D.E.B.S. (2004) Dir. Angela Robinson

We should probably have an all-day discussion about whether or not this is feminism.



 

So let’s address the plaid-skirted elephant in the room: a majority of this movie is beyond terrible.

I’m willing to concede that some of that reading comes from this film being a product so bound to its moment in time. In the dwindling age of Austin Powers and the Charlie’s Angels reboot, D.E.B.S. may have rocked enough familar allusions and pop cultural cache to have succeeded as a saccharine-but-innocuous spy spoof. And while the movie was a box office flop and proved lukewarm with critics, those who liked it DID praise what they saw as a spunky, modern spy satire with confectiony servings of girl power. (Tangent: Peter Travers Rolling Stone review was misogynist garbage “You might think there's no downside to a movie that peeks up the skirts of babes in micro-minis, but writer-director Angela Robinson's dimwitted satire is libido-killing proof to the contrary.” SORRY THOSE FETISHLY-DRESSED TEENAGE GIRLS DIDN’T DO ENOUGH TO YOUR PENIS FOR YOU TO ENJOY THIS ONE, PETER

But even if I blame my anachronistic eyes on “not really getting” the tone or pastiche of the movie, it’s hard to account for or forgive the undeveloped narrative, the abandonment of character development, and the film’s badgering unfunniness. After the first 5 minutes, other than the occasional conspicuous prop gun sitting in a D.E.B.S. hands,  there’s nothing narratively or stylistically grounding us in the spy genre, or in much of a motivated plot at all. The film’s 2.5 action scenes are dead on arrival.  And while volume is ample, humor is nowhere to be found, with the rare exception of Janet (Jill Ritchie), whose spastic and airheaded one-liners provide any of the few problematic chuckles to be found in this script.  

 

As a whole, it views like a malnourished Disney XD script, except its characters are immensely more sexualized. The whole turnt up Catholic school girl aesthetic of the film holds a reductive male gaze. But given Angela Robinson’s biography and stated intentions, as well as who would constitute the narrow audience for the film, let’s assume she was cleverly commenting on the objectifying gaze behind such sexy spy films rather than caving into genre tropes. Because she does, in fact, succeed in crafting a very thoughtful queer narrative that disarms the male-pandered templates of both contemporary and vintage spy films, reclaiming them for female desire; as such, it’s wholly possible she went even farther in satirizing these misogynist templates than I’m giving her credit for.

In truth, the movie is worthy of your attention because it’s simultaneously a technical disaster and a lowercase m queer masterpiece. Allow me to justify the latter:

 

Robinson’s “high concept” film doesn’t succeed as a movie but it soars as a rich, powerfully-executed metaphor and subversive reclamation. Jordana Brewster (sensual, vulnerable, and very alluring in this movie) is a super villain widely regarded as the most ruthless and dangerous person on the planet but who—get this—is actually, mostly just misunderstood.  Sara Foster (who literally could have just been an upside down mop the whole time and I wouldn’t have known the difference) is the golden student spy whose record-setting perfect score on her standardized spy test has signaled to everyone she will be the premiere spy of her generation. She’s basically treated like Harry Potter during the first half of the movie, which is an apt metaphor because she’s a talentless, aimless whiner coasting by on the brilliance and prowess of her best friend (#HPShade #HeadsWillRowl).

Foster and her people-pleasing can-do-ness are, amusingly enough, enrolled in a gender studies class on villains. Her seeminly 3 page thesis argues the bland, thin premise that Brewster-- a villain so merciless that reportedly no one who has ever met her has lived to tell about it-- has such deep-seated abandonment and daddy issues that she's incapable of love and of being loved. When a surveillance assignment gone awry brings Brewster and Foster face-to-face (Foster unbeknowingly crashes a blind date Brewster is reluctantly on with a female Russian assasin), Brewster reveals that she's not incapable of love at all-- she's just a lesbian who has found the dating scene unforgiving, and she's developed a lot of social anxiety. The subtext I choose to read is that social anxiety comes from being queer in a homophobic world, but Robinson never really drives this point home. Brewster might just have run of the mill anxiety like the rest of us.

 

Antics, seduction, and some lightly vollied plot points ensue, and Brewster, head over heels into Moppy Foster, succeeds in winning Foster's heart; this isn't an easy romance for Foster as she's a) never swung that way and b) Brewster is a super villain and on paper her sworn enemy. But their romance is pixie stick sweet, unapologetically sexy, and very moving, given the whole unlikeliness of it all. Robinson gives us two young women who are cast in roles that people define them by, but they don't identify with themselves. Foster has never felt like a super spy and never really wanted to be one, but she has gone along with the path the world has enthusiastically laid out for her. Brewster's motives in becoming a villain are less evident, but she makes it clear it matters little to her, that she'd give it up in a second for Foster, that she just wants them to be 2 people in love rather than 2 people who can't be together because of who society says they are. I'm assuming you see the metaphor here? How queer people receive messages from birth about who they are supposed to be and who they're allowed to love, and one of the most empowering and beautiful moment's in a queer person's life is to reject the labels, the social pressures, the self-doubt, the sea of no's, and to just be yourself and get the V or D you've been longing for. Brewster's confidence, beauty, and charm in particular make this transformation and this romance a joy to watch. Because of her, and the romance Robinson has crafted, this often shitty movies becomes one where you find yourself saying "Awwww!" on the regular and wishing that 12-year-old closeted you had thought to see this movie.

 

So it's a genuinely romantic and endearing teen lesbian romance movie at a time where those artifacts are rare, especially in American cinema, especially with recognizable performers attached. And while it fails miserably-- in my opinion-- as a spy movie or spy spoof, it does recontextualize queer romance and lesbian sexuality within the spy aesthetic to helps us know the queer experience more, better. And if the women in the film seem individually subject to the male gaze, the romance and sex in the film is captured with a queer female one. Brewster and Foster's intimate moments are not explotive and not for straight men-- they're genuinely celebratory of the female body, alluring for women, and actually about these two characters and their feelings for one another. That's a major win in any movie.

 

And one final, concluding tangent:

The film is indebted to Legally Blonde, down to the point that Holland Taylor more or less plays identical roles in both movies. While D.E.B.S. maybe deviates from that world for it's more compelling lesbian romance plot, with its larger concept and minor characters, it attempts to Elle Woods everything. In the vein of other millenial teen girl-power products, these girls are purported to be kickass heroines who still love makeup, clothes, and boys. But while Elle could simultaneously be into fashion and torts, could be underestimated because of her more "superficial" interests, and could ultimately use her love of fashion and fabulous hair as an asset as a lawyer, these rules don't seem to apply to the D.E.B.S. Their interest in "superficial" things is simply treated as superficial. It regularly interferes with their missions and their success in the field, making them sloppy spies. And while it's refreshing, perhaps, that no one ever undestimates them, as a consequence, we never get a chance to see them prove themselves or shine in anyway. Ultimately, the supporting D.E.B.S. display an obsession with being ornamental, and Robinson gives them little opportuntiy to be anything else. It's a real misfire for what could have contributed to these questions of third wave feminism that were exploding all over culture at the time-- for women who desire to, how can they hold on to devalued gender stereotypes and still assert their value, power, and individuality? Need there be a disconnet between women who choose stereotypical signifiers of femininty and those who reject them if they're both fighting for a woman's right to be herself and do what she wants?

Mustang (2015) Dir. Deniz Gamze Erguven

So I've been M.I.A. for 4 months. I've been watching some female-directed films, I assure you, but restricting myself to that and finding the time to write about them proved a little daunting as we moved into the holiday season and awards season. I struggled to keep up, and I intimidated myself in a big way, so I abandoned the blogging aspect of the project for a while.

I'm working, slowly, to get back on track and to start posting semi-regularly. I've committed myself to the #52FilmsByWomen project, which should provide some structure and hold me more accountable. I've committed to watching a very manageable 52 films by women in 2016, a goal I intend to surpass. I hope to do a reasonably good job of blogging about most of them from this point forward.

So far in 2016, I've watched 5 films directed by women. Sleeping with Other People , Girlhood, What Happened, Miss Simone?, Appropriate Behavior (a joy of a movie I still hope to blog about), and, last night, Mustang. Check out my review of Mustang below, and I'll try to have more for you next week.

XOXO- Adam

As a movie lover living in Chicago, horses seemingly serve two purposes:

 

              1) Carriage rides down Michigan Avenue for terrible people with disposable income

2     2)Tested, timeless, and apt metaphors for the dichotomous tension of domestication/freedom. Or that reoccurring proverbial question of “can and should wild horses be ‘tamed?’”

 

Mustang is, in part, about the latter purpose. Not that there’s a single horse in the film—the title itself is enough to conjure that rich intertextual imagery. Well, the title, and the film’s brilliant direction and visual storytelling.

 

There’s a certain oppositional, binary cinematography throughout the whole film that captures this divide between “wild mare” and “tamed pony.”  So much of the film views majestic, open, and liberating.  The five young sisters at the center of the movie move boldly through broad landscapes of desire, youth, and possibility, as if galloping unsaddled across the American frontier. At first, this dreamy unrestrictedness perseveres through the girls increasing confinement and oppression, communicating the freedom they desire and the rebellious fun they demand. As the stakes grow higher, the landscape narrows and the levity disappears. The lens cages us, restrains us, ties us up in the barn as we buck and kick and scream to breakaway.

 

The mustangs, as lone horses running free, also become more apparent over time as members of their herd are captured or picked off. At the onset of the film, the five sisters are seemingly a singular organism, nearly indistinguishable from one another and operating with a pack mentality, acting as and for the benefit of their sisterhood. The importance of their sisterhood remains at the center of the film and at the center of the lives, but we start to see them articulate individual desires and move as individual agents. Their loneness manifests most saliently out of necessity as the oldest sisters are forced into marriages, out of the sisterherd, and the remaining girls are left under the alarmingly tightening control of their uncle and overpowered grandmother. The girls struggle with the realization that to continue living in the freedom and openness of their childhood, they may have to brave the frontier alone. But the film’s central heroine, Lale, is up for the challenge, if only because she has to be to survive.

 

Stepping away from the horse metaphors for now, I want to say how beautiful, breathless, moving, and empowering this movie is. Like all great movies, it took me to another place and helped me know where I am (and want to be) so much better. And it was truly a lovely and touching journey to that place.

 

The film appropriately utilizes quiet feminism in protest to the films many quiet moments of repression, then large, dramatic cacophonies of empowerment as the oppressive shit really starts to hit the fan. The sisters live in a world where they had an implicit freedom as pre-pubescent bodies that afforded them opportunities for self-expression, norm violation, and above all, fun. But once their breasts develop, all the freedom is seemingly stripped from them as they’re molded into docile and desireless wives and forced into marriages. The girls rebel against rules and authority figures that would rob their autonomy, erase their childhoods, and deny their sexuality, but without going so far as to scream “fuck the patriarchy!” Mostly, initially, the girls hold on to their right to have fun—to just be young girls—and in doing so, fun becomes a political, feminist act. Sneaking away for a dalliance on the beach with a boy or to watch a soccer game, cracking jokes and expressing joy despite being told women aren’t supposed to laugh or have a sense of humor, playing dress up in an older sister’s underwear despite being required to wear muted, shapeless dresses—these moments of “the youth being young” become weapons, chinking the armor of their uncle’s and their society’s patriarchal authority.

In the interest of not playing too fast and loose with spoilers, I’ll simply state that the stakes become much higher and the need for radical action grows imminent. The girls become obsessed with escape from their small town, their controlling uncle, their world’s oppressive gender politics, and a conservative morality that demands their acquiescence of autonomy over their bodies and their selves. The third act functions effectively as a taut prison break thriller full of both delicious ironies and genuine edge-of-your-seatness. If the tools of their liberation and the nature of their confinement seem too dramatic on paper, the director maintains a tone of plausability while reminding us in this world, where resources and outlets for these girls seem so few, likely their only avenues to freedom are the dramatic ones.

 

And the resolution, while perhaps too romantic and wish-fulfilling for some, inspires a dreamy but necessary hope that there is a place out there for young women who fight the constrictive structures that would saddle and detain them. It is unfortunate that this place is always “elsewhere,”—New York for the early 20^th century immigrant, San Francisco for the 1970s homo-- romantic but also somewhat sincere meccas of possibility for people who can’t or won’t survive in their status quo. At least those places exist, even if they’re not often the salvation we’ve dreamt them to be, even if we deserve to live in a world where that salvation can be found anywhere.

 

Go see this movie. It’s a true gem. Even with all of its moments of darkness and implicit political imprisonment, there is a beautiful levity and sense of unity throughout the film. Much of the first two acts are merely slices of life of childhood and sisterhood, beautifully captured and performed, full of humor and innocent desire and gorgeous friendship and solidarity. It’s a movie full of feelings, a lot of them joyous ones, that asks us to hold on to joy at all costs against all forces. A subversive movie that empowers young women, young women living in more plainly restrictive societies than our own (rural Turkey—don’t think I’ve said that yet), that they have the right to choose the things that make them happy and make them who they are.

P.S. Message me if you’ve seen the movie because I would love to talk with someone about the grandmother in this movie. I think she might be the most interesting character with her torn beliefs and allegiances and the subtle ways even she finds to access power.