The Cutprice Guignol

February 12, 2015

Fifty Shades of Grey Recaps: Chapter 9

Right, that’s it. No more Ms Nice Recapper. A couple of days ago I wrote an article expounding on a few ideas that have been covered extensively since Fifty Shades was first released- that it depicts an abusive relationship, that the BDSM in depicts is inaccurate and irresponsible, that people seem oblivious to both these factors. Well, I was on Twitter yesterday, and I decided to look out a few fans who believed that Fifty Shades didn’t depict an abusive relationship (I assume there are fans who like the books AND understand that it’s an abusive relationship, but I’ve not come across one yet). Guess what? They’re all a bunch of twats. I really rarely make generalisations of this kind of extremity, but reading through the endless breakdowns from social workers, domestic abuse survivors, and pissed off critics, there is simply no denying that Fifty Shades is about an abusive relationship. The people who think it isn’t are either idiots or wilfully ignorant. And, considering how loud the debate has gotten over the last week or two with the release of the movie only a day away, few fans of the book are unaware of the proof and arguments made to support the fact that abuse exists in Fifty Shades. And they’re still defending it. Do you know what that says to me? That says that they have put their own “ideal man”-who’s a boring, pretentious cunt- above the desire to listen to and support victims of domestic abuse. They are negating traumatic experiences so they can get their jollies to some abusive monster and, while Christian Grey might only exist on the page,his ilk are very real. And hey, who can blame them-the author gets upset that people are “trivializing” these issues by implying that she wrote a book that’s a how-to guide for abusers. I imagine she probably gets even more upset that the people who’ve seen their own abusive experiences regurgitated up in the form of half-baked fan-fiction and waved in their face as “THE ROMANCE OF THE CENTURY” while the author trivializes the issues by refusing to address them. These are a bunch of grown adults jamming their fingers in their ears and shouting “LALALALALA IF I CAN’T HEAR YOU IT’S NOT TRUE”. I’m done. I’m out. I’ve attempted to look at this book from an amusing, non-accusatory point of view because I appreciated that lots of people liked it and found it empowering, but I’m not going to coddle the thousands of idiots who think this isn’t abuse. I’m putting this book in the reverse bear trap and ripping it to pieces, because the people saying it’s not abusive can’t been convinced, they can only be proved wrong, again and again and again, until they look like such idiots no-one takes them seriously. Come the fuck on: let’s get chapter 9 of these recaps on the go.

*exhales*

Right, so the chapter begins as Ana wakes up next to Christian. As she wanders round Christian’s giant walk-in closet, her subconscious tells her off for letting a man she doesn’t love take her virginity, because now what bedsheets will she show to her husbands on their wedding night now, the slattern? She bemoans her luck for having fallen for an unbelievably rich, super-handsome guy who just fucked her, and it strikes me that the only really positive things that Ana says about Christian revolve around his bank balance or his body. Seriously, I can’t bring to mind one other nice thing she’s said about him other than “rich” and “hot”.

If I’m going to be fucking a sociopath who’s only redeeming features are being hot and rich…

Ana starts cooking breakfast, and Christian makes some innuendo about eggs (“thoroughly whisked and beaten”) as Ana thinks how uncharacteristically playful he is, even though she has literally spent no time around him and can’t no what’s in-character or not. She winces when they sit down for breakfast, and Christian makes some more thinly veiled references to how he’s going to pound her some more (Ana’s subconcious literally goes “more… more sex… yes, please”, which sounds like something I might blurt out during a vivid dream about Michael Rooker, not something anyone would actually think in real life). Christian attempts to convince Ana to stay for another night, and takes way too long to “acquiesce” that she’s going to leave that evening. Oh fuck off Grey you entitled wankstain. Speaking of entitled wankstains, Ana doesn’t fancy her breakfast-

“”I told you, I have issues with wasted food. Eat,” he snaps. His eyes are dark, pained.”

WHHYY—HHYY–HYYY WON’T YOU EAT YOUR EGGS ANA WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Remember back in chapter four when he ordered the entire hotel breakfast menu for Ana without bothering to ask what she wanted? Ana thinks that she “must remember not to put so much on [her] plate” and I want to burn my house to the ground because she’s a grown woman who can eat however much or little as she wants. Kate calls, and gets excited that Ana banged Grey, saying she’s been waiting four years for this moment (presumably because now Ana’s been deflowered she’ll be distracted from stealing Kate’s clothes, fucking up Kate’s work opportunities, and living off Kate’s family). She asks if Ana’s okay and if he was gentle (do we all remember him “ripping” through her virginity in the last chapter?) and Ana gets exasperated and hangs up. You know, that Kate really is a raging bitchtroll, and I’m entirely on side about Ana’s anger at her questions because- oh wait, hang on, Ana’s being unbearable again, isn’t she? Because no other women in this book can be remotely likeable or decent lest we realize that Ana has all the character depth of a particularly lingering fart? SILLY ME.

How dare you imply that this was nothing but an excuse to browse through my generous collection of Bill Skarsgard-related gifs.

Christian invites Ana for a bath and desire pools “way down there” as Ana’s feet presumably start secreting vaginal fluid. She starts chewing her lip:

“”I know that lip is delicious, I can attest to that, but will you stop biting it?” he says through clenched teeth. “You chewing it makes me want to fuck you, and you’re sore, okay?””

Ah yes, I remember how it’s Ana’s fault that you can’t control your erection and also haven’t even considered the fact that Ana might want to actually have sex. They climb into the bath together, and Christian rubs a soapy flannel on her vagina, which certainly isn’t the way to get a persistent urinary tract infection, especially after you’ve recently had sex for the first time. I hope the rest of this book is just Ana mainlining cranberry juice and jamming natural yoghurt up herself to cure a yeast infection, all the while blaming Kate, that putrid bitch.

Pictured: Ana’s subconcious dwells on Kate.

In the end, Christian doesn’t let her orgasm, and instead insists that he needs cleaning. My favourite line of the book so far happens-

“”I want you to become well acquainted, on first name terms if you will, with my favorite and most cherished part of my body. I am very attached to it”

So many questions. Does he have a list with all his body parts in order of preference? Does he realize that of course he’s very attached to his cock- because it’s actually a part of his body? If his cock has a first name, does that mean it has a last one too? Is that last name double-barrelled? Man, you can’t just throw that in there and expect me not to want to know more.

Another overly masculine attachment that I have many, many questions about.

For some reason, EL is more than happy to describe a quite graphic blowjob scene with anatomically correct words, but still can’t refer to Ana’s vagina. I refuse to believe, considering this is told from Ana’s viewpoint, that she knew them fancy word for his cock but still can’t accurately name ANYTHING that goes on between her belly and the “apex of her thighs” (which is how she constantly refers to her bits). And then Christian comments on how young Ana looks with pigtails in, and Ana refers to his cock as a “popsicle”, and I get really skeeved out. Christian ties her hands, and promises to kiss her all over: “My heated blood pools low in my belly, between my legs, right down there.” WHERE? WHERE? SHE CAN RUN HER TONGUE OVER HIS ERECTION BUT SHE CAN’T NAME PARTS OF HER OWN BODY? At this point, I don’t think this is chasteness, but rather just ignorance of her own body, which is somewhat worrying considering the fact that the guy who’s sleeping with her doesn’t really care much to explain it to her (earlier in the chapter, he tells Ana that any questions she has about sex should be directed at him, not Kate, who Ana wants to talk to).

Pictured: Ana’s attitude to sex

Christian sucks on her feet, yada yada yada, then it becomes clear that he’s going to go down on her. Ana’s reaction? “…part of me wants to push him off because I’m mortified and embarrassed. He’s going to kiss me there!”. HEAVEN FORFEND. Look, I don’t know if it’s common to find oral sex embarrassing, and if you do then fair enough, it’s your body, but you’d think the best-selling romance of all time would feature a female lead who wasn’t humiliated at the thought of receiving pleasure? After she’s come, she syas she vaguely hears the rip of foil and Christian starts screwing her, because fuck what he said a page ago about not wanting to have sex with her because she’s sore, and fuck asking her if that’s what she wants to do!

Oh everyone and everything fuck off.

Oh, and then his mother turns up.

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February 10, 2015

Shelters and Graveyards: Abuse, BDSM and Love Stories in Fifty Shades of Grey

The Fifty Shades of Grey film hits cinemas later this week, and I think it’s time we take a bloody good look at why Fifty Shades is a story about an abusive relationship. Hundreds of people are defending EL James’ best-selling novel as a depiction of a love story. but it’s time to add to the maelstrom of people arguing that no, it fucking doesn’t.

Fifty Shades, as people who’ve been keeping up with my shouty recaps will know, follows the story of Christian Grey, mysterious multi-millionaire wanker and dominant, and his relationship with Ana Steele, mousy, pretentious college student. And, right from the off, their relationship is abusive. Because Christian has an inability to respect boundaries, he travels cross-country to pick a drunk Ana up from a party, takes her home, undresses her, and sleeps next to her, without once asking if it’s okay. Christian gets angry at Ana for being a virgin. He stalks her with tracking devices on her phone. She never signs the infamous sex contract he presents her with in order to establish their boundaries as dominant and submissive, but he uses it against her when he decides that she shouldn’t see her mother. He buys her place of work so he can exert more control over her life. He grabs her and pulls her at several times throughout the novel. Christian occasionally outright threatens Ana with violence for doing things he doesn’t like- describing himself as “palm-twitchingly mad” when she visits a male friend. He pulls Ana away from her friends and locks her in a room with him until she tells him why she won’t return his calls. He admits to getting her drunk in order to get her to agree to what he wants. At the end of the first book, Ana explains to Christian that she doesn’t like the idea of getting punished- he manipulates her saying that she said she’d never leave in her sleep, and Ana asks just how painful things could get. With no discussion of boundaries, Christian beats Ana with a belt so hard she finds herself unable to speak through the pain and thus unable to use her safeword. When she does manage to count the blows out loud, her voice is a “strangled sob”, so pretty safe to say that things had gone too far; Christian doesn’t even stop to check she’s okay. Read this breakdown of Fifty Shades with regards to an emotional abuse checklist if you don’t believe me; throughout the first book alone and the whole series by extension, Fifty Shades is peppered with emotional abuse, manipulation and emotional blackmail. That’s a fact. Trust me, I know.

But what does that mean for people who like the book? If you are a fan of Fifty Shades, it doesn’t automatically mean that you support or condone abusive relationships. It means that you’re welcome to enjoy any kind of fantasy you want provided you’re able to draw the line between what you let happen in your head (or on the page) and what you would let happen to yourself or someone else in real life. As long as you’re able to accept the fact that the relationship depicted across the trilogy is a horrendously bad one, feel free to enjoy all the slightly kinky BDSM sex. No, seriously- go ahead and enjoy it. But stop counting yourself amongst fans who defend the book as a love story, or argue that those saying the book is abusive just don’t understand how BDSM works. Fifty Shades is often sold as the love story of a generation, with articles on Match.com and countless other websites giving readers tips on how to find their own Christian Grey. And therein lies the problem with the book- people aren’t satisfied with just the fantasy of a boring, emotionally manipulative manchild- they’re being encouraged to go after it in real life. The problem here arises from a worry that there are probably all too many people willing to become Christian Grey, and all too many people who, thanks to the books, might conflate romance and love with emotional abuse. Because at not one juncture in the book does EL James suggest what Christian is doing is abusive (similarly, the book steers mostly clear of labelling the sexual relationship Christian had as a young teenager with his mother’s manipulative friend as what it is – statutory rape). The reader is supposed to fall in love with him as much as Ana, when we should be encouraged to look out for the often tacit signs of emotional abuse (in our own relationships and in others) that Christian so perfectly epitomizes. Fans who defend this book are basically saying “LOOK! THIS CAMPAIGN OF EMOTIONAL AND BORDERLINE PHYSICAL ABUSE THAT CHRISTIAN CONDUCTS AGAINST ANA IS LOVE!” They are saying that they wouldn’t see a problem with this if it was happening to them or someone they knew. If that doesn’t worry anyone else, you’re probably less invested than me (lucky thing).

EL James has spoken about how upsetting she finds people describing her book as abusive is, saying “”Bringing up my book in this context trivializes the issues, doing women who actually go through it a huge disservice. It also demonizes loads of women who enjoy this lifestyle.” The problem with that statement? A) Most people calling the book abusive aren’t only annoyed at the pathetically mild BDSM the book depicts, even though that’s it’s practiced in an inaccurate and unsafe way B) It’s everything that happens outside the bedroom that counts as abuse, as well as some aspects of the relationship within it. Countless people have run down the ways in which Fifty Shades depicts an abusive relationship, so I won’t reiterate them all here, but too many critics of the book are framed as prudes or those conflating a consensual BDSM relationship with abuse. We’re not. Defenders of the book are conflating abuse with a consensual BDSM relationship, and they’re wrong.

Hey, you know who else thinks they’re wrong? Hundreds of members of the BDSM community. Here’s a fascinating link to a blog post by someone from without the world of BDSM explaining that the dominant/submissive dynamic depicted in Fifty Shades just wouldn’t fly in most BDSM circles because of how irresponsibly Christian practices BDSM. Some people have voiced concern over the fact that readers, inspired to try out BDSM by Fifty Shades, might well engage in play that blurs the lines of consent. BDSM is a complex lifestyle that requires work in order to keep things safe, sane and consensual- Fifty Shades does not show the planning, the long discussions about boundaries, and the aftercare required to have a successful experience. And then there’s depiction of BDSM as a disease that’s curable by True Wuv, as Ana consistently characterises Christian’s kink as the scariest thing about him (it’s not).

So, with the mighty behemoth that is Fifty Shades rolling into cinemas this week, what can you do to take a stand against the movie (past just not seeing it at all)? Well, I’m donating the cost of my movie ticket to Broken Rainbow, a charity that supports LGBT victims of domestic abuse. Whether you donate or not, keep talking about Fifty Shades- read the books for yourself, and find the countless pieces of evidence that define this as an abusive relationship. You don’t have to shame people for reading it; you have to get people thinking about if this kind of thing is acceptable in real life. I was looking for the right quote to end this piece on, and I found it, courtesy of Gail Dines: “Battered women’s shelters and graveyards are full of women who had the misfortune to meet their Christian Grey.”

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February 9, 2015

Is The Big Bang Theory Sexist? Well, Yeah.

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I was watching a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory last night, and, since I haven’t really watched it since feminism happened to me, my brain started wantonly analysing the treatment of women in the show. And you know what? The results weren’t good.

The show sprung from the mind of Chuck Lorre, the man behind the mind-bogglingly sexist Two and a Half Men, so it shouldn’t come as too much of a thundering surprise that The Big Bang Theory is sexist. But I guess it comes under a veneer of seemingly unintended forward-thinking ideas- showing several main female characters as accomplished and respected scientists, for example- but it undermines this message at so many turns it seems like a horrible mistake.

Let’s start with Penny. Question: can you tell me Penny’s last name? Nope? That’s right, because the show has never given her one-not as a long-running gag, but simply because it hasn’t come up in over eight years. She’s portrayed from the off as a stereotypical hot, dumb blonde who sleeps with a lot of men- sure, she has street smarts, but her booksmarts are regularly compared to the four leading men’s to make a joke at her expense. Har, har, fucking har. She eventually does go to college; the decision is made, not because she wants to continue her education to further her career or expand her prospects, but because she wants to be smart enough to date her scientist boyfriend. When she snaps back at Howard, the resident endearing creep, for hitting on her one to many times after she’d said no, she’s made to apologise for upsetting him- so when she does stand up for herself, she’s slapped down for it. You don’t even have to delve into why these examples are sexist, they’re so bloody obvious. And more numerous than I’d care to count.

And then you’ve got the rest of the women on the show, who are, without fail, introduced to be romantic or sexual interests for the men (excluding a few overbearing mothers). Amy, who’s introduced as the direct counterpart to socially awkward, hyper-intelligent Sheldon, is soon boiled down to her desire to make Sheldon her boyfriend and engage in “coitus” with him (and occasionally, brilliantly, criticise the Indiana Jones movies), which is hilarious because she isn’t conventionally beautiful. Leslie Winkle, a scientist, appears almost always when she’s a fuck-buddy to one of the main cast. Bernadette is probably the most complex portrayal on the show, and she does have her own merits- her refusal to quit her job to have kids, for example- but she’s still essentially there to marry Howard. When the men display negative character traits, like lying or cheating, it’s often played for laughs- when women do it, it’s usually played off to show how much it hurts the men in their lives. Many of the female characters are barely given personalities beyond what they offer to the men in the show, with many- like Raj’s big-eyed squeeze- directly reflecting the characters of the men their paired with.

Then you’ve got the silly marginalisation of women in geek culture. Look, here’s the thing: women like nerdy shit too. And some men- I stress, not all men- see women as an impingement on their sacred ground, accusing them of wielding nerd culture as an excuse to dress up in sexy outfits and go to Comic-Cons to exploit the loneliness and vulnerability of male geeks (tiny violins play). Things which are just blatantly, blunderingly not true. The Big Bang Theory doesn’t want girls near it’s boy’s toys. Women are rarely, if ever, shown engaging in geek culture in the same way the men in the show are- in fact, when the three leading women walk into a comic book store everyone stops to stare. Later, Penny picks out a Thor comic book because he is “hot”. In the world of The Big Bang Theory, women aren’t welcome in geek culture because they couldn’t possibly understand it the same way the guys do. And no, just because we’re invited to laugh at the guys for their obsession doesn’t mean that exclusion is okay, because we’re being encouraged to giggle at the intensity of their fascination, not the idea that they might have a fascination at all.

It seems doubly odd, too, when two of the leading women in the show have presumably followed a reasonably similar educational/career trajectory as the men, with regards to the fact that they all ended up working as respected scientists (albeit in different fields). Is it really beyond the realms of possibility that they, or literally any other female character on the show, might have found their way into the same fascination with pop culture and entertainment? Evidently not.

I wrote last month about sitcom sexism, and how it often comes down to an across-the-board lazy use of stereotypes. The Big Bang Theory doesn’t escape with that questionable honour. Women are actively excluded, mocked, and stereotyped. And this is one of the longest-running, most watched, and most awarded sitcoms on television. I won’t just ignore it, because this is television which, whether you like it or not, matters.

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February 3, 2015

A Wanker’s Literary Reaction: The Flash

“MY NAME IS BARRY ALLEN, AND I’M THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE!” bellows Grant Gustin cheerily over the opening credits of The Flash, a hectic series of primary-coloured blobs with happy/frowny faces whose entire first season arc was scribbled on the back on a napkin and the lost down the back of a cab seat.

The first time I saw Grant Gustin, he was playing Sebastian, a sexy, charming, devious gay guy trying to hook up with Chis Colfer’s boyfriend in Glee, of all places. For some reason, his most memorable moments on the show came during this amazing performance of Uptown Girl-

(for reference, Grant Gustin in the one standing next to a pillar with a vase thing on it at 8 seconds in, and also the only one from this show whose career hasn’t been permanently derailed by it)

– So whenever I see him wander, often apparently lost, on to screen as Barry Allen/The Flash my mind immediately shouts a line from that song at me. But that’s not to say Gustin (UPTOOOWN GIIIRL) isn’t kind of brilliant- he’s the epitome of bumbling charm, being a nice guy without being a Nice Guy (the kind who mope and frown because they’ve been “friendzoned”). The Flash- a super-fast superhero alter-ego of Barry’s who fights crime created after an accident- is essentially just an endearingly serious and shouty version of Barry, who’s just yer normal everyday forensic investigator with a face as cute as a puppy made of ice cream. He’s the centre of what is probably my favourite superhero show on television right now, which is saying kind of a lot because superhero movies and TV shows are beyond played out for me right now. Sure, I gave Arrow (The Flash’ mother series) and Agents of S.H.I.T.E a go, and sure, a picture of Stephen Amell holding a baby made my womanhood explode like a nuclear weapon. But Gustin (SHE’S BEEN LIVIN’ IN HER WHITE BREAD WORLD)- and his show, by extension- have an old-school, Gerry Anderson charm in the simplicity of both character and plot that sets them apart from the overly slick antics of The Avengers or-God forbid- Gotham.

The supporting cast- including That Guy Who Played JD’s Brother in Scrubs, Gruff Detective Father Figure, Gruff Detective Father Figure’s Intelligent and Beautiful Daughter, and the one nerdy guy on TV who’s somehow not an unbelievably annoying exaggeration of the worst parts of myself- are superb, and the simple backstory (big explosion, boom, megapowers) allows loads of time to fill in the universe around Gustin (AS LONG AS ANYONE WITH HOT BLOOD CA-AN). The villains are my favourite part of the show, by far. Plucked seemingly verbatim from the comics, they wear giant goggles, have guns that shoot ice, deliver terrible quips as they wreak havoc, and generally stalk around the place looking like they’re actually enjoying ruining countless lives because no-one has bothered to stop them yet. Give me bad guys who look like they’re having more fun than I did the whole of last weekend, and you’ve got me hooked.

I like that kind of brazen simplicity- I don’t need things to make sense when they’re fun. Sure, if you want to go hardcore on serious backstory, be my guest, but superhero shows that don’t work a healthy dollop of self-awareness into the mix are just throwing all their potential to the winds as far as I’m concerned. Go kick around the back entrance of the Game of Throne’s writers room if you want some serious work, I’m pretty sure they have a terrifying sweatshop of writers just attempting to keep up with how many characters are in the damn show.

I don’t demand high levels of camp from every series I watch, but that’s not to say I don’t miss it from time to time. If there’s one good thing that Gustin (AND NOW SHE’S LOOKIN’ FOR A DOWN-TOOOOWN MAN) has brought over from his time at Glee, it’s a bit of silliness. Everyone on screen during every episode of The Flash looks like they’re having a whale of a time, and it shines through every frame to turn Barry Allen’s antics into something really quite charming. Hard to fault? Probably not. Hard to dislike? Completely.

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January 27, 2015

The ABCs of Death is Important. Really Important.

Look, ABCs of Death gets a bad rap. And I’m still not entirely sure as to why. A 26-section horror anthology that handed out letters of the alphabet to more than two dozen directors and told them to make a short horror film that featured a death in some way, it’s an audacious idea from the off. But there’s a certain kind of snobbery that surrounds short horror movies- I guess because they’re cheap, easy to make, and therefore attract some of the most inexperienced and lowly-budgeted directors the industry has kicking around (not the inexperience or low budget are actually an excuse- look what my best friend did with his short horror movie). So, a lot of shitty, low-concept, badly-made horror shorts are churned out and the nuanced, varied world of short horror gets a bad name once again.

But ABCs of Death is not just a bloody excellent movie. Well, of course it’s that, despite patchy segments (Ti West’s M for Miscarriage is particularly egregios, which is sad because his movies, especially The Innkeepers, are so excellent), and mixes up horror stalwarts with up-and-comers, foreign directors, animators, actors and artists alike. It’s a neat idea, but that’s not the sole reason why it’s so important.

ABCs of Death is a profoundly important movie for the horror genre- in fact, I’d wager that it’s the most important horror movie of the decade so far. Every few years or so, we get a movie that’s going to cause a big stir and spawn scores of skittering little rip-offs that will characterise the industry for the next few seasons or so. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1974, Friday the 13th in 1980, Scream in 1996, The Blair With Project in 1999, Saw in 2004, Insidious in 2011….these might not be the best examples of the genre, but they’re the popular ones that stuck, and that’s what makes them important, like it or not. There’s been a modest revival of the horror anthology in the last few years of so, with The Profane Exhibit, V/H/S (and V/H/S 2) and ABCs of Death attracting respected directors and creating new genre stars in their own right. But ABCs of Death-stripped of any wraparound segments to tie the whole thing together, laid bare in it’s brutal, bloody brilliance- is the most important of the lot. Why? Because it doesn’t show off one facet of the horror genre: it shows off every single one over the course of two occasionally harrowing hours of unrestrained creativity.

You’ve got the curdling, sweaty straightforwardness of the shocking D for Dogfight (for my money, the best sequence in the bunch) matched at the other end of the film with the equally horrible but far less visceral Y for Youngbuck (complete with Hannibal-esque stag man). N for Nuptials is a pitch-black romcom, while Q for Quack presents a hyperactive meta-comedy starring the director and producer trying to kill a duck. B for Bigfoot and C for Cycle jump on overused horror tropes and give them a sharp, tantalising twist, then O for Orgasm turns up as a crisply erotic bit of abstract film-making.

I’ll say this now: I’m going to embed a few of the full shorts into the article to give those who are interested a taste, but be warned that this one is extremely violent and potentially very disturbing. Seriously, I’m only going to say this once: if violence against animals or people bothers you, give this video a miss.

Of course, there are some which just plane don’t word- K for Klutz and probably W for WTF- or are just too pointedly disgusting to get through (I’m looking at you, L for Libido). But for every miss, you’ve got the sublime weirdness of the stop-motion animation T for Toilet or the harrowing I for Ingrown. Some, like high-concept sci-fi thriller V for Vagitus or the ingenious U for Unearthed, beg for a feature-length re-imagining, juxtaposed against viscerally relatable X for XXL which tells every bit of story you’d want told. You get what I’m saying here. ABCs is a film with ups and downs, because it reflects the industry as a whole.

Have a break, have a Q for Quack.

ABCs is great and vital viewing for anyone who’s new and enthusiastic, or old and passionate, to the genre, because it proves that horror is not just about creepy kids lurking behind doors, or serial killers ripping the lungs from their victims. Horror is a fabulous, gleeful subscription to everything that makes you sick and uncomfortable, everything that makes you screw your face up and glance momentarily away from the screen.

Ben Wheatley’s U for Unearthed, told from the POV of a vampire fleeing a mob.

Horror- that feeling of disgust or fear or whatever you want to call it at the pit of your stomach- can be elicited by almost anything if you’ve got a decent enough director and idea behind it. ABCs of Death is the best example of that I’ve ever seen, because, as an anthology, it isn’t stuck to one genre but allowed to wander freely from slasher to comedy to spooky bedtime story. And that’s what makes it one of the most brilliant, entertaining and vital movies of this generation’s horror classics. Love it or hate it, this is the best example of what modern horror can, can’t, and is willing to do to get under your skin.

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January 25, 2015

Ex Machina and Sexy Naked Ladies

So, I saw Ex Machina today. And it was an okay film: I’m slightly surprised by the number of people hailing at as one of the best science fiction films in recent memory, with insta-classics like Looper, District 9, and Moon on the proverbial radar, but sure, it was fine.

Following the story of twenty-someting coder Caleb (Domnhall Gleeson) after he’s invited to the home of reclusive tech genius Nathan (an electric Oscar Isaac), the plot revolves around Caleb’s interactions with Nathan’s latest creation: a high-functioning robot called Ava (played by an otherworldly, nuanced, slightly calculating Alicia Vikander). Nathan encourages Caleb to conduct a kind of Turing test to establish the validity of the AI he’s created, and Caleb finds himself drawn to the intelligent and beautiful Ava. Predictable shenanigans ensue.

I don’t want to talk about the actual plot of the film, because there wasn’t much there that hasn’t been explored before. I want to talk about the gender roles present in Ex Machina, because that’s probably the most interesting part of the whole film: Isaac’s Nathan literally bulges with muscles and masculinity and sexual virility, while Gleeson is his nervous, baby-faced counterpart. And in the middle of them is Ava; half beautiful woman and half visible machine, she’s both alluring and off-putting, both an actor and the acted upon.

The film did piss me off quite a bit with the sheer amount of uncalled for female nudity shown on-screen (the award for the science-fiction movie with most landing strips goes to…) especially when compared to the amount of male nudity we got (none). There’s no doubt that writer-director Alex Garland was critiquing the male ego (Isaac sees himself as an infallible God figure who creates and literally discards women as he needs them, while Domnhall Gleeson swings in as a white-knight saviour for Ava. Both, ultimately, fail) in Ex Machina, but it begs the question: where’s the line between gratuitous and necessary nudity in a film with these kinds of gender-based themes?

By showing a bunch of female nudity, Garland puts himself in a difficult position. He’s both inviting us to question the way that these women-robots are portrayed, used and viewed by the men in the film, and inviting us to ogle them along with his leading characters. The camera lingers voyeuristically on ex-ballet dance Vikander’s naked body when she covers herself in skin for the first time, while the fully-nude bodies of other female robots- deactivated, sterile, dead- line the cupboards behind her. Kyoto, the subservient robot that Nathan keeps around the house for sex and housework, drapes herself naked on Caleb’s bed. And the problem with it isn’t that nudity should be censored entirely; it’s that, by showing this nudity, Garland isn’t actually adding much to the film. If he’d implied the nudity, it would have been just as powerful and effective. In a film without a great deal of violence but with very adult themes and ideas, nudity seems to be the go-to to earn this a “grown-up” status. If the movie had been balanced with more male nudity, it might have at least made more sense- as Russel T Davies recently pointed out, we’re kind of squeamish about films and TV shows that show penises in all their glory-but by making the nudity solely focused on female characters, it undermines some of the interesting things it has to say about gender and sexuality.

I think what it comes down to is that the nudity didn’t actually add anything to the plot. Sure, Alicia Vikander is a beautiful young woman, and her naked body is a lovely sight, but showing it didn’t bring any new dimension to her character that wasn’t already covered. And that went for all the female characters who went naked in the film: their nakedness was there, at best, to supplement character points that had been established well enough earlier on and at worst, for apparent titillation.

I’m not going to outright accuse Ex Machina of sexism, because I actually don’t think it was a sexist film; on the contrary, it had a lot of quite nuanced ideas about sexuality and how we perceive it buried amongst the standard sci-fi fare. I think the problematic side of it came down to an inability to deploy nudity in an impactful way, in a way that developed and added something to it’s characters. And nudity for nudity’s sake- in a film that was, in a lot of ways, an adult, thematically relevant, and intelligent picture- doesn’t make anyone look like more of a grown-up.

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January 24, 2015

Fifty Shades of Grey Recaps: Chapter Eight

With the impending release of the Fifty Shades film (Valentine’s Day 2015, folks!) I’m taking on the next chapter of the novel of our generation and-whisper it- the very first sex scene in the book. We left off just as Ana told Christian that she was a virgin, and something tells me it’s about to get sexy in an awkwardly written, slightly creepy way up in here! Pull up your dildos and fruit-sceneted intimate lubricant: let’s get the erotic side of this novel on the go.

Aaaand the chapter launches into usual magnificent style with Christian making Ana feel like shit for not having had sex before. Ana wonders “Why am I feeling guilty?”. Good fucking question. Christian explains that he’s not angry at Ana but with himself, and he’s just doing an amazing imitiation of a thundering cock who’s cross at someone for not having disclosed their sexual history when they first shook hands. There’s a question missing a question mark, and Ana gasps says he’d like to bite her lip, again. Look, I’m just saying that I wouldn’t let anyone who said they wanted to bite on my lip “hard” within twenty feet of my vagina. What is it with the Hannibal shit, anyway?

Hannibal series three has been pushed back to the summer; let’s all console ourselves thinking foul things about this gif.

I’ll admit that I’m slightly looking forward to this sex scene. For all the things that Fifty Shades does wrong- and there’s everything from a lack of understanding of consent to silly editing gaffs- this is the thing it’s supposed to do right. If Fifty Shades can successfully fluff me, I can at least understand the point of this trilogy for all it’s atrocious faults.

The first thing I notice is a reference to “down there” and things “clenching” again as a euphemism for Ana’s arousal, and I’m immediately annoyed. This isn’t eighteenth-century bodice-ripping romance; Ana’s a twenty-one year old soon-to-be graduate who’s apparently baffled by what arousal amounts to, even though she dissolves into a sputtering pit of juices every time Christian glances at her? Euuuuuaaaaaaaaarrrrrgghh.

And, really, there’s not a huge amount worth mentioning in this sex scene. It’s kind of over-described and a little formal, which took me out of the otherwise okay action. I’m not reading it and thinking “waaaah, that’s super hot”. I’m reading it and thinking “I don’t need to know the colour of Ana’s bra”. She describes what is apparently her first ever orgasm (as she explains during the scene that she doesn’t masturbate, which might account for her inability to actually locate and name what arousal is) as “splintering”, which brings to mind the image of an over-full wooden barrel exploding for some reason. He finishes and within half a page they’re already screwing again, because being a billionaire with sexy eyes means that you’re permanently strolling about with a boner like a surprised cat’s tail.

Pictured: Christian Grey’s cock

At one point, he plays with her clitoris then sticks his finger in her mouth, and she notes internally that it tastes like blood. Either Ana’s started her period (not that I’d think Ana knows what one of those are, and just jams kitchen roll up there till it stops), or they’ve gone full blood-on-the-bedsheets virginal hymen-breaking with this. Not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but if I were Christian and someone were bleeding during sex, I’d at least give them the heads-up so they could go clean up if they waned before I (literally) plunged in for round two. He repeatedly tells her that she’s his, and that she can come on command, then he “pours into” her (funnel sex play, presumably) and they’re done. The big sex scene? Only okay (incidentally, check out Lush Stories or Literotica for short, free, occasionally excellent erotic fiction if Fifty Shades doesn’t float your boat. Or just download this, for free, because it’s the antithesis of this book in all ways and is super hot.).

Ana wakes up in the night, and hears Chrstian playing the piano because-

-THIS IS A TWILIGHT FANFICTION. He says he didn’t mean to disturb her, which is bullshit as you can’t play the piano silently, she gasps at his fingers on the keys etc, etc. They go back to bed, and Christian comments that the bloodied sheets will give his housekeeper something to think about, which begs the sentence I never thought I’d say again: be a human being and don’t make someone else wash your new girlfriend’s hymen blood off the sheets. I mean, come on.

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January 15, 2015

Mockingjay Makes a Mockery of Young Adult Tag

I reviewed Mockingjay; it was seriously good.

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January 13, 2015

The League, and The Problem with Sitcom Sexism

Being a feminist and existing almost entirely on a pop-culture plane is exhausting. Casual sexism is everywhere. Games of Thrones disempowers female characters through rape before they can become all-powerful. American Horror Story has been known to piss all over it’s male characters to make room for strong women. Black Canary in Arrow gets to fight crime in the extremely practical ensemble of a bodice-ripping corset, leather trousers, and a cropped leather jacket. Bleh . Once you start noticing these little, irritating slips, it’s hard to ignore them. So when I clicked on to The League a concept-driven semi-improvised comedy based around a fantasy football league, I promised myself that I would try to ignore any of the potential quiet sexism I’d gotten used to.

And, two and a half series in, there it was. Female judges who were just waiting to sexually dominate male characters; sexy teen au pairs hired purely on looks because the child’s father wants his kid to get used to being around gorgeous women. Katie Asleton, who plays the one female main cast member, is regularly shown to be “one of the guys”, enjoying dope and booze and sex (because hey, no women I know enjoy dope and booze and sex), an exception to the other wives and girlfriends in the series (one of the main character’s wives appears, significantly, once in the first season, where her episode arc revolves around cooking lunch for everyone while they try to watch football). Women are constantly hurling themselves at the five leading men, giving the romantic side of the series a sense of being scripted as somebody’s ultimate fantasy. It’s low-level, it’s not the end of the world, but it’s kind of irritating.

But I have sexism fatigue. I just wanted to watch a show where my feminism senses weren’t going to be tingling; I’m not looking for an excuse to be enraged or feel victimised, but seeing the same tired women stereotypes paraded out was grating as a fan of pop culture (because lazy) too. And that got me thinking: is sexism more damaging to shows than stupid stereotypes? And if it is, how important is sexism in judging the intentions of it’s creators?

I think that sexism is particularly egregious when it’s unimaginative. Sitcoms have comfortably settled into a recognisable rhythm, with certain beats to hit and characters to work through. The League regurgitates a handful of stereotypes- dumb blonde, stupid promiscuous guy, sexy Latina woman, oblivious wife- that only serve to underline how easy it’s is to fall back on gender and racial safeguards because they’re easy. These stereotypes are shorthand for spelling out things that the show hasn’t got the time or inclination to do itself, because when we see a few traits from a certain stereotype applied to a character we can fill in the rest of the blanks ourselves. I’m picking on The League here, but loads of sitcoms do it, and in a way it makes sense. With twenty-three minutes to tell a story, you don’t want to spend too long developing characters who aren’t going to impact much of the rest of the series, so you’ll rely on the audience’s knowledge of stock sitcom characters to cut out the middle man. But at the same time, it’s lazy: sketch in these characters, sure, but actually make them a bit different and a bit new. Subvert expectations. The closer you look at the low-level sexism that inhabits these kind of sitcoms, the more you realize that it’s less an issue of feminism or gender disparity than it is an issue of lazy (or time-constrained, depending on how you see it) writing. The fact that they use these stereotypes for more than just female characters doesn’t excuse them, but it at least makes it understandable- and explains why the problem with sitcom sexism might well not be ill-intentioned, but rather an ingrained, quick way to get a point across.

And here’s the kicker: does it matter if the show is sexist? In an interview with Salon, co-creator Jackie Schaffer said this on the subject of sexism in the show;

“I kinda don’t really think about what anybody says. I don’t really think the show is sexist. I think we try to make it feel authentic and – it’s what we’re writing about and it’s our point of view, so maybe the world or life is a little bit sexist…”

And I don’t think that’s an entirely unfair defence. The show itself is okay, not great, not awful, with a few laugh-out-loud moments and fun characters to watch for. This is a sitcom, so it’s naturally a bit bigger and more caricatured than real life. Most of the lead characters are pretty awful people in one way or another- the sort of people who’d rent out their unknowing friend’s apartment for a porn shoot (with Seth Rogen in it, bizarrely), or force another of their friends to pay for a giant anniversary party for his wife-but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to attach all those qualities to the people who write, direct, and act in The League. There are a handful of shows whose treatment of female characters does make me suspect sexism on the part of the creators; this isn’t one of them. And hey, people behind The League could probably do with being a little more self-aware about their treatment of women. I’m not saying we should let it entirely away with the occasional sexism (and grim stalkerish behaviour which I’ll go into in more detail when I review the whole show) but there are far worse things on television that we give a pass to because they’re considered of higher intellectual or artistic quality (Read: Game of Thrones). Many of the scenes involve men talking to other men in a facetious, often sexist way that’s clearly meant to bring the audience in on how awful these guys really are. The League isn’t high art; it’s a show about a bunch of dudes and a chick in a fantasy football league. And sure, it can be pretty sexist. But we need to look at it from a practical, time-constrained point of view, so we can understand it’s reliance on stereotypes, it if not excuse it. Because understanding a problem is the only way we can effectively get rid of it, and I am so, so ready to see the back of boring sitcom sexism.

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January 6, 2015

A Wanker’s Literary Reaction: Mozart in the Jungle

The year: 2000. A twenty-year-old Mexican actor by the name of Gael Garcia Bernal explodes onto the scene with a harrowing performance in dark thriller Amores Perros, playing a beaten-down teenager (above) who turns to dogfighting in order to prove to his uninterested crush that he can take care of her before getting involved in a horrifying, life-altering car crash.

2004. Bernal cements his burgeoning career with two important but wildly different turns. One as a con-artist transvestite dealing with the aftermath of sexual abuse in the church in Almodovar’s controversial Bad Education, the other as a young Ernesto “Che” Guevara travelling across Latin America where the seeds of his future communism are sowed.

Jump to 2012. After a series of critically-acclaimed turns in films like Babel and The King, Bernal appears in award-winning Chilean drama No, which charts his character’s grappling with political manoeuvring in Pinochet-era Chile.

Skip to 2014, and Bernal is starring in…a light American dramedy in which he plays an off-the-wall classical conductor with a passion for the silly? Yup, it’s time to talk about Mozart in the Jungle, an often baffling but occasionally entertaining venture into the world of classical music in New York.

If I haven’t made it clear enough above, one of the things that attracted me to this series was how fucking bizarre it was for Bernal to be playing such a light role. He’s an astoundingly good actor who usually sticks to the kind of roles that win him awards whether he wants them or not: brave, stark, dramatic, and intelligent roles that prove over and over again how incredible a serious actor he is. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any of his films (at least those that have gained traction across the pond) in which he’s played a consistently fun role. I spent the first half of the series waiting for him to snap and start making his orchestra fight each other for cash, but was instead met by a charming, extremely funny guy who just wanted to conduct some classical music and annotate some manuscripts, yo. Rodriguo de Souza is a childish, witty, clever, passionate character who’s brought in to breathe new life into the New York Symphony Orchestra, and the kind of person who you’d consider changing religion for (did you see those pictures I put up there? I mean, are you made of stone?).

Right, here’s the thing about this flagship Amazon original series: it’s Smash, but with classical music. Smash promised a cheeky, sordid look behind the scenes of Broadway theatre and failed to deliver: Mozart in the Jungle succeeds on all the levels Smash couldn’t. It even gives Bernadette Peters, who’s got roles in both series, a much better part to play, for Chrissake. It demolishes and embarrasses Smash by showing them just how easy and brilliant this kind of show could be. It’s packed with engaging characters, but what makes them even better is their ability to interact with each other like adults instead of the preening, shrieking, stomping ninny-children we’ve come to expect from dramedy shows. Lola Kirke’s (who I also spotted in Gone Girl, which is excellent and in which she is excellent) self-deprecating, sarcastic, up-and-coming oboist doesn’t need to have screaming matches over mantelpieces with her love interest in order to sort out their problems; they just go for a shag and a chat. Saffron Burrows as the louche, charming cellist of your dreams gets high and screws someone she regrets; they discuss it and agree not to mention it to anyone for fear of making the orchestra an awkward place to work. Instead of being constantly pitted against each other, the women are smart, ambitious, and know when to work with or against each other. Everyone deals with things in a grown-up way, which makes the drama, when it does arrive, all the more engaging and juicy, because you know it must be serious. The curtain-twitching community of the orchestra is filled out with snapshots of characters that let us fill in the blanks, but the effectiveness of giving the background cast faces cannot be overstated.

Beyond that, the series is just a metric shit-ton of compressed all-over-the-place-ness held together by a sense of game fun. One minute Malcolm Macdowell (who’s place in this series is possibly more inexplicable than Bernal’s) is drinking coconut water and wearing a Hawaiin shirt; the next Bernal’s manic violinist ex-lover is screaming at an audience to “SHUT UP!” as they try to applaud her. Jason Schwartzman in a leather gilet turns up. Roman Coppola directs. Hannah Dunne smokes dope and tattoos people. Everyone seems overqualified for this series, and it’s wild.

But it all boils down to one thing: the music. As the kind of person who was determined to learn how to play instruments but never had a natural aptitude for them (twenty combined years of bass, cello, and piano have proved that the most I can do is smugly shout “YOU’RE NOT PLAYING THAT RIGHT” at the screen occasionally), I love hearing classical music. Take a superb scene in which the orchestra plays the 1812 Overture (amusing aside: a member of my family was pulled over by the police in their car, and had an argument with them in which the police wouldn’t believe that they had this track on CD in the player. They did. Not sure how the cops took that) in a broken-into lot in New York City; packed with bravado and the utter passion that stems from brilliant classical music, the show draws it’s energy from the variety and novelty of it’s setlist. Entrenching the series so deeply in such a specific type of music was an audacious choice, but one that works entirely to give every episode a running theme and thread. It makes no odds if you like classical music or not (and if you don’t, listen to this and come back to me), because Mozart in the Jungle isn’t here to patronise; it’s not even here to educate. It’s here to fucking entertain. And by God, it does.

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