To be clear, I haven't seen the movie yet. But I was walking around, doing my little errands-while-podcasting dance, and I heard a review of film from NPR. I was completely floored by the first few minutes. I stopped walking and paused the podcast and listened to it back again. I got home and looked up the transcript. And I still can't tell if NPR's mention of the first Pixar female lead is totally spot on, or righteously offensive. Either way, it's definitely underdeveloped, and upon further spelunking around NPRs coverage of "Brave," I'm a little frustrated of their treatment of... well, of the female lead.
The transcript of the review (by David Edelstein) that stopped me about my day is as follows:
"First, I hate the title, and not because it's an adjective. Notorious, Ravenous, Rabid: great titles. Brave? Generic. And with the poster of a girl with flame-red curls pulling back a bow, it looks like yet another female-warrior saga, another you-go-girl action picture suggesting the biggest injustice to women over the last millennium has been the suppression of their essential warlike natures."
And the link to the rest of the review is here, in case you'd like (it's very short).
So, there are sort of two ways I take this comment. And I'm guessing, because it's NPR, and because they're relatively... not assholes, they meant it in the second way. But the fact that it's ambiguous is a problem in itself. Anyway.
Interpretation #1: We don't need any more movies showing strong willed, smart, physically agile and capable female leads because we're post-feminism. I'm sick and tired of that being the only pigeonhole that an alternative-women can fit into; don't we all already know that women don't have to fit into any pigeonholes at all, and don't we all live accordingly?
Interpretation #2: We don't need any more movies showing strong-willed, smart, physically agile and capable female leads because the way those leads are always portrayed is through a male vantage point: meaning, they've gotta be violent warriors. I'm sick and tired of female strength only being translated through male ideals, and I'm sick of pigeonholing women into one kind of strength.
So, they're not that different. Needless to say, I'm all for Interpretation #2, and yet I think there's a lot missing, even if the author of the podcast is leaning that way (which, to be clear, I think he is).
First of all, you'll notice what might be a slip-up in the Interpretations Above. Edelstein doesn't say "I'm sick of strong willed, smart, physically agile and capable female leads." He says, "I'm sick of female warrior sagas." And while that's fair, I'm not sure that's all "Brave" is. Granted, I haven't seen the movie yet, but even from the rest of that very review, it seems like the movie is about a lot more than the main character, Merida, being good at shooting arrows and killing people (I don't actually know if she kills anyone; that was admittedly for hyperbolic affect). So, if we're going by the second interpretation, Edelstein is (sort of) continuing the theory that he's arguing against; mainly, reducing the strength and capabilities of a female lead to the lens of male-ness, and therefore having something to argue against in the first place. My logic is pretty circular there, but what I'm trying to say is: so is his.
And then there's the opening sentence. First of all, the comparative adjectives he picks are interesting: notorious, rabid, and ravenous all have... less than heroic connotations, I would argue. Maybe not "ravenous;" maybe "ravenous," can imply a delightful and ucnquelchable sexual appetite, and I'm all for that in a title, but none of these words a synonyms for "brave," and moreso than that, they all have a violent, sinister, or desperate edge to them. So I'm both a bit lost, and maybe harkening a bit back to my first point; namely, that a title about a female protagonist can't be interesting unless it's violent, unless it's so far outside the normal status quo that it is, essentially, using the frame of masculinity to prove it's worth.
What I think Edelstein misses, and maybe why he goes down the (somewhat mysterious to me) synonym track that he does, is that it is a big deal for women to be brave. Or, at least, I think it is. I grew up head strong, I grew up loud and outspoken. My mother had books on her shelf entitled "How to Raise Your Spirited Child," and I'm not sure she would have had those books had I been born a boy child.
So while I think Edelstein's right (I think there is a great deal of pigeonholing when it comes to the acceptable ways in which to show a "strong female lead") I think that's not always the case. I think female strength can also be shown through empathy, through compassion; fuck, I think female strength can be shown through milking cows and having children and quilting and... I don't know, taking the trash out. Or whatever. And I think the media expression of that strength could get better, sure. But it gets at the heart of what feminism is about, really: that in order for all expressions of female strength to be okay, we need to let go of the gendering of all expressions of strength. And if that were the case, killing people and talking loud and getting dirty and standing up for yourself wouldn't be female strength as expressed through a male lens; they would just be female strength. Hell, they would be people strength.
So while I think Edelstein's right, I think society isn't there yet; strength is gendered, and going from that fact, I think he misses the point. I know for myself, as a young "spirited" women, it was important to read my Alanna books and be able to identify with a women who wielded a sword and killed people and rode a horse (one of the books is actually titled "Women Who Rides Like A Man;" what can I say, it was the 80's). Because I knew that if women were allowed to do those things, women were allowed to do anything. It's only in the freedom to shoot the bulls eye for your own hand that the preference to sit inside and sew is also okay (for me, anyway). And as a women who doesn't yet know how to shoot an arrow (I'm working on it), and who does spend a great deal of time sitting inside sewing, I'm doing my best with that. And without books like Alanna, it would have been a lot harder. And I really believe that demonstrations of everything across the scale of behavior (or whatever it is) are still, regardless of your feelings about adjectives, really important.
The meta-critique is stretching a bit, but I did some digging around the rest of NPRs coverage of Brave, and a lot of the article titles mention the main character's gender. And that would be great, if they went anywhere with it. But they don't, sort of like Edelstein leaves his commentary on Merida as a strong female lead ambiguous and unexplained after the first paragraph. A second story, entitled "A Timeless Story Takes a 'Brave' Female Twist," has actually nothing to do with Merida being female. It's a very short, non-analytical synopsis of the movie with some quote from the voice actress who plays Merida.
And that's my biggest frustration with the article, and with NPR, and hell, with the world. I think if you're going to talk about gender, and use gender in your titles, and latch on to the idea that maybe it is kind of cool and important the Pixar has a female lead, you should actually examine that a little bit. Because just saying "Hey look, she's a girl! That's kind of unique... and who really cares why and hey look at the cool animation!" doesn't really justify bring it up in the first place, and it really doesn't justify using the protagonists' gender in your title.
So, I ask you NPR: put your feminism where your mouth is. Or, if you don't care for that sort of thing, stop riding on it's coattails. Feminism doesn't appreciate it. Feminism wants to go learn to shoot some arrows, and you are seriously cramping its style.
No comments:
Post a Comment