Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Million Dollar Baby (2004)

#inspirationalmovies

This one might be too harsh to be inspirational. But you will have to judge that on your own. Million Dollar Baby (2004, Clint Eastwood) is a sports movie. A boxing movie. About hurt and suffering people.

As sports movie it goes pretty much as expected: we have a heroine who through hard work - mental and physical - gets to prove everybody how they were wrong about her abilities and character. Inspirational so far.

Even more, you get a story about several lives so empty and broken that the fight and success in the ring is the only way she perceives that allows self-realization and freedom. Then again, it's still brutal (and dangerous) fighting in men's world with other women... but who are we to question the dreams of well informed adults?

+ A movie where a woman in a central role is neither expect or made look conventionally pretty at any moment. Also, the sexist structures of the society (and sports!) are laid very bare.

+ The extremely multifaceted and talented Hilary Swank. Breathtaking!

- If you are sensitive to violence and not that into people having fist fights for fun (and money), the whole boxing context might result very crude and overwhelming.

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Matilda (1996)

#inspirationalmovies

Ok, consider that this is as Halloweenish/All Saints/All Dead I'll go. Here you have superpowers, intimidated children, terrible parents and teachers, and scaring people out of their wits. And the love for books... and Roald Dahl.

Matilda (1996) is a very sweet and very 1990's version of Dahl's tale about:

1) A little girl that has landed in the wrong family by birth. But, as the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, finds her happiness in books first and then in leaving them behind once she has found an alternative, better suiting family.

2) A little girl with superpowers that permit her to fight against injustice, punish the meanies, and have fun.

3) A little bibliophile obsessed with the escape and horizons that books offer.

4) A little smartass that instead of formal schooling chooses unschooling at home as her happy ending.

That's why Matilda is a superheroine I'd chose over Hit-Girl. Also, the crucial story is centered around three female protagonists: Matilda, Miss. Honey and Trunchbull. And that's an emanicpatory thing: you get to see that there are many ways how anyone - also anyone gendered as a girl/woman - can yield power. While the level of stereotypical masculinization of Trunchbull can be discussed (is she depicted as masculine in order to be more of an Other, more scarier?), the very fact that it's a female-dominated narrative (+ Matilda's father) is already note worthy.

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Tangled (2010)

#inspirationalmovies

Yes, I admit a weakness for well done mainstream stuff for children. 'Cause they are the future, you know! If they get decent stuff to watch, maybe we won't be doomed as species. At least not that soon... Anyways, Disney's most recent version of the Rapunzel story - Tangled (2010) - could be considered their test of waters for a (somewhat) new kind of princess (this is before Frozen (2013), keep in mind, and before Brave (2012)).

While far from Disney's most interesting takes on (quite) feminist princesses - think Mulan or Merida - there's a lot to take out from this Rapunzel.

Lesson 1: A sign of personal maturity is to be able to overcome the limits your guardians have set if you feel that something from beyond those is calling you. Obedience is not by default the best choice. Your safe home may turn out to be a secluded tower with no exit. And you may have to jump to get out of it.

Lesson 2: Be ready to use force and cunning when in danger. Obvious, but not very princessy. Real world stuff.

Lesson3: Authenticity is better quest for perfection. Following what just feels right might give you a (messy) prince and a kingdom queendom. Or just make you happy.

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: The Witches of Eastwick (1987)

#inspirationalmovies

You can, of course, analyze the classical piece that The Witches of Eastwick (1987, George Miller) is as a tale of seduction and revenge. But that's by far to easy... there's so much nuance in this + the perfect ending.

As I've claimed before, love interest, romance and passionate affairs can be - and often are, especially in cinema - the vehicles of empowerment and emancipation. This narrative can be rather predictable and slightly overused, but, hey, if the authors know how to show that it's not the man that has to be central to one's life in order to transform but an relationship offering an alternative mode of doing things that has a capacity to change people. Can be friendships. And can be romance. See examples here, here, here among many more. 
Yes, it is a heteropatriarchal way of constructing female emancipation. But better this than none, provided that the protagonists know what they are doing!

And The Witches... offer much more than just emancipation via Jack Nicholson.
You get the friendship that's prior to scandal and that remains afterwards. You get sexual emancipation based in pleasure and indulgence in bodies. You get creativity and playfulness. And you get the healthy realization that some things have gone too far and have to be gotten rid of.
It's a John Updike novel after all.

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Maleficent (2014)

#inspirationalmovies

If you haven't seen Maleficent (2014, Robert Stromberg) yet, drop everything and go get it! If you have, this might be a nice moment to watch it again. And again. Because as far as Disney (and many more) movies go, this is as directly grrrl power and smash the patriarchy as it will probably ever get in the mainstream entertainment business*.

First of all, do not listen to those who call this a version of Sleeping Beauty. While Aurora is involved, this is a completely different story. One that makes more sense, I - without even being of the branch of eco-feminism and essentialism - would say.

The interpretation of the script that resonates with me is the basic idea that if you (violently) crush somebody's sense of self, their capacity to express themselves and enjoy the life, expect trouble. Applied to a girl-child with powers to revenge her loss magically - and, oh, so powerfully - here you have Maleficent.

The fact that the harm is inflicted by a man, masked behind a romantic interest, just makes it more close to reality for many survivors around the world, really. Jolie herself has spoken out both on gender-based violence and rape, and on possible parallels with it you can find in Maleficent. Yes, rape exists and you can start a conversation about it using this Disney movie.

And the good news are: people can heal when time and support is given. Yes, thank you, Disney!

Additional points go to the creators for making the prince to be against the idea of kissing an unconscious girl he barely knows. Great, the need for enthusiastic consent can be evoked right here! Even more, in this movie - as in Frozen (2013) - the real love is not the one coming from a prince on a white horse. Kudos, Disney, I'm very impressed!

* I hope that's not true and I shall see more and more explicitly feminist movies coming up where the pink princess culture was, but I don't hold my breath for that. Therefore enjoy this one as intensely as you can!

 

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Summertime (1955)

#inspirationalmovie 

Just in time for August, another treat with Katharine Hepburn: Summertime (1955, David Lean). And exactly as it happens with many more classic - and contemporary - movies, there are several ways how you can read the plot. Our mission is emancipatory, so on that we shall focus...

1) A woman traveling solo to a country she does not know without speaking a word in its language. Already daring.

2) She is not young. Or breathtakingly beautiful. Or overly confident. But she's very excited to be doing things and going places.

3) She meets a person. And has lots of fun with them. While nobody is promising marriage or happily ever after.

4) After that, she takes a decision to stop a relationship that is not promising anything more than she has already seen. She leaves. To go back to her life. Because she has a life. For real.   

Obviously, all of this happens in a sauce of she wasn't really living until she met the right man, but - as we did with Roman Holiday (1953), which has a very very similar narrative - let's treat the love interest as a driver of empowerment and self-discovery instead of being a prince charming and a savior. Because in both of these movies (both set in Italy, curiously enough, the paragon of loose morals for 1950's Hollywood, apparently), the protagonists have romantic fun and then move on. With a bittersweet break-up, yes, but with little doubts about what they have to do and where are they going.

And before most of the above happens, this quote:

"Renato De Rossi: Listen to me! Stop behaving like a schoolgirl! What my wife does is not your business. What signora Fiorini does is not your business. You come here and what you do? You hide in a gondola and you sigh “Oh, Venice is so beautiful, so romantic! Oh, these Italians, so beautiful, so romantic! Such children!” and you dream of meeting someone you want: young, rich, witty, brilliant, and unmarried, of course! But me, I’m a shopkeeper, not young, not rich, not witty, not brilliant and married, of course. But I am a man, and you are a woman. But you see…it’s “wrong” it’s “wicked” it’s this, it’s that. You’re like a hungry child who is given ravioli to eat. “No!” you say, “I want beef steak!” My dear girl…you are hungry. Eat the ravioli.
Jane Hudson: I’m not that hungry.
Renato De Rossi: We are all that hungry, Miss Hudson."

Realizing your most authentic needs and fulfilling them is very important. And sometimes other people might help with that.

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Her (2013)

#inspirationalmovies  

There's (at least) two ways to interpret and watch Her (2013, Spike Jonze). The first one would be the anthropocentric obvious approach: for two hours your screen is filled with Joaquin Phoenix living a quite lonely life and experimenting with the first operating system with artificial intelligence. A bittersweet futuristic story for everybody concerned about the ways we use technology and build our lives around it.

But then there's the other side. A much more entangled and complex side. If you look closely enough  - as with everything, we all consume culture in an interested and biased way, not necessarily seeing and hearing the same message - there's a lot to be taken away from it. There's a whole conundrum of issues on body-ness (although in this case it's not about type of body but about absolute lack of it), on inequalities in relationship (imagine being with someone so much more intellectually capable that you cannot even imagine how they do the things that they do), on what having sex means, on jealousy and on wishing to be assured that our beloved are ours, on being with somebody very different than you are... and on what is to be considered a happy ending.

People at Feministing have had a lengthy conversation on this, claiming Her to be the most feminist film of 2013. Here's a quote just to entice you to both see the movie and read the whole thing, and in this order preferably.

"I’m a proud cyborg feminist, and part of what the means for me is that to be the authors of our own embodiment means thinking about technology as expanding what it means to be “real” rather than the ultimate artificiality. Samantha is a real person– and the fact that the very premise of the Slate article hinges on the fact that she isn’t really troubled me. Her resounding “fuck you!” to Theodore when he waxed insecure about Samantha’s personhood was a strikingly feminist moment, a cyborg-feminist one even, and one that ought to dispel most doubts in the viewer about her sapience.

I was also worried in the first half of the movie that Samantha would feel permanently inferior because she lacked a traditional human body; imagine my transhumanist heart soaring when she realized that her data-based corporeality was not only just as good as, say, Theodore’s body, but perhaps even better. It’s redolent of the way that people with body stigmas–be they trans, fat, PWD, or people of color–come to recognize our own inherent beauty and transcend the hegemony of, say, white/cis/thin beauty norms."  

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Roman Holiday (1953)

#inspirationalmovie

Let's celebrate the spring with something light yet inspirational. Traditional yet empowering. Here you have the emancipated Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday (1953, William Wyler)! 

While you could reduce the story to a romantic comedy of a girl raised among restrictions falling in love for Gregory Peck, we prefer to go farther and suggest you watch this as a story of a girl that:

- Has a social standing and responsibilities that do not depend upon a man. Although monarchical, that still counts as rather emancipatory feature.
- Decides to break free and have fun!
- Realizes she needs guidance and therefore asks (and purchases) assistance.
- Falls in love and enjoys it.
- (A spoiler, but you should know it by now!) Decides her before-mentioned responsibilities are more important than a love affair, and therefore chooses to resume doing them (and let go of Gregory Peck).

A synopsis: she chooses to have few days off from all the stress and stiffness, has great fun and a romantic adventure, then takes a decision to go back to her professional life (being a princess is a professional duty, albeit a very particular one) and acts upon that.
Here you go, Roman Holiday is an emancipatory piece of movie-making! You are welcome. 

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Made in Dagenham (2010)

#inspirationalmovies

Made in Dagenham (2010, Nigel Cole) is a dramatization of the strike that brought "the Equal Pay Act 1970, the first legislation in the UK aimed at ending pay discrimination between men and women, and the first such legislation in the world".

While you can read more in wikipedia and your history books, here you have a very nice and uplifting version. It shows the tensions that collective action creates (and sure created when striking wasn't something that feminized professions did), and the overt discrimination, patronizing and economic exploitation to be experienced by women that led to the strike. Even more, a prominent place is dedicated to our ever alive foe of second shift and the double standard that is expected from working men and women. Nevertheless, there are also  pretty dresses 60's dresses, the spirit of female friendship and solidarity, and happy ending*.

Made for those Friday nights when your drive for activism and feministing is down and needs a boost. Made in Dagenham will do the job.

* Well, the ending is relatively happy as in the EU28 we are still some 16% on average below the male wage (and some more in US and other places), see the chart for 2012 data below.

Momal ♥ Being a Girl

Through contacts made in WSYA and Women Deliver, we are happy to present:

Name: Momal Mushtaq, creator of thevoiceofyouth.com and thefreedomtraveller.com

I enjoy doing anything that would fall under the category of social media, social entrepreneurship and/or social work.

I founded The Voice of Youth (tVoY) in June 2010. It is an award-winning youth network spread across 151 countries of the world. Social media as an alternate form of media has brought the conflict zones of the world into limelight. With the vision of a peaceful society, one of the goals of tVoY is to speak to millions about resolution of conflicts, their nature and root causes. Our focus is on the young people. By sharing their story, we feel they can be a great source of inspiration and encouragement to those who are going through similar situations.

Other than that, I recently launched The Freedom Traveller. I call it "a young Pakistani woman's uprising, her desire to be free and her dream to travel the world." I come from a male-dominated society where girls can't go out alone anywhere – be it the store or the university – everything is dependent on males. Considering this, just being abroad has been 'precious' for me, because that's when I got to experience the true essence of freedom, and you can talk about it, think about it, see it in on television screen but you can't feel it. I have launched The Freedom Traveller to continue my journey as a traveler, redefine the word 'freedom' for women and highlight the work of other inspiring women from around the world. 

The world would be a better place if everybody would:

See The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

Listen to TED Talks (I ♥ Being a Girl seconds that, see here)

Read The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003) by Mitch Albom

Try following their heart.

Before I'm 80, I'd like to travel the world.

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

#inspirationalmovies

OK, so this one has to be explained.

So, do we suggest that Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953, Howard Hawks) can be a feminist inspiration? Yes. Is it that obvious? No.

First of all, the title of this musical and feel-good-fun-piece is totally misleading. It's not about gentlemen and what they prefer. This is a feature of what do girls want and how they get it.

Obviously, exaggerated and containing some not that inspirational puns (thinks of the 1950's gender ethos in general), but still it's them - the amazing and beautiful Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe - who move the script. And the solutions of the difficulties (there had to be, because no difficulties = no plot) come from their resourcefulness and intelligence. And their erotic capital, too, yes.

It is just anthropologically how a message of female supremacy emerges in a totally sexist setting. Not that we agree with any gender-based supremacies, but you have to admit the weirdness of the message. So here you have a wrongly wrapped anthem to blondes and brunettes getting what they want, both honestly and with some cunning. And almost never engaging in mutual slut-shaming while doing it, bravo!

Plus, of course the fact the both of them are curvy and believable-bodied. And below you can find an excerpt of some of the objectification of the male body going on in the movie, for a change.

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Labyrinth (1986)

#inspirationalmovies

Here, with a summery, Dora-the-Explorer vibe, we suggest you (re)watch Labyrinth (1986, Jim Henson). While the morale of the story of the quest of young and angsty Sarah could be interpreted as - just like in The Wizard of Oz (1939) - teaching her a lesson that the home and the already familiar is the best, we suggest another interpretation. The journey she makes (deciding to go and deal with the crisis on her own, speak of agency right there) reminds her what is that she actually values and how much power and intelligence she has to overcome the cunning and annoyances she meets in the world of Goblin King David Bowie. Which is a good thing.
It's a decent young hero's journey. Just that she happens to be a heroine. So here you go!

Additional quirks of the movie is David Bowie, of course, all kinds of weird and troubled creatures, and the striped baby onesie among others...  

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: The Wizard of Oz (1939)

#inspirationalmovies

A cinematographic treasure just for you. And we'll tell you about it's feminist value, too.

You see, while the finale of The Wizard of Oz (1939, Victor Fleming) does suggest notes of you-stay-home-and-stop-dreaming, the beginning Dorothy wishing to see more (and trying to do so) and then her actually doing things is a much better lesson to take from the movie.
First of all it's a emancipatory journey of the hero heroine. She does things, believe it or not. And previously she decides to do them.

Also, curiously enough, the author of the book series that the movie is based on, L. Frank Baum, has given much more agency and power to the female characters. It's Dorothy who receives advice from Glinda, the good witch, kills the Wicked Witch of the East and then confronts the Wicked Witch of the West. She does have companions (that she herself emancipates) and the Wizard that she deals with, but female characters are the protagonists.

And nobody has doubts that her life - even if back in old, black-n-white Kansas - will never be the same again. Because experiences matter.

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

#InspirationalMovies #WesAnderson

Finally, a Wes Anderson movie where girls - OK, a girl - take active (and not sobbing and passive aggressive) decisions. Moonrise Kingdom (2012) is a cute story about love and emancipation. Also about the fact that you don't have to wait until certain (legal?) moment of becoming person or adult in order to do things that resonate with your most authentic being. And a great amount of relationship dos and do-nots you'll see are the same at every age...

Most of all keeping in mind that both Suzy and Sam were persons with their interests, conflicts and preferences before escaping (this is not Romeo and Juliet stuff on sudden transformation and emancipation by love) just that they chose to be together, too.

Sunday is for horizons: Martha Gellhorn

This is stuff for serious #Sundays.
We present you Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998), novelist, journalist, travel writer and a renowned war correspondent. And for us, snoops, the best thing is that both her professional and private life are depicted in her books (you don't go to interpretations of others, which in case of important female personalities seem to be a very slippery slope towards sensationalism and looking for weirdness).

Martha mostly wrote about people and places, not herself explicitly. But she is a reporter, so we see the places and the people through her eyes and experiences. She is a woman in 20th century going the most unwelcoming places of her time and getting to know war, misery, poverty and human suffering around the globe the old way - by seeing it herself and talking to people. And that hurts, even more than lack of running water and the eminent danger of falling bombs does.

And for the interest in emancipation and feministing, she is known for A) by choice prioritizing her professional vocation over family life and B) trying the achieve the maximal level of objectivity, knowing that her work was under more scrutiny than that of her colleagues. Also, her writings are good. If we don't convince you, read this.

In case you want a cinematographic teaser before you read her work, here you have the rather mediocre Hemingway and Gellhorn (2012, Philip Kaufman). See it but then go get her books, they are worth it.

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Como agua para chocolate (1992)

#InspirationalMovie

While Como agua para chocolate (1992, Alfonso Arau) might seem just another period piece about love and customs, it is not so. Based on a  novel of Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate: A novel in monthly installments with recipes, romances and home remedies (1992), it mixes the traditional Western love story with a healthy dose of magical realism.

It analyzes - as good period pieces should - the pressures that social customs place(d) on people. And seeing in detail how women were coping with the fact that submission and passivity were expected from them and the very reality of being a person. With feelings, emotions, desires, and dreams.

As legions of women have done throughout the history, the heroine here finds solace in cooking and breaking free time-by-time (baby steps, you know). Her cooking, though, goes beyond that of your and our grandmothers... because Tita's cooking is magic: the food she prepares transmits her feelings, therefore she can make the whole wedding-crowd cry and people twirl of pleasure at the dinner table.

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Brave (2012)

#inspirationalmovies

This week we stay with the female emancipation and child marriage but through the eyes of Disney/Pixar. We suggest you watch Brave (2012, Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman, and Steve Purcell).

Yes, fair enough, it is not the greatest beacon of feministing to be found in the history of the cinematograph. Nevertheless, we have to admit that Disney princesses are changing for good. This one, Merida, together with the newest Rapunzel being the most advanced ones.

And Brave is good exactly for what it is: not a taming-of-the-shrew story (like, Mulan (1998)). Merida doesn't need to change herself, she just have to find a way to convince her mother that it is not the moment for her to get married + that if she will chose a partner in future, she'll do that on her own... 

Certainly better idea for what to watch together with little children (not only girls, mind you!) than Snow White (1937), Cinderella (1950), or Sleeping Beauty (1959) that are left to more mature audiences that can approach the story critically (and read into the richness of symbols that are by no means innocent).

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Hysteria (2011)

#inspirationalmovie

Our offer for the pre-Christmas weekend is just as light-spirited and historical enough to send you right down to Wikipedia to investigate hysteria, vibrators and female orgasm.

Yes, we go with a recent comedy-romance take on the Victorian oppression of female sexuality and suggest you watch Hysteria (2011, Tania Wexler*). Throw in some daughter rebellion, some charity work in a pre-welfare state Britain, people questioning the existence of germs and female orgasm and here you have the prefect Holiday movie for a sexual rights activist.

You'll be ready (and annoyed enough, of course) to go on with the serious stuff afterwards, we promise. Or to stay home and get a not all that rosy book on suffrage movement, just to maintain the equilibrium.  

* Finally, a female director, yippy!

Stupid Girls (?!)

You pretend you're high
Pretend you're bored
Pretend you're anything
Just to be adored
And what you need
Is what you get

Disease's growing, it's epidemic
I'm scared that there ain't a cure
The world believes it and I'm going crazy
I cannot take any more
I'm so glad that I'll never fit in
That will never be me
Outcasts and girls with ambition
That's what I wanna see

(Obviously, those are not manifestos against certain appearances as such. We're just sayin' that you don't have to maintain them. And that it might be a curious and healthy excercise to ask yourself where do those ideas/constrictions come from...)

Inspirational movies: Precious (2009)

Here, in I ♥ Being a Girl, we always try to look on the bright side of being a girl. Nevertheless, Precious, our first movie suggestion in section Inspirational movies, is not rosy at all.

It's harsh and it will take you to experiences you wish nobody would ever live. Imagine being a illiterate, overweight teen in Harlem, phisically and sexually abused who is pregnant with her second child... and, despite all that, she is trying to get out of the misery.

Quoting the tagline of the movie, "Life is hard. Life is short. Life is painful. Life is rich. Life is... Precious".

This is by no means your popcorn-night romantic comedy, it will touch you deeply, it will hurt and that's the way it's supposed to be.