Gorl Tawk's Feminist Film Discussion

[General Patton]

I can't believe I never linked Clockwatchers in here. It's my favorite film directed by a woman (besides Marie Antoinette.)

All of the main characters are women, and Toni Collette is the star. Parker Posey, Lisa Kudrow and Alanna Ubach are in it as well.

It's one of those quiet, mellow kind of films. I highly recommend it.

 

[Valstrax]

In terms of feminist movies, I'm just gonna be totally biased here, but I fucking hate the Monster Hunter movie for both being the worst game to film adaptation I've ever seen as WELL as having a garbage female protagonist. There's nothing about Artemis (gee, how funny, our MC is named after the goddess of the hunt) that I can say is memorable or even remotely good, it feels like the director just put his wife in the movie because he could without even thinking about how a female role model would work surprisingly well in the context of the Monster Hunter series.

You could make a better and more well written female role model than Artemis with the character creator in pretty much any Monster Hunter game. Monster Hunter as a series is all about EXPERIENCE, the THRILL OF THE HUNT! If there's no scene where the prettiest girl you've ever seen is gutting a flying wyvern for weapons and armor IDON'TWANNAWATCHIT! Oh yeah and the military dick-sucking is pretty bad, but Artemis as a character is arguably worse because you're supposed to root for her when she has the personality of a plank of wood.

And that's not even getting started on the fact that we have RATHALOS, but no RATHIAN??? Not very female-empowering of you, Paul. Sure, we have Black Diablos, which canonically is a female Diablos in heat, but it's no excuse for not having the QUEEN OF THE LAND exempt from the movie!!

Sorry for the rant, I just felt a girl's need to shittalk my most hated director of all time for slandering my fave franchise. </3

 

[Jellie Opal]

If any of you haven't seen Junior, the student short film made by Julia Ducournau, I highly recommend it. Ducournau is the director of Raw and Titane, both brilliant (and feminist) movies. Ducournau is hands down my favourite female director currently and I can't wait to see what she does next. Warning for body horror!
https://youtube.com/watch?v=k2qGf8FZK2A

That was solid. Thank you for sharing! I had no idea this existed. I really appreciate Ducournau's work. I think her and Coralie Fargeat are upending the conventional French Extremism of old and breathing new life into the genre from a female--and feminist--perspective. I fucking love it. I need more. MORE!!!!

 

[Womble of Wimbledon]

I am not a woman so I apologise for intruding but I have one which never seems to get the feminist props it deserves.

Falling Down (1993) has been loved by manosphere types and right wingers because they think it's about a guy who gets fed up with all the bullshit and starts shooting niggers. It came out not longer after the LA riots which played into that. Critics have examined the race angle way too closely, that is irrelevant to the movie's actual theme which is domestic violence. It's an examination of a domestic abuser and what makes them tick. Some people watch the movie and think Michael Douglas is some kind of tragic hero standing up to the degeneracy of the modern world. It actually shows how he is a control freak whose wife has left him and that is what drives him to go on a killing spree, everything else just an excuse.

Like all domestic abusers Michael Douglas insists on having total control over his family and when his wife leaves and gets a restraining order out on him, that control is taken away from him. He cannot handle it and lashes out violently. The movie obviously heightens that for dramatic effect to a full-blown vigilante killing spree, but it does show at the end how Michael Douglas is willing to literally kill his family rather than allow them to live outside of his control. When he realises he can't kill them he kills himself. This happens in real-life domestic violence cases all the time.

It's not exactly subtle but most men seem to miss the point entirely. Sadly, they probably see the wife getting a restraining order out on him as just another symptom of a world gone mad and the nuclear family breaking down and blah blah blah. So few movies demonstrate the profound connection between control and domestic violence, and Falling Down does it really well. Domestic violence is very rarely portrayed realistically in film, it's usually ridiculously over-the-top evil or kind of excused. It's an issue I know a lot about due to IRL stuff so I appreciate when a movie gets it right.

 

[Chandelier]

Gone Girl. I have to re-read the book, but Amy Dunne remains one of the best female villains out there. Her motives in the book are more fleshed out, but the film is a great adaptation as Gillian Flynn had a direct hand in it. Rosamund Pike is excellent playing as her. This is the film that spawned the 'Cool girl' monologue (it was in the book as well) and Ben Affleck plays the so-called innocent husband who really is. In the books, Amy describes their relationship as him being full of holes and she being the thorns that fit nicely inside them. Nick is the son of a domestic abuser and struggles with those impulses throughout the novel; he's a very skeevy, untrustworthy character. In the end, Amy is the one who wins, and he is forced to contend with the fact his wife is a real psycho, yet he really enjoys it.

I would also say White Oleander, as that is one of my favourite books. When I first read it, I didn't like Ingrid whatsoever and thought she was selfish for what she did to her daughter and the torment she put her through. On two more re-reads, I understand her perspective more: she fell head over heels for a 'goat man', who promptly ditched her, and she, who did not like her pride being tarnished with such a betrayal from an ugly man, poisons him with Oleander.

The biggest issue with the book is that Astrid initiates a sexual relationship with Ray, who is in his mid 40s. She is 13. Normally you would expect coercion but she willingly does it; Ray initially refuses, saying 'You're just a kid'. She replies, 'I'm a fish swimming by. If you want me, you'll have to catch me'. The movie glosses over this and makes it seem like a teen crush. Ray was played by Cole Hauser in the film, which made him more attractive to female audiences. In the books he's missing a few fingers and kinda looks like Cyraxx.

 

[General Patton]

Falling Down (1993) has been loved by manosphere types and right wingers because they think it's about a guy who gets fed up with all the bullshit and starts shooting niggers.

I see every right winger person who worships this film completely ignores the scene where Douglas kills a white supremacist.

 

[Jellie Opal]

I am not a woman so I apologise for intruding

No apology necessary! This is a thread dedicated to discussing films through a feminist critical lens--that's something anyone can do, regardless of sex. Some excellent film and media criticism regarding women's portrayal in them comes from Robert Jensen, a male professor and author who has been writing on this type of criticism for years. He does an excellent, excellent analysis of pornographic female presentation, but he also critiques normal films as well. I suggest looking up his blog/website and reading through a few of his shorter posts. He's accessible and hard-hitting (no DV pun intended, since that's what your post is about).

Domestic violence is very rarely portrayed realistically in film, it's usually ridiculously over-the-top evil or kind of excused. It's an issue I know a lot about due to IRL stuff so I appreciate when a movie gets it right.

I agree. I've not seen Falling Down, but I'll definitely look into it. I recently rewatched Mommie Dearest, and while I understand it's a campy film that's working from a sensational memoir, I can't help but relate to tearful and stressed out little Tina on the bathroom floor, dusted with Ajax, tiredly, doggedly sighing, "Jesus Christ," after her hysterical, fading-star mother Joan Crawford wrecked her shit in the middle of the night. So many people do not fundamentally understand that abuse, especially abuse committed by narcissistic parents, can be as performative and ridiculous as what's shown in Mommie Dearest--that a parent really can control everything about your life, can break you down entirely with the help of institutions, and can later even extort you/depend on you, only to exclude you when it matters most because of some (often perceived) slights or (very deserved) distance you put between you and them.

White Oleander,

I saw this on YouTube not too long ago and had similar feelings. I've not read the book, but to me the film seemed like a classic 90s retrospective tale of Women (and Girls) on the Edge. It was my first watch, so I definitely did not like Ingrid, and hated her for what she did to Claire. Ingrid reminds me a lot of Charlotte from The Diary of a Teenage Girl: just as juvenile and underbaked in some ways of thinking and how she responds to negative stimuli with jealousy and calculated abuse. But your reading intrigues me and I think I'll rewatch White Oleander and check the book out.

 

[Commander Suzdal]

Some films that haven't been mentioned yet, but you might enjoy watching with a feminist eye ...



Ms. .45 (1981)

A plot summary would make this sound like a rape/revenge film from the era - but this is not drive-in double-feature schlock where assaults are an excuse to show naked women. It's a nasty portrait of a society that's sexist in large ways and small, and a woman who decides that a handgun is the real equalizer.



Johnny Guitar (1954)

You know how a lot of Westerns are about frontier life being destroyed when the railroads bring in civilization? Well, Vienna (Joan Crawford) would happily sell her saloon now that the railroad's coming in - but she has problems with the townspeople, who consider her a fallen woman and way too cozy with the local outlaws. A great Western with a memorable, complex heroine.



Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
In 1900, a group of Australian schoolgirls go on a picnic ... and some of them don't come back. The film contrasts the narrow lives of well-to-do young women with the way the community around them speculates about what might have happened.


Thelma & Louise (1991)
Best friends start an unplanned interstate crime spree. The ultimate female buddy movie IMO.


It Happened One Night (1934)
She's an heiress who left her fiance at the altar. He's a newspaperman who wants the scoop on her story . But as they trek across the country dodging all the other journalists who want the story, each realizes the other is smart, witty, resourceful, and kind of a catch.

 

[General Patton]

Wyświetl załącznik 8465726
It Happened One Night (1934)
She's an heiress who left her fiance at the altar. He's a newspaperman who wants the scoop on her story . But as they trek across the country dodging all the other journalists who want the story, each realizes the other is smart, witty, resourceful, and kind of a catch.

I love this movie. It's a great watch.