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ACF #12: Strong Women
Folks, the show is back — this is my second podcast with my friend Pete Spiliakos and he has another great idea to explore: Movie heroines of our times. First, we’re going back a generation to ask about the origins of these characters: Whatever happened with the last of the Boomers and the first of the Gen X-ers? We’re talking about the arrival of thrillers and horrors that thematize the problem of adulthood for young women. We start with Nancy, the heroine of Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm Street (1984); then go on to Laurie (played by Jaime Lee Curtis), the heroine of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978); and then Sarah Connor, the famous heroine of James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984).
I’ve already done podcasts on horror — on Alien and Alien: Covenant and a theory of the horror in my podcast-college lecture — but now you get a conversation about how horror stories work as a movement from plot to symbol in the incredibly influential movies of Wes Craven and John Carpenter, as well as James Cameron. So we’re doing our best to show that these writer-directors are thoughtful, even though they worked in low-brow genres, and that they are full of puzzles, even though we are now very familiar with their work.
We’re going to make a strong claim that they are also part of American middlebrow. First, they deal with social criticism in recognizable ways that are both psychologically effective and entertaining to watch. The craft of the movie-maker and the wit to work out an insight come together. Secondly, in introducing adolescent girls as heroines, these movies are part of the increasing democratization of American society and story-telling in thoughtful ways, neither satisfied to do progressive or reactionary propaganda, nor enslaved to the imperatives and prejudices of producers and studios. Ultimately, we want to tell you, even if you don’t like horror and don’t want to watch the ugly stuff–there’s a lot to think about that’s genuinely American.
Of course, I also recommend Pete’s latest column at First Things, about where Sen. Jeff Flake fits in the politics and the drama of our conflicted conservatism.
Published in Podcasts
Unfortunately, I’ve a problem getting the new podcast online–I’ll have it up here Friday. Meanwhile, here’s the previous podcast Pete & I recorded, on the DC universe & wrapping up with Wonderwoman.
Our new podcast will eventually pick up on that ending & say lots of insightful stuff about DC & Marvel. I’m even doing hard work to improve Marvel movies as what they are, not turning them into DC movies or what have you. It’ll be worth the wait!
I don’t see the new podcast on the Soundcloud page.
Edit: Oh.
On the general subject of strong women: there have almost always been strong women in cinema. At least as far back as Garbo. (My knowledge of the silent era is somewhat scattershot, so she may be predecessors.) The real question is “what does it mean for a woman to be strong?” The answer changes between filmmakers and eras. Some things are genuinely new. Some things are revisionism to make the present look better at the expense of people in the past who had real accomplishments.
Sure. So there was a certain form of strength in noir women.
Another, tied up with prudence, in the leading ladies of romantic comedies.
Then, there is true grit.
But most of these are no longer part of the movies, I think.–We’re mostly concerned, in this upcoming podcast, with the strength it takes for a young woman to become an adult, especially in a situation where middle-class society is so protective that it cannot inculcate strength, nor countenance it.
Fixed the podcast! It’s up there in the post!
I was actually thinking about Double Indemnity, so we were on the same page.
I am still midway through the Nightmare on Elm Street discussion and the issues of the parents infantilizing their teenage children. In a way, it ties back into the discussion of political artwork, which is also a kind of infantilization, that we were discussing on a different thread.
Quinn, you dive deep! I smell a post in there!
Also, the broader range of my effort in preaching the Gospel of Middlebrow–what’s a bit of a memory jog for middle-aged Americans is the temptation of the new for the young–includes this insight, that a conservative form a wisdom comes as a nagging suspicion & even a temptation for many upstanding liberals.
How do you define Middlebrow? I had a theory about it many years ago because the terminology in that area of cultural studies in a mess. There was once only Highbrow and Lowbrow at the end of the 19th century, but the term Middlebrow appears in the mid-20th century. It is almost always treated with contempt but it appears to be in many ways what Highbrow was previously and Highbrow became something else entirely.
Twain was middlebrow–he took high concerns into low lingo.
Middlebrow is about thinking through the serious in a way that’s appealing to a people. One thing that makes it irreducible–as opposed to popularization–is that it requires prudence, a certain canniness about the people, the national character…
In the middle of this. I think some of the themes you’re discussing about evil and the town’s assumption that the problem can be dealt with by removing the child murderer are nicely encapsulated in the movie’s tagline, which happens to be my favorite of all time:
The night he came home.
On the point about Sarah Conner seeing the Terminator more and more as his real form each time she encounters him… This is part of why I classify the movie as a monster movie. You never see the monster right away, you always see a bit more of him each time he appears, and you only get the full view at the end.
Yes, that’s a very good point. At the climax, there’s a man who’s not a man inside vs. a woman who bears a man inside her, being already pregnant. She wins.
That’s staking mankind’s future on seeing that we could become monsters, & it’s as close to providence as Cameron gets. We can learn to confront the possibility & protect our nature from that temptation of immortality.
I have an idea, but I worked it back to a level of abstraction that you’re probably the one person who would be interested. Peels back ideas like instant gratification and infantalism all the way back to Aristotelian ideas of the good life, hedonism and virtue. At some middle level, we are accustomed enough to luxury that we expect a luxurious rather than a virtuous solution to life’s problems. But we misdiagnose the problem when we blame the luxury. Luxuries are genuinely good things, but in their proper perspective and context. Art can provide us comfort, but it should not only do that. Sleeping pills can aid people who have trouble sleeping, but it should not be a substitute to dealing with problems. But that’s not on art or sleeping pills. That’s on people, but it’s easier to blame the inanimate objects.
Probably, there’s a way to talk about that without excessively theorizing. Americans abuse their soporifics, whether stories or painkillers, because they don’t want to face up to the deep human questions. Maybe pick a few examples of stories that flatter people’s desire to avoid that; or stories that reveal that desire for what it is & maybe even try to correct it…
We sure need more such writing, so let me encourage you, if you’ve got time to spare…
I burn the candle at both ends and in the middle.