Okay. So I did it. I launched into my personal sad quest to rewatch all the Alien films with friends and tweet some of the gender stuff — as if I needed an excuse.
Get the round up here: http://storify.com/CTrouper/watching-alien-with-sizemore
Watch and listen for the next screening when we’ll all get to talk crap about #aliens and the breaking down of Ripley’s character for a mainstream audience.
All too often people set about wetting their pants over new films and tv programmes and claiming they are creating or proporting to, feminist strong women girls things. Frankly, it’s dull. When something becomes all about proving strong lady credentials everything else goes out of the window. The gender message becomes a point of advertising, the plot seems irrelevent and everyone knows it puts stones in the pockets of the film/programme/whatever as it walks out into the lake unsatisfied with its work.
FACT. All the cool kids want to watch scary films that people pretend are watched by a 90% male audience. Lucky for you my strong point, and it has always been so, is an unhealthy consumption of the sci-fi and horror sectors. And, when I can stop myself mindlessly clapping like a seal infront of them, I like analyzing covert gender messaging. Because sometimes that’s where it matters. When it’s being massaged into our brains without us even noticing.
Case in point, Ridley Scott’s Alien. First let us note – Ridley Scott also brought the world Thelma and Louise and that is a conversation for another post; Ridley Scott is of an advertising background; they made me watch lots of Ridley Scott films at college.
While everyone was barking about the Hunger Games and the supposed portrait of kick ass female leads I found myself getting quietly passive agressive about the analysis lacking Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley. Why wasn’t she coming up more often? Apart from the massive maternal undertones of the ENTIRE Alien film she was practically androgynous and allowed to exist as the lead without having to play the gender card.
Though, let’s not forget the character was originally written for a man. And it’s worth questioning if that’s why she doesn’t have to undergo any massive gender based violence episode to prove herself, like say in the sequels where her gender and so her weakness has been established. Do you need clarification on the massive maternal undertones? The ship that turns against them is called ‘mother’ and Ripley risks her life letting the Alien into her escape pod to rescue the ships cat, read tiny baby (the librarians and feminists out there know what I’m saying!)
Where am I going with this? Absolutely nowhere, this is my personal blog not a newspaper. I just want to invite you all to consider watching the prequal to Alien, Prometheus, with me and then having a long discussion about the gender journey through the series.
I’ll kick us off by watching Alien and doing a breakdown for you, hopefully with some chum/s. And then I’ll watch Aliens. Etc. Etc.
Good. Then I’ll begin.
Let it first be said that I don’t give a damn about the book. I haven’t read it. I won’t be reading it. I’m not the young adult audience. Good for you if you are.
There were two things I’d heard about the Hunger Games before I’d seen it.
1. This film is rewriting female lead roles for a new feminist generation (I had already dismissed this as bullshit and taken to writing ‘Alien’ and ‘Ripley’ in red food paint on clean windows)
2. It’s not true to the books, fans are disappointed. (considering my lack of interest in the book this is of little relevance)
So I enter with a sense that I may be disappointed. Well, I was not disappointed. In that I was disappointed.
Are you still with me?
I’m disregarding the feminist conversation here just because I can and so my main complaint lays with the fact that the film delivers so many soft blows. Yes, I know it’s for the YA audience but lets just admit they’re all squeeing over much more violent and savvy video games so they can handle a little bit of bad.
This could be a scathing satire on reality TV, but the film passes swiftly over this. The sense of the rich, blood thirsty bourgeois watching on the edge of their seat, dissecting every second Big Brother style would have added much to the drawn out plot. But lets face it Charlie Brooker did this already. Did it in brief but effective time. Did it better. His review of gender politics and the true worth of women in the eyes of the mainstream is better as well.
Here there are no consequences for playing the game. For playing at love to keep the audience interested. For accepting the waxing and the brushing and the tweaking and twirling for the gauche audience. It’s an accepted step to success. Play along. It will all be fine.
The film created multiple outs to keep the stars of the show pure. They didn’t have to kill the good kids, or really anyone. Non-direct violence through wasp dropping. You or me life saving kills. The good kids killed by dogs thrown in last minute or by the bad kiddies. Catnip didn’t have to cross any real lines, find any real strength from within. Her safety was handed to her on a plate time and time again. Her safety secured by men watching over. Saving her life this time only. Or following her around with bleeding hearts.
And it was poorly acted. And shallow. And too slow.
If I’ve ruined this film for you I’ve done you a favour.
Last night I went to the CHERYL pop rally party time fun town to welcome the Cindy Sherman retrospective to the MOMA. This post will stray into the ‘that’.
Obviously, the first thing is waves of joy and fun for drinking and dancing and having a man paint your face and rush for a mirror like everything is about to change forever. The second thing, which will be obvious if you’ve been to the retrospective is the waves of women’s work on the wall.
And it’s not just that it’s a huge curated area of the talent of one woman artist, but it’s what the work is saying.
Cindy Sherman’s work is cloak and dagger feminism. From the movie stills that I remember best from art books at University to the most recent aging beauties, Sherman’s work explores what it is at heart to be a woman. To be defined through observation, consumed through media machine images and judged through a slim light of six or seven stereotypes. But it’s fun. It’s so fun that everyone wants to come and bask and enjoy and experience.
While at a critical level the f-crew can take much from the work it’s an entry point to identity politics for everyone, because who doesn’t like dressing up?
I was taken with Cindy Sherman at University, as I’m sure swathes of women are, and the final photo piece I produced led to me being dubbed ‘this year’s Cindy Sherman’. Pretty reductive, but I was never really offended by it. And if you’re leaving University with the knowledge of identity creation and a reaffirmed sense of self, well, it can’t be that bad.
By the way, somebody stole the entire picture set before I could get it back. So. Thanks, Lincoln.
But back to the point.
For me, Cindy Sherman provides a map and compass to navigate the increasingly cruel nature of multimedia, paparazzi clusterfucking of women who are in turn too thin, too fat, too irregular, too old, with the wrong hair, the wrong shoes, the wrong clothes. In isolation the images can be quite disturbing, graphic now in their caked make up and wet eyes but en masse, as they can be found at the MOMA, a narrative breaks out. A reflection of the everyday — from the National Portrait Gallery to trashy magazine spreads — heightening sense and perception of manipulation or the lack of manipulation.
It’s reassuring and relieving. The humour numbs and removes the pain of the clumsy reduction of women in the everyday – whether by the press or self inflicted through posing and fawning for Facebook or wherever it is people collect their pictures in these modern times.
Anyway. I enjoyed it.
Tags: cindy sherman, feminism
I am going to blog more.
I promise. About.. you know… stuff.
So, starting… later. I’ll be on it.
Every ten years start making mix tapes for your friends again. Acceptable method of transference: Internet.
It looks like normal walking, but it's not. Its earthquake escape plan.
Many funny headings could have been chosen but I couldn’t think of any so I settled on mirthquake.
First earthquake ever, emotions:
confusion
worry about how to hide new mental problem
relief that everyone else is feeling it
minor blind panic
action cooper clearing the floor
active cooper running down stairs
aprehension cooper
twitter/facebook cooper
back to work cooper
distracted cooper
hometime cooper
