In her essay “ Local Sites/Global Contexts: The Transnational Trajectories of Deepa Mehta's Fire,” Gayatri Gopinath utilizes Mehta’s film as a context to begin illustrating some of the complexities inherent to cultural forms that delve into both queer and diasporic sensibilities. Gopinath uses a “queer diasporic positionality” to disrupt particular and essentialized identities of both nationalism and diaspora. She suggests that it is the fluidity of gender and sexuality, in addition to the elastic relationship between nation and diaspora, that prevent the legitimacy of hegemonic discourses.
In defining “queer diasporic positionality,” Gopiath first notes that sexuality and the contexts within which individuals are placed and subjected into particular constructions are based not in one-dimensional values but rather in “transnational flows of culture, capital, bodies, desire, and labor” (150). Gopiath also defines queer diaspora as a contestation of everything within the hegemony of patriarchal heteronormative nationalism of India and Hinduism, while also contesting normative narratives of queerness that are set against and localized exclusively to “both normative Indian contexts and homonormative white Eruo-American contexts” (151).
One of the most thought-provoking discussions Gopiath introduces is how “the attraction between Radha and Sita is enabled by [the] spaces of female homosociality that are sanctioned by normative sexual and gender arrangements” (155). She talks about how the construction of responsibility and duty for Indian wives is inherently queered and allows for particular desires to manifest and thrive within the very system that, in theory, supports patriarchal heteronormativity. It is these relationship that transgress normative understanding not only of queerness but also of geography as these traditions, customs, and systems are then established as mobile between nation and diaspora.
Gopinath also puts the film into a conversation with a falsified paradigm of modernity that has been tied to a particularly Western conceptualization of gender and sexuality. She talks specifically about film critics in the United States that have articulated the film’s queer content as beyond the capacities of understanding for Hindu cultures, noting the scene when Radha says, “There is no word in our language to describe what we are to each other,” placing Hinduism as underdeveloped within the hierarchy of modernity. Furthermore, Gopiath then suggests that, by doing so, these critics place inherent “modern,” Western values and associations to a queer identity, that by subverting their Hindu culture and traditions, Sita and Radha are the ultimate in Indian modernity while also ignoring other queer identities that may not have had the agency to be voiced.
By constructing such frameworks that incorporate queer and diaspora into established ideals of nationalism and patriarchal heteronormativity, Gopiath not only perceives Fire through critical analysis but also reprimands mainstream media - both in India and in the Euro-centric United States - and the extremist Hindu nationalists that protested the film. She does so by deconstructing the assertion that the film, and other instances of queer diasporic visual culture, are inauthentic. She uses queer diaspora positionality to simultaneously prove agency for such context and sensibility and also critique the hegemonic ideologies that are constantly working to silence the existence and struggles of non-normative lived experiences, in this case for a lesbian relationship in contemporary New Delhi.
Here is Roger Ebert’s review of the film that paints a much fuller portrait of Gopiath’s understanding of “queer diasporic positionality” as it relates to homonormative white Euro-American contexts.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Fire and the "Queer Diaspora"
Gopinath discusses the term “queer diasporic positionality,” stating that it “contests the logic that that situates the terms “queer” and “diaspora” as dependant on the originality and authenticity of “heterosexuality” and “nation,” and that “it marks a different economy of desire that escapes legibility within both normative Indian contexts and homo-normative white Euro-American contexts.” Her exploration of the term itself it a bit confusing to me; however, my interpretation is this. The very terms “heterosexuality” and “nation” are often viewed as “places” from which people, behaviors, and nation hoods derive themselves from. This is heavily problematic because these terms themselves are societal constructions. They serve to validate the “normalcy” of heterosexuality and the idea of belonging to a “race/nation.” They serve to make inherent the idea that existing in a Diaspora community or having same sex desire is inherently different and wrong. She argues that queer and Diaspora are dependent on one another because queer sexuality does not know a “nation” or place of origin. She makes the point that the queer diaspora has a position as such that it cannot be defined by either the Indian culture, or through our legibility and interpretation of it as white Euro-Americans.
I fully agree with her presentation of this term, or at least so far as I understand it, and have hopefully correctly interpreted it. I find that two examples stick out to me in the film Fire that support her definition if this term, the first being the concept of the very film itself. The idea that homosexuality can take place within the realm of the conservative Indian household proved to be very upsetting at the films relase. It was banned and caused a large amount of controversy. The story itself was something that needed to be “told” through film in order for it to be “seen” and awareness and visibility for this kind of relationship to be raised. This references the concept that the very idea of the relationship was not legible and expressable through the Indian culture or language, and that white Euro-Ameriucans also could not define or interpret the relationship between the two women in the film. Sita even remarks in the film to Radha that “we don’t have a word in our language for what we are.” Secondly, I agree with the idea that the terms “queer” and “diaspora” can not be separated. The very idea that queerness can be constrained into a “nation” or place of origin is preposterous. Queerness itself is a term referring to sexuality and to make the assertion that it is derived from a certain location instead of a sexual desire residing with all culture and “nations” is ignorant at best. Lastly, the idea of the queer diaspora “disorganizes the dominant categories within the united States for sexual variance, namely ‘gay and lesbian’.” The film challenges the binary gender and homosexual gender constructions outlined and often imposed, if no other reason than ignorance, as the only homosexual definitions that exist. What was occurring between Sita and Radha is not a relationship that can be defined by either lesbian or gay, let alone through euro-american legibility. All of the terms discount and ignore the many complex layers to the women’s interactions and their own sexualities.
The following is a link to an interview with the director of Fire, Deepa Mehta
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpyFmmwxcUM
I fully agree with her presentation of this term, or at least so far as I understand it, and have hopefully correctly interpreted it. I find that two examples stick out to me in the film Fire that support her definition if this term, the first being the concept of the very film itself. The idea that homosexuality can take place within the realm of the conservative Indian household proved to be very upsetting at the films relase. It was banned and caused a large amount of controversy. The story itself was something that needed to be “told” through film in order for it to be “seen” and awareness and visibility for this kind of relationship to be raised. This references the concept that the very idea of the relationship was not legible and expressable through the Indian culture or language, and that white Euro-Ameriucans also could not define or interpret the relationship between the two women in the film. Sita even remarks in the film to Radha that “we don’t have a word in our language for what we are.” Secondly, I agree with the idea that the terms “queer” and “diaspora” can not be separated. The very idea that queerness can be constrained into a “nation” or place of origin is preposterous. Queerness itself is a term referring to sexuality and to make the assertion that it is derived from a certain location instead of a sexual desire residing with all culture and “nations” is ignorant at best. Lastly, the idea of the queer diaspora “disorganizes the dominant categories within the united States for sexual variance, namely ‘gay and lesbian’.” The film challenges the binary gender and homosexual gender constructions outlined and often imposed, if no other reason than ignorance, as the only homosexual definitions that exist. What was occurring between Sita and Radha is not a relationship that can be defined by either lesbian or gay, let alone through euro-american legibility. All of the terms discount and ignore the many complex layers to the women’s interactions and their own sexualities.
The following is a link to an interview with the director of Fire, Deepa Mehta
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpyFmmwxcUM
Queer Diaspora & Fire
In the film ‘Fire” by Deepah Menta, there are recurring themes such as queer diaspora and queer inauthenticity that are mentioned and analyzed with various film elements and techniques throughout the entirety of the film. In the article, “Local Sites/Global Contexts: The Transnational Trajectories of Deepa Mehta’s Fire,” by Gayatri Gopinath, she analyses queer desire, diaspora and inauthenticity in the film. She has a very important term that is thoroughly used throughout the article that makes the film a bit more clear to understand. Queer diasporic positionality, her main point, refers to the three ways it functions in the film: first, analyzes sexual subjectivity in terms of culture, capital, bodies, desire and labor, second, the word queer completely denounces any dependence on heteronormative words, and third, it opens up a broad spectrum of sexuality and gender based on sexuality and pushes past categories in the US (Gopinath 150). The film is further analyzed in these very up front topics that break down the irony of the film.
Throughout the film there is a very intense blockade through which heteronormativity has tunnel vision about what is queer and what is “God’s way” and how they both can’t correlate with one another. There are many times in which the older man in the film talks about God’s way and how desire can take you places that you'd rather not go. And there is a particular time in which Ratha speaks up about how she believes she is being selfish in putting the family at stake for her own passion and love. The way the film portrays their discovery of sexuality and love gives way to the belief that the queer group is a diaspora kept away from society. This gives way to the notion that homosexuality is seen as unpure. Perhaps it is also the notion that homosexuality is seen as inauthentic because of its refusal to conform to the norms of heterosexuality. This relates to the first and second functions of queer diasporic positionality: desire in terms of sexual subjectivity. In this context of the film, there is a constant criticism of desire when it comes to the two women. This reminds me of a part in the movie in which Cita’s husband tells her she can go, but warns that divorced women have tough lives. He is subjecting her to a particular lifestyle because of her desire and/or option to be free.
Another very interesting attribute that the movie makes throughout the entirety of the film is a constant visual of a reflection in the many mirrors and the bright light of the windows around the house. I believe that the mirror suggests a reflection they'd rather see, or something they'd rather be that they couldn’t seem to achieve. For example, when Ratha and Cita kiss for the first time, Ratha goes into the bathroom and touches her lips in the mirror right next to a very bright window. The window, I believe, suggests a certain freedom the women don’t have. The closed windows also suggest something like a prison keeping the women in confinement. These two themes could be directly correlated with their sexual subjectivity.
Something that I also found very interesting was when the two women would be seen together out in public as very “close” friends, and nothing was said or assumed of them. This is a very close culture that deteriorates this uncomfortable feeling when people of the same-sex are very close with one another. I noticed that when the eldest man, was caressing and massaging the feet of the older man, nobody found it rare, yet it was very polite and respectful while to me it bordered on homoerotic. Many things are deemed unacceptable, yet continue to be allowed in a country in which homosexuality is deemed as something unpure and unacceptable. Who makes these rules? And a bigger question, who abides by them?
I have added a video of a film I recently watched with a similar plot to Fire. This film was called, "I Can't Think Straight."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W8igqK_QWU
Throughout the film there is a very intense blockade through which heteronormativity has tunnel vision about what is queer and what is “God’s way” and how they both can’t correlate with one another. There are many times in which the older man in the film talks about God’s way and how desire can take you places that you'd rather not go. And there is a particular time in which Ratha speaks up about how she believes she is being selfish in putting the family at stake for her own passion and love. The way the film portrays their discovery of sexuality and love gives way to the belief that the queer group is a diaspora kept away from society. This gives way to the notion that homosexuality is seen as unpure. Perhaps it is also the notion that homosexuality is seen as inauthentic because of its refusal to conform to the norms of heterosexuality. This relates to the first and second functions of queer diasporic positionality: desire in terms of sexual subjectivity. In this context of the film, there is a constant criticism of desire when it comes to the two women. This reminds me of a part in the movie in which Cita’s husband tells her she can go, but warns that divorced women have tough lives. He is subjecting her to a particular lifestyle because of her desire and/or option to be free.
Another very interesting attribute that the movie makes throughout the entirety of the film is a constant visual of a reflection in the many mirrors and the bright light of the windows around the house. I believe that the mirror suggests a reflection they'd rather see, or something they'd rather be that they couldn’t seem to achieve. For example, when Ratha and Cita kiss for the first time, Ratha goes into the bathroom and touches her lips in the mirror right next to a very bright window. The window, I believe, suggests a certain freedom the women don’t have. The closed windows also suggest something like a prison keeping the women in confinement. These two themes could be directly correlated with their sexual subjectivity.
Something that I also found very interesting was when the two women would be seen together out in public as very “close” friends, and nothing was said or assumed of them. This is a very close culture that deteriorates this uncomfortable feeling when people of the same-sex are very close with one another. I noticed that when the eldest man, was caressing and massaging the feet of the older man, nobody found it rare, yet it was very polite and respectful while to me it bordered on homoerotic. Many things are deemed unacceptable, yet continue to be allowed in a country in which homosexuality is deemed as something unpure and unacceptable. Who makes these rules? And a bigger question, who abides by them?
I have added a video of a film I recently watched with a similar plot to Fire. This film was called, "I Can't Think Straight."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W8igqK_QWU
Smoke Signals: Visibility Politics in Deepa Mehta's Fire and the films of Monica Enriquez-Enriquez
Gayatri Gopinth’s essay, “The Transnational Trajectories of Deepa Mehta’s Fire”, proposes that Mehta’s movie, Fire, issues a challenge of Euro-American visibility politics for its complicity in colonialism and racist visualities. In reviewing the film, I believe that it does, indeed, offer up alternatives to the traditional narrative of visibility required in Euro-American societies; a mandatory, teleological “coming out” narrative which generally begins within the private (re: domestic) sphere, and gradually works its way into the public arena, resulting in a visible, often sexual, subjectivity labeled “gay” or “lesbian”. The question of who becomes “visible” is directly related those in power that establish and/or define what constitutes “visibility” in a particular society; as such, the politics of visibility carry the weight of racist, colonialist societies into this definition- just as they do into any political decision they make, law they pass, or custom they design and enforce. The obvious danger in such a situation is the very real chance that, unless you practice the carefully delineated role/narrative/identity recognized as “visible” in a particular society, you run the risk of becoming altogether invisible- a sort of non-entity in the eyes of either the law, society- or both.
In Fire, there is evidence of a challenge to such a required narrative. Although the relationship between Radha and Sita does begin in the domestic sphere, this is due to the centrality of that sphere to their lives as women in a joint household in New Delhi, as opposed to following the traditional, required narrative. What Euro-American visibility politics would take as an extremely oppressive existence that renders the women nearly invisible to the outside world, however, the women utilize to their advantage. This shielded existence provides the women more opportunities to explore their growing feelings for each other, and to bond and enjoy the physical and emotional closeness this traditionally homosocial space affords them away from questions, accusations, and (most) prying eyes. Traditions that are viewed with scorn by some of the film’s more “modern” characters (such as Sita’s husband) become a safe haven for a developing, but officially nonexistent, love; when it eventually becomes “known”, and the women are caught in the act of lovemaking, Sita herself acknowledges their predicament: “It is better this way- to see. There is no word to describe [what we are]…seeing is less complicated.” With this statement (and Radha’s agreement), the women acknowledge their relationship’s “in”-visibility to the outside world, and the system which leads to it being so.
The same type of systemic denial of visibility is at work in the art of Monica Enriquez-Enriquez, who documents the stories of immigrants in the United States for what she terms “community art”. What is interesting about Monica’s work is the fact that most of the interviews she conducts for her films - if not all- are with immigrants either in the country “illegally”, or with those who are awaiting asylum. As such, they are “undocumented”, and thus do not exist as “citizens”. The same troubling issues apply to these bodies as those discussed above- including, but not limited to, questions of who has the authority to declare a human being “visible” vis-à-vis citizenship and/or other societal recognition. Often, this recognition is the difference between being able to live (via work papers, the right to occupy public spaces, and public benefits like healthcare and food stamps, to name a few) and trying to merely survive in a society that is not necessarily very nice to people who don’t “follow the rules”. In postcolonial societies- such as India and the United States- this visibility often has a lot to do with who your parents were, and what you look like. The more you resemble an “appropriate” citizen (usually, this means resembling those in charge), and follow their “narratives”, the more chance you have at becoming visible.
What Monica and Mehta both illustrate is that these narratives are inherently classed, raced, gendered, and are known only to very particular “national/cultural” groups, as well. In Asilo Queer, Monica is shown naked, faceless, with words written all over her body. While the words are in English- the language she must make her asylum appeal in- her narration is a seamless mix of her native Spanish and the newly acquired- and required- English. She references the impossibility of “translating herself”, and the continued demands of her newfound “home” that she do so in order to become visible as a citizen. This is a particularly common, and difficult, portion of the asylum process for those fleeing persecution due to their “sexual orientation”, and Monica’s work captures many such stories. These men and women, fleeing one culture to take shelter in another, find themselves faced with the same conundrum as the women of Fire: If they do not follow the narratives proscribed by an alien culture and judicial system, they will not be officially “visible” to that system. Since the expected narrative that leads to visibility is merely one possible narrative among many, and representative of one particular society’s idea of what constitutes said visibility, what happens to the Radhas, the Sitas and the Monicas of this world, who come from cultures in which such narratives simply don’t exist? It is work like Mehta’s and Monica’s that addresses the violences that are the result of just such situations- and the subversive potential that lies within them, as well.
I included the below montage of Mehta’s “Elements” trilogy from YouTube, as I found it interesting how these three films, and their characters, were interpreted and made visible for worldwide viewers who may or may not have seen the films. It is interesting, to me, to consider the reading we did- and the international uproar over the films- in light of the possible ways people are exposed to the films themselves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZATO-5WMklo&feature=related (Mehta trilogy montage)
In Fire, there is evidence of a challenge to such a required narrative. Although the relationship between Radha and Sita does begin in the domestic sphere, this is due to the centrality of that sphere to their lives as women in a joint household in New Delhi, as opposed to following the traditional, required narrative. What Euro-American visibility politics would take as an extremely oppressive existence that renders the women nearly invisible to the outside world, however, the women utilize to their advantage. This shielded existence provides the women more opportunities to explore their growing feelings for each other, and to bond and enjoy the physical and emotional closeness this traditionally homosocial space affords them away from questions, accusations, and (most) prying eyes. Traditions that are viewed with scorn by some of the film’s more “modern” characters (such as Sita’s husband) become a safe haven for a developing, but officially nonexistent, love; when it eventually becomes “known”, and the women are caught in the act of lovemaking, Sita herself acknowledges their predicament: “It is better this way- to see. There is no word to describe [what we are]…seeing is less complicated.” With this statement (and Radha’s agreement), the women acknowledge their relationship’s “in”-visibility to the outside world, and the system which leads to it being so.
The same type of systemic denial of visibility is at work in the art of Monica Enriquez-Enriquez, who documents the stories of immigrants in the United States for what she terms “community art”. What is interesting about Monica’s work is the fact that most of the interviews she conducts for her films - if not all- are with immigrants either in the country “illegally”, or with those who are awaiting asylum. As such, they are “undocumented”, and thus do not exist as “citizens”. The same troubling issues apply to these bodies as those discussed above- including, but not limited to, questions of who has the authority to declare a human being “visible” vis-à-vis citizenship and/or other societal recognition. Often, this recognition is the difference between being able to live (via work papers, the right to occupy public spaces, and public benefits like healthcare and food stamps, to name a few) and trying to merely survive in a society that is not necessarily very nice to people who don’t “follow the rules”. In postcolonial societies- such as India and the United States- this visibility often has a lot to do with who your parents were, and what you look like. The more you resemble an “appropriate” citizen (usually, this means resembling those in charge), and follow their “narratives”, the more chance you have at becoming visible.
What Monica and Mehta both illustrate is that these narratives are inherently classed, raced, gendered, and are known only to very particular “national/cultural” groups, as well. In Asilo Queer, Monica is shown naked, faceless, with words written all over her body. While the words are in English- the language she must make her asylum appeal in- her narration is a seamless mix of her native Spanish and the newly acquired- and required- English. She references the impossibility of “translating herself”, and the continued demands of her newfound “home” that she do so in order to become visible as a citizen. This is a particularly common, and difficult, portion of the asylum process for those fleeing persecution due to their “sexual orientation”, and Monica’s work captures many such stories. These men and women, fleeing one culture to take shelter in another, find themselves faced with the same conundrum as the women of Fire: If they do not follow the narratives proscribed by an alien culture and judicial system, they will not be officially “visible” to that system. Since the expected narrative that leads to visibility is merely one possible narrative among many, and representative of one particular society’s idea of what constitutes said visibility, what happens to the Radhas, the Sitas and the Monicas of this world, who come from cultures in which such narratives simply don’t exist? It is work like Mehta’s and Monica’s that addresses the violences that are the result of just such situations- and the subversive potential that lies within them, as well.
I included the below montage of Mehta’s “Elements” trilogy from YouTube, as I found it interesting how these three films, and their characters, were interpreted and made visible for worldwide viewers who may or may not have seen the films. It is interesting, to me, to consider the reading we did- and the international uproar over the films- in light of the possible ways people are exposed to the films themselves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZATO-5WMklo&feature=related (Mehta trilogy montage)
Queering Expectations, Making Space for Desire
The film Fire teems with a frame in which sexuality and nationalism are brought into inevitable and controversial conversation. In her article, “Local Sites/Global Contexts: The Transnational Trajectories of Deepa Mehta’s Fire” Gayatri Gopinath discusses the framework of the “queer diasporic positionality” that thrives with agency in the plot of the film. The author uses this conflation of words to refer to how queerness is situated among the hegemonic and nationalist imagination, and seeks to question the impurity and lack of authenticity associated with which non-heterosexual expressions are associated (150). Queerness acts as a de-stabilizer of certain political, economic, and religious structures as born through the gendered and sexualized nationalist discourses (150). This concept also acts to situate sexuality as a marker of corporeal subjectivity and consider its role “within transnational flows of culture, capital, bodies, desire, and labor” (150). It questions the normativity of “heterosexuality” and “nation,” while simultaneously seeking to reopen the borders of conceptualization within the aforementioned economies (151). By employing the lens of the queer diaspora in the analysis of film, new spaces for questioning cultural productions are opened and embraced.
One such film apt for analysis through this lens is Deepa Mehta’s Fire. Critical analysis of this film is particularly intriguing through the lens of the queer diaspora, and this is evidenced throughout the challenges to various normalized socio-cultural practices that are posed by certain relationships and dialogues that ensue between characters. Sita is cognizant of the social constraints that bind her movements, and she does not hesitate to be outspoken about this. In one scene, after Sita unexpectedly kissed Radha, the two women sit at the table in the kitchen to share a meal. They had not yet discussed the kiss that neither woman could forget, and the leftover tension still simmered between them. Sita says, “Isn’t it funny, we’re so bound by traditions and rituals…someone just has to push my buttons and I respond like a trained monkey.” In saying this, Sita is forwardly questioning the cultural dynamics binding both women to their circumstances.
Though Sita’s questioning of her surrounding cultural and social boundaries persists throughout the length of film. Happily dancing to music in her husbands clothes, breaking a fast without his blessing, and beginning a relationship with her sister in law are all active evidences of her discomfort with the patriarchal norms that govern her reality. Looming between a space of desire and expectation, Sita initially navigates this space leaning toward the latter. In the beginning of the film, while on a honeymoon with her husband Jitam, Sita appears to desire his affection. She asks about his tastes in movies and asks if he likes her, to which he offers a cold response. Soon, Sita learns that her expectations are leaving her unfulfilled in numerous. By fulfilling her expectations as a wife, she is left sexually unsatisfied, disrespected, emotionally discontented, cheated on, and undesired by her husband. She derives great pleasure, however, when she acts upon her true desires, despite their displacement within the frame of cultural expectations. By creating her own space within the queer diaspora, she is able to freely explore new aspects of her own desires, apart from the boundaries set upon her. Within her culture, there is no space for breaking the expectations of a dutiful wife. However, flashbacks to a moment of her childhood in which she was overcome with a desire to see the ocean remind Sita that, “what you can’t see, you can see, you just have to see without looking.” Before their first kiss, Sita and Radha share a similar conversation on the balcony that alludes to the cultivation of a new space in which to exercise their desires. Calling upon the ocean as a metaphoric representative for their desire, such is invisible, but can ultimately blooms with the potential to be seen and created.
Such imaginative practices are not necessary for the men who live through their desires, as there is a cultural space in which they can be exercised. In her article, Gobinath points out that queer female desires are silenced, while men in the family have a place to access pleasure and fantasy that drift from their heterosexual, domestic home lives (154). While Ashok is consumed by the homosocial bonding offered through his religious practices, Jatin sells porn and frequently visits his Chinese girlfriend Julie, and Mundu masturbates to porn in front of Biji, male desire is preserved and fostered by the gender and class boundaries governing the household (155). The women, however, are denied access to such economies of desire, and are left to witness the pleasures exercised by men (155). The severity of these structures of patriarchal desire and heteronormativity are pulled too taut, and as the seams rip, female queer desire is imagined and emerged, and through it, Sita and Radha are able to nurture their love.
Deepa Mehta offers a deeper discussion of Fire in this informative interview. Fire is part of Metha's "Elements Trilogy," that also includes Earth (1998) and Water (2005). I encourage you to check out the interview as well as the trailers for Mehta's other two films in her trilogy!
jeni
One such film apt for analysis through this lens is Deepa Mehta’s Fire. Critical analysis of this film is particularly intriguing through the lens of the queer diaspora, and this is evidenced throughout the challenges to various normalized socio-cultural practices that are posed by certain relationships and dialogues that ensue between characters. Sita is cognizant of the social constraints that bind her movements, and she does not hesitate to be outspoken about this. In one scene, after Sita unexpectedly kissed Radha, the two women sit at the table in the kitchen to share a meal. They had not yet discussed the kiss that neither woman could forget, and the leftover tension still simmered between them. Sita says, “Isn’t it funny, we’re so bound by traditions and rituals…someone just has to push my buttons and I respond like a trained monkey.” In saying this, Sita is forwardly questioning the cultural dynamics binding both women to their circumstances.
Though Sita’s questioning of her surrounding cultural and social boundaries persists throughout the length of film. Happily dancing to music in her husbands clothes, breaking a fast without his blessing, and beginning a relationship with her sister in law are all active evidences of her discomfort with the patriarchal norms that govern her reality. Looming between a space of desire and expectation, Sita initially navigates this space leaning toward the latter. In the beginning of the film, while on a honeymoon with her husband Jitam, Sita appears to desire his affection. She asks about his tastes in movies and asks if he likes her, to which he offers a cold response. Soon, Sita learns that her expectations are leaving her unfulfilled in numerous. By fulfilling her expectations as a wife, she is left sexually unsatisfied, disrespected, emotionally discontented, cheated on, and undesired by her husband. She derives great pleasure, however, when she acts upon her true desires, despite their displacement within the frame of cultural expectations. By creating her own space within the queer diaspora, she is able to freely explore new aspects of her own desires, apart from the boundaries set upon her. Within her culture, there is no space for breaking the expectations of a dutiful wife. However, flashbacks to a moment of her childhood in which she was overcome with a desire to see the ocean remind Sita that, “what you can’t see, you can see, you just have to see without looking.” Before their first kiss, Sita and Radha share a similar conversation on the balcony that alludes to the cultivation of a new space in which to exercise their desires. Calling upon the ocean as a metaphoric representative for their desire, such is invisible, but can ultimately blooms with the potential to be seen and created.
Such imaginative practices are not necessary for the men who live through their desires, as there is a cultural space in which they can be exercised. In her article, Gobinath points out that queer female desires are silenced, while men in the family have a place to access pleasure and fantasy that drift from their heterosexual, domestic home lives (154). While Ashok is consumed by the homosocial bonding offered through his religious practices, Jatin sells porn and frequently visits his Chinese girlfriend Julie, and Mundu masturbates to porn in front of Biji, male desire is preserved and fostered by the gender and class boundaries governing the household (155). The women, however, are denied access to such economies of desire, and are left to witness the pleasures exercised by men (155). The severity of these structures of patriarchal desire and heteronormativity are pulled too taut, and as the seams rip, female queer desire is imagined and emerged, and through it, Sita and Radha are able to nurture their love.
Deepa Mehta offers a deeper discussion of Fire in this informative interview. Fire is part of Metha's "Elements Trilogy," that also includes Earth (1998) and Water (2005). I encourage you to check out the interview as well as the trailers for Mehta's other two films in her trilogy!
jeni
Queer diaspora and "Fire"
The first consideration is that “the formation of sexual subjectivity within transnational flows of culture, capital, bodies, desire and labor”. (150) The first consideration presents the importance of “flow”, as transnational contexts. The mobility can easily be exemplified in “Fire”. The production, consumption and distribution of the film mark the mobility that enables the movie to speak to different audience from particular social constructions. Made by an Indian Canadian, the movie captures Indian society through the eyes of a diasporic Indian. It is because of the production that the movie “flows”, since various discourses are speaking within the move. It is not a cultural shock like the one presented in “Persepolis” where the character leaves the country to be an immigrant. The negotiation of identity is a self-exploration, but the fact that the director is an immigrant, using a Canadian production engage in another level of negotiation. Radha and Sita display mobile identities, and since they are not part of the hegemonic and heternormative discourse presented in the Indian society, they are too flowing into a discourse that embraces self-identification and desire as a valid form of living.
One of the main movie critiques, as Gayatri Gopinath explains, is that“ Fire interrogates the teleological Euro-American narrative according to which lesbian sexuality must emerge from a private, domestic sphere into a public, visible subjectivity.” (155) The film is westernized in the sense that it does engage and repeat the discursive construct that calls upon disclosure one’s personal identification to be considered authentic. In the end, the narrative has contact points of the western and occidental ideals, since the movie to seems to be negotiation the director identity as an Indian Canadian.
The second consideration about queer diasporic positionality is that it “contents the logic that situates the term “queer” and “diaspora” as dependent on originality and authenticity of “heterosexuality” and “nation”” (150). The problem is that the dichotomies presented in fire are not necessarily constructed around the queer/heterosexual and the national/diasporic bodies. Even though, there are certain teleological grand narratives regarding the construction of gender and nation in Indian culture. For instance, Sita’s husband says that it is difficult for him to be reconcile what he wants and what he is expected to be. This phrase is present in the film, since most of the characters are in a personal struggle between tradition and self-identification. Radha’s husband is also carrying the burden of a religious discourse that identifies desire with perdition.
National discourse confronts personal desires, leaving no space for self-identification. The national discourse constructs images that citizens are supposed to follow. Heteronormative laws are reinforced with religious teachings. For instance, the Ramadan passage of Sita having to undergo the Proof of Fire in order to validate her discourse about purity reinforces gender constructions. The following images the Trial by fire of Sita:
It is interesting to notice the parallelism of the religious message and the ending (and title) of the film. Radha passed the proof of fire and survived intact since she is purely devoted to Sita.
The last consideration is disorganization of dominant categories, thus marking a different economy of desire. (150) This disorganization of dominant categories can seem to be a threat to the national discourse that reinforces heternormativity. Radha and Sita can not find a space or a word that describe the feelings they have for each other. With no words, it would seem that signification is inaccessible, but they refer to the feelings for each other as a proof. They, then, construct a new identity inaccessible to language but not to self-identification. The difference with the national discourse around Sita’s trial by fire is that Rama sends her to exile after she passed the test, and Radha and Sita are together after the first one survived the fire. Religious discourse disorganizes and by doing so, opens new possibilities of identity. Because of the flow of transnational discourse, “Fire” can connect and can be related to queer diasporic positionality.
Fire and Desire
In viewing Deepa Mehta's film, Fire, concepts of sexuality, gender roles,culture arose as this film took place in contemporary New Dehli in the mid 1990's (Gopinath, 169). In terms of a queer diaspora positionality, Gopinath states that this first "situates the formation of sexual subjectivity within transnational flows of culture, capital, bodies, desire, and labor" (Gopinath, 170). I'm not exactly sure what she means by this but I interpret it as the perspective of sexuality and expectations there of male and female roles are embedded in culture, capital bodies, desire, and labor. There is much importance placed on tradition in the film and Sita states that she feels like a performing monkey when it comes to culture and that their lives revolve around it. People are told not to question but only to obey in this sense, to obey in the name of your family and tradition. In terms of the film, capital bodies may refer to the roles within the business of the family as well as the determined roles of husband and wife. Radha's husband continuously states duties of husband and wife and son and so forth. There are certain expectations to be upheld and not to be questioned. These duties that Radha's husband is discussing deal greatly with desire and his battle with fighting the urges of sexual temptation since Radha is baron he feels there is no purpose to sex and must become closer to God. Radha expresses to Sita that she has not had sex for thirteen years and her Husbands apology earlier on in the film starts to make sense. Transnational flow and culture do deal with queer diaspora in that this is a national concept and places importance on culture. Gopinath then goes on to state the second function of queer diaspora in that it "contests the logic that situates the terms 'queer' and 'diaspora' as dependent on the originality and authenticity of 'heterosexuality' and 'nation'" (Gopinath, 170). This also pertains to tradition and expectations within sexuality. What makes sexuality authentic? Sita and Rahda spend much of their time on the roof, gazing out over the city, discussing their husbands, and personal stories and wishes. Sita expresses all that she wants outside of marraige and her husband expresses to his brother all of the pressure he was under to be a certain way. Sita and her husband do not share a mutually happy relationship, but they have a sort of mutual understanding in that he will be with his girlfriend who he is truly in love with even though he is married. Gopinaths statement above is reflective of the last scene with Rahda and her husband as she confesses her love and desire for Sita. This moment in the film is the most authentic Rahda ever is with her husband throughout the film. The last function stated by Gopinath on queer diaspora positionality is that "it disorganizes the dominant categories within the United States for sexual variance, namely 'gay and lesbian,' and it marks a different economy of desire that escapes legibility within both normative Indian contexts and homo normative white Euro-American contexts (Gopinath, 170). The notion of sexual variance is important here in that there are categories that receive more attention than others and this is also dependent geographically speaking. The idea of disorganization is interesting among the normative standards within a culture. In the film. Sita tells Radha that in their culture there is no name for what they are and the relationship they have. This is very blunt and straightforward in terms of the connotation the film portrays regarding Indian culture and gender norms. Deepa Mehta created large controversy within India regarding the film and attached is an interesting article regarding her latest work and response to the controversy over Fire.
Fire in Diaspora
According to Gayatri Gopinath in her article, Deepa Mehta's Fire is attacked by both main stream media and the Shiv Sena, a Hindu right wing organization that forms the nationalist government currently in power, for its ‘inauthentic’ presentation of India, and hence, denied the film’s queer content and diasporic origin. In India, woman and lesbian are considered mutually exclusive categories--while feminist women are acknowledged, the idea of queer and lesbian are unacceptable. As such, the status of woman is only recognized in the domestic sphere, at ‘home’, by the community and the nation, while lesbian is outside the visible public sphere. Gopinath also states that the ‘gendered and sexualized discourses of bourgeois and religious nationalism are reproduced in diaspora’ and she suggests that the immigrant communities in the diaspora are ‘connected, interdependent and mutually constitutive’ and the idea of diaspora should be considered in relation to nation. Gopinath proposed that ‘queer diasporic’ positionality can challenge the concept of fixed and essentialised national and diasporic identity. This queer diaspora framework ‘situates the formation of sexual subjectivity within transnational flows of culture, capital, bodies, desire’; contest that ‘queer’ and ‘diaspora depend on the originality and authenticity of heterosexuality and nation; and ‘marks a different economy of desire that escapes legibility within both normative Indian context and homo-normative white Euro American context.
Deepa Mehta, as an Indian Canadian female director, challenges the tradition of Indian religious convention, the expectation of women in particular, by narrating the homosexual/ homoerotic desire of two (sexually) suppressed women, Sita and Radha. (The inclusion of the memory of Radha, of her ability of see without looking/ seeing in a different away, even seems to suggest that her homosexuality is rooted genetically). Nonetheless, the characters are also seen reflecting upon their ‘unruly’ behavior. Though Sita appear to be rebellious, every time she crosses the line she is cautious, for instance, she ponders in front of the mirror and checks before changing into man’s wear, and she seeks approval from Radha after kissing her. The depiction of their intimacy and emotional sustenance out of adherence to tradition and recurrent mentioning of expected duty (of wife/ being a chaste woman) challenge the public/ religious view and at the same time draw audience’s sympathy for them. (The last scene of the movie attempts to be emotionally appealing, while the final reunion seems forced out to align with the movie’s message, the way that Ashok display humiliation is wield.)The film challenges the framing of queerness (and diaspora) as inauthentic. By placing such relationship within the domestic space, before the eyes of the traditional (yet dumb) Biji, hinting at a sense of forced acceptance, Mehta legitimizes (and celebrates) homosexual desire as a means to leave the confinement of the tradition. By tracing the root of their homosexual desire (while it is contradictory to the heterosexuality and nationalism of India) and exposing the absurdity and invalidity of the men’s desire, the relationship between Sita and Radha is made more than authentic—this is what we can expect, only that they are not visible.
The film itself literally travels many places, well received and criticized to different extent; enabling it to transcend geographical and national boundaries with the emotion appeal of woman emancipation. It should also be noted that the film resist the ‘tradition’ and binding convention only by relying on it (be manifesting the absurdity).
Monday, June 28, 2010
Monica Enríquez-Enríquez
I encourage all of you to take a look at the fabulous work of video artist Monica Enríquez-Enríquez:
http://danm.ucsc.edu/~mpenriqu/home.html
On this site are the films that Monica screened in class last week, along with several other projects that relate to the course topics.
http://danm.ucsc.edu/~mpenriqu/home.html
On this site are the films that Monica screened in class last week, along with several other projects that relate to the course topics.
Blog Prompt #6: Fire, Queer Diaspora, & the Difficult Politics of Visibility
By 9 pm on Tuesday June 29th, please post a 600-word response to one or both (whichever you prefer) of the following prompts:
1. In "Local Sites/Global Contexts: The Transnational Trajectories of Deepa Mehta's Fire," Gayatri Gopinath challenges the frame that constructs queerness and diaspora as "inauthentic," "impure," or radically distinct from heterosexuality and Indian nationalism. What does she mean by a "queer diasporic positionality" (150), and can it be used to critically analyze Deepa Mehta's Fire?
2. Gopinath argues that Fire challenges Euro-American visibility politics for its complicity in colonialism and racist visualities (155). What connections do you find between the ways that Fire does this (if, in fact, you think that it does) and the ways that Monica Enríquez-Enríquez's Fragments of Migration or Asilo Queer does this?
Remember to link to or embed a minimum of 1 image, video, website, blog, or other visual cultural production that you see relating to this week's blog prompt and course topics.
1. In "Local Sites/Global Contexts: The Transnational Trajectories of Deepa Mehta's Fire," Gayatri Gopinath challenges the frame that constructs queerness and diaspora as "inauthentic," "impure," or radically distinct from heterosexuality and Indian nationalism. What does she mean by a "queer diasporic positionality" (150), and can it be used to critically analyze Deepa Mehta's Fire?
2. Gopinath argues that Fire challenges Euro-American visibility politics for its complicity in colonialism and racist visualities (155). What connections do you find between the ways that Fire does this (if, in fact, you think that it does) and the ways that Monica Enríquez-Enríquez's Fragments of Migration or Asilo Queer does this?
Remember to link to or embed a minimum of 1 image, video, website, blog, or other visual cultural production that you see relating to this week's blog prompt and course topics.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
The Karate Kid: Ok... perhaps, maybe, kinda, sorta... I liked it...
For the past couple of months, I had seen countless posters - big, small, and everything in between - of Jaden Smith’s high-kicking silhouette plastered across every bus and BART station I traveled through.
Finally, around evening time on its opening weekend, I decided to take the plunge and see the film, thankfully dragging some relatives to go with me. We went to a medium-sized corporate theatre in Daly City, California. Bordering San Francisco and the Peninsula, the Daly City theatre is known as a popular spot on weekends for “tweens,” “teeny-boppers,” and families. As I entered the theatre I was met with another poster of Jaden Smith, this time however blown proportionately to my size, despite his stature as an incredibly scrawny, twelve year old (a fact that is accentuated throughout the film in a bizarre attempt to sexualize his body through gratuitous shirtless scenes...). Inside the theatre itself, I was met with the steady buzz of screaming (err... chattering...) children and their families. The average age of the kids seemed to be around ten or so. I felt as if I was the only non-parent over fifteen, but I did see a sparse sprinkling of young people around my age.
I really do hate to admit it, but I actually enjoyed the film. I was sucked into it’s story and it simplistic constructions of good and bad: who is good and bad, what is good and bad, how good always trumps bad, and how bad sometimes (through revelations and epiphanies that happen in literally a matter of seconds) becomes good.
The film is not the greatest ever produced, nor it is the best written, acted, or edited (running longer than two hours... I almost fell asleep after the first half an hour, before all the good stuff came) film, but it was enjoyable movie. I tried to forget that the Chinese kids were set up very quickly as the villians - that, in fact, all things Chinese were at one point or another set up as an “other” - since Dre’s love interest and mentor are also Chinese. In reference to geography and locality in direct dialogue with the film’s narrative and characters, I thought about Kara Keeling’s discussion on Los Angeles as an postindustrial city in conversation with Set It Off. In some sense, Beijing is also on its way to becoming a city, similar to LA, that is both global as a major city that houses international business, commerce, and culture, as well as local as a place where folks are still struggling to survive and sustain basic necessities.
Some of the film’s other positives: the main character is a person of color, rare for any blockbuster, Hollywood film (and also something that another children's film that is coming out soon might want to take note of). His race is neither explicitly pointed to nor ignored. As the film progressed, though, I groaned when I saw Dre and his mother appear in Beijing, yet was surprised that, while a major component of the film, Chinese culture just narrowly escaped essentialism. I groaned again when I saw Dre’s only potential friend as a blonde, white boy, assuming that, while the main character is African American, the film would pit him against the bad Chinese kids while the white audience still had an opportunity to project themselves onto the screen. To that end, though, Dre’s potential friend disappears after a few scenes. Themes of loss, displacement, and coming-of-age are handled with care to ensure its characters integrity and well-being. All in all, the movie came in a nice little package that throws out some lessons for the kids.
I haven’t been to the theatre is quite some time. It’s been even longer since I’ve seen a film out of the target demographic that I can consider myself a part of. So, it’s certainly been awhile since I’ve experienced a children’s movie with... children. Needless to say, I forgot how emotionally liberated children feel when they experience movies, especially ones that are geared specifically to tugging at their tiny little heart strings. Completely wrapped up in the big screen, the big sounds, and the big kicks (as in *really* big kicks that sent the twelve year olds on screen flying across rooms and rings, a disturbing, hyper-violent, new development since the last kids action film I saw), I heard gasps, claps, and cheers without any feelings of anxiety, trepidation, or insecurity. I heard complete conversations kids were having with their parents, who attempted with all their might to simultaneously answer their kids’ questions while also lower their voices. The funniest thing, to me at least? Watching (and hearing) my aunt, at fifty years old, giggling and clapping right along with the youngin’s.
-Kenny Gong
Finally, around evening time on its opening weekend, I decided to take the plunge and see the film, thankfully dragging some relatives to go with me. We went to a medium-sized corporate theatre in Daly City, California. Bordering San Francisco and the Peninsula, the Daly City theatre is known as a popular spot on weekends for “tweens,” “teeny-boppers,” and families. As I entered the theatre I was met with another poster of Jaden Smith, this time however blown proportionately to my size, despite his stature as an incredibly scrawny, twelve year old (a fact that is accentuated throughout the film in a bizarre attempt to sexualize his body through gratuitous shirtless scenes...). Inside the theatre itself, I was met with the steady buzz of screaming (err... chattering...) children and their families. The average age of the kids seemed to be around ten or so. I felt as if I was the only non-parent over fifteen, but I did see a sparse sprinkling of young people around my age.
I really do hate to admit it, but I actually enjoyed the film. I was sucked into it’s story and it simplistic constructions of good and bad: who is good and bad, what is good and bad, how good always trumps bad, and how bad sometimes (through revelations and epiphanies that happen in literally a matter of seconds) becomes good.
The film is not the greatest ever produced, nor it is the best written, acted, or edited (running longer than two hours... I almost fell asleep after the first half an hour, before all the good stuff came) film, but it was enjoyable movie. I tried to forget that the Chinese kids were set up very quickly as the villians - that, in fact, all things Chinese were at one point or another set up as an “other” - since Dre’s love interest and mentor are also Chinese. In reference to geography and locality in direct dialogue with the film’s narrative and characters, I thought about Kara Keeling’s discussion on Los Angeles as an postindustrial city in conversation with Set It Off. In some sense, Beijing is also on its way to becoming a city, similar to LA, that is both global as a major city that houses international business, commerce, and culture, as well as local as a place where folks are still struggling to survive and sustain basic necessities.
Some of the film’s other positives: the main character is a person of color, rare for any blockbuster, Hollywood film (and also something that another children's film that is coming out soon might want to take note of). His race is neither explicitly pointed to nor ignored. As the film progressed, though, I groaned when I saw Dre and his mother appear in Beijing, yet was surprised that, while a major component of the film, Chinese culture just narrowly escaped essentialism. I groaned again when I saw Dre’s only potential friend as a blonde, white boy, assuming that, while the main character is African American, the film would pit him against the bad Chinese kids while the white audience still had an opportunity to project themselves onto the screen. To that end, though, Dre’s potential friend disappears after a few scenes. Themes of loss, displacement, and coming-of-age are handled with care to ensure its characters integrity and well-being. All in all, the movie came in a nice little package that throws out some lessons for the kids.
I haven’t been to the theatre is quite some time. It’s been even longer since I’ve seen a film out of the target demographic that I can consider myself a part of. So, it’s certainly been awhile since I’ve experienced a children’s movie with... children. Needless to say, I forgot how emotionally liberated children feel when they experience movies, especially ones that are geared specifically to tugging at their tiny little heart strings. Completely wrapped up in the big screen, the big sounds, and the big kicks (as in *really* big kicks that sent the twelve year olds on screen flying across rooms and rings, a disturbing, hyper-violent, new development since the last kids action film I saw), I heard gasps, claps, and cheers without any feelings of anxiety, trepidation, or insecurity. I heard complete conversations kids were having with their parents, who attempted with all their might to simultaneously answer their kids’ questions while also lower their voices. The funniest thing, to me at least? Watching (and hearing) my aunt, at fifty years old, giggling and clapping right along with the youngin’s.
-Kenny Gong
Carried Away... Seriously, Could Someone Get Me Outta Here?
I had not seen a single preview for Cyrus before I went to see it. I had, however, seen ads for months on the New York Times website, where I have only seen advertisements for films I knew I would really like (and ended up liking, too). Clearly, I have not seen every film advertisement on their website, so I am generalizing, but my point is that, without even seeing a preview, I knew I would enjoy this film…
Okay, yes, that paragraph is not the introduction to my real blog post for ‘Movies in the Real World.’ (Cyrus has not arrived in theaters in the Bay Area yet. It is opening in one theater in San Francisco tomorrow.) Rather, it is the first few lines of the post I wish I were writing. And it actually makes me sad to admit as much, because I truly love Miranda Hobbes. I love her deeply and am fiercely loyal, and I never expected the day would come when thinking about Miranda and my Sex and the City ladies would induce in me something akin to serious heartburn.
My sister and I have both seen every episode of Sex and the City at least twice. I love the characters; I love the relationships; I love the way that New York defines the characters and the plot lines; I love how the show explored relationships and issues that seemed real; and, finally, I love how the show refused to be constrained by stereotypes of female sexuality. I am not embarrassed to say that I learned things about society and myself from watching this show. Needless to say, when the first movie came out, I was thrilled! I went opening weekend with my mom and sister, and had a blast. My enjoyment was due more to the feeling of nostalgia and comfort I got from seeing these characters again, less to the film’s actual quality. In theory, I do not have a moral objection to sequels, to movies adapted from television shows (or vice versa – hey Buffy!), or to sequels to movies adapted from television shows. Sex and the City 2 was no exception, and I did not ask for much: just a few hours of entertaining, easy watching and the chance to see my gals back together again. I have come to realize that in the lead up to this movie, however, I was asking all the wrong questions. The line of question I should have pursued starts with: what do I have to do, and I would do almost anything, to prevent the release of this most “unholy resurrection.”
I went to see Sex and the City 2 at Shattuck Cinemas in downtown Berkeley. The anticipation and popularity of the franchise meant that the film was screening in nearly every movie theater in the Bay Area, but I picked Shattuck because it is a classic older theater with fewer seats and smaller screens than most contemporary megaplexes. I like the romanticism inherent in the presentation of films in venues like this; I feel like I am supposed to dress up and really respect the experience of going out to the cinema. The eight dollars I paid for my ticket ($10 without a student ID) and the $6-$7 that can be easily spent on snacks (which I normally skip unless I am inclined to splurge/make utterly unnecessary/borderline incoherent purchases), though, take some skip out of my step. When it comes to Sex and the City, however, the offerings at the concession stand are only the (tiny) tip of the iceberg. The film was not only filled with product placement, but its release was accompanied by a plethora of Sex and the City themed-goods, most notably Sex and the City 2 Skyy Vodka, perfect for that Cosmo (SATC’s signature drink) you and your girlfriends are dying to make! Granted, this franchise has never been lacking in expensive clothing, shoes, or lifestyles, but the marketing and product collaboration on the second film seemed especially aggressive.
I am a movie fanatic; it takes a lot for me to dislike/actually not enjoy a film. It was not so much that I did like SATC 2 (though, to be clear, I DID NOT LIKE IT) as I spent the majority of the film feeling offended by its glutinous displays of consumerism and desperate affluence. From Stanford’s wedding to their all-expenses-paid trip to the Middle East, the movie forgot that it was supposed to have a plot and sympathetic, or at least not despicable, characters, and instead situated itself comfortable within the confines of various stereotypes of western greed and consumption. In “Resistance Through Cinema,” Richard Dyer contends that the character of Gilda was constructed in light of and relied heavily upon Rita Hayworth’s public persona. With SATC 2, the characters were constructed not in terms of the personas of the actors who play them, but in consideration of the celebrity of the fictional characters themselves. However, I am not sure why the writers of SATC 2 imagined its audience would be satisfied with simple caricatures of the women they once loved. The characters only served to remind me of everything I ever disliked, was disappointed by, or hated about the original series. They successfully distilled the movie into a series of scenes that embodied many of the criticisms the show received, with characters that resembled nothing of their former powerful, independent, and non-stereotypical selves. The film’s characters were excessively extravagant, no effort was made to present the wonderful relationships between these women that defined the show, and nobody actually seemed happy with their lives. A great thing about the show was that it always felt like these women were unapologetically living exactly how they wanted to; this strength and beautiful self-assuredness is, unfortunately, stripped from them in the film.
It is hard to even begin discussing the characters’ trip to Abu Dhabi. On one hand, I want to forget it ever happened, but on the other I want to write a dissertation on the film’s clumsy/offensive attempts to confront issues relating to sex and gender in the Middle East. As such, it would be impossible for me to adequately assess the girls’ excursion in this blog post. I would, however, like to make one connection to a particular reading and film from class. As I watched SATC 2, I recognized an interesting correlation with Set It Off. In Kara Keeling’s, “What’s Up with That? She Don’t Talk,” she explores how Queen Latifah’s character’s masculinity is constructed and defined in relation to her ultra-feminized girlfriend, who performs traditional/stereotypical femininity so completely that she does not utter one audible line throughout the entire film. Except for one scene towards the end of SATC 2, in which a group of Muslim women shed their traditional garb only to reveal the “hottest fashions” underneath, Muslim womanhood is only ever observed from a distance. The film’s assertions of moral superiority of American culture and customs are supported by the silence of and physical distance that is maintained between the four main characters and Muslim women throughout the film.
I went to see the first SATC film in Charleston, SC. My mom was living there at the time, and my sister and I were visiting for the weekend. It was opening weekend, and the line to the theater was out the door. Black and White women flocked to the screening I attended, dressed in outfits that were clearly in homage to the ladies they love. The crowd howled when the theme song began playing during the opening credits, and screamed when Carrie first appeared onscreen in that stunning white dress with huge flower. It was clear that the audience thoroughly enjoyed their experience. Things were starkly different the second time around. The showing I attended was noticeable lacking in attendees, and there were none of the audible cues of enjoyment that I heard during the first film. Instead, I heard snickering throughout the film from clearly disappointed fans.
Okay, yes, that paragraph is not the introduction to my real blog post for ‘Movies in the Real World.’ (Cyrus has not arrived in theaters in the Bay Area yet. It is opening in one theater in San Francisco tomorrow.) Rather, it is the first few lines of the post I wish I were writing. And it actually makes me sad to admit as much, because I truly love Miranda Hobbes. I love her deeply and am fiercely loyal, and I never expected the day would come when thinking about Miranda and my Sex and the City ladies would induce in me something akin to serious heartburn.
My sister and I have both seen every episode of Sex and the City at least twice. I love the characters; I love the relationships; I love the way that New York defines the characters and the plot lines; I love how the show explored relationships and issues that seemed real; and, finally, I love how the show refused to be constrained by stereotypes of female sexuality. I am not embarrassed to say that I learned things about society and myself from watching this show. Needless to say, when the first movie came out, I was thrilled! I went opening weekend with my mom and sister, and had a blast. My enjoyment was due more to the feeling of nostalgia and comfort I got from seeing these characters again, less to the film’s actual quality. In theory, I do not have a moral objection to sequels, to movies adapted from television shows (or vice versa – hey Buffy!), or to sequels to movies adapted from television shows. Sex and the City 2 was no exception, and I did not ask for much: just a few hours of entertaining, easy watching and the chance to see my gals back together again. I have come to realize that in the lead up to this movie, however, I was asking all the wrong questions. The line of question I should have pursued starts with: what do I have to do, and I would do almost anything, to prevent the release of this most “unholy resurrection.”
I went to see Sex and the City 2 at Shattuck Cinemas in downtown Berkeley. The anticipation and popularity of the franchise meant that the film was screening in nearly every movie theater in the Bay Area, but I picked Shattuck because it is a classic older theater with fewer seats and smaller screens than most contemporary megaplexes. I like the romanticism inherent in the presentation of films in venues like this; I feel like I am supposed to dress up and really respect the experience of going out to the cinema. The eight dollars I paid for my ticket ($10 without a student ID) and the $6-$7 that can be easily spent on snacks (which I normally skip unless I am inclined to splurge/make utterly unnecessary/borderline incoherent purchases), though, take some skip out of my step. When it comes to Sex and the City, however, the offerings at the concession stand are only the (tiny) tip of the iceberg. The film was not only filled with product placement, but its release was accompanied by a plethora of Sex and the City themed-goods, most notably Sex and the City 2 Skyy Vodka, perfect for that Cosmo (SATC’s signature drink) you and your girlfriends are dying to make! Granted, this franchise has never been lacking in expensive clothing, shoes, or lifestyles, but the marketing and product collaboration on the second film seemed especially aggressive.
I am a movie fanatic; it takes a lot for me to dislike/actually not enjoy a film. It was not so much that I did like SATC 2 (though, to be clear, I DID NOT LIKE IT) as I spent the majority of the film feeling offended by its glutinous displays of consumerism and desperate affluence. From Stanford’s wedding to their all-expenses-paid trip to the Middle East, the movie forgot that it was supposed to have a plot and sympathetic, or at least not despicable, characters, and instead situated itself comfortable within the confines of various stereotypes of western greed and consumption. In “Resistance Through Cinema,” Richard Dyer contends that the character of Gilda was constructed in light of and relied heavily upon Rita Hayworth’s public persona. With SATC 2, the characters were constructed not in terms of the personas of the actors who play them, but in consideration of the celebrity of the fictional characters themselves. However, I am not sure why the writers of SATC 2 imagined its audience would be satisfied with simple caricatures of the women they once loved. The characters only served to remind me of everything I ever disliked, was disappointed by, or hated about the original series. They successfully distilled the movie into a series of scenes that embodied many of the criticisms the show received, with characters that resembled nothing of their former powerful, independent, and non-stereotypical selves. The film’s characters were excessively extravagant, no effort was made to present the wonderful relationships between these women that defined the show, and nobody actually seemed happy with their lives. A great thing about the show was that it always felt like these women were unapologetically living exactly how they wanted to; this strength and beautiful self-assuredness is, unfortunately, stripped from them in the film.
It is hard to even begin discussing the characters’ trip to Abu Dhabi. On one hand, I want to forget it ever happened, but on the other I want to write a dissertation on the film’s clumsy/offensive attempts to confront issues relating to sex and gender in the Middle East. As such, it would be impossible for me to adequately assess the girls’ excursion in this blog post. I would, however, like to make one connection to a particular reading and film from class. As I watched SATC 2, I recognized an interesting correlation with Set It Off. In Kara Keeling’s, “What’s Up with That? She Don’t Talk,” she explores how Queen Latifah’s character’s masculinity is constructed and defined in relation to her ultra-feminized girlfriend, who performs traditional/stereotypical femininity so completely that she does not utter one audible line throughout the entire film. Except for one scene towards the end of SATC 2, in which a group of Muslim women shed their traditional garb only to reveal the “hottest fashions” underneath, Muslim womanhood is only ever observed from a distance. The film’s assertions of moral superiority of American culture and customs are supported by the silence of and physical distance that is maintained between the four main characters and Muslim women throughout the film.
I went to see the first SATC film in Charleston, SC. My mom was living there at the time, and my sister and I were visiting for the weekend. It was opening weekend, and the line to the theater was out the door. Black and White women flocked to the screening I attended, dressed in outfits that were clearly in homage to the ladies they love. The crowd howled when the theme song began playing during the opening credits, and screamed when Carrie first appeared onscreen in that stunning white dress with huge flower. It was clear that the audience thoroughly enjoyed their experience. Things were starkly different the second time around. The showing I attended was noticeable lacking in attendees, and there were none of the audible cues of enjoyment that I heard during the first film. Instead, I heard snickering throughout the film from clearly disappointed fans.
Movies in the Real World or Why Sex and the City 2 is Not the Real World.
Before watching the movie.
I decided to watch Sex and the City 2. I went with two classmates and my boyfriend to the movie theater on Shattuck. (Poor him! Poor us!) The airbrushed poster was all over the place. Sarah Jessica Parker with diamonds, sparkling and airbrushed (the emphasis on the airbrushed is intended).
I went to the 11.00p.m show. It is really absurd that, since we were going with a under 21 friend, we were not able to go to the 10.15p.m show. Alcohol was not served in the last movie screened that day, but the one before.
After entering, it was popcorn time. There were not that good and really expensive, but they were definitely the best part of the movie. When I was walking with my super-sized popcorn, a group of 5 girls walked into the establishment. There were all wearing short dresses, high wheels and more makeup that I would usually wear in a year. It it interesting how overdressed they were, as if they were trying to get Carrie Bradshaw's approval, just like in “Purple Rose of Cairo” (Woody Allen)
The movie theater was surprisingly almost empty: us four, the five overdressed girls waiting for Carrie's approval, four girls normally dressed and one old guy. I believe that the old guy was just trying to find a girl.
The movie
There was a time when Sex and the City proclaimed (just proclaimed) to be a reflective feminine and women’s empowerment program. Many women sat in front of the television to watch Carrie trying to find “the One”, and faced every day problems as a middle age woman in New York City. Not that the program had a profound message to deliver about gender rights, but at least it dissimulated social constructed nature of stereotyping female in favor of an intriguing argument about love and sexuality. The problem is a concept of the policy of visibility. The show made sexuality and the discourse surround it available to a TV audience. The movie on the contrary deploys a hegemonic discourse around sexuality and becomes an actual threat produces for mass consumption since, as Scott points out:
"It is precisely this kind of appeal to experience as uncontestable evidence and as an original point of explanation. As a foundation on which analysis is based- that weakens the critical thrust of history of difference”. (Scott 399)
Regrading the film as a well-based experience is denying common sense a space. In absolute contrast with the assumed nature of the show, the movie Sex and the City 2 might almost horrify the audience that once followed the HBO program. The film reinforces women’s most outrageous stereotypes characterizations, portrays Muslim culture as needing to be westernized, and resolves the main character’s problems in an oversimplified manner.
In first place, the movie Sex and the City 2 evidently reinforces particular female stereotypes. Carrie behaves like a spoiled brat, trying to resolve marital problems with material consumerism. She reinforces the media created stereotype of a woman obsessed with fashion. Miranda, formerly categorized as a female professional, quits her job and finds her husband telling her that the decision was good for her. She used to be characterized as a woman that had professional aspirations, but the movie argues that it is correct for a lady to have personal aspirations only if she is single. Charlotte perpetuates the jealous woman category. She is preoccupied that her husband might like her babysitter because she does not wear a brassier. Finally, Samantha reinforces a despicable woman category: the over-obsessed with youth stereotype. She pretends to be empowered by sexual activities while taking 45 pills in an effort to stay young. In overall, the film creates and perpetuates fixed categories of women that depend upon masculine authority to feel complete. All are seeking men’s acceptance at any cost, whether that means taking 45 pills per day or quitting a long time pursuit job. The problem is that during the movie the just behave as childish, immature and ridiculous grownups.
Secondly, the movie represents Muslim culture as in need to be westernized. At the end of the movie, Carrie cleverly advices her audience that we “have to take tradition and decorate it”, but her regards on Muslim culture does not seems as if she really understand that there are other traditions that does not actually fit in her social construct. Her regards upon the usage of the burka seems as if she does not gets that it is part of the traditions of the Muslim culture. She also pretends to understand the Muslim ideology by saying “Thanks to Allah” to a shoe salesman, a phrase that disrespects the religion when being used so vaguely. In addition, Samantha also disrespect social conventions and is sanctioned because of her offensive sexual encounter. One might see her act as rebellious, but it is offensive to disrespect a society in which you are immerse in, just because you have an urge to have sexual relationships in public spaces. Control over one's body does not mean that you hysterically take 45 pills a day, but that you understand cultural codes that are not your own. Above all, the construction of Muslim women as wanting to be a part of the Western society just seems out of place, and resemble Saïd discourse on Orientalism where he accounts that:
"He [Saïd] shows how the Orient was and still is simultaneously a construction (as an imaginary exotic other) of the West and constructed (discursively fixed as a homogenous real geographical space) by the West. In both instances the West is able to extent power over the Orient.” (Saïd on Hayward 295-296)
The four ladies pretend to save the exotic “otherness” by delivering a message of promiscuity. (The scene of Samantha hysterical screaming to the muslims of the market that she has condoms can be an example of it). The four ladies forgot that New York City does not represent the universal norm of culture, but the movie emphasizes to the audience that Muslims are just longing to be like Carrie Bradshaw and her “trendy” girlfriends. But then again, the 5 ladies in the audience just want to be like Carrie and emulate her “style” and “attitude”.
At last, imaginary and unrealistic problems are presented in the movie. Carrie is angry because her beloved husbands gave her a television for their bedroom. She goes to Abu Dhabi and kisses her ex fiance. Naturally, the husband forgives her by giving her an enormous black diamond after pretending to leave her, when in fact he was just trying to torture her psychologically. Charlotte’s jealousy over the babysitter just disappears when she founds out that the nanny is a lesbian. So, the husband is now safe from the bra-less babysitter because she is queer! Samantha gets to have sex in public with whom she disgustingly and repulsively names “Lawrence of my Labia”. And Miranda got herself a low-profile job to give herself to her family and be a complete woman. The problems, unrealistic and reinforcing negative stereotypes, disappeared at the end with no real dialogue. In fact, just having a conversation with the people they were angry at might have destroyed the entire movie, because all of the infantile concerns and childish problems where in their minds, and just expressing would have solved them without all the drama. If they talked to the partners about the problems, they would have save my the 2 and a half longer hours of my life.
At the end, Sex and the City 2 construct and represent a hysterical type of woman: an insecure, self-obsessed female character that is longing to be accepted by any means, even if that results in jail, quitting personal aspirations, cheating on your husband just to feel young again, or disrespecting other culture. It constructs stereotype characterizations of women that disrespect an entire culture. The undermining of the female figure leads to a movie that lacks real arguments, has no propositions and abundant critiques around the fact that the movie could be an hour shorter if they just resolved problems by talking.
Returning home
I leaved the movie really angry and having violent thoughts against humanity. I realized that the movie construct femininity around high heels, designer clothes and jewelery. They were trying to make the audience think that being a women is abandoning our personal and professional plans, denying our identity and turning our problems into a really beautiful pair of Jimmy Choo's. I could not believe the void of intellect the movie showed. Sacred, I turn to the internet to find what the people were thinking about after watching Sex and The City 2. Rotten Tomatoes really made my laugh, so the anger started to pass by. Some of the most interesting critiques I found were:
"The ugly smell of unexamined privilege hangs over this film like the smoke from cheap incense.” A.O. Scott
“It has no plot to speak of, little in the way of wit or intelligence, and is about 50% longer than can reasonably be justified.” James Bernadine
“When Carrie asks Big, "Am I just a bitch wife who nags you?" I could hear all the straight men in the theater -- all four of us -- being physically prevented from responding” Andrew O. Hehir
And my personal favorite:
“I walked into the theatre hoping for a nice evening and came out as a hardline Marxist, my head a whirl of closets, delusions, and blunt-clawed cattiness . . . There is a deep sadness in the sight of Carrie and her friends defining themselves by . . . their ability to snare and keep a man." Antony Lane (New Yorker)
I was glad that other people were also horrified.
No Oasis on the Horizon: Essentialism and Conspicuous (Heteronormative) Consumption in the "New Middle East" in Sex and the City 2
I attended the premiere weekend of Sex and the City 2 at my local mall cinaplex (Fairfield- North Bay). Knowing the consumer-heavy emphasis of the show and first movie, I was not shocked to learn of the cross-promotions in cities near mine- such as Macy’s sponsored sneak previews, celebrity DJ midnight shows, and drawings for pairs of Jimmy Choo’s for the first 250 moviegoers, to name a few. Nor was I surprised that the movie was playing on multiple screens in the theater- although, at first, I was taken aback at the small side theater my showing was in- until I realized that A)It was in the front of the cinaplex, and thus very accessible, and B) I went to the matinee. Since Shrek the Fourth had also recently opened, and was an expected big box-office draw, it was commanding more of the large theaters during the day. With a PG rating, this made good business sense; Sex and the City was a hard R if for no other reason than Samantha’s constant, inane sexual-innuendo and the occasional smattering of profanity. My main reason for attending early was the matinee price, which- at $8.00- is somewhat problematic when you consider access to the film, and who such a prohibitive per-person ticket price would exclude from attending it. On top of the ticket price, I was asked to donate money to buy a paper star (which I would then write my name on) to benefit children’s cancer research (more on this later). On an interesting side note, as an aunt many times over, I ended up back at the theater for a viewing of Shrek two days later- the stars were still available, but the ticket seller did not offer any of us the opportunity to buy one when we purchased Shrek tickets. I wondered, later, if this was just an oversight, or implied that the Sex and the City crowd was expected to have more disposable income than families with children, which seemed to make up Shrek’s main audience. Similarly, upon being seated for the Sex and the City movie (and having arrived half an hour early, fearing a lack of seats), I was presented with a half hour show that featured commercials for other productions/special events at the theatre, behind-the-scenes snippets designed to generate interest for upcoming films and TV shows owned by a related corporation, advertising involving rapping hamsters (their “girls” were in tutus, bouncing to the beat- I’m leaving this one alone), and commercials for morning after “party” remedies, Sprite, and Sprint cell phone ads disguised as “turn off your phone” messages.
So, half an hour in, I already had a distinct feeling that this was to be an experience steeped in consumer culture and serious promotion of high end material goods, and began looking around me to see who would be joining me for the film. The theatre was at about half of its capacity, which could be an indicator of many things: The early hour, the large number of screens the film was playing on, or what I later learned were large numbers of 12:01 showings Friday morning in my area, some packaged as “girls night out” experiences that involved cooperation with nearby bars/restaurants. Most of the occupants were women in their twenties and thirties, often in large groups of five to ten people (although there were some pairs of friends, as well) and dressed to impress. Aside from me, the only other people attending alone were two men, and four or five couples out for obvious “dates” made up the remainder of the audience. Perhaps the most amusing moment of my whole experience came when one of the men attending with his “date” began wildly cheering for the car crash/explosion laden trailer for “Knight and Day”. He followed this up by cheering for the next two previews, both for melodramas; while humorous, after viewing the Sex and the City movie, I feel as though perhaps he had a good idea what he was in store for, and this was simply his last bid for freedom from the experience via ejection from the theatre.
The title sequence of the film is spelled out with hundreds of dazzlingly bright diamonds, and we are introduced to the characters in a meld of past and present that enables Carrie to recall how she came to New York and met each of them in the 1980s: As each “younger” version of a character walks toward Carrie in the flashback, we flash forward once again and see the women in the present, also walking toward Carrie in haute couture and six inch stilettos. This five minute stretch of name dropping and high fashion seems aimed primarily at establishing that time has passed, that these women have always been privileged enough to afford designer wear and move in Manhattan’s inner circles (one was a bartender at CBGB’s who became an agent, one is an established lawyer, etc.), and that they have aged and experienced life changes like marriage, childbearing, and extreme career success and advancement while remaining a tight knit group of friends. While the power to establish alternative kinships was a very real possibility in this film, it did not ever seem to be suggested in any serious way. There is a point where the friends discuss women as “soul mates”, regardless of men and babies; unfortunately, the extremely heteronormative focus of the film seems to negate the realization of this potentially radical alternative. In fact, the heteronormative is the second driving force behind Sex and the City 2 (conspicuous consumption being the first and most obvious), and this is why, in retrospect, that paper star makes so much sense. As a film about heterosexual (and highly “heteronormative”) women with money and privilege, marketed to women who want to watch them utilize both in a contrived plot device that sends them on an embarrassingly colonialist visit to the “new Middle East”, a ploy to play to the “savior” aspects of their audience’s conscience in the name of curing children’s cancer starts to seem less random.
The impetus that leads to each woman’s decision to join Samantha on her business trip to Abu Dhabi hinge upon various crises of the heteronormative aspects of their lives, with the exception of Miranda, whose husband’s infidelity was a major plot device in the first film. In the sequel, problems with a chauvinistic boss lead her to quit her job, thus freeing her to be a better mother (she makes it to her son’s school for an event for the first time)- and, of course, gives her unlimited time to travel to Abu Dhabi and enjoy an all expenses paid vacation in a $22,000 a night suite. Since this is a “business” trip for Samantha (who the hotelier wants to impress in order to gain her as an agent), and she is single, her crisis revolves entirely around her trying to come to terms with her age, entering menopause, and- due to the first major culture clash of the film- having to do so without any of the 45 pills and various bioidentical creams she ingests/uses daily to prevent said menopause from aging her further. Her fear of a lessened sex drive leads to a bizarre obsession with yams as a substitute for her lost remedies, and her personal butler (each woman has one- they come with the suite), who is established as gay due to his knowledge of Paula Abdul, caters to her every whim and joins her in an occasional yam face masque. Carrie, happily married to the man she spent five years attempting to get a proposal from, is in turmoil over her fear of becoming overly “domesticated”: She is worried about her husband’s desire to bring home gourmet take out and enjoy evenings in on the special-order, designer couch they waited a year and a half for. Charlotte's crisis is so contrived that it doesn’t exist until a painful moment involving a braless nanny turning cartwheels on a golf course in front of the women’s husbands, who gawk at her slow-motion running, jumping, and gymnastic endeavours. Observed by the women from a verandah where they are enjoying brunch after an elaborate, gay "destination" wedding, Samantha makes a remark that sets doubt loose in Charlotte’s mind. It takes a wet t-shirt scene while bathing the children, however, to cement the panic that sets Charlotte off to the “exotic Middle East” for a much needed vacation.
The rest of the movie really falls into two thematic arcs: Redeeming heteronormativity (in order to return them to their “good” lives as wives and mothers), and the conspicuous consumption the four women engage in as they maneuver within an exoticized trope of a “Middle East” that seems as if it were composed of stereotypes and Orientalist fantasies of several different countries/former colonies. The former comes at the expense of stereotypes of gay promiscuity, “inferior” unions of Muslim (re: oppressed) women, and an ill-advised dinner out and illicit kiss with an old flame, while the latter results in multiple culture clashes that are usually the direct result of the women’s utter disinterest in learning anything about their host culture or its practices. In one such scene, Samantha is eventually arrested for public indecency after flagrantly miming oral sex at a posh outdoor hookah restaurant in front of horrified locals, then going off for an intimate encounter on a nearby beach; another involves a surprise encounter with local women who not only read Suzanne Somers in their book club, but sport the Louis Vuitton spring collection under their niquabs and save the group from a mob of angry men in the market after Samantha again insults the culture with inappropriate clothing, a purse full of condoms, and another mimed sex act. The entire trip works to shore up pervasive and essentialist view of the “Middle East” it purports to feature (although it was shot in Morocco and New York). What could have been an opportunity to break with the binarism of much Western perception of similar societies mentioned by Rahul Hamid in his discussion of post-revolution Iran, ends without opening any meaningful dialogue or presenting a “wider range of positions” (61) that would enable us to look past the women’s obsessive rights-based rhetoric regarding the assumed oppression of the niquabi women around them by the country’s overbearing men. Given Joan Scott’s take on experience as, “… something which can confirm what is already known, (we see what we have learned to see)…” (Scott 23), it saddens me to think that this representation of both groups- American women and various peoples of the “Middle East”- was the second most popular movie in America, as well as worldwide, on its opening weekend, leaving me to wonder at how both groups will be discursively constructed among the millions of people worldwide who attended the film.
Below, I included clips from some of Rudolph Valentino’s work in a series of silent films in the 1920s that featured an equally essentialized picture of the “Middle East”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E97ytcgrTvs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nXZvMSVyy4
So, half an hour in, I already had a distinct feeling that this was to be an experience steeped in consumer culture and serious promotion of high end material goods, and began looking around me to see who would be joining me for the film. The theatre was at about half of its capacity, which could be an indicator of many things: The early hour, the large number of screens the film was playing on, or what I later learned were large numbers of 12:01 showings Friday morning in my area, some packaged as “girls night out” experiences that involved cooperation with nearby bars/restaurants. Most of the occupants were women in their twenties and thirties, often in large groups of five to ten people (although there were some pairs of friends, as well) and dressed to impress. Aside from me, the only other people attending alone were two men, and four or five couples out for obvious “dates” made up the remainder of the audience. Perhaps the most amusing moment of my whole experience came when one of the men attending with his “date” began wildly cheering for the car crash/explosion laden trailer for “Knight and Day”. He followed this up by cheering for the next two previews, both for melodramas; while humorous, after viewing the Sex and the City movie, I feel as though perhaps he had a good idea what he was in store for, and this was simply his last bid for freedom from the experience via ejection from the theatre.
The title sequence of the film is spelled out with hundreds of dazzlingly bright diamonds, and we are introduced to the characters in a meld of past and present that enables Carrie to recall how she came to New York and met each of them in the 1980s: As each “younger” version of a character walks toward Carrie in the flashback, we flash forward once again and see the women in the present, also walking toward Carrie in haute couture and six inch stilettos. This five minute stretch of name dropping and high fashion seems aimed primarily at establishing that time has passed, that these women have always been privileged enough to afford designer wear and move in Manhattan’s inner circles (one was a bartender at CBGB’s who became an agent, one is an established lawyer, etc.), and that they have aged and experienced life changes like marriage, childbearing, and extreme career success and advancement while remaining a tight knit group of friends. While the power to establish alternative kinships was a very real possibility in this film, it did not ever seem to be suggested in any serious way. There is a point where the friends discuss women as “soul mates”, regardless of men and babies; unfortunately, the extremely heteronormative focus of the film seems to negate the realization of this potentially radical alternative. In fact, the heteronormative is the second driving force behind Sex and the City 2 (conspicuous consumption being the first and most obvious), and this is why, in retrospect, that paper star makes so much sense. As a film about heterosexual (and highly “heteronormative”) women with money and privilege, marketed to women who want to watch them utilize both in a contrived plot device that sends them on an embarrassingly colonialist visit to the “new Middle East”, a ploy to play to the “savior” aspects of their audience’s conscience in the name of curing children’s cancer starts to seem less random.
The impetus that leads to each woman’s decision to join Samantha on her business trip to Abu Dhabi hinge upon various crises of the heteronormative aspects of their lives, with the exception of Miranda, whose husband’s infidelity was a major plot device in the first film. In the sequel, problems with a chauvinistic boss lead her to quit her job, thus freeing her to be a better mother (she makes it to her son’s school for an event for the first time)- and, of course, gives her unlimited time to travel to Abu Dhabi and enjoy an all expenses paid vacation in a $22,000 a night suite. Since this is a “business” trip for Samantha (who the hotelier wants to impress in order to gain her as an agent), and she is single, her crisis revolves entirely around her trying to come to terms with her age, entering menopause, and- due to the first major culture clash of the film- having to do so without any of the 45 pills and various bioidentical creams she ingests/uses daily to prevent said menopause from aging her further. Her fear of a lessened sex drive leads to a bizarre obsession with yams as a substitute for her lost remedies, and her personal butler (each woman has one- they come with the suite), who is established as gay due to his knowledge of Paula Abdul, caters to her every whim and joins her in an occasional yam face masque. Carrie, happily married to the man she spent five years attempting to get a proposal from, is in turmoil over her fear of becoming overly “domesticated”: She is worried about her husband’s desire to bring home gourmet take out and enjoy evenings in on the special-order, designer couch they waited a year and a half for. Charlotte's crisis is so contrived that it doesn’t exist until a painful moment involving a braless nanny turning cartwheels on a golf course in front of the women’s husbands, who gawk at her slow-motion running, jumping, and gymnastic endeavours. Observed by the women from a verandah where they are enjoying brunch after an elaborate, gay "destination" wedding, Samantha makes a remark that sets doubt loose in Charlotte’s mind. It takes a wet t-shirt scene while bathing the children, however, to cement the panic that sets Charlotte off to the “exotic Middle East” for a much needed vacation.
The rest of the movie really falls into two thematic arcs: Redeeming heteronormativity (in order to return them to their “good” lives as wives and mothers), and the conspicuous consumption the four women engage in as they maneuver within an exoticized trope of a “Middle East” that seems as if it were composed of stereotypes and Orientalist fantasies of several different countries/former colonies. The former comes at the expense of stereotypes of gay promiscuity, “inferior” unions of Muslim (re: oppressed) women, and an ill-advised dinner out and illicit kiss with an old flame, while the latter results in multiple culture clashes that are usually the direct result of the women’s utter disinterest in learning anything about their host culture or its practices. In one such scene, Samantha is eventually arrested for public indecency after flagrantly miming oral sex at a posh outdoor hookah restaurant in front of horrified locals, then going off for an intimate encounter on a nearby beach; another involves a surprise encounter with local women who not only read Suzanne Somers in their book club, but sport the Louis Vuitton spring collection under their niquabs and save the group from a mob of angry men in the market after Samantha again insults the culture with inappropriate clothing, a purse full of condoms, and another mimed sex act. The entire trip works to shore up pervasive and essentialist view of the “Middle East” it purports to feature (although it was shot in Morocco and New York). What could have been an opportunity to break with the binarism of much Western perception of similar societies mentioned by Rahul Hamid in his discussion of post-revolution Iran, ends without opening any meaningful dialogue or presenting a “wider range of positions” (61) that would enable us to look past the women’s obsessive rights-based rhetoric regarding the assumed oppression of the niquabi women around them by the country’s overbearing men. Given Joan Scott’s take on experience as, “… something which can confirm what is already known, (we see what we have learned to see)…” (Scott 23), it saddens me to think that this representation of both groups- American women and various peoples of the “Middle East”- was the second most popular movie in America, as well as worldwide, on its opening weekend, leaving me to wonder at how both groups will be discursively constructed among the millions of people worldwide who attended the film.
Below, I included clips from some of Rudolph Valentino’s work in a series of silent films in the 1920s that featured an equally essentialized picture of the “Middle East”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E97ytcgrTvs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nXZvMSVyy4
The Karate Kid (Minus the Karate)
On the Sunday evening of the opening weekend of The Karate Kid, I rode my bicycle down to the U7 movie theater on Shattuck Avenue in downtown Berkeley. The showing I sought to attend was scheduled to start at 10:30pm, but I arrived a little early with a friend to secure a seat and save time to observe the surroundings and absorb the movie going experience in its entirety. Tickets cost ten dollars apiece, with a student discount of two dollars. Upon entering the theater, Karate Kid posters of varying sizes adorned the walls of the lobby to flaunt the new film. Chinese style lanterns decorated the area, bearing racially charged connotations. The film was being screened in theater five, and upon entering, many of the seats had already been filled. Considering the fact that it was a Sunday, I was mildly surprised at the size of the audience. My friend and I elected to sit near the back of the theater, so I could maintain a decent view of the audience who would continue to filter in. The majority of the crowd appeared to be in the age range of early to mid twenties, and the groups generally seemed to be between two and four people. However, some people were older, some younger, and some sat alone. Racially, the audience was fairly well represented.
Previews for other films played their sequence, and as the opening credits began to flash across the screen, conversations among audience members simmered into silence. A lively energy animated the crowd, and this carried throughout the film. Laughter ensued during the comical moments, and the audience collectively reacted during scenes of violence. Overall, there was a strong engagement between the film and the viewers, which made for a stronger emotional experience than if I were to have viewed the film alone at home. Uncanny parallels were at work between this remake of the Karate Kid and its 1984 predecessor. The geographic location was a stark difference in this 2010 version, and it is peculiar that the film actually has nothing to do with karate, but rather, kung fu is the martial art being practiced. While this is acknowledged in an exchange between the main character, Dre, and his mother, the movie still retained the name of the former film. Tinges of orientalism taint this decision made by the filmmakers, as it alludes to a sort of homogenization of Asian people, language, and cultural elements from a Western gaze.
The predominantly featured characters of the film include Dre (played by Jaden Smith), who is a twelve-year-old boy whose mother’s job relocated the two to Beijing, China. Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) is the quiet, older maintenance man who lives adjacent to Dre’s apartment complex. Dre’s father is never seen, but it is made apparent early in the film that he had died some years earlier. His absence is in conversation with the black single mother narrative rooted in American racism. However, within his absence lives a space for Mr. Han and Dre to bond, which is a process that develops throughout the course of the film. Upon arriving in Beijing, Dre is greeted by a white American boy with blonde hair. The two go to the local basketball court to play a game, where Dre allegedly flirts with a young Chinese girl, and their conversation sparks a fight between Dre and a local boy, Cheng. Though Cheng’s martial art skills are far superior to Dre’s pitiful attempt to fight back, he refuses to back down. Cheng and his group of friends continue to victimize and taunt Dre throughout the course of the movie, hence the boy’s training with Mr. Han. The early alliance formed between the two American boys coupled with the immediately hostile relationship forged between Dre and Cheng (and his friends) bears tones of nationalism. The positioning of this fight is sparked by heterosexual flirtation, and this serves to construct extremely gendered roles in the blatant construction of masculinity. The hostility appears to subside only at the very end of film, when Dre defeats Cheng, with his fellow American friend cheering him on in the audience. Cheng accepts his defeat and congratulates Dre, acquiescing to his loss of opportunity for the championship. Despite his lifelong training, Dre’s short time training with Mr. Han was enough for the young American boy to prevail and win the ultimate championship over all the other Chinese boys. Constituted through this experience, his identity is then able to take on the title of “Kung Fu Champion” (Scott, 401). Read through this lens of nationalism, Dre retains the ideology of the American dream in his ability to achieve the seemingly impossible and reign superior to his bully, finally earning respect. The masculine alliance between Dre and his white American friend positioned against the Chinese boys and sparking with a fight over a girl teems with heterosexual nationalism, despite the young ages of the boys. The American, however, prevails (oh, and he also gets the girl). This trope speaks to Eithne Lubheid’s article’s point that discusses, “how sexuality constitutes a ‘dense transfer point for relations of power’ that structure all aspects of international migration” (Luibheid, 169).
The Karate Kid, however, was an endearing depiction of a young boy’s transnational migration to a different country. The film was aesthetically pleasing, entertaining, and a offered elements of comedy, youthful romance, emotion, and homosocial fatherly-son type bonding. I wasn’t entirely enamored with the film, but it was an entertaining and enjoyable way to spend two and a half hours. The audience seemed to receive the film well, and the film surely didn’t reek with the racism, sexism, and disgustingly offensive connotations that Sex in the City offered to its viewers.
jeni
Previews for other films played their sequence, and as the opening credits began to flash across the screen, conversations among audience members simmered into silence. A lively energy animated the crowd, and this carried throughout the film. Laughter ensued during the comical moments, and the audience collectively reacted during scenes of violence. Overall, there was a strong engagement between the film and the viewers, which made for a stronger emotional experience than if I were to have viewed the film alone at home. Uncanny parallels were at work between this remake of the Karate Kid and its 1984 predecessor. The geographic location was a stark difference in this 2010 version, and it is peculiar that the film actually has nothing to do with karate, but rather, kung fu is the martial art being practiced. While this is acknowledged in an exchange between the main character, Dre, and his mother, the movie still retained the name of the former film. Tinges of orientalism taint this decision made by the filmmakers, as it alludes to a sort of homogenization of Asian people, language, and cultural elements from a Western gaze.
The predominantly featured characters of the film include Dre (played by Jaden Smith), who is a twelve-year-old boy whose mother’s job relocated the two to Beijing, China. Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) is the quiet, older maintenance man who lives adjacent to Dre’s apartment complex. Dre’s father is never seen, but it is made apparent early in the film that he had died some years earlier. His absence is in conversation with the black single mother narrative rooted in American racism. However, within his absence lives a space for Mr. Han and Dre to bond, which is a process that develops throughout the course of the film. Upon arriving in Beijing, Dre is greeted by a white American boy with blonde hair. The two go to the local basketball court to play a game, where Dre allegedly flirts with a young Chinese girl, and their conversation sparks a fight between Dre and a local boy, Cheng. Though Cheng’s martial art skills are far superior to Dre’s pitiful attempt to fight back, he refuses to back down. Cheng and his group of friends continue to victimize and taunt Dre throughout the course of the movie, hence the boy’s training with Mr. Han. The early alliance formed between the two American boys coupled with the immediately hostile relationship forged between Dre and Cheng (and his friends) bears tones of nationalism. The positioning of this fight is sparked by heterosexual flirtation, and this serves to construct extremely gendered roles in the blatant construction of masculinity. The hostility appears to subside only at the very end of film, when Dre defeats Cheng, with his fellow American friend cheering him on in the audience. Cheng accepts his defeat and congratulates Dre, acquiescing to his loss of opportunity for the championship. Despite his lifelong training, Dre’s short time training with Mr. Han was enough for the young American boy to prevail and win the ultimate championship over all the other Chinese boys. Constituted through this experience, his identity is then able to take on the title of “Kung Fu Champion” (Scott, 401). Read through this lens of nationalism, Dre retains the ideology of the American dream in his ability to achieve the seemingly impossible and reign superior to his bully, finally earning respect. The masculine alliance between Dre and his white American friend positioned against the Chinese boys and sparking with a fight over a girl teems with heterosexual nationalism, despite the young ages of the boys. The American, however, prevails (oh, and he also gets the girl). This trope speaks to Eithne Lubheid’s article’s point that discusses, “how sexuality constitutes a ‘dense transfer point for relations of power’ that structure all aspects of international migration” (Luibheid, 169).
The Karate Kid, however, was an endearing depiction of a young boy’s transnational migration to a different country. The film was aesthetically pleasing, entertaining, and a offered elements of comedy, youthful romance, emotion, and homosocial fatherly-son type bonding. I wasn’t entirely enamored with the film, but it was an entertaining and enjoyable way to spend two and a half hours. The audience seemed to receive the film well, and the film surely didn’t reek with the racism, sexism, and disgustingly offensive connotations that Sex in the City offered to its viewers.
jeni
A Wreck in the City
I viewed the film, Sex and the City 2 by Michael Patrick King for my movies in the real world assignment. I have enjoyed the television series and watching them with my family helped us by more open about sex and talking about sex when I was younger. I appreciated the television series because it was unlike other female protagonist shows even though some of the mindless topics and conversations made me cringe. I saw the first Sex and the City film on its opening weekend in theaters and enjoyed it. However, I had heard such terrible things about the sequel that I went into the theater with very low expectations. In viewing the trailer, it seemed to push the limit as to how much money could be squeezed out of Sex and the City fans as the films content was obviously nonsensical. I went to the theater in my area, Shattuck Cinemas, a landmark cinema on one of the main drags in Berkeley. My ticket cost eight dollars since I went to the matinee screening, which still felt like a pricey cost based on my expectations for the film. The film was premiering on two screens and the theater was very comfortable in that there were spacious and comfortable couches for us to lounge in while we watched. The experience and ambiance was enjoyable and the audience mainly consisted of groups of giggly female friends. The film felt somewhat like the television series at first in that it took place in New York City except everyone, especially Carrie seemed to be extremely wealthy and have a lot of time on their hands. I guess the show departed from reality to an extent as well but the film felt all the more cheesy. After each of the four main characters divulged their individual over dramatized problems they escaped to Abu Dabi, even though they actually filmed in Morocco. The film had already had an extreme downfall at the wedding of two gay men that were best friends with Carrie and Charlotte, the wedding was O.K. except for Liza Minnelli's performance which left me with my teeth clenched in awkwardness. Once the gang was in Abu Dabi it became so farfetched. I thought I should just enjoy it as eye candy in scenery and fashion which is what most viewers probably got out of the film. But the remarks on Abu Dabi culture and male and female relations was so ignorant, obtrusive, and illogical that it was difficult to pay attention to the importance placed on the characters insignificant problems, such as Charlotte unable to get cell phone service in the desert because a pair of breasts is making her so insecure. The movie overall was pretty terrible but the acting wasn't half bad and I just hope they don't get the go ahead for another film because that really says something about our culture and audience in terms of the art of cinema. The audience's reaction to the jokes and climax in the film fell flat as did my own. The jokes were very calculated and the characters laughed at each other in a very inorganic manner. When the credits role after the anti climactic ending everyone seemed to have the same feeling as they fast pacedly rose from their seats and rushed out of the theater, to escape the horidness they had gotten their hopes up for. I was expecting the film to be bad and it was, but their were times that I enjoyed just simply seeing the characters all back together again and the scenery of the good old New York City streets, mainly becuase I was a fan of the television series. It seems audiences and my self are trying to hold on to what they enjoyed in the show in coming to the film, but the writing and plot did not deliver.
Movies in the Real World: Sex and the City 2
“We made a deal ages ago. Men, babies, it doesn’t matter; we’re soulmates.” Samantha Jones, Sex and the City 2.
I walk into the AMC movie theater in Emeryville, getting ready to see the 10pm showing on the opening day. As soon as I arrived there, we immediately see dozens of girls in stiletto heels, laughing with their group of friends all waiting in line in the lobby to see Sex and the City 2. We pay our expensive $11.50 ticket I am completely taken aback by their extreme make-up, their hair, their nails, their clothing and how it correlates with the “fabulousness” of the film. However, I’m not completely surprised because I had seen many advertisements about a Macy’s “Girl’s Day Out” in which there were many sales encouraging young women to go shopping before the film. I also remember the excessive publicity exerted by the publicists of the film and everything begins falling into place. I walked in that night wearing my work clothes and Uggs while my partner wore basketball shorts, a white t-shirt and Nikes. We immediately looked at each other and thought the same thing without having said a word, “I feel out of place.” I looked around and hardly saw any men, children and anyone over the age of 30. I think the targeted audience really was the one they got: women from the ages of 20-29 years. For some reason, it did not look as if it was completely aimed at the middle aged or elderly; it makes me question why this is. The plot of Sex and the City, the series and Sex and the City, the movie, were quite simple. They should appeal to everyone. So why was it just them, and us?
Inside of the actual movie room, the dozens of girls turned into about a hundred girls joking with their friends, on the edge of their seats waiting for the movie to begin. As it begins, there is a burst of applause as the young women all see the main characters. In the film, Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha embark upon another addition to the series, and the film. During the beginning scene, our eyes are completely drawn to the shine in everything that is filmed including the city exuding a kind of extravagance and fabulous lifestyle that appeals to us. We are then introduced to Carrie Bradshaw, the main character and we immediately know the film is mostly about her. Throughout the beginning of the movie, the emphasis is more on how the women have grown in their personal lives, marriages and lives as mothers. There is a wedding, Big, Carrie’s husband, has an opportunity to cheat, Miranda’s son is all grown up and her marriage is perfect, Samantha remains single and loving it and Charlotte has two daughters and a perfect family as well. One scene that really got to me was when Charlotte was cooking at home with her two daughters and they were both being children and “being bad.” Ultimately, she couldn’t handle it and left them both out in the kitchen by themselves. She hadn’t taken care of them for one day when she was already over her head with having children and “couldn’t stand them anymore.” She later decides to take a vacation away from her children with her best friends.
Throughout the film, many themes get addressed, be it purposefully or even accidentally. Some of the themes that stuck out to me in particular are: ageism, sexuality, motherhood, friendship, marriage, and an underexposure to different cultures. While the film is filmed in New York City, there is a vast majority also filmed in Abu Dhabi. This is where the majority of the criticism it sparked about the Middle East originated from. Another very popular scene of herself with the three other women in Abu Dhabi, and Samantha drops condoms in front of a lot of men. Everybody looks at her surprised and she looks around and yells, “Yes, they're mine! I have sex!” all while doing a thrusting motion with her legs open. In this region of the world, the Middle East, it is against their religion and their morals to speak of this sort of thing in public, much less dress the way they were. This reminds me of the article we read, “The Evidence of Experience” by Joan Scott in that she hasn’t experienced many different cultures and is pretty much oblivious to them. It also reminds me of this when in the article it states that many things are hidden in history and considered taboo. Sexuality is a big taboo in the Middle East and the fact that she is blatantly shouting obscene sexual things is very disrespectful and shows the amount of experience she doesn’t have. Also, I compared this to when Scott says that experience is not socialized and is an individual process; the lack of experience and knowledge that each of them have is very individual. I also wanted to mention the article “Continuous sex: the editing of homosexuality in Bound and Rope” by Lee Wallace. Wallace talks about how there was a type of denial of homosexuality in Bound, and it reminded me of the wedding shown in Sex and the City 2. Carrie and Charlotte’s best gay friends get married, but there is nothing beyond the wedding that demonstrates homosexuality in the film. The whole movie has many heterosexual sex scenes that can be considered pretty graphic, but a gay wedding (an extravagant one at that). I also remember how in the series there is also an editing of gay sex scenes; there must have been one I the entire series. It made me question how this heteronormative series and these movies hadn’t been thoroughly analyzed for any homophobia.
The rest of the film was very interesting, however, as a fan of Sex and the City, the series and the first movie, I was very disappointed. This movie lacked any substance, imagination and a plot. There was scattered laughter throughout the entire movie, scattered applause and giggling here and there. My partner and I looked at each other at certain moments of the film and were in shock. And the ending ultimately had a very cheesy "lesson" in the end: friends stick together no matter what. I thought, this is what I waited for? Man.
I walk into the AMC movie theater in Emeryville, getting ready to see the 10pm showing on the opening day. As soon as I arrived there, we immediately see dozens of girls in stiletto heels, laughing with their group of friends all waiting in line in the lobby to see Sex and the City 2. We pay our expensive $11.50 ticket I am completely taken aback by their extreme make-up, their hair, their nails, their clothing and how it correlates with the “fabulousness” of the film. However, I’m not completely surprised because I had seen many advertisements about a Macy’s “Girl’s Day Out” in which there were many sales encouraging young women to go shopping before the film. I also remember the excessive publicity exerted by the publicists of the film and everything begins falling into place. I walked in that night wearing my work clothes and Uggs while my partner wore basketball shorts, a white t-shirt and Nikes. We immediately looked at each other and thought the same thing without having said a word, “I feel out of place.” I looked around and hardly saw any men, children and anyone over the age of 30. I think the targeted audience really was the one they got: women from the ages of 20-29 years. For some reason, it did not look as if it was completely aimed at the middle aged or elderly; it makes me question why this is. The plot of Sex and the City, the series and Sex and the City, the movie, were quite simple. They should appeal to everyone. So why was it just them, and us?
Inside of the actual movie room, the dozens of girls turned into about a hundred girls joking with their friends, on the edge of their seats waiting for the movie to begin. As it begins, there is a burst of applause as the young women all see the main characters. In the film, Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha embark upon another addition to the series, and the film. During the beginning scene, our eyes are completely drawn to the shine in everything that is filmed including the city exuding a kind of extravagance and fabulous lifestyle that appeals to us. We are then introduced to Carrie Bradshaw, the main character and we immediately know the film is mostly about her. Throughout the beginning of the movie, the emphasis is more on how the women have grown in their personal lives, marriages and lives as mothers. There is a wedding, Big, Carrie’s husband, has an opportunity to cheat, Miranda’s son is all grown up and her marriage is perfect, Samantha remains single and loving it and Charlotte has two daughters and a perfect family as well. One scene that really got to me was when Charlotte was cooking at home with her two daughters and they were both being children and “being bad.” Ultimately, she couldn’t handle it and left them both out in the kitchen by themselves. She hadn’t taken care of them for one day when she was already over her head with having children and “couldn’t stand them anymore.” She later decides to take a vacation away from her children with her best friends.
Throughout the film, many themes get addressed, be it purposefully or even accidentally. Some of the themes that stuck out to me in particular are: ageism, sexuality, motherhood, friendship, marriage, and an underexposure to different cultures. While the film is filmed in New York City, there is a vast majority also filmed in Abu Dhabi. This is where the majority of the criticism it sparked about the Middle East originated from. Another very popular scene of herself with the three other women in Abu Dhabi, and Samantha drops condoms in front of a lot of men. Everybody looks at her surprised and she looks around and yells, “Yes, they're mine! I have sex!” all while doing a thrusting motion with her legs open. In this region of the world, the Middle East, it is against their religion and their morals to speak of this sort of thing in public, much less dress the way they were. This reminds me of the article we read, “The Evidence of Experience” by Joan Scott in that she hasn’t experienced many different cultures and is pretty much oblivious to them. It also reminds me of this when in the article it states that many things are hidden in history and considered taboo. Sexuality is a big taboo in the Middle East and the fact that she is blatantly shouting obscene sexual things is very disrespectful and shows the amount of experience she doesn’t have. Also, I compared this to when Scott says that experience is not socialized and is an individual process; the lack of experience and knowledge that each of them have is very individual. I also wanted to mention the article “Continuous sex: the editing of homosexuality in Bound and Rope” by Lee Wallace. Wallace talks about how there was a type of denial of homosexuality in Bound, and it reminded me of the wedding shown in Sex and the City 2. Carrie and Charlotte’s best gay friends get married, but there is nothing beyond the wedding that demonstrates homosexuality in the film. The whole movie has many heterosexual sex scenes that can be considered pretty graphic, but a gay wedding (an extravagant one at that). I also remember how in the series there is also an editing of gay sex scenes; there must have been one I the entire series. It made me question how this heteronormative series and these movies hadn’t been thoroughly analyzed for any homophobia.
The rest of the film was very interesting, however, as a fan of Sex and the City, the series and the first movie, I was very disappointed. This movie lacked any substance, imagination and a plot. There was scattered laughter throughout the entire movie, scattered applause and giggling here and there. My partner and I looked at each other at certain moments of the film and were in shock. And the ending ultimately had a very cheesy "lesson" in the end: friends stick together no matter what. I thought, this is what I waited for? Man.
The Kids and The karate Kid
I watched The Karate Kid for my movie in the real world assignment. Originally I am watching Cyrus on its opening weekend but turn out it opens only in NY and LA. So on the Sunday noon I went to UA Berkeley 7 on Shattuck Street for The Karate Kid (not on its opening weekend). When I was searching for showtimes on net I am quite surprise to find this movie ranked the top in the box office among the array of 3D movies, action, comedy and drama. Nonetheless, in Berkeley only three theatres are still screening it on the second week (to give way to Toy Story 3 perhaps!) The ticket for all movie and all time are standardise (across most theatres in Berkeley), regardless of the showing time or the length of the movie, adult at $10 and students got $2 off. I was encouraged to support their charity programme when I bought the ticket.
Promotional material of The Karate Kid is most prominent among all others. Beside the regular poster, smaller ones are found attaching to the walls, an even larger one behind the snack and beverage sales and a 3D promotional stand on the side of the lobby. The lobby is decorated by ‘Chinese lantern’ made by local school students and on most the figure of a karate kid is drawn. This is when I come to realise the movie actually targeted a wide range of audience—from kids to martial arts/ action movie lovers.
Before the actual screening four previews are shown, and most people come in at this time. In free seating people comfortably scattered. I watched the movie with around forty audiences, and as expected mostly are couples, some seniors, a few teenagers, and kids with their parents.
The pairing of Jackie Chan and the karate kid Jaden Smith is surprisingly appropriate. While I thought most people had choose to watch this movie starring Jackie Chan, turns out it is Smith who plays the lead and the movie is less a showcase of martial arts but more a melodrama.
With the light-hearted characterisation of Dre audience manages to engage in the movie perfectly. Smith’s performance is outstanding and natural, exhibiting all the essence of a kid in cultural transition—from annoyance, bitter, nervous, humiliated, to independent, cheerful and determination. The tinge of romance between him and the Chinese girl, Mei Ying, balances the tension between him and the gang of Kung Fu kid. Audience identified in silence when Dre was bullied and challenged by the ‘gangsters’. The kids in the theatre laugh out loud (and me too!) when Dre reluctantly ‘pick up/ hang on/ get/ wear on/ take off/ throw down’ the jacket on the hanger/ his body/ the ground as part of the ‘Kung Fu training’. Throughout the screening, audience’s laughter punctured Dre mimicking of Chan’s action and his wield Chinese.
The dramatic elements aside, with the deliberate selection and representation of China (the people, the locale, the language, the action)--which makes me recall then intentional framing, the film is to me is very much like a documentary/ ‘Introducing China’, which to a certain extent fits the situation of Dre and her mom, a black family in US new to China. The most traditional and typical locale are shot—Beijing, alleys, their house, the four section compound school, the great wall, the lantern festival etc, with relevance to Dre’s action—schooling and Kong Fu training etc. The whole idea of helping Dre (and his mom) fit in the community, and Chan’s teaching him ‘real’ Kung Fu is in general like getting the audiences know something about the real essence of Chinese Culture.
By the end of the movie I see reference to Clint Eastwood’s ‘Million Dollar Baby’. Both follows the training of the victim of bullying to (physically) fight back for him/herself, and on the battlefield s/he is unscrupulously beaten. The only difference is Maggie in Million Dollar Baby is forced to quit while Dre manages to revenge and win the championship. Though I sense a slight politics/ideologies behind this 'western over chinese', it's more or less toned down by the fact that the kid is taught by a 'real master' and that whom he's fighting is 'evil' (another deliberate painting).
This (highly tactful and commercial) film blended culture, action and emotion really well, though it is different from what I expected (from Chan), I enjoy the movie a lot, and so do the audience, walking out saying it’s a good one!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Sex and the City 2 - The Decline of Western Civilization
For my movies in the real world assignment I chose to view the movie Sex and the City 2. I went into the movie really wanting to like it. As most women in their twenties I grew up watching the T.V. series and I found it to be sexually liberating, for me it was my first exposure to women declaring that they wanted and enjoyed sex and then pursuing it. Perhaps it was me relating to the evidence of experience as disused by Scott. With that being said I headed to the theater on Shattuck in downtown Berkeley with one of my best girlfriends. We chose a matinee for the price cuts (we’re both students on a budget). The film was playing just about everywhere so selecting a theater was not a problem. The poster to the movie should have been my first indication to the film monstrosity that lay ahead. The poster itself was widely criticized for the massive amount of airbrushing applied to all of the four main characters, what did they do to Kim Catrall’s face?! As I settled into my seat, the theater had couches to sit in, the movie began with a view of New York City and a voice over by the character Carrie - and the decline began there.
The movie digressed from one cliché to another. I saw a series that had been about women trying to figure out there sexual needs and desires while fighting hetero-normative gender roles discarded from any plot line. Left were characters that were selfish, rude, and wholly unlikable doused in copious amounts of capitalism. They engaged in “wasteful, homogenizing, and marginalizing discourses of capitalism” Cruickshank 103. One of the main opening scenes displays a wedding between Anthony and Stanford. A scene that had the potential to be about the rights of homosexuals to marry was turned into the cliché of homosexuals lacking loyalty within marriage. The whole “in the mouth but not in the ass” is okay in marriage because you’re gay, right? According to this movie that was most certainly the case. In addition, Lisa Minnelli performs Beyoncé’s “If you liked it Then You Should Have Put a Ring on it,” accompanied by two younger versions of herself. At this point I was awkward, uncomfortable, and mad. In addition, the wedding took place with an entire chorus of gay singers on a white set, complete with a bridge, flowing river, and swans. I felt as if I had stumbled into a bizarre Wizard of Oz from hell.
The narrative of the movie continues; allow me to sum it up. Being overly wealthy, white, and married is truly the hardest role to fill (let’s all take an entire movie to fill sorry for the over privileged). Literally Carrie flees with her girlfriends to the Middle East to escape her upper east side multi-million dollar, I have everything and more than I could ever want/need, life (insert multiple adult tantrums as you please). Arriving in the Middle East the women begin an onslaught of racist, offensive, and intellectually devoid actions. I was embarrassed not only for women, but for Americans in general. The trip (which actually feels like a week) ends with the ladies finding that the once perceived repressed Arab women are in fact wearing the new Louis Vuitton Spring collection under their gowns – yay- we’re all selfish consumers with no intellect! In addition, the movie was filmed in Morrocco, not in the United Arab Emirates (because all those Middle East type desert places are the same).
Upon returning, the women and plot wraps up all of their woes. Charlotte, who was concerned about her braless nanny, found out that she was a lesbian! Hooray! Her body no longer holds a gaze or is threatening because she doesn’t and won’t screw her husband. Carrie returns home to find that her million dollar closet will bring her comfort. Miranada found a new job that she liked; she earlier in the film had the luxury of quitting her job because she didn’t like it. Finally, Samantha gets to return to her hormonal pills and creams to stand off women’s greatest plight – gasp- ageing!
This movie was possibly one of the worst movies I have ever seen. The audience that was around me seemed to feel the same way; no one laughed or really had any reactions to what was going on. When the lights went on everyone looked quite solemn as they exited the theater.
The movie digressed from one cliché to another. I saw a series that had been about women trying to figure out there sexual needs and desires while fighting hetero-normative gender roles discarded from any plot line. Left were characters that were selfish, rude, and wholly unlikable doused in copious amounts of capitalism. They engaged in “wasteful, homogenizing, and marginalizing discourses of capitalism” Cruickshank 103. One of the main opening scenes displays a wedding between Anthony and Stanford. A scene that had the potential to be about the rights of homosexuals to marry was turned into the cliché of homosexuals lacking loyalty within marriage. The whole “in the mouth but not in the ass” is okay in marriage because you’re gay, right? According to this movie that was most certainly the case. In addition, Lisa Minnelli performs Beyoncé’s “If you liked it Then You Should Have Put a Ring on it,” accompanied by two younger versions of herself. At this point I was awkward, uncomfortable, and mad. In addition, the wedding took place with an entire chorus of gay singers on a white set, complete with a bridge, flowing river, and swans. I felt as if I had stumbled into a bizarre Wizard of Oz from hell.
The narrative of the movie continues; allow me to sum it up. Being overly wealthy, white, and married is truly the hardest role to fill (let’s all take an entire movie to fill sorry for the over privileged). Literally Carrie flees with her girlfriends to the Middle East to escape her upper east side multi-million dollar, I have everything and more than I could ever want/need, life (insert multiple adult tantrums as you please). Arriving in the Middle East the women begin an onslaught of racist, offensive, and intellectually devoid actions. I was embarrassed not only for women, but for Americans in general. The trip (which actually feels like a week) ends with the ladies finding that the once perceived repressed Arab women are in fact wearing the new Louis Vuitton Spring collection under their gowns – yay- we’re all selfish consumers with no intellect! In addition, the movie was filmed in Morrocco, not in the United Arab Emirates (because all those Middle East type desert places are the same).
Upon returning, the women and plot wraps up all of their woes. Charlotte, who was concerned about her braless nanny, found out that she was a lesbian! Hooray! Her body no longer holds a gaze or is threatening because she doesn’t and won’t screw her husband. Carrie returns home to find that her million dollar closet will bring her comfort. Miranada found a new job that she liked; she earlier in the film had the luxury of quitting her job because she didn’t like it. Finally, Samantha gets to return to her hormonal pills and creams to stand off women’s greatest plight – gasp- ageing!
This movie was possibly one of the worst movies I have ever seen. The audience that was around me seemed to feel the same way; no one laughed or really had any reactions to what was going on. When the lights went on everyone looked quite solemn as they exited the theater.
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