On muppets, mogwai, and mutant gherkins: gendered anthropomorphism and the token female character

Recently, and within the space of four days, I watched Joe Dante’s Gremlins and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1984/1990), followed by the new Muppets Most Wanted (Bobin, 2014). The former two I had seen numerous times before, and still enjoy the totally madcap recklessness of them both. The latter is the sequel to 2012’s The Muppets (or, more accurately, the seventh sequel to what was a film adaptation of a TV variety show) and may not have the rewatchability of the Gremlins films, but was an enjoyable way to spend a Sunday afternoon (although, I do wish they had stuck with the original concept title of The Muppets … Again).

Watching this trio of films in quick succession, I couldn’t help but notice a trope that is used in all of them – or, at least, in the second Gremlins film and Muppets Most Wanted – and that is the use of the token female character, particularly in the form of what Anita Sarkeesian refers to as the ‘Ms. Male Character’ or the ‘Smurfette Principle’. For more detail on what these related concepts are, I highly recommend you watch Sarkeesian’s excellent video (embedded below) exploring this concept in video games. (It’s long, but worth it. Her other videos in the Tropes vs. Women project are also highly worth the watch for anyone interested in issues of gender representation in popular culture.)

You can also read a transcript of her video here, if you don’t fancy the audio-visual mode, but it really works better with the visual examples.

In short, the Ms. Male Character is a female version of a popular character that was previously male or genderless. Culturally, we see the male as ‘norm’, while to mark something as female we must plaster this norm with stereotyped additions (bows, skirts, long, sultry eyelashes), because anything other than maleness is ‘abnormal’ – just think of the male toilet symbol being a plain stick figure with no obvious gender, while the female symbol is marked as such by the addition of a skirt, and sometimes a bobbed haircut and/or a narrow waist.

I’m bringing all this up specifically in relation to the use of the Ms. Male Character and the token female character in films such as Gremlins 2 and Muppets Most Wanted. I first began to notice this trope after being introduced to it during my MA course at the University of Hull, on a module called Gender and Disney (looking at gender issues in Western society at large, but through the lens of a popular culture icon), and then even more so after Sarkeesian’s above video, and the other videos in her series. One recent example that jumped out at me is in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (Cameron & Pearn, 2013), the lesser-but-still-pretty-awesome sequel to [if you really need me to say then why are you reading this?]. In the film, Flint Lockwood and cohorts return to their island which, at the end of the previous instalment, was left abandoned and covered with giant food. That food has now mutated into various food-animals (foodimals) with pun-tastic names such as cucumbird. One of the species of foodimals is a group of anthropomorphic gherkins.

At first, these gherkins seem to be genderless. After all, why would they need a gender? THEY ARE GHERKINS. And, despite being alive and sentient, they also appear to be asexual and without the need to reproduce, since the FLDSMDFR (no, that isn’t a keyboard smash, that’s the acronym for the machine that caused the food to mutate – long story) continues to consistently ‘birth’ new foodimals. Here are some of the gherkins:

There’s nothing about these gherkins which seems to gender them in any way. They really are just gherkins that have been sliced open and given pimento eyes. That is it. Okay, one has a fishing rod which tends to be an activity associated with men, but I will get to that.

Then, later in the film, this gherkin pops up:

Cute, right? But this is also a classic example of the Smurfette Principle/Ms. Male Character. Note the curved physique (it’s very weird to use the term ‘physique’ in relation to a gherkin), ‘feminine’ curly hair style, eyelashes, and fish-hook earring. Now that we have been shown a member of the species which is so clearly marked as being female, we are forced to assume that the others are coded as male. Furthermore, this does not stop at appearances. ‘She’ is cradling what appears to be some sort of onion – I’m unsure whether she is supposed to be treating the onion as a pet or an infant (I’m no expert, but I don’t think onions and gherkins bear any relation other than both being vegetables), but, either way, it puts her in the role of the carer/mother figure. In this gherkin society it seems that, similarly to traditional human gender constructs, the female of the species remains at home in the role of carer and nurturer, while the male goes out fishing, i.e. in the role of hunter/provider. What’s more, this female is the only one of her kind. The token female.

I am of course using the term ‘token female’ rather loosely, in relation to a female who is the only one of her species or occupation. In Cloudy 2 (and the other films I’ll discuss below) there are other female characters, human, animal, and foodimal. But, as I say, Gherkette (I just made this up) is the only ‘female’ gherkin we see throughout the film, and is as accessorized as such, while the ‘male’ gherkins are bare.

Let’s move on to the films that inspired me to make this post: Gremlins 2 and Muppets Most Wanted. Gremlins are similar to Cloudy 2’s gherkins in the sense that, in the first film at least, there is nothing to suggest that they are of any gender. (The official term for the creatures is ‘mogwai’, which I use here to refer to the creatures in their original, soft and cuddly state, like Gizmo. I use ‘gremlins’ to refer to the malicious lizard-like creatures that the mogwai turn into if they are fed after midnight.) They have no genitalia, nor do they have any use for it since they are parthenogenetically birthed when another member of the species comes into contact with plain water. However, the characters in both Gremlins and Gremlins 2 seem to automatically assume that the mogwai/gremlins are male, with no evidence. Even the scientists in Gremlins 2 are guilty of this, and they should know better. Take this scene (and try not to get distracted by how adorable Gizmo is):

All three scientists begin by referring to Gizmo as ‘it’, but then all of a sudden refer to Gizmo as ‘he’, after Christopher Lee utters ‘He likes this music?’ (it is difficult to tell, but this is confirmed by the DVD’s subtitles), followed by calling Gizmo ‘my boy’. Unlike the twin scientists, Lee is meeting Gizmo for the first time, and has not examined Gizmo in any way in order to determine gender. He is making a blind assumption.

Let us do what these scientists failed to, and examine the bodies of the gremlins in further detail. Here is a ‘normal’ gremlin, as established in the first film:

(It’s basically impossible to find a full-body shot of a gremlin from the film itself; as they are puppets, we almost always see them from the waist up, but to my knowledge the above is an accurate representation.)

As with the gherkins and the toilet stick-figure symbols, there is nothing about the body of the gremlin which is inherently ‘male’, but as we are culturally conditioned to assume that the male is norm, it becomes automatically accepted that body types like the above are either male or asexual – rarely female.

As seen in the video above, there is a sub-plot in Gremlins 2 that involves a scientific lab with all sorts of B-movie experiments going on. Inevitably, the cheeky gremlins get their claws on several vials of chemical potions. One turns a gremlin into a spider, another a bat, another a ‘genius’ gremlin with the intelligence of a human adult. And one of them, of course, turns a gremlin female.

Behold, Femlin (again, I am making this up):

I do actually like the female gremlin. She’s kind of fabulous, and seems to really rock that leopard-print bikini and long, green hair. But, it’s not necessarily her appearance that I really have a problem with in as much as it’s the need to coat her with accessories in order to mark her as female, and the ‘other’ to the ‘normal’ male gremlins. (I also find it problematic that she clearly has a fully developed female physique, when it is my opinion that, in the first films at least, the gremlins are coded as naughty children. However, since Gremlins 2 seems to not just throw away the rule book, but shred it to pieces and burn them to cinders – the Brain gremlin is birthed with glasses already on – perhaps we cannot dwell too much on this.)

What is also extremely problematic about Femlin is her motivations as a character, and her place in the story. Femlin is created quite a long way into the film, and while her role is relatively minor, it is difficult to ignore. As the only overtly ‘female’ gremlin, she is celebrated as such by her asexual/male counterparts: a musical number of ‘New York, New York’ the other gremlins forming a giant mosaic of her face, from which she emerges in a glam red dress, accompanied by cat calls and wolf whistles.

One can certainly read a number of positives into the depiction and celebration of Femlin: on the one hand, it is quite nice that she revered due to her status as the lone female. She is also clearly more socialised than the other gremlins, and this is her salvation. The other gremlins are all bent on exiting the building in which they are trapped, waiting until sunset when it will be safe for them to venture outside and wreak havoc and destruction on the Big Apple, while also seeing all the sights it has to offer. This is the gremlins’ downfall, as while they wait in the building lobby for the sun to go down, Billy and his cohorts take advantage of them all being in one place and electrocute them. All but one, that is. As we find out at the very end of the film, Femlin survives. Rather than being bent on destruction and mayhem, Femlin is more focused on romance. We find out that she has trapped a human male in a bathroom, and the film closes with her preparing to marry him. Her salvation therefore lies in her being a great deal more socialised than the other gremlins, and rather than desiring to rampage New York City she merely desires to wed and, presumably, live happily ever after.

While on the one hand this happy ending for Femlin seems great, it is extremely problematic and frustrating that she is given this happy ending and character motivations that are based on lazy gender stereotyping.

This brings me to the only human female character in this discussion: Nadya from Muppets Most Wanted, played brilliantly by Tina Fey sporting a Russian accent. Nadya is a prison guard at the Gulag in which Kermit has been mistakenly incarcerated (in the place of his evil doppelganger, Constantine). Nadya seems to be the prison guard in charge, ‘welcoming’ Kermit in the number ‘Big House’, being put in charge of orchestrating the annual show put on by the prisoners, and is also clearly very good at her job as she foils every one of Kermit’s attempts to escape (due to her having seen every single prison movie, thanks to her Netflix subscription).

However, like Femlin, it is Nadya’s motivations which are problematic. She quickly becomes aware that Kermit is not Constantine, and yet she does nothing to help him appeal and be released. Why this is is not made entirely clear to begin with (although, I am basing this off of my slightly hazy memory of the film – please correct me if I am wrong), though towards the end of the film we discover that it is because she is completely, utterly infatuated with Kermit. Therefore, her motivation in keeping Kermit at the Gulag is not due to simply a Shawshankian injustice of the justice system, but because she wants to marry him. Sigh.

Why is this such a big deal? Well, firstly, this would not have happened had the prison guard been a male character, not least because it is highly unlikely that a family-oriented film from a major Hollywood studio would include a homosexual relationship (but bestiality is fine, apparently). Had the character of Nadya been a male, undoubtedly the screenwriters would have had to concoct a different reason for Kermit to be kept in the Gulag. Although, perhaps that is because of the ‘easy’ female-wants-to-wed character trope that they made the character female. It also continues a narrative that Kermit is irresistible, given that Miss Piggy’s main motivations in both The Muppets and Most Wanted are to finally marry Kermit (and it is this desire that, for a great deal of Most Wanted, prevents her from realising that Kermit has been replaced by Constantine, as Constantine is willing to give her what she wants). I love Miss Piggy – she, like Femlin, is fabulous. She’s tough and doesn’t take any bullshit. However, when you look at the key female characters across recent Muppets films (I am avoiding talking about the earlier films, as I ashamedly haven’t seen anything prior to 1991’s Christmas Carol), including Amy Adams’ Mary and Gremlins 2’s Femlin, and notice that they all have one thing in common – a desire to wed – this is very troubling.

This is not to say that female characters cannot have the desire to wed at all. However, it becomes frustrating and worrying when this lazy and gender-rooted character motivation is repeated over and over. It is further exacerbated due to the fact that Femlin and Nadya are the only women of their species or, in Nada’s case, occupation (as, at least in the 24 years between Gremlins 2 and Most Wanted, the female characters have jobs). It might still be annoying, but not half as bad if there were other female prison guards in addition to Nadya who have no interest whatsoever in forming a romantic relationship with Kermit. Or, if in Gremlins 2, there were other female gremlins who are just as bent on destruction and mayhem as the ‘male’ ones. But no. In these films the female is an oddity, a novelty, and while she is often kick-ass and the best character in a film, she also often embodies lazy gender stereotypes. Add to this that Gremlins 2, Muppets Most Wanted and even Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 are all aimed primarily at the child/family audience, and that these films are seeming to enforce to children that the females of the species are a) a novelty, and greatly outnumbered by their male counterparts, b) abnormal, and both derived from and in opposition to the male 'norm', and c) whether or not they have a job, are in charge, or generally fabulous and bad-ass, they are ultimately looking for heterosexual romance and a happily ever after.

While the roles of Gherkette, Femlin, and Nadya are relatively minor in their respective films and in the grand scheme of things, they make up just a small number of countless other examples from film, television, video games, and other media that we are exposed to every day. Their place in these popular culture texts is insidious – and it needs to stop.

I'd hate to end on a completely negative note, so I want to end with some positive examples of non-human characters that are not merely asexual or male with female parts added on. Sarkessian mentions some good examples from video games in the video above. Although I have criticised the depiction of Gherkette in Cloudy 2, I should point out that the film also includes other 'mother' foodimals that are not visually modified to gender them as female. For example, the tacodile is seen with baby tacodiles, and does have any features which gender her as being either male or female. WALL-E and EVE, the pair of robot protagonists in WALL-E (Stanton, 2008) are clearly intended to be thought of as male and female judging by their names alone. However, in terms of their 'bodies' they are not given any sorts of accessories that give them an explicit gender, other than EVE's body being sleek in a way that we may say is feminine; however, we can also put this down to her being a more advanced robot than WALL-E. If there are any more examples, I would love to hear about them.

Hullfire #2.5: E-readers: The Debate

Originally published: December 2011

Hullfire URL: print only

This is an article debating the pros and cons on e-books and e-readers that I co-wrote with another great Hullfire writer, Lorna Goode, commissioned by the Arts editor. It was published a while ago, and there are two reasons that I am only just publishing it here now:

1) I come across as a bitter, nostalgic Luddite. Although I am ever so slightly more against e-books than I am for them, it would have been nice to be able to write both sides of the argument rather than just one, the negative side. Or at least the article could have been written in a way in which we both engaged with each other a bit more and came to a conclusion, but as I don't have a time machine (and quite right, too! So dangerous ...) this is how it happened. That being said, I still wholeheartedly agree with everything I say here, although I am aware of many of the benefits of e-books. 

2) I don't have the positive side of the argument, so it is rather unbalanced. It was never published online, but I do have it in print somewhere. I may try to track it down and transcribe it at a later date.

In spite of these reasons, I've decided that I may as well have all of my Hullfire writing on the blog to achieve a sense of completeness (as ironic as that sounds, given reason #2). So, belatedly, here is my last remaining article for your perusal.

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Cost

Although some e-books are cheaper than physical ones (especially when it comes to hardbacks), many – bafflingly – are more expensive.  Add that to the cost of the e-reader itself and suddenly libraries, eBay and second-hand book stores are looking very attractive.

Piracy

Despite it being highly illegal, the piracy of films, music and other digital media has practically become commonplace, and now thanks to e-readers books are also becoming a target of theft.  But unlike films and music, anyone can walk into a library and pick up a book for absolutely free.  To illegally download one would just feel morally corrupt, like stealing from a charity shop.

Reading is a sensory experience

When you read a book, it isn’t just about the words on the page.  It is also about the gorgeous cover art, the smell of the pages, the satisfaction of cracking the spine on a new purchase.  Books are tangible, providing a physical experience, all of which is lost through the process of digitisation.

Loss of the personal touch

There is a certain pleasure and nostalgia in loving a particular book so much that it shows, from dog-eared pages to your name scribbled inside the front cover.  It might even be that a book was passed down to you by mum or dad, who loved it when they were a child, or leant to you by a friend insisting that ‘you just have to read this.’  When you’re finished, you affectionately place it back on the shelf where it becomes not just a form of entertainment, but an ornament and a treasure.  E-books are certainly convenient, but they will never really capture the full reading experience.

Hullfire #5: Top 5 Films for Graduates

This article was originally intended to be published in the May edition of Hullfire. For reasons I won't go into, the paper was never printed, and according to the Hullfire Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/TheHullfire) they are going to try to publish the edition online, but a print version is very unlikely. Well, it's been a month and there is still no sign of my article being published on the website, and I would like it to see the light of day fairly soon, especially seeing as it is topical to this time of year, i.e. graduation, so I am cutting out the middle man and doing it myself. So there!

This is also the part where I shamelessly plug myself. You may notice on the above mentioned Facebook page that it lists the winners of this year's HUU Media Awards, and yours truly won Best Arts Writer! I was also nominated for Dedicated Contributor. Unfortunately I didn't make it to the event, but I would have loved to go; as it was 3 days before I had 2 major coursework deadlines it really didn't seem wise. My award, a picture of which I could post if there was a demand for it (which I doubt, because I am fairly confident I have no readers!), is brilliantly homemade. Not quite an Oscar, but it'll do.

Anyway, here is the article. Enjoy!

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As the end of the academic year looms ever closer, many of you will be heading into a new and terrifying stage of your lives: graduation. If we are to believe the media, being a graduate is a fate worse than death, although it is more akin to being in a state of perpetual limbo. No longer a student, and not yet a proper grown-up with a proper grown-up job, with no idea what to do next, an existential crisis may be on the cards. Here are 5 films to show that you are not alone, and hopefully comfort and/or guide any student with, or soon to have, the graduate blues (as well as just being a list of very good films). Please be aware that this article contains mild spoilers for some of the films mentioned.

Into the Wild (2007)

Sean Penn’s Into the Wild is, for the most part, a graduate’s dream. Why be conventional and get a job after university, when you could do as the protagonist does and take off into the wilderness? Based on a true story, Christopher McCandless has the world as his oyster, but donates his savings to charity, destroys his I.D. and takes off to Alaska without telling anyone. Free among the elements and not tied down to anything, his journey is at first bliss, but soon turns sour as he realises the unforgiving harshness of nature. As much a cautionary tale as it is inspiring, the message to take away from this worst-case scenario is that it’s fine to turn to nature to find yourself, as long as you remember to leave a note.

Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)

Though actually about a couple’s divorce and the battle for custody of their son, one of this Best Picture-winning film’s most memorable scenes is a source of inspiration for job-hunting graduates.  In a pivotal scene, Dustin Hoffman’s character has hit rock bottom: he has lost his high profile advertising job, and in order to retain custody of his son he must find a new one by the following day. In bold desperation, he interrupts an office Christmas party to pitch himself to a company, insisting, ‘This is a one day only offer ... If you really want me, you make a decision right now.’ And lo and behold, it works. It’s a risky move that without Hoffman’s earnestness and good-natured charm could well get you thrown out of an interview before you can say ‘C.V.’, but the pay-off, and Hoffman’s jubilation that leads to kissing a complete stranger, is so worthwhile that maybe, just maybe, it’s worth a shot.

Lost in Translation (2003)

This film is existential and meditative to the point that some may (inaccurately) label it as boring. Indeed, the premise is deceptively simple: Scarlett Johansson’s young graduate and newlywed meets Bill Murray’s well-worn actor in Toyko, but past this point the film is very hard to describe. All that can be said is that the brief overlapping of these two people’s lives profoundly affects them, resulting in a beautiful relationship and dealing with themes including marriage, aging, disillusionment, and loneliness.  With its bittersweet ending, Lost in Translation may not be particularly comforting, but it is exquisitely made, often very funny, and presents a highly poignant view of life that will resonate with anyone unsure of their place in the world.

Toy Story 3 (2010)

It may be from the point-of-view of a group of sentient toys, and the plot is driven by Andy starting university rather than graduating from it, but that does not stop Toy Story 3 from being any less powerful. If you grew up loving the first two Toy Story films, there is no doubt that watching the third anywhere between starting and leaving university is a particularly personal, nostalgic, and emotional experience. We do not only align ourselves with Andy, who leaves his childhood behind when he says goodbye to Woody, Buzz and pals, but also the toys themselves, who must deal with having to move on from the comfort and security of their former life. With its hopeful ending it reminds us that these things are not the end, but actually the beginning of a new life, as positive a message there can be for any new graduate.

The Graduate (1967)

No list of films about graduation would be complete without this enduring classic; it may seem a clichéd choice, but it is a cliché for a reason as the film is just as resonant today as it was in 1967. The opening credits alone perfectly capture the uncertainty and pressure that new graduates face: Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin Braddock, having just arrived back from college at his home town’s airport, stands stock still and lets himself be carried slowly along by the conveyor, unable to deal with the overwhelmingly lost feeling while others swiftly overtake him. His wide-eyed expression is one of utter terror, as if being unwillingly sent into battle, and entirely relatable as he stares ahead into the unknown abyss that is his future. Punctuated by the melancholy tones of Simon and Garfunkel’s soundtrack, there is not a more effective cinematic encapsulation of the post-graduation depression. Given the common link of Dustin Hoffman, however, it helps to think of this as a prequel to Kramer vs. Kramer, and that everything will turn out fine in the end.

Hullfire #4: 'Community': An Appreciation

Originally published: February 2012

Hullfire URL: print only

Now that the exam period is over and the last pieces of coursework are handed in, it is perhaps time to have a short period of rest and relaxation to ease us into the second semester.  Over the past few weeks it is likely that many of you have experienced the night-before panic when you realise that you haven’t learned anything and think, ‘Why on earth did I bother coming to university, anyway?’  Therefore, now that all the hard work is over why not reward yourself by trying out Community, an underrated yet brilliant American sitcom?

The basic premise of Community is that a group of misfits at various stages in life try to get through Greendale Community College, quite possibly the worst college ever.  The protagonist, Jeff, is an arrogant lawyer who faked his degree and has very little motivation other than to try to sleep with the first attractive woman he sees on his first day.  In his efforts to do so he inadvertently forms a study group of diverse characters who will become as close to him as family.  Admittedly, when put like this it does sound incredibly mediocre and not unlike any other generic sitcom, but give it the first few episodes to find its feet and Community starts to reveal its true and utterly unique identity. 

While Jeff is the lead, the most important character is a teenager with Asperger’s syndrome named Abed.  He processes the world around him through his pop culture knowledge and even seems aware that he is living in a television show.   As a result, every episode of Community breaks down the typical tropes of the sitcom genre and completely reinvents the form every week, all the while packing in more meta-humour and pop culture jokes than Family Guy, The Simpsons and South Park put together.  Because of Abed we are also given some of the show’s best episodes, including one which explores parallel universes and a Christmas episode which is in stop-motion animation and takes place entirely inside his own head.  While these are highlights, Community is just as imaginative and clever when it is completely grounded in reality, and has just as much heart as it does smug ingenuity.

Other characters include an unstable Spanish teacher who happens to be Asian, played with brilliant insanity by The Hangover’s Ken Jeong, a racist, sexist and generally awful pensioner in the form of the legendary Chevy Chase, and a monkey named after another character’s breasts, not to mention tens of amazing minor characters who could all have their own sitcoms.  There are also appearances by a number of special guest stars including Jack Black, John Goodman and Owen Wilson.

The closest comparison to Community is the short-lived British sitcom Spaced, so needless to say those who will enjoy it the most are film geeks and pop culture nerds.  It may therefore be an acquired taste, especially as it can be very surreal and self-aware.  This has turned out to be all too true, as despite hoards of loyal fans the show has been struggling in America since it began in 2009, and it is uncertain whether it will have a future.  It has had even less luck here in the UK, where the first series played on Viva with no sign of whether it will return.  Nevertheless, as one of the smartest and funniest shows currently around it is desperately worth your support and attention.  If it sounds like your cup of tea do whatever you can to get hold of the DVD, and maybe, just maybe, we can save Community.

Update: Since I first wrote this it has been confirmed that Community will air in the UK on Sony Entertainment Television starting April 10th at 10:30pm, and prospects for a fourth season are looking better than before. Fingers crossed!

Update #2: A fourth season was confirmed, to my jubilation. Until the news came out that Dan Harmon, the creator and life and soul of Community, had been fired. This is awful, horrible news which may inspire a blog post in the near future.

Discuss: will you still watch Community without Harmon? Do you think it still has the potential to be great without him? Or would you rather Community stopped on a high note rather than continued, possibly as a soulless and generic version of it's former glory? Or am I just a bitter cynic who needs to get out more and stop fretting about television? You decide.

Hullfire #3: Silence is Golden

Originally Published: February 2012

Hullfire URL: print only

It’s official: Oscar season has arrived. 

Critics’ awards and speculation about which film will be crowned king have been occurring for weeks, but the first of the major awards ceremonies, the Golden Globes, kicked off the run up to the big night on January 15^th, with the BAFTA nominations announced two days later.

The Golden Globes and BAFTAs are usually a good indicator of which films will have success at the Oscars, and this year is not likely to disappoint.  The film with the biggest chances so far is an unlikely candidate, The Artist, with 3 Golden Globe wins and 12 BAFTA nominations (the Oscar nominations themselves have not been announced at time of writing).  In a year where most of the highest grossing films have had 3D, special effects and no lack of loud noises, The Artist is very old-fashioned: a black-and-white silent film set in the early 1930s, when sound films, or ‘talkies’, were just beginning to become the norm.  The plot follows a charismatic actor of silent films struggling to cope with the change, while an up-and-coming young actress takes his place as the biggest star in Hollywood.

The Artist is truly a charming and wonderful film, made up of equal parts heart-warming romance and love letter to film history.  I challenge anyone to leave the cinema without a huge smile on their face.  It is no wonder then that everyone in the film industry is tripping over themselves to throw awards at its feet.   However, despite all of the film’s merits, some critics have expressed worry for the future of cinema if The Artist is named Best Picture at the Oscar ceremony on February 26^th.

The film business, like most industries, thrives on innovation.  Without the introduction of sound, colour and digital effects, films could not be the spectacle that they are today, and we would not have landmark films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or Avatar which advance the medium.  The Artist may be a spectacle for modern audiences, as many people will have never seen a silent film, but this does not change that in its affection and nostalgia for the past it is effectively anti-innovation.  An interesting comparison to The Artist is another likely Oscar contender, Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, which was released in 3D (and many would argue that it is the best use of 3D to date).  Hugo is as much a love letter to early cinema as The Artist, but with its masterful use of 3D it simultaneously celebrates cinema’s roots and advances contemporary filmmaking techniques for the better.

On the other hand, when one is faced with some of the less subtle films that come out of these innovations, the special effects heavy, loud and crashing, poke-your-eye-out 3D releases, it is very tempting to revert back to a simpler way of filmmaking.  It could even be seen that The Artist is actually extremely innovative – who could have guessed that a traditional silent film could be released in the 21^st century and have such success?  It is possibly the bravest move in Hollywood for years, and will hopefully inspire filmmakers to experiment with different forms of storytelling.

Unfortunately, The Artist will likely be an anomaly, and before long we will once again be surrounded by the likes of the new superhero flick or generic romantic-comedy.  But if The Artist does win Best Picture of 2011 and happens to start a resurgence in silent filmmaking, it will be one century backwards, two steps forward – and maybe that’s a good thing.

Hullfire #2: Sex in Art

Originally published: 15th December 2011

Hullfire URL: http://www.thehullfire.com/en/index.php/arts/546-when-the-curtains-twitch

When it comes to thinking of sexual images in art, there are certain iconic scenes which may come to mind.  Whether they are romantic (Kate Winslet’s palm pressed against the fogged-up window of a car in Titanic), comedic (a certain scene involving baked-goods in American Pie) or just downright disturbing (The Exorcist – but perhaps the less said about that the better).  Or, if you are more classically minded, then perhaps you will think of the sexual scenes on Greek ceramics, or the paintings of nudes in the work of Titian and Renoir.

Whatever the medium, be it film, television, paintings or literature, sex has been a subject of fascination in the creative world for as long as human beings have been able to write and draw.  The question is, with sex permeating our entertainment wherever possible, whether it ever transcends its sole purpose of enjoyment or appreciation to actually become believable.  We may sometimes forget, while possibly watching the entirely over-the-top sex scenes in the latest episode of True Blood, that sex is more than just erotic and pleasurable.  It can be an act of tenderness, awkwardness, biology, controversy, and even violence.  Whether art can realistically capture all of these (though not necessarily all at once) is certainly an intriguing thought.

While the filmic examples given above are clearly exaggerated in order to serve a specific purpose in their respective narratives, film (or the moving image in general) is arguably the most suited method to capture sex the most realistically.  Unlike literature and traditional art film targets more than just one of the senses, sight and sound, and most importantly it allows for the images to move in real time.  It is therefore no wonder pornography has thrived the most in this multi-sensory medium.

Pornography is an interesting case.  It is the only ‘genre’ of filmmaking where the sex is actually real, and yet it is the most unrealistic of all.  There is a big difference between something looking real and being realistic.  Obviously pornography cannot even begin to capture all of the emotions of sex, but then again that is not its intention, and it cannot be faulted for that.  It is also not intended for mass audiences in the way that cinematic releases are, like for example, 1973’s Don’t Look Now and the 1981 remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice.  The opposite to pornography, both films have sex scenes which are notorious for being so realistic that for decades viewers have speculated that the actors are actually engaging in intercourse, although this has been denied many times.   The intense realism achieved by the actors effectively conveys the passion between the characters and serves a particular purpose to the narrative of each film rather than just being gratuitous; a perfect blend of realism both in action and emotion.

In these two films, however, the emotions displayed are positive: passion, intimacy, connectivity between two people.  This is perhaps a contributing factor to their success, and although they were controversial at the time they were met with relatively little resistance from censors.  This makes us wonder what happens when a film depicts sex just as realistically, but instead of capturing the enjoyable aspects of sex it makes the audience feel uncomfortable and even forces them to face a sad reality.

One such film is last year’s Blue Valentine, in which a couple whose marriage is failing struggle to reignite their love for each other.  One scene involving cunnilingus created outcry when it caused the film to be given an NC-17 rating in the US (similar to the 18 certificate, but known as a kiss of death as it is associated with pornography and thus restricts the amount of advertising and distribution a film can get, reducing its potential box office) .  The scene in question is no more graphic than Don’t Look Now or even the average romance, leaving critics puzzled as to why it was treated so unfairly.  The censors were accused of misogyny and sexism, but it has also been suggested that they were uncomfortable with seeing sex depicted in such a bleak, disheartening and uncompromising way, as the couple’s attempts to love each other are clearly futile.  (Thankfully, after an appeal the film’s rating was eventually reduced, but interestingly it was released as a 15 in the UK without issue.)

So clearly film, and all art, is capable of depicting sex in a way which is both realistic and believable.  The problem lies in censorship boards’ skewed views of what  is and isn’t suitable for mature adults to view, but also whether audiences actually want to see it depicted this way, with both the highs – pleasure, love, erotica – and the lows – disappointment, embarrassment, failure.

Hullfire #1: Glimmers of Cinema's Potential

Originally published: 30th October 2011


Hullfire URL: http://www.thehullfire.com/en/index.php/arts/469-glimmers-of-cinemas-potential

Cannes, Sundance, Venice, New York, Hull ... What do all of these places have in common?  They are all, of course, the homes to some of the most respected film festivals in the world.  Okay, maybe Hull is a slight anomaly in this group, but it is the home of an exciting and inspiring film festival nonetheless – Glimmer 2011: The 9^th Hull International Short Film Festival.

Glimmer, despite the name, may not feature the glamour and sparkle associated with most other film festivals, but what it does do is bring to our humble city, and even our own campus, enough creativity to make up for the lack of movie stars and red carpets.  The festival, which this year ran over a weekend in early October, showcases short films by budding directors from all over the world.  Events included a 48-hour film challenge, competitions, and screenings of BAFTA nominated short films, but the highlight was a truly unique and slightly bonkers experience which kicked off the festival and took place in the university’s own Middleton Hall.

Two short films, I Married a Foley Footstep! and Hands of Hair formed a double bill by Mancunian artists Ben Gwilliam and Matt Wand.  The concept is simple but effective: a combination of newly shot and found footage are edited together and set to a soundtrack of Foley sound effects performed live by Gwilliam and Wand.  Foley is the art used in the film industry of recreating every day sounds in order to make the world of the film as realistic as possible, and requires a certain amount of ingenuity on the part of the artist. (One of the most well known examples of Foley is that the sound effect for the doors opening and closing in the original Star Trek TV series was achieved by sliding a piece of paper in and out of an envelope.) 

Gwilliam and Wand are not professional Foley artists by any means, but it is fascinating to see how they use the kinds of ordinary objects you could find under your kitchen sink to create a film soundtrack, including shaking rubber gloves to simulate the flapping of a bird’s wings, and crunching cat litter to mimic footsteps in gravel.  All of this is performed live in front of the audience as the film rolls, and is almost more intriguing than watching the films themselves.  In fact, the footage shown is not what’s important here (although it does make a brilliant point that by taking existing footage, shifting it around a bit and adding a different soundtrack can put a new twist on an old story, even changing its message entirely); the real impact that the films have is that they make one wonder where this experimental technique could fit into mainstream cinema.

At the moment the ‘big thing’ in cinema is 3D, a novelty that the studios have brought back from the dead in an attempt to tackle piracy.  By now we will all have donned the glasses at least once to see what the fuss is about, and in some cases it truly is a wonder, but the fact is that 3D has many flaws - headaches, a darker image and increased prices to name but a few.  Eventually Hollywood is going to have to find another way to wrangle us away from our computer screens.  In the last edition of Hullfire Olivia Sturrock tackled the debate of theatre vs. cinema, and what Gwilliam and Wand have done with their experiment is raise the question, ‘Why not merge them together?’  After all, their live sound performance to a pre-recorded film harkens back to the days of silent cinema when films would often be shown with a live orchestra performing the music.  It brings a certain kinetic and theatrical energy to a form of entertainment which has arguably fallen into routine.

You might ask, what’s the point in having the sound effects or music performed live at all?  In a Q&A session after the screening, Gwilliam and Wand explained that they purposefully made some of the effects out of sync, otherwise you may as well just play a pre-recording of the sounds like an ordinary film.  Admittedly, it was a little distracting to see an image of someone walking on the screen and hearing their footsteps a fraction of a second out of time, as was seeing a man waving marigolds about in your peripheral vision when you are trying to pay attention to the film. 

The precise method used here is not necessarily suited to mainstream cinema, and the idea of live sound effects and music may not be the answer to tackling piracy at all.  But what we can learn from this, and other experiments from Glimmer, is that there are alternative ways to make cinema interactive, immersive, and worth leaving the house for.  What Hollywood chooses as its next craze, we will just have to wait and see.