Strong, weak, we're not even that picky.

There are some interesting posts on women in film that have been going around the blogosphere lately. I find this whole sphere of theory interesting, but instead of writing anything of my own, I'm going to be lazy and just give you some links.

I like this article, "Why Strong Female Characters are Bad for Women."

John August has a great post on the Bechdel Test:



In my mind, the Bechdel Test is not only interesting in of itself, but also in looking at it in reverse. How rarely do you find a film with two named female characters who talk to each other about something other than men? On the OTHER hand, how often do you find a film with two named male characters who talk to each other about something other than women? In runs the two extremes. On the women's side, movies barely manage to meet these requirements, whereas nearly EVERY movie meets the requirements if they're applied to male characters.

You know what really starts to bend my mind? When I start comparing these requirements and theories to my own screenplays. Yikes. Even as a female screenwriting, sometimes I suck at getting a woman's voice out there. Just yesterday I was doodling out ideas for a children's story, and I instinctively made the main character male. Why is my go-to character male?

I could start listing reasons why, and they WOULD be interesting and thought-provoking. But then you'll be listening to a liberated woman from the 70s, and you didn't come here to see that.

And the Oscar goes to...

Saturday may have been the first day in my 90 days of writing that I didn't do *anything.* Usually, no matter how busy or tired I am, I make sure I do something, even if it's just banging out one sentence. However, I don't feel guilty about missing Day 21. We had wind, rain, floods, near hurricane conditions, and I was driving most of the day. I've never seen such severe flooding. FOUR trees fell on my neighbor's property. Even though the rains have stopped, we're still feeling it. Many people don't have power. We're not allowed to drink our water. Many schools were canceled because of the water problem. I'm so grateful to all the technicians and emergency workers who've been taking care of us all weekend. And there's supposed to be sunshine tomorrow.

Liza asked my thoughts on Kathryn Bigelow winning Best Director this year. I'm thrilled a woman finally won Best Director. Bigelow is only the fourth woman to even be nominated for the award. Now I have more of an incentive to watch The Hurt Locker.

However, I said I'd look for someone who could state my opinion better than myself, and Sarah Fain did a pretty good job. Fantastic that a woman won the Best Director award, but honestly, I don't think it's going to break any great ground for female directors everywhere. Hollywood is a wonderful boys' club. Nora Ephron once said that when she was writing back in the 80s, she would get lists of potential directors, and not one woman would be listed. AFI's 1998 list of the 100 best movies of the century had no movies directed by women. Of the top 250 domestic grossing films in 2007, only 6% were directed by women. The independent route is slightly better for women - and wait, that's how Kathryn Bigelow went with the Hurt Locker.

There's a lot more to be said about women's voices in film, especially when it comes to "women's pictures" and how Hollywood's interpretation of the market diminishes the influence of the female demographic. There's a whole lot of psychology that comes into play in networking, relationships between women and men in the Industry, and relationships between women and women. I wrote a paper on this once, can you tell? If you'd like to read it, just leave a comment with your email or email me.

Is that situation for women improving in Hollywood? I believe it is - but only because some women have fought like hell for their positions and for the rest of us. Bigelow's Oscar is not an event that shatters the glass ceiling. It is the result of all her hard work and the work of the women before her. And from here we keep working.

Sources --
Fournier, Gina. Thelma & Louise and Women in Hollywood.
Lauzen, Ph.D., Martha M. “The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-Scenes Employment of Women on the Top 250 Films of 2007.”
Traister, Rebecca. “Chicks Behind Flicks.”
Walker, Susan. “Women on Top of the Film World.”

Women in Film: Bridget Jones

I've been puttering through "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi for a while now. It's a really interesting memoir on life in Iran and I'd recommend it to anyone, even though I'm not finished with it. However, what I have to say has nothing to do with life in Tehran.

Nafisi was commenting on one of her literature classes in which they discussed Washington Square's heroine Catherine Sloper. Nafisi writes that "She is the inverse of our ideas of what a heroine should be: hefty, healthy, plain, dull, literate and honest... James strips away from Catherine the qualities that make a heroine attractive; what he takes away from her he distributes among the other three characters." I have a lot to say on women in film, and this analysis brought to mind a question I've had for a while now -- Who is a heroine? What is she made of? What qualities does she have? What does she want? What makes her different than a hero?

The definition of a heroine in literature is difficult enough, but I would argue that film has a more difficult time not only in defining their heroines, but in having heroines. Female characters are often functions of the plot, created to entice audience demographics, or simply romantic distractions.

Which brings me to Bridget Jones.

Bridget Jones. I love Bridget Jones. And while Bridget Jones is a modern take on Pride and Prejudice, Bridget Jones and Elizabeth Bennett are quite different characters. When I read Nafisi's description of Catherine Sloper, hefty, plain, dull, honest, the "ugly" heroine, I thought of Bridget Jones. She is very similar to Catherine. She is plump, stuck in a frustrating job, alone with a destructive fixation on a complete jerk, awkward, bumbling, and very unspecial. Bridget Jones is not Kate Beckinsale or Angelina Jolie because she is not the male fantasy character. She is a real heroine who is accepted with all her mundane qualities. Darcy likes her, just as she is.

I find Bridget Jones to be a satisfying heroine not only because of her realistic protrayl and the refusal to Barbie-fy her but also because of the way she deals with her life situations, not the least of which is her mangled love life. Bridget learns she has to either accept her life situations or commit to improving them, that it's not use wallowing but it's not use pretending to be someone she's not, either. When Bridget is interviewing for a new job in television, she botches every interview where she tries to appear more informed or passionate than she really is. But when she is honest about the reason she's looking for a new job, she finally scores it.

How a character handles the ever present problem of love is a large indicator of whether or not she is a true heroine. "Women's pictures" have often been criticized or mocked because they focus so much on love. Well most of life does too, so I'm perfectly content with that. However, I am critical of characters who find their happiness in love, especially when finally getting together with that special someone sweeps away all other problems. Well, if that special someone was Colin Firth, maybe I would feel the same way. But I love the scene where skeezy Daniel Cleaver has come back and got into a terribly awesome street fight with Darcy and he tells Bridget he wants her back, that if he couldn't make it with her how could he make it with anyone. And Bridget, even though she's been mad about this guy for ages, has enough self respect and courage to tell him that's not good enough. Just because Bridget Jones is an average girl doesn't mean she settles for an average (below average, really) man. In the end, she's the one who stands up and in all her awkward glory chooses Darcy, right in the middle of his parents' ruby wedding anniversary and his engagement announcement. Like Shawna recently expounded on in her blog, the heroine calls the shots. Bridget Jones definitely learns to call all her shots in her story and she does it her own way.

I love Bridget Jones. It's one of my go-to movies. And it's a bit of wish fulfillment, I know that. Watching this movie will be the closest I ever get to Colin Firth. But it's realistic wish fulfillment, if there's any such thing. I can't be many of the women in film these days. But I can be Bridget Jones, the woman who takes on life and falls in love, just the way she is.