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bentrivettontherocks:

Toni Collette.

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Misogyny and the ‘Women Tumbling Downstairs’ Supercut

On Thursday night, our final show for the 92nd Street Y kicked off with a video supercut of movie actresses tumbling down staircases. This was a program that included a “Choose Your Own Adventure” style burlesque act in which, at the audience’s whim, the performer was stripped of her wig and makeup in addition to her gloves and corset; we also saw a presentation on the mystical relationship between women and swine, from Miss Piggy to the Pig-Faced Women of the olden days. Mara Wilson charmed and alarmed us with tales about her transition from renowned child actress to grownup writer-of-words. And yes, I personally presented on how the male fear of matriarchal cultures manifests in pop culture as females (such as Alicia Silverstone in “The Crush”) killing people with bees.

It was a night for, about, and including women, which finished off a three-year series of similar events featuring well-known actresses, authors, and other artists. My friends and I brought a gay male sensibility to the proceedings; I shared lipstick with Louise Lasser. Boylesque star Go-Go Harder performed a Sparkle Motion-themed striptease in front of Beth Grant herself. Nothing seemed off limits, as long as our ideas always came from a place of love and devotion for our cause célèbre.

I mention all this because yesterday, without my knowledge, my “Women Tumbling Downstairs” supercut was posted to MetaFilter, where it was immediately bombarded with accusations of misogyny and promptly deleted from the site. I probably would have framed the post a little differently, but basically all the important information was accessible to the site’s audience, and yet bad faith was still presumed from the very start.

To be fair, a lot of the works we present at Meet The Lady are misogynist, either directly and indirectly. This is usually tongue-in-cheek, with the presumption that the audience understands and shares our perspective. But what I believe differentiates this from ironic “hipster misogyny” is that our examples almost never go unscrutinized and unpacked. The “women killing people with bees” material inspired me to show a clip from Neil Labute’s “The Wicker Man” remake, but not uncritically or without commentary. And we certainly enjoy camp and kitsch, because hey, it’s entertaining, and it reminds us how preposterous gender presentation can be in the mainstream media and arts. When I presented a clip from the Japanese erotic fantasia “Cat Girl Kiki” — in which a young man’s adopted kitten transforms overnight into a beautiful cat-woman who cheerfully dons a maid uniform and begins cleaning his apartment — it was met with gasps, groans, and ultimately peals of confounded laughter. There is no question whether the film is misogynist, but in three years of shows, no one has ever questioned my own intentions or the ethics of presenting these materials to an audience of mixed company.

Perhaps that’s why I reacted so strongly to the MetaFilter comments and weaselly deletion. There were moments while editing this compilation that I was genuinely disturbed by what was on the screen. (Oddly, the clip that gave me the most pause — Penelope Cruz’s horrific tumble in Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces” — received one of the biggest laughs during the live screening.) But the supercut seemed to do what it set out to do, which was present the viewer with a totally absurd look at a frequently recurring (and often iconic) incident in movies of nearly every genre.

Obviously I’d love to be able to talk about the video without having to defend myself against accusations of misogyny. But if we had to have that conversation, then I’d like to be able to explore the issue in much greater detail and ask some questions of my own. If a piece of art or media presents you with acts of violence specifically against women — whether comedic or dramatic in effect — does that in itself constitute misogyny? How much of that determination depends on the gender or intention of the presenter, if that info is available? If (as in this case) many of these violent acts are also perpetrated by women, how does that color your impression? Is the satirical “Death Becomes Her” — which was written and directed by men, and which presents many exaggerated stereotypes about women, in addition to especially gratuitous comedic violence — a work of misogyny?  (I don’t believe so, but I’m suddenly so fascinated by the idea that I’m tempted to write an entire Armond White-style column proclaiming it is so.)

If you care to know, I was drawn to the idea of the supercut because of the kinetic visual appeal — I imagined the cascading motion of all that tumbling would be mesmerizing to watch. And while it’s true that male characters do sometimes fall down the stairs, it seemed that there was special tragic (or comedic, depending on the film) appeal to the sight of women taking a tumble. I suspect it’s because of the way women are objectified as glamour icons (which is more thrilling to smash: a coffee mug, or a valuable Tiffany vase?) or characterized as dainty and physically vulnerable. There’s definitely a whiff of the Death and the Maiden art motif at play here: we can’t truly appreciate earthly beauty and splendor without being reminded of the imminent threat of Death’s decaying kiss. It’s as if one could tempt fate simply by being desirable to others. in fact, there are many ancient myths that set this very precedent.

That may sound like a lot of thought to put into such a silly video, but these are the kinds of conversations I had with people about the project here and there along the way. I enjoyed playing with the shifts in tone so that the horror and the comedy folded into each other, and I feel it successfully captured that kinetic quality I was hoping for.

When I was upset about the way the MetaFilter discussion went, my friend Rebecca Rogers Maher (who is a kickass romance novelist) offered me the following wisdom: “The comments seem to skew toward confusion, discomfort and an unwillingness to commit to a firm conclusion about what you meant. I’d call that successful art.” While I don’t consider the supercut (or any supercut) to be a work of major artistry and importance, I think she is right: the video is entirely based on my own priorities and sense of humor, which I considered very carefully and executed as cleanly as possible.

I try to imagine being the kind of person who could watch something like this completely uncharitably, my hackles raising as I watch one woman after another bouncing down the stairs. Even in the cases where these tumbles were intended as comedy, I concede there’s a bit of shock involved — that “Oh my God, are you alright?” instinct is exactly what filmmakers are trying to trigger. It’s a cheap, effective trick, which may be part of why it’s so common. Perhaps if this was “Women Getting Shot in the Head” (which unfortunately would be a much longer supercut) I would understand. In my world, these are two very different things; perhaps for others it isn’t so.

Even so, t’s very difficult for me to imagine declaring “This is misogynist” without asking any questions or digging any deeper. I know that in many communities there’s a sort of cultural cache to being the first one to register offense and/or dismay, especially when it comes to touchy subjects like gender, sexuality, and violence, but that’s just not the way my brain works. It is, unfortunately, the way MetaFilter works now, which is one of the reasons I left the community last year, despite having contributed hundreds of posts primarily related to LGBTQ and women’s issues.

At first I regretted not being able to defend what I’d made, and then later I was determined to leave the entire thing alone. As it turns out though, I have enjoyed having an excuse to probe my own intentions more deeply, and come up with clean hands. I hope you enjoy the video, I’m happy to discuss it if you don’t, but I already feel more emboldened than ever to keep presenting original (and semi-original) programming for people of all genders who get it and want to come along for the ride.

[Update for modernserf: I actually don’t know The Whelk terribly well IRL — at least, not any better than I did when he first posted MTL to the MeFi a couple of years ago, and that post was not contested. Also, context was given: links to my site and show page on FB, etc., which at least attempt to advertise what we do. Not an ideal post, but the deletion reason given was totally flimsy — the post clearly got a lot of early flags and was deemed more trouble than it was worth.]

My “Women Tumbling Downstairs” supercut from last night’s show. Enjoy!

Last Friday, MTL host Tom Blunt was interviewed by the online radio show HistoryChiq Smart Talk about the past, present, and future of his variety show. Listen above at your leisure!

manticoreimaginary:

Laetitia Casta, Cannes Film Festival (May 26, 2013)

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