(no subject)

[raincitygirl]

Sometimes I underestimate my baby brother. I emailed him with a complaint about sexism in the Hurt Locker (already knowing that he disliked the movie for different reasons), and he wrote back with a detailed critique of sexism in previous Kathryn Bigelow movies. Not that I’d seen any of these movies. And he didn’t actually say “they’re sexist”, he just pointed out all the ways her movies are aimed exclusively at a male audience.

Brother has never to my knowledge had an opinion about sexism or feminism in the abstract beyond, “Oh, boooooring” but he’s quite capable of noticing and critiquing sexism in a concrete way. Of course, if I told him, “Oh hey, you just gave me a pretty sophisticated feminist critique” he’d probably roll his eyes at me.

Cutting for more detailed analysis of the Hurt Locker:. I wasn’t expecting it to be sexist, probably because I knew it had been directed by a woman. Seems to me there are a few things Kathryn Bigelow could’ve done with the script to ease up on the sexism just a tad:

a) Show female servicemembers, at least in the background. I get that the bomb disposal job is considered “combat” and officially women aren’t supposed to be in combat roles (although they frequently end up in them, what with war zones being messy, fluid places). Nonetheless, they’re in *Baghdad*. There would be non-combat support troops around. All I ask is one female extra in a uniform: is that too much? I think I saw more female servicemembers in Captain America than in this movie, and that’s set in 1943.

b) When Sanborn has his mini-breakdown and declares he wants to have a baby boy so there’ll be someone to miss him if he dies, it would’ve maybe not killed the script to have James point out that he’s got a 50% chance of ending up with a baby girl instead. Unless of course that was supposed to be metatextual, and demonstrating how out to lunch Sanborn is at this particular moment, or demonstrating what a perniciously macho environment he’s in.

But the meta would probably work better if there’d been more than one woman in the movie with a speaking role, and she wasn’t just the stoic, long-suffering wife back home. Actually, that’s not entirely true. The woman who shouts at Sgt James in Arabic when he breaks into her house had a speaking role. But they didn’t bother with subtitling her shouting, so she might as well not have said anything.

It wasn’t that it was an *actively* sexist movie, as movies go. It was just sort of suffused with a passive sexism that pissed me right off. Plus, there’s this whole notion I’m getting that in order to win an Oscar, a female director must make a movie that is more male-oriented than anything the male directors are coming out with.
And yet, it wasn’t a BAD movie. It was very well done, it just pretty much pretended that 50% of the population don’t exist. Anyway, very good performances from Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie (who, unlike Renner, doesn’t seem to have been able to subsequently parlay the role into more commercial work. Which is a shame, because he was excellent as well). And I loved the structure, or rather lack thereof, wherein there isn’t a conventional plot to be told, it’s just a series of ever-more stressful days at the office. James makes two attempts at constructing a conventional “let’s go get the bad guys” narrative out of the chaos, and both his attempts result in complete failure. Which is cool.

So basically a massive disappointment given that it won Best Picture. And leaves me with no desire to ever see another Bigelow movie ever again. But Jeremy Renner was good, and I’m hoping Anthony Mackie gets some work out of it as well.

Comments

[legionseagle]

Women in the UK armed forces serve in bomb disposal roles so simply having a joint operation with Allied troops (or having one in a support role) would do the trick.

[raincitygirl]

Actually, they *did* have a joint operation with a British squad (Ralph Fiennes in a cameo as a guy who gets shot), but it wasn't another bomb disposal squad, it was just a couple of guys with a tank. Now I'm bummed because they could've quite easily brought some women into it that way.

I had not realized UK women are on bomb disposal teams. Good for them. Now I must go and find out what the Canadian rules are.

from network, BFF is a female Canadian soldier.

[recessional]

Canadian rules are Canadian women can do everything Canadian men do. There was briefly an exception for submarine service, but even that's now gone.

Re: from network, BFF is a female Canadian soldier.

[raincitygirl]

Love the icon.

I did not know that Canadian women can do everything men can do in the Forces. Huh. I wonder what other things I don't know about my own country.

[raincitygirl]

I am actually a total hypocrite, because reading Captain Head's obituary made me feel terrible, much worse than if I'd been reading about a man killed in action. Reminded me of how I felt when Canada's 2 female casualties died.

It's silly, because I think allowing women to serve in combat roles is a GOOD thing. And lord knows female noncombatants unlucky enough to live in war zones get killed all the time. But I had this emotional reaction to Captain Head's death because she was a female soldier. Logical it's not, but there it is.

[legionseagle]

I know what you mean, but in a paradoxical sort of way I think it's a feature, not a bug; if people are desensitised to deaths in combat then that's a bad thing. And that applies to non-combatant women as well as to combatant men. So in some respects it's salutary to think, "Why don't we feel this reaction all the time?"

I have to say one of the principal reasons for encouraging women not only to be in combat roles but to want people like Bigelow to show them there is that it helps silence twerps like the Dilbert man who put such enormous store on the notion that "women don't deserve equal rights because they don't put their lives on the line to defend their countries on equal terms."

[katta]

Aw. I bought the film but never got around to seeing it; now I'm not sure I want to.

Then again, I loved Near Dark, so maybe I'm a male audience.

[raincitygirl]

I am not holding my brother up as the pinnacle of feminist thought on the subject! Just because he thinks something is geared towards a male audience doesn't necessarily mean he's 100% right.

If you enjoyed a previous movie by Bigelow, you might well enjoy this one. I thought it had many good points as a movie, and excellent performances. I just couldn't get past the sexism (probably from a male director I would've just rolled my eyes and said, "Whatever, guy movie". But I find myself holding women to a higher standard, which is unfair). But everybody has different thresholds for this stuff. I'd say take a shot at watching it.

[katta]

Well, something being sexist and something being geared towards a male audience isn't necessarily the same thing. For instance, I find the sexism of romantic comedies more glaring because it's aimed at women. Not least because of the "this is what women are like!" angle, which makes me just as soon want a movie without women in it. So I'm not sure how to measure if a movie is meant for a male audience vs. if it's meant for me.

Near Dark is primarily focused on a male character, but three of the eight named characters are women and they're all fine by me. Of course, that's an early movie and it tanked pretty hard (but got a cult following and all that), so it's possible she reached the conclusion that she needed more men in her movies.

So, y'know, I should probably see Hurt Locker and figure out if it bothers me or not!

[raincitygirl]

Excellent points.

Plus, if you already own it, it's not like you have anything to lose by watching it. I mean, unless it's still wrapped in plastic and you still have the receipt. And watching it will probably take less time than returning it to the store. So I say go for it. Not that you need my permission.

[ide_cyan]

he just pointed out all the ways her movies are aimed exclusively at a male audience.

WTF?

No, seriously, WTF?

They may be very oriented towards macho characters, but there is such a thing as the female gaze in them.

And did NOBODY watch The Weight of Water?

[ide_cyan]

...basically, my point is this: saying Bigelow's movies are aimed exclusively at a male audience is like saying slash fiction is aimed exclusively at a male audience.

[raincitygirl]

I'm entirely open to the fact that my brother's analysis could be wrong. It was more the fact that he made it in the first place that tickled me. In fact, it sounds like he probably IS wrong, because based on the movies and TV shows you've reviewed on LJ/DW over the years, and based on my knowledge of his taste in movies, I'd say you're a more reliable source on this type of thing.

And i went back and checked the email, and he doesn't mention a movie called Weight of Water. So apparently he hasn't seen it. I looked it up on IMDB, and it looks *really* interesting. So I've added it to my queue at Cinemail, and hopefully I'll see it soon.

[ide_cyan]

There is certainly sexism in Bigelow's work (whose doesn't?) but a lot of her work is an examination of masculinity (and traditionally masculine settings) and its effects that doesn't necessarily read as an endorsement of it.

The Hurt Locker got a lot of criticism for errors in its depiction of military details, and also praise for its depiction of the alienating effects of war (like the supermarket scene).

She previously directed K-19: The Widowmaker, which doesn't have any women in it either, but is a movie about *heroic* Russian soldiers set during the Cold War. (Not exactly a popular subject for American filmmakers.)

Strange Days has a central rape scene of one woman, but she isn't its only female character; it's also about vicarious thrill-seeking, corruption and social responsability.

Point Break: has some ugly scenes of violence during police raids. Lori Petty's character is important, albeit the only significant woman and narratively used in some of token functions; but this movie is legendary for the homoerotic subtext between Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, and the surfing and skydiving action.

Blue Steel, which it's been ages since I've seen, her third feature film, is about a new female police officer getting stalked by a killer obsessed with her. (I haven't seen her first feature, The Loveless.)

katta already talked about Near Dark, her second feature film, above.


Re: the Academy Awards thing:

Plus, there’s this whole notion I’m getting that in order to win an Oscar, a female director must make a movie that is more male-oriented than anything the male directors are coming out with.

That's not a reason to diss Bigelow; 1) she didn't change her style of moviemaking to appeal to Oscar voters, 2) blaming her for the Academy's sexist biases (and the industry's dearth of female directors in general) is bullshit, 3) her movie was the best of the nominees that year.

Whichever woman made the first movie to end up winning Best Director and Best Picture would be criticised for some reason or other anyway, think How To Suppress Women's Filmmaking. There have been two more Oscars since she won and there still haven't been other women even nominated in that category since.

I mean, James Cameron, who also wrote Bigelow's Strange Days and its rape scene, is mainly praised for Sarah Connor and action-mom-Ripley, but Bigelow is held to higher standards when she makes films about men, and Gale Anne Hurd, co-creator of Sarah Connor -- who pays any attention to her producing, say, Aeon Flux for the big screen, except to criticise it?

[ide_cyan]

And if I'm not recommending them highly enough, look at some of the cast:

K-19 has non-Russian actors in the Russian roles, but these actors include Harrison Ford, Liam Neeson, Peter Sarsgaard (An Education), Joshua Close (The Unusuals), Kris Holden-Reid (Dyson in Lost Girl), JJ Feild (Captain America), Christian Camargo (The Hurt Locker, Dexter), Peter Stebbings (The Listener).

Near Dark has a very young Adrian Pasdar, plus Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein and Bill Paxton.

And Strange Days co-stars Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett.