Blog the Third

One of the things that really strikes me about Iron Jawed Angels is the pervasive and almost invisible undercurrent of class and privilege in the movie. Until our attention is called to it, as in the scenes with the working women and Ida B. Wells, we are unaware of the fact that the protagonists are situated in an incredibly privileged station. And even when we are faced with women of a lower social standing or a different race, it's very clear who we're supposed to identify with. There's never a question that Alice Paul is the heroine that we should aspire to be like, but at the same time, as bell hooks does an excellent job of pointing out, she is the benefit of a number of privileges that others (and we ourselves, as students at the University of Oklahoma) do not have.

It also strikes me as odd that one of the recurring themes of the movie is her flirtation with Patrick Dempsey's character, which is recurringly structured as a ploy for her to leverage his affection for her to political gain. While there might be a grain of truth to that depiction, it also smacks of the classic trope that women use their "feminine wiles" to entrap men to do their bidding, which I would like to believe is something that the screenwriters were above doing. Even in feminist cinema - and this mini series is undoubtedly that, being directed by a woman and with a majority of the writing staff female in a overwhelmingly male dominated industry - there is so much institutionalized and ingrained heterosexism that you must be very careful about the assumptions you make when watching a film.

An even more egregious offender than Iron Jawed Angels is Twilight, which had by far and away one of the most female dominated production crews of any mainstream movie I have seen in recent memory, but was almost a gag reel of sexist tropes and stereotypes of young female identity. It was hard not to read it as a farce, they were so obvious. But at the same time I'm forced to realize that most of those things are invisible to the film's target audience, and it gives me rage. (I just saw it on Free Movie Friday, and I am still completely taken aback that people are able to take Twilight as anything other than the conservative propaganda that it so obviously is. Aaaaaah.)