1/2 of the New Blogging Team!

I'm not sure how to start, so I am just starting anyway. Pag and I often have epic battles over what counts as a feminist-acceptable female character. He also often gets annoyed because for a woman to look smart, every single man must look like an idiot (prime example- Mulan); I often get annoyed because women in pop culture barely ever reach the depth of male characters. He's mostly annoyed because Andie MacDowell doesn't get much work. The fact that she ever got a job kind of blows my mind.

So we have decided to start reviewing movies, looking for ones that don't set off our heteronormative stereotyping flags. To kick this off, I guess I will list four female movie characters I don't hate (and in movies slanted toward women, which you'd think would behave better than the shitty ones, but mostly isn't):


1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind- For a ton of the movie she is inside Joel's head, but Clementine is more badass in there then most characters are in regular narratives. Kaufman writes her to be weird, frank, and pretty powerful, but she is never asked to apologize for it. If anything, part of the moral of the film is that all of those things make her worth remembering. It also makes her strong enough to fight her own erasure and leave a trace of herself left in Joel's mind. This movie is about as romantic as it gets, but it is so much smarter in so many ways, that there is more room to have this amazing hair-changing, cursing, openly neurotic character.

2. Juno- I know that right now its cliche to like this movie, but God bless Diablo Cody for writing a teenage girl I didn't want to punch in the face. Sure, some of the behavior seems affected, but you have to love a writer who never asks a teenage girl to be sorry for having sex and a baby. At the end of the film, we aren't asked to feel conflicted that the couple who got together but still gave their baby away. Juno, like many of the women on this list, are allowed to make the wrong choice, but learn a lesson in a way that is not demeaning or shoved down their throat. She doesn't have to be "put in her place" to learn.

3. Sense and Sensibility- Sure, Pride and Prejudice could work just as well here, and these women still have a lot of wilting flower sorts of qualities, but in the end both Elizabeth and Elinor are rewarded for their independent thinking. I know that there is a lot to hate here, but no one can convince me that Jane Austen didn't love herself a strong firey woman.

4. Rio Bravo- I'm still pretty obsessed with John Wayne, but the interaction between he and Angie Dickinson as Feathers is pretty fantastic. The man is totally controlled by her, in a way that is both fun and never criticized by the plot or director. Rather than having his male cohort pick at their relationship, they are generally supportive, and every scene between Dickerson and Wayne is pretty adorable, where no matter how much tough guy mugging he does, she still has the upper hand. My favorite John Wayne movie partially because of how rich their relationship is.

Ok, so that's me. Paggy, introduce yourself!