I’m HUGE fan of Silverman. Not only is she a great performer, she’s a fantastic writer.
Here’s what I blogged about her memoir, Bedwetter, a couple summers ago:
Bedwetter by Sarah Silverman. Silverman, you probaly know, is a comedian; this book is hilarious but also poignant. She wet her bed until she was sixteen years old. One passage totally sticks in my head: Silverman is just back from sleepaway camp, a traumatizing experience for a bedwetter; she secretly wore diapers at night. When she gets off the camp bus, full of shame, her mom is frenetically taking pictures of her. Silverman has a strange feeling of getting attention yet being completely ignored. When I read this, I thought it was a great way to describe the experience many women have of being looked at but not being seen. I blogged about the book here.
I’ve been reading some great posts from around the web about how horrible Seth MacFarlane was last night. From the New Yorker:
Watching the Oscars last night meant sitting through a series of crudely sexist antics led by a scrubby, self-satisfied Seth MacFarlane. That would be tedious enough. But the evening’s misogyny involved a specific hostility to women in the workplace, which raises broader questions than whether the Academy can possibly get Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to host next year. It was unattractive and sour, and started with a number called “We Saw Your Boobs.”
“We Saw Your Boobs” was as a song-and-dance routine in which MacFarlane and some grinning guys named actresses in the audience and the movies in which their breasts were visible. That’s about it. What made it worse was that most of the movies mentioned, if not all (“Gia”), were pretty great—“Silkwood,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “Monster’s Ball,” “Monster,” “The Accused,” “Iris”—and not exactly teen-exploitation pictures. The women were not showing their bodies to amuse Seth MacFarlane but, rather, to do their job. Or did they just think they were doing serious work? You girls think you’re making art, the Academy, through MacFarlane, seemed to say, but all we—and the “we” was resolutely male—really see is that we got you to undress. The joke’s on you.
the relentless commentary about how women look reinforced, over and over, that women somehow don’t belong. They matter only insofar as they are beautiful or naked, or preferably both.
Not only will a record 20 women hold U.S. Senate seats next year, but women voters also greatly influenced the 2012 election, making an impact in swing states such as Ohio.
As founder of reelgirl.com Margot Magowan says, Hollywood needs to catch up.
The sheer increase of strong female characters isn’t enough, Magowan said, noting that role models such as “Wreck-It Ralph’s” Vanellope (voiced by Sarah Silverman) are often secondary characters.
“It’s important for the female to be the star of the movie,” the mom of three girls said. ” ‘Harry Potter’ has Hermione, but her role is to help Harry on his quest. … You can be the first lady, but you can’t be the president. … If you can’t imagine it, you can’t be it.”
My favorite quote is from Joss Whedon:
In 2006, while accepting an award from Equality Now (an organization promoting the human rights of women), Joss Whedon (“The Avengers,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) said he’s often asked why he creates such strong women characters.
His response: “Why aren’t you asking 100 other guys why they don’t write strong women characters?”
There is a lot to love and admire about “Wreck-It Ralph.” In many ways, both conspicuously and more subversively, the movie challenges gender stereotypes. That said, the gender matrix– a sexist framework that dominates animated films made for children– remains intact. Watching “Wreck-It Ralph,” for me, is like reading the Greek Myths; there are strong, complex females to admire but they are only permitted to demonstrate their power within a firmly established patriarchy.
Vanellope von Schweetz is such a cool Minority Feisty. She is smart, funny, daring, talented, compassionate, and vulnerable. She kicks ass but also has a huge heart. Vanellope is voiced by one of my favorite comedians, Sarah Silverman, and let’s just say, those two have a lot in common. Icing on the cake: Vanellope saves Ralph’s life with her speed and smarts. The cross-gender friendship between Vanellope and Ralph is the heart of the movie.
Vanellope is not the only Minority Feisty to love in “Ralph.” Sargeant Calhoun, voiced by Jane Lynch, also plays a complex and cool role. She is a fierce military woman but also passionate with a strong moral fiber.
A third Minority Feisty is Moppet Girl who hangs out at the arcade. Though her gender is a minority in the arcade crowd (I know, I know, that’s how it is is the “real world”) she is there and delivers the key line in the plot. Moppet Girl tells the arcade owner that the Fix-It Felix game is broken. She is also the character who provides the plot bookend, giving a fist bump to Vanellope at the end of the movie when she returns to her rightful position as ruler. It is a rare scene in animation to see two females interacting with each other, expressing power and victory. To put that scene in perspective, the awesome Minority Feisty of “Puss in Boots,” Kitty Softpaws, never meets any of the other 4 females in the movie.
More coolness: One of the crowd scenes– in Vanellope’s game, Sugar Rush– is female dominated. The trio of girls who actually get to speak in that crowd are a stereotype, the trifecta, of mean girls: one bitchy leader flanked by a pair of followers (as seen in “Mean Girls,” “Heathers” “Never Been Kissed,” and many more “chick flicks”.)
But still, females dominating a crowd scene– a crowd scene of race car drivers, no less– is nothing to sneeze at. Those cars may be made out of cookies and candy, the drivers may have names like Taffyta, reminiscent of “My Little Pony” but, still, progress noted.
There are still more depictions of female power in “Ralph.” A few weeks ago, I posted about “riding bitch:” how whether a female in kidworld is on a magic carpet (“Aladdin”) a dragon (“How to Train Your Dragon”) or a hippogriff (Harry Potter), she’s is almost always found behind the male. The message is: the boy leads, the girl is along for the ride. Not in this movie. In “Wreck-It Ralph” Sargeant Calhoun piloted some kind of motorized, flying surfboard and a space ship while Fix-it Felix rode shotgun. Not only was Felix in the passenger seat, but he gazed, admiringly at Calhoun as he watched her do her stuff. Calhoun was shown as attractive and powerful simultaneously. That, my friend, is almost never depicted. Vanellope, herself, becomes a race car driver. She is also shown in the driver’s seat with Ralph behind her. Ralph does teach her how to drive (when he doesn’t know how either) but her skills surpass his and he is shown admiring her for her talent. (I cannot find images on the web of Calhoun piloting with Fix-It Felix by her side or Vanellope driving with Ralph in the back. If you do, please send me the link.)
But here’s the gender matrix. Even breaking all these sexist barriers, Ralph is clearly the protagonist. The movie is named for him. He’s the hero. Fix-It Felix is the “good guy” to Ralph’s “bad guy.” The real bad guy, the villain of the movie, Turbo, is also male. Turbo masquerades as King Candy but when Vanellope is restored to her rightful role as ruler, she is “princess,” not “queen.” In an often used cliche in children’s movies trying to straddle the princess-empowerment image, Vanellope tears off her puffy, pink dress. Later, in the movie, when she has to wear the dress to attend a wedding, she is uncomfortable and scratches her neck. (I actually appreciated that detail much more than the overused “rip off your princess-dress/ corset” cliche. Another awesome factor: the toys from the movie. As far as I can see, the Vanellope figure is shown in her regular clothes or driving her car, not wearing the princess outfit she hates in the movie, which is, unfortunately, how Disney sells Mulan.)
The Bad Guy Anon meetings were hilarious and creative. I was cracking up watching them but these scenes fortify the sexist matrix.
The whole thesis of the movie is about being a bad “guy.” There was only one female in the bad “guy” group and she didn’t get a single line. It is mostly that cast of characters that made the poster that is all over San Francisco.
The bad female is not on this poster, nor is Vanellope, Calhoun, and Moppet Girl. When I posted earlier about the sexist poster, “Wreck-It Ralph” fans responded with hundreds of angry comments on Reel Girl and all over the web. Their first complaint was that the movie features strong female characters. It does. But the male is still the lead. That is what this poster clearly shows. That is why the poster was created to look this way and why the film is titled for Ralph.
Also, the poster is its own media. Even if you don’t see the movie, your kids see the poster on buses and looming over them on the sides of buildings. And again, if 50% of posters around town featured females, there would be no problem with “Wreck-It Ralph.” But, “Wreck it Ralph” fits a pattern, echoed and repeated, where males star and females are sidelined or missing.
Commenters on that blog post also told me the movie is called “Sugar Rush” in Japan. I think that’s pretty cool, but it’s still not called “The Racer, Vanellope” and it’s the U.S. version that sets the cultural standards here. Also, once again, Ralph narrates, the movie is Ralph’s story. Vanellope is his friend.
Why is the gender of the protagonist so crucial? We are all the heroes in our own lives. Again and again, with these films, girls see that there is a limit, a ceiling, to their potential, and it is marked with a male. No matter how important they are or how big a role they get to play, there is a guy who gets more.
Reel Girl rates “Wreck-It Ralph ***HH*** Take your kids to see this movie!
Update: A commenter tells me one of the 3 mean girls is, in fact, a boy. The one on the left. Beggars can’t be choosers, and I claimed claimed RF in spite of evil ways, but she is a he.
I don’t usually read memoirs. I feel like I have no time to read so whenever I get some, I go for my favorites: fiction or social commentary. But in the past few months, ever since I took 2 solo flights to NYC, I can’t stop with the memoirs. I’ve read 6 amazing stories about women’s lives. These books have been so good and original, they remind me of that Muriel Rukeyser much repeated quote:
What if one women told the truth about her life?
The world would break open
Here are my recommendations in reverse chronological order– what I’m reading now back to what I started with:
Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman This is the story of a woman who got involved in low level drug trafficking (carrying/ picking up suitcases, other errands like that.) When the big time head of the operation was arrested long after Kerman had given up the drug crowd, moved to New York, and had a career, she named names and the feds came for Kerman. This book makes you feel as if you’re with Kerman behind bars, her silent cellmate. I’ve never read a memoir about a women’s prison before or any prison life. It’s fascinating and makes me feel like I will never break the law (though I did just get a ticket for an expired car registration and, at the same time, for not having my wildly tantruming kid seatbelted properly. Double ticket. Hadn’t stared the book yet.)
Happens Every Day by Isabel Gillies, a memoir about Gillies husband leaving her for another woman after she’s given up her acting career and moved to Ohio with him and their two young kids. I think there are other ‘divorce’ memoirs, but I haven’t read them. This is a total page-turner.
Some Girls by Jillian Lauren. Lauren writes about her experience as a sex worker, traveling to Brunei. I’ve read other sex work memoirs but none as insightful and raw as this one. I blogged about it here.
Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage by Elizabeth Gilbert This is the sequel to Eat, Pray, Love and chronicles Gilbert’s travails after she decides to marry the hot guy from Bali in order to get him citizenship after the restrictions of the Patriot Act threaten to keep them apart. I feel much the same way Gilbert does about marriage, and I loved reading her personal story about how she came to peace with age old institution. I blogged about her book here.
Bedwetter by Sarah Silverman. Silverman, you probaly know, is a comedian; this book is hilarious but also poignant. She wet her bed until she was sixteen years old. One passage totally sticks in my head: Silverman is just back from sleepaway camp, a traumatizing experience for a bedwetter; she secretly wore diapers at night. When she gets off the camp bus, full of shame, her mom is frenetically taking pictures of her. Silverman has a strange feeling of getting attention yet being completely ignored. When I read this, I thought it was a great way to describe the experience many women have of being looked at but not being seen. I blogged about the book here.
Lit by Mary Karr, best-selling author of The Liar’s Club. Her memoir of recovering from alcoholism. There are many, many memoirs of addiction/ recovery of course, but Karr is such a beautiful writer, she could write about my refrigerator, and I’d love it.
