Week 10 [Reading Notes] - Gender and Hollywood

Week 10: Gender and Hollywood

Reading 1:
Coll, Steve (2013) “‘Disturbing’ and ‘Misleading’”. New York Review of Books, February 7.
[Available at: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/02/07/disturbing-misleading-zero-dark-thirty/]

- Zero Dark Thirty (ZDT) makes two choices: it aligns its methods with those of journalists and historians, and it appropriates as drama what remains the most undigested trauma in American national life during the last several decades.

- Critics have celebrated ZDT for its pacing, control, and arresting but complicated depictions of political violence. The New York Film Critics Circle has named the film best picture of 2012, and it has been nominated for five Academy Awards, including one for the best picture of the year. The qualities some critics admire in the film are familiar from The Hurt Locker, the previous collaboration—about an American bomb squad in Iraq—between the scriptwriter, Mark Boal, and the director, Kathryn Bigelow.
(The film made Bigelow the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Director, in 2009, and it also won an Oscar for Best Picture.)

- Boal has said that he believes his script captures “a very complex debate about torture” because it shows some prisoners giving up information under duress, while others dissemble. There is no reason to doubt that Boal and Bigelow intended to depict the role of torture in the search for bin Laden ambiguously.

- There can be no mistaking what Zero Dark Thirty shows: torture plays an outsized part in Maya’s success. The first detainee she helps to interrogate is Ammar. He is tortured extensively in the film’s opening sequence, immediately after we hear the voices of World Trade Center victims. Ammar’s face is swollen; we see him strung up by ropes, waterboarded, sexually humiliated, deprived of sleep through the blasting of loud music, and stuffed into a small wooden box. During his ordeal, Ammar does not initially give up reliable information. After he has been subdued and fooled into thinking that he has already been cooperative while delirious, however, he gives up vital intelligence about the courier over a comfortable meal.

- In virtually every instance in the film where Maya extracts important clues from prisoners, then, torture is a factor. Arguably, the film’s degree of emphasis on torture’s significance goes beyond what even the most die-hard defenders of the CIA interrogation regime, such as Rodriguez, have argued. Rodriguez’s position in his memoir is that “enhanced interrogation” was indispensable to the search for bin Laden—not that it was the predominant means of gathering important clues.

- The film’s torture scenes depart from the historical record in two respects. Boal and Bigelow have conflated the pseudoscience of the CIA’s clinical, carefully reviewed “enhanced techniques” such as waterboarding with the out-of-control abuse of prisoners by low-level military police in places such as Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. Dan puts Ammar in a dog collar and walks him around in an act of ritualised humiliation, but this was never an approved CIA technique.

- Zero Dark Thirty was constructed to bring viewers to the edges of their seats, and judging by its critical reception, for many viewers it has succeeded in that respect. Its faults as journalism matter because they may well affect the unresolved public debate about torture, to which the film makes a distorted contribution.

___________________________________________________

Reading 2:
Moore, Michael (2013) “In Defense of Zero Dark Thirty”. Huffington Post, January 25. [Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/zero-dark-thirty-torture_b_2548079.html]

- There comes a point about two-thirds of the way through Zero Dark Thirty where it is clear something, or someone, on high has changed. The mood at the CIA has shifted, become subdued. It appears that the torture-approving guy who’s been president for the past eight years seems to be, well, gone. And, just as a fish rots from the head down, the stench also seems to be gone. Word then comes down that — get this! — we can’t torture any more! The CIA agents seem a bit disgruntled and dumbfounded. I mean, torture has worked soooo well these past eight years! Why can’t we torture any more??? 

- The answer is provided on a TV screen in the background where you see a black man (who apparently is the new president) and he’s saying, in plain English, that America’s torturing days are over, done, finished. There’s an “aw, shit” look on their faces and then some new boss comes into the meeting room, slams his fist on the table and says, essentially, you’ve had eight years to find bin Laden — and all you’ve got to show for it are a bunch of photos of naked Arab men peeing on themselves and wearing dog collars and black hoods.

- In the final third of Zero Dark Thirty, the agents switch from torture to detective work — and guess what happens? We find bin Laden! Eight years of torture — no bin Laden. Two years of detective work — boom! Bin Laden! And that really should be the main takeaway from Zero Dark Thirty: That good detective work can bring fruitful results — and that torture is wrong.

- The CIA has had the name of this guy all along! For ten years! And how did they get this name ten years ago? From “a tip.” A random tip! No torture involved. But, as was the rule during those years of incompetency and no desire to find bin Laden, the tip was filed away somewhere in some room — and not discovered until 2010. So, instead of torturing hundreds for eight years to find this important morsel of intelligence, they could have found it in their own CIA file cabinet in about eight minutes. Yeah, torture works.

- Oh — and girl. ‘Zero Dark Thirty — a movie made by a woman (Kathryn Bigelow), produced by a woman (Megan Ellison), distributed by a woman (Amy Pascal, the co-chairman of Sony Pictures), and starring a woman (Jessica Chastain) is really about how an agency of mostly men are dismissive of a woman who is on the right path to finding bin Laden. Yes, guys, this is a movie about how we don’t listen to women, how hard it is for them to have their voice heard even in these enlightened times. You could say this is a 21st century chick flick — and it would do you well to see it.

- After I saw Zero Dark Thirty, a friend asked me, “During the torture scenes, who did you feel empathy for the most — the American torturer or the Arab suspect?” That was easy to answer. “Oh, God, the poor guy being waterboarded. The torturer was a sadist.” “Yes, that’s the answer everyone gives me afterward. The movie actually makes you care for the tortured guys who may have, in fact, been part of 9/11. Like rooting for the Germans on the submarine to make it back to port in Das Boot, that’s the sign of some great filmmaking when the writer and director are able to get you to empathise with the person you’ve been told everywhere else to hate.”

___________________________________________________

Reading 3:
Lauzen, Martha M (2011). “Kathryn Bigelow: On Her Own in No-(Wo)Man’s-Land”, Camera Obscura, vol. 26, no. 3, pp.146-153.

- According to the latest Celluloid Ceiling report, women comprised only 7 percent of all directors working on the top 250 grossing films of 2010. Thus, when a woman who directs garners substantial public attention for her work, it provides a significant opportunity to consider how she navigates the journey to star-auteur.
p. 146

- Bigelow’s interviews with various US and international newspapers over this period of time reveal her attempt to fit into the male-dominated business of film directing by distancing herself from gender issues, while simultaneously aligning herself with traditionally male-identified traits, including toughness and the desire for control.
p. 147

- In interviews, Bigelow’s own words provide evidence that she has a deliberate and consistent strategy for managing her gender. She says as little as possible regarding women’s continuing underemployment as directors. Scholars who study how women in male-dominated industries manage their gender might refer to such an approach as a “refusal-to-be-bothered strategy.”6 This strategy allows women to avoid being overly concerned or defeated by the inequities they face. They are neither victims of an unfair system nor somehow inferior to men. It is ultimately a face-saving strategy that avoids directly addressing the system that necessitates its employment.
p. 147

- Articles appearing on Bigelow since the release of The Hurt Locker also mention her relationship with James Cameron. In some cases, it becomes the subject of the lead for the story or the sole focus of the story. This emphasis became especially pronounced as groups bestowing awards nominated both Bigelow and Cameron, as well as their films, in the same categories, culminating with the Oscar ceremony in March 2010.
p. 150

- Kathryn Bigelow’s public persona exists in a kind of nowoman’s land. It includes male traits typically deemed necessary to be a great director and sufficient female traits to soften her image and deflect possible accusations of gender deviancy. She has constructed a “girl wonder” myth by using the building blocks typically employed by men seeking “boy wonder” status. In the short term, Bigelow’s strategy seems likely to bolster her own career prospects, perhaps at the expense of other women who direct. In the long term, however, Bigelow’s strategy may serve as an intermediary step, readjusting public perceptions of women’s skills and abilities, making it possible for future women who direct to present themselves not as the exception but as the rule.
p. 151/2

___________________________________________________

Reading 4:
McRobbie, Angela (2007) “Post-Feminism and Popular Culture”. Feminist Media Studies, vol. 4, no.3. pp. 255-264.

- McRobbie's argument regarding post-feminism positively draws on and invokes feminism as that which can be taken into account, to suggest that equality is achieved, in order to install a whole repertoire of new meanings which emphasise that it is no longer needed, it is a spent force. Feminism is cast into the shadows, where at best it can expect to have some afterlife, where it might be regarded ambivalently by those young women who must in more public venues stake a distance from it, for the sake of social and sexual recognition.
p. 255


- In feminist cultural studies, the early 1990s also marks a moment of feminist reflexivity. In her article “Pedagogies of the Feminine” Brunsdon queried the hitherto assumed use value to feminist media scholarship of the binary opposition between femininity and feminism, or as she put it the extent to which the “housewife” or “ordinary woman” was conceived of as the assumed subject of attention for feminism (Charlotte Brunsdon [1991] 1997). Looking back we can see how heavily utilised this dualism was, and also how particular it was to gender arrangements for largely white and relatively affluent (i.e. housewifely) women.
p. 256

- The year 1990 also marked the moment at which the concept of popular feminism found expression. Andrea Stuart (1990) considered the wider circulation of feminist values across the landscape of popular culture, in particular magazines, where quite suddenly issues which had been central to the formation of the women’s movement like domestic violence, equal pay, and workplace harassment, were now addressed to a vast readership.
p. 256

- TO BE CONTINUED

___________________________________________________

Reading 5:
Williams, Linda Ruth (2006) “Women in Recent US Cinema”, in Linda Ruth Williams and Michael Hammond (eds.), Contemporary American Cinema. Maidenhead and New York: Open University Press, pp. 299-314.

- Women have been involved in all aspects of the filmmaking process since the birth of the medium. For Gwendolyn Foster, the question is not whether women have had the opportunity to contribute to the history of cinema, but why film historians have noticed so few of their contributions. Women's marginalisation is twofold: after the 1920s they became rare breeds in the industry, but those who were working were also largely ignored by chroniclers (Foster 1999: xvi).
p. 299

- Auteurist approaches have limited scope in studies of the studio era - Lupino and Arzner were the only female directors to develop significant bodies of work in classical Hollywood. Other filmmaking professions fare better. There is, of course, a rich history of female stardom in the classical period and Lizzie Franke's Script Girls shows how screenwriting has been one profession open to [women] throughout the history of Hollywood.
They've been allowed to be editors too, but sewing up films in a dark room under the judicious eyes of the director obviously limited their participation in the story-telling process.... (Franke 1994: 1).
p. 299

- Ann Kaplan (2003: 16-22) reads women's film history in four phases: the first up to 1930 (the period of women pioneers); the second from 1930-60 (the period of "the Silencing of Women"); the third, from 1960- 90, in which white women became more dominant in US and other national cinemas; the fourth, from 1990 onwards, in which a growing multiculturalism became evident in European and North American women's cinema. Of phase three she writes that women filmmakers "gained power from the 1970s/ 1980s sense of embattlement, of challenging an unjust patriarchal order and claiming what was due to women" (Kaplan 2003: 19), but she is also careful to point out that the landscape of North American filmmaking has most dramatically altered recently with the impact of work from independent and foreign filmmakers.
p. 300

- Christina Lane (2000: 13) writes in her important survey of women who have made the transition from independent to mainstream directing: Before the 1970s, when access to commercial production opened up slightly, women had only two avenues for becoming Hollywood directors: as film actresses or as secretaries/production assistants who worked their way up through the ranks of the system. Only recently have women been hired as directors on the basis of their independent films.
p. 300

- In the 1980s and 1990s more women took the route from writing to directing, including one of the most successful contemporary filmmakers, Nora Ephron. Ephron is mostly known for her seminal "chick flick" examinations of contemporary relationships and neuroses, developed through When Harry Met Sally (1989), which she wrote, and Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and You've Got Mail (1998), bothof which she wrote and directed. She has also helmed other star-led projects marked by a light tone which belies their knowing cleverness, including Mixed Nuts (1994), Michael (1996), Lucky Numbers (2000), and Bewitched (2005).
p. 303

- This was also an important period for women moving into production from other lowlier studio roles or from success as agents. Rachel Abramowitz (2000 : xii) argues that even recently women worked in a depressing context:
in an industry dominated not just by men but by the likes and dislikes of the young male consumer, and by a certain saber-rattling ethos of masculinity, in which women were relentlessly sexualized, their gender constantly accessed and reaccessed as a key component of their professional abilities.
p. 310/11

- In the 1990s screenwriting continues to be an attractive opening for women. Writers whose work deserves fuller analysis include Amanda Silver. But such a diverse range of films raises the question of whether there is anything specifically female about these texts. Clearly, any overview of women in US cinema in this period is bound to be selective, offering a survey of significant moments. The vast differences across and between films cited here demonstrate the diversity of projects which women have developed.
p. 312

- Most female film directors want "to be seen as film-makers first and women film-makers second or not at all" (Felperin 1999: 10). For popular audiences, the most startling example of "feminist filmmaking" from the 1990s was not directed by a woman but a man, although it was written by Callie Khouri, who won an Oscar for her screenplay. Thelma and Louise (1991), according to Sharon Willis (1993: 120), "troubled borderlines that contemporary popular critical discourse continues to code as fragile: those between art and life, fantasy and agency, cinematic fiction and the life stories we tell ourselves". It also troubles notions about what men and women should be and do on screen, and behind the camera. Many films by women have of course done this too, but whether they have been able consistently to achieve it for mass audiences is another question. And whether the greater involvement of women in the filmmaking process has radically transformed representations of screen gender remains an issue of fierce debate.
p. 313