Wednesday, 30 August 2000

RANTING & RAVING

The inspiration for today's column came from a reader letter. I will re-print it below in a moment. But first, a note about fate. The subject here is women and sexism and the movie business. My intention was to write this column on Monday night so I could clear out my Tuesday morning schedule. But I was too tired. I planned to write it early Tuesday a.m. My electricity went out and I didn't wake up as early as I had planned. And then, stressed and unable to keep my schedule from overwhelming me, I went to the press day at MPRM for Girlfight. And there, I was reintroduced (my first encounter with the movie and its writer /director and star was at Sundance) to two women who gave me a whole different perspective on women and sexism and the movie business.

Here is the e-mail. It came from a young woman, who will remain nameless. But before any of you get too riled up in defense of me, you should know that she and I have had far more pleasant exchanges since this one. But her thoughts are my starting point. The letter referred to the Bring It On comments of Friday:

"Ohmigod, yuck! Gimmie a P! I! G! Eeeew, a smelly boy exposing his ugly psyche to young women EVERYWHERE! Where did he learn how to be an adult?

First of all, let me begin by saying that I unabashedly enjoy and value the appreciation of women's sexuality. I also have no problem with anyone, for that matter, viewing their sexuality as a commodity and/or playing with dehumanizing themselves. And I am not writing to criticize you for your bawdiness or frankness. What disturbs me is that I have come to expect a limited and nasty outlook towards sexy women in your commentary, and a disregard for women's reactions to it.

I cringed when I read your column 08/25. Please consider how repulsive I found your referring to the women of Coyote Ugly as 'model-quality meat.' It immediately made me think of serial killers and butchers. Referring to women as cuts of meat. (Shudder).

Even though I can imagine you brushing me off, my values necessitate that I stand up and communicate my beliefs. I am asking you to refine the way you wield the power of this forum. Indeed, I ask David Poland, film commentator, to pause for a moment and take my reaction seriously, but then...you probably don't give a rat's a**. Just clear it up for me. Do you or do you not give a s**t? Your sensitivity to women's points of views has been growing increasingly duller over the last few months, and sadly, it seems to be something you find kinda...funny. 'Ooops. Lost the women readers.'

Believe me, I'm aware the obvious answer is to not read your column. Well I wouldn't read your column if I wasn't paid to do so, but since you have become somewhat of an industry standard, I am forced to endure the dregs of your psyche, and every time you mention a hot woman, I've come to expect you to downgrade her. Please please please be aware of the responsibility of your role in the industry and reconsider the value of the women in your audience. That phrase, and the whole tone of that section of THB made me nauseous. I won't speculate as to how you interact with the women in your personal life. But now that she's entering the industry, I hope that you treat Margueritte with more than just face-value respect, and encourage her to think of herself as more than what you see her as. Basically I'm asking you to show me that you're still in touch with your female readers, otherwise the daily duty of reading your column will become simply torturous."

Well.

I take people who read this column quite seriously. And I take people who take the time to write excessively seriously. And I do give a s**t. I give a s**t about telling what I believe to be the truth. And while I do not see Piper Perabo, Maria Bello, Tyra Banks, Izabella Miko or Bridget Moynahan as meat, I do believe, without any flinching from the unpleasantness of this reality, that they were sold as meat, written for as meat and reduced to more grist for the meat mill by taking part in a film that pretended to be about women being in control, when in fact, they were all quite ugly caricatures. Perabo was too green and ripe to realize she was being scammed left and right. Bello was in perpetual pain, admittedly stuck at the bar she owned, clinging to it as her only possession of value. Banks was a college student and, while the only woman of color, managed to appear only in the bookends of the movie, never showing a single ounce of the intellectual ambition of becoming educated. Miko was a self-proclaimed slut everywhere by the bar. And Moynahan was the stereotype of a bitch who hates other women. Not a pretty picture.

But none of that is the point. Nor would be any further defense of how I feel about women or how I write about women. I will leave that to anyone who has read a range of Hot Button columns. Like so many column topics that anger people--including people angered by my earlier slap at Coyote Ugly--I like to think it balances out over time.

What I really want to discuss is where women do stand in Hollywood at the moment. However, I'm not completely sure that I can do that. At least not with the confident swagger with which I approach some subjects. You see, the answers, if they really deserve to be called answers, are too complex for glib answers.

I am a great believer in personal responsibility. Everyone needs to work, but I think that the choice to be in a movie like Coyote Ugly disqualifies an actress from claiming to be objectified for about a decade. When Michelle Williams posed for Maxim and then claimed that she felt exploited, I would have respected, "I made a mistake." But claiming that the magazine which she posed for in exchange for publicity exposure exploited her was a step more disgusting than anything Maxim has ever done. At least they are honest in their game.

For all the screams of inequity, women have managed to build quite a beachhead on television. Of course, many of the shows that feature women are still written by and were created by gay men. But as quick as one may be to mock Melissa Joan Hart or Sarah Michelle Gellar or Roma Downey or the Mowry sisters or Amy Brenneman or the women of "The View" or "Charmed" or whatever…Really, think about it. Most of the respected television is ensemble driven these days. There are some guy stars with shows built around them, but TV is pretty well balanced, at least in front of the camera.

Of course, that simply is not true of the movie business. There is barely a handful of women who can actually open a movie, in a crowd of more than a dozen men. Chicken or egg? Could more actresses open films if they made more films that put the female lead first? Good question. I don't have an answer. And neither do you. Julia Roberts is not a creation of greater marketing effort than, say, Meg Ryan. Yet, she has proven to be far more valuable as a financial instrument. Do I stop flipping channels when I see Janeane Garofalo on the movie channels? I sure do. Has she made even one really great movie? Nope. Chicken and egg. Do they finance good screenplays that feature a woman with a quick wit and a look that isn't movie star-traditional? Apparently not. Is anyone writing these screenplays? Probably not. Who do we blame?

"More...Starting With Sudden Nudity"