The following massive commentary contains spoilers for the movie (although is it really possible to spoil a fairy tale?) and is long.
Short version: This movie subverts the useless princess trope AND subverts the trope that being feminine/caring/beautiful is something inherently superficial or weak. THIS MOVIE IS AWESOME. Read more »
I watched the Sherlock season finale and now I find myself desperately craving chocolate. Is that what it means to be human, to feel so deeply even though your mind knows that there is no real reason for it? Is that why we are storytellers and poets? We cannot help but feel, and attempts to suppress it bring most people sorrow.
It probably doesn't help that I just finished the book Foreigner which is literally all about a man trying to translate between two completely different sentient species: human and atevi...who don't have emotions in the way that humans do. And the main character spends pretty much the entire book trying to understand not only what it feels like to be an atevi, but also reflecting and seeking out what it feels like to be a human. What are we, really? Why do we feel the things we feel? What is feeling?
Sometimes it all swirls up and overtakes me and I wish I could curl up by a fire somewhere and lose myself in happy stories and never have to feel sad or afraid. But then, I wonder. Is it really so bad, to feel pain and sorrow? We are trained practically from birth to process sadness as 'bad' and happiness as 'good.' But many of my experiences in life have led me to question that foundational assumption. To be clear, I do not think that just feeling itself is enough, that sad and happy are the same. I still think that my objective in life is to seek happiness. But, in what may or may not be an unusual way of seeing things, I believe that sadness doesn't cancel out my happiness, and that in order to continue to pursue happiness I actually have to feel sadness sometimes.
Sadness fills me with compassion, sadness breaks down the walls of my inner self and opens me up to the sadness and pain of the universe. Sadness is not what creates shells around people, rather people build walls around themselves to try to keep out the sadness. But I think it's within all of us, walls or not. And if we brick ourselves up we're just locking ourselves in a room with our own fears. If I open myself up, and let myself feel sad, I gain new understandings about myself, and the world. If I tell myself not to be afraid of the intensity of my feelings, to let go the need to be in control of my emotions...I'm free of myself.
It's too bad she won't live. But then again, who does?
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain. Time to die.
~*~
I can never, ever tire of Blade Runner. I can never hold it all in my mind; it's too much.
Is it a story about the future? About a cyborg's fight against death? A man's search for meaning in a vast, glittering, empty abyss of a world? A woman's discovery of her own darkness? About the rise and fall of genius? About something big, something small, something in between? Every single thing in this movie is rife with potentiality. Everything, everyone is pregnant, they have this glow about them of potential energy that cannot find a way to become kinetic. The world is too slippery, there isn't enough friction, the momentum of their lives carries them despite themselves. Even doing nothing is still doing something. And still the life inside them clamors, begging to be released, to be expressed. Every single eyeblink is fierce, every lick of the lips is a silent scream, invisible fists shaking against a cold darkness that spreads into every corner of their insides.
There is nothing good in this movie. There is nothing evil either. There are no extremes at all. Even death itself, supposedly the extremity of life, is transformed into something artistic, a statement about human conscience and consciousness. If a cyborg is "retired," is it still death? Do you have to be a human to be truly alive?
Perhaps the most important question this movie forces you to ask is: What is beauty? Is beauty sexual? Is it sensual? Is it innocent, jaded, drunk, scummy, sparkling clean, classy, horrifying, inspiring? Does beauty exist in the eye of the beholder, or is it merely an attempt, an idea relegated to cyberspace, to the action potentials firing off in neurons?
More than anything else, this movie makes me feel small. Not in an insignificant way...but in an awestruck way. I could be any one of billions, perhaps trillions of people that wander the back alleys, the fancy plazas, the multiple planets and constructs of an unendingly alive universe. Everything dies, everything ends, but to end it must exist at all. Everything IS.
And that is all we can ever truly know. I am, now. Will I be, tomorrow? Was I, yesterday? My memories could be false, my hope for survival unrealistic. But in this moment, this one moment, under rain that blots out the stars, surrounded by lights, glare, traffic of all sort, but utterly alone...I exist. There are pyramids of light surrounded by vast expanses of vacuum and darkness. And the light that I cast, when I spend my potential, and my life becomes kinetic, is insignificant to the point of nothingness when compared to all the lights of all the lives that have ever been. But none of that matters, because I am not them. I can only ever be me.
All we are is a collection of lights, speeding around each other, engaging and disengaging. We swirl around inside ourselves, we whirl amongst each other, we are living stars. And one day all our collective lights will disappear.
Milgrim designed this experiment partly as a reaction to the Eichmann trial, the 50th anniversary of which is this year. The Virginia Holocaust Museum had a film festival this weekend, playing these three films over three days: The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, Journey Into Life: Aftermath of A Childhood In Auschwitz, and The Man Who Scattered Eichmann's Ashes Into The Sea. I did not get to see any of these, and I'm disappointed by that. The VA Holocaust Museum always has fascinating stuff. The people who work there are all fantastic, honest, hard-working people. I adore them, and I strongly encourage people to visit the museum, as often as possible! I have been fortunate enough to receive several guided tours from the Museum's own Director of Education (once with my 7th graders), and their exhibits are generally speaking about half memorial/artifact display and half educational/interactive with applications and understandings beyond just remembering the past.
There is a movement within Holocaust museums at present to expand beyond just the European genocide of the Holocaust to include education and exhibits about all genocides, as well as programs to fight such injustices, or at the very least encourage being informed about them. When I visited Yad Vashem in Israel in 2008, our tour guide passionately spoke about his support for expanding the concept of Holocaust museums to include exhibits and education about genocides worldwide including the present day.
Tonight, my dad's synagogue held its annual Interfaith Holocaust Service. (I led two songs.) We had several presenters and speakers, including two Holocaust survivors. One of them, Alex, also gives tours sometimes at the VA Holocaust Museum, and he brought up the idea that these more recent and ongoing genocides make hollow the favored phrase of Jews worldwide regarding the Holocaust: "Never Again." Is it really Never Again? Did the world truly learn any lesson from the genocide during WWII? The Nazis imprisoned and killed Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, mentally handicapped, political opponents, etc. etc. The Jews were selected for mass extermination, an organized and chillingly orchestrated process that mainly occurred over the last few years of the war. But it all happened so long ago. A generation ago. I suppose I can see why governments can claim to be horrified but not lift a finger to help the women being systematically raped as a weapon of war in the Congo. What is going on there is horrifying to the extremity of my capacity to imagine, and it is happening RIGHT NOW. My intention is not to grandstand and guilt trip and make anyone reading this feel bad for not flying out to the Congo and single-handedly dealing justice to rapists. My point is that awareness is the first step in a long and painful process of achieving social justice, and I believe that one must spread awareness. Holocaust museums and exhibits, educational programs, news reports on current events and genocides, supporting lobbyists, supporting organizations who give aid or give voice to the helpless: that is a form of spreading awareness and taking action.
It is easy to sit back in your life and tell yourself that you'll start thinking about these things tomorrow, next week; that you care, of course you care, but that you're busy, that you have various more important tasks. And that's true. We should not sacrifice our own lives for others unless we truly feel called to it. I don't spend my every waking hour campaigning for those rape victims. But we should make time. More and more I come to believe that this world is one big neighborhood in the vastness of space. Safety issues aside, there is almost nowhere on Earth I could not travel if I had the proper equipment and supplies. That means that those women in the Congo are my neighbors. That the Bosnian Muslims killed in the 90s were my neighbors. That all people, everywhere, no matter their crimes or their vices or their hatreds are all my neighbors. That all those who have been victimized, who are hurt, who are suffering, who have been numbed to their own pains, are my neighbors.
It is easier to put off caring for those who suffer. It is hard, maybe the hardest thing a person can do, to offer legitimate and deeply-felt sympathy for someone who has been victimized. It forces you to acknowledge your own vulnerabilities, your own mortality. It fills you with vague apprehension, with guilt for not magically being able to help them when they "really" needed it, with fear that you have nothing useful to say, that there isn't anything you can do, that your involvement is pointless, that it's better for everyone if you just make a donation/take a flier/sign the petition/etc. and move on.
However, I believe that making the effort to face your fears, to confront your own mortality, to challenge your insecurities, to open yourself up to care, is a worthy cause in and of itself. Caring hurts. Yet that pain can ultimately be constructive. That pain leads us to break down the parts of ourselves which hurt others...and ourselves. That pain causes us to empathize with those we encounter in our lives. That pain encourages us to thwart our self-loathing tendencies. Opening our hearts to others necessitates opening our hearts to ourselves. It makes it harder to hang onto grudges, prejudices, us vs. them rhetoric, and any of a myriad of ways we have evolved as emotional creatures to cope with the overwhelming intensity of relating emotionally to others.
If you do nothing else in your lives to fight injustice and victimization I urge you to take time out of your lives to care. Have a good cry. Get mad and channel it into your workout. Bring up a relevant topic in a conversation with a family member, friend, or coworker. Express outrage, sadness, disgust, despair, frustration, discomfort. Post on facebook. Write in your blog. To express emotions is a healthy, human thing. It doesn't have to be all the time. Most of us, myself included, don't have the energy to feel so deeply and fully all the time. Judaism provides holidays and memorial days to facilitate thinking about these sort of different facets of social justice, relating to yourself and the world, coming to terms with your weaknesses and bettering yourself and the world. America has its own days to remind us of such things. It is up to us to make use of the opportunities for caring that we encounter. It is up to us to stop procrastinating. It is up to us to take a hollow claim and solidify it piece by piece into Never Again.
Preface: I have not seen True Grit. (Yet! This inspires me to watch it sooner, though.) I have not watched any other video by this person. I am responding solely to the ideas invoked in this video and I apologize if anything I say doesn't quite mesh with the movie. As you'll see, for the most part I am not talking about the movie anyway...which fits just fine because as soon as the word "unfeminist" came up, neither was this person:
The assumption here seems to be that because in today's culture "feminine traits" (compassionate, affectionate, cooperative) are the underdogs to "masculine traits" (emotionally inexpressive, aggressive, individualist) that they are somehow better. That because women have been disenfranchised and associated with one set of traits, in order to bring women back from the margins we are obligated to justify and promote the very traits with which we have been trapped into association in the first place. Compassion and empathy are important to me (just read the other things I've written here and elsewhere), but they are important on their own merits, not because of their association with females or feminism. I strenuously object to compassion being identified as solely a "feminine" trait.
By doing that, you accept the mantle of the "feminine" stereotype. Being female should have nothing do to with those traits. A woman should be free to be emotional or inexpressive, passive or aggressive, timid or dominating. A woman should not be considered "unfeminist" if she displays one set of traits or the other. Rather, a woman's personality should be judged and described by her traits, not linking them to her sex OR her gender. By limiting a female character to one set of genderized traits, you actually undermine feminism. To me true feminism is mentally accepting the extant differences between males and females (bodies, hormones, etc.) while constantly affirming the right of every individual to choose their own personalities, traits, and approaches to life.
What this means in practical terms is that there will be movies with female characters who run the complete gamut of potential personalities, character flaws, and story arcs. And that's good! Diversify! I agree that there should be movies made about women who take stereotypical "feminine" traits and empower them...but I disagree that any character who does not do that is "unfeminist." I think that statement is itself unfeminist. It implies that any individual, woman or otherwise, cannot display traits from both "sides" of the coin. People are multifaceted and complicated, and will always exceed the expectations of stereotypes. That's what feminism is about: making women human, part of an ongoing process of self-awareness and -improvement.
The Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus says the following under "character": 2a woman of characterintegrity, honour, moral strength/fibre, strength, backbone, resolve, grit, will power; informal guts
I think that says it all. The girl from True Grit seems (from the above-linked video anyway) to exemplify the trait of GRIT, which does not have to be masculine OR feminine to be an entertaining character study. And in response to the lack of "progression" in the girl's character, I assert that not all characters have to change dramatically within a story arc...especially if their behavior and temperament seem to suit them well in their environment. I argue that a character can serve as an anchor point around which a story turns, an inspiration for the rest of the characters, or perhaps for the audience.
Does this mean that grit, emotional unavailability, and aggression are the BEST character traits? Of course not, for women or anyone else! But instead of throwing around words like "unfeminist" why not make a video blog explaining why exactly it is that being cold or unfeeling is not the most ideal response to that situation. Talk about the psychology of the characters in the film. Don't throw all of that away by handwaving a potentially major source of discussion as merely "unfeminist."
Hell, it makes me want to write a whole new essay arguing for and against a character who remains consistent within a situation that suits their lifestyle but is perhaps not the ideal way to behave in a real-world setting. You could write books on that! Why limit yourself by calling this girl unfeminist and instead describe her something like: unfeeling and coldly pragmatic, jealously pursuing a limited and violent perception of justice which may have made sense in the old west but in today's enlightened society we know to be ultimately short-sighted
To me, that may or may not accurately describe her character, but it certainly is a lot more thought-provoking and deep than "unfeminist." And sure, if the video blog is about feminism then you don't have to divorce it entirely from feminism. Instead you could argue back and forth about whether the girl is even relatable to women today, whether women behave like this in modern settings and if they do whether it's ultimately a beneficial outlook, and if not WHY.
SO MUCH DISCUSSION SO LITTLE TIME.
I do not mean to wholly lambaste the video I linked; I think it is still important to consider characters in terms of stereotypes, see if movies are diversely portraying women...but I hardly think it appropriate to judge characters by stereotypes. For example: I don't dislike movies like Twilight because I think they're unfeminist...I dislike them because I find the characters unrealistic, vapid, and self-serving to the point of complete illogic and therefore BORING.
We must somehow remove ourselves from the paradigm of relating everything back to gender, or else we won't ever reach the escape velocity needed to tackle the next big issues of existence. Same with race. It isn't about being blind to race and gender any more than an art critic is blind. It's about being able to express yourself in terms that are relevant and poignant, not divisive and artificial.
PS: I cannot seem to post a comment on the youtube video itself, I keep getting error messages. The creator of the video does seem to agree with what I'm saying but I still posit that she didn't do the best job expressing it in this video. What do you think?
