Even more troubling than the exclusion of girls and women from the industry’s strategic marketing, however, is the shockingly sexist and mysogynist nature of video games themselves.  In the original version of Grand Theft Auto III, for instance, players solicited sexual services from a prostitute before beating and killing her. After public outrage, an updated version was released that no longer allowed players to solicit any sex acts from prostitutes; now they just beat them to death. In BMX XXX, boys created topless female players and “unlocked” footage of naked, performing strippers.

Duke Nukem is often referenced as one of the worst offenders:  ”Duke Nukem 3D moves the ’shooter’ through pornography stores, where Duke can use XXX sex posters for target practice. Duke throws cash at a prostituted woman telling her to ‘Shake it, Baby’ his gun ever ready. In the game bonus points are awarded for the murder of these mostly prostituted and partially nude women. Duke … goes to strip clubs where Japanese women lower their kimonos exposing their breasts. Duke is encouraged to kill defenseless, often bound women.“²

And despite the fact that media watchdogs have been putting pressure on game developers to clean up the industry, the message does not seem to be getting through. And where once the gaming industry seemed content to sell their overtly sexist agenda to eager and impressionable, young boys, it now appears that they are ready and willing to package a new brand of equality for girls. Girls, too, can learn how to play their role in this strange new, yet eerily familiar, world of male/female gender roles, namely that of the willing and eager victim. 

Miss Bimbo is a new online game created specifically for teen girls. Its website claims that it is a virtual fashion game and encourages girls to “become the hottest, coolest most intelligent and talented bimbo the world has ever known.” The purpose of the game is to become rich, beautiful and famous, a “social starlet” who catches the eye of that “famous handsome man you’ve had your eye on.”

And though this may sound to the reader to be a somewhat misguided but harmless pursuit, it gets worse. Through the use of virtual players, or avatars, players compete with one another to earn bimbo dollars. These dollars are then used to pay for parties, high fashion and plastic surgery. Yes, you read that right: plastic surgery. Or breast augmentation, to be more specific. Girls were originally forced to take diet pills in order to maintain their low body weights as well, but media attention put enough pressure on the creators of the game that they have since removed that option. But, sadly, the boob jobs are still in.

Writing for The Guardian, writer Kira Cochrane recently lamented: “While I wasn’t going to get too upset about Miss Bimbo, a new internet game that apparently encourages girls to embrace cosmetic surgery, this week’s story of a Florida teenager who died after breast augmentation underlines the danger of these messages. Time to put away those bimbo dollars, girls, and step away from the screen.”³

Copyright © 2007, C. C. Ley

References

1 PC World Canada: http://www.pcworld.ca/news/column/a7fe9b8a0a010408019ac931643ebf2c/pg0.htm

2 Media Watch Blog: http://www.mediawatch.com/wordpress/?p=13

3 The Guardian (March 26, 2008): http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/26/gender.kiracochrane

In the mid-nineties, it got a whole lot messier. With the evolution of popular television cinema into the voyeuristic spectacle now known as reality television, pornography developed its own brand of “reality TV.” Reality Porn, or gonzo porn, appears to feature real people in real time having real sex. The name “gonzo” refers to “gonzo journalism,” a type of journalism that posits the journalist into the middle of the story. Likewise, in gonzo porn the camera is often part of the scene, with the person holding the camera performing many of the sex acts in the film. But what really sets gonzo porn apart from the realness that can also be found in amateur pornography, is its emphasis on nonconsensual and humiliating sex acts.¹

In the Fall 2004 issue of Bitch Magazine, Shauna Swartz wrote: “Reality porn features some of the most violent and demeaning scenes to hit the mainstream, what some call ‘humilitainment’ … [and while] degradation in porn movies is certainly nothing new, the presentation of it as real rather than performed is a more recent innovation.” ²

What is different about reality porn? Let’s take the popular site Backroom Facials where “some girls will do ANYTHING for a job, even take bathroom facials!” One such film features Faith, a young girl who has been hired as a call girl. Before she is allowed to work, however, she must let her new boss “test the merchandise.” While holding a video camera, he forces her to take down his pants and fellate him. Faith is obviously in discomfort and appears on the verge of tears more than once. At first, she resists. “You’re not serious,” she says, her face scrunching in distaste. She tries to pull away several times. She looks nauseated. Her boss then orders her to bend over a bench and “spread her ass.” Holding the camera, he penetrates her and orders her to “spread them” several more times. While watching this exchange, the viewer is not cognizant that they are watching a film. The camera is hand held; the people don’t appear to be acting; the scene feels, looks and acts real.

In another Backroom Facials film, Mary is also in the backroom with her new boss as he tests the merchandise yet again (this scene is described as “Married Slut Mary Whimpers From the Ass Abuse as She’s Bent and Fucked Anally”). The “boss” coaxes Mary into letting him penetrate her anally as she can “make lots of money” by performing anal sex with her potential customers. She does indeed begin to whimper (at which point he orders her to “stop it” and to “be quiet”). The scene winds down as Mary begins to push him away with her hand, apparently unable to take any more.

On the equally popular website BangBus, two men ride around in a van and offer women money to have sex with them. The parting shot often features the recently fucked woman kicked out of the bus amidst a tirade of insults. The ultimate humiliation: they don’t even pay her.

Now, predictably, the producers and creators of gonzo porn are the first to remind us that although gonzo porn appears to be real it is still staged entertainment. They reiterate time and time again that it is only about fantasy. In fine print, they instruct their viewers of the same. But one is left to wonder how many viewers of this new reality porn believe it to be just fantasy. The two Backroom Facials episodes mentioned above were found using a popular P2P software program. Upon viewing the short segments, and with no frame of reference, it is not difficult to imagine that a viewer might believe the scene to be real. In fact, when I myself first witnessed the scene I did not know if it was real or performed. It was not until I conducted my own online research that I realized what I had witnessed. “Disturbed” hardly begins to describe my state of mind when I first watched Faith raped on camera.

What is perhaps more disturbing than the simulated rape scene, however, is thinking about the many viewers who don’t just happen upon these degrading scenes but rather seek them out. When searching for videos on the same P2P file-sharing program using the search term “sex” many files were available for free download, several of them described as if they were real sex scenes with real people:

• Young Really Sexy 12 Year Old Girl Gets Fucked
• Rape Fantasy – Mother & Daughter Gang Raped by 4 Guys
• Young 13 Year Old Pre-teen Lolita Bounces on a Much Older Man’s Love Muscle
• Camcorder Bar Slut
• My 13 Year Old Sister Satisfying Herself on My 27 Year Old Massive Cock
• Sex Fucking in Car Dad & His Blonde Daughter Incest Anal Rape XXX
• 13 Year Old Fucks her Dad MUST SEE
• Girl 15 Yr Old Sucks & Fucks Two Guys in Woods
• Sexy Secretary Takes a Bonus of Sexy in her Wet Teen Pussy
• Real Child Porn!!! (Illegal preteen…)
• Two Guys Bang a Ghetto Ho
• Pretty Slut Gets Screwed in DP Style Sex
• Drunk Sister Strips – Anal – Oral – Pussy
• Schoolgirl Fucks her Teacher (cartoon)
• Nastiest Cumshot EVER! Preteen Blonde Girl Can’t Handle my Load
• Woman Gets Firmly Fucked by Dog Several Times
• Drunk College Sluts
• Rape Fantasy – German 17 Yr Old Girl Wants the Job – Reluctantly She Excepts [sic] 25 Minutes of Brutal Anal Sex Before He Cums Inside Her Mouth and All Over Her Face
• Tiny Virgin Daughter @ 13 Has Trouble Taking her Father’s Cock All In
• My Pregnant Wife Brings her Young Friend Home so I Can Have Some Teen Anal Sex
• BDSM, SM, Rape, Fisting & Rough Sex – A German Girl is Attacked, Bound & Tied to a Rack & Tortured & Fucked by 3 Guys

If the list above is any indication, it would appear that the trend of reality porn is indeed popular. And not just reality porn, but degrading, incestuous, illegal reality porn. But for most porn advocates, there is nothing more inherently heinous about reality porn than any other form of pornography. To them, all porn features consenting adults having consensual sex. But herein lies the problem. For although reality porn may in fact be consensual sex, it often does not appear to be consensual.

And in September 2007, at least one man took the fantasy of gonzo porn too far. Accepting the “real” sexual exploitation of women against their will as permissible male behaviour, Christopher Jack Reid, more commonly known as gonzo porn star “Jack Venice” was arrested and charged with attempted rape after breaking into a sorority house and sexually assaulting a young woman at Washington State University. What is perhaps most unsettling about this case is that of all men, it should be the star of gonzo porn who understands that it is all just fantasy, right?

But, then, that’s the thing about fantasy: At some point, there will always be those who long to make their fantasies real. And if the fantasy it to force women to have sex against their will and then to humiliate them, the consequences won’t be a matter of free speech; they will be criminal.

Copyright © 2007, C. C. Ley

References

1 In her article “XXX Offender: Reality Porn & the Rise of Humilitainment,” Shauna Swartz details the humiliating and nonconsensual aspects of reality porn. This article can be found in the book Bitchfest, edited by Bitch Magazine editors Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; New York, 2006). The article originally appeared in the Fall 2004 edition of Bitch Magazine.

2 As above.

In its first season, the show hit the small screen with the tagline, “Save the cheerleader. Save the world.” This, despite the fact that the cheerleader, Claire, undoubtedly possesses the greatest superpower of all: indestructibility.  It is, in fact, impossible to harm Claire. So why exactly must she be saved? Yet, regardless of Claire’s strength, the show’s male characters join together to do just that. Susie Hume notes:

Claire’s character is fraught with gender stereotypes. We first see Claire in the pilot through the screen of a handheld camera which “controls” her by making her captive to the small screen and also heightens the notion of her as an object for the male gaze (the camera is being operated by a male character, Zach). As a cheerleader she is almost always seen in her cheerleading uniform (short skirt with v-split and tight top) which puts her natural beauty at conflict with her unnatural power…While the male “heroes” are delighted with their new powers or generally feel blessed by them, Claire sees her new power as a curse; she is concerned with still appearing feminine and dainty and her power threatens that. When asked by Zach if she is being overdramatic, Claire responds emphatically, “No, I don’t think.” This sort of dialogue continues for Claire as she is portrayed as a mere object, incapable of real thought – her sole purpose, it seems, is to be “saved” by the other characters.”

For a full analysis of Heroes, visit Susie’s blog, The New F-Word:
http://the-new-f-word.blogspot.com/2006/12/feminist-critique-of-tv-show-heroes.html

But what exactly is she supposed to be struggling against? After watching only one episode, it is made abundantly clear that Meredith is living the good life: she has a “dreamy” boyfriend who adores her, a support system of true friends who are ready and willing to provide her with anything she needs, and a blossoming career as a successful surgeon. The only glitch in her otherwise perfect life was a nasty, uncaring mother dying of Alzheimer’s. But it hardly seems likely that a sick, judgmental mother could cause an adult child to kill herself. And certainly not in light of the extended support system that is constantly available to Meredith.

And then there’s that inescapable feeling that Meredith and her unnamed neurosis seem disturbingly familiar: Another bright, successful career girl on the brink of realizing her dreams suddenly becomes completely dissatisfied with her very successful life.

In recent years, the big and small screens have been filled with many young career women falling victim to self-doubt, loneliness and misery. Tricked by society and feminists into believing that they will find happiness with a successful career, they uncover the “big lie” beneath society’s new rules for women. Expecting to find fulfillment, satisfaction and happiness through their work and passions, they are often left feeling the exact opposite: unfulfilled, dissatisfied, empty. Perhaps not surprisingly, their personal crises are usually overcome by giving up their dreams of living in the “man’s world” and returning to a more traditional feminine role. This return to the feminine not only brings a woman contentment, but usually provides the young heroine with what she truly longs for: love.

In Stranger Than Fiction (2006), frustrated and disenchanted Maggie Gyllenhall drops out of Harvard Law School to “change the world.” She believes that she is going to do so not by earning a degree, but by “baking cookies.” This choice is presented to the audience in all earnestness, as if baking cookies is a valuable contribution to the world. Of course, her new life choices lead her directly to her true love and her cookies end up sparing her from a jail sentence. Similarly, Toni Collette quits her successful career as a lawyer in In Her Shoes (2005) so that she can figure out what she wants to do with her life (this after seven years of post-secondary education mind you). To keep paying her bills she doesn’t work part-time or do legal consulting work. Instead, she starts walking the neighbourhood dogs. Rather conveniently, the dog-walking helps her lose weight and she quickly lands a man. And, in the end, it is through her relationships with her fiancé and sister, and not her career, that she ultimately finds happiness. 

In Kate & Leopold (2003), Kate McKay (Meg Ryan) seems unaware of her own unhappiness until dashing, chivalrous Leopold suddenly arrives from the past. After a few days of being treated like a “lady” she realizes that she longs to give up her entire life as she knows it to return to the way things used to be, circa 1876. Sweet, ambitious Gwyneth Paltrow overcomes adversity to realize her dream of becoming a stewardess in View From the Top (2003). But after she finds the success she’s always dreamed of, she inexplicably feels dissatisfied and unhappy. Now all she seems to do is think about the man she left behind in order to pursue her dreams. When her idol, played by Candice Bergen, validates her longing for “love” more than a “career,” she immediately flies back to her lover’s arms.

In the romantic comedy 13 Going on 30 (2004), Jenna Rink (Jennifer Garner) is given the chance to see what her life will be like in the future. She discovers, much to her delight, that she has become popular and is now working at her favourite magazine as one if its principal editors. But as a consequence of her unquenchable ambition, she has become a conniving, manipulative, back-stabbing bitch. She has lost her one true friend, Matty, and quickly attempts to reconnect with him. By the end of the film, and much like the heroine of View From the Top, Jenna realizes that when she abandoned the boy who loved her just so she could have a successful career, she lost the one pure and meaningful thing in her life. When she is given the chance to relive her life, she chooses the boy.

In other cases, it often takes the concern of a well-meaning loved one to remind a young woman that she is headed for disaster. In Because I Said So (2007), Diane Keaton seems desperate to find a husband for her daughter. It doesn’t seem to matter that her daughter is happy just as she is. Even film critic Richard Roeper was struck by the mother’s desperate need to marry off her daughter, remarking that many of the scenes played like a movie from another era. In Just Like Heaven (2005), poor Reese Witherspoon must endure a horrific accident and subsequent coma in order to come to her senses. Her friends and sister have all begged her to settle down and stop working so hard. But Reese seems genuinely happy. She loves her job, enjoys the company of friends and shares a close, loving relationship with her sister. She’s even received a promotion at work, suggesting that a long, successful career awaits her. When she fails to make time for a blind date, however, fate steps in and reduces her to a modern day Sleeping Beauty, where she awaits the kiss of her prince, literally.

In Hollywood, when leading ladies forget to make time for love and romance, they are almost certainly taken to task. But rather than subject these misguided women to any serious punishment, writers and directors generally give their female characters a second chance to reconnect with their forgotten “softer sides.” In Miss Congeniality (2001), the tough, unfeminine and sexless FBI Agent Gracie Hart (Sandra Bullock) is sent undercover at a beauty pageant. Initially, Gracie resists the complete body makeover she is meant to undergo. More comfortable in sparring matches with the “guys,” the feminine world of waxing, dyeing and dieting feels alien to her.  But after she sees the new, beautiful version of herself (not to mention the positive feedback she receives from the handsome team leader), it isn’t long before she begins to welcome the changes brought about from her newfound femininity. She joins in girls’ nights out and bonds with the women in the pageant. She gets drunk and silly, and gossips in the women’s washroom. In an attempt to strengthen her case to stay on at the pageant, she even uses this same silly, gossipy style of communication with her FBI team and superior. When they fail to take her seriously, she feels betrayed by her now too critical and analytical male colleagues. Unlike her male counterparts, however, the beauty contestants decide to award her the title of “Miss Congeniality.”  She accepts the award tearfully, thanking them for the many gifts they have given her. She returns to her role at the FBI a little softer, more feminine, and a whole lot happier. She also gets her man.

In Raising Helen (2003), Helen (Kate Hudson) is forced to give up her fabulous career in high fashion to care for her recently deceased sister’s children. As the title of the film implies, the movie argues that Helen—not the orphaned children—is the one who really needs to grow up. She finds true contentment and meaning in her life through mothering her nieces and nephew. Her life’s happiness is further cemented when she finds romance with the local minister. This romantic comedy is an updated version of the story originally told in Baby Boom (1988). It has more recently been told in the television series Zoe Busiek: Wild Card and the movie No Reservations (2007) starring Catharine Zeta Jones as a professional chef who must take care of her niece after her sister dies. All of these modern day fables serve to remind women of an important life lesson. Namely, that if we are not careful we are going to miss out on the most joyful, important and fulfilling experience in a woman’s life: motherhood.

Ally McBeal clogged the airwaves for years, eroding women’s progress with each and every episode. Supposedly a successful lawyer, Ally McBeal (Calista Flockhart) is unable to find any satisfaction in her career or her life in general. Diminutive and unapologetically feminine, Ally pines for love and romance, bemoans her ticking, biological clock and deals with depression by looking and feeling sexy.  More than most female characters, and despite her incessant complaining, Ally knows exactly what’s wrong with her life: she needs both a man and child to complete her.

Likewise for American writer, Francis May (Diane Lane) in Under the Tuscan Sun (2004). After her husband unceremoniously leaves her for another woman, Francis travels to Italy on the advice of her best friend. To say that she falls apart after her divorce is an understatement. Although we are informed that she is a successful writer, we see very little proof of it. In fact, she spends the entire movie making over a villa in Tuscany and trying to fall in love. In her own words, she wants, “someone to cook for…a wedding in the house…a family.”  Francis wants what all women are supposed to want: a home, husband and children. The reason she is so miserable is because she doesn’t have any of those things. With the purchase of her falling-down villa, however, her life slowly begins to change. She starts cooking delicious meals for the small band of misfits that work on her construction crew. Her best friend travels to Italy and gives birth to a beautiful, baby girl. And Francis champions a young couple’s right to be married and holds their wedding in her big, beautiful backyard.  Still, on the day of the wedding she seems a little lost, even sorrowful. When it is pointed out to her that she has received everything she wished for, she appears to experience a brief, momentary awareness of the riches in her life. We can only hope that she realizes the futility in trying to fulfill her every need with a husband. But we’ll never know. Before the end credits can roll, Francis’s desperate wish for a man is fulfilled as a handsome, young American writer appears at her side just in the nick of time.

This desperate need to be fulfilled by a man was taken to its extreme in the classic thriller, Fatal Attraction (1986). Who could forget sexy, single and successful Alex (Glenn Close) in her aggressive and often violent campaign to claim the handsome, married Michael Douglas as her very own? Nothing was considered overkill in her one-minded pursuit of happiness, whether it was slashing her own wrists, boiling a rabbit, or kidnapping an innocent child.

Lacking a husband and children herself, Alex seemed a pitiful thing. There is something frighteningly anxious and nervous about Alex. She seems to be playing at something for which she is very ill equipped. In fact, what we are supposed to believe is that she is playing at being independent when all she really wants—and needs—is a good man to love and a baby to fill her barren womb. Alex seems especially anxious when contrasted with Douglas’s wife, the beautiful, serene and deliriously happy Beth, played by Ann Archer. Beth seems content to do nothing but think about her home, husband and child. As Susan Faludi noted in her feminist review of the movie in her book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, in Beth, “…all traces of a career were excised and Beth transformed into the complete hearth angel…sipping tea, caressing piano keys and applying cosmetics with an almost spiritual ardor.”

The character Beth in Fatal Attraction is used, rather aptly, to demonstrate and symbolize the popular belief that homemaking and motherhood are the right and proper roles for women. In contrast, and as evidenced by Alex, the single, career girl is doomed to neuroses, even outright insanity or hysteria. At the end of the film, the general conclusion to be made is that too much independence for a woman ends up destroying her. It just isn’t natural.

The great social lesson that originated on screen in Fatal Attraction has been played out many times since, albeit more subtly.  Crazy, insatiable Alex may have turned into whiny, miserable Francis, but the poor, pathetic and miserable career girl remains. Popular belief seems to be that career women may be finding success but that there is always a high price exacted for that success. That’s not to say that finding a balance in life doesn’t pose its share of problems, for both men and women alike. And no one is suggesting that women should stop wanting to marry and have children. But when work and family are continually presented to women as two conflicting demands and that true happiness is only  found through love and family, we are creating a false and harmful duality in the minds of women.

We give plenty of lip service to the idea that women now have the right to “choose” the direction of their own lives. But if women have only two options from which to choose, and we are told time and time again that one of those choices will leave us empty, frustrated and alone (maybe even a little crazy), what kind of choice is that?

Copyright © 2007, C. C. Ley

Not surprisingly, many women and feminists have hailed the movie as pro-feminist, and there are several scenes in the movie that support this contention: When Viola’s boyfriend fails to support her, she immediately dumps him; she resists external influences that attempt to coerce her into a typical feminine stereotype; and she doesn’t shy away from competition. In fact, she seems brazenly comfortable making her own choices and she is not afraid to go after what she wants, no matter how challenging. But in our excitement over finding a fun, spunky, independent female lead, have feminists overlooked some of the traditionally stereotypical and sexist messages found in She’s the Man despite its obvious “girl power” theme?

From the outset, the film creates two separate worlds that Viola is meant to inhabit: the girl’s world versus the boys’ world, debutante versus soccer player. As such, the film immediately creates a conflict between male and female gender roles. This conflict is highlighted early on when Viola dreams that she is running on the soccer field in a big, flowing, cumbersome white dress as the boys run circles around her. She feels panicked and confused, and doesn’t know which direction to choose. Her need to remain feminine proves awkward and she literally trips and falls on her back. As we will see throughout the film, although Viola is willing to explore gender roles, she is oftentimes burdened with an unnecessary dose of gender confusion.

As if to reassure the viewer of Viola’s own latent femininity, she is surrounded by a staple of feminine friends. Her two closest female friends are uber feminine, and remain a constant reminder of the world to which Viola truly belongs. Her best male friend is also overtly effeminate. And though he himself seems to challenge traditional gender roles he is not burdened with the same gender confusion as Viola. His ultimate role is to act as the gatekeeper between both worlds: as a man he helps Viola create her male identity and gain access to the boys’ world, but as a feminine, homosexual man he is able to stay in the girls’ world without causing disruption. And every time Viola’s friends appear to provide her with assistance in her transition from female to male role, the film reminds us time and again that Viola hasn’t completely deserted her feminine role. She has simply taken a break.

The film seems to suggest that girls can don both male and female roles but they shouldn’t abandon their femininity altogether. Or in other words, it’s fine for a girl to dabble in the boys’ world as long as she understands and accepts that she will not be able to stay on permanently. This message, and its implications of separate spheres for the male and female, does not actually challenge gender stereotypes; it cements them by positing masculinity and femininity at opposite ends of a clearly defined spectrum. This is further demonstrated by the fact that no one else in the film strays from traditional gender roles. The girls remain very feminine while the boys behave like typical, macho guys. Viola is the exception, not the rule. For this reason alone, she fails to pose any real threat to the established order of things. None of her female teammates follow her lead. And at the end of the film, the men “let” her play with them. Granted, this is preferable to refusing girls and women access to man’s world simply on principle, but it treats Viola’s talent and skill in a typically unthreatening manner. In this way, the male viewers are reassured that she is not a typical girl and that it always remains up to the men to decide whether or not she plays. The power, then, still rests securely in the man’s world.

This inequity between the two worlds is never fully examined in the movie and it fails to seriously question the lies and injustices inherent in gender stereotypes. In fact, it seems to actually reaffirm and support these stereotypes. The film is satisfied that an exception has been made for a uniquely talented girl but it does not wish this allowance to be made for all girls. It is simply taken as fact that most girls never would or could achieve the same level of success that Viola has attained. Again, she is the exception. And, ironically, by accepting her as such, we also accept the gender stereotype that boys really are better athletes.

Likewise, when Viola’s love interest, Duke, confides in *Sebastian* that he longs for a truly intimate relationship with a girl – as opposed to a purely sexual one – he immediately threatens Sebastian (who is really Viola) into silence. It is clearly understood that although Duke may be as sensitive as any woman, as a man he should not express his feelings. And the film is content to simply leave it at that. When Duke learns of Viola’s deception, initially he is repelled and hurt. But, of course, and more than a little predictably, he accepts the reasons behind her falsehoods. He even expresses gratitude for the strange circumstances under which they met. But, he says, “It would be a lot better if you could just stay a girl from now on.” And within a few moments, Viola is a debutante in a beautiful dress with a handsome, young man on her arm.

This same story is told in Sydney White (2007), Amanda Byne’s most recent film. In this new film, she plays a girl without a mother who has grown up in a man’s world surrounded by her father and his carpenter friends. In fact, Sydney herself is also a carpenter. But early in the movie she is sent to her mother’s college with the hopes that she will reconnect with her mother through the resurrection of her latent femininity. Of course, and much like Viola in She’s the Man, Sydney feels awkward in the feminine world. It doesn’t seem to fit her. She ends up exiled and living in a run down house with a group of campus outcasts. And yet, despite her years of experience in carpentry, she never fixes the house. It’s as if she is never really permitted to fully embrace her masculine skills and abilities. She is only meant to dabble in the man’s world. She truly belongs in the woman’s world no matter how alien it feels to her.

Ultimately, by separating the male and female into two separate and antagonistic worlds, both of these films fail to truly examine what it means to be feminine or masculine, or even whether these two qualities are individually attainable. Instead of choosing to question the value of gender lines and to examine why it is that men and women feel compelled to behave according to a set of largely outdated gender rules, both of these films appear to accept, even embrace, the stereotypes. All they seem willing to consider is that perhaps we should allow girls some room in which to explore, providing, of course, that they find their way safely back to the girls’ world.

Copyright © 2007, C. C. Ley

Flipping through the pages of your family’s Sears catalogue you may be surprised to discover that there is now an entire page devoted to selling Playboy products. The Playboy Bunny insignia can now be found on wallets, t-shirts, purses, belts, key chains, and more. In a rather clever promotional campaign initiated by the Hefner camp, the Playboy Bunny has returned as a highly marketable image. As ever, the trademark asserts that the woman (or girl) wearing the Bunny is sexy, playful and fun. But is this or has this ever been an accurate representation of the Playboy Bunny lifestyle? Did Playboy Bunnies ever really have fun?

In 1963, Gloria Steinem shocked the publishing world when she went undercover and posed as a Playboy Bunny for the New York City Playboy Club.¹  While there, she documented her brief tenure as an elusive Bunny and discovered many unknown facts about the women working in Hugh Hefner’s infamous clubs.  She noted, in particular, the rigorous demands of the job and the rather obvious sexualization of the women.

The sexualization of the Bunny began with the clubs’ disturbing hiring policies where the hopeful Bunny was required to list her measurements on the application form and later would be forced to succumb to an intrusive internal exam by a company doctor.  Once hired, she would then be required to wear a constrictive costume (or suit) designed to delight the lusty male customers hoping to possess the sexual ideal she represented.

The Bunny suit, which is probably the most recognized feature of the Bunny image from her playful ears to fluffy cottontail, was cut so high and sewn so tightly that the Bunny’s hip bones were bare and the act of sneezing often broke the zipper.  As a result, Bunnies with colds often could not work and had to be replaced.  Bunnies also wore three-inch heels, fake eyelashes and dark lipstick. After all, Bunnies could be fired for looking too pale. They teased their hair and stuffed their bosoms with tissue, maxi pads, scarves, gym socks, or anything else they could find. On cold nights, with temperatures well below zero, Coat-Check Bunnies were given a bit of fluff to cover only their shoulders ensuring that their bosoms were left naked and visible to the customers’ eyes regardless of the freezing temperatures. At the end of the evening a typical Bunny could expect her feet to be swollen to triple their regular size, indentations around her rib cage and zipper welts on her spine.  She might even find her legs numb above the knee.

But the costume wasn’t the only hardship the Bunny endured.  She was required to smile all night long, act interested in every male customer, and appear friendly yet unavailable. She had to learn and practice both the Bunny stance and the Bunny dip. She endured groping and pathetic come-ons in typical Bunny style.  She was not to have a past, any convictions or individuality. In fact, Bunnies were instructed by their supervisors to act as if they had no individual background or history and to simply project the “Bunny image.”

And what is the Bunny image, you might ask? Well, at the time a Bunny was hailed as  “…beautiful, desirable…the most envied girl in America.” In an interview with journalist Oriana Fallaci in 1967, Hugh Hefner explained that “The bunny, in America has a sexual meaning, and I chose it because it’s a fresh animal, shy, vivacious, jumping - sexy…” Yet when Gloria Steinem told a group of Bunnies she had worked as a secretary, one Bunny replied, “If you can type, what the hell do you want to be a Bunny for?”²

Why indeed? The Bunny lifestyle certainly never offered women anything meaningful. After all, the Bunny was not created for women but for men. Women were merely the bodies in the suit. Yet as impossible as it may be to believe, the once disgraced Bunny has returned.  She has been recreated and marketed to young women as a sign of glamour, independence and admiration.  Not unlike the way she was once marketed to women forty years ago.  The only difference is that today we should know better.  Somehow, we have forgotten that there was nothing glamorous about the Bunny.  We have forgotten that Bunnies often worked in intolerable conditions and rarely attained the “lifestyle” they were promised.  We have forgotten that the Bunny was nothing but a pornographic image created for the sexual desires and delight of wealthy men. 

Remarkably, however, it is women who have largely re-embraced her.  Like the lusty male patrons of the Playboy Clubs, we too have bought a false sexual ideal.  High school girls proudly display the Bunny, paying homage to an oppressive past and reclaiming the false illusion of power marketed to the women before them.  By embracing the Bunny today, a girl is saying that she is sexy, playful, desirable, fun. Forty years ago, young girls and women were presented with this false ideal and it left many of them victimized, objectified and frustrated.  Forty years later, the Bunny, with all her lies and innuendo, has returned to leave her mark once again.

Copyright © 2007, C. C. Ley

References

1 Gloria Steinem (1983).  I Was A Playboy Bunny.  Outrageous Acts & Everyday Rebellions.  St. Edmundsbury Press, Bury St. Edmonds, Suffolk: Great Britain. All information regarding the working conditions of the Playboy Bunnies was taken from this article.

2 Both unidentified quotes in this paragraph were taken from article referenced above.

Joan of Arcadia arrived on television screens in September 2003 with a bang. Not a “big bang,” mind you - more like a Godly “Let there be light” kind of bang. All of America sat up and took notice of this ingenious, fresh and controversial television fare. The film industry acknowledged the show and its main principals with nominations and awards. Right-wing family-values organizations applauded the return of good, wholesome family entertainment. Even non-believers appreciated the show with its likeable Joan Giardi and her wayward but loving family, outcast friends and newly found relationship with God, who, incidentally, comes in all shapes and sizes and even the occasional female form.

Despite its non-denominational, soft-spiritual approach, however, the show remained surprisingly dogmatic, promoting many religious and Christian tenets. In an episode entitled Common Thread Joan and her mother were forced to confront and deal with two very important feminist issues: rape and infidelity. Unfortunately, the issues were diluted and obscured by contrived life-and-death plot lines that only served to downplay and trivialize their true moral significance.

Early in the episode, Joan’s mother, Helen Giardi, meets a priest at a local diner. He informs her that he has come to see her on behalf of the man who raped her 25 years ago. Her rapist is dying and would like to see her so that he can apologize for what he has done. Helen, who has just recently returned to the Catholic Church, wonders if her faith is being tested.

For the past quarter of a century, Helen has not known who her rapist is. He has never answered for his crime, never been charged or convicted. When her husband, a police officer, hears of his request, he is outraged. He attempts to make a call to the police station to have the man arrested but Helen won’t entertain the notion of charging a dying man with the crime of rape. In fact, the issue is not even discussed. The fact that rape is a criminal offence for which perpetrators are to be charged under the law and punished with prison sentences is not pursued any further. The man is dying after all. Now is not the time for justice; it’s time for forgiveness. His crime is treated as a mere betrayal against Helen instead of a crime against women.

Despite her husband’s protests, she visits the dying man. He apologizes and asks for forgiveness. “Christ is with me,” he confesses. Helen, realizing the man has undergone a “deathbed conversion” becomes enraged and curses him to experience the same pain he inflicted upon her, exclaiming that he is getting what he deserves and that he can simply rot in hell. But that’s not the end of the matter…

Now turn to Joan, who is dealing with her own Arcadian-style drama. Her boyfriend Adam has recently confessed that he has been unfaithful to her. In a previous episode he repented his sins. Or did he? He confessed and apologized but never actually admitted to any wrongdoing. He told Joan he thought that he could compartmentalize these two parts of his life: his “meaningful” relationship with her and his sexual relationship with her friend Bonnie. There was no remorse for what he had done, merely regret and bewildered disappointment that he had failed to balance both relationships. When Joan broke up with him he was at a complete loss. It was just sex and didn’t mean anything, so what’s the big deal?

Adam now appears to be coping well with the break up and is more than eager to be “friends” with Joan. When she feels awkward and needs to put some distance between them, he is again at a complete loss. After all, what’s the big deal, right? For Joan, however, it is a big deal, and she continually rebukes his attempts to resume their friendship.

Enter God.

God now gives Joan her weekly “mission.” He tells her to finish sewing the scarf she began sewing years ago but never finished since it wasn’t turning out the way she thought it would. As God says, “Unraveling it doesn’t make it disappear; it just changes form.” The scarf, as we will see later, is to be the metaphor of the Common Thread.

Before Joan can complete her mission, Adam goes missing in the woods. And like Helen’s rapist, Adam, too, is faced with imminent death. Due to storms and flooding the rescue team must wait until morning before they can search for Adam. Joan is frantic. She had rebuked his most recent attempt to be friends, partly to seek her own vengeance, and he had been “crushed.” She now blames herself for Adam’s precarious circumstances.

Her best friend Grace agrees. She even goes so far as to tell Joan that Joan herself is partly responsible for Adam’s infidelity. How could Joan expect Adam to be faithful when she was keeping secrets from him? All these strange missions she goes on are just too much for her friends and family to take. I mean, really, she’s knitting, planting gardens, building boats and joining the debate team. How much can Adam be expected to endure????

Adam soon finds his way out of the woods with a little help from one of God’s friends and Joan’s fears are allayed. She is so relieved to discover that Adam is safe that her “pettiness” over his infidelity seemingly disappears. After all, he could have died. Does it really matter that he cheated on her? In the big picture, will it ever really matter? At home, she confides in her parents that she still feels responsible for what happened. Her mother is shocked and assures her that she can’t blame herself for what happened. It was Adam’s choice. But Joan, confident in her “scarf-metaphor” understanding of the situation disagrees: “Aren’t I? Aren’t we responsible for everything we do, feel, touch…Isn’t that what knitting the scarf was about?”

And what of Helen’s situation with her rapist? Convinced by her daughter’s high-mindedness, she decides to return to the hospital to forgive her rapist. Sadly, for her, she is too late. He has succumbed to his illness. However, she is reassured by the man’s daughter that he is in heaven, and she can still speak to him in her prayers.

The story seems contrived to make it merely about Helen and the rapist, with no greater significance to society: He is dying so can’t re-offend, and strangely has not re-offended since Helen’s rape. So there is no compelling reason for the state to intervene, solve unsolved cases, act to protect future victims and so on. The rape is not viewed as an attack on women, or an act that diminishes women – in essence, as a hate crime. That moral perspective is completely ignored. The situation is reduced to that of Helen being wronged by her rapist; the only other interested party being the Church. Because he has asked forgiveness, Helen feels obligated to forgive. It’s her ideal as a Christian woman. When she initially rejects his request, she is portrayed as angry and vengeful.

Is this a lesson in personal responsibility and interconnectedness or is it a rather blatant attempt to blame the victim? Helen’s pain and anger is turned into hateful bitterness as she condemns a dying man to hell. But as Helen says, it’s a “deathbed conversion.” He hasn’t told his family or turned himself in so he can suffer for his sin. He never tried to make amends to Helen, or to society as a whole, before he discovered he was dying. Nonetheless, the viewer is expected to believe that it is good enough that he confessed to his priest, and Helen should accept that.

Consider once again Joan and her boyfriend, Adam. One is almost waiting to hear someone say that Adam’s unfaithfulness is Joan’s fault for not sleeping with him, for spending too much time on her own interests and not sufficiently attending to his needs. Again, the story seems contrived to make it merely about Joan, focusing on her own supposed role in her recent betrayal, with no more significance to society as a whole. As with rape, the broad subject of infidelity is never discussed. Only Joan’s culpability in the circumstances is explored.

Through this one-dimensional use of interconnectedness, we all become co-conspirators in the crimes committed against us, especially those crimes committed by men against women. It has become unfashionable to accuse men of sexist crimes. Only hysterical, unreasonable feminists entertain that sort of notion anymore. According to Arcadia, the problems that we – women in particular – suffer from are not about society but are confined to intimate relationships, individual choices and personal responsibility. No victim is blameless; no perpetrator is unforgivable. In fact, the only people who don’t seem culpable in Arcadia are the perpetrators themselves. As long as they issue an apology, heartfelt or otherwise, they must be forgiven. But as William Lloyd Garrison once said, ‘I am not prepared to respect that philosophy. I believe in sin, therefore a sinner; in theft, therefore in a thief; in slavery, therefore in a slaveholder; in wrong, therefore in a wrong-doer.”

Copyright © 2007, C. C. Ley

During my first English class in university we studied the Shakespearean play Othello. I must confess I did not like it. It was a tragic tale of greed, jealousy and betrayal. And love—at least, that is what the academics professed. Personally, I never felt much love in the tale between Othello and Desdemona. I was never convinced. I was relieved when we moved onto 19th century poetry; I put Othello out of my mind, eager to leave the play far behind me.

Three years later, I enrolled in the second required English course of my program. The course was offered under various themes; I chose love as my theme. As luck would have it, the professor chose Othello as one of the love stories. He, apparently, was convinced of the love between Othello and Desdemona. For our first assignment, we were to write a love letter expressing our deep love for Othello in the character of Desdemona, or vice versa. I could hardly believe it. I adamantly believed, and will always believe, there was never any such love.

The story roughly begins when we discover the black Moor Othello has married the fair Desdemona without her father’s permission. It seems that when Othello was at the family home recounting tales of floods, ‘hair-breadth scapes’, being sold to slavery, meeting cannibals, and the like, Desdemona fell in love with him, and he with her. Desdemona’s father, a senator, takes them to court, but the lovers prevail and immediately leave for Cyprus. Now, on the sidelines lurks the evil Iago, Othello’s ancient. Consumed with jealousy he decides to betray Othello. How? He sets out to convince Othello that Desdemona—sweet, lovely, charming, innocent Desdemona—is an unfaithful whore. His plan works; Othello becomes convinced of Desdemona’s infidelity. Subsequently, he kills her. He kills her because he loved her ‘too well’. (Now, why does that have such a familiar ring to it?)

This is the great and tragic love of Othello. He kills his wife. Since when does a man who kills his wife adore, worship and love her? If all it takes is one strategically place handkerchief to convince a man that the woman he loves is a liar and a whore, how deep is his love? Furthermore, even if she had been unfaithful, if he had respected her—and respect is generally believed to be a prerequisite for love—would he have killed her upon discovering this dishonest deed of hers?

Desdemona herself becomes aware that Othello is not the man she married. She keeps pleading for him to tell her what is wrong; she keeps hoping her tender lover will return. Desdemona is the classic abused wife. She is also the classic ‘half-woman’ living only for true love to arrive so that her life can begin anew. I wanted to slap her and shout, “Wake up, Desdemona. He doesn’t love you the way you think he does. Regardless of what you believe, you are only property to him; you can never shame or disobey him. Leave! Go home! Save yourself!”

She stays, of course. And she dies. She dies waiting for Othello to become the man she married, the man she thought she married. She pays a grave price for her illusions of love. For, that is all they ever were—illusions. Desdemona fell in love with a brave, adventurous, bold, romantic, larger than life superman. Othello fell in love with a sweet, innocent, virginal myth. When the illusion was shattered, he killed her. Yet, the academics profess this to be a story of tragic love; my English professor included. When I asked if I might investigate the notion that it wasn’t actually love but simply the illusion of love, he seemed genuinely shocked.

Feminists, however, are not shocked. In fact, in The Whole Woman, Germaine Greer comments, “ever since Othello killed his wife because he loved ‘too well’, women have been murdered by love, with love and through love.” Literature, film and art are filled with images of men ‘conquering’ women in the name of love. For instance, the barbaric hero who throws the feisty heroine over his shoulder taming her with his ‘tender fierceness’; the man who won’t take no for an answer, wearing down the woman’s resistance until she succumbs to his love; or the bridegroom who insists that his lover give away her name, her family and her religion to become a member of his clan, effectively turning her into a virtual slave as she gives birth to his heirs, all the while convincing her that this is her dream come true. In these classic images of love and romance women are seen as objects, obsessions, possessions, or all three. Sadly, they often reflect reality’s version of ‘love’ as well.

We are all familiar with the statistics warning women about the violence that may be inflicted on her by her husband. In fact, a woman is more likely to be murdered by her spouse and/or lover than any other man, more likely to be raped by a friend than a serial rapist. Desdemona was not the exception; she is the rule. Male academia, however, has transformed another example of this historical abuse of women into a tragic love story. I wonder how the tale would have been interpreted had Desdemona killed Othello after he had been falsely accused of infidelity. Quite certainly she would have been charged as a crazed, psychopathic heathen. Maybe even a witch. Her excuse of loving him only ‘too well’ would have been met with condemnation and outrage, both within the tale and throughout male academia.

Not so for Othello. He becomes martyred. Poor Othello. He murdered his lovely wife only to discover she was innocent. Poor, poor Othello.

Yeah, right.

Copyright © 2007, C. C. Ley