Did you know that there’s a group known as The Women Film Critics Circle and, much like the DFW Film Critics, I am not a member despite being 1) a woman, 2) a film critic, and 3) a feminist? I swear, I am feeling so rejected right about now…
Then again, looking over their 2010 movie awards, I’m not sure I would want to be a member. Check out their selections and then see if you can guess which one has got me all annoyed and profane.
BEST MOVIE ABOUT WOMEN
Mother And Child
BEST MOVIE BY A WOMAN
Winter’s Bone
BEST WOMAN STORYTELLER [Screenwriting Award]
The Kids Are All Right: Lisa Cholodenko
BEST ACTRESS
Annette Bening/The Kids Are All Right
BEST ACTOR
Colin Firth/The King’s Speech
BEST YOUNG ACTRESS
Jennifer Lawrence/Winter’s Bone
BEST COMEDIC ACTRESS
Annette Bening/The Kids Are All Right
BEST FOREIGN FILM BY OR ABOUT WOMEN: *TIE*
Mother
Women Without Men
BEST FEMALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
Conviction
WORST FEMALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
Black Swan
BEST MALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE: *TIE*
Another Year
The King’s Speech
WORST MALE IMAGES IN A MOVIE
Jackass 3D
BEST THEATRICALLY UNRELEASED MOVIE BY OR ABOUT WOMEN
Temple Grandin
BEST EQUALITY OF THE SEXES: *TIE
Another Year
Fair Game
BEST ANIMATED FEMALES
Despicable Me
BEST FAMILY FILM
Toy Story 3
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Helen Mirren
ACTING AND ACTIVISM
Lena Horne [posthumous]
*ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD: For a film that most passionately opposes violence against women:
Winter’s Bone
*JOSEPHINE BAKER AWARD: For best expressing the woman of color experience in America
For Colored Girls
*KAREN MORLEY AWARD: For best exemplifying a woman’s place in history or society, and a courageous search for identity
Fair Game
COURAGE IN ACTING [Taking on unconventional roles that radically redefine the images of women on screen]
Helen Mirren/The Tempest
THE INVISIBLE WOMAN AWARD [Performance by a woman whose exceptional impact on the film dramatically, socially or historically, has been ignored]
Q’Orianka Kilcher/Princess Kaiulani
BEST DOCUMENTARY BY A WOMAN
A Film Unfinished
WOMEN’S WORK: BEST ENSEMBLE
Mother And Child
BEST SCREEN COUPLE
Another Year: Jim Broadbent/Ruth Sheen as Tom and Gerri
Did you catch it? Yes, that’s right. With all of the demeaning, insulting, sexist crap that both the mainstream and the independent film industries have released this year, Black Swan wins the award for “Worst Female Images In A Film.”
Uhmm, really?
Yes, Natalie Portman dealing with a society that forces an unrealistic expectation of perfection on young women — this is a far more negative image than every female character in The Social Network turning out to either be a bitch, a whore, or an idiot. Natalie Portman suffering from bulimia because she knows the consequences if she doesn’t maintain the right body type — this is a far more insulting image than Anne Hathaway being charmed by Jack Gyllenhaal pretending to be a doctor while leering at her exposed breast in Love and Other Drugs. This was the year that Rebecca Hall fell in love with a man who kidnapped her in The Town while The Killer Inside Me lingered lovingly on scenes of Casey Affleck beating both Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson to death. But no, out of all this, Black Swan featured the worst images of women on screen.
What utter and total bullshit.
I am a feminist and I am proud to be fiercely pro-woman (though never blindly anti-male). I have always been very aware of the fact that, regardless of intent, most movies are basically sexist fantasies. And, like a lot of women, I’ve come to accept that as the price I pay for loving movies. It’s something that I’m more likely to laugh at than to get outraged over. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes get tired of it, that I don’t sometimes wish that just for once, I could see a movie where the female lead didn’t need to be rescued by a man or where she wasn’t expected to epitomize some sort of stereotype.
To be honest, male filmmakers are not solely to blame. Some of the most demeaning images of women have come from films that were directed by women and which were advertised as being “feminist” films. Sometimes it seems like movies are either so busy trying to either keep women down or to build women up that they forget that most of us just want to be seen as human beings.
So no, Natalie Portman is not some sort of “feminist ideal” in Black Swan. She cuts herself, she’s bulimic, she fears her own sexual desires, she’s too hard on herself, and she’s manipulated by the men around her. And you know what? That’s not a sexist fantasy. For far too many women, present and past, that’s the life that has been forced upon them by an inherently sexist society. If anything, that’s the type of life that feminism was supposed to provide an escape from.
Instead, the stridency and judgmental attitudes of far too many so-called “feminists” has simply turned into another way to trap us into that life of guilt and shame and idealized demands of perfection.
The female images in Black Swan are not negative. They’re honest and that’s why Black Swan meant more to me, as a woman, than every single self-conscious, strident “feminist” film ever made.
As for the worst female image in a movie — give that award to Eat Pray Love for being yet another movie that basically gives us a spoiled, immature, rich, elitist lead character and then insults women everywhere by trying to present her as some sort of practical model for liberation.
Julia Roberts traveling across the world without once waking up with dark circles under her eyes might be the ideal but Natalie Portman being leered at by an old pervert on the subway is the reality.
For once, this has been a good year for strong women on American film screens. Whether it was Noomi Rapace as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo or Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone, Katie Jarvis in Fish Tank, or even Angelina Jolie as Salt, this has been a year of strong female images. This has been a year of films that left me feeling empowered — not in the wishy-washy way that so many insultingly condescending films claim to empower but in an honest way that made me feel, for once, that I didn’t have to accept the idea of any limitations on my own dreams or desires.
It wasn’t just a good year to be a girl who loves movies. It was a great year.
And Black Swan was the best part of a great year.
(You can read my original review of Black Swan here.)
Through the Shattered Lens 
Well, certain groups will always pick on a film which even remotely shows their target demographic being shown in a bad light even if taken out of context. This group saw Black Swan and how Nina Sayers was portrayed and immediately thought it was a sexist portrayal when it was the opposite.
LikeLike
(SPOILER ALERT) I suspect they were probably reacting to the whole Portman/Kunis sex scene but what critics of that scene often forget is that 1) it was Portman’s dream so, of course, it’s going to come across as a fantasy and 2) not all lesbians can be as boring as Annette Bening and Julianne Moore in The Kids Are All Right.
LikeLike
Well, they’re obviously a group with an agenda. How else do you explain all the love for Fair Game?
LikeLike
It’s just the opinion of 55 women, who I’m sure didn’t vote unanimously. If you want to belong to the WFCC (though I’m sure you were being sarcastic) I can guarantee they’d let you join. Sometimes we see what we want to see in movies, they can be read in multiple ways. Just like you’re saying the movie doesn’t stand for all womankind, the WFCC doesn’t stand for all critics, women, feminists, etc. You didn’t say what you thought of all the other awards either. When you watch the Oscars, do you write the entire ceremony off when one award doesn’t go to the film you would’ve preferred? I’m not trying to be combative here, or even sassy. I just think it might be hasty to write 55 women off as judgmental “so called” feminists just because you don’t agree with one award, you know what I mean? I liked the fact that you used the awards to state your personal philosophies. But I hate that when we don’t agree with each other, the automatic response is to write others off completely or judge them as not feminist enough, or too feminist, or whatever.
LikeLike
P.S. Yes, I’m a member of the WFCC and I can tell you that we don’t confer before we vote, I’ve never even met any of the other members. So I think it’s impossible for the WFCC to intentionally “pick on” a film and I also think it’s impossible to say why people voted the way they did or speculate unless you want to get in touch with each of the members and ask them. I swear I’m not trying to be snarky either, I don’t want to start a flame war, haha! I just wanted to try to explain that I’m positive it’s not my intention to bring any particular film down.
LikeLike
Hi, Audrey. 🙂 (That smiley face is my Internet way of saying “I come in peace.” lol.)
I wasn’t necessarily meaning to condemn the 55 women who make up the WFCC though I see how that came about, especially since I started things out by criticizing the WFCC for not allowing me to be a member. However, that’s been a bit of running theme of mine on both this site and over on twitter, that’s there so many groups out there giving out awards right now and I’m not a member of a single one of them despite being an online blogger, a woman, or a resident of North Texas or whatever the particular requirements for membership may be. So, I meant that as a joke more on me than anything else.
Unfortunately, I made a mistake as a writer (and perhaps this is why I’ve never been invited to join any groups) in that I then went from my joke criticism of the WFCC to my very serious thoughts on the claims that some (but certainly not all) critics have made that Black Swan is an anti-female film. And though my comments were inspired by the “worst female images in a movie” award from the WFCC, they weren’t meant to imply that somehow all 55 members of the WFCC were locked in some sort of conspiracy against the film or that there aren’t critics (male and female) outside of the WFCC who have also claimed that Black Swan contains “the worst female images in a movie.” I should made clear that I understand that probably not all 55 members of the WFCC were unaminous in that opinion and, even if they were, they have a right to their opinions. I also didn’t specifically state that I was criticizing the criticism as opposed to the critics. I can understand why that may not have been clear from the way I put things in my original post and I apologize for that.
Anyway, I actually do agree with a lot of the the WFCC’s awards, especially the awards that the organization voted to give to Winter’s Bone. I wasn’t a huge fan of Fair Game (nor did I really love The Kids Are All Right, perhaps a case of the hype creating unfair expectations on my part) but I do think that Mother and Child was the underrated film of 2010. I also have to commend the award for Colin Firth and, as an abuse survivor, I commend the WFCC for both the idea behind the Adrienne Shelley Award and for the award itself.
Even more importantly, I think it is important to have a groups like the WFCC because I think women do view movies differently from men (just as critics in New York tend to view things from a different perspective than critics in Los Angeles or Dallas or Paris, France for that matter). Even more important is the fact that while I think there is a definite point of view that is unique to women, that point of view doesn’t keep us from all being individual with our own unique opinions on life and the movies. As seen, for example, in the critical response to Black Swan… 🙂
So, no flame war here. 🙂
LikeLike
You rock Lisa. I didn’t mean to come on so strong in my response. I really love your writing and have checked out a lot of your work since last night. Thanks for all the clarifications and the response. I share a lot of your frustrations. I teach creative writing and I always tell my students that when you get angry as a writer, you’ve hit pay dirt and I really liked what you had to say.
Off subject, I think you would be an ideal candidate for any critical society. The trick is, you have to approach them, usually via email. (Then you get all the movies in the mail for free before they’re out on DVD, haha! Of course, you can’t share them or show them to anyone else, but still…)
Flame War averted, hahaha! It was really refreshing to be able to have a disagreement with someone and for it to go so well and end so peacefully. That’s officially the first time on the internet that has ever happened to me.
I look forward to continuing to check out your blog in the future!
LikeLike