like Kat’s: that being true to yourself, even when it’s not popular, is attractive and respectable, and all around cool?

Released in 1999, I had never seen The Cider House Rules until a few weeks ago.  I’m not usually into period pieces or Tobey Maguire, so I didn’t expect much.  However, there were some powerful lines about the importance of a woman’s right to choose and to have safe medical treatments available to her once she’s made her choice.  Furthermore, there were some powerful examples of times that removing that choice is truly cruel, regardless of your political beliefs on the matter.

The Cider House Rules is the story of Homer, an orphan boy who never made it out of the orphanage, and has been trained as a doctor by his mentor and father figure, Dr. Larch, who runs the orphanage.  In addition to delivering the babies of women giving their children up for adoption, Dr. Larch offers safe medical abortions to any woman who asks for it.  He doesn’t advertise this service (as it is illegal), and he doesn’t suggest it to women no matter how many times he’s delivered their unwanted babies, but he won’t turn away a woman in need.  When Homer accuses him of playing God in this way, Dr. Larch responds:

Dr. Larch: I have been given the opportunity of playing God or leaving practically everything up to chance. Men and women of conscience should seize those moments when it’s possible to play God. There won’t be many. Do I interfere when absolutely helpless women tell me they simply can’t have an abortion – that they simply must go through with having another and yet another orphan? I do not. I do not even recommend. I just give them what they want.

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I wasn’t expecting a lot when I Netflix’d Baby Mama. The movie seemed to come and go when it was released and the lack of buzz took it off my radar pretty quickly. However, I love funny women so I gave it a shot, and I’m glad I did.

About a month ago I watched Bride Wars with my friends. I feel like that movie and Baby Mama could be categorized together, in that they’re both movies about women with stereotypical feminine desires, and both have over the top happy resolutions. They’re the kind of movie you’d watch on a lazy Friday night with a few friends and a bottle of wine (or beer). The difference between the two is one of them made me weep for humanity and the other just made me wish for a slight change of ending.

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There were two things that had me pumped up about The Wild Things: 1. Jim Henson muppets, and 2. Karen O.  I was never very attached to the story as a kid, and was pretty sure that it was going to be a hyped-up-indie-fest as a film.  However, this was also during that period that I kept going to movies expecting little and being blown away (Away We Go, Jennifer’s Body, Paper Heart, and Whip It!), so maybe that explains the mild obsession that overtook me after seeing The Wild Things last fall.  The film, the soundtrack, and the book all made their mark on me, and all have a little feminist spin in my opinion.  Let’s break it down:

The Film

Sadly this trailer doesn’t incorporate the Karen O led music that really contributes to the feel of the film, nor does it capture what, to me, was the most meaningful theme: Max’s relationship with his mother.  What? you say?  His mother?  Please, this is a story about a naughty and wild little boy. On the surface, yes, but Max’s relationship with his mom is what gave the film depth.

Max is being raised by a single mother who has a new boyfriend, which can be hard on any kid.  It’s hard even into adulthood to understand split parents, and when a newcomer steps in things become even more difficult.  Max was already a pain-in-the-butt kid, and between a fight with his older sister and the apparent intrusion of a new man into his home, he loses it.  He runs away and winds up living among the Wild Things as their king.  And each Wild Thing offers us an insight into Max’s relationship with his mom.  Carol represents the possessiveness Max feels towards her; Alexander represents how ignored he feels; Judith represents his difficult and disagreeable side; Ira represents the doting and needy part of him; and the Bull represents the stoic role our society asks us to show when we’re really experiencing pain.  K.W. on the other hand, represents Max’s mom.

K.W. is warm, loving, kind, and is more complex than the other Wild Things can understand.  She has a different level of maturity, she needs relationships outside of the group.  Carol in particular is resentful of this and alternates between loving K.W. and not knowing how to express it and loathing her in a violent and possessive way.  This is a clear reflection of how Max has treated his mother on the night he ran away.  When Carol turns on Max for letting him down as a king, it is K.W. that protects him, hiding him in her mouth.  For a moment after it is safe, K.W. wants to keep Max, but she understands that as much as she loves him, she must let him go.  Whether Max has the capacity to understand this as deeply as I see it or not, this is the turning point where he realizes he needs his mother and must return to her, hopefully with a new respect for her as a person, not just a mom.

After the jump, an analysis of the soundtrack (including an interview with Karen O.) and the book

I’ll be honest – I didn’t expect to like Monsters vs. Aliens.  It looked like a stupid, plotless, action based animation film filled with obnoxious characters voiced by even more irritating actors.  But I was pleasantly surprised at how wrong I was!

What wasn’t clear to me in the trailers I saw for the film, but is pretty clear in this one, is that the film really centers around Susan. Wait, what? An action-based animated children’s film with a female lead? Inconceivable!  Of course, she is the only female character, but she’s big and important, which is nice.  Despite her enormity, Susan doubts her ability to use her powers to defeat the attack of a giant robot on San Francisco, but when she sees the people in danger on the Golden Gate Bridge she goes into battle anyway, saving the city.  Her newfound confidence helps her see that her near-husband is actually a shallow, selfish, arrogant a-hole and she becomes (dun-dun-DUN) a confident and powerful single woman.  Whoa.

Even after Susan’s size returns to normal, her confidence and strength remain and she saves the world as an average woman.  An accident enlarges her again, and after her former fiance tries to rekindle their relationship (now that she’s a famous hero, of course) Susan brushes him off to continue fighting evil with her new-found mutant friends.  What a message for boys and girls – girls can be interesting, powerful, and admirable and romance isn’t the most important aspect of their lives.

Just for fun, I thought I’d pass along this internet musical I stumbled across.  It’s no secret that I have a deep love for all things Joss Whedon (mostly, anyway), and although he isn’t affiliated with this project in any way, Horrible Turn is a fantastic Dr. Horrible prequel.  Adolescent Billy and adolescent Hammer are right on.  Especially Hammer.  He cracked me up pretty much constantly.

Horrible Turn from Horrible Turn on Vimeo.

I recently watched Disney/Pixar’s Up for the first time, and yes, it made me cry, and yes, I did like it.  But that’s not to say it didn’t have its flaws.  For one thing, there is a serious imbalance of m:f characters.  The two moderately important female characters are either a) tragically killed off in the first half hour of the film, or b) named Kevin and shockingly revealed to have babies, automatically making her most important role “mother.”  Furthermore, I was fairly certain that the idea of a movie about an old wrinkly grumpy woman and a chubby little girl would never have been so much as produced, let alone popular.

However, I forgot about a little personal favorite of mine: Hoodwinked.

Hoodwinked is a retelling of the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and retellings of fairy tales always score high marks with me (or at least have the opportunity to).  There is a goody-bandit in town stealing everyone’s goodies and goody recipes in order to open up a giant goody corporation and take over the world.  The protagonist, of course, is our dear Red (voiced by Anne Hathaway) and her Granny (Glenn Close) is also a lead.  So I was wrong about there never being a movie about a little girl and and old woman, although Red is an attractive young woman rather than a chubby little boy, and Granny is a wild extreme sports champion, not a crotchety old dude.

I love Hoodwinked, highly recommend it, and encourage anyone out there with daughters and nieces to share the film with a generation of girls that could use a little more legitimate “girl power.”  However, critics didn’t agree with me.  Hoodwinked received a rating of 48% (rotten) from Rotten Tomatoes, had “mixed or average reviews,” and grossed $110 mil in the box office.  On the other hand, Up received a rating of 98% (fresh) from Rotten Tomatoes, had “positive reviews,” and grossed $702.8 mil worldwide.  Hoodwinked isn’t a “girly” story, but the main character as female automatically divides its target market in half.

Have you seen these films?  How do you think they compared?  And why do films starring women and girls never stand a chance?

The trailer is out for The Runaways, the Joan Jett biopic starring Twilight’s Kristen Stewart.

Excited?  Nervous?  Fearful?  Confused about why these women still look 14 years-old?  We’ll have to wait and see, but speculations are welcome.

I’ll admit it – I’m a sucker for SyFy original movies.  The wild plots, hyper-hyperbole, and fantastically noticeable CGI crack me up and hook me at the same time.  Two of my personal favorites include Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus and High Plains Invaders (which happened to star Buffy’s James Marsters as a wild-west sharpshooter killing giant alien-insect-robots in shoot’em ups).  But I’m willing to argue that their recent Alice in Wonderland tribute was actually pretty good, and not just for laughing at.

I’ve always loved Alice in Wonderland. Alice is typically portrayed (and pretty accurately to the book) as a little girl whose adventures in Wonderland primarily consist of her allowing things to happen to her or eating and drinking strange items simply because their labels tell her to.  At worst, this makes her appear foolish and as though she needs a protector, at best this makes her a compliant little girl.  But something about the fantasy and adventure and the fact that Alice is rarely shaken by her experience has always appealed to me.

SyFy’s Alice takes it to a new level.  Alice is now a young adult teaching karate classes and navigating the dating world.  When her new boyfriend Jack gives her a special family ring, she finds herself falling through the looking glass into Wonderland.  Here she sets out (with the help of the Hatter) to rescue Jack and escape back to her world.  Although Hatter really wants to be Alice’s hero, she often ends up using her karate skills to help them escape and really holds her own throughout the movie.  Hatter just wants to save Alice, but Alice is set on saving Jack (a nice twist on the “damsel in distress” trope). Spoilers, more analysis and a little bit of romance after the jump.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me begin by admitting that I have never liked Adam Sandler.  I think he’s offensive, crude, annoying, stupid, and irritating.  But, as I’m a bit under the weather and laid up on the sofa, I decided to give Sandler’s Disney kids flick Bedtime Stories a shot.  And despite my low expectations, I was disappointed.

Supposedly we’re supposed to empathize with Skeeter, the screw-up poor kid who lost his family’s hotel and has a chance to win it back.  We’re supposed to root for his success and watch the Average Joe beat the wealthy snobs at their own game.  But true to his track record, Bedtime Stories is filled with sexism, racism, and toilet humor.

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