Feminist Troll #2

This Month in Feminist Troll Submissions 

August 7th-August 31st

All of these printed responses have actually been submitted to these actual breakdowns. (Along with a HS/resume/reel) I will keep you updated if I ever receive feedback, or get a callback. Because I am dying to be a Live Feminist Troll. #fingerscrossed

1.

Laura Winters, 23, White. I am definitely a "good girl." Heck, I don't even need the quotes! I am just a GOOD GIRL through and through. I don't cheat, smoke, and I don't drink, unless a glass of white wine with my ladies counts (Guilty!) Do all men cheat? Does the sun rise in the morning? Does the moon pull in the tide? Do pigs get slaughtered for bacon? yes Yes YEs YES! Stripping respectable? Um, heck no. That is like somebody's DAUGHTER on the pole. Daughters should be cherished not naked.

2.

Hello! If you are looking for an actress with the IT factor you have found her. I have IT. Undeniably. Whatever IT is. I have IT. I'm beautiful but I'm also a heartbreaker - that's where the cold comes in. My RBF is pretty much unchallenged. When I charge through the streets of Manhattan, catcallers who are first enticed by my beauty - they see my RBF and are shocked into silence by my coldness. I also once dated a Michael and have experience both acting and being a Michael's girlfriend.
Best!

3.

Female Lead Role (18-25) lead role of the girl who empathizes with the main character -an idealistic young man who embarks on a mission to bring the world to an end. The girl empathizes with the main character and follows him. Any level of English proficiency is accepted. Note: If selected you will need to live in character for a period of time before filming. 

Behind every apocalyptic man is an empathetic woman To empathize? To follow? These are the desires of my female heart. With its every beat I search for the man whose goals will supersede my own. It will be his vision of the world - o! That glittering oyster of perfection and chaos! - to which I will bow and willfully accept. For his eyes will see what I cannot. His hands will build what I do not dare. His words will change what I cannot alter. A requirement to live as this character?
          I already do.

4.

I am comfortable with on screen kissing. I should be cast in this role because I am a woman who speaks volumes with my "facial expression, body language, and eyes." Often, my boyfriend and I don't even need to say anything, we just stare at each other across a dimly-lit restaurant table, and I know exactly what he's thinking (and exactly what he's going to order). Often, he can even order FOR me based on how I move my shoulders.

But, just to be clear, I can also communicate with my body in brightly-lit scenarios, such as a park - like the park Sarah will be walking through playfully and romantically. The light in the park will probably help accentuate my strong eyes.

I have a B.A. in theatre from Northwestern University.

I look forward to hearing from you!
Laura

5.

[Sexy Vixen]

mid 20's Hottie with a body. A head turner that all men n notice walk into a room. NO LINES. But will be featured heavily and receive IMDB credit. 

Good afternoon!
Although I understand the role of "Sexy Vixen" is non-speaking, I just wanted to briefly outline some of my qualifications, just so you can get to know this potential Vixen better!

I graduated cum laude from Northwestern University with a B.A. in theatre and writing. While at Northwestern University I was cast as the lead actress in the school's first feature film (Rush) and sitcom (Sidekicked). Additionally, I was the lead of several productions: Diana (Next to Normal), Trina (Falsettos), Annette (God of Carnage). As the head writer of the 2014 Waa-Mu show I had the rare opportunity to play a character of my own creation: Pat Patterson (Double Feature).

In 2010 I was named the Illinois High School Association's State Champion of Dramatic Interpretation, after performing an 8-minute monologue from the perspective of a sexually abused drug addict.

Your breakdown specifically calls for actors with strong improvisational skills, and again, while "Sexy Vixen" currently probably doesn't need to improv with anything but her body, I thought I would share my speaking-focused improv credentials in case the role changes at all!

I recently finished the core 101-401 levels at UCB. I also completed improv levels 1-5A at iO Chicago. I am the co-creator of "Just Us" a  wholly improvised YouTube web series about love in the digital age. I am currently a featured actress in Disrupt, a sketch comedy group that parodies Ted Talks and other tech conferences.

I have worked background on The Mindy Project, The Playboy Club and 90210.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Best,
Laura

Million Dollar Southpaw

I saw Southpaw last week. I can't say I'm proud. But I was with a group and it happened.
Afterwards, I wanted to compare Hollywood's treatment of female versus male boxing protagonists, AKA Million Dollar Baby.

It's not a perfect match up. MDB is pumped full of excellent cinematic storytelling and Acadamey Award Cred whereas Southpaw is a generic piece of trash. Also, Clint Eastwood is actually the protagonist of MDB. However, because of Boxing Movie Tropes there is a lot to compare.

The Differences

The Training Montage Music communicates the biggest difference in how the filmmakers saw Billy Hope and Maggie Fitzgerald.



Billy Hope trains to retrieve his daughter from social services and to avenge his wife's murder. And all those emotions get channeled into epic feats of personal strength, mirrored by epic angry word play in rap. (the credit song is Eminem's epic  Kings Never Die, sampled in the training montage)

Maggie Fitzgerald is training to be a better version of herself! So she improves her punches and her footwork to the SHOCKING sound of....acoustic guitar, Morgan Freeman's narration gliding over the top. The music feels like a gentle nod to Maggie's hopes of a better future outside of her restaurant, the quiet power of a little lady trying to reach her small goal.

Maggie's is easily one of the strangest training montages I have ever seen, and I can't decide if she got the acoustic treatment because she's a woman, because this is one of a few boxing movies that is actually about more than boxing so we don't need Maggie to be just a ripped, angry bad ass, or if Eastwood was trying to purposefully subvert the training montage.

But the montages point out another key difference in these movies - Billy is fighting for family and Maggie is fighting for herself. A movie about a single, childless lady who is focused on something other than getting a husband/children! Feminist victory. 

There aren't a lot of ladies in either film, but the few who exist are treated with respect. Billy's wife is his true love, his intelligent, resilient sounding board - wearing really hot cocktail dresses and bathing suits, but a believable character over all. His daughter, brainy and pissed off, is his biggest achievement. There's also a nurse, and an uncompromising social worker.

Maggie has a nasty and ungrateful mother and sister, and the Blue Bear - a formidable female opponent - but other than these ladies, the boxing world is a slew of suited white men, chain-wearing black men, and of course many other male boxers (most black).

I can't remember the ratios, but they are EASILY 1:3 women to men speaking roles. In fact the ratio is probably closer to 1:5 or 1:6.

The Similarities 

Plot Points that are identical:
Billy & Maggie come from backgrounds of no means, an orphanage and a trailer park respectively
Billy & Maggie work out at crappy, underdog gyms
Billy & Maggie beg reluctant old man coaches to train them
Billy & Maggie are DOWN ON THEIR LUCK
Billy & Maggie rise to the top of the boxing world
Billy & Maggie have no other potential job but boxing
Billy & Maggie face unbeatable opponents

and my personal favorite....

The moment where all the gym is dark but some moonlight catching on the side of a bag.
Bent over his mop, the late night janitor hears the unmistakable sound of punches and grunts. But...who could be up this late? Who in their right mind would train in the dark after every other boxer has unwrapped their gloves and called it quits? The janitor turns the corner and sees...

       Billy & Maggie. That's who.

(Stepping outside of the Feminist Box for a second....I was surprised by the similarities between Morgan Freeman and Forest Whitaker's characters. In Southpaw Forest Whitaker teaches the Billy the secret to good boxing, and shows off his bum eye from boxing. In MDB Morgan Freeman teaches Maggie the secret to good boxing, and shows off his BUM EYE FROM BOXING. )

The ultimate rip off or the ultimate tribute?

My favorite part of Million Dollar Baby was the treatment of strength in the female body.
In the beginning, a few characters, some other boxers and Clint Eastwood, question if being a woman and a boxer go together. Twenty minutes in, the questions are dropped because with Maggie's knockout success, they clearly do.

As Maggie works her way through opponent after opponent, there is really no further mention made to the fact that this is woman's boxing. We're not less worried for her safety because she's fighting ladies. We're not less impressed by her strength and commitment because she's a lady. We're not led to feel like this world is inferior to the male boxing world, that the stakes are lower, although her matches are obviously smaller and less well-attended and always ruled by male coaches, trainers, managers, and refs.

I cannot think of another commercial movie in which women are punching women for non-sexualized glory. Usually, the stars of these movies are wrapped in leather, guns tucked into garters, knives pulled from cleavage, heels used like daggers, frat boys chanting on their encouragement.

Additionally, MDB has no bullshit moment where Maggie gets dressed up for a gala and between the dress, and the undo and the earrings and the make-up Clint Eastwood finally has a window into what an incredible lady she really is. Maggie proves her worth as a human and a fighter in the ring: muscles flexing, dressed to move, gloves on, hair pulled taught from her face, ready to attack.

But both films left me wondering. What drives audiences to boxing movies? Why do I like them?
 I can't even watch the fights in the films because the brutal sounds and blood overwhelm me, force me to look away. But even as I wince and writhe in my seat, I really really want my hero to win.

I think we like them because they are the other side of the Superhero coin. How far would Bruce Wayne have gotten without a billion dollars?  Clark Kent without an extraterrestrial boost? Tony Stark without a genius-level IQ and a billion dollars?  Billy and Maggie rise out of nothing, an orphanage, a trailer park. And with nothing but guts and their fists, they step into the ring to fight for their right to exist.

Southpaw just isn't adding anything new to the well-established tropes of boxing movies. His character is predictable, underwritten and hyper-masculine even as he sobs as he tries (and fails) to shoot himself after his wife dies.  Southpaw would have undoubtably been a better movie if the writers/directors had treated Billy less like a piece of 8-abs  meat and more like a real person, more like a human with complicated human who is trying to better his station through violent yet accepted means more like...Maggie in Million Dollar Baby.

Writers of a male protagonist who have to take a lesson in humanization from writers of a female protagonist?  MDB wins with a solid first round knockout.

I Have Become a Feminist Breakdown Troll

After months of applying for plays/movies/tvshows/music videos online, and months of trying to avoid breakdowns that are so sexist it makes me want to rip out all my hair, I decided that the best way to respond is to become a Feminist Breakdown Troll. 

I will keep you posted if any of these people respond, and if I I happen to #BookIt

Blonde Voluptuous Las Vegas Stripper: (Lead) a beautiful voluptuous stripper dating a famous singer; she wants love, he wants fame, they've been together for a long time and she's was there in the beginning of his career; while living his celebrity life, he gets tired of her complaining and kicks her out into the cold rainy night; blonde Hair, great body, stripping experience not necessary but must understand the look and attitude; sassy & classy with a warm heart that seeks normalcy; full C minimum bust; D or DD preferable.

Hello!
My name is Laura Winters and I am a non-equity actress living in NYC. This seems like such an exciting idea for a screenplay- I have not seen many movies with strippers as main characters! I love that she also seems to be the kind of stripper with a heart of gold :-) (Does she have a name by the way? It looks like she is the lead of the movie, and I was wondering if she had a name besides Voluptuous Blonde Stripper with DDs! JW!)
Looking forward to hearing from you-
Best,
Laura


Mariane: (Lead) the prototypical wide eyed virgin daughter with a secret sultry/rebellious side only seen by her true love Valère until she is forced to use her feminine wiles to escape marriage to the lecherous and repellent Tartuffe; strong movement skills, some familiarity with the French language, and understanding with Burlesque performance preferred; strong comedic timing and command of classical language is a must. Nudity: YES.

Hello! This is one of my absolute favorite plays, and I'm thrilled that you're putting on a burlesque-esque production of it. When I ask people to describe me, half of them definitely call me virginal, and the other half definitely call me sultry (which side is the real me? Or are they both? ha). I also noticed that nudity is a "yes" in this version of the show. #amazing! I'm so excited to see how nudity will improve Tartuffe.
I speak no French, but would obviously love to learn.
Laura

3 Female Vampires Needed: (Lead) Very attractive, model type. Seduction is a big part of luring their victims. These vampires are women of few words. There looks do the talking.

Hi! I'm Laura, a non-union actor. In the year I've lived year, I have let my looks do all the talking (and it's worked :-)). I love that your project understands how women look most attractive in threes. If you cast me, you could also cast a sexy Black vampire as well as an Asian vampire? Just so there's something for everybody!  I look forward to hearing from you!
Laura
PS sry if this is annoying but it's "their looks do the talking." not "there looks do the talking!" lol spelling vampress!

Our Champion Inside (Out) of Pixar

         

Fix-it Fridays

Inside Out

       After seeing Inside Out, I am confident that Pixar has amongst its employees The Champion. For 29 years of working at Pixar, The Champion has silently resented the company's proclivity toward sexism. Each time the Champion walks through the gilded hall of framed movie posters, The Champion cringes at the male clusters of monsters, toys, rats, cars, and fish, each photo dotted with one or two heavily-eyelashed female characters.  The night Brave premiered, The Champion returned to The Champion's desk, banged fists on the desk, and cried out "Why?! Why did our first female protagonist have to be a princess?!"
            And when the tears subsided, The Champion reached for a sketchpad and started drawing Inside Out, the feminist film Pixar owed the world.
           This movie has not one, not two, but three female leads. Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith) and the 11-year old girl whose mind they inhabit, Riley (Kaitlyn Dias).

        Out of the five emotions that work in Riley's mind, three of them are ladies. (Disgust voiced by Mindy Kaling.) Between our main characters, Riley, her mom, her dad, Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear, Anger, and Bing Bong (Riley's imaginary friend), and then a few side characters, Riley's teacher, both a guy and a girl maintenance crew workers, an imaginary boyfriend, Riley's best friend, the female movie director, our male to female ratio is: 6:9.

So break out your copies of The Handmaiden's Tale, play Hilary's Spotify Playlist, and put your American Girl Dolls in their horseback riding outfits because Inside Out is....

Pixar's First Movie with a Female Majority!

We give thanks for The Champion's efforts. 

The story is set in motion when Riley's family moves from Minnesota to San Fransisco, forcing Riley, and her Emotions to handled unchartered territory.  Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Carly, her mother, they all have unique voice, personalities, desires, and issues.  Joy is a spunky problem-solver,  Leslie Knope in fairy-form. She works tirelessly to make every day of Riley's life more Joyful than the other four emotions. She is a "Life Force" sort of role (see Jurassic World) that is so rarely gifted to girls. She moves mountain and earth, leads with ease and flair, but is fallible.

And if the Emotions are fallible, so too is Riley. She talks back to her parents, hangs up on her best friend, and storms off the ice rink in anger.

Before writing this piece, I read a few blogs where people worried that girl protagonist + emotions = period and mood swings. But Inside Out is not about girls and their flighty, uncontrollable feelings. It's about a kid (who like half of all kids is a girl) who can't figure out quite how her old life fits into her new one. 

There are only three disappointing moments of Non- Pure Feminist Awesomeness in Inside Out and one of them happened before the feature film started. 

1. The homogenous faces. A month or so ago, the blogosphere blew up when someone pointed out that every female Pixar character has the same face: round with a little button-nose. Compare that look to the male characters, whose great variety of noses, chins and foreheads reflect the inherent understanding that men can have a variety of problems, desires, and personality types.

These drawings show off Pixar's "women are all really the same" attitude that kept them creating token-lady-in-the-guy-group problem for 20+ years. Since my attention had been drawn to this problem before the movie, it was pretty infuriating to see in action. Joy, Sadness, and Disgust are written with such uniqueness why would their faces look identical? 

2. In one scene of Inside Out, we see the inside of Riley's parents' heads as well, the scene relies on archaic parent stereotypes for comedy's sake. While Mom tries to get Dad's help in communicating with Riley, Dad is too busy watching replay of sports games in his mind, forcing Mom to resort to dreaming about a man of her past. It didn't piss me off too much because Lame Parenting Tropes are cranked up to 11 for both genders. 

3. I can feel the eye rolls a-comin', but people, the Pixar short was super sexistly drawn. It's about *spoiler alert* volcanos trying to find love, you know, as they do. And you can see from the drawings that while the male volcano gets to look like a volcano, huge, hulking, craggle-faced, the lady volcano is a skinny, long-haired, smooth-faced lady.

But that's it people! Other than that, The Champion has done us a solid.
I could talk on and on about how much I loved Inside Out or how much I cried, or you could go see for yourself :-) 

           

What came first, the Heels or the Sexism?

Jurassic World

I was pumped to see Jurassic World. Because I love Jurassic Park, special effect monsters and:

But enough male objectification. I actually was pretty pleased in feminist terms while I watched the film--happy that Claire runs the park, that she has a lady assistant, that Claire had a sister and their conversation passed the Bechdel test, and that there were tons of close ups of little girls thrilled to be hanging out with stegosauruses. But when I got home the internet informed me that Jurassic World was really sexist.

The Great Heel Debate

The internet is up in arms about Claire's heels. The heels! How could a woman wear heels that whole time! Running for her life! Unleashing a T-Rex in heels! Nude heels! Heels in the jungle! Heels in the plains. Heels on slick cobblestone. What foolish heels!

I believe the heels are not so much a symbol for sexism as they represent a bunch of unfired Chekovian guns for Claire's character.

Anton Chekhov on writing:

"Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."

The heels could have been engaged (or "fired") in a couple of ways. 

1. Owen asks Claire if she is really going to wear that outfit, the insensible heels.
...And then to prove that the heels aren't insensible, but helpful:
2. Claire stabs a raptor in the eye with a heel. Or a a bird grabs her by the shoe and by squirming out of the shoe she is able to escape.

OR

1. Owen asks Claire if she's really going to wear the heels. 
...And then to prove that Claire is growing and understanding the power of nature:
2. Claire takes the sneakers off a dead man's feet to replace her heels. Or Claire steals a pair of hilarious light-up dinosaur shoes from one of the wrecked clothing stands. Or while running, Claire takes a moment to kick off her shoes.

OR

1. Owen asks Claire if she's really going to wear the heels. 
...And then to prove that Owen loves Claire:
2. Claire puts on some sneakers, but at the end of the movie Owen gives her the heels back, having carried them secretly the whole film.

OR
1. Owen asks Claire if she is really going to wear the heels. 
...And To make an awesome reference to Jurassic Park:
2. Claire finds a '90s pair of gym shoes when they explore the old park.

OR
1. Owen asks Clarie if she is is really going to wear the heels. 
...And then to prove that women are helpless and stupid for trying to achieve fashion standards.
2. Claire breaks a heel while running and Owen has to pick her up and carry her.

But instead, the writers drew our attention to the heels, but never pulled the heel trigger. And while I rarely argue for meaninglessness of symbols in movies, sometimes a heel is just a heel. If the writers weren't actually trying to say anything, which I don't think they were, and she was just a woman wearing heels, you can argue they were sexist or feminist either way and be correct. 

Unfortunately, the heels weren't the only rifle left unfired. And if the writers had simply followed through on a few of the characteristics they had set up for Claire, she would have seemed less like a "stiff" (Joss Whedon's Twitter description of Claire). 

Claire brought an itinerary to her first date with Owen (before the movie takes place), and it's one of the reasons Owen makes fun of her. Why couldn't Claire later have a useful itinerary to taking down the Idominus Rex? Claire runs Jurassic World. Why couldn't her intimate knowledge of secret tunnels be the key to saving everyone in the park?

Life Force (LF) and the Stiff (S)

Months before the film's release, Joss Whedon took to Twitter with "She's a stiff. He's a life force-really?" And although JW intuited all of that from a Jurassic World clip the movie is full of evidence to prove his case. 


LF Owen has a natural connection to people and animals; he even helps ease a brachiosaurs's passing. 
S Claire can't remember her nephews' ages, isn't sure if she wants kids, and thinks in dollar signs.

LF With just his arms out and a stern look, Owen can control a group of dangerous, cunning, flesh-eating velociraptors.
S Claire fails to run the park with intelligence again and again by underestimating the danger into which Indominus Rex has placed the staff and guests.

LF Owen and his motorcycle are always ready to go off roads.
S She drives her nice car on nicely paved roads.

But being connected to nature and the animals from the start of the film means Owen doesn't learn anything by the time the credits roll.

Which means that Jurassic World is really Claire's story. A protagonist needs to change throughout a movie, to learn. Claire learns to shoot a gun in order to defend the people she loves. She faces death multiple times, even taunting it when she sets *spoiler alert* to lets the T-Rex out of its cage. 

However, I do have to disagree with the argument that Claire's emotional journey is that of a stereotypical "stiff" female. Her path, from not knowing her nephews to having a deep connection with Zach and Gray is an arc identical to Dr. Alan Grant's emotional journey in Jurassic World. And Dr. Grant didn't even run the park, he was just a semi-notable archeologist!  Similarly, is there a more archetypal male movie character than the guy-who-works-too-much-and-takes-a-whole-movie-to-learn-that-family-is-what-counts? The sheer fact that a woman gets to have that discovery is remarkable in and of itself.  

And then the wheel of sexism spins again, and I am left to wonder if female characters only get to be leads when they are etched into male grooves? This is one of the biggest questions of female narratives and frankly, Jurassic World is hardly worthy of it. Instead, here are the:

Sexism Stats

          -The four main characters: Owen, Claire, Zach, and Gray, embody the classic film 3:1 ratio of males to females.

           -The choice to make the two children, Zach and Gray, two boys seems inevitable. Because Jurassic Park's kids were a girl and a boy and Jurassic World needed to make a different choice so the movies weren't exactly the same. But having two girls as sisters would be ridiculous, right?

         -Karen, Zach and Gray's mother, openly weeps when she finds out that her sons aren't with her aunt. If it weren't for the boardroom behind her, she would be the perfect hysterical woman/mother. 

           -Zara, Claire's high-powered, model-esque assistant, endures the ultimate punishment for not keeping track of Zach and Gray by *spoiler alert* getting eaten by a bird who gets eaten by the mammoth water-dinosaur. All this for a woman who was asked to babysit two kids when I'm guessing that wasn't really in the job description.

           -While Zara, Zach and Gray's mother; Claire's right hand woman; and Zach's girlfriend are side characters with distinct voices and purpose, the subplots, the rest of the park, and the speaking roles are dominated by men. Besides Owen, Zach, and Gray we have: The dinosaur feeder? Male. Owen's dinosaur trainer friend? Male. The security guard who gets eaten? Male. The army guy who wants to take the velociraptors? Male. The army guy's assistant? Male. The guy own owns the park?  Male. The guy who runs the lab that created the dinosaur? Male. The other control room operator? Male. The guy who ran the gyro sphere attraction? Male. The guy who is in charge of animal control? Male. The security guard with the bloody hand who warns Claire to escape? Male. The boys also have a dad. He is Male.
(I'm not counting a few computer voices.) 

Total ratio of people I can remember (and memory is faulty) in the film who spoke: 15:5 male to female. Which, hey, look! It's the perfect 3:1 male to female ratio of all films. So it's clear that out of those female role parts which were determinedly set out for women, there wasn't much room for the  daily operations of the park.

But all of this sexism, again, I really didn't see it until after the movie. I was so primed to be pumped about the dinosaurs, I so wanted to have a good time, that my critical eyes grew cataracts. Because Claire didn't have a random scene where she stripped to her bra (Star Trek), or was filmed in a slow pan from her feet to her head while a man described an expensive car (Transformers 3), or whispered silky innuendos into Owen's ear while wearing a barely-there ball gown (every James Bond), I felt Jurassic World was doing great female character work. 

But now, with distance, I see that my standards for summer movie blockbusters are so low, that even a stiff, non-life-force-esque, woman masquerading in the title of "high-powered executive" seems like an amazing role for a female protagonist. 

"Up" Has Got Me Down

Fix-It Fridays 

Part 2: Up

Up is one of my favorite movies.  It's heartfelt yet hilarious, gorgeously animated, and bursting with originality: a house flying by balloon, a bizarre bird who loves chocolate, a blimp full of skeletons, an army of talking dogs; how did Pixarians THINK of all of this?

Because of my love for the movie, I was wary of watching Up with a critical eye. So to keep myself in check, I made a hypothesis before I pressed play.

Up's sexism doesn't present itself through insulting portrayals of female characters (see Monsters Inc.), but rather the sexism of absence, of female characters not being depicted. 

To prove or disprove my thesis, it's helpful to split the movie into two categories. City World and Paradise Falls (the majority of the film occurs in Paradise Falls). However, City World contains Up's redeeming female character: 

Ellie. I am tearing up right now because OH MY GOD the montage of Ellie and Carl getting married and growing old is a guaranteed admission to Weeping.  Ellie's dirty face and uneven teeth and static locks are one of the best images of female childhood Pixar has. Good job, Pixar! We first meet Young Ellie when Young Carl hears her yelling from inside a boarded up house. Ellie has turned the house into a make-shift pretend blimp, like the blimp of her idol, Charles Muntz. 

ELLIE

Winds out of the east at ten knots...there's something down there. I will bring it back for SCIENCE. What are you doing? Don't you know this is an exclusive club? Only explorers get in here. Do you think you got what it takes? WELL DO YOU? Alright, you're in. Welcome aboard. What's wrong can't you talk? Hey, I don't bite. You and me we're in a club now. 

Ellie sets the whole plot in motion by sharing her childhood dream with the silent Carl:

ELLIE

When I get big I'm going where [Charles Muntz is] going: South America. I'm gonna live in Paradise Falls.

And BANG! It's 15 years later and Carl and Ellie are all grown up and getting married and the montage of their quiet, happy, childless life unravels. They put their dreams of reaching Paradise Falls aside as they pay for regular life hang-ups, broken bones, a tree falling on their house. Just when Carl decides they need to move to Paradise Falls now or they're never going to get there, Ellie passes away. Then the bulk of the movie begins. 

There are a few other City World moments of ladies:

-one lady in a scary black business suit - no line

-one image of a mother/father/daughter in the reflection of a store window - no lines

-one little girl playing in her room - no line

-Russell's mom waving to him after he gets his Ellie badge - no line 

-a female police officer (we don't see her face) BUT SHE HAS A LINE 

Carl escapes his one-way trip to the nursing home by filling up enough balloons that they rip the house right off the ground. Pulled upwards by this array of balloons, Carl ekes above the skyscrapers and sails away from City World, and away from Women. 

The cast breakdown of Paradise Falls: 

PROTAGONIST: Carl. Male.

SIDEKICK: Russell. Male.

BAD GUY: Charles. Male.

GOOD GUY SIDEKICK: Kevin. Female (originally thought to be male) 

SWING SIDEKICK: Doug. Male.

BAD GUY'S SIDEKICK: Alpha, Beta, Gamma. Male. Male. Male.

Paradise Falls' male to female ratio is 7:1. And let's not forget that Kevin, the ONLY female in Paradise Falls, cannot speak. (See Boo in Monsters Inc.) So the male to female characters who speak a human language becomes 7:0. 

(NOTE: You could argue that Ellie/the house is a character in Paradise Falls. Carl still talks to her. Her small oval portrait near the bay window of the house is often referenced.  Is the house a character in Home Alone? Is the Ring a character in Lord of the Rings? If the answer is "yes" then we can raise our cont of male/female character ratio to 7:2. But the ratio of speaking male to female characters in Paradise Falls remains 7:0.) 

7:1 or 7:2, or 7:0. Painful odds for one of the best animated films ever written. So how does it happen? How does a group of people setting out to make a family film forget to include an entire half of the population that are so instrumental to the family-making process? 

I have a made-up theory. My made up theory is called: Spiral Gender Casting. 
It loos like this. 

Meet the creators of Up, A and B: 

A: I have an amazing idea for a movie, it's about an old man, Carl!

         B: We should make Carl's enemy a guy, because we don't want there to be the    
              possibility of romantic tension between Carl and his enemy. 

A: We also need to put a little kid in this movie. And because the bad guy is going to be a guy, we don't want an old man being cruel to a girl, because that's distasteful and could be perceived as sexually predatory so let's make the kid a boy. 
    
      B: Great. The bad guy is going to have an army of dogs, but the bad guy will have  
           created them, and be mean to them, and make them his servants, and it would be 
           creepy if he had made himself a bunch of girl dogs, so all these dogs will be boys.  

A: Awesome, but our comedic relief dog, the kind of dumb, quirky, lovable dog, is going to be picked on by the other dogs. But because all the other dogs are boys, and we don't want to watch the only girl dog get picked on by mean boy dogs, and we also don't want the audience worrying that this comedic dog might have puppies, we should make this dog a boy.
    
        B: Yes. And then we have this bird who is trying to get back to its babies, so thats'                     obviously going to be a girl. 


If male THIS, then male THAT, and if male THAT then male THIS: all spiraling from that first decision of a male protagonist. And most protagonists are male. So according to Made Up Spiral Gender Casting, most supporting casts of most movies are going to be male as well. 

Look! I put their pictures on a spiral! 

Up has other representational wins for sure. It has a non-white kid. Its main character is a senior citizen. These are people who do not often get their own movies, so yay for Pixar for making those choices. 

In total, there are two women with speaking roles. One is Young Ellie, the other is the faceless policewoman Edith. The City World has three speaking male construction workers, one Nature Scout master, two male nurses, and a male announcer. 

Final ratio of male to female speaking roles: 14:2. 

But unlike Monsters Inc., for Up I don't have a page of notes on offensive stereotypes of secretaries. I just have no notes at all. One cannot take notes on the inequity of roles when there are no roles to look at: sexism in the absence of women. Yay! I proved my thesis. 

But I learned that the sexism had a bit more nuance to it.

Women, such as our policewoman Edith, did exist in City World, the realistic space. The animators seemed able to picture women on the streets of a town. But in Paradise Falls, the imaginative space where writers and animators are free to follow whimsy: rare birds, dogs that speak English as well as cook, an old man carrying a house by balloon, a 50-year-old blimp that still flies: Paradise Falls seems like a magical place where almost anything can happen!  Anything except women. 

The Curious Case of Adaline

For all of March, a movie poster for the Age of Adaline sat above the Cathedral Parkway subway entrance. After rehearsal I would walk to the stop and watch the glowing image of Blake Lively grow as I walked closer. Despite the lovely image of Blake with taught, radiant skin and identically twinkled eyes, the poster struck a nerve and I had to figure out why.

I looked up the trailer on YouTube.

The camera flies us into a picturesque mid-century Levittown. A cop pulls a car over. The disbelieving cop stares at Adeline's perfectly coiffed 1950's curls, her matte red lipstick.

COP

Ma'am, it says here you were born in 1908. That makes you 45 years old.

ADALINE

That's right. 

Adaline gets married, has a daughter. And then on a cold winter night Adaline accidentally drives her car off a bridge. She plummets into the icy waters below.

NARRATOR

In that moment, something incredible happened.

She gets struck by lightning.  

NARRATOR 

 Its effect was almost magical. Adaline is henceforth immune to the ravages of time. She will never age another day. 

Shots of Adaline running from cops! Adaline holds new passports for new identities! Adaline hugs her gray-haired daughter. The trailer makes it clear that despite her beauty, and her keen fashion sense, Adaline lives a lonely life.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  That's what Adaline was reminding me of! Both are movies where the protagonist and time are at odds. And then I realized why I am pissed. Because of course a female version of Benjamin Button is a movie where the woman stays young forever. 

The images of the two movies side by side demonstrate most of my point: 

Benjamin Button gets to grow and change. Adaline is frozen forever as a 29-year-old.
(Thank GOD she got stuck before she went "over the hill" at 30, right? Who would see THAT movie?)

Benjamin meets the love of his life when he's little. The trailer shows an ancient-looking 7-year-old Benjamin meeting a red-haired girl. She stares at him in wonder.

YOUNG DAISY

Are you sick?

YOUNG BENJAMIN

They said I was gonna die soon but...maybe not.

YOUNG DAISY (smiling)

You're odd. 

Daisy and Benjamin grow into life-long lovers. Daisy's attraction to Benjamin begins with his unconventional features, his kindness and his "odd"ness. 

Adaline's love interest is attracted to her for a different reason.

ELLIS

First time I saw you I knew I had to meet you. I didn't know when or how but I knew I would. 

What a surprise. Ellis is attracted to Adaline for her beauty. 

At one point in the trailer, Benjamin returns home to the woman who raised him. She is shocked to see his younger face, and runs to hold him. 

BENJAMIN

It's a funny thing coming home. You realized what's changed is you. 

And Benjamin's changes are reflected on the outside, with time wearing away the wrinkles he was born with. Adaline's mind and soul grow and learn over the decades, but her outward appearance is immovable.  

Hollywood (and everywhere) treats its characters the same way as it treats its actors. George Clooney's hair is allowed to turn a handsome gray while Renee Zellweger isn't allowed to get Botox, or rather, isn't allowed to get bad Botox.

In her article about shaming Renee, Buzzfeed writer Anne Helen Peterson argues:

"The performative surprise, disgust, and shame directed toward aging [women] is super contradictory: it suggests that the ideal woman is young and without wrinkles, but attempts by women to maintain that ideal are subject to derision."

So what's the perfect solution? How do we, as women, escape the shame of growing older, and the double shame of trying to hide that we're growing older as we do it? To be struck by lightning after you've crashed your car into a freezing lake and have the "incredible," "magical" fortune to stay 29 forever.

Monsters, Inc.

Fix-it Friday: Part 1
Monsters, Inc.

Pixar is one of the few studios that can boast consistent production of "four quadrant movies," films that entice all four age groups/demographics. These four quadrant films are colorful and action-packed for the kids, and have thematic sophistication and humor to satisfy the adults.  It's a win-win for everyone! Except the ladies who Pixar repeatedly bashes through innumerable counts of exclusion, sexism, and drawing the majority of their female characters with the exact same face. 

I hadn't seen Monsters, Inc. in a decade and was excited to watch. The first scene won me over with its belabored corporate lady monster trying to teach some hopeless new scare recruits. And it's downhill from there. 

The Counts Against 

1. Mike and Sully's Walk to Work (aka World Introduction)

       A. There is, in this entire sequence of store clerks and monster children, a single female monster. A tiny Wife Monster kisses her tiny Husband Monster on the cheek and says "have a good day, at work, honey!" as he flies away. 

2. Enter  Monsters, Inc. and meet...

            A.  Celia: a young, hot, trophy of a receptionist. 

CELIA (to Mike)

Googly bear! 

MIKE

[wishes her a happy birthday]

CELIA

Googly woogly, you remembered. Hey Sully Wully!

    

 B.  Roz: an old, slug-like hag of a receptionist. 

MIKE

Good morning, Roz, my little succulent garden snail. And who would we be scaring today?

ROZ

You didn't file your paperwork last night. 

It's funny because she's an old, fat, ugly snail. 

3. Pixar's insistence that during the few scenes Roz and Celia are in, the focus should be on their appearances. 

             A. When Mike brings Celia to an expensive restaurant for her birthday dinner. 

CELIA

Oh, Michael! I've had a lot of birthdays...well...not a lot of birthdays, but this is the best birthday ever. What are you looking at? 

MIKE

I was thinking about the first time I laid eyes on you. How pretty you looked. 

CELIA (bashfully)

Stop it. 

Thanks, Pixar for complicating the hot receptionist character by making her defensive of her age. 

               B. When Mike hasn't filled out his paperwork and tries to woo Roz again. 

MIKE

Roz, my tender oozing blossom. You look wonderful today. Is that a new haircut? Come on, it's a new haircut, got to be a new haircut. You've had a lift, you've had a tuck. Something has been inserted into your skin to make you look...

Mike trails off because he can't think of anything positive about her appearance. It's funny because she's an old, fat, ugly, snail. 

               C. After work, Mike describes to Sully how excited he is to take Celia out to dinner.

MIKE

What a night of romance. Tonight is about me and Celia. The love boat is going to set sail. Because that face of hers makes my life go--

He bumps into Roz and screams. It's funny because she's an old, fat, ugly snail. 

4. The male and female bodies

Male monsters have all different sorts of anatomies: furry, scaly, many-armed, spiked-heads, rubber-like skin. Male monsters (except for the head suit-wearing spider monster, and the child-catching yellow-ruber-clad swat team) are naked.  There is a single unclothed female monster in the opening Monsters Inc. commercial.   

But Celia is clothed, and in a tight, short little outfit to boot. Roz is wearing a sweater that shows off her saggy boobs although her lower-body is naked and unsexualized--probably partly due to the fact that she is ugly and old, so much easier to posit her as a non-sexual being. 

The combination of naked male monster bodies and clothed female monster bodies perpetuates the infuriating status of male bodies as un-gendered and sexless and female bodies as inherently shameful, derivative, sexual, and in need of policement or clothes.  

The Counts For

1. Boo 

Charming, playful, capable, loving Boo. She is obviously the center of this movie, the catalyst of Sully's change. She also can't really talk (Pixar enjoys this havoc-wreaking, silent-besides-one-word female trope as we'll see in Up). I do like Boo as a character. I really do. I'm glad she's a little girl even though her existence in the Monster world sets up Mike and Sully for a tired men-can't-really-parent cliche. But again, I recognize that Pixar chose to make this third, crucial character a girl because a boy would be just as cute at this toddling, babbling, nonsexualized age. 

2. Roz and Celia help out in the end!

     

      A. Hey look! Celia causes a distraction by making an announcement on the loudspeaker to help Mike find Boo's door!

      B. Oh, wow! It turns out that Roz is the head of the secret investigation looking into Monsters, Inc. But she was just letting the men do all of the onscreen work. So cool! Now her old ugliness is totally validated. 

         Q:  Boo is an awesome female character who balances out two male leads. Why                        isn't Boo enough? 

        A: Sexism is in the details. It's in the subconscious decisions of the writers,                              directors, producers, artists, who draw crowd scenes with 30 male monsters                       and 2 female monsters. It's in the subconscious decisions to make every                               other role besides Boo, Celia, and Roz a male: two leads, two villains, two                             bumbling teenage interns, the special Scaring Monsters task force, the                                 Scaring Monsters' hypemen, the restaurant patients, the monsters interviewed                     on televisions, the monsters on the way to work, the SWAT team, every other                       monster with a line. By showing this absurd ratio of men to women, we                               condition children to believe that men are more visible, vocal, and important                         than women. Men are the majority, the constant, and women the rare                                    exception to male existence. 

FIX-IT

My Suggestions to Pixar 

1. Take the four main monsters, two good monsters, two evil monsters, and make half of them women

          AND/OR

2. Take the two receptions and make one of them a woman

          AND/OR

3. Take the two bumbling teenage interns and make one of them a woman (but without making this character have a huge crush on Sully)

          AND/OR

4. Take all the Scaring Monsters and all their hype men and make half of them women 

         AND/OR

5. Make sure your extra scenes have 50% women in them

        AND/OR

6. Use those huge, f***ing creative brains of yours a little more creatively for women. It mystifies me that the men whose imaginations could create the vibrant, nuanced world of Monsters, Inc. could not imagine a world where female monsters did more than sit behind desks at a big company and take the boss' calls.