Month: December 2012

Five movies that are bad for girls

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For most of last year, I worked at a private boarding house for girls. I was a “housey”.

My boarders were very bright, active, educated young women who could keep any housey on her toes. When lining up for dinner, they were fierce analytical negotiators. At bedtime they were tireless prosecutors. (“But miss, you let the Year 8s stay up for Glee!”) They navigated the politics of teenage girldom with strength and canniness and a freakish understanding of their complex social web.

But when it came to Movie Night, they only wanted one thing. Stupidity. Frequent, continuous stupidity. Preferably delivered to them in a cute dress.

They wanted the stupid, vapid, often offensive films grouped under the umbrella of “rom-com”. They wanted them without exception, and they would accept no other genre.

I despaired of the boarding house’s DVD library, which contained almost exclusively films about romance (with the exception of Milo & Otis … which is really more of a bromance). In school, these girls were privy to the best academic education our state had to offer. But their education in love and relationships was informed by How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days.

So, for months, I had to watch Amanda Bynes finish every story arc with “See! It’s OK that I’m a strong woman, because look, boyfriend!”, while my brain screamed to itself.

I tried to counteract this pro-stupid bias by delivering mini-seminars at the end of each movie. “Alright girls, who could see what was wrong with that ending? Should she have risked her career so that he wouldn’t feel ’emasculated’?” My lectures were met with replies such as “Shut up” and “Miss, don’t ruin this for us”.

I watched nearly all of those movies with the girls (and quite a few in my spare time). I’m not saying I don’t enjoy watching them. I do. I really, really do. But I also watch other genres of film, and, I might point out, I have enough life experience to realise that Matthew McConaughey is not going to sweep me away on his motorcycle. Those rom-com stories are all about exceptions to the norm: weird – and therefore funny – situations. But the girls watch them uncritically, accepting them as their ideal romance. When they collectively cooed in awe as Edward decided he did, after all, want to be with Bella, after breaking her heart and abandoning her without explanation, I wanted to bash my own head in.

So, rather than bash myself (because then the rom-coms win!), I choose to word-bash these films in this blog. I choose to NAME and SHAME.

I wanted to title this list “Top Five Movies That Young Girls Shouldn’t Watch Without An Accompanying Lecture And Discussion Workshop Analysing The Oppressive Discourses At Work On Them”. But it wasn’t snappy enough. Here, instead, is my list of Five Movies That Are Bad For Girls.

5. Friends With Benefits / No Strings Attached / any film in which casual sex leads to the guy falling deeply in love with the girl

These movies are just setting girls up for a fall … and possibly herpes.

4. Pretty Woman

Prostitution leads to the guy falling deeply in love with the girl … See above.

3. 10 Things I Hate About You

Yeah, I know, BUT HEATH LEDGER! I agree. He is dreamy. And while I adore this film, the ending makes me go “But whaaaaat?” Let’s remember that Heath spends most of the film conspiring with a motley group of teenage boys to trick Julia Stiles into dating him so the other guys can swarm on her sister. Somewhere along the line, Heath actually begins to notice that Julia’s a rockin’ babe. However, he continues to accept bribes to date her, and lies to her about things like quitting smoking. Julia finds out and, hurt by his betrayal, gets mad. Really mad. (Not surprisingly.) Still the bravest person in the film, she expresses her bewilderment in a poem that rhymes really badly. Heath listens with a pained expression. With so much trust lost between them, and such a betrayal on Heath’s part, you’d think it would take something huge to– oh wait, he bought her a guitar. He bought her a guitar! Rather than do something trite and mediocre like APOLOGISE, he bought her a guitar. And when she expresses her need to rebuild trust with him, he stifles her by forcing his face onto hers. All is better! Cue grunge music!

2. The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Pointing out chauvinism in the Twilight series is like shooting fish in a barrel, so I’ll keep this brief. Bella loves Edward! Edward loves Bella! But wait, Bella’s blood makes Edward’s family want to kill her. Bella wants to work through this problem, because their relationship is important to her, but Edward knows what is good for Bella BETTER THAN SHE DOES. He dumps her, without explanation. Bella is sad! Bella sits on a sofa without moving for several months! Then she jumps off a cliff! Only solution when your boyfriend leaves you! Wait, Edward needs her! Then, ignoring safety for herself, Bella needs to help him! Edward’s back, yay! He’s chastising her for not understanding that he did it for her own good, but he’s back! All better!

1. How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days

This blog post begins and ends with Kate Hudson. I’ve probably seen this movie upwards of a dozen times. It’s like a bag of stale popcorn: if it’s in front of me, I’ll probably finish it. Yet, the ending never fails to make me mad. The set-up of this film is that Kate Hudson is bored with her job writing fluff pieces for a women’s magazine. She wants to write about politics, world events, substance! Matthew McConaughey is a jock with an overwrought torso who boasts that he could make “any woman” fall in love with him within 10 days. (What a catch!) Something something they fall in love something then they find out they’re both being played and things fall apart. Clearly, their relationship (which only began less than two weeks ago, I’ll point out) was built on shaky foundations. There is a lot of trust lost. Out of this fiasco, Kate finds the strength to quit her boring column, and leaves New York pursue her dream job. Yay Kate Hudson! But wait, who’s this driving his motorcycle recklessly through peak hour traffic? It’s your dream guy! The one who sees women as interchangeable and dated you on a bet with his boss! He’s telling you not to leave him, because he JUST REALISED he loves you, and he thinks it’s stupid for you to move to Washington for your job, because HE is in New York! “You can write anywhere!” Duh, Kate Hudson! Now he’s ordering your cab driver around and singlehandedly deciding that you’re not moving, after all. Aren’t you lucky that you have such a handsome, strangely-tanned man to make decisions for you? BLERGH.

‘Mulled Wine’ published in SpeedPoets

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Now I’m really catching up on old news. My poem ‘Mulled Wine’ was published in SpeedPoets vol. 11.7 (launched in September). SpeedPoets is a cool Brisbane publication – it’s quick, tasty and to-the-point. To-the-poetry. I am honoured to be included.

Here is the poem:

Mulled Wine

Thrown together with spices
and cinnamon sticks,
we simmer in a saucepan
on a small kitchen stove.

Mulling too long,
we’ll soon turn bitter.
This is just a drink for winter.
The cold drives us in together
and loosens up our hearts.

Warm hands and cool heads
will swirl us and stir us
and finally pour us
in a thick-bottomed glass.

Drink us now,
for winter’s soon passed.
Sip us slow; we cannot last.

Where are the women slackers?

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"I just want to watch Community in my pajamas! Damn you patriarchy!!"

“I just want to watch Community in my pajamas! Damn you patriarchy!!”

I have been enjoying the series America In Primetime on SBS for the past few weeks, but since watching it, something has stuck in my “craw” (ew).

It’s not just the deficit of female writers depicted. We get it, the patriarchy, whatever. They did a whole episode on the feminist movement as played out in American sitcoms. We’re getting there (I guess).

But then there was the whole televisual glorification of the slacker. The apathetic individuals who make an art out of doing nothing. Judd Apatow, Jerry Seinfeld, Beavis and Butt-Head, Judd Apatow. All definitely, repeatedly, male. And I thought, where are the woman slackers?

Women in primetime sitcoms are rarely slack. Even when we (our fictionalised television versions) get equal rights at work, sexual liberty, capri pants et cetera, we can’t use these newfound freedoms to spread out on the couch and eat a tub of yoghurt. Mary Tyler Moore is carving out a career, Lucy is busily fleeing Ricky, and Liz Lemon is trying to “have it all”. Sookie Stackhouse is fighting vampires, then fighting for vampires, then fighting werewolves AND vampires, all while holding down a waitressing job at Merlotte’s. Not one of these characters is wearing a Metallica t-shirt and saying “huh-huh” a lot. Not one female Butt-head!

Our only female slacker role model in American sitcom-land is Elaine Benes. Ah, Elaine. Hanging out with Jerry, George and Kramer, talking about nothing. The same thing, year in, year out. As far as I can tell, she was never too concerned with climbing the career ladder (wasn’t she kind of a butler for a while?) and she floated in and out of relationships (classic quote to on-again-off-again boyfriend Putty: “That’s it. We’re broken up for the rest of today”).

But Elaine was a slacker in a show that abounds with slackers; she is easily eclipsed by George Costanza. Easily. Even at her least ambitious, Elaine cannot compete with George’s effortless lack of effort.

The slacker is celebrated in plenty of primetime shows – The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Cheers (I mean, Norm and Cliff, come on, get out of the bar once in a while) – but he is dominantly male. Female characters are either satellites around the male characters (Marge flusters around Homer, cleaning up his messes) or they are only given independent status if they are hyper-driven, alpha-females with no time to be slobs.

I say, hey, Patriarchy, stop boxing me in. Quit hemming in my horizons. People always talk about the glass ceiling, well, what about the glass floor? Underneath my feet is a scungy basement filled with Seth Rogens and young Keanu Reeveses, enjoying a life of unabashed apathy, never questioning their right to play video games all day and eat Doritos. I can see this life: I can almost taste the cheese-flavoured dust on my fingers. But I can’t break through this floor. Society keeps urging me ever upwards, demanding ever more ambition and hard work; exhorting that I prove my gender made the right decision to agitate for the vote and equal rights. I must prove this by excelling at all aspects of my life. But what if I don’t want to be a doctor? Or a working mum? Or even working?

What if I want to be a slacker?

Equal rights, baby.