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[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

[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.