The feminist film: an unattainable ideal?
04-02-2006 07:40 | 5218 views | Michael Mackenzie | Show Backlinks
As some of you may be aware, when I'm not moonlighting as a reviewer at DVD Times, I'm studying for an MLitt in Film Studies. Every Friday, the class meets and we each take it in turns to screen a film of our choice and then chair a seminar on it. I'm still waiting for my chance to unleash The Bird With the Crystal Plumage on my unsuspecting fellow students, but in the meantime I've been appreciating the chance to see films that I might not otherwise have sought out.
This week, we watched Japanese Story, and the subsequent discussion brought up some very interesting questions about feminisim not just in the film itself but in cinema as a whole. For those who are not aware, Japanese Story is an Australian film predominantly made by women (during the opening titles, the only credit which goes to a man is that of cinematographer) - a fact that cannot be dismissed when talking about gender issues. The central concept of the film is the growing bond and eventual affair between an Australian woman (Toni Collette) and a Japanese man (Gotaro Tsunashima). The most interesting aspect of this story is the way in which conventional (Hollywood?) gender roles are reversed, with Toni Collette being deliberately masculinised while Gotaro Tsunashima is feminised.
On the one hand, I'm impressed with the skill at which writer Alison Tilson and director Sue Brooks pull this gimmick off. It provides a suitably novel twist on what would otherwise be a fairly predictable story. At the same time, though, I can't help thinking that it would be a bit rash to call this film "feminist", as many have done. What, after all, is feminist about imbuing a woman with masculine attributes and a man with feminine attributes? That's not revolutionary, it's just role reversal. As one member of our group pointed out, seemingly the only way in which Toni Collette's character could be given authority was to make her more manly.
Having said that, I'm now beginning to wonder how else it could have been done. Cinema, and society as a whole, are so codified in terms of gender roles as polar opposites that I'm not sure it's possible to have men or women break out of their conventional roles without being seen to simply adopt the traits of the opposite sex. Is it true that a woman can only be made authoritative by giving her masculine characteristics, or is it that we are so used to seeing authority portrayed as a masculine characteristic that when we see a woman in control we become convinced that she is taking on "the man's role"?
A case can be made, as another student pointed out, for portrayals of gay or lesbian characters breaking from this standard mould by sidestepping completely the problems that arise when portraying characters of different genders. Again, however, I'm not really convinced, as in my experience most films about same-sex relationships simply fall into the trap of making one character the "man" and the other the "woman". Again, though, I'm not sure whether this is a result of underlying preconceptions about what makes a man a man and a woman a woman, or because the films I've seen using this technique have simply been unimaginative. For me, the only film I can recall doing a convincing job of portraying a same-sex relationship without simply designating its heroines to traditional masculine and feminine roles was Bound, and even it had its fair share of problems.
I don't know the solution to this, and I don't think there are any easy answers. Still, I think there's grounds here for an interesting debate. Can you have a truly feminist film, or are such attempts to portray women in power doomed to simply result in the men becoming women and the women becoming men?
Discuss.
This week, we watched Japanese Story, and the subsequent discussion brought up some very interesting questions about feminisim not just in the film itself but in cinema as a whole. For those who are not aware, Japanese Story is an Australian film predominantly made by women (during the opening titles, the only credit which goes to a man is that of cinematographer) - a fact that cannot be dismissed when talking about gender issues. The central concept of the film is the growing bond and eventual affair between an Australian woman (Toni Collette) and a Japanese man (Gotaro Tsunashima). The most interesting aspect of this story is the way in which conventional (Hollywood?) gender roles are reversed, with Toni Collette being deliberately masculinised while Gotaro Tsunashima is feminised.
On the one hand, I'm impressed with the skill at which writer Alison Tilson and director Sue Brooks pull this gimmick off. It provides a suitably novel twist on what would otherwise be a fairly predictable story. At the same time, though, I can't help thinking that it would be a bit rash to call this film "feminist", as many have done. What, after all, is feminist about imbuing a woman with masculine attributes and a man with feminine attributes? That's not revolutionary, it's just role reversal. As one member of our group pointed out, seemingly the only way in which Toni Collette's character could be given authority was to make her more manly.
Having said that, I'm now beginning to wonder how else it could have been done. Cinema, and society as a whole, are so codified in terms of gender roles as polar opposites that I'm not sure it's possible to have men or women break out of their conventional roles without being seen to simply adopt the traits of the opposite sex. Is it true that a woman can only be made authoritative by giving her masculine characteristics, or is it that we are so used to seeing authority portrayed as a masculine characteristic that when we see a woman in control we become convinced that she is taking on "the man's role"?
A case can be made, as another student pointed out, for portrayals of gay or lesbian characters breaking from this standard mould by sidestepping completely the problems that arise when portraying characters of different genders. Again, however, I'm not really convinced, as in my experience most films about same-sex relationships simply fall into the trap of making one character the "man" and the other the "woman". Again, though, I'm not sure whether this is a result of underlying preconceptions about what makes a man a man and a woman a woman, or because the films I've seen using this technique have simply been unimaginative. For me, the only film I can recall doing a convincing job of portraying a same-sex relationship without simply designating its heroines to traditional masculine and feminine roles was Bound, and even it had its fair share of problems.
I don't know the solution to this, and I don't think there are any easy answers. Still, I think there's grounds here for an interesting debate. Can you have a truly feminist film, or are such attempts to portray women in power doomed to simply result in the men becoming women and the women becoming men?
Discuss.
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Dan Stephens
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Other examples: Buffy, Alias, Dark Angel...
"Chicks Kick Ass. I got the TShirt that says so"
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But then I suspect this comes down to the definition of a 'strong' character. The notion that for a character to be strong, they must be 'in power' is conceivably a particularly male perspective on the subject. And there are plenty of films which manage strong female characters without finding the need to arm them.
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I liked 'Japanese Story' a lot, although I thought the trouser-wearing was frankly silly and out of place, a case of gender subtext becoming pointlessly overt. The phrase 'feminist film' is almost meaningless, when you consider that entities as disparate as Andrea Dworkin, Madonna and Margaret Thatcher have all referred to themselves as 'feminists' at one time or another! Contemporary feminist thought is extremely diverse and there seems to be almost as many views on how best to continue the struggle for fairness and equality for women as there are writers on the subject. In popular cinema, it's no surprise that female roles usually reflect a uniquely male perspective on women, obviously in large part because the overwhelming majority of writers, producers, directors and corporate bigwigs are men. The number of women in the movie business is growing (especially in the production role) but it's still largely a boy's club. I don't know for sure, but I'd guess that this was as much or even more the case in Asian cinema than in Hollywood and Europe.
This leaves us with a situation where, it still being rare enough to find convincing male lead characters, it's still rarer to find female roles which are not either expressions of this patriarchal malaise, or equally unconvincing reactions against it.
Ripley and Clarice Starling are two female roles in popular cinema that spring to mind where the women's strength was not simply an imitation of 'male' precepts, but a genuine expression of personal integrity. I think this relied in large part on the skill of Sigourney Weaver and Jodie Foster in making their characters wholly authentic. In less gifted hands, both these characters could have become simply 'gun-totin' babes'.
It's worth noting, however, that neither of these characters had sex, at least not in the films which first brought them to the attention of audiences. This is important because, in this male-dominated cinema, where women are seen in an explicitly sexual light, there are certain 'rules' that are usually followed, most often involving some kind of expression of the 'virgin/whore' archetype. Susan Sarandon said she couldn't believe her luck when she landed the part of Annie Savoy in 'Bull Durham', because she got to play a likeable, independent, intelligent, sexually active woman who didn't die in the end (it's an interesting exercise to apply this template to a movie and see how often female characters who are single and sexually active are depressives, psychotic killers or otherwise 'tainted'); and the role was written by a man!
Anyway, I hope that more writers and directors like Alison Tilson and director Sue Brooks come to the multiplex to present complex, authentic, multi-faceted female characters, with or without trousers.
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A truly “feminist” film (i.e. one where neither gender is portrayed as being superior/inferior to the other) wouldn’t be one that was designed to be specifically feminist: it would belong to any genre except that the characters within the film would act as individuals and not act a certain way simply because of their sex. A good example of this is the interaction between David Hemmings’ and Daria Nicolodi’s characters in Dario Argento’s Profondo Rosso. There’s a subplot regarding gender roles running right the way through the film where we see neither sex being portrayed as superior or inferior to the other and neither character is stripped of their masculinity/femininity to achieve that. They operate as individuals and, throughout the course of the film, they save each other. They have their strengths and weaknesses but this is down to individuality and not sexuality. That is true feminism operating within a film.
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I suppose we need to know what attributes Michael finds masculine about Toni Collette in Japanese Story, and what atributes make the male character feminised. Different cultures probably have diffewrent atitudes as to what constitutes feminine and masculine.