The Year of the Woman

[Jim Courier Express (Yee, Eugene)]

The theme of this year's Academy Awards, the Year of the Woman, has been
drawing some criticism. Although it's a tribute to actresses, some criticize
if it is a tribute, considering the lack of film roles for women in Hollywood
in the past years. And those films that do have roles are portraying women as
either "masculine" (ie. "Alien^3", "Lethal Weapon 3", and "Terminator 2:
Judgment Day") or psychotic (ie. "Basic Instinct", "Batman Returns", and
"Single White Female") individuals. And that seems to be the growing trend to
draw in ticket sales, as evident from "The Temp" and the upcoming "The Crush".
It is said that traditional women roles a la Katherine Hepburn and Betty Davis
don't sell anymore to a movie audience comprised mainly of (young) males. This
is what I've gathered from "Entertainment Tonight" and a segment on last
night's "Day One" on ABC.

What do you think of this issue? Me, I've always been pro-women, but I have
to admit that I'm more attracted to femme fatales than the "weak" females in
film. I love how Sharon Stone manipulated the men in "Basic Instinct". I
wanted Glenn Close to give Michael Douglas what's coming to him in "Fatal
Attraction". I love Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, period. But I also love
Michelle Pfeiffer as the vulnerable Madame de Tourvel in "Dangerous Liaisons".
But I also like seeing women having superiority over men. (Sorry, guys.) So
I'm sort of indifferent on the issue.

Euge
y...@dickinson.edu

[AM...@clust1.clemson.edu]

Euge:

I've never really wondered about the lack of strong female roles in the
90s. But now that I think about it, the 80s held a lot more promise as
far as meaty roles for women. Meryl Streep came into her own playing
strong, yet vulnerable women who took control of their lives. But with
a lack of those types of saleable films in the 90s, there hasn't been an
actress like her to emerge in this decade. I was a fan of Hepburn, Davis
and Standwyck in those strong female leads, whether comedy or drama and
I'm hoping that 1992 was just an off year. They made a point that more
women are writing good scripts. Let's hope that also has an effect on
the kinds of leads women are offered in upcoming years. They say you
make your own luck. Well, hopefully, women will make their own parts.

Adrian
Clemson

[Roger Taylor]

Even though you like those roles for women they are somewhat
less repulsive than the attitude of "Death Becomes Her" toward Hawn
and Streep. In that film, the entire attitude is that women are
vain and solely beauty/youth conscious. Streep even goes so far as
to scratch her nails in marble in jealous hatred. I'll take a femme
fatale any day over that kind of presentation.

Roger Taylor, Jr.
Western Wyoming College

[ARAMIS MIRANDA-REYES]

SOMEONE WROTE:
Even though you like those roles for women they are somewhat
less repulsive than the attitude of "Death Becomes Her" toward Hawn
and Streep. In that film, the entire attitude is that women are
vain and solely beauty/youth conscious. Streep even goes so far as
to scratch her nails in marble in jealous hatred. I'll take a femme
fatale any day over that kind of presentation.

FRANKLY I DON'T SEE HOW ANY WOMAN OR MAN PORTRAYES IN ANY FILM IS
AUTOMATICALLY APPOINTED AS THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THAT PARTICULAR GROUP. IN
SOME FILMS IT IS OBVIOUS THAT THIS WAS INTENDED, EX. MALCOLM X, BUT THE REST IS
PURELY OUR CONJECTURE AND MISUNDERSTANDINGS. THESE CHARACTERS WERE WRITTEN IN
THAT PARTICULAR WAY ONLY BECAUSE THEY FIT THE STORY THE WRITER WANTED TO
CONVEY. THAT IS WHY I NEVER AM ABLE TO GRASP THE STARTING POINT OF ALL THESE
CONTANT PROTESTATIONS AND CRITICISMS OF CERTAIN FILMS AND CHARACTERS SOLELY
BECAUSE THE VIEWER HAS SEEN IT FIT TO INTERPRET IT THAT WAY.
NO INTELLIGENT WRITER EVER SETS OUT WITH AN ACTUAL AGENDA OF HOW HE IS
GOING TO DEPICT THE WOMEN OR THE MEN OR THE PARTICULAR ETHNIC GROUP IN HIS
STORY. HE BASICALLY HAS THE IDEA FOR A STORY AND TAKES IT FROM THERE IN THE
DIRECTION THAT BEST FITS THE GENERAL PREMISE AND/OR MORAL, IF YOU PREFER, OF
THE ENTIRE WORK. THE CHARACTERS ARE INDIVIDUALS WHICH ACT IN THE WAY PRESENTED
BECAUSE OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES THEY ARE DEALING WITH, AGAIN IN THE STORY.
THEREFORE, I DON'T SEE WHERE IT SAYS THAT ANY AND ALL CHARACTERS IN A
FILM OR BOOK ARE OFFICIAL REPRESENTATIVES OF THAT GROUP. I AM LATIN AMERICAN
AND FRANKLY I AM NOTHING LIKE ANY OF THE LATIN AMERICAN CHARACTERS, FEW AS THEY
ARE, IN THE MOVIES. SO, I DON'T SEE THEM AS REPRESENTING ME, BUT MERELY ACTING
OUT AS THE PUPPETS OF THE WRITER, WHICH AGAIN, IS NOT SOMETHING I DO. WE MAY
SYMPATHIZE WITH A CHARACTER, BECAUSE HE/SHE IDEALLY PRESENTS THE THINGS WE
WOULD LIKE TO HAVE, OR WOULD LIKE TO BE AND IN THAT SENSE WE COULD CALL THAT
SYMPATHY REPRESENTATION, BUT ONLY OF US AS INDIVIDUALS NOT OF OUR RACE OR OF
ALL THE PEOPLE WITHIN IT. YOU MAY SYMPATHIZE OR YOU MAY NOT. YOU MAY AGREE
WITH WHAT THE CHARACTERS DO OR NOT. IF YOU CHOOSE NOT TO AGREE, THEN CRITICIZE
THE WRITER FOR MAKING THE STORY WORK IN THIS WAY, BUT DON'T RAMBLE ON BLAMING
MISREPRESENTATION, BECAUSE FRANKLY IT IS YOU WHO ARE ASSIGNING THEM THAT
POSITION NOT THE WRITER. AND THEREBY IT IS YOU WHO ARE GIVING THEM THE
OPPORTUNITY TO MISREPRESENT YOU, SO THE CONSEQUENCES IS YOUR FAULT.

humbly but strongly,
Aramis

[ERNIE...@gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu]

Aramis, you make a very good point that not all characters
are intended or should be interpreted as representatives of
others. Sometimes, though, characters clearly ARE so intended,
wouldn't you agree. D Fens (the Michael Douglas character) is
a representation, don't you think? And so were the other
stereotypes in "Falling Down." Ernie.

[ARAMIS MIRANDA-REYES]

Ernie,
like I said in the previous note, in certain films the characters are
intended as representatives of society(ies), like in Falling Down or my other
example Malcolm X. But not in all films this is so.. That is why i criticize
our constant tendency to label things into generalized groups. Each work of art
should be understood within its own individual framework FIRST, after
thoroughly understanding what was originally intended then we can proceed to
group it and/or judge it, as it is the human costume,
with other works of its kind and use other contexts to see what else we can
find out.
Therefore, it is important to first observe the movie first and
completely detach it from the genre associations, that way we can avoid the
generalizations and other misunderstandings that get us into trouble.

Aramis

[Ens Alexander W Ellermann]

Aramis,
Is it possible to watch a moviw without attaching it to genre
expectations? Can we wipe our memories clean when we walk into the
theater? I think not. In fact, I wouldn't want to engage in such an
intellectual exercise unless someone was paying me to do so. To much
work for a movie. I want to be carried away ... I'll intellectualize
after the fact.
Alex

[Jim Courier Express (Yee, Eugene)]

Maureen,

Some feminists praise Sharon Stone. Here's an excerpt from the April 1993
"Vanity Fair" interview (by Kevin Sessums) with the actress:

"Women *are* bitches!" essayist Camille Paglia shouts at me when I run
this argument by her. Paglia, a postfeminist bitch on heels, is a staunch
defender of the film. "Woman is the bitch goddess of the universe! _Basic
Instinct_ has to be seen as the return of the femme fatale, which points up
woman's dominance of the sexual realm, and Sharon Stone's performance was one
of the great performances by a woman in screen history. That interrogation
scene in the police station immediately became one of the classic scenes in
Hollywood cinema! There you see it: all those men around her, and a fully
sexual woman turns them to jelly! The men are enslaved by their own
sexuality!" Paglia claims, actually pausing to savor the memory of Stone as
Tramell uncrossing her legs in a flash of cinematic brilliance.

Naomi Wolf, the author of _The Beauty Myth_, is more cognizant of the
negative social reverberations of the sexual violence depicted so graphically
in the film, but, in spite of that, also sees it as a feminist breakthrough.
"I think there has been a sort of hangover from the Victorian ideology about
femininity that does not own female aggression," says Wolfe. "It's straight
out of the Victorian 'separate fear' ideology that women are better than men -
- women are saintly, they are nurturing. What was so cathartic about _Basic
Instinct_ was that here was not a cartoon villainess like in _Fatal
Attraction_ -- not a misogynistic two-dimensional nightmare -- but a complex,
compelling, Nietzschean *Uberfraulein* who owns everything about her own
power. She's rich. She's not ashamed of being rich, which is transgressive
in the ideology of femininity. And she's a writer, which means she is
subverting the whole cliche of stereotypes about femininity, because every
single victim scenario we've ever had has been written from the male point of
view."

----------

Euge

[Rolando Recometa]

So why didn't we hear - "And the Janet goes to...."?
Rolando

[FAC_J...@jmuvax.bitnet]

Euge,

Thanks for the amusing quotes on Basic Instinct from Paglia and Wolf; Paglia
I'm familiar with somewhat from her writing, and Wolf actually spoke at our
campus last year.

I'd be more sympathetic, and their provocations would be more helpful, if they
were attached to a more deserving film. It's amusing to consider Stone's
performance to be wonderful and her character to be "complex." All the complex-
ity (if any) is in the plotting, what's shown and isn't shown, and how it's
cut and manipulates the murder-mystery genre. Not in the performances--which
are passable but hardly great. As I said in the piece on the "Nekromantik"
films, BI's got "designer-profundity"--it's efforts are like trying to make
profound literary art out of a cleverly enough constructed crossword puzzle.
It just can't be done, except in the eyes of people whose taste runs to
crosswords alone. And what do you make of a filmmaker's vision when he says
--as Verhoeven did--that the gays boycotting the film could go ahead and
reveal the ending, 'cause all he needed to do was make a minor edit in it
to change it? He must've been talking about the pre-fade fade in the film,
when Stone and Douglas'lovemaking goes to black, then the light comes up as
the camera pans down to the ice pick under the bed. Cut that last bit, and
the ending seems changed. But what does that mean, when either ending is
appropriate for the film--she seemed to've done it; no wait, she didn't do
it--we can hardly be dealing with a deep psychology portrait here. I can
just hear kjf chuckling that PoMo's come home to roost--except BI ain't PoMo
at all, let alone good PoMo. It's the theory of relativity in its shallowest
application. --Paglia and Wolf should see Nekromantik 2. That'll straighten
them out and end their pseudo-profundities real fast.

Raging on,
Jeff