#LANA WACHOWSKI IS NOT SUBTLE

[suga-muffins]

in a matrix mood but i'm trying to challenge myself so i'm watching some cis man try to analyze resurrections.. when you knock on this dude's head, I swear to you, it echoes

"resurrections is lazy because it repeats the exact plot points of the original" wow sherlock it's almost like that is the explicit intention of the film.. BUGS SAYS THAT OUT LOUD WHY IS THIS YOUR CORE CRITIQUE

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Bengiyo's Queer Cinema Syllabus

For those of you who don’t know, I decided to run the gauntlet of @bengiyo’s queer cinema syllabus, which is comprised of 9 units. I have completed four of the units (here is my queer cinema syllabus round up post with all the films I’ve watched and written about so far). It is time for me to make my way through Unit 5- Lesbians, which includes the following films: The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (1995), Bound (1996), Water Lilies (2007), Saving Face (2004), D.E.B.S. (2004), Set It Off (1996), The Handmaiden (2016), Carol (2015), Imagine Me and You (2005), Two of Us (2019), Rafiki (2018), and The Color Purple (1985). 

Today I will be talking about 

Bound (1996) dir. Wachowski Sisters

[Run Time: 1:48 , Language: English]

Summary: Tough ex-con Corky and her lover Violet concoct a scheme to steal millions of stashed mob money and pin the blame on Violet's crooked boyfriend Caesar. Cast: - Jennifer Tilly as Violet - Gina Gorshon as Corky __

OKAY! THIS MOVIE KICKS ASS! What a gift to dykes everywhere, let me tell you. I cannot believe this was the Wachowski Sister’s directorial debut. It makes so much sense to me how they would have gotten such success off of The Matrix and Sense8 if this was their first foray in to directing because it is evident how strong of an idea they have for the story they are telling and what they want their audience to see. Maybe it helps that they wrote it as well, but still they know exactly what they want to do in every scene. 

It’s really fun watching Bound knowing that it was made before Lana and Lily Wachowski came out because it is so clear to me that queer women made this film. Corky and Violet are so horny for each other, we get multiple on camera lesbian sex scenes, they are both hot as fuck and the camera lets us know it in a way that somehow (for me at least) manages to convey both a carnal desire to Tap That without feeling like it is objectifying the women on screen.

I think it is really interesting that this entire heist took place across two rooms in an apartment complex, and that all of this could still go down. I loved how run down the apartment Corky was fixing up looks and how grandiose Violet’s apartment is. The class disparity is there, but we know where Violet stands because she always places herself in Corky’s spaces. 

I saw a little interview from the Wachowski’s talking about what is one of my favorite shots in the film, when the camera transitions birdseye between Violet on the phone in her bedroom and Corky on the phone on the other side of the wall. They were talking about how these two women are trapped and how caged in they wanted the set to feel, so not only did they keep them in those rooms but they covered the apartment in squares to just keep them caged and caged and caged at every level. And you can see it, even though it is sometimes subtle. It’s in the wallpaper, it’s on the floor, the concrete slabs, etc. (You can see an example in the gif above)

I liked that Corky set the plot up so well by telling Violet that if they were going to steal the money that she needed to know her mark as well if not better than she knows herself, and how the rush job to take the money backfires so spectacularly at the very last part of the plan because Corky doesn’t know Ceaser well enough to realize he is going to stay and fight rather than turn tail and run when he realizes the money is gone. 

I talked a few times about the color red and the symbolism associated with it in Heartbreak Alley, how every time I saw blood on screen in the back half of Unit 4 the only thing I could think about was AIDS. So it is really interesting moving in to Unit 5 to spaces where we see a lot of blood and where suddenly that symbolism is gone. Now the blood is prison and freedom all in one. I love the way Ceaser’s blood mixes with the white paint at the end. The blood dripping on the white tile of the bathroom, on the toilet. All the ways in which sins and crime can be wiped clean, and how white makes everything else stand out, until it doesn’t. I was struck by the transition between Ceaser bleeding out in that pool of white paint, and the Landlord Special room we transitioned to with all those impossibly white walls. 

Favorite Moment: 

Oh god, there are so many little things I loved, the shot of Corky and Violet’s lips an inch apart and then crashing together to make out. Their fingers intertwining in the car at the end of the film. The fact that Corky wears her lockpicks as earrings, #innovation. But I think my absolute favorite little moment in the film is when Ceaser has Corky bound at his feet and he’s interrogating her about the money, and he points the gun at her face and he says: “Fucking queers you make me sick” which sounds like a weird choice to have as my favorite moment, but it is entirely because of the second after that line when Violet’s eyes flick upwards to look at him. Because she, too, is a queer woman and we are not allowed to forget that just because she spends so much of the film bound to this man because of his money and his power over her. 

Favorite Quote: 

“I had this image of you inside of me. Like a part of me.” 

It’s repeated a few times in the film though it always feels kind of randomly placed. But I like it for the simple fact that it is like calling to like. Queer woman trapped in her own life calling out to a queer woman trapped in her own life. I like that we get the counterpart to this quote at the end when Corky asks Violet “do you know what the difference is between you and me, Violet?” // “No.” // “Me neither.”  It’s just such a lovely parallel that comes at the end of all of their suffering, their abuse, and the freedom they have gained. 

Score

10/10

Gina Gershon hot.

What else is there to say?

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

“The Matrix Resurrections” movie review:

Short review:

Lana Wachowski must really love Danganronpa V3 since this movie feels more like that game rather than a Matrix sequel. I give it a 6/10. 

Long review:

So...this movie is...challenging to discuss. Because on the surface, I can just say that the movie sucked on a technical level. The fight choreography was terrible, the Matrix-ness of the franchise is missing (for example, the green gradient that the series is known for), and it doesn’t really justify its existence. By the end of the movie, I didn’t really feel like we needed a continuation, which is a shame since the trailers did a good job hyping the movie up.

But that’s not the full story, is it? No, we need to talk about the “meta-ness” of the movie, the one thing that people took away from the story. That’s why I compared Matrix 4 to Danganronpa V3; it’s not really a sequel, it’s a meta self-critique that challenges the whole idea of the franchise. 

I can definitely see why the first act is so divisive. In a not-so-subtle sequence, Neo goes through a series of discussions about how to approach the next Matrix game. So, aside from the obvious meta point about having the Matrix literally be a franchise within the Matrix, the discussions that unfold focus entirely on deconstructing the series as a whole. It seems to mock the aspects that people loved about the Matrix trilogy, such as bullet time and its political commentary.

Then you have Bugs (Jessica Henwick) literally encountering a cutscene which acts as a recreation of the first scene in the original Matrix, with Trinity running from the Agents. And that’s not the only callback to the original trilogy that we get in this movie; there are clips taken right from the trilogy inserted in various scenes which are meant to draw a deliberate parallel. 

Why? As Agent Morpheus (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) says, “Nothing comforts anxiety like a little nostalgia”.

Other people have made a more in-depth analysis of how nostalgia plays into the story of Resurrection. For me, I’m a bit of a mixed bag. It’s mainly because I get what Lana was trying to do. It’s a deliberate send-up to the fact that Hollywood has been taken over by the need to reboot every single famous franchise and, coupled with the fact that Warner Bros has been pushing the Wachowski sisters to make another Matrix movie, you could read the movie as Lana venting out her frustrations with the company. I mean, she even namedrops WB in the movie, the jabs are not subtle.

You can also read the meta-aspect of the movie as Lana questioning her own legacy. Unfortunately, as most people should know by now, the Matrix has inspired a toxic following where people say they have been “red-pilled” by rejecting more leftist/liberal values and taking on more right-wing views. There’s also the misogynistic angle of being “red-pilled”, namely with the infamous subreddit r/TheRedPill. It’s just extremely ironic that this was the legacy of the Matrix movies, especially when you remember that the Matix movies are left-leaning and were meant to be an allegory for the trans community. 

So, I don’t really mind the meta commentary. Even though it’s in your face and blatantly told to you, it’s an interesting idea that really forces the audience to think about what they’re consuming. My issue with this is that although the idea seems interesting, I don’t think the execution was there. 

I feel that’s a common criticism when it comes to the Wachowskis. They’re obviously really creative writers and have a ton of great ideas. But, just like with Reloaded and Revolutions, the execution of those ideas was not the greatest. Specifically for Resurrection, I felt like I was watching a series of interesting ideas that didn’t really come together as a whole. 

For example, I like the idea of humans and machines working together. I like the idea that the Matrix is using itself within the simulation as a way to maintain control over Neo and Trinity (the Matrix being a franchise within the Matrix). I like the idea of Agent Morpheus being a combination of Neo’s memories of Morpheus and Agent Smith, which goes back to the theme of humans and machines joining forces. I like the idea that this movie was primarily a Neo-Trinity love story rather than trying to save the world. I even like the idea of Agent Smith sort of becoming this anti-hero/anti-villain who will work with Neo if their interests are aligned. 

But just because those ideas are good doesn’t mean they compensate for the flaws of the movie. At times, it felt like I was watching a first draft of the script since a lot of concepts felt half-baked. For example, the Analyst explains that by making it so that Neo and Trinity will always meet but never come in contact with each other, that leads to more power being produced for the machines. Apparently, Neo and Trinity can exert power by just being around each other. 

My question: How? 

Since when did Neo and Trinity turn into Cloak & Dagger? There is no basis for this sudden change in how the machines generate power, especially when you remember that machines harvest humans for their body heat and electricity. You’d think we’d get a solid explanation behind this new development but instead, all we get is the Analyst talking about hope and despair (Danganronpa again?) Just accept that this is the story and move on.

Also, Trinity is now part-One. Why? Just accept it, move on. And that’s the pattern for a great deal of the movie. This is why it feels like Resurrection was a first draft, a lot of the ideas feel like they weren’t fully realized or thought through. Which makes the whole meta-aspect a little ironic since even though the movie criticizes reboots for being soulless and uncreative, Resurrections doesn’t change the wheel either. Instead, it just pushes forward ideas that seem intriguing, but doesn’t really do anything with them.

Then there are the other problems plaguing this movie. Dialogue was clunky and constantly broke the “show, don’t tell” rule. Bugs’ crew and the Io characters were extremely forgettable (I remember there was a Neo stan and a Trinity stan, that’s about it). For the new characters that I did remember, they were mostly under-written and bland. Action scenes were badly choreographed, which is jarring since this is a franchise known for good action. 

And in the end, I didn’t really feel moved by the movie. It was just an underwhelming affair, mainly because it didn’t feel like the movie was needed and that the people making it were just phoning it in. Or perhaps Lana was trying her hardest, but she needed help in fully realizing her ideas. I’m leaning on the second possibility since this movie was missing Yuen Woo-Ping, Lilly Wachowski, Bill Pope, Laurence Fishburne, and Hugo Weaving. Trust me when I say that you can feel the absence of those people in this movie. 

Then there’s the third possibility; Lana made this movie to vent out her frustrations against Warner Bros and the red pill movement. That’s why the “cool” aspects of the Matrix are nonexistent in Resurrection, a sort of cinematic ‘fuck you’. If that’s the case, then Lana succeeded; she made an intentionally underwhelming movie/Matrix sequel meant to frustrate audiences. Well, I’m pretty underwhelmed, so...job well done?

Side note: Before anyone brings it up, I don’t care if this movie was meant to be a parody of the original trilogy. You can’t just use the fact that movie is self-referential as carte blanche to do whatever you want. Even movies that are self-aware need to follow the basics of telling a good story

[attemptsonherlifepdf]

modern gothic, sci-fi, and the moral binary: why the matrix is one of the most relevant gothic pieces of the last twenty five years

the gothic is a genre that is designed to explore transgressive behaviours and private desires, and often does so by having these explicit acts committed by a supernatural character. this serves to not only characterise the behaviour as monstrous but ‘Other’ people who behave that way. while this is typical of traditional gothic literature, modern gothic tends to present sympathetic villains, who suggest to audiences that transgressive behaviours are not inherently threatening or deserving of punishment, but simply different. as put by kelley hurley, ‘through depicting the abhuman, the gothic reaffirms and reconstructs human identity.’ in order to understand the progression from traditional gothic to modern genres that stem from it, namely science fiction, psychological thrillers and murder mysteries, we must first understand it’s basic timeline.

gothic literature began as a genre with very little positive reception, originally seen as a frivolous, and unserious style of writing. often called ‘dark romanticism’, the genre used the ‘purple prose’ and decadent architecture of romantic literature, but associated it with more sinister narratives concerning religion, murder and both sexual and identitiy-oriented transgression. originating from horace walpole’s ‘castle of otranto’, the genre was used to reflect the cultural anxieties of the time period, and thus gained traction by being temporally relevant. modern gothic’s deconstruction of the ‘good vs evil’ binary is a reflection of contemporary understandings of the aforementioned topics, which address the complexities of transgression. notable examples of later gothic literature include susan hill’s 1983 novel, ‘the woman in black’, a pastiche of traditional victorian ghost stories that utilises sympathetic villains to add complexity to the idea of villainy. additionally, the work of angela carter, particularly that of her 1979 collection ‘the bloody chamber’ which uses gothic conventions to subvert more conservative fairytales and fables, another instance of this ‘dark romanticism’ technique.

by presenting transgression as complex, rather than fulfilling one side of a binary, modern gothic allows us to consider if transgression is even that dangerous; it serves to dismantle the idea that ‘different = threatening.’ a brilliant example of this is the previously mentioned work of carter, and her short stories ‘the tiger’s bride’ and ‘the courtship of mr lyon.’ these stories are subverted retellings of the traditional ‘beauty and the beast’ fairytale. While maintaining the general events of the original ending, where beauty stays with the beast of her own volition, carter offers up two dynamics between the human and abhuman that serve to recharacterise ‘Othered’ creatures as less threatening and more sympathetic and innocent. ‘the courtship of mr lyon’ mimics the original story’s ending, with beauty’s understanding of the beast resulting in his transformation back to human. ‘the tiger’s bride’ offers the reverse: in beauty’s acceptance of the beast, she transforms to be animal-like like him as well. this appears almost as an act of solidarity. perhaps an incredibly modern reading of carter’s metamorphosed characters is as an allegory for transgenderism. discussions around gender identity during the 1970s in britain, even in second-wave feminist circles, were more concerned with rejecting and redefining traditional gender roles than they were with the personal identity of individuals, so we can assume this was not carter’s intention when writing these stories. however, ideas of physical transformation, and how proximity to the ‘Other’ can ‘radicalise’ one’s own identity are very fitting with treatment of transgender people both historically and presently. genres that stem from the late gothic, namely sci-fi, have been known for using metamorphosis as an allegory for marginalised identities, using physical transformation as an allegory for ideological or emotional transformation. a prime example of this is lana and lilly wachowski’s series ‘the matrix.’ written as a trans allegory, the movie series criticises the social pressure for conformity the way carter does and attempts to explicitly recharacterise trans people as an innocent non-conforming identity rather than a threat. carter’s exploration and reproval of established values similarly tends to centre around ideas of gender, making this reading not entirely unreasonable. she suggests that societal fears surrounding gender identity and liberation are unfounded.

ultimately, carter paints various traits and identities that are widely considered ‘threatening’ to be multifaceted and liberating instead, as she views the established values that they ‘threaten’ to be restrictive and in need of changing. the matrix represents these established values with ‘agents’ who attempt to hide the true nature of the world from the population. in the preface to the bloody chamber collection, helen simpson writes that 'human nature is not immutable, human beings are capable of change', arguing this point as the core of carter’s gothic subversions. she suggests through her writing that what is perceived as a social threat is often based upon what is uncomfortable rather than what is actually dangerous. her work is partially ambivalent in that it does not instruct what is right or wrong, but instead depicts societal relationships and allows the audience to interpret it.

the matrix achieves a similar result, with gothic elements and subversions supporting it’s messages.sci-fi takes gothic settings, ideas of liminality, decay, transgression and the Other, and recontextualises them with in the hypothetical far future. traditional gothic settings such as the ruins of decadent mansions become abandoned high-tech buildings. the binary between conventional and transgressive shifts from being a contrast between catholic ideals and more modern behaviours to being a contrast between those profiting off capitalism and those suffering from it.

implicit in the matrix’s notion of discovering a newer world more true to reality is the idea that ‘different’ or ‘unconventional’ experiences and identities are not threatening, but liberating. the matrix suggests we can unlearn our villainisation of trans people, and does so through the use of various gothic conventions. to begin with, gothic texts are often written to reflect the cultural anxieties of the moment. lilly wachowski has stated that the movie was ‘born out of anger at capitalism and the corporate structure and forms of oppression.’ the late nineties in america was certainly a time of tension for lgbt people. frank rich sites ‘the homophobic epidemic of '98...spiked with the october murder of matthew shepard’ as an era of extreme difficulty for the lgbt community in the usa. this hostile environment is reflected in the nature of the matrix’s ‘agents’ and their insistence on maintaining the illusion of free will that comes with the false reality they push. they are in no way open to ideas that differ from their own and actively come down on those who suggest them. this anxiety for the lgbt community is reflected in the movie; the anxiety itself is expressed through a combination of subverted and traditional gothic tropes. gender itself is a topic highly relevant to the gothic. the wachowskis utilise binary oppositions, the most obvious example being the red pill vs blue pill’ scenario. the movie poses a stark contrast between two approaches to life: ‘the willingness to learn a potentially unsettling or life-changing truth, by taking the red pill, or remaining in contented ignorance with the blue pill.’ its interesting for a piece that is intentioned to deconstruct binaries to construct this binary, but it does serve a purpose. this binary serves as a device to show, allegorically, the experience of trans people in western cultures. belinda mcclory’s character, switch, is a specific representation of the gender transition process. in the matrix she appears as a woman, and in the real world as a man. while the wachowskis may not have had the creative freedom to include an explicitly transgender character, this was the closest and most specific hint they could have given the audience, right down to the character’s cratylic naming. switch’s experience presenting as both man and woman, and only one of her presentations occurs in the ‘true reality’ that is representative of people’s true natures and personalities. this use of metamorphosis mimics the way many trans people must present as their assigned gender at birth in public, and their true identity in private, that their physical body and their perception of themselves when they have control of their appearance are not necessarily aligned. this parallel relies upon the binary consisting of a false reality and a true one to illustrate its point.

it has also been suggested that the red pill is representative of a hormone pill, and many viewers have likened neo’s mental restlessness to gender dysphoria: ‘what you know you can't explain, but you feel it. you've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. you don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.’ these small parallels coalesce to form the movie’s representation of the trans experience in a way that is arguaby subtle to the cisgender viewer. neo openly rejects being called ‘mr anderson’ or ‘thomas anderson’ from our first introduction to him. he replaces his given male-coded name with something seemingly androgenous for his own comfort, and ‘mr anderson’ almost serves as a deadname, which only the agents who enforce a false reality use to refer to him. agent smith uses neo’s two names to frame his two separate lives very distinctly; ‘one of these lives has a future, and one of them does not.’ with an understanding of the trans subtext of the movie, this appears as a thinly veiled reference to the difficulties openly trans people face. coming out, in most places in the world, can result in loss of employment, loss of contact with family, and so on. as put by lili wachowski, ‘transgender people without support, means and privilege do not have this luxury. and many do not survive.’ agent smith appears to be warning neo of the dangerous of living as his true self, insistently referring to him with his given name rather than his chosen one, even if just for bureaucratic reasons. neo’s name is a vital to his defiance against both agent smith and the false reality he seeks to maintain:

agent smith:

you hear that mr. anderson?... that is the sound of inevitability... it is the sound of your death... goodbye, mr. anderson...

neo:

my name... is neo.

in defiantly maintaining his chosen name, neo pushes for the true reality to be accepted and understood. this is motivated by the fact that ‘i don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.’ this is an instance of neo taking control, by asserting his identity. the high stakes of this scene mimic the high stakes that trans people face in asserting their identities in an unaccepting social climate. the movie also acknowledges the public perception of trans people as a threat: ‘i know that you're afraid... you're afraid of us. you're afraid of change...the matrix is a system, neo, that system is our enemy.’ appearance vs reality is yet another key aspect of the gothic that is utilised in the matrix, and the narrative forces the viewer to consider whether they would accept a harsh reality or prefer total ignorance and accept what appears in front of them.

the movie’s treatment of violence against its protagonist is particularly relevant to the gothic. typically, queer-coded men or people of colour in fiction experience physical violence allegorical to the way female characters are written into sexualised danger: for trauma-based character development. violence against minorities in media, specifically gothic media, is often symbolic rather than just plain horrific. female, queer or bodies of colour are seen solely as political identities, so the violence they face is violence against an idea, not a person. queer or queer-coded men like neo are often feminised to a certain extent, even if its simply rejecting the title ‘mr’, to allow the violence against them to be symbolic or political rather than personal. often with cisgender, heterosexual, white or male characters, any cruelty they face is considered to be senseless and is characterised as brutal, pure violence, as their bodies are simply allowed to exist as bodies without a political statement attached to their existence. they are not making a statement or defying standards simply by having bodies. the gothic specifically uses symbolic violence in its later stages, and it is often faced by characters who are ‘Othered’ such as frankenstein’s monster being faced with angry hordes of people, or the suicide of jennet humfrye, the titular character of the woman in black who had a child out of wedlock. this symbolic violence in the matrix is particularly relevant to the above scene between agent smith and neo, where neo’s retaliation involves not just physical fighting but defiance over his own identity.

setting in the matrix is quintessentially modern gothic, and is an integral part of characterising the differences between appearance and reality. the real world and the matrix are characterised both by their physical appearance and the characters associated with them. the whole movie is shot with relatively bleak green, grey and blue tones; the unnamed cities in the matrix were filmed in sydney, australia, but are supposed to appear as a city that could be located anywhere. this makes viewers somewhat comforted as the cities appear familiar, but their association with the antagonistic agents makes it difficult to truly identify with them. in contrast, the real world appears cold, crude and difficult to survive in, but is home to a crew of sympathetic rebels that the audience is supposed to root for. the city of zion is all harsh metal and can feel like a very temporary, unsafe residence but scenes such as the party in matrix reloaded characterise it as a place of community. the duality of each setting is typical of the gothic, and allows the viewer to explore the complexity of the movie’s conundrum. no option is the easy, immediate or obvious choice. the viewer must consult their own morals and values. ideas and anxieties surrounding moral decay are vital to the narrative of gothic tales; the genre explores and seeks to define humanity, and doing so often involves ethnocentric set of morals associated with good and bad. concepts like metamorphosis, identity, and the rejection of religion or christian/western ideals all play into this, but this is where modern gothic’s acknowledgement of complexity reframes things. most developments described as ‘modern gothic’ apply to sci-fi as it is an extension of, or evolved from,1960s-1990s gothic.

in presenting the aforementioned topics as multifaceted, the genre is able to imply or sometimes directly suggest that the ways in which presentations of them differ from established values is not immediately threatening, but simply different or even sympathetic. the matrix almost reverses traditional expressions of transgression by suggesting that those seeking to maintain the status quo are enforcing restrictive and immoral ideals, and that those whose agendas differ from the status quo are seeking liberation. this appears very similarly in angela carter’s previously mentioned work, exemplifying the parallels between sci-fi and the gothic. ‘the matrix stuff was all about the desire for transformation but it was all coming from a closeted point of view.’ lilly wachowski states. transformation and metamorphosis are topics so in line with the content of the gothic, allowing authors to explore and compare different states of being in order to eventually, sometimes implicitly, condemn one and promote the other. in reference to how she was drawn to use sci-fi as the medium for this story, she says that ‘we were existing in a space where the words didn't exist, so we were always living in a world of imagination.’ things that cannot work in our social climate can be allowed to work in an imagined scenario, with imagined consequences separate from the real world, similarly to the gothic’s use of the supernatural as a vehicle for taboo actions and values.

the wachowskis select science fiction tropes that are core to the gothic as a medium for the matrix’s allegorical meaning: taboo subjects, metamorphosis, binary oppositions, moral questions and stark settings. the matrix arguably serves as a bridge between the two genres, while also being unmistakably modern in its support of trans people and its open criticism of capitalism and social systems. this is not to say that earlier texts do not argue similarly points, but that the popularity of the matrix means that these points and messages are widespread and consumed by a massive audience. the movie was released in early june of 1999, and by august 2000, the matrix dvd had sold over three million copies in usa, making it the best-selling of all time. its unlikely that those three million dvd owners had all interpreted the movie the way the wachowskis had intended, as is the case with all media, but their anti-capitalist and pro-lgbt rhetoric was still present in the movie and has become glaringly obvious to more viewers over 20 years beyond its release date. using binaries as a tool to deconstruct other binaries is a device used more and more within sci-fi and the exploration of morals, systemic structures and the role of lgbt people are both vital to both genres. trans people are originally characterised as ‘Other’, but are rightfully humanised and encouraged to pursue their true identities: ‘to deny our impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human.’

i.k.b

[fght-ff-yr-dmns]

The Matrix Resurrections

I tend to stay away from reviews, but I'd heard some awful reports on this film. My brother called it the worst film that he’d seen in recent memory and the odd comments I spotted on Reddit were incredibly negative, so needless to say my expectations were not particularly high.

I feel it’s important to mention that the original film from 1999 is one of my all time favourites, I must have seen well over thirty times.  It’s sequel, The Matrix Reloaded was probably the most hyped I've ever been for a cinema release...and boy was I disappointed. 

Regardless of my feelings for the sequels, I hold the series in high regard. It’s effect on me and cinema in general cannot be underestimated. 

I’ll try to leave this as spoiler free as possible, but I for one, really enjoyed The Matrix Resurrections. Those who expected a huge budget, franchise rejuvenating Matrix 4 may be disappointed and it’s easy to see why many were.  Yet for me, the film was a writer/director looking back on their experience and incorporating that into a completely new story of rebirth. 

It’s hard not to see the parallels of Lana Wachowski’s post-Matrix life whilst watching the film, it’s a film about rediscovery and taking back control of one’s destiny. Yes, at times it can be tongue in cheek with some not so subtle digs at Warner Brothers but it was wonderful to see these characters once again.

My only major qualm was too much ‘force pushing’ and not enough Kung Fu. 

[commanderceleste]

Tagged by @thefoxtalks (love you girl, thanks for thinking of me! 💙)

favorite color: Tough one. Hate this already. But I'm going with... either lavender, crimson, or celeste. I love colours way too much to chose just one.

currently reading: I'm finally getting around to reading 'The Lord of the Rings' (by my main girl, Tolkien) all the way through. All three, plus appendices and that long-ass prologue. Because masochist. Also, 'El Principio del Placer' by Jose Emilio Pacheco (roughly translated as 'The Principle of Pleasure' I think?). Both are phenomenal so far.

last movie: James Wan's masterpiece 'Aquaman'. Holy. Fucking. Shit. What a fun time. Could do without Amber Heard because of the allegations, but overall I could watch the film about a thousand times, without getting tired of it. And nearly done with The Matrix Resurections. I'm LIVING for the not-so-subtle Sense8 cast reunion and how unbelievably (and delightfully) meta it is. Nobody in Hollywood is doing it like my girl Lana Fucking Wachowski. Queen shit.

last series: I'm sorry. I caved and started Netflix's 'Bridgerton'. I KNOW, I KNOW. It's trash, and I know that goddamn episode with dubious consent is coming, but I needed trash. The world is too shitty rn to engage with anything other than that.

sweet, spicy or savory: Definitely a sweet-tooth, but since I'm Mexican I'm all in for that spice as well. Love that shit. Grew up with it, and now I can't eat without it 🙃

coffee or tea: Caffeine bitch, all the way. But I am curious about tea. I might have to switch (or at least try it) eventually. Plus, the aesthetic of it is pretty cool 🤭🤣

tag other people: @tired-gay-mexican, @keepbreathingky, @brighellamagellan and @undergroundcry sending a huge kiss and hug your way. tell me everything, girlies 💙 (if you want to, no pressure)

[hermessy]

Why Rajan/Kala/Wolfgang does not work in the Sense8 Finale

Warning : I apologize in advance for my English, please bear with me as it is not my first language.

I would like to preface this by saying: I liked the finale. Even more so: I LOVED the finale, which came as a strange surprise to me. I was spoiled some time ago, as many in this fandom after the premiere in May, and to be honest, I was not anticipating the Sense8 Finale as frantically as I would otherwise have. I was not even excited, and I was ready to wait a few days for the hype to go down before watching it – and to think that last year, I was furious, enraged and crying after the cancellation and that after that, I danced and screamed with my siblings when I heard there was going to be more Sense8… But the Kalagang spoiler quite tampered my enthusiasm, and I went from passionate to downright skeptic. But Friday night, my father came home with a bottle of white wine, and as he is a Wachowski Superfan, he insisted to watch the finale – so we sat down together to drink and watch the finale.

I had a great time. I was surprised by how much I still felt so strongly about these characters, the story, and most importantly, I found the “Sense8 feeling” again: a sense of euphoria, excitement and wonder that no other show could radiate for me.

I cried several times, and I have to admit: Lana Wachowski has a unique gift for transmitting the feeling, untamed, the raw and pure emotion, and blissful happiness. The transcendence of feeling, the great wave of being. The miracle of love that is not a utopia, but a power most real and palpable. The Wachowskis made me grateful for my human existence and experience. I cannot thank them enough for that.

 That being said, I still have some criticism, and while it did not spoil my enjoyment of the finale, I found afterwards that my concerns were still valid.

In most of their filmography, the Wachowskis have this one weakness: they tend to prioritize discourse over story. Most people say about Sense8 that it is more about the characters than the plot, which is true in a sense – but to be more exact, the Wachowskis prioritize ideas over plot. Everything is an illustration, a demonstration in service of a great idea, an existential message about our perception of reality and the world we live in. Nothing with them is left hanging, nothing is implicit or ambiguous. Part of their charm for me, and part of what makes them unsubtle, broad or naïve for others, is that nothing is left in silence: everything is articulated, every purpose of a scene, an arc, a character, is said out loud and exposed in the open. The Wachowskis characters are walking philosophers and comment the meaning of their own action all the time. And, personally, especially in Sense8, it was one of the aspects that I loved.

 But sometimes, the downside with it is: the big idea takes precedence over the character’s and the story’s inner coherence. 

Lana Wachowski has a big idea, uses this character to illustrate it, but in doing so she’s taking the risk of ruining said character, by making him or her do something that does not fit with the pattern and the personality previously established. Discourse plastered over characters, regardless of the story’s coherence, is never a good thing. It is a subtle and frankly quite a hard balance to maintain between the creator’s purpose and the character that takes a life of his own, with his own and strange independent growth.

 And unfortunately, Kala’s arc was sacrificed to demonstrate the show’s final point. There were a few other incoherencies in the finale, but her character is where this problem was the most obvious.

 I understand that Lana and the other writers wanted, for this miraculous finale, a happy ending for everybody. But good intentions do not always equate good storytelling. I am myself a strong believer in happy endings, but in coherent ones, not scattered and confused like the Kala/Wolfgang situation.

And before anyone accuses me of conservatism, or whatever: it’s not a question of polyamory. You may say: representation is important, and I completely agree. But when you decide to provide some representation, I hope you always do it with care, even more so if it is something that means so much, like for the LGBT community for instance. Precious representation should be treated as such. Here, I cannot think of another word than “careless”. I recognize all the good will, the originality of the twist, but it is at the expense of two seasons worth of storytelling and character-building. It was rash and unwarranted.

 I kind of get what they were going for, and I think the key to understanding the meaning behind the Kala/Rajan/Wolfgang “throuple” is to find in the words of River El-Sadaawi at the Nomanita wedding, a speech that is a sort of manifesto, an afterword by Lana Wachowski for the show and its significance:

 “No one thing is one thing only. How people endow what is familiar with new, ever-evolving meaning and by doing so, release us from the expected, the familiar, into something unforeseeable. It is in this unfamiliar realm, we find new possibilities. It is in the unknown, we find hope.”

 And so, Kala’s dilemma found an unexpected solution within a new, unfamiliar realm. Instead of opting for the traditional route taken in similar romantic plots, Lana Wachowski resolved the problem by changing the perspective, cancelling the structure of the love triangle itself by rejecting its rules, and enter a new possibility we never even considered, far more satisfying, on the surface at least.

 I fully recognize the merit of such an undertaking, but the end result was nevertheless underwhelming, instead of filling me with the intended sense of relief and triumph. I expected a triumphant love, what I got felt like a tepid compromise.

 And more importantly, I feel like Lana involuntarily ruined what was always a cornerstone in the Wachowski philosophy: we are our choices.

“Is it we that make the choice or the choice that makes us?”

Kala has always been avoiding the responsibility of the choice that presented itself to her, the choice that would define her as a human being. Her whole arc was to get her to that choice, to find the courage to make it, at last. Her challenge was not the fear the choice, but to embrace it wholeheartedly. To be brave. To have the courage to determine her own destiny.

It is no coincidence that Wolfgang represented that for her. By choosing him, she’s awakening her own courage. Wolfgang is the one who awakens her to her warrior side, who unveils the power of the woman inside her. He’s the one who gives the fearful and hesitant Kala the strength to be brave and determined, just as she makes him vulnerable and trusting. He IS her courage, just as she IS his faith.

But here, in the finale, Kala escapes her choice. It is left open, hanging in uncertainty, and we were instead served with contentment on all sides: everyone supposedly got what they wanted.

 But sometimes, I say: you don’t always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you get what you need.

 Kala got what she wanted, the cancellation of her choice, but not what she needed: to face her fears, the image of herself that this choice reflected back to her, and embrace it. This choice was a necessary threshold for Kala as a woman, but now I feel like she’s stuck in limbo. “No rules” does not equal no choice.

 I feel like there has been a great misunderstanding: Kala’s struggle was indeed linked with all the rules she internalized and the pressure she put upon herself (for her family is obviously very loving and gave her the freedom to make her own decisions). The societal rules were never a direct oppression, but more something she, a person with a high sense of responsibility, integrated on her own. She was, in a sense, her own persecutor, her own moral oppressor. It is interesting to see that as a woman, her first priority was to accommodate everybody before herself, and Rajan never questioned during the first season whether or not she reciprocated her feelings. To be fair, she never even dared to prioritize her own emotions in the first place. Because she still has a sense of obligation, to follow the scenario set by society and expected by the man in front on her, and in the end she does not dare to upset anybody.

The question of choice is the question of one’s own free will: it makes sense that in the end, Kala defies the rules she felt compelled to follow, the pressure to follow society and man’s desires and expectations before her own. But to make the choice, to be truly free, each one of us also has to let go of some part of ourselves: we have to let go to become something greater, and to live is always to die a little. Kala had to let the dream of being Rajan’s wife die, to embrace what she truly strives for.

But here, the alternative is: maintain everything. Maintain the status quo.

 It does not work. The rule Kala should have let go was not the idea of exclusivity in marriage, but the idea of holding on to the structures that bound her to a man she did not love, because she internalized the societal pressure and felt compelled to respond to his advances. That the solution, in the end, is to say: “you will come to love him after he proves himself to you” sounds quite ridiculous in that sense.

 Kala needed to find her own voice, articulate her own desires, not settle in a “in-between” space. She does not end with two full relationships, but a cheapened version of both. It is not in favor of Wolfgang, it is also not in favor of Rajan, a character I really enjoyed.

I think the fact that Rajan evolved, changed his perspective, went from a rich nice guy who pursued the woman he loved without asking if she loved him back and said “you look so beautiful when you’re angry” when said woman confronted him with his shortcomings, to the ride-or-die husband, ready to change and accept anything, was supposed the change the setting. If Rajan could change, the marriage could change and the rules with it.

But quite frankly, it cheapens the character of Rajan. I really like him, and he, like Kala, deserved better.

And it gets even more absurd with Wolfgang: Wolfgang Bodganow, the man that always confronted Kala with her own contradictions, who never compromised on his own feelings, always told the “ugly truth” that she avoided but needed to hear, that man gets on with it? In what universe is that believable?

The cornerstone of their relationship is: “What the fuck are you doing? You’re not in love with him.”

Sometimes, it’s as simple as that. “You’re not in love with him”.

 What is a lover ? Because I do not question the fact that, in the end, she does love Rajan after a fashion. He comes to earn her respect, her gratitude, her estime. He is “more than the man (she) thought she married”. All that is true. It is love, a great love even, but in my opinion it is not the kind that builds and sustains a couple. It makes for a strong and faithful friendship, an undying loyalty, a partner. But not a lover. Rajan and Kala are not lovers.

 And nobody will ever convince me that Rajan & Wolfgang will work within this arrangement. I will not even address that. It’s nonsense.

 What makes me kind of sad, is that I truly enjoyed Rajan in this series finale. But he was reduced to a poor third wheel in a relationship that goes far beyond him. He deserves better.

I mean... What compare to this ?

Kala needed to find her voice of courage. She still needs to take a true leap in the unknown. A leap of faith.

 I think that Lana is aware of that, in a way, because nothing seemed definitive in the finale. The only conclusion to which came Wolfgang and Kala was: “I don’t know”.

 So that choice is still before her.

 But, in the end, I still wanted to thank Lana Wachowski. Her love and dedication was truly palpable in this series finale. 

And by the way, I refuse to consider this a series finale. So I say, until the next time, Cluster-family, and until the next time, dear Lana. You brought much joy to us.

Thank you.

[thelukejohnson]

Here’s my deal on Matrix 4.

A. I have come to realize that each Matrix sequel tried relatively hard to go against our expectations. And that seemed to be what the Wachowskis were going for. 1 was amazing. 2 was also amazing (sans rave) and then the architect said “oh yeah, we machines knew that 1 would play out just like it did.” My mind was blown. I loved that concept. And then 3 (which I don’t like as much) was mostly a robotech vs. squiddies movie. I missed spending more time inside the matrix in 3. But it was still a great spectacle.

B. Coming into 4, my rankings were … 1 > 2 >>>>>> 3.

C. 4 went hard against expectations more than anything. Crazy hard. Friggin Neo on the toilet having an existential crisis. Literally running on a “proverbial treadmill”. The vibe of the first 45 minutes caught me weird. I wonder if I would have dug it more if I *had* seen trailers.

Anyway, being sorta bugged or not vibing with the Thomas Anderson portion of 4 didn’t help the post-wake-up rest of the movie. It felt like they tried to cram the general plot points of 2 and 3 the last 90 minutes of 4 (with new subtle twists). It was like how Force Awakens is a clone of New Hope … but I was crying tears of joy during Force Awakens.

I was crying tears of “looks like Keanu has lost a step” and “I literally can’t understand what the Merovingian is saying” and “Neo’s new force push move is kind of lame” during the latter part of 4.

Looking back, they really might have blown minds if the first 45 minutes of Matrix 4 came true. If Matrix 1 really was just a video game created by Thomas Anderson, that actually might have worked (probably not, but stick with me here) … and maybe would have blown minds like The Architect in 2. But instead, they mostly bailed on that idea and then messily created a “Trinity is the real badass” movie. Which maybe I’ll like on a second viewing.

Anyway, I want to watch again and see if I “get it” more the 2nd time around. Still, I fully accept anyone’s outright hatred of the movie … or any criticisms of it. Lana Wachowski made a mess of a movie, but I guess some people like how “messy” it is.

New ranking: 1 > 2 >>>>>>> 3 > 4? I think?

Not mentioned:

-The completely unsubtle slamming of the movie industry during the video game montage. Wild stuff.

-Watchmen Morpheus had his moments.

-Blue hair girl that saves Neo is awesome. Maybe the movie should have just been about her.

-I loved Sahbebe (sp?) and the other robots. Including the fruit making program.

-I dug how they framed “the heist” with Prianka Choprah running lead … but also that scene fits into the movie in a real messy way.

-I thought King George did great as pseudo-Smith.

-The fight that spanned in the train should have been longer / cooler.

-Using Brass Against The Machine at the end was really something.

[aion-rsa]

How The Animatrix Set the Bar For What If…? and Star Wars: Visions

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Long before What If…? or Star Wars: Visions, there was The Animatrix, a collection of nine animated short films set in the world of The Matrix. Released in 2003, between The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, The Animatrix told nine (mostly) distinct stories only tangentially related to the ongoing plot of the Matrix series proper, and Lana and Lilly Wachowski did it by collaborating with some of the best directors working in Japanese animation at the time. I would say that The Animatrix walked so What If…? and Star Wars: Visions could run… except for the fact that The Animatrix fucking soared.

What is The Animatrix?

The Animatrix is comprised of nine short films, with stories ranging from a “historical file” of how the Matrix was created out of the war between humanity and machines in two-parter “The Second Renaissance” to the minimalist black-and-white noir of “A Detective Story” to a Westworld-like feudal fighting exercise that takes place in a Matrix-like construct in “Program.” The Wachowskis came up with the ambitious premise for The Animatrix when they were in Japan doing promotion for the first Matrix film. While there, they visited some of the Japanese animation studios that inspired them, and the idea for The Animatrix was born.

While the Wachowskis are main creative forces behind The Animatrix, having written four of the nine films, they collaborated with seven different (mostly Japanese) directors for the project, including Cowboy Bebop director Shinichiro Watanabe; Koji Morimoto, who has worked on classics like Akira and Kiki’s Delivery Service; Studio Ghibli alum Mahiro Maeda, who has also worked on live-action movies like Mad Max: Fury Road and Kill Bill: Vol. 1; Avatar animation supervisor Andy Jones; Ninja Scroll director Yoshiaki Kawajiri; Madhouse studio co-founder Takeshi Koike; and Aeon Flux TV series creator Peter Chung. The collaboration resulted in a variety of different, striking visual styles that give each of the Animatrix stories a distinct look, despite being set in the same fictional universe.

When The Animatrix was released in 2003, the American and global media distribution models looked very different. There was TV and there was film, and there was very little blurring between the two. While TV was obviously the format more comfortable with a series of short installments, there were very few examples of more experimental anthology series in the TV industry at the time, especially one presented partially in a language other than English: Japanese.

Still, the Wachowskis got creative with their release strategy for The Animatrix, which existed somewhere between the world of cinema and the world of TV. Four of the nine films were released on the Matrix series’ official website. One of the films was shown in cinemas alongside the feature Dreamcatcher. The collection was released in its entirety on VHS and DVD, alongside special features that included a documentary on Japanese animation, director profiles and interviews, and behind-the-scene footage of the films’ making. For some cinephiles (like this one, growing up in rural New Hampshire without cable), The Animatrix was an introduction to anime, which was much less accessible in 2003.

The Animatrix did get a TV release. In the U.S., censored versions of the films were broadcast on Adult Swim in 2004; in Canada, they aired on Teletoon in 2004; and, in the U.K., Channel 5 aired several of the shorts before and after the DVD’s release. The Animatrix had a short theatrical release in select cinemas globally in the lead up to The Matrix Reloaded—more of a promotional event than a commercial strategy specific to the collection of animated shorts. If you need any proof of just how much the media landscape is changed, The Animatrix is now available to stream instantly and from the comfort of your own home for anyone with an HBO Max subscription.

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How What If…? & Star Wars: Visions Compare to The Animatrix

Though both falling under the ever-expanding umbrella of the Disney conglomerate, Marvel and Lucasfilm are taking very different approaches to their Animatrix-like collections of animated short films. Perhaps unsurprisingly given the aesthetic of the MCU, Marvel is using the same visual style for all installments of its What If…? anthology series. Director/producer Bryan Andrews told Screen Rant they considered using a different visual style for each episode before settling on a more consistent look both because it is easier to produce and because it creates a cohesion with the larger MCU.

“We need to make it feel like these are all subtle variations of a universe that we can all see, which is the MCU,” said Andrews. “The MCU looks a certain way, right? Because it’s all live-action. So, we needed something.” The look was inspired by “classic American illustrators, mainly J. C. Leyendecker, from the 20s and 30s.” Andrews calls the style “live-action adjacent,” intended to help the audience “buy into this as an animated telling of these movies I just watched.”

Meanwhile, Star Wars: Visions is going a different route, much more akin to the strategy of The Animatrix. While What If…? is firmly situated within an American animation tradition, the Visions stories have been created across seven Japanese anime studios, showcasing a variety of visual styles rooted in the Japanese animation tradition.

In a statement (via THR), Visions executive producer James Waugh said of the project: “Their stories showcase the full spectrum of bold storytelling found across Japanese animation; each told with a freshness and voice that expands our understanding of what a Star Wars story can be, and celebrates a galaxy that has been such an inspiration to so many visionary storytellers.”

Neither strategy is inherently better than the other, though it’s hard not to see Star Wars: Visions as the more creatively ambitious of the two, given the breadth of its visual styles and the diversity of its chief creative creators. Regardless of how you feel about the latest additions to the MCU and Star Wars universes, the two series highlight just how ahead of its time The Animatrix truly was. Twenty years ago, the Wachowskis created a strange and beautiful series of tie-in shorts in collaboration with some of Japan’s best animators. They did this in a world that was much less globally-connected and in an industry that was much more formally rigid than the one we know today. Pour one out for The Animatrix.

Star Wars: Vision will premiere Sept. 22 on Disney+. What If…? drops new episodes every Wednesday on Disney+. The Animatrix is available to stream on HBO Max.

The post How The Animatrix Set the Bar For What If…? and Star Wars: Visions appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[theexistentiallyqueer]

nomi got good things because she’s a white trans woman, like lana wachowski (notorious racist). not saying nomi didn’t deserve a happy ending but the wachowskis ain’t subtle about focusing more on the (white) self-insert esp given their history of fetishizing black women sooo

nomi got good things because she’s a trans woman, and the wachowskis were writing about their own trans experiences, and this was a show about queerness from the start.

could they have made nomi a woman of color? yes. should they have? absofuckinglutely. but to weigh her whiteness and her transness on a scale against each other and call one of the few authentic examples of trans representation in film a “self-insert” is pretty fuckin transphobic.

and yes, they do fetishize black women. i’m never going to make apologies for how the show handles race. (like when they compared will being called a pig and wolfgang being called a nazi to capheus being called the n-word??? honestly, lana, what the fuck were you smoking)

but like. my friend, this is not oppression olympics. trans women as a whole, collectively, are near the very bottom of our society, and trans women of color are at the very bottom. i would wholeheartedly embrace an alternative sense8 that focused on a lesbian trans woman of color.

but what we got is imperfect. because no work of fiction is perfect (not even black panther).

and it’s important to recognize the inherent, intended queerness of sense8 that was the underlying driving focus of the show, and to understand why nomi’s arc - as privileged as she is, being white and coming from rich parents - is important, because there are so few trans narratives, period. have you seen the reactions from trans people to nomi’s story, to her story’s resolution?

you just…you can’t diminish that. you can’t.

[poebrey]

Although I agree that the Sense8 fandom does have its problems, as does the show itself, why is the actor leaving because he was uncomfortable with things a reflection on the fandom? The same kind of acts were involved in season 1, and it should have been expected that he may have had to be involved at some point considering the premise of the show.

bc the way it went down made it obvious it was because aml had personal issues with lana and some of the other crew members (in fact when it first happened some of the tweets jamie made about it, where she seemed downright happy and mentioned things like ‘hate’ being wrong or something -i think i rbed screencaps of them when it first happened but im too lazy to check- made it seem like aml had been transphobic in some way which had to be dispelled multiple times). and a lot of people, particularly black fans that had been commenting on all the issues with his character in season one, thought, given lanas history, that she had probably done something super racist but there was no confirmation of anything on that end and most of the fandom ignored that possibility

so of course a few months later when the christmas special aired and the show compared the word n*****r to “pig” a lot of people thought it was #deep and shrugged it off and got over aml leaving (which along with being a fucked up comparison was ameri-centric as hell and all seemed to be specifically referencing the us’s cop brutality debate). and then when season 2 aired last month and the season kicked off with acting like reverse racism was real and doing that contrived ass plot with zakia where they tried paint her as unreasonable and upset at something which wasn’t a big deal - which it wasn’t but the message in that scene still ended up being that it wasn’t an issue that African/Black people grew up being made to look up to a disproportionate amount of white people through various media, which is - people called it iconic and profound because frankly white people severely lack reading comprehension when it comes to race issues and always think that fake deep shit like that sounds profound, and then somehow managed to miss all of the more subtle stuff through the season (my fav being that one scene where the writers specifically used the phrase ‘protest’ for what was happening to Kala and riot for Capheus multiple times when there was the same type of behavior, and then proceeded to focus on Nomi’s feelings on the matter, or how Kala, Capheus and Sun were divorced from the main plot, again)

I mean to not write a whole treatise on this, between Aml quitting and what we already know about the showrunners fandom should’ve been on alert for a lot of the continued red flags that happened this season, instead we get people yelling about how there’s no way the show isn’t revolutionary in racial diversity bc 3/8th of the cluster aren’t white when only 3/10th of the world pop is and how the Wachowskis had the #courage to shoot in Nairobi or how they should be applauded for not stereotyping Mexico like that was a challenge. It’s sad but also frankly why the show didn’t pick as much traction as it did to be perfectly honest, because in the first damn episode there were massive red flags that turned off viewers and there’s still people in this fandom acting like people have no right to judge that or the fact the showrunners did yellowface in one of their last major projects prior to the show ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[sharkchunks]

The Female Gaze in Film

Laura Mulvey identified the “male gaze” in 1975 to describe film imagery in terms of a pleasurable experience for the male viewer, as dictated by patriarchal culture. It has three dimensions: The view of the male character, the view of the male director, and the view of the male audience. This view can be heavily objectifying to women, and goes back in history all the way to the male painters who would, for their pleasure and the pleasure of their male audience, paint naked women and then title the picture “Vanity,” condemning the woman for looking at herself in a mirror while simultaneously enjoying her body for themselves.

The term “female gaze” has been used often to describe any instance of a topless man in a movie, but this is inaccurate. The female gaze must consist of the same three dimensions of a male gaze, and therefore it only exists in films directed by women. So George of the Jungle, Batman and Robin, and other commonly cited examples are null.

The films above are:

The Piano by Jane Campion

Bound by Lilly and Lana Wachowski

American Psycho by Mary Harron

What Women Want by Nancy Meyers

Thirteen by Catherine Hardwicke

Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen by Sara Sugarman

Twilight by Catherine Hardwicke

Fish Tank by Andrea Arnold

Fifty Shades of Grey by Sam Taylor-Johnson

I have seen The Piano, Bound, What Women Want, American Psycho, Thirteen, Twilight, and Fifty Shades of Grey. I have not seen Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen or Fish Tank.

The Piano is a work so complex that it may get its own post later on, until then I can only say that its use of the female gaze is muted by its subject matter. Ada is suppressed in the extreme and afraid to look, so the film is presented from a peculiarly masculine point of view. This may be accusatory of Campion, denying the gaze to portray the near monastic quality of her life in New Zealand. The Piano also contains its own commentary on voyeurism and specifically of the projected film in the shadow play scene. Campion’s later film “In The Cut” more directly addresses the female gaze, but the critical scene is not appropriate for my blog. Suffice it to say, Campion is likely one of the greatest masters of cinematic craft alive and she’s using the female gaze on levels so brilliant that I can’t understand them well enough to write about them. An essay about The Piano and the female gaze appears here, but it mostly covers the concept rather than the film.

Bound is a film about two women who fall in love and steal a great deal of money from an organized crime syndicate. Their looks throughout the film are heavily flirtatious and at times desperate, and their relationship is treated seriously which for 1996 was, at least in my memory, uncommon for depictions of lesbian relationships which were often played for humor or exclusively for male amusement. Susie Bright actually consulted on the film and its sex scenes, and the DVD commentary reveals a great deal about the Wachowskis’ approach and the more subtle sexual themes of the film. In comparison to a male gaze film, Bound doesn’t actually feel any different to most casual male viewers. To female viewers however, the film was said to be a welcome relief from the cliches and tropes that the extreme male gaze summons. The film is also original, well done in terms of crime drama, and let the Wachowskis make The Matrix, which many say revolutionized action cinema. Bound also features a lesbian lead named Violet, who confronts a misogynist villain in the end with a badass retort and a cheer-worthy victory moment. That may have influenced some authors at some point.

American Psycho was a novel written by Brett Easton Ellis, whose sexuality would take several paragraphs to summarize, that was considered one of the most misogynist, disgusting books ever written by many readers and critics, and a feminist treatise by others. Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner adapted it into a fairly mainstream film by cutting hours upon hours of rape and murder, keeping about 2 hours of it for the movie. The screencap included here is of the titular Psycho’s secretary finding his books of violent fantasy drawings. Though it does not fit the convention of the gaze as applied to a human sexual subject, it is a representation by women of a woman observing a man’s fantasy life and being horribly saddened by it. Audience reaction fulfilling the third condition is notable in that when asked whether the books she saw meant that all the murder was in Bateman’s head, or if it was all real and he just also doodled horrible things in addition, all the boys in a film class said it was fantasy, and all the girls said it was in addition to the reality of the murders. Harron’s commentary suggests the murders were real.

What Women Want is the story of Mel Gibson getting mind reading powers that work only on women. In the scene pictured, his boss played by Helen Hunt catches herself looking at his crotch and he hears her thinking as much, so he stands in a manner emphasizing the region and then she looks again and covers her eyes in shame. This is a laugh moment in the film but has a deeper subtext in terms of the female gaze- Which is self-punished by the looker even when it’s caused by the intentional act of the male. Even in the year 2000, women were not allowed by filmmakers to look at men the way that men gleefully brag about looking at women. I’d love to say that times have changed by 2017 but this isn’t the fake fact blog.

Thirteen is the story of a 13 year old girl who gets into drugs and sex and other such things that scare parents. In the screencap above, the main character is looking over another girl of her age, who is also looking her over in an apparent judgement of what each other are wearing. They become friends after this scene and quickly deteriorate into the activities the filmmakers condemn. The shot from Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen also depicts a two girls staring at each other, this time in contempt. The application toward the female gaze is that in both cases, when turned on females, the gaze is an act of judgement which also inspires judgement in the viewer. In contrast to the male gaze though, this judgement is not objectifying. How many films directed by men have a scene where the slow pan up a woman’s body is ascribed to a female viewer?

The director of Thirteen later directed the Twilight film. The Twilight franchise has been accused on many fronts of reductive portrayals of its main character, who is herself, in some opinions, a reductive view of women, by a female author. As such it’s no surprise that this is the first example here of a female looking over a male in an exact inversion of the typical male gaze, depicted without punishment or regret. Here the accusation of objectification could be valid, though I’ve never heard anyone claim it and would certainly not claim it myself, even though Edward is not human. The series, later in the hands of male directors, would be accused of objectification when it came to the numerous shirtless images of Taylor Lautner. This is not the female gaze however, it was the male mimic of the female gaze that critics found so offensive. Compare Twilight to Batman and Robin’s ultra-gratuitous butt shots and nippled suits, which started their own slew of homophobic accusations against the openly gay director Joel Schumacher. All the above is to explain that the female gaze was inoffensive when authentic, but as soon as a bunch of guys appropriated it, they made it a problem. And of course, Catherine Hardwicke was blamed for that problem, even though she’d been off the project already, some say for misogynistic Hollywood reasons.

I have not seen Fish Tank, but an analysis of its use of the female gaze can be found here.

Fifty Shades of Grey, regardless of its origins, functions as a completely average movie romance and the female gaze is used as an inversion of the male. At no time did the film take any apparent measures to exceed its expectations as a sleazy and inaccurate portrayal of its subject, nor did it even capture the full gleeful sleaze of the books, nor did it use its subject to expand the lexicon of the female gaze as it could have spectacularly. Woman stares at attractive man. That’s it. That’s all there is.

The rarity and of the female gaze in cinema is obviously a result of the lack of female directors in mainstream film. Even in independent cinema, women are often prevented from assuming the director’s chair by sexist investors. In Hollywood, there’s even a fad of taking doomed projects and giving them to women so that the women can be blamed and kicked out of their contracts, while at the same time apparently supporting the producers’ assertions that clearly women can’t make good movies.

The male gaze, under Hitchcock, Kubrick, Cronenberg and others has become not only a trope but a powerful cinematic tool that covers the inherent voyeurism of cinema, that can invert it to accuse the viewer, or titillate the viewer, or condemn a character, or enlighten an audience. I would posit that the female gaze is exactly as developed and has been used with exactly the same effectiveness, we’ve just barely seen it because of the patriarchal nature of the film industry up to today and unfortunately almost certainly beyond.

We may get a non-binary gaze in film sometime in the 24th century if we’re lucky.

[haroldgross]

New Post has been published on Harold Gross: The 5a.m. Critic

New Post has been published on http://literaryends.com/hgblog/sense8-series-2/

Sense8 (series 2)

The first series of Sense8 was a mind-blowing experience. Its scope and inventiveness blazed new ground for the small screen. It challenged its viewers on many levels and managed to set up a world and set of conflicts that had you begging for more. Even if it wasn’t new material for readers of folks like Theodore Sturgeon, it was the best depiction of those ideas I’d ever seen in visual media.

Then came the holiday special, which was an important story bridge, but which also indicated a potential shift in quality. So it was with no little trepidation that I dove into the long awaited second series.

One of the first things that is immediately obvious is that one of the rich aspects of the show, the 8 languages, has been shifted to all English. It is a subtle change at first, but as the show goes on it definitely feels diminished and less credible. One of the fascinating and wonderful aspects to Sense8 was the multi-cultural breadth of the characters. It is part of its core message that people of all countries and creeds can work closely together, can love one another. Now, not only does it all sound the same, but some of the actors are struggling with the language, and subtleties, such as using English as a way to make others feel dumb or less, have been lost.

The scale of the show has also been pulled back. In some ways this was anticipated. Sense8 is not one of Netflix’s most successful shows in terms of sheer force. It will work for them for years, I’ve no doubt, but budgets aren’t typically planned on that hope. So I can forgive this, especially if it means we get more. However, there was at least one great addition to the cast (which I can’t discuss without blowing surprises), but I will say that Doctor Who fans will be pleased.

While Straczynski (Babylon 5), and Lana and Lilly Wachowski (Jupiter Ascending) are all still very involved, I was sad to see Tom Tykwer (Drei/3)disappear from the creative staff. There was a magic with all of them that seems just a little less without him there. And the rules of this world are somewhat fungible at this time… this could be because our main characters really are still learning about what they are or it could be that the writers are not staying consistent. Time will tell on that, but it does need to clarify how Sensoriums can reach out to one another and when/how someone can take over someone else.

OK, all of that said, this is still a fascinating and brave show. It is doing things and dealing with themes that no one else really is, and certainly not in this way. The end of this series, of course, sets up the next and it has definitely raised the stakes again.  So, yes, I am anticipating the the next series already. I hope it gets renewed and I hope it comes with a bit more of the original series feeling back into it.

[erindrifter]

Matrix 4!!! Resurrections!!! I just watched it, so buckle up for my Official Review!!!!

It sure does exist. That's it, have a good one!

Ok, fine, you got me, I have more to say. But not much, mind you.

This movie doesn't need to exist. There was no story that still needed to be told. The fun part is that Lana Wachowski knew this. In the beginning of the movie, there is a conversation that was the actual legitimate LEAST SUBTLE metaphor for this movie ever. Basically, this guy decided to just outright say "Hey, our executives Warner Brothers decided to make Matrix 4. I know, it's stupid, but they said they're doing it with or without you." And then Neo has a panic attack about it.

The other thing is that this movie sheds a layer of veneer from the previous movies. There was a post I saw a while ago that went "Matrix: Resurrections shows what the Matrix series really is: a love story" and that statement is incredibly true. I saw that post right before watching the second and third movies, and that still rings entirely true. This movie is a romance movie, but it also features action scenes.

Other than that, this movie is EXACTLY what I thought it would be. A dumb sequel to a story that didn't need one, and featuring just SO MANY callbacks to the previous movies. If you aren't a fan of callbacks and fan service, this isn't the movie for you. Even as someone who enjoys that stuff, it was getting a bit much for me.

Basically, in short, I don't have much to say about this movie. It's not bad by any stretch, but it's not great. It's alright.