Five solid female characters in Apatow (or Apatow-esque) movies

You might have heard that Judd Apatow's upcoming projects (at least as producer) mark a departure from his typical bro-centric fare. He's producing Business Trip, which stars his wife Leslie Mann and is described as a female version of The Hangover, and Bridesmaids, which is supposed to be kind of like Bride Wars but actually funny. I give kudos to Apatow for branching out. He and his contemporaries (aka his peers working in similar styles) are not known for their favorable depictions of women. And while I get that not every female character has to have Meryl Streep levels of depth and complexity, and I'm totally fine with goofy flat characters in an otherwise pleasing comedy, many of these films are downright Freudian in their widespread castration anxiety. In films like The Hangover and Knocked Up, we see women who more or less ban their significant others from having any fun. These shrill, naggy women are sometimes "traded" for more awesome, easygoing women (in the case of The Hangover, it's a stripper). And the men never take any responsibility, oh no. In Hot Tub Time Machine, Craig Robinson's character Nick was somehow coerced into hyphenating his last name when he gets married. This is portrayed as an act of God that Nick was powerless to prevent, whereas in reality if this was a healthy relationship they would sit down and discuss it like adults, and Nick wouldn't have to do it if he didn't feel comfortable with it. But by just smiling and nodding and then secretly feeling emasculated, men enable these behaviors in women. Even when it doesn't go that far, the women are often just unbearable shrews, as in Knocked Up.

But there's hope - there have been a few femme bright spots in Apatow and company's oeuvre, and I've singled out five below. Granted, the following are no Katharine Hepburns, but they bring a welcome and refreshing touch to the world of chubby man-children. It might even seem like these cool gals actually outnumber the shrews. But even if that's the case, there is much more attention paid when filmmakers get it wrong then when they get it right. Or more accurately, audiences and critics are either praising the profound Streep types or slinging mud at Apatow's creations. I wrote this post, then, to highlight the modest achievements of this filmmaking group which I feel have been overlooked or negated in discussing their work. Here we go...

Catherine Keener as Trish in The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005)
There was actually a great female character at the dawn of the Apatow era, played by the consistently great Keener. In fact, the richness of the character probably stems from the fact that Keener never lets herself play a flimsy part, because it certainly had nothing to do with Apatow himself. In an early draft, Trish was a bored waitress who didn't seem to have a lot going on in her life or her head. In the finished film, she's sexy, messy, complicated, and extremely likable. She loves her children but gets flustered dealing with them, she's sexually aggressive but also insecure, she runs her own business but dreams of making it something more. In short, she's totally real.

Emma Stone as Jules in Superbad (2007)
Even more rare than finding a worthwhile female character in a male-driven comedy is finding a high school age worthwhile female character in a male-driven comedy. Enter Jules. In comparison to a lot of other vacuous sex objects in similar films (including, arguably, the same film's lovable floozy Becca), Jules is confident, non-slutty, doesn't even drink, and doesn't have to settle for a guy vastly inferior to her in the looks department (Jonah Hill) just because the script calls for it. (She can also hold her own opposite the rambunctious Hill.) She seems to be popular because she's actually a cool person, not because she has the inexplicable draw of an attractive bitch.

Elizabeth Banks as Miri in Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008)
In male comedies, even where there are solid female characters, they are never the men's equal. They have less screen time, they don't get funny lines, and they're generally subjected to lighter lifting. Not when Kevin Smith teams up with Elizabeth Banks, however. Zack and Miri are best friends and roommates who support each other through thick and thin. They can casually discuss everything from masturbation to porno titles, and Banks is never put on a pedestal - she has a fair share of humiliation, like finding out her high school crush is gay or that a video of her in granny panties went viral. She also seems to have a healthy sexuality that's neither promiscuous or prudish, another onscreen rarity.

Rashida Jones as Zooey in I Love You, Man (2009)
So maybe Zooey's a little bland, but may all bland female characters strive to be like her! She's fun, easygoing, and understanding - she accompanies her fiancee Peter to a Rush concert without ever having heard of them and even has a good time (until Peter starts getting kind of weird with his new friend Sydney). When she gets mad at him, it's for completely reasonable things, and she keeps encouraging him to have his own life and friends. The only area where I'd dock points is that her best friends are bitchy caricatures, but they're comic relief so it's not a huge deal.

Elisabeth Moss as Daphne in Get Him to the Greek (2010)
A film about a hard-partying rock star's journey with a timid record label employee doesn't seem like the place where you'd find someone like Daphne, but there she is. Cute without being unreasonably attractive, she does fall into the typical trap of preferring reruns of "Gossip Girl" to sex and going out, but she has the completely legitimate excuse of working insane shifts at a hospital. Aaron (Jonah Hill) and Daphne's relationship is under stress because of her job, but they still seem playful and happy together. Most surprising, however, is when she takes control of her sexuality in an extreme and hilarious way near the end of the film as revenge for some of Aaron's wrongs. Where most girls would just scream and cry, she plows ahead and...well, I won't spoil it!

Have I missed anyone? Do you still believe that this generation of filmmakers are all just chauvinist pigs? Sound off in the comments!

If these are the best female filmmakers, we're in trouble

My yearning to see more female directors / women's stories out there is one typically met with frustration and disappointment, but equally frustrating and disappointing is how this deficiency is approached and discussed. For instance, here's my response to the Women's Film Critic Circle awards, which in an effort to speak out against the lack of representation just ended up making us all look bad. And now, from across the pond, we have this embarassment: a feature in the Guardian about female directors. Now, if this was just an article proving that female filmmakers exist, it would be fine. All the ladies listed have made 1-3 feature films (with the exception of Gurinder Chadha, who has made 5), and of those, most have only one movie of acclaim or quality, or none at all. But what's this? They kick off the individual profiles with "These are six of the very best."

Whaaaaaaat?!?

Okay, let's break this down. Andrea Arnold won an Oscar for best short film, released her first feature, Red Road, in 2006 to okay reviews but no real recognition, and now has a film buzzing at Cannes. Little early to deem her a prophet. Nadine Labaki made only one movie, 2007's Caramel, which got pretty good reviews but again, is one movie. Her profile is suspiciously padded with influences and interests, and the suggestion that she doesn't have anything in the works. Chadha, the most prolific of the bunch, did make a huge splash with 2002's Bend it Like Beckham, which got good reviews and made, to use industry terms, an assload of money. But nobody really cared about her other movies. Kelly Reichardt is probably the most deserving woman on the list, since everything she's done has swept festivals and made the critics pee themselves with delight. Kasi Lemmons released a few features to big yawns, and Jennifer Lynch has one atrocious (like, 3.9 on IMDB and commonly found in the "Cult" section of video stores atrocious) movie under her belt, Boxing Helena, and another maybe okay one. Oh, and she has an upcoming fantasy/horror movie about snake people that doesn't exactly scream Oscar.

My point is, if the directors on this list were male, it would be pathetic. The list is almost condescending - it's bending down to these directors, patting them on the back and saying, "Oh, you made an okay movie or two, little female director? You are the future of cinema! You're so special, yes you are!" I would much rather that this article did not exist at all then have it exist but lower the bar. Equality will only come when we hold female director's accomplishments to the same standards of their male counterparts.

This article also, whether intentionally or not, gives a clue to why there are not as many female directors. After all, it's 2009. It's not like women don't stand a chance unless they sleep their way to the top. People aren't going to approach them on a film set and tell them to bake a pie. But there's a quote from documentary filmmaker Anne Aghion, who says "it would have been impossible to combine my career and the accompanying 16-hour days with any kind of family life." Bam. Even though it's 2009, most women still want kids. They want to raise those kids and be moms. I know this because whenever I say that I don't want kids, people are appalled and ask why, and then brush me off by saying I will inevitably change my mind. (But I digress).

Here's another radical idea: maybe not as many women want to be directors. After all, it's not like they're not afraid to be top dogs. There are female producers up the wazoo, with most blockbusters or Best Picture nominees sporting at least one. So I'm not sure we can still blame The System for keeping them down.

In conclusion, I just wish this issue was addressed with honesty. Don't sugarcoat someone's accomplishments just because they have a cooter. And don't act like every woman on earth would be a director if she could, but a vast government conspiracy is keeping them from it.

The decline of the strong female character - and 10 ladies who defy the trend

In regards to actors and actresses, I typically subscribe to the school of "they just don't make 'em like that anymore." In other words, I can't really think of too many actors/actresses who can even hold a candle to those of yesteryear. This dichotomy becomes particularly striking when it comes to women. There is no modern-day equivalent to a Joan Crawford, a Barbara Stanwyck, a Bette Davis, a Katharine Hepburn, etc. People would line up to see any movie they headlined, because they delivered the goods. People today aren't gonna line up for a Hilary Swank movie, they're gonna crowd the theaters of a Jessica Biel or Scarlett Johansson movie because they're hot. Yeah, I know old-timey actresses were hot too, but the attraction was more all-encompassing - Myrna Loy was called "The Perfect Wife," not "The Perfect Piece of Ass." Obviously, women have always been relegated to an inferior position in society, but cinema was one of the places where they could be equal, or even superior. One day, I was in a feminist sort of mood, and started compiling a mental list of strong female characters. "Strong" doesn't have to mean the character herself has a strong personality, but rather that she is well-written, multifaceted, sympathetic, and compelling. I could think of tons - Joan Crawford as Mildred Pierce in Mildred Pierce, Mae West in anything, Katharine Hepburn as Tracy Lord in The Philadelphia Story, Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, Lauren Bacall as "Slim" in To Have or Have Not, the entire cast of The Women...basically I could have gone on for days. But then I realized something...none of these are even remotely recent. So I shifted my focus to recent films of the last 10 years or so. I could still think of tons - Audrey Tatou as Amelie in Amelie or as Mathilde in A Very Long Engagement, Franka Potente as Lola in Run Lola Run, Eihi Shiina as Asami in Audition, any female character in a Pedro Almodovar movie, any female character in a Wong Kar Wai movie, and on and on. But wait - these are all foreign films! Exasperated and disheartened, I tried to think of strong female characters in American movies from the last 10 years. And it was really, really hard.

Females on the silver screen are becoming an endangered species. Warner Brothers recently issued a statement that based on the poor performance of recent female-led films (namely, The Invasion and The Brave One), they will stop making movies with women in the lead. (Read more about it here.) Wait, WHAT?! So maybe the aforementioned films weren't that good...must all women be punished for that? Women's rights attorney Gloria Allred wisely notes in the article, "when movies with men as the lead fail, no one says we'll stop making movies with men in the lead." Lead roles aren't the only place where a female presence is diminishing - according to 2004 figures from the Screen Actors Guild, men outnumber women onscreen in a ratio of 65 to 35 percent. I'm sorry, can I just take a break from my eloquent and composed blogger demeanor to say WHAT THE FUCK.

Before I completely depress you (and myself) beyond all reason, let us turn to the few and the proud - strong female characters in American films of the past 10(ish) years. This list is not definitive, and I welcome your suggestions - obviously, I haven't seen every film made in the past decade, but I really couldn't think of many to begin with. My requirements are as follows:

- The character can be any type of person, but "strong" implies, as I said earlier, well-written, multifaceted, sympathetic, and compelling. It's not just a synonym for "kickass," and this list isn't just going to be a list of action heroines.
- Must be from an American film
- The character cannot be based on/ be a portrayal of a real person, because those characters are "pre-written" by history, so to speak. So Marie Antoinette or Aileen Wuornos wouldn't count.
- The characters cannot be creations of another time - i.e. based on novels written 100 years ago or featured in a film that's a remake
- The character cannot be animated, because I'm not giving this distinction out to fish and toys and shit.

Onto the list - as always, in no particular order.

1. Uma Thurman as The Bride in Kill Bill: Vol 1 & 2.
The Bride is most definitely kickass. Among other feats, she fights a mob of several dozen ninjas, plucks out another chick's eye, has special samurai training with a crazy old dude and punches her way out of a sealed and buried coffin. But Quentin Tarantino (who develops some very interesting female characters) doesn't just leave her as a two-dimensional action figure - he gives her pathos and weight. The first film opens with a black and white image of The Bride bloodied, breathless, and pregnant, pleading for her life, and then her fiancee shoots her and leaves her for dead. She is driven by a quest for vengeance, but also, in the second volume, the quest to reunite with her daughter. Thus, the masculine notion of revenge and her maternal urges are combined to form a multi-dimensional character.

2. Kate Winslet as Sarah Pierce in Little Children
Things are not going well for Sarah Pierce. She hasn't quite figured out her role as a mother yet, and she just discovered that her husband is addicted to internet porn and chats with scandalous strangers. The only highlight of her life is her hunky neighbor Brad, with whom she starts an affair. The thing I appreciated about this movie was that winning Brad over does not come easy for Sarah. She desperately purchases a sexy swimsuit from a catalog, kisses him randomly on the playground to shock some neighborhood mothers, and still in a voiceover Brad says that her eyebrows are "bushier than necessary." She's desperate and sympathetic, nuanced and realistic. I think she could have totally won the Best Actress Oscar this past year if it wasn't for the awards season wrecking ball named Helen Mirren.

3. Rachel Weisz as Evelyn Anne Thompson in The Shape of Things
All four characters in this film are great - due in no small part to the fact that it is a direct adaptation of a play, with the same actors and director (Neil LaBute). Evelyn is an art student with funky hairstyles and a penchant for spraypainting ancient statues. In my opinion, she goes from annoying to intriguing to sociopathic. It's really hard to explain too much about this character without giving the movie away, but let's just say that she achieves drastic and morally questionable measures through meticulous emotional manipulation. Fun night at the movies!

4. Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson in Fargo
McDormand received a well-deserved Academy Award for this role. Under her adorably Midwestern exterior, she's a no-nonsense policewoman. She gets the job done without being rude and abrasive, but without backing down. After reining in all the bad guys, she cuddles into bed with her husband, who rubs her pregnant belly. They are completely unglamorous, but ridiculously cute. Plus, she wears the pants in the relationship (her stay-at-home husband makes her breakfast).

5. Natalie Portman as Sam in Garden State
I have a permanent beef with Natalie Portman for being so girl-next-door-sy gorgeous, but I'll let it slide momentarily. What struck me about this character was, for lack of a better word, how real she was. After I saw the movie for the first time with some friends, they all turned to me and said, "Julie, the character in that movie was YOU." And for them to compare a character to someone they know well, the character has to be pretty well-formed. I would be kind of offended if they compared me to, say, a Bond girl. Sam is unafraid to be random, make funny noises, and laugh at life. After a really intense and emotional conversation with Andrew (Zach Braff), she blurts out, "I can tap dance. Wanna see me tap dance?" That line made me smile so much, because that's how people's brains really work (er, mine anyway). She's also an epileptic, a habitual liar, an animal lover and a former figure skater. What's not to love?

6. Judi Dench as Barbara Covett and Cate Blanchett as Sheba Hart in Notes on a Scandal
This movie kicks ass. It proves that you don't need anything fancy to make a good movie, just two awesome actors going all out. The plot of the film is simple: Sheba is a new art teacher at the school where Barbara teaches, and starts having (consentual) physical relations with a young male student. She confides in the reclusive Barbara, who has warmed up to this intriguing newcomer. Barbara then uses this secret to manipulate her. Yeah, the plot by itself sounds kind of eh, but that's why the performances are so important in making this movie great. Judi Dench is ridiculously creepy, pathetic, and a quasi-lesbian, and Sheba is desperate, sympathetic but also morally questionable. It gets real ugly between these two lovely ladies. The strength of these characters is probably due in no small part to the fact that the film is an adaptation of a female-written novel.

7. Keri Russell as Jenna Hunterson in Waitress
Who knew that cute little gal from "Felicity" had such a great role in her? Waitress is a sweet story about a Southern waitress who discovers she's pregnant with her loser husband's baby, and starts an affair with her doctor. What could have been a Lifetime movie is most decidedly not - Jenna is sweet and vulnerable, but spunky and sassy. She channels her emotions into the original pies she makes, giving them such names as “Baby Screaming Its Head Off In the Middle of the Night and Ruining My Life Pie.” She is also surprisingly un-maternal for the majority of the film, which is pretty radical if you think about how much of cinematic female identity is centered on the motherhood role. She leads a double life - aggressive, passionate and loved by her doctor, and frustrated, bored and almost enslaved by her husband. The female supporting cast is great as well, probably due again to the fact that the film was written and directed by a woman, the late Adrienne Shelly.

9. Helena Bonham Carter as “Woman” in Conversations with Other Women
Hans Canosa’s sophomore effort is a split-screen tour de force, featuring Helena Bonham Carter and Aaron Eckhart going at each other both verbally and physically. It’s hard to describe the plot without giving too much away, but I basically saw this film as a kind of boxing match between the two perfectly matched opponents. They both have dirt on the other’s past, they both know how to make the other happy, sad, jealous, or lusty. In a way it reminded me of a edgier, modern Tracy and Hepburn dynamic. This movie is an actors’ piece, and Carter really shines, being alternately abrasive, nonchalant, and helpless.

10. Catherine Keener as Trish in The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Oh, Judd Apatow. I can’t say anything about you that hasn’t already been said in the trillions of articles praising your existence and calling you the next big thing. Like those articles, I will echo the sentiment that you have redefined the “date movie,” and found something that both men and women can enjoy: realistic depictions of themselves. Trish is a single mom who runs her own eBay store, gives out her number to shy Andy and tells a supposed telemarketer (actually Andy) to fuck his mother. She also fights with her daughters and feels undesired by Andy (due to the titular problem). In the character of Trish I can see a very real woman who resembles actual forty-something women I know.

This list is not all-inclusive, but I also had trouble thinking of more that really fit. If there’s a character here that you think was left out, chances are I considered it and decided it didn’t fit the criteria or just, well, didn’t move me enough.

At this rate, the future of female roles in film looks pretty depressing. Hopefully I can become a successful director some day and do my part to get women back in the roles they deserve!

Men, Women, and Movie-Watching

I found this to be interesting. From Cosmo magazine:

"We all have favorite films, but there's a reason your guy is never bored by his DVD library. 'Men have lower activity level in their brains when they take in a movie, so they can watch them over and over,' says brain-imaging specialist Daniel Amen, MD, author of Sex on the Brain. 'Women, on the other hand, have busier brains and need more depth or relational aspects to be engaged by a film.' So while guys are just as entertained no matter how many times they see Bruce Willis save the day or Will Ferrell in his underpants, the novelty usually wears off for chicks after one viewing. When women see a movie twice, it's because the flick hit them on an emotional level, not just as a two-hour diversion."