Girls on Film »

Being an actress can be a real pain in the ass. By definition, the gig is simple. You pretend your someone else; you perform. In reality, however, there's a whole added can of worms -- especially when Hollywood is involved. There's this ridiculous and particular mold an actress has to fit into, and pitfalls she must deal with -- especially in terms of superstardom.

There is literally no way to completely avoid the possible pitfalls of celebrity -- especially if you choose to be involved with any film project. We live in a world where potential blockbusters can tank and the $11k, uber-small Paranormal Activity can become a phenomenon. There's always a chance -- the possibility of being thrust into the ever-scrutinizing public eye, finding any semblance of privacy fly out the window as the paparazzi camp out at your front door and fandom rains down.

Welcome to the Dollhouse.

Even at a young age, I drew definitive lines for myself when it came to horror movies. I swore off the Friday the 13ths because the first not only plagued me with nightmares since my sneaky eyes caught it at a way-too-young age, but it also helped give me a healthy fear of the rural darkness. Yet I adored the Nightmare on Elm Street series -- whether I was watching the film drastically cut for Saturday afternoon TV or renting the flicks in their full horrific glory. It was campy fun, and I always figured that a mixture of laughs and horror was the magic mix that made things interesting. But there was another reason I made a distinction, one that didn't become clear until much later in life.

I adored Debbie Stevens and Alice Johnson, Sydney Prescott and Tatum Riley because they didn't just scream and quiver -- even if they didn't survive. They fought in a real, flawed, and human way. They weren't some sort of Kill Bill gang of women wildly skilled and powerful. They simply did what they could, and if they were lucky enough to survive the first few rounds, their fighting prowess would grow accordingly.

They were scared -- who wouldn't be? -- but they didn't let fright immobilize them. They were a nice and welcome comfort in a world where women usually were good for nothing but screams and bloody death.

There was a time, I know I was there, when men were men, women were women and sometimes a cigar was just a good smoke. But 40 years of feminism have taken their toll. The war against masculinity has been won. Everything has turned into its opposite, so that what was once flirting and smoking is now sexual harassment and criminal. And everyone is more lonely and miserable as a result. --Dirk Benedict

To some, there is no villain more evil, more destructive, and more unwanted than the female race. We're a scourge that needs to be stopped, having mutilated the business industry and now ravaging the hallowed halls of media. Yes, this is a criminally outdated mindset, but nevertheless, the idea thrives for many groups as Hollywood and television diversify the ranks. In essence, adding more women to the mix has evoked a territorial "Give me my man-tainment!" outcry -- just one step away from a "Girls have cooties!" defense.

I bring this up for two reasons. First, as I stated last week, we've got villains on the brain this month at Cinematical. Two, a little surfing over at io9 brought up this: "Is Science Fiction Feminized Or Is It Sexist? Both." That led to reading the original rant that inspired the post, and then something I can't believe I missed: Dirk Benedict -- the man who played the original Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica and Faceman in The A-Team -- ranting about the castration of manly entertainment.

Naturally, reading all that made me want to jump into the topic here and add my own .02.

We can't go through a month of villain themery on Cinematical without gushing over Maleficent. But since there's much to talk about, I wanted to give her more than a brief ode via "Villains We Love." She's one of the biggies when it comes to villainesses, so naturally, she should have a week's reign on Girls on Film.

Maleficent first appeared after the stirring of a strong wind and dramatic music. From a green fog she emerged, a loyal crow at her side, but she didn't just delve into evil in Disney's Sleeping Beauty. She looked around her, at a celebration including royalty, nobility, and gentry. She saw her fairy foes, and asked where her invite was. Naturally, there wasn't one for the weird and powerful faery, so she decides on a curse: Before the sun sets on the princess' sixteenth birthday, she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die.

Devilish and evil, yes, but also layered with enough mystery and what-ifs to make her dynamic well beyond the world of family films.

I picked a good year to start writing a column about women in film. More than ever before, women are gaining ground in Hollywood. We've got seasoned pros like Kathryn Bigelow finally getting mainstream clout. A number of high-profile projects are being made by women. And we're also seeing a distinct rise in the do-everything femmes like Felicia Day and Diablo Cody.

But it's not all roses. First Jennifer's Body went from long-term big-buzz to big-time flop, and now Whip It is sadly following suit. If you caught Eugene Novikov's Weekend Box Office, you might have noticed that while Zombieland kicks all sorts of living butt, and the 3-D Toy Story double feature grabbed spot #3, Drew Barrymore's kick-ass roller derby pic came in a supremely disappointing 7th Place.

One could argue that Body's questionable showing was at least partly due to the mixed reactions from critics and fans. Cody's horror pic couldn't even grab a half-and-half balance, nestling in at 42% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes. Some loved it, others hated it. But even with some really bad reviews, it still beat Drew. Whip It! earned almost double the critical love (82% fresh), but pulled in a whopping $2 million less than the Body in its opening weekend ($4.85 million). 2 mil might not mean as much when you're in the hundreds, but it sure as heck means a lot when you can't even bring in 5.

What went wrong, and how can we fix it before this excellent cinematic momentum is halted?

Last week, Peter Bart of Variety wrote "Unlikely Rivals on the Oscar Circuit," outlining how Jane Campion and Kathryn Bigelow were a part of the Oscar race with Bright Star and The Hurt Locker. But rather than simply outlining their accomplishments and discussing their talents, Bart gave the piece this weird, "at odds" theme, kicking it off with their looks. It's apparently strange that the "cerebral, somewhat severe, leans toward post-hippie attire" Campion could helm an all-out romance* while Bigelow -- the "tall, model thin" director with a "gracious manner" -- could bring us The Hurt Locker. As if looks are inextricably tied to theme. As if Wes Craven has to look like Freddy Krueger, or James Cameron has to be a beefy Terminator.

To be fair, kind words are given to both filmmakers; it's just fueled by this strange desire to make things at odds. Its execution doesn't relay a sense of distaste in Campion's and Bigelow's accomplishments, but rather an inability to discuss them without noticing a woman's physicality, without struggling to make connections between their looks and interests. It continues right down to the final line -- "Keats vs. Iraq: Now that's downright weird." -- as if Campion's Piano didn't already face off against the likes of Schindler's List and The Fugitive, as if Juno never faced off against No Country for Old Men, and so on and so forth.

As if women are some sort of alien species that cannot be understood without their physical presence -- they must be judged by it, defined by it.

*Let alone the ridiculousness that Campion has to be characterized as the "severe" woman to Bigelow's cuteness.

There's not much that's more irksome than clichés -- the flesh-eating fungus of Hollywood, the virus that makes Tinseltown's already rampant repetition all the more tiresome. They're completely trite and overused, but the cinematic machine clings to them like they're energy-giving oil.

The men of Hollywood certainly have a lot of clichés to contend with (the man-boy, crotchety letch, misogynist playboy), but some of the movie world's biggest gems get thrown to the women. In fact, female clichés in Hollywood are so rampant that I often wonder what a complete and total outsider would think of women if shown our filmmaking. They'd probably think we all fit into the clichéd norms I've listed after the jump. What follows is four of the biggies -- the ones I always try to escape, the ones that never go away.

There's an interesting phenomenon going on at the Toronto International Film Festival this year. Female filmmakers were a big part of the festival's opening weekend. (The fest might be 9 days long, but that first weekend is the time that packs the punch -- the time when the stars descend, the parties commence, and the big films have their premieres.) But this isn't only relevant to festival goers. These fests showcase tomorrow's films, so in some ways, TIFF is a peek into the future. And it's one where women defy what's expected of them.

At the moment, I'm calling it the Anna Kendrick effect. While she might be one of the youngest Tony Award nominees ever, this actress shot into the public eye with a supporting role in that incessant, sparkly piece called Twilight. Her performance was fine, but she really wasn't given enough for a large buzz to commence, especially while under the shadow of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. But now she's got a co-starring role in Jason Reitman's new Up in the Air -- a role where she must hold her own against George Clooney and Vera Farmiga. And she does. In fact, she's so good that her performance has been getting a lot of buzz up here in Toronto -- and it's proved one thing: We might see women and blow them off as nothing more than the crazy jealous friend, but there can be a lot of other talent in there if given a solid role to prove it.

The term "fangirl" should be innocuous -- a simple description of a girl who is a big fan of something or someone. A person of the female persuasion who loves something beyond basic appreciation, who wears her love and adoration on her sleeve. But over the years it's been awarded with a pesky stigma, a dark cloud that elicits shudders of distaste.

This came about long before Twilight -- back to the earlier days of media when Beatlemania was going strong, when Michael Jackson moonwalked himself into the hearts of crying, shrieking young'ens everywhere. (And let us remember that these included boys as well.) I'll never forget watching a television special on fangirls in my own youth, and wondered why they were shaking, crying, and screaming as if tortured by the sight of McCartney or Lennon hitting the stage in the '60s, or the mere glimpse of Jackson's sparkling glove in the '80s. Some overwhelmed tears might be expected, but not a full-scale mental and emotional meltdown. Not hormones on fire.

Today, it's all about vampires and a certain high school girl ready to give up everything for a young man that sparkles. Tomorrow it will probably be something else. But before another tide hits, we've got to look at this thing called "fangirl."

Today we were greeted with a big surprise: Disney bought Marvel Entertainment at the modest cost of $4 billion, grabbing control of thousands of Marvel characters while giving the comic company a tap into Disney's global power. It should bring about a lot of change, for Marvel at the very least, and a myriad of possibilities, but will stronger female characters be on that list? It would be great to be proven wrong, but this new deal doesn't inspire confidence.

On the one side, we've got Disney. Their best female potential lies in Pixar -- a company that has yet to have a real front-and-center female lead in their films, but has done a really great job with supporting characters. Unfortunately, that's about as far as it goes. Beyond that, laying in stark contrast to gals like Ellie, is Disney's princess mania. They provide the main femme arm for the company, plying young girls with pastel colors, pretty dresses, and dreams of princely saviors. In fact, they have become such a backbone for the girl side of Disney that even Pocahontas, who is not a castle-dweller, is lumped with the rest. Her characterization is similar enough, but really -- if they didn't throw her in with the rest, there would be no place for her. The Mouse House is all about their pretty, pretty princesses, and rarely, if ever, seem interested in expanding that focus.