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You know how much we love pop culture here at Feministing. Ann has a thing for Dolly Parton and Lady Gaga, Courtney has been known to throw all-night dance parties and Jos dressed up as Taylor Swift for Halloween.

Embarrassing though it might be to admit this, my pop culture fixation is the romantic comedy. I love romantic comedies, and I hate them. I love to hate them and hate to love them. I love them because who doesn't want to have their heart stolen by a bumbling British blighter who uses curses like "shititty brickety"? It's so exotic, in an awkward, uncomfortable kind of way. Also, I'm pretty sure that every time that teeny red-haired kid in Love, Actually runs past the airport security guards to tell the love of his 11-year-old life how he feels about her as that stirring triumphant music plays, a fairy gets its wings. Then again, I hate romantic comedies because they're usually ridden with stereotypes about gender, race, sexuality and class and they always end happily - and "happily" always means "with as many characters as possible forming long-term monogamous heterosexual relationships." And, to add insult to injury, some studies suggest that watching romantic comedies might even screw up our own chances of forming successful real life romantic relationships.

One day in December of last year I went to see Nancy Meyers' new romantic comedy It's Complicated. The trailers, all for rom coms, were a parade of marriage-obsessed career women, unlikely but ultimately right-for-you suitors and, thanks to the upcoming Jennifer Lopez vehicle The Back Up Plan, lots of va-jay-jay jokes. At the pinnacle of headdesk was the hot, tangled treacle-y mess that was the trailer for Valentine's Day. It was pretty clear that 2010 was going to be a big year for romantic comedies. And it was pretty clear that a good number of them were going to benefit from some feminist analysis.

And so, Feministing community, because I love you, and because I may be something of a masochist, I'm going to be seeing every romantic comedy that comes out in 2010. Every single one. And I'm going to write about them here, so that you can debrief, or be forewarned, or feel smug that you never watch romantic comedies at all. First up is Our Family Wedding.

Our Family Wedding is a story about interracial marriage starring Forrest Whitaker, America Ferrera, Regina King and Carlos Mencia. Lucia Ramirez (Ferrera) is newly engaged to Marcus (Lance Gross), and the movie begins with the couple leaving New York for LA, where both Lucia and Marcus' families live, to tell them the news. Lucia has other news that she hasn't told her parents yet: She's dropped out of law school to be a volunteer teacher at a charter school, and she and Marcus have been living together (read: doin' it) for several months. They want to get married soon, before Marcus leaves to work with Doctors Without Borders in Laos, taking Lucia with him. Lucia's parents know nothing about Marcus. They especially don't know that he's Black. Before Lucia can introduce Marcus to her family, his father Brad (Whitaker) and her father Miguel (Mencia) have a comical but racially-loaded run in on the street. When they're introduced by their kids and discover they're about to become family, they proceed to act like a double dose of Steve Martin in Father of the Bride, only with more racial epithets.

The movie, like all romantic comedies, sees a destined-to-be-couple overcoming seemingly endless obstacles to end up together. In this case, the obstacles come in the form of fights - verbal, physical, food - and in cultural differences between Lucia's and Marcus' family.

Marcus's father is an aging radio personality still hurting from his divorce with Marcus's mother twenty years ago. Marcus was partly raised by his father's lawyer (Regina King), who is - romantic comedy trope alert! - the only woman in the world who isn't fooled by Brad's smooth talk. Brad and his single friends try to convince Marcus that getting married is a huge mistake, using their "whipped" friend (played by a hilarious Taye Diggs) as a cautionary tale. Miguel and his wife Sonia are married with two daughters - Lucia's younger sister Isabella works as a mechanic in her Dad's shop (this makes her the resident "tomboy." Other clues include refusal to wear makeup and disinterest in dating). Our first glimpse at Miguel and Sonia's relationship is Sonia waiting at home in a sexy dress, disappointed because Miguel has forgotten that it's Valentine's Day. Later in the film, Isabella warns Lucia against ending up like their mother - lonely, sexless and "looking after" her husband.

After much bickering, the introduction of still more family members (who also bicker) and the required trying-on-the-wedding-dress scene, the wedding happens, a blend of cultures that includes jumping the broom, eating the goat, a mariachi band playing Babyface and everyone dancing happily with everyone else. Brad ends up with his lawyer, Miguel and Sonia get their marital groove back, a new family is formed and - here comes another cliché! - the tomboy sister catches the bouquet.

*Note: We were unable to find a transcript for this video

The most striking thing about this film is that its central plot dilemma is the failure of two grown men to act like adults. Just as in Father of the Bride, it's hard to sympathize with a father who still sees his daughter as a child, all the while acting like one himself. The idea that it's difficult for a father to let go of a daughter who, in his eyes, is beautiful and faultless - Miguel calls Lucia his "angel" - is touching, but it's hardly an excuse for the kind of behavior we see in this film. Brad and Miguel act like children throughout most of the film, one-upping and out-doing each other, and only manage to stop themselves when they realize that their behavior has damaged their children's relationship.

According to the film's director, it's not really racial prejudice that's holding Brad, Miguel and the rest of the two families back from embracing the marriage. Instead, says Rick Famuyiwa, "it's that neither dad is able to let go of his child." But there's no doubt that racial prejudice plays some part. There's openly expressed dismay, among members of both families, at the addition of a member who isn't the same color as everyone else.

There's also a good deal of discussion about the lack of shared traditions between Lucia's and Marcus' families, and the traditions of each culture are often placed in competition with each other. When both families meet to plan the wedding, Brad invents a "Negro National Anthem" that he claims is sung at all Black weddings; Miguel counters with a song of his own, and suddenly both men are belting out their songs like they're at Rick's Bar Americain.

As one might expect, there's some discussion of Lucia's virginity - in fact, it comes up the very first time we meet Lucia and Marcus. "Your parents are going to love me," he tells her as they pack for L.A. "You blew any chance of that when you had sex with me," she replies. When the pair announce to her parents that they want to get married in a rush, her father asks if it's because she's pregnant. "No," she replies. "That would be impossible." Her father sighs with relief: "Impossible is good!" "We're very proud of you," her mother chimes in. Later, when her sister tries to trick her into admitting that she and Marcus have slept together ("is it true what they say about Black guys?") Lucia continues the charade. There's a lot to be said about the cultural pressure to remain a virgin until marriage, or to maintain the illusion of doing so, but for a complete analysis of the subject, I suggest you read Jessica's book The Purity Myth.

Our Family Wedding passes the Bechdel test, but only if you consider "talking about a man" to be different than "talking about married life." While shopping for wedding dresses, Lucia tries to find a bridesmaid's dress for a reluctant Isabella, and demands to know why her sister seems so indifferent about the marriage. Isabella reminds Lucia that years ago, they had made a pact, promising each other that they would not marry young like so many of their girlfriends, ending up "always pregnant or getting pregnant, never thinking of anything better." "I fell in love," Lucia tells her sister. "It changes things. But it doesn't change who you are."

It's a fairly feminist discussion of marriage, as feminist as one might expect from a wedding-themed romantic comedy. For all the requisite wedding planning porn montages, during which the women in the audience are expected to drool over dresses, flowers, catering and cakes, Lucia is written and interpreted by Ferrera as a smart, assertive and down-to-earth woman. She chooses the path that she knows will make her happiest in life, and she fights for it. Speaking to the Times about the role, Ferrera offers an explanation for why this wedding movie, while not perfect, didn't turn into Bride Wars: because it's not all about the bride. Lucia doesn't make it all about her, Ferrera says, because "her wedding isn't the most important thing in her life."

Finally!!! A woman won an Academy Award for Best Directing at last Sunday’s Oscars! Woohoo! Big ups to Kathryn Bigelow and her movie The Hurt Locker! Here’s why it’s a significant win for film-making women:

She was the fourth woman to be nominated in the directing category, after Lina Wertmüller, Jane Campion, and Sofia Coppola. This is in an industry where 83% of all directors, writers, and producers on the top 100 grossing films last year were male, where, of the 600 movies reviewed in The New York Times last year, only ten percent were directed by women. So it matters.

So, only 4 female directors ever nominated for an Oscar?  Well, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doesn’t always recognize everything good and everything they recognize is not always good. Also, read up on how women often end up on the under-valued side of artistic and aesthetic binaries: Art (men) vs. Craft (women), Genius (men) vs. Muse (women), Culture (men) vs. Nature (women), blah, blah, blah…

Anyway, here’s a list of movies by women. The movies on this list will get you started, and I promise they’re not crappy:

1-3. The Piano by Jane Campion, Holy Smoke by JC (calling all Kate Winslet fans; she pees on herself while walking!), and An Angel at My Table (my very favorite JC movie).

4. Whale Rider by Niki Caro.

5. Boys Don’t Cry by Kimberly Peirce (which I think is just as good as the big film of 2000, American Beauty. It should have at least been nominated for Best Picture; I mean The Sixth Sense was nominated for cryin’ out loud!).

6. Savages written and directed by Tamara Jenkins.

7. Persepolis co-written and co-directed by Marjane Satrapi.

8. Whip-It directed by Drew Barrymore. Get your heads out of a$$es, film snobs! This is an awesome movie!

9. The Virgin Suicides by Sofia Coppola.

10. High Art by Lisa Cholodenko. If you feel like revisiting the 90s…

11. Frida by Julie Teymour.

♥

Movies made by women that I want to see, that look good in my humble opinion:

1. The Hurt Locker (shut up! it’s on the Netflix queue!)

2. Coco Before Chanel, directed by Anne Fontaine.

3. Bright Star, directed by Jane Campion.

4. Seven Beauties, directed by Lina Weretmüller. In 1977, she became the first female director to be nominated for an Oscar.

5. Frozen River, directed by Courtney Hunt.

Any thoughts about any of these movies, my smarty friends? Anything I should add to the lists immediately, like howthehell did I leave it off?

Yay movie-ginas!

Spring

There are two events happening at Rutgers in March and in April that are directly related to reproductive justice and women’s rights worldwide.  The first one is being hosted by the Rutgers Women’s Law Forum.  It is a screening of Mrs. Goundo’s Daughter, which is a documentary about a woman’s struggle to obtain asylum in the American immigration system.  If she is deported to Mali, she will have to bring her daughter with her, who would then be subject to Female Genital Mutilation, or excision.  Approximately 90% of women and girls in Mali are subject to FGM, some as young as two days old, which can lead to infection, reproductive problems, and death.  It is an ancient tradition, linked by some to Islam, that many people are fighting against in local communities, at the statewide level, and across the world.  The movie Mrs. Goundo’s Daughter explores not only the cultural and social issues surrounding FGM in Mali, but also reviews the legal process by which Mrs. Goundo attempts to protect her daughter from FGM. (more…)

Chloe's post earlier this week about The Little Mermaid got me thinking about my own experience with this film. I definitely identify with the experience of looking back at something from childhood through a feminist lens and seeing it very differently. I agree with Chloe's critiques, as well as many of the critical and positive interpretations in the comments to the post - the film does have a lot of problematic elements, but there are also some positive messages in the story.

The post got me thinking about what I personally brought to this film, though, what I read in the story that connected with my own experience. This sort of read of pop culture is a staple for members of marginalized communities who see ourselves so rarely at the center of mainstream art that we read our own experiences into those stories. It's a favorite game in the queer community, something seemingly all my friends learned to play before we found out anyone else was doing the same. I think children and grown ups alike are susceptible to the messages we get from pop culture and able to read something liberatory into the media we consume.

The Little Mermaid is unquestionably racist and sexist, and contains one of the most disturbing anti-consent songs I've ever heard. It is also, for me, a trans fairy tale.

As a child I remember connecting with Ariel. I certainly didn't watch the movie as often as Chloe or dress up as the character. I didn't watch Disney movies when I was dressing up as a girl, so my costumes were Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene and Santa Lucia. By the time I saw The Little Mermaid I'd been pushed toward swords and pirates. I often outwardly mocked the fiction that gave me that funny feeling inside - related to the first tinglings of sexuality, but so much bigger, deeper - and I remember making a disparaging comment or two about Ariel. But I identified with her instantly. Her problems made so much sense. Her whole world was wrong - she knew where she belonged, but no one could understand. And she didn't care, she went for it anyway, became the person she knew she should be in the world where she knew she belonged. When I heard she turned into foam at the end of the Hans Christian Andersen story that tragedy made more sense to me - the fantasy was far too good to be true.

When I learned words and concepts for what I'd felt about myself for years I also gained a vocabulary to understand my version of The Little Mermaid. Ariel was a trans girl. Her toys were a secret collection of human artifacts, similar to me playing with my sister's Barbies, a way to access the identity I belonged in. She tried to explain herself, but her father couldn't understand - he had a picture of who his daughter should be, and she was saying she belonged in a whole other world! Ursula was only half a villain for me - she was also the twisted drag queen fairy godmother who could give Ariel the body she knew she belonged in (Ursula made that funny feeling shoot sparks). Ariel's happy ending was far too good for my young self, who'd been pushed towards being a person I just wasn't, to believe - Triton accepts Ariel as a human and lets her be herself! And, as commenter zes points out, Eric still loves Ariel after she's outed as trans.

Some of the themes that I connected with are definitely in the film - not fitting in, parents not understanding you - but took on new meanings connected to my own personal experience. Then there's the broader theme of mermaids, who speak to a lot of trans children. It's not that my version of the story is there, overtly, but, just as social critique of media matters, so does our personal experience. And for me, Disney's The Little Mermaid was the rare fairy tale I strongly identified with.

Trans themes can be read into other Disney films as well - Mulan, for example. And there are other ways of reading The Little Mermaid - The comments on Chloe's post include discussion of the film as a fable of interracial romance. This doesn't undo the problematic and offensive elements of the film, but it does speak to our ability to see ourselves reflected in pop culture and build our own personal mythology using the tools available to us.

When I was little, hearing themes I was struggling with in "Part of Your World" did me a lot of good. If the Disney princess was singing about what I was feeling maybe I wasn't so alone, so weird and wrong, after all:

Lyrics here.

Today's Women's History Tidbit:
1990: Dr. Antonia Novello was sworn in as both the first Hispanic and woman to be U.S. surgeon general.*


When Nobel Savage tweeted that Disney was renaming and reframing the Rapunzel story in a way that "allows" more boys to enjoy it, I thought, BULLSHIT! But as I read the LA Times piece, I started to laugh:

After the less-than-fairy-tale results for its most recent animated release, "The Princess and the Frog," executives at the Burbank studio believe they know why the acclaimed movie came up short at the box office....Brace yourself: Boys didn't want to see a movie with "princess" in the title...Disney can ill afford a moniker that alienates half the potential audience, young boys, who are needed to make an expensive family film a success.

"We did not want to be put in a box," said Ed Catmull, president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, explaining the reason for the name change. "Some people might assume it's a fairy tale for girls when it's not. We make movies to be appreciated and loved by everybody."

My first laugh was because "AHA! Princess backlash!" Perhaps it's not just parents of boys who are keeping their girls from princess movies. Then I got serious and thought, "Shit, I hope the princess takes the fall and not the fact that it was a Black princess!" Then I laughed again at how Disney might have just marketed themselves out of money by playing the princess card over and over.

Princesses and other female protagonists helped lead the 1980s and '90s revival of the animation unit with "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast" and "Mulan." The difference between those releases and "Princess and the Frog" is that those earlier films weren't marketed as princess movies.

Back in the time of Ariel and Belle, I was in high school. Not the target audience, I know, but still I was a kid. What I loved about Ariel was not just that it was a telling of one my favorite fairy tales, but that Ariel was portrayed as a headstrong teen who was curious and adventurous. I prefer mermaid-Ariel to princess-Ariel any day. Then Belle came along. Oh Belle! We bonded as bookworms. Again, when I think of Belle, I think of her sitting in that mega-library with a cuppa tea and her nose in a book. Now that's my fairy tale.

Oh yes, I know all the feminist critiques of both characters and movies, but for me, I fell in love with them for other reasons. The critiques are valid mind you. But Disney...Disney, oh how I do love you! Correction: I love Disney movies, not Disney the company that seems to be playing hard ball with the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.^ You must understand that I didn't fall in love with the princess aspect of the tale, but rather the adventurousness and the intellect of the leads. Don't scrap Rapunzel, scrap the princess-centric tale and marketing plan.

While you're at it, scrap the lazy dude theme too.

If I had a boy, I would have tweeted as I walked out of "Princess and the Frog." We don't need a movie about how a woman has to kick a guy in the ass to work. Yes, the prince is lazy and he learns otherwise, but lately the media is all about telling our boys that they are lazy, they don't work as hard and yes, a lot of us joke about it. But you, Disney, have no need to wallow in that pool. Telling tales of girls and their dreams doesn't mean that the boys in the movie can't also dream big.

Cause really, in my fairy tale, my guy and I share the same big dreams of adventure and intellectual intercourse.

^ I know it is hard to split the company from the movies from the theme park. In fact it is impossible. My heart of fond childhood memories of the Big Mouse, trips to Orlando and the movies keeps me coming back for more. But my head keeps me focused on the fight. Please read CCFC's response to the latest showdown with Disney.

*Source: This Day in History and  the National Women's Hall of Fame

When I was a little girl, I loved Disney's The Little Mermaid. I mean, I loved it. I used to sit in front of the TV screen for hours at a time, rewinding the video as soon as the movie ended, to watch it all over again from the start. I used to - and I can't believe I'm about to reveal this publicly - sit in the bathtub wearing swimming flippers, combing my hair and singing like Ariel. So I mean it when I say that I loved The Little Mermaid.

When I was about seven or eight, Ariel and I parted ways, and it wasn't until my sophomore year of college, when I had a roommate who was particularly partial to Disney movies, that I sat down and watched The Little Mermaid again. In the years since I had stopped watching the movie religiously, I had, obviously, grown up a lot. I had had my feminist "click" moment, and had started seeing the world through a feminist lens. I had started thinking about how women are depicted in advertising and movies and pop music lyrics and videos. I had been especially shocked and disappointed to learn, courtesy of a particularly fierce feminist English teacher, the origins of the fairy tales we tell young girls. The central message of the original Little Red Riding Hood, for example, is that curious young ladies who venture too far from home and get raped in the woods deserve what they get. But for some reason, it had never occurred to me to think about The Little Mermaid from a feminist perspective. When I sat down with my roommates at 19 and watched it again, The Little Mermaid just about broke my heart.

The Little Mermaid is, quite simply, a feminist's worst nightmare. This movie is about, as a very wise friend of mine once put it, a young woman who gives up her voice to get a pair of legs so that she can snare a man. It's about the triumph of "good" women - young, slender, silent and lovesick - over "bad" women - old, voluptuous, outspoken and sexual. It's about a young woman forced to choose between her father's world and her husband's world, and there is nothing in between. And there's the unsettling fact that the song "Kiss the Girl" tells us that the "one way to ask" if a woman wants you to kiss her, is to just kiss her.

Of course, when it comes to Disney movies, the problems I've pointed out here are only the tip of the iceberg. Disney movies, and the full-length animated features in particular, are almost all problematic. Whether it's how they deal with race, class, gender, ability or colonialism, all the Disney Princess movies have their problems. And of course, each of them is a product of their time. But knowing this makes me perhaps even more disappointed in The Little Mermaid came out in 1989, when feminism was alive and well and making its way into popular discourse. I can't help but wonder if the movie is indicative of resistance and backlash to the changing role of women in America at the time. The thought makes me feel, if possible, even more disappointed.

The lessons we learn as children are incredibly powerful ones - they inform the way we view the world for years to come, and because we learn them at such a young age, because we just know them, we often never think to question them. When we do, it can be uncomfortable and scary, as though a person you've known forever has in fact been lying to you all this time. For me, my first adult viewing of The Little Mermaid felt like a betrayal. I had loved this movie, idolized its heroine, believing that her thirst for knowledge and adventure made her a wonderful heroine, and even dressed up as her for my year-end dance recital (yes, that really is me in that photo). And for all those years, it had been lying to me, selling me a harmful sexist message in a brightly colored package, complete with witty lyrics and a happy ending.

Watching The Little Mermaid as an adult made me realize the importance of being open to questioning everything, even the things you know - or think you know - to be true. Watching this once-beloved Disney classic post-"click" moment made me realize that once you begin to view the world with a feminist lens, it's very hard to stop. Once you begin to view the world with a feminist lens, everything you know - or think you know - begins to look different. That's what makes feminism so powerful.

So the Oscars were last night, and a woman won Best Director for the first time ever! And that same woman’s movie won Best Picture! Which is exciting, especially since the next big contender was Avatar, which I have not seen mostly because I hate James Cameron and I really hate colonialist masturbatory pet-projects. Lauren wrote about The Hurt Locker here, and Sady covered Avatar pretty well over at her regular pad. Yay Kathryn Bigelow, boo James Cameron.

The big Oscar disappointment for me was Sandra Bullock winning Best Actress. Even though I love Sandra Bullock — she seems very sweet and smart and funny and like she’d be really fun to have a few beers with, because she would definitely be the person encouraging you to eat barbeque at 3 in the morning, and who doesn’t love that person? And her dress was one of my favorites last night, and whoever styled her did a fantastic job. But the movie she won for? And the character she played? It’s White Lady Saves The Day to the max, and I’m just awfully tired of movies about how tough white women come in and save children of color. Or, as David Edelstein put it, “[Bullock won] because her role in The Blind Side spoke to two semi-contradictory impulses in Academy voters: a) guilt over being filthy rich and white; and b) a hunger to channel your altruism in ways that enable you to crush other people on the playing field.”

But really, the Oscars were full of un-surprises, so onto the important things: What everyone was wearing. My absolute favorite was Sandy Powell, the woman who won the Oscar for Best Costume Design. But I can’t find a picture of her, so my #2 was Cameron Diaz (pictured above; Maggie Gyllenhaal was a close second). She was my surprise favorite of the night, especially because she often shows up to awards shows looking… troubling. And she generally just doesn’t do it for me. But she rocked the gold dress and I loved it.

On the dude side, of course Tom Ford was the best dressed:

But I also loved:

What did you all think (of the show or of the clothes)?

Reading this nice, short article about the importance of break-up songs written by one of my favorite writers of break-up songs, Thao Nguyen.

Making a zoetrope with my daughter and her daddy.

Meeting a friend for lunch at Big Al’s (if you love veggies, ask for the Sarah Special!) and getting inspired to job-hunt again. I’m also grateful for friends helping me out so much! People are good.

Applying for a State Job! I liked it because I finally found where people who don’t work at Universities and/or non-profits work (or attempt to find work). I saw sooooo many interesting folks whom I immediately wanted to befriend. The life stories I imagined! My favorite was the 77-year-old Supervisor lady with a silver side ponytail and a loose-fitted tweed pantsuit. If I get a job anywhere near her, she better be ready to chat!

Watching a cute, li’l documentary about the crafting and DIY revolution in America.

And FINDING MY CAMERA (!!!) so I can take pictures of stuff and show the pictures to people!

What did you love this week?

Spring

Kim Elsesser from the Center for Study of Women at the UCLA poses this question in the New York Times: Why is it considered acceptable to segregate nominations by sex, offering different Oscars for best actor and best actress?

The editorial is well worth a read. I agree with her in principle, but what of the fact that women are 51% of the population but only made up 29.9% of speaking roles in the 100 top-grossing movies of 2007? And that 83% of the directors, writers and producers of those movies were men? With so many more men snagging speaking roles — and so many more men writing, directing and producing films — women just wouldn’t have an equal shot at a gender-neutral acting award. But perhaps that’s not reason enough to keep awards gender-segregated. Thoughts?