Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: The Little Mermaid (1989)

#inspirationalmovies

It has been some time since we claimed that a classical piece (almost) nobody viewed as feminist masterpiece.... actually was one! (Remember the explosion in both your and our brain caused by the idea that Dirty Dancing (1987) was a feminist gem?)

So here comes another one in the you-would-have-never-called-it-feminist-until-now series*. The Little Mermaid (1989). Yes, the Disney sea-princess garbage where a young girl gives up her family, friends and talents in order to pursue a man she has seen once. Meh... or at least we thought so.

Well, read this paper written by Stephanie Stott, a student in Kim Magowan’s gothic lit class at Mills College called  The Little Mermaid: Our Favorite Gothic Villain and you just might want to give Ariel another try. Or at least know how to reframe the story in order to minimize the damage if young girls around you suddenly want to emulate the little mermaid.

* That's of course not actually true as somebody has analyzed these movies as such and hence we are reporting. But the great majority...

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Doubt (2008)

#inspirationalmovies

To close the little conversation on catholicism and women we've been having, here's a look from the other side. Doubt (John Patrick Shanley, 2008) is a forceful piece on the soft power of women in patriarchal structures and of the power of a personality, of someone convinced that she knows the truth and has to do anything possible to right the wrongdoing.

It is not a coincidence that Meryl Streep is in the center of this movie, offering a story of a school principal trying to make sure that her institution is living according to highest morals. The extraordinary force of the film comes exactly from the clash between her convictions of what's right and wrong and her willingness to ruthlessly purge the ranks of her organization (the catholic church) in case of doubt about someone's adequacy to form part of it.

It's beautifully filmed, Meryl is sublime, and her torment (not for nothing the movie is named Doubt) offers a tale familiar for most doing any activism: you have to deal with unclarity,  doubt, tensions between separating your own bias from the bigger picture.

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Philomena (2013)

#inspirationalmovies

Continuing with my special mini-cycle dedicated to Catholicism and women, today's movie is basically a (polished up) sequel of The Magdalene Sisters. 

Philomena (2013, Stephen Frears) is based on a true story that nevertheless feels somewhat unbelievable. Well, there's reality for you. If after The Magdalene Sisters you asked yourself about the possible futures of the girls who got away from the religious institutions controlling them, here you have the story of Philomena Lee.

There's difference and nuance, though. In the eyes of the religious establishment Philomena had comitted a sin. She had sex before marriage (oh!) with someone she (apparently) barely knew (gasp!) and she liked it! Mind you, this is a very important difference between the discourse that The Magdelene Sisters present and Philomena's story. As Rose in last week's movie (in contrast of other women in that film), Philomena did actually transgress the social norms and was very unlucky to become pregnant as a consequence. And her child was taken away from her.

This is the double sword of the story. On one hand, there's actual pleasure involved. She enjoyed being with that boy. On the other hand, this very fact makes her even more vulnerable to all the injustice done to her afterwards. If your religion (and people in position to punish you) maintain that you have to repent and suffer for your sins, and you know very well that you have transgressed, the likelihood of rebellion seems to be lower.

Yet this is only a part of the story. The second drama revels when Philomena - already older and after a marriage and other children - gets help of a journalist in trying to find her son. Apart from a pretty unbelievable turn of events... Ah, go, see it! ... you get the amazing dame Judi Dench playing someone torn apart by her trauma of loss of a child and faith that's represented by the same people who treated her so badly.

An additional feature that makes the movie a treat is the clash of worlds that her interactions with the world class journalist embarked upon a human interest story lead to. These ar class difference and not gender driven, and challenge the airbrushed image of drama-worthy and interesting people. Good for you, Philomena!

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: The Magdalene Sisters (2002)

#inspirationalmovies

There is no particular reason why I'm offering a mini-cycle on women and catholicism. That's how they've constellated in my to-publish list. No excuses.

The Magdalene Sisters (2002, Peter Mullan) unearths the horrifying tale of Irish Magdalene laundries well into XX century. This is one of those religion-tries-to-deal-with-human-sexuality tales that makes your hair stand up.

Want a recipe for complete disaster of human wellbeing? Organize a society where a group devoted to the belief that human sexuality is impure and sinful (and legitimized only by procreation inside the wedlock) has a lot of power. Then - making a reference to an old book of tribal myths from 2000 years ago - decide that only one half of each heterosexual couple is to bear the burden of stigma attached to "improper" sexual behaviour: the woman. Sum to that a parallel belief that sins can be paid of by hard work and being miserable. And then a sinister idea that there actually might be a profit to be made of the hard work of the sinners confined to closed spaces and completely controlled by (people pretending to be) religious fanatics.

That's the ugly story of the Magdalene laundries in a nutshell: "fallen" women disowned by their families and exploited by catholic orders... Watch the movie, do an advanced google search, read some books and/or articles on this very disgraceful page of catholic church! At least you'll know the dark side of the all-the-charity-work-the-religion-has-been-doing-for-women discourse.

The impact that the trauma had on the lives of those that managed to survive that living hell? I'll tell you next week which movie to watch for that bit of information... But you can start by reading this.

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Temple Grandin (2010)

#inspirationalmovies

Before I go talking about this movie, it's heroine and what makes it inspiration, I have a confession to make. She is not my hero. For me, Temple Grandin is an example of great persistence, success and overcoming. A brilliant scientist that has dedicated all her life to the wrong cause, promoting better slaughter of farm animals instead of really caring for their wellbeing.  

Nevertheless, her story is amazing and that's why this story falls under the inspirational tag. Grandin's life is an example of how with love, understanding and stubborn persistence when everything else fails pretty much everyone has great potential to be developed.

Temple Grandin (2010, Mick Jackson) is based on Grandin's memoirs tracing her path from being a child that the doctors did not expect anything from to becoming an accomplished scientist and autism activist working to ease the experiences of people suffering from autism. So there are several take-away lessons for this blog in particular: (1) there are valuable life lessons hidden even in lives of the people whose accomplishments you don't like, accept it and learn from them, (2) parenting and teaching does wonders, therefore pay attention to how world can be improved by people who live and work with children; those are crucial people that can destroy or elevate the spirits, (3) you can achieve a lot - even if the odds are against you - if you show up and insist on doing, (4) even if you do not fit in any of the stereotypes ascribed to you (Temple is really out there in all her un-social, un-feminine, un-easy rawness), you can succeed and do what you are passionate about.

Here you can see Grandin in action giving a TED talk on the value of diversity of thinking:

 

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Female directors that did not get their Oscars

This selection is not about the content, but about the authors. While our inspirational movie list is growing longer and longer, there are only few among them who have been directed or written by women (or transpersons for that matter). Yes, not all women-directed movies are good or feminist. Yes, there are feministing movies made by men. Yes, directorship is not the only position from which women can influence the movies. You have screenwriters, writers whose work is adapted to movies, women whose lives are adapted to movies, but...

This article came out after the 2014 Oscars nominations were announced, offering a list of women who - while movies they had directed were nominated to Best Picture - were not nominated for the Best Director award.
The chonological order for those cases is the following: 

1986 - Children of a Lesser God by Randa Haines
1991 - The Prince of Tides by Barbra Streisand
2007 -  Little Miss Sunshine by Valerie Faris (co-director with Jonathan Dayton)
2008 - Slumdog Millionaire for which the award was given to Danny Boyle but not to his co-director in India Loveleen Tandan
2009 - An Education by Lone Scherfig
2010 - The Kids are All Right by Lisa Cholodenko
2010 - Winter's Bone by Debra Granik
2013 - Zero Dark Thirty by Kathryn Bigelow
2014 - Selma by Ava DuVernay

Only four women have actually earned nominations for Best Director in the history of the ceremony:

1976 - Lina Wertmüller for Seven Beauties
1993 - Jane Campion for The Piano
2003 - Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation
2009 - Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker

Bigelow is the only woman to win the award. They have been giving these things out since 1929.

Lesson learnt? Keep your eyes peeled for movies directed by women, because the big award machines won't give that to you. Here are few additional suggestions from the movies that we have covered. And here's a longer list on imdb.com to keep you entertained.

+ An elegant rant on the particular uglyness of the 2014 nominations.

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Designing Woman (1957)

Guess, when did Hollywood decided that it was OK for a woman to have a life beyond romantic aspirations! Well, around 1957.

Designing Women (1957, Vincente Minnelli), while following much of the style of other misunderstanding-based romantic comedies (see Bringing Up Baby (1938)), introduces some elements that make it much more advanced than you would expect.

The heroine (the most amazing Lauren Bacall, mind you) is a very successful fashion designer. So, contrary to the female employment patterns in US at that time (work until marriage, then full-time caretaker), she has no intentions of quitting even if stumbling upon a person she'd like to marry.

While vacationing, she enjoys the party and actually does find somebody she likes. She proceeds to take time off from work to enjoy the romance.

She eats! A lot! Claiming that she eats ridiculous amounts when in love, Marilla proceeds to devour stuff. Implication? Women - even the very beautiful and successful - are humans. They require calory intake. Good news fro women everywhere, taking account how complex the dominant culture makes our relationship with food.

When starting to build an everyday life together, turns out that she earns more than her partner. He suffers about it a bit, then gets over and life goes on. The tension does not go back to that. Ha! Even more, they have very different lifestyles and social circles. And that is deemed to be OK. They can live with it.

It's not all feminist dream (and, obviously, a very privileged, high class scenario), as the plot spinner is jealousy of Marilla fuelled by the nondisclosure of information by Mike in the name of protecting Marilla. But the amazing part (for 1957!) is that once overcome the misunderstandings, there's no insinuation that Marilla should quit her job, change her friends or somehow differently adjust to her partner. Nice, eh?