Room: My Strong

Warning: Spoilers (For the film, and the book)

Room is a film based on the book of the same name, both written by Emma Donoghue, and directed by Lenny Abrahamson who was so passionate about directing the film that he wrote a letter to Donoghue herself to ask to make it. The start of the film is an almost perfect adaptation of the book that it was a total joy to watch; to see these things I'd read about come to life, with the perfectly cast Jacob Tremblay playing Jack and Brie Larson playing Ma, or Joy Newsome as we learn in the film. It's brilliantly acted, directed and though I was slightly distracted in the second act by the differences in plot and themes it was still brilliant to watch. So instead of just discussing the film I will talk about the things it missed out too, not as a value judgement of the film – any book adaptation with so much to cover is almost certainly going to lose a large portion of its plot – but as a need to discuss the book and how it relates to feminism.

I would obviously not read this if you haven't watched the film but especially if you want to read the book I'd come back afterwards, and then we can have a lovely little chat about how great it is. I read Room in two days so I could watch the film and it was extremely easy to do that because it reads so well. I admire Donoghue in how she adapted her work to the screen, the second half changes setting dramatically due to the fact that there is a lot of time spent in places, and with a lot of characters, and it simply wouldn't have worked. It changed a lot about the motivations for one of the key things in the film/book – seriously, spoilers: Ma's suicide attempt; for instance in the book it is the TV interview that causes her to question herself to the point of attempting to take her own life, the suggestion that she didn't do what was best for Jack whereas in the film it's a lot of things – from her fighting with her Mum, to a shortened interview, and to problems adjusting to her old life.

However, Room is an utterly brilliant adaptation as it captures the same themes that the book does: from Jack in all his glory, to Ma in all of hers, and to all the complexities of male violence and the damage it causes. I will say now however that my only problem with the film – aside from it removing characters of colour in one area for no apparent reason – is that it ever so slightly tries once to humanise Old Nick; it's only a brief moment, as Jack is pretending to be dead, but he stops in his garden and looks bad, looks sad for Joy and what's she's lost and to me that was unncessary. Film's understandably have a harder job than books do at getting certain themes and emotions across but this is one thing that should never, even slightly be in Room. Old Nick is not a redeemable character, and as much as it's is hard to hear there are men like him in the world who are just not redeemable either.

Old Nick is not based off nothing, he's based off quite a few men in the history of this world who have committed similar atrocities: abducting a woman, or fathering a woman and keeping her locked up in a room for a very, very long time – and often when that woman is in that room raping her repeatedly and, often, impregnating them as is our opening for Room. There are men who day in day out, second to second, happily keep a woman locked up, as though she is literally not human and use her as a plaything. It happens in a world that, yes, is patriachal and it happens because men are told each day, every day since birth that they are entitled to the half of the population that are weaker than them, and who are routinely dehumanised for times such as that. It's not rocket science, it's not complicated, there is no great humanity flaw that causes men to keep commiting violence – it's patriachy.

But what I would rather talk about when it comes to Room though is the brilliant Jack and Ma, those who are hurt the most by male violence but that, as Room shows, can still say fuck you and bloom all the same. Jack is five as we start the film, his fifth birthday even, and whilst he has spent his entire life in Room it is no problem for him; after all how can you miss what you never knew existed? As we see it is actually Jack coming into the world, his mind bursting at trying to understand an entire universe that he never knew was real that is Room's focus. Again, there are sadly humans in this world who have lived lives like Jack, who have been hidden from humanity and have had to learn to adjust – though not all were as lucky to have Ma. In the book Joy was adbucted when she was 19 though in the film, presumably to adjust for Brie Larson, it was when she was 17. Both of which are insanely admirable, as we get a teenager, thrown into an impossible situation and yet when her world is changed again she adapats and survives as women are wont to do. She uses what she learnt in school – bringing Track and Phys Ed into their world – and she teaches it to Jack.

It's this amazing mothering, this strength of mothers to do all they can in their power – no matter their lack of it – to raise their children that is a testemant to women. Ma teaches Jack how to talk, using the TV to help and increase his vocabulary, she teaches him maths, how to write and draw, and even teaches him how to sew and other things. It is this start in life that saves him, that helps him grow into an adorable narrator, if not one that still had the moods and tantrums that all children – and adults – have. As Ma grows up in that room she too learns new skills of survival, such as how to ask Old Nick for things that he will actually bring them, how to eat just enough to stay alive so Jack can eat more, and how to make do and mend in the most extreme of cases – Egg Snake anyone.

In a world where women are routinely and daily killed, abused, degraded, objectified in the most extreme and small sense it is important to recognise the strength that women have simply to survive; their ability to be human, and to keep what makes them human, in the face of male monsters. Women live in a world where acid is thrown on their faces and they still say fuck you you can't stop me. They're incredible, but they also shouldn't have to be as men shouldn't have created this world where they can abuse and get away with it, legally and socially in many senses. However, it's the times that women can't quite handle all of this that other women become so important, that feminism itself becomes a lifeline to help. In the book/film it's Jack that keeps her grounded, that keeps her going and in her darkest hour in the film it's what saves her, he's her strong.

Donoghue also understands the very real, physical and visceral aspect of being a mother, as is shown throughout the book. From the physical toil that her body takes from being abused by Old Nick just so Jack isn't touched, to the malnourishment she suffers to keep Jack as healthy as possible, and in a continuing theme in the book to the breastfeeding she does until not long after they've escaped. It's this last point that is only mentioned a few times in the film: her breastfeeding in Room, her mother being surprised that she still breastfeeds him – with Joy finding it ironic that out of all the things that she finds disturbing about what happened in Room it's that – and when she tells Jack that it's over. In the book Jack refers to it simply as 'some', it's never really mentioned as something that's different, and in fact the moment Jack is told that he can't have any again he simply kisses her breasts and says bye. Her body kept producing milk for years because Jack needed it, because there wasn't enough food for Jack to keep him going, and it's fitting with the rest of the book/film as Ma's literal being is what keeps Jack alive.

In the film rather than the book when they escape Jack and Ma go and live with her mother and her partner Leo; her father is briefly there though he doesn't stay as he selfishly puts his feelings at being weirded out by Jack's existence over being there for his daughter who has returned from, what he thought was, the grave. Whereas in the book Jack and Ma spend a couple of weeks in a rehab clinic – with Noreen and Dr Clay and all the rest- and then after the TV interview – done to get money for Jack's college fund – that causes Ma to attempt suicide Jack goes on his own to stay with Grandma and Leo. This changes the second act of the film dramatically, it causes us to see a different side of all characters; though it does mean Jack finally gets to hang out with a dog, make friends, and see his mother's room – unchanged since she was taken (though in the book it's a fitness suite as Joy's mother assumed she was dead).

In the book I enjoyed their time at the clinic is an as much as it was interesting to see Ma attempt to rediscover the world, who she was and how she fit into it – like when she tries to e-mail her old friends only to realise that they, and technology, moved on without her. But also the little things about what it does to a person to never go outside for the first five years of their life; Jack needs to wear special sunglasses, have vaccines, wear a mask. He suffers a cold for the first time, he is petrified of rain, and the wind freaks him out. It's as Dr Clay says in the book, he's like a baby but one who can add up and articulate his emotions. It's an extremely compelling read and as someone who has a degree in Childhood Studies it really reminds me why I love teaching, the sheer joy children can be and how amazing it is to show a big, often weird and wonderful world to them.

There are also lots of funny little things in the book that happen when Jack leaves Room and one of those is how often he's mistaken for a girl. It's understandable when one of our shortcuts for what sex a stranger is is long hair but it's one that Donoghue understands can be funny and arbitrary – though as I've mentioned sex is important as it is Ma's female sex that brought him into this world and thusly kept him alive. There is a moment in the book when Jack, whilst Ma is recovering away from him, that he goes to the shops with his Uncle Paul, his wife Deanna and their daughter Bronwyn – characters not in the film for time purposes I assume – and it's another moment that made me laugh, if not a little bitterly. Jack has his long hair as per and whilst they're shopping he sees a Dora backpack and it is the most amazing thing he has ever seen, he loves Dora the Explorer; he watched it a lot in Room, he loves that she knows his name, he hates naughty Swiper, and he sees any language that isn't English as being Spanish as a result. So he just has to have it, and there's a moment where Paul doesn't want him to have it because Dora is For Girls, he tries to wave a Spider-man bag at Jack but Jack is having none of it. It was amusing to think that gender is so arbitarily encoded into their adult brains that they thought a kid who'd grown up in one room would care that Dora is For Girls and that spider-man is For Boys. Jack is Jack, a boy because his body says so and that means nothing more than that.

Room is a brilliant film, so touching and entertaining despite it's horrific subject matter. Its a great display of how strong women and children are in the face of male violence, of how precious life can be, and of the bond between mother and child. If you haven't already I seriously suggest you read the book, it's a joy to see the world through Jack's unique eyes and it only betters the already amazing film. It's great to have a real, complicated woman on film – one who struggles, who survives, and who is thoroughly human. We don't get to see women be human on screen as much as we should, instead they're often see as disposable as Old Nick see's women, simply there for sex and not for talking or anything else. I look forward to see more from Larson and Tremblay and I hope that this film helps us get that little bit closer to getting rid of the Old Nick's of this world and creating it that little bit more in Jack's image.

Alternate Valentine's Day Films

Valentine’s Day can be a perfect time to sit and watch romantic films with your boyfriend but for those of us who have been with their other half for a long time, or who just don’t have the stomach for romance films there are still plenty of films to watch. Below is a list of films that have a romantic element but that are a bit different from the likes of Valentine’s Day. There is also a list of romantic films that don’t involve pretending stalking is romantic (or cromantic as the disturbing This Means War calls it) or that don’t romanticise abuse like the awful Fifty Shades of Grey, see here). Either way I hope you enjoy these films as much as I did.

Super Alternate Valentine’s Day Films

1)      SuperBob

SuperBob is a mockumentary style film about a man called Bob who gets hit by a meteor and gets super powers. But unlike Superman Bob is just a very ordinary, awkward man and the film perfectly shows what would actually happen if ordinary people suddenly got powers. It’s painfully funny as we follow Bob’s constant faux pas. It’s a charming film that really explores the power of saying no, finding love that’s been staring you in the face, and I highly recommend it. Plus how often does a film mention House of Leaves!

2)      Night of the Living Deb

This film is a zom-rom-com and it takes places just after a one night stand as a man tries to get rid of Deb on a morning only to find that a zombie apocalypse has happened overnight. It’s a very funny film that really gets how great of a lead it has in Deb, a very awkward and weird woman. It has its problems in certain characters but ultimately it has its humour, its romance and plenty of zombies. Definitely one for those who love their zombie films a bit different like me.

3)      The One I Love

This is a film for those couples who have been together a long time as it follows a couple trying to fix their marriage after one cheated. We see them taking their couples therapist’s advice to go and spend a long weekend in a cabin. I can’t give away much of the plot but let’s just say that it getting put in the supernatural category on Netflix was what finally made me watch it. It’s a surprisingly funny, romantic depending on who you are, and interesting film. Definitely one to watch if you’re tired of couples overcoming every obstacle with a big gesture or an adrenaline fuelled adventure, or a night of murdering if you’re in Purge Anarchy.

4)      Grabbers

Grabbers is an Irish monster film that I watched on Netflix, and I fell in love immediately. It’s so ridiculous, funny, and yes kinda romantic in its own weird way. It follows the locals of a small town after a weird monster emerges from the sea and starts causing havoc… especially if you happen to be drunk. It’s definitely not a film for everyone but I think you should give it a watch to see if you love it like I do. I don’t want to give much away because I can’t do justice to how ridiculous but great this film is. Seriously, go watch it and if you loved it you can just thank me later.

Alternate Romance Films

1)      Romantics Anonymous

Romantic Anonymous is a French film that is on the UK Netflix at the moment and it is about a woman who makes chocolates. She is so nervous and awkward and she falls for a guy who is probably more nervous than she is. It’s very cute, charming, and endearing. It was a huge joy to watch, and I would recommend it to anyone who loves romance and can happily read subtitles.

2)      In Your Eyes

In Your Eyes is another film I found on UK Netflix that I absolutely fell for, it is about a couple, miles apart, who find one day that they can see through each other’s eyes. It’s unique and really understands what it would be like to actually be in the mind of someone else and how that might cause a bond unlike any other. It stars the brilliant Zoe Kazan, who is perfect in The Pretty One, and That Hot Guy From Cloverfield. It’s a great film for romantics but just like The One I Love it’s great for those who want a bit of brain and difference in their films.

3)      Remember Sunday

Remember Sunday stars Zac Levi and Alexis Bledel and is about a woman who falls in love with a man who has amnesia. It’s not the most original concept but it doesn’t feel like you’re watching the same film as others. It handles it with all the emotion you’d expect and it was quite heart breaking as you’d also expect. It looks at what it would be like to try to remember falling in love every day and what the struggle to stay in love can be. It’s not as creepy as 50 First Dates where *spoilers* we’re left with a woman waking up every day to see she’s pregnant with a baby she has no memory of.

4)      Timer

Timer is another film I found on Netflix (so I have a lot of free time on my hands) and another that I found to be unique and weirdly lovely in its own way. It takes place in a world where every person has the option of getting a watch installed on, well in, their wrist that will count down to them meeting their one true love. It asks would this be a good thing or a bad thing, what would it be like dating someone knowing you’re not each other’s true love, and would it actually matter if you felt that you loved them anyway? Or what if you weren’t ready to fall in love again but that your time was up?

An Anti-Valentine Film: The Loved Ones.

This is a horror film for those who are a bit pissed, whether it’s because your boyfriend is being a jerk, because men are just jerks, or you just want to watch a decent horror film. It’s about Lola who wants the best prom that takes place in her own home where the other guests are your Dad and a woman who can’t talk… It’s brutal, unforgiving at times, and while I definitely wouldn’t call it feminist I will say that it shows what happens when an unhinged woman is a bit sick of never getting the man that she wants…

If you can think of anymore films that would fit, or that you love and want me to check out feel free to let me know in the comments or on Twitter @feministfilms.

The Gift: Bygones Are Not Bygones.

The Gift is a horror/thriller film that is written and directed by Joel Edgerton. He also stars in it with odd auburn hair and eyes that in certain lights look almost black. It also stars Jason Bateman as Simon and a great Rebecca Hall as Robyn. It’s about a couple who move into a new house & whilst out buying new furniture they run into a man from Simon’s old high school. His name is Gordo, or as Simon used to call him ‘Weirdo’. The film follows the couple as they have Gordo’s friendship ‘forced’ on them. It was a pretty enjoyable film, for the most part.

The film is more about suspense, the general feeling of unease around Gordo and ultimately about how much of an arsehole Simon is. As his wife tells him, he was a bully when he knew Gordo at school and he still is now. It’s this bullying aspect of his personality that led Gordo to stalk the couple, to force himself into their lives with presents and social awkwardness. This is the part of the review where I spoil the film for you so I can review it so if you haven’t already watched it but were planning to then I’d come back when you’re done. When Simon and Gordo were at school Simon, being the bullying nightmare that he is, decided one day to spread a rumour that Gordo is gay, thus ruining his life.

Seems as them being kids was a few decades ago having a rumour that you’re gay was even worse then than it is now – and it can still be pretty terrible now, which is an understatement. So he was mercilessly bullied and in the end Gordo’s father tried to kill him. Simon really didn’t seem too bothered by this fact, happy to shrug it off as having nothing to do with him. Apparently in his world everyone is responsible for their own actions, apart from him of course. Now all of this is revealed slowly, in a great way and with a stunning performance given from Rebecca Hall. Her character Robyn tries hard to give Gordo the benefit of the doubt, she tries to defend him & really be his friend. This is why the ending is so fucking annoying.

As the film goes on Robyn is pregnant and in the end she gives birth, she had had a pregnancy before but it hadn’t worked out. Sadly she has realised that her husband is a totally nasty piece of work by the time she gives birth so it’s all a bit of a mess. So we’ve spent the film getting to know Robyn as she works from home, we learn that she’s a woman who is caring and smart and oh how the film then decides that she is worth nothing. Less than nothing, she’s now firmly Simon’s Wife and that’s that. You see after Simon has beat the crap out of Gordo & told him to stay out of their lives forever that is when Gordo puts his final plan into place to truly fuck Simon over.

It goes a little something like this: Gordo has been breaking into their home and filming him watching Robyn, earlier in the film we see Robyn struggle with a pill addiction and one day she randomly collapses, nothing really happens and she wakes up a bit confused; but we find out that that’s not at all what happened as actually Gordo drugged her, and while she was knocked out he, whilst wearing a monkey mask – Simon has a phobia of monkeys – films himself touching Robyn and moving her onto a bed, then the recording stops. So Simon, furious and petrified that Gordo has raped his wife, he runs to her to see if she’s okay and tells her all about it and see’s if she’s scarred for life. Oh wait, that’s not at all what happened is it. No because if it was I wouldn’t be writing this.

So after the recording stops Simon, furious, goes to the hospital where his new-born son and wife are and Gordo calls him up after Simon fails to catch him. Gordo explains that this is his revenge against Simon – because this has nothing to do with Robyn. His revenge is Simon not being sure, even if it’s just for a split second before he can look his child in the eyes, or in the time before getting a DNA test but just for a moment of not knowing whether his kid is actually his or whether it’s Gordo’s. So from Edgerton’s point of view that’s just awful for Simon right? It’s kind of implied that in the end, especially in the alternate end, everything’s fine and Gordo got his revenge by making Simon feel just darn awful. But despite showing Robyn as a full human being the whole film through the film doesn’t seem to care much for her at the end. We simply get a relieved looking Simon as Robyn is giving him a withering look.

Let’s just take a quick second to do something that Edgerton apparently didn’t: look at this from her point of view. Should Simon tell her, or should she find the DVD with the footage Gordo filmed this is what she has to experience: the knowledge that she was drugged on purpose, the knowledge that she was touched while she was knocked out, that she may have been raped, that the man who did that to her did it to get back at her husband, that it all had nothing to do with her, that the man who did it was one who she had been nice to the entire time, that she has had a man’s hands on her and she has no recollection of it, that he could have done anything to her when the camera was off and she was unconscious, that she, even for a second, thinks that the child she carried for months doesn’t have the father she thought, that anyone would torture her, even for a second, like this just to get back at her arsehole husband. I would never see rape as a punishment, I’d never see it as a punishment to a woman’s husband, and even if it was raping her for spreading a rumour as a teenager I’d still say you’ve gone way too far.

I have made this point a hundred times before and I’ll say it again: Women are not things, owned by men, that can be used as things to be hurt, killed, or ‘broken’ to upset those men. We’re just not, despite what shitty male writers would like to think. There’s this thing that happens when the majority of films are written by men, directed by men, and about men: they usually have a wife/daughter/mother etc. and they usually get killed. When you don’t have an equal amount of films about women then we don’t really see male husbands etc. getting killed for being husbands, or husbands getting raped for being husbands to a female protagonist and so on. Now I happen to think that watching women get killed, raped, abused and so on for the sins of their male family members over and over and over can fuck a girl, or guy, up. But that’s just me.

P.S.

Here’s an ending that doesn’t do this, that fits with the rest of the film, and doesn’t leave the female viewers with a feeling that they don’t matter, that no matter how human they are at the end of the day they’re still less human than their male partner:

Simon gets home, he opens another gift that has been left for him on his porch. He takes it inside and he opens it, it’s a carrier for his new-born son. As he’s unwrapping it he sees something inside it and he takes out three separate gifts. Each gift has a number on it, from 1 to 3. He opens the first one, in it is a key and he realises that it’s the key to his house. Horrified he opens the next package and it’s a CD, he plays it and he hears a recording of some awful things he said about Gordo when he thought he couldn’t hear. Then he opens the third, and the final, gift and it’s a DVD that has play me written on it. So he puts it in the DVD player and sits terrified and furious as the footage shows someone, Gordo, breaking into his house; he watches as the person filming goes into his whole house, as they sit filming his wife at the window, as they film him when he doesn’t realise it. Then it goes to a shot of his drink from a night when he randomly collapsed, a night he has no recollection of. He looks completely shocked and he recoils from the screen in horror as the camera is turned around to reveal Gordo wearing a monkey mask, it’s like something out of his nightmares.

Then the camera pans down and it shows Simon, totally unconscious and lying on his bedroom floor. Gordo sits on top of Simon and strokes his face, his chest and then his hand moves out of shot and Gordo turns the camera back around to himself and he laughs. Simon, utterly terrified, starts pulling at his clothes, trying to tear his own skin off. Then the TV screen goes to black as the DVD finishes, we see Simon’s terrified face in the reflection. Simon screams and punches the TV, it shatters and falls to the floor. Simon runs to the shower and scrubs and scrubs but nothing works. He gets dressed and gets in the car, he drives to the hospital where his wife is. He’s worried that Gordo will go hurt her next. As he gets there he finds his wife’s room is empty, as he goes to look for her he sees Gordo but can’t quite catch him; he runs out of the hospital where he thinks he went, his hair is still wet and he’s freaking out. It’s clear Simon can’t collect his thoughts and is screaming on the inside. Then his phone rings.

We see Gordo stood inside a hospital corridor, watching Simon stand outside and he smiles. He explains to Simon that he isn’t gay, that the rumour ruined his entire life, that it set in motion events that he could never recover from. That he barely survived his Dad trying to kill him, that there is no coming back from knowing your own father wants you dead, and that he hasn’t been able to trust anyone since. He thought that he could turn his life around when he met Simon again, that if he could befriend him – the man who ruined his life - then he could be liked, hell maybe he could even be loved. It was even better when Robyn was nice to him, that she stood up for him, and then he heard Simon insult him, call him a freak, say he was obsessed with Robyn. Then he knew that there was no coming back, no changing who he was, what he was.

So he decided to get his revenge. The rumour that he was gay had always burned in his brain, even as time had been kinder to gay men it hadn’t mattered – that one story that Simon had refused to take back had been the end for him. So he used it against Simon, now he hadn’t actually done anything – or had he? There was no knowing what Gordo had done to him, what he had or hadn’t touched, and he was never going to tell him. He wanted him to feel as violated, as humiliated as he had done when Simon had abused him, insulted him and tortured him for years. He asks if Simon wants to tear his skin off, that if he wants he could ask his Dad to set him alight because he knows how that can really give you a new body. That he was lucky the flames had spared his face, that Simon’s face, his body is perfect, that he was jealous.

Simon screams at him and has no idea what to say, what to do. He shouts down the phone at Gordo to tell him what he did, that he’ll go to the police. Gordo explains that he will too, he knows Simon, and that if he was a bully once then he’s probably ruined other lives too. That he could have fun finding those people and seeing how they feel about Simon. Gordo tells Simon that he never wants to hear from him again, that he should try to be a better man, a better human being for his son. Simon runs back to his wife, embraces her and apologises, promises he’ll be better and he kisses his son on the forehead. Robyn has a look that shows she’s not quite sure if he can be better, but she hides it from him. Gordo walks down the hospital hallway, throwing away the phone and then the credits roll.

My 5 Favourite Feminist Films of 2015

2015 has been an odd year for films, it feels like for every step forward we take some male director say something sexist and stupid and we take ten steps back. There have been article after article about how there is a serious drought in women helming films, and it's a serious problem – it is no secret that when it comes to films directors are often seen as the geniuses behind them, so when all we see are men being those geniuses it sends a bad message about what women are capable of & it tells young girls who want to direct that there is no room for them. I hope that in 2016 we see a lot more films written and directed for women and that this continues as time goes on. It's a hard battle but women deserve to live in a world where we can see ourselves on screen in all our beautiful glory, with women bringing those stories to live. So in light of that here are my top 5, in no particular order, feminist films of 2015.

Ex Machina

Ex Machina was the first film on this blog for a reason, it was so brilliant in a genre that was drenched in sexism to find one that actually realised what would happen when female robots grew tired of being abused. As a result I started this blog simply to talk about how much I enjoyed it and it has grown and grown since then; you can read the post here. As a film it has some very beautiful shots, brilliantly thought out characters, and the microcosm that it exists in is one crafted perfectly. Vikander plays her role brilliantly, managing to potray the clinical side of a robot whilst simultaneously being softer when needed. It is a film that is aware of the darker, more twisted sexually & violently side of men, but instead of presenting it as uncommented upon fact it shows the consequences of it; it shows what would happen when that violence & entitlement was forced upon a being that had been brought into this world by that which was now causing her harm.

Rating: 5/5 Director: Alex Garland Starring: Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac. Available on: DVD, or to buy on services such as Blink Box or Amazon Video.

Mad Max: Fury Road

Any film that prompts a boycott from 'Men's Rights Activists' is probably one that I'd love. You can read my original post on this here. It was one that again understood the harm that male violence can cause and instead of using it for entertainment instead used women fighting back as its plot. It was a very thrilling joy ride – quite literally – of female, and I hate this word, empowerment. It gave us indivdiual characters that were seperated by more than just their hair colour. The film quite happily focused on the tragic story that Max had come across rather than trying to sideline the amazing Imperator Furiosa simply to keep him as the protagonist. It showed raw female strength & the power of sisterhood and I utterly loved it.

Rating: 5/5 Director: George Miller Starring: Tom Hardy, and Charlize Theron. Available on: DVD, or to buy on services such as Amazon Video.

Inside Out

Whilst little girls often get given tales of Disney Princesses, and much feminist writing has been done about those, they don't often get stories about them simply being little girls. But here was Inside Out a Pixar film exploring, rather than dismissing, a little girl's emotions. It was, again quite literally, a joy to watch. The film explored what happens when big, stressful things happen in our lives – such as moving house – and shows what might happen to a person's emotions during that time. I hope it helped children understand their own feelings, to have them validated, and made human and hilarious. It made me laugh and it definitely made me cry; it was beautiful to have a film with such a great female lead be such a natural, normal, and popular thing. I wrote about it briefly in a post (here) where I talked about Jurassic World & Pitch Perfect 2, two films that seemed to be angry about the fact that women existed & dared to take up space in a world made for men.

Rating: 5/5 Director: Pete Docter and Ronnie Del Carmen Starring: Amy Poehler, Bill Hader. Available on: DVD, or to buy on services such as Amazon Video.

Spy

Spy was a hilarious film, and as a big fan of Melissa McCarthy & Miranda Hart I was extremely excited to see them both in a film. I never quite got around to writing up a post for it on my blog but I enjoyed it thoroughly when I watched it. It feels so ridiculous that I have to praise a film for treating Melissa McCarthy like a whole person rather than as a joke or a backdrop as there are more than enough films about men of all shapes and sizes being treated like people in comparison. But I shall because it feels like it is worth saying, and oh is she ever one hell of a person. Constantly put down upon in the film and underestimated McCarthy's character proves that she is badass. With a hilarious, amazing side kick in the ever great Miranda Hart (you can tell I'm a big fan, can't you) McCarthy kicks arse after Jude Law's character gets killed; yes, a film opened by killing off the beautiful male lead so a female lead could feel sad and take action – when does that ever happen? It's an awesome film, that is so great to watch and I really do recommend it. I won't say more as I wouldn't want to spoil it but what I will say is I never knew the world has such a great comic actor in Jason Statham.

Rating: 5/5 Director: Paul Feig Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne, Miranda Hart.
Available on: DVD, or to buy on services such as Amazon Video.

Girlhood
As I have not seen this film yet but that I know it is worthy of being this list I have asked Sam Calvert, here and who's own review of Ex Machina you can read here, to write this section for me. Enjoy.

Much like Céline Sciamma’s two previous works, Girlhood is a film which places the focus on issues less portrayed within the medium of cinema. Whereas Water Lilies (2007) explores the sexual awakenings and confusion of three teenage girls and Tomboy (2011) follows the distressing experiences of a transgendered ten-year old child Girlhood shines a light upon the young black girls that call Paris’ rough and tumble banlieues their home. It is on the surface a coming-of-age drama, however themes of race, gender, class and the politics of those subjects are explored and in the tradition of other banlieue films such as Karim Dridi’s Bye Bye (1995) and Matthieu Kassovitz’s La Haine (1995) offers a refreshing counter to standard nostalgia-soaked coming-of-age narratives as well as the ubiquitous cinematic images normally associated with white, middle-class sophisticated Paris. However unlike those films, the cast of Girlhood is almost entirely female.

It is a film that is brutally honest with its female characters, they are as flawed as they are empowered and are never once cast under a judgemental eye by the filmmaker. They do what they want, succeed and fail on their own merits, all in the name of empowering themselves for themselves and not for anyone else – a notion played to perfection in the much talked about ‘Diamonds’ scene. In fact the gender relations at play between the males and females in the banlieue would be worthy of a whole article in themselves. Ultimately writer/director Sciamma sums it up perfectly herself when she states that “French young women today are this girl”. A sure-fire modern classic, a slightly dragging final act is the only thing stopping Girlhood from achieving perfection.

Rating: 4.5/5 Director: Céline Sciamma Starring: Karidja Touré, Assa Sylla, Lindsay Karamoh, Marietou Toure   Available on: DVD, Netflix US, or to buy on services such as Amazon Video.

Very Honourable Mentions: Crimson Peak, Carol, Room, Star Wars: The Force Awakens.


Join me in the New Year where I will be starting a 10-part series exploring female sexuality, and how men find it scary, in films; starting from the teenage years and going all through a woman's life. I'll be looking at great films such as Pariah, Waterlillies, and Under the Skin.

Jessica Jones: AKA Hero

Warning: Spoilers. Also, Trigger Warnings (For the show also): Rape, Abusive Relationships.

Jessica Jones is Marvel's second Netflix television show following Daredevil. The best way I can put it is that whilst Daredevil is the epitome of male violence then Jessica Jones is the consequences of that same violence. It was an exercise in how to take a typically sexist genre – neo/noir – and use it to tell the story of how women live day to day in a world suffering under male violence. In the pilot we are given the typical noir protagonist: an insomniac who drinks, has no friends and a past that won't leave them alone. It was even complete with narration but it's Ritter's female voice that breathes freshness into a genre that typically sees women as dames who are there to seduce and kill the poor male protagonist.

It is set in Hell’s Kitchen, a place depicted as full of violence and poverty so rife that people have no choice but to live there and suffer. We follow Jessica Jones, a character who shares my name (an experience I'll tell you), who we meet as she is putting a man through her door window, because he oddly blamed her for his wife having an affair. She is established straight away as being similar to many a fictional detective before her, one who has abrasive, illegal methods but who, damn it, gets the job done, and yes she does get called Sherlock at one point. Just like Sherlock using his talents to trick others into telling him things Jess is no different, using a Barbie style voice to get information from a woman over the phone.

Yet Jess brings more to the table than those mere human detectives before her for she is a superhero too. Though the word superhero is perhaps not accurate here, for Jess isn't out fighting crime with her powers – at least not anymore. The show drifts around various words to describe her, though it is not shy in calling her a hero, but it mostly settles on gifted – though even that is argued over by one character, instead calling her a freak. Either way she has superior strength, she can kind of fly, or as Jess describes it 'guided falling', and she can't half take a punch. These skills are often held up as evidence as to how a woman can do a job that comes with the threat of someone deciding to kick your arse. On quite a few occasions did Jess, and her friend Trish, find ways to shrug off and defend Jess' considerable strength, from a cleanse to pilates.

The show explores similar themes to shows like it such as Marvel's Agents of SHIELD which has introduced Inhumans to its current season; it looks at the threat that people with superhuman powers would be, people who can rip people apart with their bare hands if they want to. Jessica Jones adds a dimension that I have always argued: but what if they didn't? What if they were like the many, many people that weren't violent? Like the fact that the violence in this world is pretty much committed by men, the statistics are staggering.

So what is it about women that makes us so much less inclined to commit violence? And what if we got powers? Would we turn around and wreak havoc for the thousands of years of violence and oppression done against us? Or would we be like Jess, who does good and mostly uses her strength to defend herself? As Jess says to someone who accuses her of being 'one of them', “It's people like you that give people like you a bad name”; it's not that she is or isn't the problem but it's like many scared, paranoid, fear mongering people who assume and accuse others of being a threat. That's not even getting into the fact that humans are enough of a threat on their own & that weapons can bridge that gap between human and inhumans, I mean seriously three members of the Avengers are human.

In the pilot she gets a case that starts off the whole season: someone's daughter, Hope, has gone missing. Even in this exchange alone we are treated to one way that gender stereotypes can crop up as the father starts trying to fix Jess' apartment door – the one that she threw a man through. At one point he asks her if she has a spirit level & we get a little moment where noir crosses with sexism as she doesn't have one but instead she hands him some glue, noir protagonists are not the most prepared characters. It's sexism is topped off by him saying he doesn't want to leave a woman alone in the city with a door that won't lock, the irony of this of course being that Jess can more than handle herself.

The theme of strength is a core one of the show however; from dealing with literal, physical strength to a more abstract, mental and emotional strength. This happens because despite Jess' immense strength she was once powerless to use it as her enemy was a man by the name of Kilgrave, played by David Tennant, who instead controlled her mind. It's this helplessness, this losing control over your mind and body that is the key fascination that Jessica Jones explores. Many a time do Trish and Jess point out that being mind controlled by Kilgrave does not make you weak, and that in fact you could be the strongest person in both mind and body and it doesn't matter against Kilgrave's powers.

This is where I say that I'm going to spoil the entire season so I hope you've watched it all before you read on. This lack of strength & weakness becomes especially clear when we find out that his powers are a virus & that the only way to be free of him is by being with him for long enough that your body can create antibodies against it, as happens with Jess. It's also this anti-body resistance that serves as one of many great metaphors in the show for what happens when you leave an abusive relationship. Women who've left abusive partners can still feel trapped, and often live under the very real threat of their ex returning to hurt them – leaving is the most dangerous time for women in these relationships. These women over time would hopefully learn how to be free, as it were, from their partners' spell; whilst Kilgrave has fictional mind control powers he is representative of men who use simple manipulation to exercise that same control of their female partners.

It is through this threat that the show expertly portrays the realities of living in and out of an abusive relationship. Often when we hear about these relationships there are cries of why didn't she leave as though women happily choose to stay with men who hurt them, as though there could be no other side to it. When often in reality women's choices are more complex, as reality often is, and it’s this lack of choice that the show handles brilliantly. Women in abusive relationships are emotionally abused to feel as though they are worthless, that they bring the abuse on themselves and that they deserve it; abusive men also isolate women from their friends, their family, the people who would be able to warn and help them. They make them financially dependent on them so even if they wanted to leave they would have no money to get away. They keep track of everything that they do on the internet, or outside of home – if they even allow them to go out alone that is – so even women finding out that there are options to escape is pretty slim. Considering many people don't understand the signs of abuse, and that much of the abuse isn't physical, it is not really a mystery why people don't get out of abusive relationships. Again, that's not even considering just how dangerous, as I've said, it is when women do finally leave – that is often when they are killed. I am sure there are people out there who have even stopped watching this show, or have had their abusive partners turn it off in front of them after realising Kilgrave is portrayed as the evil villain.

A big part of liberal feminism that I often see is this idea of choice, in particular women's choices. There's a lot of discussion about the idea that women should have the freedom to make whatever choices they want, regardless of the impact those choices have on other women even. For instance, when some feminists talk about how harmful things like objectification can be, how patriarchal ideas of women's worth are tied to how sexually attractive to men they are and when it comes to  women who are objectified – such as those in the modelling and sex industries – liberal feminists are quick to point out that if a woman chooses to be objectified then that's her business. I'm hardly the first feminist then to point out that this is a rather narrow way to look at the world and that it is all but useless for feminism seems as feminism deals with oppressive structures and systems rather than solely individual choices.

Jessica Jones then as a show has much to say on choices and how free women really are to make certain choices. It understands that abusive men and oppressive structures can take away a woman's choice, can remove her chance to say no, and then will turn around and blame her for doing something she had no real choice but to do. As much as Kilgrave uses his powers there's also many times when he simply manipulates Jess with his words, with the threat of making others take their own lives, and with the threat of doing despicable things to those that she cares about. Where is the choice when it’s between your best friend being killed or raped and stopping the man who has ruined yours and many others lives? Many women have argued that in a patriarchy women's free will is twisted and marked by the oppression that she lives under, it's no different for Jess.

On the other hand however, it is very aware of the choices that men make, that men have the power to make for they are the ones in a patriarchy with the most power. Kilgrave is a perfect example of what an abusive, entitled man would do if he was given the power to control minds. He uses women like puppets, there to be raped for his pleasure, to be pretty things on his arms. He even uses a woman, Hope, simply to annoy and lure Jess as he goes through the same steps he did with her - dinner, hotels and such. He gets whatever he wants and it is the simple fact that Jess leaves him and is the one person who disobeys him that makes him so furious he sets out to ruin her life, in the name of loving her.

That again is another corner stone of abuse, and sadly one many believe if newspaper headlines and stories are to be believed. We paint men who kill their partners and their families as loving men whose love was simply so much that they had no choice but to kill them; that by taking their life they were showing some true act of love. Kilgrave made it very clear that he thought that he loved Jess, that he was controlling her because he loved her more than anyone did and that only he could love her in the Right Way. The truth is, of course, that he doesn't love her but instead he is obsessed with her. That he feels like she is his possession and that any time she is a real person, exercising her right to say no to him, that this illusion shatters and he reacts with anger and more and more control.

In the final episode, in the climax of Jess finally standing off and up to Kilgrave in what ends with his death at her hands, is a line that shows how he wants her to see herself; he says to her that she isn't capable of loving, that she could never truly love him because she couldn't love any man. This is again another common abuse tactic as it turns him into the victim and her into the villain; of course he has to hurt her because it’s the only way he can make her see how great he is, of course he has to force her to be with him so he can teach her how to love, and ultimately she ends up feeling like the person in the wrong when it’s his own issues and insecurities that mean she doesn't love him, not hers. It is one of many patriarchal reversals that men often pull to convince themselves that women are the cause of all problems and not men, for example a simple one would be men saying that women are bad drivers when in fact it is men who cause the most road accidents, and especially the most fatal ones.

Even then there are other things throughout the show that hint at the reality of women living in a patriarchal world that abuses women but then hates any attempt they make at dealing with it. For instance, in this final fight Jess tells her best friend Trish, stood nearby after being threatened by Kilgrave with a future of rape and death, that she loves her, and she does so because she knows she's about to murder Kilgrave; she does this simply because she knows that she will be sent to jail – though, luckily perhaps, that does not happen – and this is because killing your abuser is seen as an unacceptable choice women make. There are many, many women in prison for this exact reason and whilst I'm not advocating they should all be free I think that there is a lack of understanding of how little choice these women had in doing what they did.

That so many of these women were faced with their own deaths, or the death of their children, and that the only way to stop them was killing them. Yet women's sentences, like with most other crimes, are harsher for this than men's would be. It is seen as a much greater crime for a woman to kill a man than for a man to kill a woman, just look at the sentences men get for killing a stranger compared to their partners. There is even a plot in the show of Trish getting a gun after she learns to defend herself and almost fails; but even this in the real world has consequences that women suffer worst, as is evidenced by a case where a woman went to jail for decades purely for firing warning shots at her abusive partner. A woman threatening a man was deemed worse than many men's very real violence against women, and children.

Male violence is a constant in the world of Hell's Kitchen, as was made painstakingly clear in Daredevil, and seen in obvious and subtle ways in Jessica Jones. Take the character of Simpson, or G.I. Joe as I took to calling him in my notes, he is very violent, time and time again; he complains that when Kilgrave made him try to kill Trish that that wasn't him, that he isn't like that. Yet as the series goes on his character is marked by the violence he commits, in many situations and against many different people. He even commits the abuse staple of immediately apologising for his violence against Trish as she tries to stop his violence, saying it will never happen again.

But then there is also the aftermaths of male violence scattered throughout; we see this in Jess' PTSD, in the male cliché remnants of Carrie Ann Moss' gender swapped character, in Pam & Wendy paying for male violence, in Hope's abortion, and in a patriarchy so obsessed with women being beautiful that a mother tries to force her own daughter to be sick so she will be skinnier. Male violence is plain and obvious to see once you start noticing it, which can be difficult as it is so hidden, so normalised and mystified by men who would rather you believe that violence just is, it just happens, and that its done by no one in particular. Take for instance Kilgrave's anger at being called evil, calling it reductive because he sees himself as so much greater, so much more complicated than a simple Evil Villain. Yet I'd argue that even the concept of evilness is one used to add a shine to what is otherwise your standard, pathetic entitled man throwing tantrums and trying to manipulate people when he doesn't get his own way.

Kilgrave sees himself not as a villain either, but as a loving partner. He describes recreating her childhood home, one Jess had to leave after a car crash she was in killed her family, and forcing her with the deaths of others to live there as a 'grand romantic gesture'; he gets angry and says that he 'gave and gave' and that 'she took and took', again he is the carer and provider and she the ungrateful leech who doesn't appreciate anything he does for her. People echo abusive sentiments like this when they believe that a woman owes a man sex after a date, that men's kindness should always be repaid as it comes at a cost – whilst women's kindness is one that is severely punished if its lacking. Kilgrave even goes so far as to say that she is crueler than his parents, who accidentally gave him his powers after trying to cure an illness he had in childhood, as to him she committed the worst possible act against him: saying no.

The only criticism perhaps that I would say this show has is that it does try to find reasons for Kilgrave's violence, for his entitlement. It first looks to his childhood, hoping that his shitty parents would be a good reason why a man would use his powers for so much evil; yet when Jess finds that his parents were loving, that they were trying to help and that he turned on them so much that they had to flee she instead argues that if their parenting didn't make him that way then the lack of it did instead. But again that doesn't account for those men who had loving families, that had amazing childhoods and it certainly doesn't explain why women with the worst childhoods don't become mass murderers or terrorists. When you see that on a basic, biological and mental level the differences between men and women are slim to none then it becomes clear that male socialisation is what is most likely to blame for men's violence.

Society, parents, family, friends, adverts, TV, film and all the things that men do and who they talk to and all the bits in between are what cause men to be entitled to the point of violence. It's a patriarchal society that praises men for being aggressive, for being harsh and violent, and that tells them women are sexy rewards for that violence (see most of film) that causes men to seek out violence in the hope of reward, glory, and fame – one that they sadly get, you just have to look at the title of the 2015 Kray’s biopic Legend to see that. But even then Jessica Jones as a show makes it clear that killing is, almost, never the answer, that there are other options than violence, and that being a hero requires making the right, if not difficult, choices. Men's violence is a choice, their entitlement is a choice, and the show makes it very clear how bad the consequences can be when men happily make certain choices.

There is so much more to talk about with this show and I hope that people do as they watch it and that it makes abusive relationships that much clearer so that they can one day avoid them; from Kilgrave underplaying his abuse to make himself the victim, to him taking a beating to make Jess look like the villain, to the idea of trying to fix abusive men and how Jess realises that she isn't the one to do that. Jessica Jones is an amazing show that shows the cost of male violence on women but more importantly it shows the strength, in every way, of women. It shows how female friendship can help mend the damage done by men, how it takes a village to fix the havoc of men's choices, and that in the face of no real choice women still try to make the right one.

Television: Women Live.

I watch a lot of TV, as many people have told me; even people who thought they watch a lot of TV have been surprised at how much TV I watch. Watching this much TV can mean it becomes quite predictable; you begin to spot the tropes, the set ups & it can get quite dull. But worse than that these tropes mean I have to watch the same sexist stuff over & over & over & over. The same boring plots, the same ridiculous lines & the same clichés again & again. I’m sure there is a giant book somewhere that script writers consult that explains perfectly how to do the same thing to your characters as everyone else does, especially when they’re women. Oh if they’re women then you have a handful of roles to shove them into – as well as the same uncomfortable outfits to force them into too, a small number of things can happen to them, and they all ultimately revolve around the men in their life.

As much as each woman is born in part thanks to a man, she may have a brother or a boyfriend, and she may even live with one or two but at the end of the day she still has a whole life independent of men. She still has thoughts, feelings, hobbies; she may have a job, or kids, or a hundred and one other things that writers are happy to understand of men. But women? Being genuinely multi-faceted, complicated, human? Fuck no. That is very often one step too far. Considering the majority of TV (and film) writers are men, to say nothing of directors, it’s surprising that they often fail to use their apparent brilliance, their un-paralleled imagination, and their sheer complexity to think of female characters who do as much as their male characters do.

Now I don’t just watch one genre of TV or only watch shows done by one showrunner these are problems I see across television spanning years, channels, and styles. It’s a weirdly perpetual insistence of ignoring reality because biases won’t let them see the world for what it is. Considering the work that goes into writing & making television shows it has always baffled me that no one along the months that it takes to get a show from script so screen points out how dull it is, how predictable, how clichéd, and how bad it is.

I mean was anyone present during season 2 of The Strain? When *spoilers* Del Toro used a ridiculous myth that pineapple changes how people taste (if you know what I mean, *shudder*) to bring a female character down a peg or two. The character Dutch was incredibly smart & talented, if not a bit criminally inclined, and in the end she was still degraded like every female character is. She was on the verge of being sexually assaulted after being abducted & as she’s rescued she quite literally jumps in the arms of the big hulking man who saves her. I won’t even get into the fact that the relationship with her girlfriend was thrown to the side or how it reflects how television writes lesbians or bisexual women. It was just awful watching & knowing that I am ten times more likely to see this happen to her than to the show’s main character Eph. Half naked, bent forward Corey Stoll anyone?

This then leads me on to two things that happened in The Strain in its finale that became the straw that broke the camel’s back. Once again, spoilers. Firstly, let’s start with Coco, a young, smart, beautiful woman who falls for a very old, rich, horrible man & after the rich, old man does Something Wrong the villain then decides not to punish him, for that would be ridiculous – punish a man for his own crime?! What a world that would be – they decide to murder Coco instead. I was furious, I didn’t care all that much about either character or indeed a lot of that side of the story, no, I was angry because it once again took a whole character away because of something a man did; she was punished for who she fell in love with and for utterly no reason. As much as it seems like it will lead into a storyline where he cuts out her heart & keeps it, alive, in a jar forever so what? Why couldn’t he die? Why can’t she learn how to cut out his heart & keep it alive in a jar? Or is it only women’s hearts that this works for?

Then in the same episode it gets worse. My partner who has read the book the TV show is based off was explaining to me how weird Eph & Nora’s relationship is in the TV show; he described how it’s so much more complicated, serious & how the show reduced it to a simple will they won’t they. Then came the looks, the throwaway lines, all the signs that Something Bad was going to happen, and so it did. In what was completely pointless we get a fight between her & Eph’s vampire ex-wife, I know right, and in it Nora gets infected. She is badass, can fight as good as the rest of them, is extremely smart but no she gets fucked & decides to kill herself. Leaving the fact that I can’t watch a woman fight a woman on TV without hearing the line ‘love a bit of girl on girl, eh?’ from Hot Fuzz (a satire of these scenes, for those who didn’t get it) aside. I was just so angry that in the same episode another female character pointlessly had to die. Moreover, her death was spectacular, there were flashing lights, slow motion & everything because hey a woman dying must be pretty.

I wouldn’t be able to write a list of female characters who I’ve watched die, not even just because I’ve watched so many shows over the years but because it’s just so constant. It’s often without care, without consequence or without compassion. It’s not that they’re fictional & deserve respect it’s that watching television comes with a backdrop of dead women. It means children, men, women have watched many, many women die; in lots of ways, with little care, often at the hands of men, and often done in ways purely for entertainment. I’ve written a lot on violence in this blog, on how it’s often male violence but no one ever mentions the word male in that sentence, and how it is often pointless. But I at least understand that it is a plot that can be used for TV, though it is often over used. But when you’re constantly watching women be killed and men killing women it can make you feel, as a woman, pretty worthless.

As I said to my partner when watching The Strain, and Fear the Walking Dead in which a woman is shot in the arm to punish her father for his actions, I am more than someone who exists in relation to him. I am more than a thing to be hurt or killed for the things he does. I am so much more than someone whose pain & death only happen so he can be sad and cry. I can’t even believe I’d even have to explain this, to anyone at all that women are more than things. There are plenty of male characters who are discarded, I don’t deny it, but they exist on shows where the majority of the main characters are also men, where they all have depth, names and plot lines that happen independent of the women in their lives. It’s disappointing, it’s infuriating, but worst of all it’s just really shit writing.

I always say to my partner that if you can’t write women then you can’t write. We’re half the population not a rare gem that is hard to translate to the page. In a world where men actively discriminate against women in the television & film industry to keep them from directing & writing I would just like to say can you please fuck off so people who can actually write can give us the television we deserve? Thanks.

Doomsday: Mad Max in Glasgow

Warning: Spoilers

Doomsday is a film set in the UK, mostly Glasgow and London, about how the Reaper Virus ravages the country. First the virus destroyed Glasgow and Scotland (and Newcastle) and was quarantined by a huge wall, complete with armed guards. But a few decades later the virus is back and now it's infecting London but somewhat luckily a satellite has picked up images of people alive in Scotland. So they decide to send in a team to find out if there is a cure, and it turns out the “best man for the job” is a woman. Eden Sinclair is our protagonist & she had been in Glasgow when the original virus hit, after losing an eye after being shot by a soldier her mother had got her on an army helicopter and saved her. Now Agent Sinclair, complete with robot eye that can record things, is set up with a team to go in and find a cure.
I am a huge fan of outbreak films, along with disaster and zombie films; I love seeing the little intricate details of the downfall of society and how people can rebuild. However, usually as men are the ones writing these downfalls they often just recreate the patriarchal society we live in. It's so disappointing because, to me, it shows a lack of imagination – why tear down a world only to rebuild it exactly the same? Flaws and all? If not worse? So I put Doomsday on hoping to get something different, to get a fresh take on it and see how they handled a world in which a virus had taken out a whole country. What I got was disappointment.
Scotland, after having been left to its own devices, had become a very weird but brutal and dangerous place. We are introduced to a couple of the wild factions that have taken over and those are a Mad Max style faction and a medieval section that is set in a castle that had a gift shop. Both run by men, one in fact run by the son of the man who runs the medieval section – his daughter is imprisoned by her brother and duly branded. It's a very unimaginative take on what a whole country would become when left to its own devices. Moreover its this complete replication, if not to its most savage form, that does not really take much thinking. If you have the chance to make a film, one with an amazing female protagonist, in a genre that isn't really full of great films it's a shame that no one tried to think outside of the box.
Whilst the medieval world replicates the same values from that time it's the Mad Max one I want to talk about. We are introduced to them at first by many people – men and women – trying to murder the team who have come to find a cure; they are all promptly shot down until they overwhelm the group, after having murdered most of them, and Sinclair surrenders. Then we see Eden tied up with furry handcuffs no less and is beaten and has part of her ear bit off. Whilst Eden breaks free after fighting two guards we are witness to a member of her team being burnt alive and eaten as we see those left have resorted to cannibalism. It's a brutal scene and there's a lot to talk about.
Firstly, let's talk about the cannibalism shall we? When the team first go through the borders they accidentally run over a cow and we see that they are infected with the virus. If this is to imply that the virus can cross species and therefore infects their food supply I don't think it quite explains enough; does that mean there are no uninfected species of animals? I find it hard to believe that humans were the only species in Scotland whose immune systems eventually created antibodies. Considering the virus wiped out so many people that the rest of the country felt safe condemning the remaining people to death we can assume that there weren't so many people left, or at least I'd hope so. Therefore there probably aren't many survivors left in Glasgow, or the rest of Scotland/Newcastle. So it doesn't make that much sense to try and live off people when there aren't many left, and it would have taken a long time to get uninfected people or an immunity to eating perhaps raw, infected human flesh.
So then let's talk about where this supply of meat comes from. It's probably children. There aren't children wandering around but what there are is a fair amount of men and women. We also learn that a lot of rape takes place in the quarantine zone and I'll get to that later. So therefore it's not too much of a stretch to assume that women are raped and their children are raised enough to fatten them up and then they are eaten. This wouldn't even be much better because you'd have to wait a long time for them to have enough meat (sorry) to feed what seem like a fair amount of people. Even if you're going to go the (sorry for the spoiler) Snowpiercer route and try and eat parts of adults instead of children then you're still going to be starving, and there didn't seem to be people missing limbs either. So already this world of patriarchal mayhem doesn't make sense as it leaves his people starving and weak and therefore not even strong enough to fight intruding factions.
I know we weren't witness to all aspects of that world but it really did seem as though any form of a farming system – the people were infected not the land I assume – or means of getting water. So even just having a savage patriarchal system isn't even enough to properly provide for its people, even if it was just the men that were getting the lions share. It doesn't take a genius to look at the modern Patriarchy we live in and see that it doesn't make sense and is often destructive. When combined with white supremacy and capitalism it definitely doesn't work. For example you're not getting the most out of your work force if you're not ensuring women are well paid, healthy (sexism is bad for women's health), can actually work (good childcare), and being put in the best jobs for their skill set – same goes for people of colour. This is not to say that capitalism really makes sense or is at all the best way to run a country (spoilers its not) but those rich men who want the most money gain much more from white supremacy and patriarchy to put capitalism first.
Secondly, I want to talk about this world and sexual exploitation. One thing we see during the cannibalism scene is a stage where the patriarch Sol is riling his people up and at the side of the stage are two stripper poles and two scantily clad women who are dancing. The camera makes sure to linger over their body and Sol bends them over in front of him. This whole thing is bad enough but it's even worse when you look at the world that it's set in. Now I'm not saying that it seemed to be gender equal, there were definitely more male soldiers and guards and lackeys but if you look at the crowd and the foot soldiers who attack the team at the start it is clear that women are allowed to fight. The women are dressed just like the men, they are in the same spaces and roles as men are and they carry weapons and fight just as much. So why then are some women still being used as props?
Patriarchy was reluctant to let women fight in armies because women are seen as weak and unable to defend their countries but this world lets them fight and be seen as warriors just as much. So why then is it okay to have some women be brave and fight but others merely be used as objects for pleasure? Perhaps its asking too much of any patriarchal world to make any type of sense but it still feels odd and out of place. Even if you look at desperate times such as World War 1 the UK was more willing to conscript teenage boys than it was women to fight; even in World War 2 countries such as Russia were reluctant to let women fight even when it was clear that they could hold their own – such as the Night Witches. So it seems peculiar then that in a world that accepts that women are strong enough to fight that it would keep some women as there for sex. If you want to pretend that it's because those women love dancing and being objectified then I think this isn't the blog for you.
So then that leads me to why I wanted to talk about this film in the first place. During the narration and later during a description of what Scotland has become since being quarantined we are told that the place has devolved into “rape and murder”. But I want to talk about the rape bit and why if writers would take one step outside of their box and try to understand rape they would see why actually it doesn't fit the savage world that they have in their mind. When those who don't really think about rape talk about it they often fall into the same traps; that only evil monsters commit it, that it's strangers in alleyways who do it, or that women must be doing something to cause good upstanding men to do it. But all of that is wrong, yes evil men rape but so do men that most people would call good or kind or caring, those men probably even see themselves that way. Yes strangers rape strangers but most likely you're going to be raped by someone that you called friend, or a family member and others. Lastly there is not an action, a way to dress, a word, or a movement or anything else that could possibly cause a man – any type of man – to rape a woman. Otherwise women wouldn't say it or do it or wear it; if you're sat there thinking that drunk women bring rape on themselves and that that's a perfectly reasonable way to think and that you're only saying it to help women then you probably think the women deserves it or that you think a woman being outside and drunk is a crime that should be punished with rape. Sound barbaric right? Yet many people happily say this online, in real life, on TV, make polls about it, and think pieces about it. All of which miss the very clear point that rape is about control and power.
Committing rape is always a calculated choice, one that the rapist could stop at any point but chooses not to because he wants to pretend he has power over someone else by hurting them. It's not about sexual attraction because straight men rape men and gay men rape women and so on. Therefore when people write stories and films and TV shows about savage and dangerous men they often make sure to explain that those Bad Men Rape. Its used as short hand to explain that these men are bad guys because they choose to rape men. This again often ignores the fact that those who rape are often ordinary men, normal men, your friendly neighbour. It's extremely likely that you know a rapist and that you wouldn't know it because he hides it well. It's the same for those who abuse their partners, they are often charming because it would be pretty hard to hide that abuse if you're a suspicious loner who always laughs about hitting women.
It's how people have forgotten that Sean Penn extremely brutally hurt Madonna, it's how people forgive athletes who are abusers under the guise of giving them a second chance, and it's why people rush to defend rapists – they would rather live in a world where women are lying whores than where nice men are rapists. So trying to pretend that it's only due to the downfall of society that rape would become – as though it isn't already – common. It also belittles and infantilises these same women who are warriors, as though none of them have taken action to punish and stop men raping. Which leads me straight to my next point.
Fuck Patriarchy. I've said it before when I reviewed Mad Max & other films I wish that writers (often male) would stop only ever imagining a patriarchal society. I'm not even talking about a matriarchy, which by the way would have a focus on nurturing and not just be a recreation of patriarchy but with women being the murderers and such. It's so dull to watch what is meant to be a fresh take on our world and what our world could be and then seeing the same BS of well most men are stronger than most women therefore they would rule everything. It pretends that women's strength in other areas means nothing, or that their smarts mean nothing, their charisma and kindness means shit all. That they couldn't offer a world that people would want to live in more than one of poverty, murder, and cannibalism. Or maybe that's just me. Maybe I just happen to think that men are capable of more, of wanting more, of controlling their need for power – over society and women's bodies. Or maybe we just live in a Patriarchy because men really are just too shit to think of something better or to create it, after all they've only had forever.