women in film

Neo-Feminist Cinema: Girly Films, Chick Flicks, and Consumer Culture

mandy — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

In the past decade, America cinema has shown a change towards producing more women-centered movies, depicting independent unmarried women who seek out their own empowerment and gradually changing society’s view of single women. The women of Sex and the City, for instance, celebrate their singledom, showing it not to be the pitiable state it was once thought to be. While these women possess many feminist qualities, they also have attributes that separate them from the traditional ideals of feminism, a perspective which media studies scholar Hilary Radner labels neo-feminist in her current work, Neo-Feminist Cinema.

Radner compellingly opens her book with a discussion of how neo-feminism differs from second wave feminism. Radner traces the start of neo-feminism to Helen Gurley Brown, who wrote the infamous Sex and the Single Girl. Groundbreaking for its time, the book idealized for women a lifestyle in which they maintained their own independent identities and lives from men, encouraging them to seek out both fulfilling careers and sexual experiences. Through her focus on being fashionable, attractive, and forever youthful in appearance, the former Cosmopolitan editor showed an extreme diversion in her views from that of feminists of the same era, including groundbreaker Gloria Steinem.

In Neo-Feminist Cinema, Radner connects Gurley Brown's views to the neo-feminist views expressed in contemporary works in which feminist-seeming ideologies are undercut by a focus on extreme consumerism (Manolo Blahniks, anyone?) and male sexual attention. Radner then dissects such other modern day films as Something’s Gotta Give, Legally Blonde, Maid in Manhattan, and Pretty Woman. Each films' focus on the girlishness of the characters, regardless of their age (even at forty- and fifty-years-old the cast of Sex and the City possess girlish qualities), as well as women's supposed fixation with fashion and extreme consumerism. Radner posits that neo-feminism replaces consumerism, instead of maternalism, as the primary feminine attribute. Radner’s analysis of each film is both compelling and convincing, though her method of devoting a chapter to each film results in redundancies, as many films possess the same characteristics.

Radner's work is most compelling in her definition of neo-feminism and her historical tracing back to show the roots of the term. Radner gives needed attention to how feminism has slowly filtered into popular culture, mutating the movement into a new form, one that furthers consumerism and maintains a woman’s focus on being sexually desirable to men.

Radner seems overly critical of popular culture in her work. While the neo-feminism expressed in popular works today may be a watered down, shallower version of the feminism second wavers expressed, it nonetheless is a positive step forward for the depiction of women in the media. The depictions of these images encourage women to pursue more self-actualized societal roles and encourages both genders to be accepting of women within such roles. Television shows and films have positively depicted empowered single women for over a decade, albeit ones who may not be quite what our feminist fore-mothers idealized as the future for modern women.

In the end, Radner’s work is both compelling and thought provoking, and she successfully pinpoints the media’s version of contemporary society’s ideal woman. Women who can lead successful and challenging lives absent of husbands and children are positive images to influence women, even if they encourage women to also spend undue amounts of time on their appearance.

Written by: Adrienne Urbanski, January 14th 2011

Modus Operandi

brittany — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Directed by Frankie Latina

Sasha Grey/Reign Supreme Entertainment/Special Entertainment

My younger sisters and I used to tune into Lifetime to laugh at the formulaic (read: bad) movies that were regularly broadcast on that network. While I was watching Modus Operandi, a “comical homage to low budget exploitation-style films of the 1970’s,” I kept wishing my sisters were there with me. We would have been rolling in the aisles.

I found the plot to be difficult to follow so I going to quote directly from the synopsis that I received at the screening:

“Two briefcases with mysterious contents are stolen from Presidential candidate Squire Parks (Michael Sottile)... [W]arring…subterranean organizations will stop at nothing to gain possession of the sensitive material… The CIA calls on Black Ops agent Stanley Cashay (Randy Russell) who has been in a semi-comatose twilight since the murder of his wife. Cashay is offered the identity of his wife’s killer in exchange for locating and returning the cases.”

“Agent Cashay uses the dangerous weapons at his command…to unleash a bizarre assortment of operatives… [including] Casey Thunderbird (Barry Poltermann) and exotic Tokyo-based special agent Black Licorice (Nikki Johnson)…When Cashay is finally in possession of the [briefcases], the contents shock even him...”

Modus Operandi has the look of a home movie shot by a precocious eleven-year-old. The film, which was shot in Milwaukee on Super 8, features bad special effects, sparse and stilted dialogue, and acting that suggests that many of the players were reading off cue cards. And, while the movie was supposed to be funny, I still found myself wondering if at least some of the sequences were unintentionally funny.

This would have been fine if a precocious eleven-year-old had written and directed the movie. Unfortunately, this movie was put together by an adult who had four years to refine his product.

This film offended many of my feminist sensibilities as well. The filmmaker shamelessly objectifies the female players, featuring enough T& A to fill an entire year’s worth of Hustler pictorials. Many of these half-naked women were also carrying weapons and committing acts of violence. And the contents of the case indicate that Squire enjoys making snuff films. However, this intertwining of sex and violence didn’t make me squirm nearly as much as the blatant fetishization of lesbians and women of color.

However, with its so-bad-it’s-good charm, Modus Operandi is surprisingly engrossing. The score, which alternated between mournful violins and 70’s style funk, wasn’t half bad, either. I also (perhaps hypocritically) appreciate the fact that none of the “actresses” were surgically enhanced super-skinny models. Every single one of the women had realistic bodies; the fact that none of the (many) black women featured were light-skinned Halle Berry lookalikes indicates a healthy disrespect for the Eurocentric beauty standard on Latina’s part.

Modus Operandi could very well become the twenty-first century’s answer to Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space and Latina does fulfill his goal to “create an intense and unique cinematic experience that lingers with the movie-goer long after he or she has left the theater.” However, I would recommend that anyone interested in this film wait until it hits a festival close to home or becomes available on DVD.

Written by: Ebony Edwards-Ellis, September 10th 2010

Video Slut: How I Shoved Madonna Off an Olympic High Dive, Got Prince into a Pair of Tiny Purple Woolen Underpants, Ran Away ...

admin — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Sharon Oreck

Faber & Faber

Sharon Oreck has the career that any child of the ‘80s would envy. She has produced over 600 music videos, many of which defined the monolithic “MTV generation.” She has been nominated for Oscars, Grammys, Women in Film awards, and of course, MTV Music Awards (twenty total!). From 1984 to 2000, Oreck’s work was a model for the visual repertoire that shaped the collective imagination of teens around the globe. Her role in popular culture is so far-reaching that she has been included in a film alongside such figures as Hillary Rodham Clinton (14 Women).

The majority of Oreck’s memoir relates events that occurred while shooting Sheila E.’s "The Glamorous Life," Aha’s "Take on Me," Madonna’s "Like a Prayer," and my personal favorite, Chris Isaak’s "Wicked Game." Upon viewing the videos, Oreck’s talent is immediately obvious. But what was she thinking when she was shooting? Apparently, she was thinking about a lot.

Reproductive rights, feminism, beauty—these are just a few of the topics that Oreck contemplates in Video Slut. Her most empowering moments as a writer occur during the introspective climax, which pairs her decision as a pregnant teen to keep her baby with the demise of her first production company, NO Pictures.

Oreck’s book is written in a tips-from-your-cool-older-sister style. Oreck spares no details and even offers pointers for making it in the scantily clad rock video world—most importantly, don’t make fun of executives until after they’ve left the room. More notably, this narrative updates the classic format for celebrity memoirs by exchanging the contexts of alternating chapters between a video career and an early pregnancy at sixteen. Video Slut puts the spotlight on the largely undocumented moments during video’s heyday—overqualified assistants, moonlighting pot dealers, egotistical bigwigs, and pop stars are the mediums through which Oreck relates her professional and personal milestones.

This is one of the most likable new books that I have read, and I look forward to more of Oreck’s outstanding work; her experiences combine elements of after-hours stand-up comedy, frank confessionals, and visionary strategies for survival when the odds don’t look so good. After all, that’s what petty cash is for, right?

Written by: Maria Guzman, August 24th 2010

Timer

admin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Directed by Jac Schaeffer

Capewatch Pictures

I love a romantic comedy. Throw in some magic realism–even better. Jac Schaeffer's Timer ticks both of those boxes, but, unfortunately for a film that explores people’s fears about missed opportunities, this film missed a few opportunities itself, and lost me as a fan in the process. (It bills itself as sci-fi but I say magic realism–there is new technology, but it’s never fully explained. I call that magic. More on this later, though.)

The concept is great: a company has created a wrist implant that counts down to the moment you will meet your soul mate–but only if that person has also bought an implant from the company. Obviously, this service is incredibly popular, leading to new phenomena in the dating world: some desperate types insisting every new person they date gets a timer implanted to make sure they’re "the one," others only dating those with timers in the first place, last-hurrah flings as the timer counts down its final days, and even technophobic hold-outs who don’t trust this newfangled stuff (with parallels to social networking). The consequences of having the timers could have been explored further though. Things were briefly touched upon-class issues, young love, bigger questions about fate and chance. The ideas all had loads of potential, but as I watched, I kept feeling like Schaeffer tried to go too far down each road, without taking the opportunity to wrap up every angle.

Because of all of the above, including my desire for more closure, I really wanted to like this film, and came very close to liking it. A few other things rankled, though. This may seem petty, but it struck a nerve with me: One of the opening shots of the film was of the logo of the company that created the timers–the silhouettes of a man and a woman, yet we briefly see later in the film that the company caters to couples of all sexualities. I don’t generally care what sexualities the main characters of a romantic comedy are, but it wouldn’t have taken much more effort to come up with a logo that was slightly less heteronormative. I mean, surely it would have been better advertising for the company itself within the confines of the film. Which brings me back to the world of the film. It was quite shallow–poke at it too hard and it was clear that there were a lot of unanswered questions: How did the technology work? How did the implants work? Why hadn’t anyone tried to hack the system? What if people’s bodies rejected the devices? Were they only available to wealthy westerners? Again, what made for a less than satisfying film could yet pave the way for a great series.

When it comes to the Bechdel Test, this film almost succeeds, but focuses just too hard on the guy-chasing and glosses over the other aspects of the relationship between the two main characters. Timer’s website purports to put across the message that you can escape your fate, but the message I got was these women needed to define themselves through their romantic relationships.

Great concept, but ultimately I was dissatisfied.

Written by: Chella Quint, August 18th 2010

Leading Ladies

admin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 07:58:00 +0000

Directed by Erika Randall Beahm, Daniel Beahm

It may seem quite an impossibility, but the film Leading Ladies is, simply put, a quietly revolutionary dance musical. While most dance musicals (think Dirty Dancing, Save the Last Dance) center on the boy-meets-girl heterosexual love match, Leading Ladies is a beautifully wrought girl-meets-girl story. It is simultaneously a dance musical, coming-of-age story, and coming-out narrative. The power of the film comes from its ability to maintain the generic conventions of the story while completely rejecting the hetero-normativity that is typically the narrative thrust of the genre. What’s perhaps even more amazing is that Leading Ladies succeeds at thwarting convention within a conventional structure while simultaneously being a whole lot of damn fun. Lesser films would sink under such weight.

Helmed by first-time directors Erika Randall Beahm and Daniel Beahm, this joyous film tells the story of the Campari women. The matriarch of the family is ballroom-dancing stage mom Sheri, played by Latin and Ballroom Champion Melanie LaPatin. Sheri has two daughters: like-minded drama queen and dancing champion Tasi (Shannon Lea Smith), and Toni (Laurel Vail), Tasi’s practice partner and the wallflower of the family. The film centers on Toni’s relationships, particularly with the emotionally volatile Tasi, and an unexpected romantic attachment to Mona (Nicole Dionne), a bubbly and outgoing woman Toni meets at a dance club. While LaPatin’s acting is a bit stiff, Smith’s neurotic and self-obsessed Tasi is played to high-pitched perfection. Vail might be the real star of this film, however, as she says more with her eyes than many actors can express with a word. She artfully plays the Ugly Duckling, the quiet witness to familial squabbles and the glue that keeps the Camparis together.

Leading Ladies has an ebb-and-flow, alternating between slow and quietly stirring scenes and vibrant, fast-paced dance numbers (most notably a hysterical and boisterous number set in a grocery store). The heart of this film beats loudly and quickly, and it leaves the viewer invigorated and deeply moved. To learn more about her hopes for the film, its generative process, and the ideological concerns that lead to its creation, I recently spoke with co-director Erika Randall Beahm.

Beahm co-wrote the film with Jennifer Bechtel, a friend and LGBT youth advocate in Champaign, Illinois, and Bechtel was struggling to find mainstream films that spoke to the young gay community. As Bechtel and Beahm perceived it, most gay and lesbian cinema tends towards violence or explicitness, while mainstream cinema features gay characters as “the sidekick.” Beahm and Bechtel thus sought to create a “family-centered gay and lesbian film for the mainstream market.” Their hope is that Leading Ladies provides gay youth with a positive portrayal of gay romantic love and thus “open a dialogue within themselves” and perhaps between gay youth and their families.

The film eschews aggressive and explicit representations of gay love for a romantic and “joyful falling in love which... straight kids get to experience in movies all the time.” Indeed, Leading Ladies treats its same-sex couple as any movie musicals’ heterosexual pairing: they meet, they dance, they fall in love. The romance is beautifully articulated through an artful juxtaposition of two dance sequences. Toni and Mona’s meeting is shot like a typical dance movie sequence—bright lights, loud music, and overhead shots looking down on the dancers. This film could be Dirty Dancing, if it weren’t for the same-sex couples dancing on stage and in the audience. Indeed, this is the goal of the film: to illustrate that dance (and by extension, romance and love) is the same for same-sex couples as it is for heterosexual partners. Toni leads Mona through a raucous, enthusiastic dance, and as convention dictates, the two find love while dancing. In a beautiful inversion of this sequence, we next find Toni in Mona’s lush apartment, where the more romantically experienced Mona takes the lead in the dance of romance. The lovers’ embrace is gorgeously shot in sensual blush tones and shadow.

For choreographer and dancer Beahm and youth musical programmer Bechtel, dance served as an obvious choice of backdrop for the love story. Beahm choreographed the film’s dances with Melanie LaPatin and Benji Schwimmer, the former So You Think You Can Dance! winner who also plays Toni’s best friend in the film. For Beahm, dance has an inherently transformative power: “There’s this kind of kinesthesia with dance that gets people to literally be moved on a physical level, and I believe also on an emotional and intellectual level.” The love scene between Mona and Toni, for example, is highly choreographed to match the non-diegetic music; Beahm suggests that this emphasis on “energy shifts… and the musicality” of the scene helps the spectator “lose sight of this being a gendered duet, and it just becomes two people moving together, falling in love.”

By emphasizing the movement and musicality of the scene, then, Beahm hopes to ease the fear of spectators who are uncomfortable with same-sex coupling and perhaps open a space for internal dialogue within the spectator: “For people who might have a hard time seeing two women... make out, it becomes this kind of transference of two bodies going through these really emotional and tender but also choreographed spaces, and so gender becomes less important.” By shifting the spectator’s focus from gender distinction to the movement of the body the film illustrates how little gender matters and how love—like dance—is a universal language. Thus the film utilizes dance to open up a space for shifting “people out of the fear they may feel if they’re watching from an outside perspective.”

Though the idea of dance as a catalyst to ideological and personal transformation may seem unusual, Beahm is quick to point out that dance has often added a “queer element” to the movie musical. In West Side Story, for example, the spectator sees groups of men “snapping and skipping” and yet the dance isn’t “sexualized, it’s charged and it’s activated.” Dancing is particularly subversive in moments of unison dancing, she suggests, when members of both sexes dance the same movements, suggesting a unity of the sexes and the democratization of the body. Leading Ladies takes this democratization one step further, rejecting the hetero-normative ballroom dance structure of male lead and female follow and replacing it with same-sex couplings. In doing so, Beahm simultaneously feeds off of the democratizing nature of dance while rejecting the rules of a dance form that reinforces gendered performance.

It is the inherent queerness in dance that Beahm finds so appealing and in tune with her views on feminism. For her, dance and feminism are “compatible” because they are both “hard to pin down” terms; their “slipperiness” as terms allows them to create spaces for dialogue and questioning. She likes her feminism to work “from the inside out,” enjoying the notion of becoming part of a system, and breaking it down from within. This is why her personal mantra is the cheeky suggestion to “wear pearls to the country club and then talk dirty.” Ultimately, Leading Ladies represents a filmic expression of this mantra—by placing non-conventional characters within a conventional generic structure, the film wears its pearls but then lets out a glorious, enthusiastic expletive as it sits down to dinner. Swearing has never been so much fun.

Written by: Joanna Chlebus, July 15th 2010

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:27:00 +0000

Directed by Rebecca Miller

Elevation Filmworks

It's always a relief when the author of a novel decides to take its film adaptation into her own hands, especially if the author also happens to be a fairly seasoned writer-director for the screen. In The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Rebecca Miller recreates her original character study in her own image, bringing the story of a misguided youth-turned-Stepford Wife to brilliant, riveting life.

The film starts off quietly, with the kind of domestic dinner party scene we've come to expect from tales of unfulfilled suburban housewives such as these, but the event actually turns out to be in honor of Pippa's fiftieth birthday. I must admit it took me more than a few minutes to accept Robin Wright Penn (Forrest Gump, Nine Lives) as a fifty-year-old woman; even with the aging makeup, the forty-three-year-old actress' youthful glow still manages to emanate. However, there is a method to this casting choice; it quickly becomes apparent that Pippa's physical appeal is an integral part of her character, a beguiling mask that has always brought her just as much trouble as it has helped her to avoid.

Pippa is a doting wife to her much older husband (Alan Arkin) and a loving mother to her son and daughter, even in the face of their disapproval, but there is little life or substance to her. Penn's interpretation of the character is a remarkable transformation, as she uses a much higher vocal register and carries herself with almost no conviction or purpose. Her Pippa—at least for the first part of the film—is a bit of a ghost, a stark contrast to the independent, inaccessible roles the actress has often portrayed in the past. When Pippa makes the terrifying discovery that she is having a nervous breakdown, the character is inspired to reexamine all the traumas that have led her to her quiet suburban life, and she—and Penn—take an acute turn right before our eyes. Pippa gives up her mask, revealing a resilient woman who is both piteous and funny as she drives herself mad.

If you haven't read the book (which I haven't), the film is delightfully unpredictable. I was pleasantly surprised to be transported to Pippa's unorthodox childhood, to spend so much time on her carousel of questionable caretakers, from her speed addict mother (the wonderful Maria Bello) to her über-cool, über-liberal Aunt Kat (Julianne Moore). As a Gossip Girl skeptic, I gave a huge sigh when Blake Lively first appeared as teenage Pippa, but she turned out to be surprisingly effective, standing her ground in the formidable shadow of Penn. A scene between Lively and Bello in which Pippa takes her mother's drugs as an experiment in empathy is absolutely heart wrenching.

Winona Ryder is also a surprising highlight as Pippa's extremely neurotic, needy, and often hysterical friend. She provides a hilarious counterpoint to Penn, sweating the small stuff very publicly while Pippa suffers a lifetime of disaster in complete silence.

To reveal more about Pippa's past (and future) would detract from the joy of watching it unfold on screen—and it is an utter joy, even as upsetting as the protagonist's circumstances sometimes are. Though I have yet to read Miller's book, I would imagine that Pippa's tale of rediscovery could not have found a better interpretation.

Written by: Caitlin Graham, January 13th 2010

Shooting Women

admin — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:37:00 +0000

Directed by Alexis Krasilovsky

Women Make Movies

Award-winning Director of Photography Joan Hutton says that when she was starting out in the film industry she received absolutely no help from anyone. Even after she’d built up a substantial résumé of work experience and won prestigious awards she continued to experience discrimination. A directing position that she’d interviewed for was once given to a lesser-experienced young male who’d only been out of film school for three years. But her theory on why she’d been passed over is not tinged with one ounce of bitterness: “You know, sometimes guys are happier working with guys.”

In-your-face hostility and physical harassment are other pitfalls that an earlier generation of female directors had to endure while carving out a path for future generations of women. American cinematographer Stanley Cortez once blocked the entrance of the prestigious American Society of Cinematographers building when a female cinematographer tried to enter. Angrily, he warned: “You don’t belong here!”

Kirsten Glover, who started out as a camera assistant on the Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary Pumping Iron recalls all of the “not funny” sexual harassment she tolerated on the set. She says that sexual harassment was not a major issue at that time even though the continual harassment greatly upset her and interfered with her work.

For women of color in the film industry there was always the dual gender/racial bias to deal with. Yet Black women filmmaking veterans such as Jessie Maple Patton never allowed gender or racial bias to stop them. They simply worked harder. Patton said that both the television stations and the union offered up plenty of excuses to avoid hiring her and when she was hired she knew: “They were gonna test me.”

For many of the women featured in the documentary Shooting Women, opportunities for career advancement was offered by enlightened male producers or pioneering organizations, such as Behind the Lens. The film business is a personal one, and securing important contacts through networking and organizational affiliation can open doors that had previously been closed. It’s interesting to note that many of the women film directors featured in this documentary are married to very emotionally supportive men. It leaves one wondering what may have happened to the women who had not received spousal support while pursuing film careers.

If I were raising a daughter, I’d want her to be as fearless and passionate about her career choice as are the women in this documentary.

Written by: Rachelle Nones, July 23rd 2009

Frankly, My Dear: "Gone with the Wind" Revisited

admin — Tue, 26 May 2009 17:05:00 +0000

By Molly Haskell

Yale University Press

When I was about ten years old, my mother sat me down one Saturday afternoon and said “Sara, today we’re going to watch Gone with the Wind. You just need to see it.” That was over a decade ago, and I’ll never forget that cinematic experience, even if it did just involve sitting on the couch in front of a thirty-two-inch television and eating cherry turnovers with my mom.

I’ve always loved movies, but seeing Scarlet O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) taunt and toy with the people around her and demand what she wants had a profound effect upon my views of womanhood in both cinema and the rest of the world. Gone with the Wind remains, to this day, one of the few films I feel the need to re-visit on a yearly basis. And, despite her flaws, I still look up to Scarlet O’Hara with her green velvet curtain dress and “fiddle-di-dee” mentality.

If you know anything about classic Hollywood and the studio system, you’ve probably heard of the monumentally challenging efforts it took to bring Gone with the Wind to the screen in 1939. Its entire production, with the two year search to find the right Scarlet O’Hara, fifteen different screenwriters, and five different directors, is flat-out legendary. The film never should have worked on any level and yet, somehow, it did and still does for this generation. If adjusted for inflation, Gone with the Wind is the highest grossing film of all time, and it continues to be played regularly on television, DVD, theatrical revival circuits, and in the near future, Blu-ray.

In her latest book, Frankly, My Dear: "Gone with the Wind" Revisited, feminist film theorist Molly Haskell succinctly analyzes the history and hubbub of the landmark production as both a movie and a novel. She traces the film’s success, in terms of both box office gross, and at times, cinematic art, back to its three pillar figures: author Margaret Mitchell, producer David O. Selznick, and actress Vivien Leigh. Haskell sorts through their lives and their methods as if she were looking at pictures in a personal scrapbook and re-living the memories. Their towering personalities were the primary contributions to this melting pot of a film that made it work. As a classic film geek and fan of woman’s pictures, my favorite parts of the book dealt with the placement of Scarlet O’Hara as a feminist icon and heroine. Is she or isn’t she? Everyone feels differently.

A significant number of film theory/history books feel mundane because of their intense dedication to evoking every possible fact and foible. Frankly, My Dear, while still intensely dedicated, never feels monotonous or burdensome. Haskell, as a real Southern belle, feels at home in dissecting the step-by-step moments of Gone with the Wind and understanding the flaws and virtues instilled in its pages and celluloid as both a true-blue woman’s picture and racially confused melodrama. She’s as passionate about Gone with the Wind as Scarlet O’Hara is about her beloved Tara. And like Ms. O, Haskell digs deep into what she loves and won’t let go.

Whether you like the film and book or not, I think anyone who’s interested in history or pop culture will find Frankly, My Dear: "Gone with the Wind" Revisited remarkable because of Haskell’s passionate account and for the sheer enjoyment of learning about something bigger than life actually being made for mass consumption. Like Gone with the Wind, I’ll definitely return to Frankly, My Dear on a regular basis and happily place it on my bookshelf right next to my other favorite film books. And if you don’t like that, I don’t give a damn!

Written by: Sara Freeman, May 26th 2009

A Wink and a Smile

admin — Sun, 17 May 2009 23:02:00 +0000

By Deirdre Timmons

First Run Features

Deirdre Timmons' documentary A Wink and a Smile is a love letter to Seattle's thriving burlesque scene. Our tour guide is Miss Indigo Blue, veteran performer and headmistress of the Academy of Burlesque, which offers classes including a six-week Burlesque 101 course culminating in a public performance. The film focuses partly on the ten women who took the Fall 2007 course. We learn about their diverse backgrounds and reasons for being attracted to the art of burlesque, and follow them as they develop their routines for the performance.

As the women learn to dance with feather boas between their legs and apply pasties, the film also takes us beyond Burlesque 101—a smart decision, as it allows us to better understand what the students are working toward and what attracted them to burlesque in the first place. Miss Indigo Blue discusses the history and makeup of the burlesque scene in Seattle, and we're treated to full performances by a diverse cross-section of the city's most daring and talented burlesque artists. They show that burlesque can mean any number of things and involve complex props, body paint, professional-level dancing, humor, men, drag, and social and cultural commentary of all kinds. In addition to being entertaining and titillating, a routine by a great performer can truly be an artistic achievement.

With the proliferation of reality shows on TV offering drastic makeovers and consistently delivering against-all-odds radical transformation narratives, it's easy to assume that A Wink and a Smile will do the same in regards to the Burlesque 101 students. However, Timmons doesn't exploit her subjects and set us up to be shocked or entertained by the fact that a woman of any particular age/size/type would or could do burlesque. In the end, the biggest surprise is that after learning more about burlesque and its endless possibilities, it's not a surprise to see any of these women morph into burlesque performers. A Wink and a Smile is a unique and joyous celebration of the human body, mind, and spirit—complete with tassels.

Written by: Kiri Oliver, May 17th 2009

La Corona

admin — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:52:00 +0000

Directed by Amanda Micheliand Isabel Vega

Cinema Guild

La Corona, which translates to "the crown," is a short documentary centering around a beauty pageant which takes place every year in the largest female prison in Colombia. One of the judges jokes early on that Colombia has a pageant for everything, except cocaine. The prison warden, when interviewed, says that she doesn't like the pageant very much, but it is the only time of the year that there is some peace and quiet around the prison because all of the girls look forward to it so much and want to participate.

Girls are nominated from each of the four cell blocks to represent their block in the beauty pageant. The first contestant we are introduced to is Maira Alejandro, a girl about five foot four inches in stature who was put in jail for murder. She explains in an interview that she has killed many times, which is unbelievable taking into account her size. The second contestant, Viviane Busto, was convicted of guerrilla activity. She laments her time in prison, because she has a son who she would like to eventually reunite with and teach him everything she knows. Angela Valoyes, convicted of robbery and assault, is a lesbian whose eyes sparkle as she describes passages from the Bible "that God told us to love, but he did not tell us who specifically to love." The newest convict, Angie Jimenez, has only been in jail for eighteen days. She hasn't gotten used to life in jail, especially since she also has a son on the outside.

Each of the girls chosen to compete must be prepared at all times. Meaning, they must be wearing high heels and full makeup. They also have to attend dancing and runway walking classes, like a real beauty pageant. In participating in the pageant, they become minor celebrities among the inmates. Hand-washed laundry hangs from every steel bar that covers the windows in the jail, but for the competition, the women are given designer dresses.

It seems absurd that women would have to conform to gender standards in something like a beauty pageant while they are in prison, and toward the end of the documentary you wonder who the pageant is really for: the women inside, or the great hordes of reporters who cover the pageant?

The competition only takes up about ten minutes of the documentary. The girls dance and sing with traditional Colombian songs, and there is even a swimsuit competition. When the winner is finally announced (I won't ruin it for you), she gets a full spread in the newspaper. By the end of the film, girls in other blocks complain that the competition was rigged or blame racism for why their contestant didn't win. Things go back to normal for the most part, until one of the prisoners is released. The ending is abrupt and leans hard on the idea that the pageant, while entertaining, doesn't teach the girls how to change and adapt for the better. But, as Vivianne Busto tearfully explains, "It gives us something to look forward to."

Written by: Chrissie Thornburg, March 25th 2009