So it's Valentine's Day...

Because we, like many of you, are often hopelessly romantic, please enjoy one of our favorite short films, Mad Boy, I'll Blow Your Blues Away. Be Mine.

The Polanski/Brown Corollary

Continuing the discussion of dirtball artists for just a bit longer, Jonah Weiner wrote in Slate this past week…

If your stomach turns a little at the thought of ever hearing Chris Brown’s voice again—or, for that matter, his name—get ready for one nauseous winter. The R&B singer, who pleaded guilty in June to beating his ex-girlfriend Rihanna during a February argument, is set to release his third album, Graffiti, in December. Last month, the lead single, “I Can Transform Ya,” hit radio, and the follow-up, “Crawl,” came out last week. There’s something audacious about Brown’s return, and not just because it took a scant three months for him to slide back into album-promo mode after entering his guilty plea. Brown has been exposed in the Rihanna saga, after all, as more than an abusive boyfriend. Promising affection and pleasure in his music but brutish and violent in real life, his love oil turned out to be snake oil: An R&B loverman best known for a domestic-violence conviction is an insupportable contradiction…

But Brown is also a major star (his first two albums have sold more than 4 million records combined in the United States), and he clearly isn’t ready to give that up…He may not know how to nail a contrite interview, but he does know how to deliver a first-rate pop song [the aforementioned “I Can Transform Ya”]…

The song raises an old question with no easy answer: What do we do when a bad person makes good art?

Let’s set aside for a moment the notion that Chris Brown makes good art. Weiner does ask an interesting question. Since the end of WWII, with the birth of teenage culture and rock and roll and the rise of television and all of the rest of it, the idea of celebrity has become practically inseparable from popular art—combine the two and you have the foundation for pop culture. And until the last decade or so, celebrity was so effective because it was easily manipulated and controlled by the artist and his/her backers (agents, studio execs, producers, etc.). The salacious details were always kept under wraps, leaving public consumers with glossy puff-pieces in the pages of Teen People (or its antecedents) or music videos that controlled all aspects of the artist’s visual image and personality. This type of control not only bred financial success; it also made questions about the artist’s actual personal character irrelevant.

But along came new media and TMZ and Twitter and the E! Channel. Now the celebrity dirt that once only kept grocery store tabloids alive has become big business. The demand for the type of material that, in the past, would have destroyed an artist’s career now competes with the artist’s actual output (see reality television). The old adage “Any press is good press” now reaches grotesque extremes. It’s often important for an artist to maintain some sort of scandalous side in order to justify their status as a celebrity.

Bringing this back around to Chris Brown, what are we, the listening public, supposed to make of his new music? Weiner avoids a straight answer, first broaching the idea that listeners compartmentalize their knowledge of Chris Brown-as-woman-beater so they enjoy “I Can Transform Ya” as a guilty pleasure, only toss out this idea with the hope that maybe a remix of the song will eventually see release, one that scrubs Brown’s vocals from the track altogether.

It’s a cute little dance, but seeing Weiner refuse to answer the relatively important question he poses is disappointing. I get it—to honestly answer this question is very difficult. It involves introducing ethical arguments into what is supposed to be the most mindless and easy form of enjoyment we have—the consumption of popular entertainment. Who wants to complicate things like that?

I could sympathize more with people who feel this way if I were more convinced that the “art” Chris Brown produces is, as Weiner ranks it, good. If there were some objective criteria, some transcendent quality that elevated the grating rhythm and lyrics of “I Can Transform Ya” to the status of art (not even good art, just art), maybe then I could entertain the setting aside of ethical questions about Chris Brown’s character. But Chris Brown and his collaborators and producers make a specific type of music for a specific type of musical demand. To put another way, Chris Brown and company would not have produced “I Can Transform Ya” if this musical demand did not exist. By every available definition, Chris Brown does not produce art. He produces Top-40 R&B/hip-hop that will exist and slide out of the pop culture canon relatively quickly. Using this criterion, I think it’s self-evident that Chris Brown-as-woman-beater in no way merits exclusion from value judgments about his work. The guy is a misogynist scumbag and, really, his music is an exploitative extension of his personality.

But say this is wrong; say Chris Brown is a producer of good art. In other words, let’s put Chris Brown in the same class as Roman Polanski. What now? This is where being an appreciator of good art in the twenty-first century becomes fraught with complication. It would be so nice if all great artists remained veiled in anonymity the way Stanley Kubrick was and Thomas Pynchon still is. But that is not the case with either Polanski or Brown. We know their dirty laundry just as well as we know their creative output. The two are forever intertwined.

Now I really see why Weiner danced around a clear answer. In my case, I really admire much of Polanski’s work. Chinatown and The Pianist are both incredible works of art. How can I reconcile my enjoyment and appreciation of these films with my knowledge that their creator was, at least for one night in 1977, a pedophilic rapist?

Great art is often so powerful that we forget that art itself exists as a form of human expression. Humans, in other words, come before the art that they produce. A thirteen-year-old girl in 1977 Los Angeles and Rhianna in 2009 Los Angeles come before a handful of great films and a few albums worth of forgettable R&B tracks.

So to answer Jonah Weiner: no, it’s not okay to like this stuff. But how can I un-like films like Chinatown and The Pianist? What if I lived a life of willing ignorance of pop culture? What if I knew nothing of Chris Brown’s and Roman Polanski’s personal lives? I think this is a conversation worth having and would love to hear other’s opinions, thoughts and comments.

Roman Polanski and Manhattan

The Swiss government’s recent arrest and potential extradition of Roman Polanski has rekindled public interest in the events that caused the director to flee the United States in 1977, and rightfully so. For those unfamiliar with the case, it’s really a simple one that can be summed up quickly: while in Los Angeles in March of 1977, Polanski gave a thirteen-year-old girl a combination of champagne and quaaludes and raped her. It’s pretty cut-and-dry. Polanski should have been sent to prison for the maximum amount of time afforded to rapists, but his lawyers and celebrity status combined to get his sentence reduced to a paltry forty-two days. This was too much for Polanski and he fled to France. He has not returned to the United States since.

Polanski’s case often brings out the hypocritical sides of fans and/or appreciators of art. It’s pretty tough for any person to claim that Polanski is not a dirtball. He’s a dirtball of the highest order. But unlike most rapists, Polanski’s public image is complicated by the undisputable fact that the man is one of the most talented living film directors. One really shouldn’t have anything to do with the other. But, as we all know, when it comes to artists (or, really, celebrities in general) people tend to make excuses in a way that goes against their usual best judgment. Yeah, he may have assaulted that girl, but that was a long time ago. And The Pianist is such a great movie. In a way, this type of conflicted thinking is a testament to the power of art. But that’s just an excuse.

Recently in The New York Times, Michael Cieply discussed how “[m]anners, mores and law enforcement have become far less forgiving of sex crimes involving minors in the 31 years since Mr. Polanski was charged with both rape and sodomy involving drugs.” While, in a general sense, this is a true statement (Cieply cites multiple news articles from 1977 that treat Polanski sympathetically), Cieply takes the obvious and easy (and unnecessary) step of analogizing Roman Polanski circa 1977 to Isaac Davis, Woody Allen’s character from Allen’s 1979 film Manhattan: “Mr. Polanski was treated by the authorities, including Judge Laurence J. Rittenband, not so much as a sexual assailant but…as a normally responsible person who had shown terrible judgment by having sex with a very young, but sophisticated, girl.”

On the surface, making the Woody Allen connection seems like a prudent choice giving Allen’s recent support for Roman Polanski and Allen’s own history with young women. Allen, in the eyes of many, is just as much a dirtball as Polanski. Allen married his then-partners’s adopted daughter, after all. And, yes, in Manhattan—a movie that Allen co-wrote, directed and starred in—a fortysomething Isaac Davis dates seventeen-year-old high school senior Tracy (Mariel Hemingway). Clearly, Allen and Polanski are cut from the same cloth, right?

The answer to this is an indisputable no. Without delving deeply into the history of Woody Allen’s personal affairs, let it suffice that Allen in no way conducted himself around Soon-Yi Previn (his former adopted stepdaughter and now wife) the way Polanski did around his victim in 1977. Allen began his affair with Soon-Yi when she was twenty-one years old and the relationship, from all prevailing evidence, was always consensual. I’m not an Allen apologist, but in reality he is guilty of bad taste and tactlessness, both of which are a far cry from the drugging and raping of a thirteen-year-old.

Cieply wisely avoided discussions of Allen’s relationship with Soon-Yi for these reasons. But he did make the Manhattan connection. This troubled me enough to write this post because I, like many fans of Allen’s films and American cinema in general, love the film Manhattan. And in all the times I’ve viewed this film I have never once seen Isaac Davis as “a normally responsible person who had shown terrible judgment by having sex with a very young, but sophisticated, girl.” In fact, to me, Isaac’s relationship with Tracy is the emotional core of the film.

Has the joke been on me this entire time? By enjoying Manhattan, and having never seen pedophilic flaws in Isaac Davis’s character, have I really been an inattentive and insensitive viewer. And, worse, have I subconsciously known all along that Isaac is a dirtball but let my own masculine side create artificial justifications for liking this guy?

In short, is it okay for guys to like Manhattan without feeling a requisite amount of guilt and/or shame?

There are two ways to go about answering these questions. The first and most direct route is to look at New York state statutory rape law. It’s a cold, clinical way to do film analysis, but in this case it’s probably normal for viewers to wonder if Isaac was actually breaking the law. After all, in the film’s first scene he is out in the open on an actual date with Tracy and another couple—at Elaine’s no less, a very non-secluded place. Likewise, in the film’s closing scene, Tracy tells Isaac (in a quote that Cieply also cites), “Guess what, I turned eighteen the other day. I’m legal, but I’m still a kid.” As it turns out, the age of consent in New York is seventeen. So Tracy was “legal” the entire time. But with eighteen being the US’s canonized age in which a teen becomes an adult, Tracy’s statement makes for a great movie line.

But that seems too easy, which is why the second and more difficult route is unavoidable. How did Allen frame and develop Isaac and Tracy’s relationship? This is where a catch-22 snags modern, forward-thinking men. Isaac and Tracy are Manhattan’s most nuanced couple. Their connection seems the most real. Even while Isaac spends most of his scenes with Tracy trying to convince her that she’s better off with someone her own age, it’s tough for a viewer not to want their relationship to work out. Tracy offers Isaac a relief from the self-absorbed women that populate his social circles; while Isaac offers Tracy unique (I won’t say more mature) forms of support and desire that she clearly lacks from her male peers. And Allen’s and Hemingway’s performances are fantastic. It’s really one of the more wonderful and enigmatic film relationships.

But one cannot forget that the relationship is Woody Allen’s construction. When one thinks about it this way, of course Isaac and Tracy are great together. Isn’t this a male fantasy, to be a fortysomething guy who develops the best relationship of his life with a beautiful, intelligent, mature seventeen-year-old? Looking across Allen’s body of work, his characters (as in, the characters Allen plays in his own movies) always tend to end up in the bed of women that are seemingly way too beautiful or young or just plain out-of-his-league. That, after all, is part of the charm of Allen’s films. In Manhattan specifically, though, age cannot help but rear its head. Are we watching Woody Allen’s most accomplished film relationship? Or are we watching a narcissist’s most accomplished male fantasy?

These are interesting questions in large part because, when looking at Manhattan from a storytelling perspective, Tracy’s age is not necessarily an integral piece of her character. This makes the male fantasy argument somewhat valid. But then again, what is the male fantasy—hooking up with a girl who’s not quite “legal,” or is it having a fulfilling relationship with a woman half your age after two failed marriages? There’s a legitimate difference between these two situations. The former is despicable; the latter is, well, a different story. And the former, I feel, aligns more closely with Manhattan. In the film, I feel Woody Allen uses Tracy’s age both for ironic and character purposes. The teenager, in being her non-cynical self, becomes the most honest and engaging woman in the film.

Turning one’s take on a film into Hegelian thought progressions or Socratic dialogues kind of saps the fun out of things, I know. After all, a large part of enjoying movies is taking in the visceral, in-the-moment experience that comes with watching a film for the first time. But great films must be given this type of extra thought as they become ingrained in our culture. I still like Manhattan. I still see Isaac and Tracy’s relationship as accomplished in its non-cynical view of modern romance. But I recognize that my conclusion is not the definitive conclusion. So while I call bullshit on Cieply’s analogizing Roman Polanski and Isaac Davis, I cannot fault Cieply for making the connection.

What Does The Birdcage Have to do With Michael Vick?

What does The Birdcage have to do with Michael Vick? Think back to the movie for a moment. Think back to the story: the well-meaning parents of a young man want to make a good impression on the parents of his new fiancée. Where’s the conflict? The well-meaning boy’s parents are gay men (Robin Williams and Nathan Lane) who run a drag cabaret and the fiancée’s parents are conservative politicians. At their son’s request, the gay couple reluctantly decides to pretend to have a traditional home. Nathan Lane, the club’s star performer, needs to appear in drag for a whole new audience for a whole new reason: to play the part of the loving housewife. Of course the charade can’t go on forever, and toward the end of the movie Nathan Lane finally reveals that he is indeed a man in drag and half of a loving gay couple. The conservative politician’s reaction is priceless: “You can’t be Jewish?!” The real concern is their queerness. Classic misdirection of concern; classic understatement of importance.

Are you getting deja vu yet?

On August 17, 2009 Public Policy Polling asked a sample of 909 American voters whether or not they supported Michael Vick’s reinstatement into the NFL. Overall, 49% of Americans supported his reinstatement while 34% did not and 17% were unsure. Take a closer look:

There is an even stronger divide along racial lines with African Americans supporting reinstatement 80-9 but whites by only a 42-29 margin.

Here are some more numbers for you: the team that prosecuted Vick recommended that he serve 12 months in prison. The man was sentenced to 23 months and served 18 of them. Really? What else did Vick do wrong to warrant all those extra months added to a recommended 12 month sentence?

There’s your quantitative data.

Here’s some qualitative data: People are still making a gigantic deal out of the dog abuse. I mean protesting and boycotting across the country in person and in print. I mean a Michael Vick chew toy (because there’s a market for people who want the man torn apart and devoured in effigy). I mean three billboards worth of hatred on the roads leading to Lincoln Financial Field where Vick will play with the Philadelphia Eagles.

I’m not saying it’s okay to abuse animals – of course it’s not – but that’s beside the point I’m making here.

My point is, in light of the above information, the reactions to Vick’s reinstatement do not seem to fit a crime worth only a 12 recommended months of federal time. There has to be something else going on here to account for the discrepancy between the crime he committed and the societal punishment the man’s been dealt. And what’s with that racial divide Public Policy Polling pointed out?

Don’t pull a Birdcage, people. Don’t misdirect your more substantial concerns – the ones that really bother you, that are the most uncomfortable to talk about and to recognize in yourself – to the dog issue. The disproportionate importance given to the dog issue gives the lie here. If your issue is with race, come out and own it. Don’t blame it on the dog.

If what is underneath this absurd reaction against Vick is resentment that a young black man has an amazing God-given talent, that he was the #1 draft pick in 2001, that he enjoyed being the top-earning athlete in his sport, that he did something fantastic with his life while you fettered away in a cubicle somewhere compelled to spread your misery far and wide, own it. Come out and say it. If you’re complicit in the epidemic of young black men (Vick’s still in his 20’s, he counts as young) being disproportionately sent to prison for disproportionately severe sentences, own it. If you can’t be honest with yourself, who else can you be honest with?

People should not give in to the temptation to use dog abuse as a cover for their race issues. They shouldn’t pounce on the dog issue as their proof positive that they were right all along, that “Vick didn’t deserve any of his success.” The people who determine whether Vick ‘deserves’ to be in the NFL are in the judicial system and the NFL itself as his employer. No one never screws up, no matter how fantastic his job is. And the dog issue is weak compared to the race issue.

What makes the dog issue weak is that it’s too easy. Everyone loves their pets, and the attachment people have to them is part of what puts pet ownership so close to our hearts. That’s easy to agree on. Everyone can agree that hurting animals is bad. (Sure, there are a precious few outliers with the dog issue agreement, but that’s spit in the ocean.) It’s also easy to speak for animals that can’t speak for themselves and contradict what we say. That (among other things, some of which I will return to below) makes the dog issue, one that legitimately and understandably bothers and makes uncomfortable tons of people an easy one to tackle by comparison to race.

Racial issues also bother tons of people and make them uncomfortable, but our relationships to race are not as rosy as those of pet ownership. In dealing with race, we’re no longer dealing with a voiceless group in need of someone to speak for them. We’re dealing with people who can speak for themselves, and do. There’s a reason race has achieved the monumental institutional status it’s achieved in this country. To compare dog abuse to race in size and importance would be like comparing the Washington Monument to a thimble. It takes some serious denial to turn away from race and say, “No, I think the dog issue is more important than my fellow human beings. I don’t have as complicated a history with dogs. I consider myself their benevolent master. Good thing there’s no racial undertone in that last sentence or I’d have a tough problem to deal with!”

Don’t pull a Birdcage on Vick. And while you’re at it, don’t pull one on anyone else either.

I Miss Sarah Connor

Since Jaws’ original theatrical release in June 1975, summertime at the box office has been synonymous with Hollywood event films. And in addition to bloated budgets, high grosses and often sophomoric scripts, a common thread among most studios’ summer entries is a pretty blatant sexism. Like the opening scene in Jaws, when a beautiful young woman is quite literally eaten alive, the modern action movie has relegated women (with few exceptions) to variations of the damsel-in-distress or hyper-sexed sidekick stock characters. (Think Megan Fox in this summer’s highest grossing monstrosity, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.) The most commanding and vital stock role—the action star—is practically always saved for the Harrison Fords and Will Smiths of the world.

But this isn’t a post about the lack female action stars. What I want to talk about is the uniquely sexist way most Hollywood films often depict the female heroines that have been able to break the glass ceiling and become action stars.

At this point, before I go any further, allow me to politely interject that I’m not out to ruin summer action movies for anyone. I know there are plenty of Tomb Raider and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle fans out there. Hell, there are probably just as many, if not more, fans of the Transformers series, some of which probably see Megan Fox’s character as anything but mere eye-candy (after all, she is a motorcycle repairwoman!). Point is, I’m not trying to tell anyone how or what to like. What I’m talking about is a different perspective.

In nearly all female-driven action movies, like the two mentioned above, one of the most common and pervasive feminine stereotypes is always at the forefront: sex appeal. Now before you roll your eyes, I’d like to point out that I know how obvious this is. In fact, it’s this very obviousness that makes the truly sexist elements of the modern female action star so easy to miss.

To clarify, let’s talk about the one thing most of today’s movie stars, men and women, share: looks. Strong, sexy, drop-dead good looks. A common and easy feminist argument (and, not coincidentally, one that turns a lot of guys off of any sort of feminist ways of thinking) against the depiction of women in Hollywood films is, simply, that many female stars are just too damn attractive. You know the company line: these beautiful women create impossible standards for young girls and influence women in general in ways more negative than positive. This is all well tread territory. And while there is truth to this argument, it’s becoming more and more apparent that the physical beauty of stars of both sexes affects viewers of both sexes. In the age of Photoshop and performance-enhancing drugs, young men, too, are falling under the spell of the chiseled action star or stud athlete.

So this kills the obvious sexist argument, right? I mean, if the beauty of both male and female action stars is exploited, this is no longer a uniquely feminist issue, right?

Wrong.

Like many issues across the feminist landscape, this is a case where an obvious point (no matter how true) actually obscures a more malignant problem. Think for a second about the modern action film from a directorial perspective (as oxymoronic as it may sound, the artistic perspective). Like all movies, the stars of actions films are presented to viewers through a series of camera shots. A commonly overlooked element of these individual shots is their subjective nature.

I know, I know, this sounds like a bunch of film school mumbo-jumbo. So let me put it another way. Like pictures in a magazine, each camera shot in a film suggests something about the character being photographed. When we see a man constructing a suit containing jet packs and missile launchers (Robert Downey, Jr. in Ironman), it’s clear the director suggests ingenuity, brilliance. When we see a grown woman waking up, taking out her retainer, and dancing across her bedroom in a t-shirt and underwear not unlike that worn by adolescent boys (Cameron Diaz in Charlie’s Angels), it’s clear the director suggests a playful, girlish sexiness.

The stereotypical ways directors choose to present their action stars often goes unnoticed in modern action films. The sex appeal, the allure that frames both male and female action stars, is a product of these presentations, these directorial suggestions. For male action heroes, the sex appeal comes first and foremost from his actions. We see Ironman destroy the villain; we see Spider-Man stop the train before it careens off the tracks. We see, in other words, the acts of a heroic man and thus find him appealing; his body comes second. For the female action hero, we first and foremost see her body—beautiful and deeply sexualized—captured lustily by the camera. Think of Angelina Jolie as Fox in Wanted or Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider films. Think of any of Charlie’s Angels. The bodies of most of our female action stars are subjected to the same exploitative directorial shots that practically define the Megan Fox’s of the world; only a veil of heroism shrouds this exploitation. For female action stars, the body comes first; their acts come second.

This is why I miss Sarah Connor so much.

I’m talking about the most emphatically feminist action star of the past few decades, that’s who. As anyone who has seen Terminator 2: Judgment Day can attest, Sarah Connor (as portrayed by Linda Hamilton) is probably the most physically intimidating—badass—female presence to grace the screen since the heyday of Pam Grier. But unlike Grier’s blaxploitation films, and most of female-driven action films of today, Hamilton’s body is never, not for a moment, the subject of the camera’s gaze. In fact, the only time the film shows-off her physique is when we see her doing pull-ups, a typically “masculine” exercise, in her hospital room.

Sarah’s dress and appearance also go against the grain of the stereotypical hyper-sexed action heroine. At the start of the film, she appears seemingly without make-up, wearing only nondescript hospital sweats. Later, Sarah dons black cargo pants and a black tank top (see the above picture). Does she look good? You bet your ass she does: cigarette in one hand, semi-automatic rifle in the other; sunglasses on and a holstered knife adorning her belt. She looks like… she is an action star. Her wardrobe works in conjunction with the development of her character and the arc of the film’s story. Sarah Connor is as tortured and flawed as she is heroic. She exhibits true pathos. So to see this hardened figure preparing for battle, a viewer cannot help but think of the events that led her to this point and the badass fight she’s about to enter. In other words, Sarah’s actions come to mind first. Any sex appeal she gives off derives from these actions.

Take a look now at Lara Croft as portrayed by Angelina Jolie.


What we have here is not a female action hero but a male fantasy. In the Tomb Raider films, Lara Croft is a sexist caricature of a female heroine—beautiful almost beyond words, wealthy, and completely one-dimensional. It’s easy to focus on her solely on her looks because, really, there’s not much else to her character. Look at her short shorts, the accentuation of her breasts; see the garter-like weapons holsters and her pouty lips. Lara Croft’s appeal is exclusively sexual and not limited only to her classic outfit. All of clothes she wears in both films highlight Lara Croft’s otherworldly beauty. Even her movements, whether she’s walking, working out or fighting, are smooth and seductive. Any feelings of empowerment Lara Croft provides are partly empty because the character remains solely a male sexual fantasy masquerading as an action hero.

This sort of viewing perspective is useful for guys approaching feminism because it brings attention to one of the most common exploitations that feminism speaks out against: objectification of the female body. I’ll be the first to admit that, as a guy, female objectification is not always the easiest thing to catch. After all, guys are a primary audience for badasses like Sarah Connor and hyper-sexed icons like Lara Croft. We’re supposed to like them both, a lot. So it’s easy to get suckered into the false conclusion that all of today’s female action heroes represent greater parity—in quantity and quality—among women in action films simply because they exist at all. Like I mentioned in the last post, it’s no longer enough for a woman to simply play the role of action hero; now the question becomes, ‘How well does she do the job?’

An action hero’s true authenticity is a product of how the hero is presented. So the next time you watch a female action hero command the screen, ask yourself what are the camera shots are suggesting about the heroine. What does her wardrobe suggest? Remember, feminism and physical beauty are not mutually exclusive. But as the Sarah Connor/Lara Croft comparison proves, the presentation of an image often demands just as much attention as the image itself.