Foxfire
(adapted from the novel by Joyce Carol
Oates) is a coming of age film that,
though at times it plays like a music
video, deals seriously with handling
abuse - sexual, emotional and physical
- and the fine line between rational
and irrational behavior. At first
glance, the film offers a convincing
vision of female empowerment. Into
a high school where sexuality is equated
with power comes Legs, a kick-ass
stranger clad in black leather and
denim from who-knows- where. She mysteriously
appears, during a rainstorm, just
in time for biology class where Rita
and Maddy are beginning to dissect
live frogs under the direction of
Mr. Buttinger, teacher, football coach
and molester.
Under the guise of after-school detention,
he has been sexually harassing Rita,
Violet and numerous other female students
telling them that they need to learn
to "appreciate their value as women"
(i.e. realize that their identity
lies in their sexuality). During class,
Legs frees one of the frogs. After
class, she frees the girls, inciting
Rita, Violet and Maddy to beat up
Buttinger. Goldie witnesses the event,
approves, and the girls are united
- a gang of sorts, suspended from
school and living together in an abandoned
house under the leadership of Legs.
Legs's stay is brief, but she has
a profound impact. She is the nurturing
mother who holds a wincing, whimpering
Rita in her lap while tattooing the
infamous flame on her chest. She is
the platonic lover who seduces Maddy
with her mystical androgyny and her
willful mind. She is the liberator
who teaches the girls not to "take
any shit" - they break into school
to get Maddy's art portfolio after
she is suspended, they steal Dana's
car after he attempts to rape Maddy,
they stay out late doing whatever
they want. She is the protector who
tries to guard Goldie from an abusive
father. She is the facilitator of
female bonding who initiates the girls
into womanhood by tattooing them,
marking them with her sign. The girls
come to love one another like family.
They have been saved from girls who
believed they got what they deserved
from Buttinger and they greatly value
their recently gained independence
from "the way things were": they are
rebels who think for themselves, they
have reclaimed their sexuality, and
they are heroines to other girls harassed
by Buttinger.
But,
all of this becomes problematic. Are
the girls really empowered? And at
what price? It is disconcerting that
their empowerment comes only through
the appropriation of masculine qualities.
Legs is consistently and blatantly
mistaken for a boy - a security guard
hails her as "young man;" Goldie's
mother calls her a "girl or whatever;"
and when asked what she is afraid
of, Goldie jokes, "Legs in a dress."
No attempt is made to hide the fact
that Legs is meant to be seen as a
masculine character despite her extremely
feminine sexuality (this is especially
supported by her potential lesbianism).
Maddy, too, is once mistakenly referred
to as "he" as she begins to become
more "Legs-like." These portrayals
lead one to believe that in order
to have power, one must be like a
man. And, in the end, Legs resorts
to a stereotypical male behavior -
violence. Seeing no other way for
resolving the situation with Goldie's
father, she kidnaps him at gunpoint.
Maddy and Rita assist her, against
their will, and the whole thing starts
to unravel. Though Legs has delivered
the girls from their oppression, her
message of emancipation falls short.
The girls relapse into the moral code
with which they were raised. Peaceful
resolution is favored over violence.
The fact that a man is a father carries
more weight than the fact that he
abuses his daughter. The girls abandon
Legs for stability.
All is not lost, though. Maddy emerges
from her experience with Legs quite
changed. She has recognized her responsibility
to other girls - what is done to them
is symbolically done to her, to all.
She has learned to think for herself
and trust in the wisdom of her own
decisions. She scales the supports
of the bridge, finally conquering
her fear of heights. Rising up out
of her past, she metaphorically climbs
into the sunrise of her new awareness.
Struggling for balance for an awkward
moment, she spreads her arms, tests
her new legs and walks hesitantly,
but steadily, into her future.
The Incredibly True Adventures of
Two Girls In Love
By Pamela
Green
Coming of age in American films is
generally depicted by the adolescent
learning from the earlier generation.
This learning from the older generations
is carried as far as learning about
sex, love and life from thirty, forty
or even fifty-somethings. Hence, in
The Graduate, we have Benjamin learning
about sex from twisted seductress
Mrs. Robinson. In Hal Hartley's film
Trust, we have Adrienne Shelly's character
falling in love with a man at least
ten years her senior after her high
school boyfriend gets her pregnant.
We frequently see this type of scenerio
in films that are both Hollywood mainstream
or independent. The only insight into
youth culture these films give us
is that the people of the young generations
have nothing to offer each other.
The labeling of Generation Xers as
slackers and previous generations
with similar labels (free-loving hippies,
the flappers of the 1920s, etc.) is
further depicted in these films. The
young generation is not only a slacker
generation in regards to school, careers,
and political concerns, but also in
regards to interpersonal relationships.
We have nothing to offer society or
even each other. Despite how depressing
this depiction is, it becomes even
gloomier when we further analyze coming
of age films by gender. Although the
mentoring relationships between older
women and their younger counterparts
should not be trivialized, it is damaging
to ignore the influences women of
the same generation have on each other
to create a successful succession
of feminist generations. Although
young women today must learn about
the fights and struggles the women
of the Second Wave accomplished for
us, we must also acknowledge our own
new struggles. Only by bonding with
women of our own generation can we
accomplish this. This is especially
true for queer women -- we must form
relationships with each other that
teach us where to go from here. Unfortunately,
it is still rare to see queer intragenerational
relationships presented positively
in films. Films such as Personal Best
and Lianna show that younger lesbians
must first learn about love and life
through women who are older and wiser.
However, Maria Maggenti's 1995 film
The Incredibly True Adventure of Two
Girls in Love presents a refreshing
look at lesbians coming of age and
learning about life together. Randy
Dean (Laurel Holloman) and Evie Roy
(Nicole Parker) seem to have nothing
in common at first glance and especially
no chance to experience a relationship
that will propel them into adulthood.
Maggenti introduces Randy and Evie
when they are both lost 17-year-old
high school seniors, each in a relationship
that is going nowhere fast. We know
from the beginning of the film that
Randy 's relationship with an older
married women is doomed. It is made
especially clear that their age difference
not only offers nothing beneficial
to the relationship but is actually
detrimental to the relationship when
Wendy says: "Look. it's a hard situation;
we're both at different stages in
life. . .You're just a young thing
flitting around." Randy responds,
"That's just fine. I met someone my
own age."
Thus we are set up to learn how two
women of the same generation can influence
each other in their transitional period
of life. Randy's relationship with
Evie develops sexually while they
mature together. Randy reaches a stage
of intellectual and emotional maturity
through Evie's interest in poetry,
classical music, and opera. We see
Evie develop in a similar way through
her first same sex relationship. We
finally have two high school women
who enter into a relationship that
leads to their mutual coming of age.
The
end of the film shows us the ultimate
support gained through this intragenerational
relationship. Evie and Randy have
been criticized and ostracized by
every adult figure in their lives.
Randy's guardian is outraged by Randy's
intense involvement with her girlfriend
and fails to understand the emotional
angst experienced by a high school
senior. Although the guardian is also
a lesbian, she does not completely
bond with her young niece. Evie's
mother explodes when she finds one
normal display of teenage mentality
exhibited by Evie when she creates
a huge mess in the house when she
is left alone for the weekend. The
two girls flee, at first argue over
the "mess" they have created, and
then come together to support each
other and support the other's weaknesses.
They fight against the older generation
by refusing to "give themselves up"
until the older women agree to actually
listen and accept them. The last frame
of the film is that of Randy and Evie
kissing while the older women are
screaming at them from outside the
doorway. Evie and Randy are exhibiting
their intense bond and rejecting the
influences from the older generations.They
are keeping the older women's opinions
and lack of understanding literally
outside.
Therefore,
we end with the experience of the
two girls from the same generation
forming a beneficial, healthy relationship
that propels them into adulthood.
They do not learn about sex or relationships
from an older influence (this is the
first time for both of them to have
sex) as Benjamin does from Mrs. Robinson.
For once we are shown that the new
generation can help themselves and
offer each other substantial and meaningful
influences. Mangetti's film is one
of the first to present us with this
positive glimpse into young women's
lives and interactions.
Being a Woman Among women......
By Sheila
Fram-Kulik
Being a Woman among women is being
a color among the many colors of a
rainbow that make it a rainbow. In
"Technologies of Gender" by Teresa
de Lauretis, we read how woman came
about not from Women but, from man.
I surmised from her book that gender
is a sex representation constructed
socially even today but, also being
deconstructed by the many discourses.
Gender has come to categorize language,
sex, and entities within the social
relations and is designated by the
sex-gender systems in context of political
and economic factors. Gender functions
by placing entities into one side
of its constructed binary order of
men verses women. Certain ideologies
are important to keep the gender distinctions
in male dominated structures where
sexual and economic are the parts
of the dichotomic order. Men have
fit easily in the economic side placing
Women in the designated position of
sexual.
Women in this culture are inside and
outside of gender and within and without
representation because of the contradictions
seen within the phallocentric ideology.
But, when placed within the feminist
structure woman and Women offer ways
to rupture the dominant ideology.
"This is, of course, the process described
by Althusser with the word interpellation,
the process whereby a social representation
is accepted and absorbed by an individual
as her own representation, and so
becomes. . . real, even though it
is in fact imaginary. (de Lauretis
p. 12)" Interpellation proceeds women,
but redefines men when the opposing
position is adopted. The female body,
as sexualized, has been a concern
of feminists especially in cinema
where the camera is a technology of
gender. We constantly see the female
sexualized by projection through the
male. The process of experience constructs
subjectivity, which is then, produced
through language. Psychoanalysis posits
the question of how one becomes woman
in relation to man in cinema. But
feminism has now taken this position
and is constantly questioning how
one becomes woman in relation to Women
in cinema. The rupture is widening
every year and lets keep it perpetual.
de Lauretis, Teresa. "Technologies
of Gender". Indiana University Press.
1987.
Discovering Minority History and Understanding
To understand any minority culture
(in this case meaning that which is
not the dominant white male culture)
one must examine the culture within
a historical context. Why is this
history so important to discover and
understand? One reason that Simone
de Beauvior gave in The Second Sex,
is that "Science regards any characteristic
as a reaction dependent in part upon
a situation." Therefore, anything
that currently exists must be based
on that which existed in the past.
Hence, this is not only true for scientific
or metaphysical understandings, but
also for culture and society. Conditions
that exist today are based on what
happened in the past. This is one
premise so frequently used in the
pro affirmative action argument. However,
it is as necessary to understand this
for purely societal and personal reasons.
This is necessary for the dominant
culture to understand in order to
prevent forced assimilation into an
unnatural and undesired way of life.
It is also necessary for the minority
members themselves to gain this historical
information and understanding to provide
for self-discovery and acceptance.
But just finding the history of minorities
is a difficult task. As Beauvior points
out, the problem lies in the fact
that "[Women] have no past, no history,
no religion of their own." The solution,
then, is to re-learn history and deconstruct
the
past
in ways that explain minority situations.
In her first feature film, "Watermelon
Woman," film maker Cheryl Dunye does
an excellent job of deconstructing
mainstream history and discovering
forgotten stories. Through the film
she illustrates that historical context
is necessary for understanding, but
that it is very difficult to find
this history or to find an accurate
picture of this history. The history
that she is searching for is not only
a history of women but also the history
of lesbians of color whose stories
have been all but obliterated.
Watermelon Woman leads the viewer
through a quest for a lost history.
The film focuses on Cheryl (played
by Dunye) who is a young black lesbian
eager to begin a career as a film
maker. After watching numerous movies
from the pre-1950s era, Cheryl decides
to make a film about Fae Richards
(a.k.a. the Watermelon Woman), who
was a black actress pigeon-holed into
mamie roles. She begins her quest
for information about Richards that
richly illustrates how difficult it
is to trace the histories of people
outside the dominant societal groups.
Since she can not rely on typical
research materials available for information
about white men, ie: books, documented
research, etc., she must try to find
her own primary resources. Thus begins
the quest for Richards and, therefore,
the analogy about the quest for minority
history. Cheryl heads to the streets
and video stores to do candid interviews
with anyone she can find. She then
examines her own family, including
an interview with her own mother and
one of her mother's old friends who
turns out to be a stone butch who
reached her prime during Richard's
reign and frequently watched Richards
perform. Her search for information
therefore becomes a celebration of
women and family, which we must hold
as valuable, especially when all other
forms of historical references are
impossible to find.
Cheryl becomes mildly obsessed with
Richards, illustrating the desire
for historical information, and the
desire to find others who are like
us. In a world where the minority
is the complete Other (in this case
not only white and male, but also
heterosexual, we must see the complete
invisibility Cheryl experiences. The
expression of duality, of the Other,
is found in all societies. However,
the construction of the Other and
the social enforcement of the Other
is obviously damaging. This truth
gives meaning and insight into Cheryl’s
quest for those like her and a history
of her own.
Woven
into the story is the story of Cheryl's
own reality as a young black dyke.
She begins a relationship with a white
woman, played by Guinevere Turner
(of Go Fish), and starts to receive
flack from her best friend about the
interracial relationship. Cheryl ultimately
discovers that Richards was in fact
a true sister-- a lesbian--who was
in a relationship with a well-respected
white female film maker. Cheryl tries
to interview the filmmaker's sister
who denies that she was in the sisterly
way. But then she locates Richards’
last lover before her death. This
discovery provides a completion to
the quest for the story, for history,
for role models, and for similarities.
Dunye creates a character who becomes
time-less. Richards lived in a homophobic,
sexist and racist world where she
had to fight for every little accomplishment.
She lived a life that was not accepted
by the majority of society, but she
lived it without fear or scandal.
This is a woman like Cheryl or any
other woman today or yesterday who
is seen as the Other, and who’s story
is sure to disappear unless we--women,
lesbians, or minorities-- help remember
them.
Through
the Watermelon Woman, Cheryl finally
finds the family she has been searching
for, both for her own self-discovery
and acceptance and for historical
understanding. Note: The one interesting
twist to the film is that the character
of Richards is actually fictionalized.
The Richards character is not a real
person, although the character is
believable and is surely based on
a composite of 1920-1940s performers.
The re-creation of old footage and
photographs is done remarkably well,
and helps give a feel of authenticity.
"I
Shot Andy Warhol," based upon Warhol's
attempted assassin - radical feminist
Valerie Solanas, is captivating and
complex. The film chronicles Solanas's
obsession with Warhol (which eventually
turns paranoiac and violent) and her
determination to gain notoriety for
her organization (of which she is
the sole member) S.C.U.M. (Society
for Cutting Up Men). Touting and quoting
her S.C.U.M. Manifesto, Solanas makes
her position known - she is a man-hater
who believes in the natural superiority
of women over men. She states from
her manifesto: "Life in this society
being, at best, an utter bore and
no aspect of society being at all
relevant to women, there remains to
civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking
females only to overthrow the government,
eliminate the money system, institute
complete automation and destroy the
male sex. It is now technically possible
to reproduce without the aid of males
(or, for that matter, females) and
to produce only females. We must begin
immediately to do so. The male is
a biological accident: the y (male)
gene is an incomplete x (female) gene,
that is, has an incomplete set of
chromosomes. In other words, the male
is an incomplete female." Valerie
Solanas is an intricate character
(Lili Taylor's portrayal is reason
enough to watch this film - she is
wonderful). She can be obnoxiously
crass - she is notorious for her vulgarity
and is hard-heatedly determined to
get what she wants. Yet, she can be
delightfully naive - she struggles
to walk in heels in an attempt to
be a "pretty good-looking girl." And,
she can be painfully paranoid - she
begs a friend throwing her out of
the apartment, "I don't want to go
out there. Please, Stevie. I can't
go out there." She has valid arguments
regarding men's oppression of women
(though one of her adversaries points
out that her rantings are nothing
new). And, she has the foresight to
realize that feminism can not always
be wrapped up in trying to gain equality
with men: "S.C.U.M. is against the
entire system. S.C.U.M. is out to
destroy the system, not attain rights
within it." (Though she tries desperately
to gain followers - her determination
really is admirable, there is the
occasional sense that Solanas's "movement"
is motivated by self-gratification
and a desire for fame. She is self-centered,
dedicating her play "Up Your Ass"
to "me, myself and I.")
