Re/Action issue 1

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Editors’ Letter

ello, and welcome to the first issue of re/action. re/action is a feminist magazine dedicated to reviewing and analysing pop culture. It started in frustration – frustration at the existing media and its assumption that its audience is white, male, and heterosexual. We‘re sick of being treated like we don‘t exist.

So we‘re going to talk about pop culture our way. We‘re going to seek out and celebrate the worthwhile stuff out there, while engaging with and criticising that which falls short. And we‘re going to have fun while we‘re at it. We‘re going to make the magazine we wish we could walk into a newsagent and buy— because we suspect we‗re not the only ones who want something better.

Just by owning a copy of this magazine, you're helping us change the world. We‘re here to tell the entertainment industry that we are ready to be entertained, and our money is worth the same as anyone else‘s. All they have to do is produce the entertainment that we want to spend it on.

Pass this magazine around, get your friends reading it, and get them to buy the next issue so we can continue to make your voices heard. The more of us there are, the more powerful we can be.

Want to get involved? We‗d love to hear from you. Email us at editor@reactionmagazine.co.uk, or follow us on Twitter: @reactionblog, @SarahDobbs and @niannah. Check out the online version at http://reactionblog.tumblr.com. Tell us what you want to see on these pages and online—tell us what you‗d like to write about. We‗re all in this together.

Thanks for reading.

Sarah Dobbs

&

Anna Martin

Contributors Writer Kat Stevens lives in London's trendy North London.

She runs the music video blog The Vids Are Alright and contributes to The Singles Jukebox and Freaky Trigger. She wrote four songs for her Hollyoaks musical before deciding Hollyoaks was dreadful, and can often be found down the pub talking about Britain's Olympic swimming prospects to anyone who‘ll listen. thevidsarealright.tumblr.com

Andrew Mickel is a freelance journalist based in London, working on the rarely connecting worlds of television and social care.

He's asked Andrew Neil about how he doesn't understand Facebook for the Guardian, interviewed people in 15 Bethlehems for the Independent on Sunday and written an impossible amount about EastEnders for Sky. Designer Slodwick lives in Chicago with her roommate, and her roommate's cats: Batman and the Bean. (Their sitcom deal is currently in the works.) She has a soft spot for puns, tall Swedish vampires, and improbable adventures in space.

She knows just enough about Photoshop to be dangerous, but not enough to earn a living at it, so she spends her days combing the beach for spare change and eavesdropping on other people's conversations.

What’s inside re/action...

Issue 1 | Winter 2010/11

Features

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Being a modern lady with Erin Gibson Current TV‘s Erin Gibson talks to re/action about her slot on the satirical news show infoMania

Scary girls and monstrous mothers Sarah Dobbs on the trend for evil little girls in horror movies

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Why don‘t they make a Spider-girl movie?

Why reboot Spider-man when there‘s another webslinger waiting in the wings for her own movie?

Internet Forever‘s Laura Wolf … isn‘t really much of an internet nerd. She tells re/action about music, piracy, and being super busy...

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‗Gayging‘: growing old, while gay Andrew Mickel on the failure of TV shows to follow gay characters beyond coming out

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Body image and pop music Nikki Morton on the mainstream music industry‘s obsession with musicians‘ weight

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Gender in action Not all women hate action movies. Anna Martin looks at female action heroes—and feminised ones...

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Wanna be a TV writer?

Sarah Dobbs talks to two TV writers about the realities of writing for the small screen...

Reviews

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Movies The Runaways, Skeletons, The Last Exorcism, F, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Resident Evil: Afterlife, Devil, Bad Lieutenant

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Television Glee, Grandma‘s House, Dollhouse, The Thick of It, Sherlock, Rev, The Great Outdoors

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Tangled up Michael Richardson on the way Disney is introducing new princesses to its pantheon

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Why aren‘t there more women on the radio?

It‘s not true that listeners prefer men. A new campaign seeks to get more women on air

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Writing women in games Kirsten Campbell on the reasons why there aren‘t more decent female characters in games

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Women in hip hop Where are all the female MCs, and what did rap do before booty shaking became ubiquitous?

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The real problem with Carrie Bradshaw Kirthana Ramisetti on what happened to Carrie between season 1 and Sex and the City 2

Music Iron Chic, Equinoxe, Kerry Ellis, The Pipettes

Other stuff

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Vital Statistics How well represented are women in the film industry? Briefly: not very

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Bechdel testing… horror movies This issue: Two movies about cabins in the woods.

Which of them passes the Bechdel test?

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Heroes and Villains Goodies and baddies of the re/action universe. This issue: Lady Gaga and Christopher Nolan

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Correspondence Letters, emails, and tweets from you. Plus: what‘s this issue about, anyway?

Vital statistics

Approximately half the population is female. But how well represented are women in the film and TV industries? Briefly: not very well.

51% 37% 30% 7% 8% 18% 2% 17%

of the cinema-going public is female

of full time staff at daily newspapers in the US are women

of film reviews appearing in top US newspapers are written by women

of directors of the top grossing movies are female

of writers of the top grossing movies are female

of editors of the top grossing movies are female

of cinematographers of the top grossing movies are female

29%

of writers of prime-time US TV are female

9% 0 1 9% 4 2010

of directors of prime time US television are female

number of films directed by women competing for the Palme D‘Or at the Cannes Film Festival 2010

woman has ever won the Palme D‘Or (Jane Campion, for The Piano)

of Oscars for writing are awarded to women

women have ever been nominated for the Best Director Oscar

first year a woman won the Oscar for Best Director (Kathryn Bigelow, for The Hurt Locker)

of executive producers of top grossing movies are female

Sources: UK Film Council, www.wmm.com, 2009 Hollywood Writers Report, www.suite101.com, IndieWire, Alliance of Women Film Journalists, Celluloid Ceiling Survey 2010, www.womenandhollywood.com, www.mediareporttowomen.com.

Bechdel testing … horror movies

Fail: The Evil Dead

Pass: Cabin Fever The plot: A group of friends travel to a cabin in the woods, where they contract a flesh-eating disease.

Unable to reach help, and attacked by the locals, they‘re killed off one by one.

The plot: A group of friends travel to a cabin in the woods, where an evil force awaits them. Unable to escape or reach help, they‘re possessed and killed, one by one.

Does it include at least two women? Yup. Two main ones, Karen and Marcy, and, um, a handful of unnamed women credited as ―the Hog Lady‖, ―Beautiful Wife,‖ and others.

Does it include at least two women? Yup, three: Shelly, Cheryl, and Linda.

Do they have a conversation? Nearly, but not quite. For the first half an hour, the three women either don‘t talk at all, or talk only to the men, even when all five characters are involved in a conversation.

And then they nearly have a conversation: right before Cheryl first becomes possessed, Shelly and Linda are playing a game with cards, trying to test their psychic abilities. They exchange a couple of words (―It‘s a seven…‖ ―What suit?‖ ―Diamonds … no, no, wait, um, hearts!‖ ―Oh my God, seven of hearts, you‘re right!‖) before involving Ash in the conversation, and getting interrupted by the demon. And that‘s the last time the women even get close to talking to one another.

Considering the actual conversations Ash and Scott manage to have with one another, and Linda with Ash, and Cheryl with Ash, that‘s pretty feeble. Fail.

Do they talk to one another? Karen and Marcy do, on several occasions.

About something other than men? Yes! Karen and Marcy have a conversation, alone, when Karen‘s been locked in the shed away from the others to try to keep her from infecting them, and they talk about food and the disease.

Before that, there are a few group conversations where both women participate, talking to one another as well as the men, and there‘s a sense that they‘re actually friends—near the beginning, when they all stop at a store for supplies, Karen takes photos, with Marcy posing daftly for her, and they frequently make eye contact or look at one another. Pass!

Hey, what is the Bechdel test, anyway? The Bechdel Test (also known as the Bechdel-Wallace Test, or the Mo Movie Measure) is a way of measuring female presence in film (or TV, or books, or whatever). In order to pass, a work must 1) include at least two women 2) who have at least one conversation with one another 3) about something other than a man, or men.

The test originated in Alison Bechdel‘s comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For in 1985, and while passing or failing the test doesn‘t necessarily make a film feminist or misogynist, it‘s still useful for pointing out how many films simply fail to include women at all.

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re/action heroes: Lady Gaga Whether you love her or hate her, Lady Gaga is tough to ignore. Her every move seems deliberately calculated to attract more attention, and right now her every outfit and sentence receives intense scrutiny from the world‘s media.

Which is why it‘s kind of awesome that she‘s chosen to use her platform to speak up about what she believes in – namely, repealing the controversial Don‘t Ask, Don‘t Tell policy that bars openly gay and lesbian people from serving in the US military.

In a YouTube video (youtu.be/GG5VK2lquEc) Gaga speaks at length about the harmful and discriminatory policy, frequently addressing John McCain directly, and ends by attempting to call her senators to ask them to vote to repeal DADT. (She couldn‘t get through, but still.)

She argues for civil liberties and equality; she talks at length about outed and discharged soldiers she‘s met and talked to, and ends the video with a call to arms, appealing to her fans to get involved, to contact their senators and garner as much support as possible. The video has been watched almost 2 million times - and while there are detractors and trolls in the comments section, there are also plenty of people passionately supporting her cause.

At a rally in Portland, Maine, she again led the charge, making a speech to senators while surrounded by gay soldiers. (Overly theatrical? Sure. But this is Lady Gaga we‘re talking about, after all.)

Sadly, despite Gaga‘s efforts, the senate hasn't yet voted to repeal DADT. But by demonstrating political awareness, by showing her willingness to engage on real issues despite an inevitable onslaught of criticism, Gaga‘s proven that there‘s more to her than just ridiculous outfits and catchy pop tunes, and for that, we salute her.

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re/action villains: Christopher Nolan Christopher Nolan‘s reboot of the Batman franchise saw him practically deified by film critics and fanboys alike, and this summer‘s blockbusting Inception has only increased the Nolan worship. And in some ways, the hype is justified: Nolan is a very technically accomplished filmmaker. But there‘s a common element in almost all of his films that makes all this hero worship problematic: his films treat women badly.

Almost all of Nolan‘s films feature a dead wife at some point. Most of his protagonists – all male, naturally – are motivated to seek revenge because of their dead wives. In Memento, Leonard‘s quest for revenge is driven by the half-remembered rape and murder of his wife. In The Prestige, Angier‘s wife dies to drive a wedge between the two magicians, and then Borden‘s wife kills herself as well, for good measure. In Inception, Cobb‘s grief and guilty conscience manifests as the spectre of his dead wife, whom we never get to really see outside of his projections. Even in the Batman films, there‘s Bruce Wayne‘s dead mother and then dead ex-girlfriend. If you‘re a woman in a Nolan movie, you‘ve got a very short life expectancy – if you‘re even alive at the beginning of the film.

This isn‘t a problem that‘s unique to Nolan: examples of women being bumped off to motivate fictional men to revenge or heroism are everywhere. (See Gail Simone‘s list of women in refrigerators, named for Green Lantern Kyle Rayner‘s girlfriend Alex DeWitt, who is literally stuffed in a fridge – unheardtaunts.com/wir – for starters). But Nolan‘s probably the highest profile auteur to return to the fridge over and over and over again. It‘s eye-rollingly predictable and boring now: c‘mon, surely it‘s time for something different?

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Being a Modern Lady Comedian Erin Gibson takes aim at the ridiculous ways women are talked to (and about) by popular culture in Modern Lady, a regular section on CurrentTV‘s weekly satirical news show infoMania. Sarah Dobbs catches up with her to talk about dated movie references, yelling at agents, and the best names for lady-centric TV slots...

S

o, Modern Lady. What was it like, taking over from Sarah Haskins, who presented a section called Target Women for infoMania before Modern Lady came into being?

Sarah Haskins – a Tour de Force! She does what she does amazingly well. The challenge has been to figure out how to turn what I do well into a segment that is not standup, not a sketch, not real acting and involves media.

How would you define the "modern lady", anyway?

A ―Modern Lady‖ is a lady who is confident about being complicated.

The segment ridicules a lot of media sexism - does it annoy you? Is there anything you'd steer clear of, or is everything good fodder for jokes?

Sexism, in general, bothers me, so when it‘s obvious and outrageous, I am lucky enough to be able to do something about it with Modern Lady.

And as far as I‘m concerned, everything is up for grabs for jokes – men, women, I‘ll even make fun of a toddler if that cute little guy is doing something stupid on TV.

How did you get involved with Current?

I heard through the comedy grapevine (Ben and Sergio from infoMania told me) that Sarah was leaving, so I said to my manager ―GET ME THAT JOB.‖ She asked me not to yell at her, so I apologised, then she called and got me an audition.

Other girls auditioned, but I give fantastic, professional, no-strings-attached blow jobs, which has nothing to do with why I got the job, but I feel like people can sense that I am good at them. So, that probably helped.

When I started, everyone was on board with changing the name, so people would hate me less from the get go (which did not work). I wanted a name that would be broad enough that I could talk about all sorts of things, not just commercials. I fought very hard for ―Vagina Time‖, because it‘s the dumbest, boldest name for a women‘s segment. And I thought it would get crazy web hits because people would think they were about to see a vagina. And maybe some of those people would stick around to watch it after they figured out I kept my clothes on.

But Modern Lady was my second choice. I really like the name. It sounds like what a 1950s construction worker would call me after I responded to his cat calls with a calm ―Fuck off.‖ [puts on heavy blue collar accent] ―Who do you think you are, some kind of modern lady?‖

How did you get into comedy in the first place?

I am very lucky to have been given two great gifts in my life – parents with dark senses of humour and being as tall as a monster. Expose any kid to 10 years of relentless tormenting and you‘ve got yourself a comedian (or a murderer). Besides my natural comedic gifts (gangly arms, accident proneness), I studied at Second City in Chicago and UCB Theatre in LA. Those guys taught me to rein it in. I‘d be a real annoying mess if it weren‘t for those theatres.

What's it like being a woman in live comedy?

I love live comedy! There are so many talented women at my theatre, UCB Theatre in LA, and we‘re all very supportive of each other. It‘s fantastic. I can‘t imagine trying to be a professional comedienne in the 70s or 40s or , oh boy, the 1650‘s – forget about it! Right now is a good time to be a woman in comedy.

And honestly - I‘m sure this is not news to anyone there is nothing like the thrill of success or the lows of failure on stage. Nothing. Unless meth is like that.

Actually, that seems exactly what meth is like.

How much pop culture do you need to consume to be part of it? It seems like you'd need to watch an awful lot of TV...

I watch a lot of TV. Too much. When I was a kid I would have killed another kid to get to watch TV all day.

Unfortunately, I am an adult who likes to exercise and have a social life, so after binging on 8 to 10 hours of media a day at this job, I cancelled my cable at home. Now I stream movies from Netflix.

Prepare yourself for a handful of dated jokes involving Beetlejuice and Ghostbusters II in my pieces.

What are the best and worst things about your job?

I love the staff on the show and our new Executive Producer David Nickoll is just the best! He is very encouraging but holds back on the compliments just enough that you work harder for his approval.

But I hate, hate, hate being in an office 5 days a week. I also get distracted easily, so deadlines and goals are impossible for me. Basically, the structure of a show is my kryptonite. But when exposed to it, instead of losing my power, I just mindlessly plough through bags upon bags of Chili Cheese Fritos. ...continued overleaf 11

Best of Modern Lady

Which other women in comedy do you admire?

I love the awkward girls and the confident weirdos Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Joan Rivers, Alice Lowe, Lucy Davis, Jennifer Saunders... oh, and I think Matt Berry is wonderful.

A quick introduction to the awesomeness of Erin Gibson:

You've got various web projects - Models are Smart, Resentful Mom, the Roommating Show - what do you like about working online?

All my Internet projects are currently on hold until someone wants to buy them for millions of US dollars. (I'd take less... Shhhhhhh!)

I love putting things up on the Internet, You get complete artistic freedom while exposing yourself to irrational people filled with hate who have access to a computer. It‘s like someone putting their dick in your heart and fucking it: it sounds really awesome, but it hurts a little bit.

(It does not sound awesome. I just typed the sentence ―dick in your heart and fucking it‖ and I laughed really loud. So I thought it should stay in. I could be wrong about it being funny. But dicks are always funny, so I'm probably right.)

"Beer, you're officially my enemy, and I am boycotting you. Which means bars, weddings and dinner parties just became unbearable. I don't even know how I'm gonna have casual sex. I mean, I'll figure it out."

- from Modern Lady: Beer Ads

Is there anything else that you're working on that we should be aware of?

I'm also working on a project called French and Swift, about two assholes who work at a coffee shop and develop super powers against their will. I wrote it with my friend Dave Horwitz, who co-writes the hilarious blog Dealbreaker (dealbreaker.tumblr.com) which is soon to be out as a book. We're both in the show and are really good at playing stupids. I am very lucky to be friends with the most talented, stable, and kind comedians in LA.

"This is one of those things where no-one wins, like the war in Afghanistan. I have three dreaded words for you, bikini season: go fuck yourself."

- from Modern Lady: Bikini Season

Finally, did you really boycott beer after the Modern Lady piece on beer advertising?

Hahaha! I never drank those shitty American beers in the first place. They taste like water. So it was easy. It makes sense that they have to have the most ‗entertaining‘ commercials – how else would they trick people into buying their shitty, shitty beer?

Watch Erin on CurrentTV’s infoMania every Thursday night, visit her website at www.gibblertron.com, or follow her on Twitter: @gibblertron.

"It shouldn't matter how a woman dresses. My doctor looks like a clown. But she's fantastic at her job."

- from Modern Lady: Work Place Attire Watch all the Modern Lady sections at current.com/shows/infomania/modern-lady/ 12

Spider-girl, the movie?

I

n 2012, there‘s going to be a new Spider-Man movie, rebooting the franchise that began in 2002. Sam Raimi‘s Spider-Man 3, which came out in 2007, was widely regarded as not very good, and since Raimi withdrew from the franchise in January this year, Sony Pictures has decided to scrap the whole thing and start again.

The hype machine is already up and running, claiming that the new movie will do for the SpiderMan franchise what Batman Begins did for the Batman franchise: it‘ll be dark, gritty, and contemporary. An actor has already been cast to step into Tobey Maguire‘s shoes as the young Peter Parker, who‘ll go through the process of acquiring his superpowers and learning that great power comes with a side of great responsibility, all over again.

But why are they bothering? If the Spider-Man franchise has grown stale and a new super-powered web-slinger is called for, why not make a Spider-Girl movie?

For the uninitiated, Spider-Girl is May ―MayDay‖ Parker, daughter of Peter and Mary Jane Parker.

(The existing Spider-Man movies have already set that relationship up well enough that audiences shouldn‘t have any trouble buying in to their future daughter.) As she grows up, May develops spiderpowers of her own, and since her dad‘s retired from the superhero business, she takes up the mantle.

Juggling the responsibilities of a normal life with the pressures of superheroism and the awkwardness of maintaining a secret identity proves to be as difficult as it ever was. Various offspring of already-introduced characters (like the Green Goblin, J. Jonah Jameson, and the Juggernaut) show up, and … basically, it‘s a story not dissimilar from SpiderMan‘s. If Hollywood wants a refreshed superhero story that plays into an established brand, encouraging in a new audience while reassuring the old fans that they‘re still wanted, they could do worse than pick up this next-generation arachnid.

It‘s enough of a new beginning that it won‘t be

hampered by the last movie, but allows for plenty of geeky shout-outs to keep the die-hards happy.

Okay, Spider-Girl may not be as familiar a name as Spider-Man, but it‘s not exactly hard to figure it out, is it? There have been more than enough –Man movies lately, more than enough reboots and reimaginings; developing a new character is more difficult, but Spider-Girl‘s logo is familiar enough to overcome that and make marketing the movie easy.

And teenage girls could do with a superhero of their own. Women have been relegated to sidekicks, love interests, or back-up team members in superhero movies for long enough now; isn‘t it about time there were a few more actual heroines on the silver screen? If you want to get mercenary about this, the Twilight franchise should have more than demonstrated the buying power of teen girls; it‘d be nice if the film industry could offer them a fantasy that doesn‘t rely on a tall, sparkly and handsome man coming to whisk them away.

Just imagine someone like Ellen Page or Mary Elizabeth Winstead in the May Parker role: kicking ass, taking names, and sling her way home through through the city on a spiderweb. Come on, tell me that wouldn‘t be a movie you‘d want to watch? I‘d buy a ticket right now. SD

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Gayging: n. the process of getting older, while gay Gay characters of a certain age - i.e. anywhere between 30 and 70 seem to be curiously absent from TV comedy and drama. Andrew Mickel wonders why...

L

ike many curious beasts, the full life cycle of a gay man has been carefully documented by television.

He first appears when he erupts out of a 16-year-old boy that has shown no previous sign of harbouring such a thing inside them, bar an increased chance of blondness and a tendency to look worried in an 'I can't quite put my finger on why I'm not comfortable in my own skin so I'll just laugh along with my friends and hopefully no-one will notice' kind of way. After first emerging he'll then rarely come into contact with any other of his species, sometimes for several years, devoting his time to supporting his female comrades or perhaps accidentally trying it on with the straights.

Eventually he will find another of his own kind, but unfortunately he's a shy sort of animal; they'll normally have one kiss, before then vanishing out of sight altogether, rarely being caught on film again. The few that stay above ground and in full view have presumably been neutered – perhaps the reason they've been shunned by the rest of The Gays off screen – ignoring the other few gay men around and instead spending their time

on jaunty commentary about the straights around them.

And experimenting with hats. They spend solitary lives living in boxes infested with ticks, before quietly vanishing too.

It's a simple enough question: why are there so few gay men on television past 30? It's the age range Michael Obiora as Ben in Hotel Babylon that all comedy, and And that's pretty much it. There's particularly drama, couldn't simply little place for gay men on function without – soapy dramas telly if they want to do pretty like Holby City are run by much anything other than be straight thirtysomethings, while teenagers who come out. soapy soaps are overseen by Actually, that's not entirely fortysomething couples and their true: the elderly homosexual has teenage broods. Serious drama is become an oddly common still largely devoid of gay feature of telly in the past few characters of pretty much any years, and provides quite a big age. Sitcoms are either populist pointer as to why the middlefamily affairs, teenage trash on aged gay is absent from their digital offspring, or the television. There was Pauline's occasional, surprisingly gay-free BFF Derek in EastEnders, Boring slacker comedy on Channel Four. Gail's dad in Coronation Street, 14

Gail's dad in Coronation Street, and even Frank in familyfriendly, joke-unfriendly the Vicar of Dibley. All medical shows on both sides of the pond are likely to treat one half of elderly gay couples at some point.

And what do teenagers and the over-70s have in common? Aside from the fact they both use drugs, there's a general lack of sex among both sets (or, at the very least, it's believable to portray them on television as not getting any). They're handy to brighten up a telly show, provide a bit of diversity and tick a few boxes, but without having to risk getting complaint letters for showing two

men getting it on in the same way as their straight brethren.

The odd thing is that this has been the state of British telly for quite a while – if anything, it's going backwards. Once television could challenge traditional wisdom. When EastEnders screened the first gay kiss on British telly in 1988, it was described in the Sun as 'a homosexual love scene between two yuppie poofs'. The next year, a character was outed in the show to his parents because the police discovered he had slept with a man when he was under the age of consent at the time, 21.

That's telly that took balls to

make.

It's impossible to imagine something that courageous now.

Sure, most youth telly includes one gay character (or at the very least, a blond boy who's on the verge). But it's included as a United Colors of Benetton badge of liberal honour that's normally there to say more about the other characters than it is about them.

Take Maxxie in Skins: he was supposed to be a poster boy for an accepted gay character that didn't have to go through all the rigmarole of coming out, but he was never there to do much more than make up the numbers. And give Nicholas Hoult someone to

The New Stereotypes The troubled teenager Coming out of the closet never goes out of fashion: everyone will be SHOCKED and SURPRISED that the obviously gay kid turns out to be gay, before estranging them for, oh, ten minutes, before they realise he's the same person he always was and oh don't we love him after all.

Worst offender? All the soaps. On a weekly basis.

The troubled a-bit-older-than-a-teenager When your show is due a gay man but you very recently had a gay troubled teenager, you're going to have to go a bit older – but you'll need a good reason why. Having a child and marrying young is a good one; Muslim is even better and 'on topic'.

Worst offender? Syed in EastEnders. Although he's partially let off because he's got lovely hair.

The sexless camp guy Here's something really courageous: a gay, IN THEIR THIRTIES! Of course, they have to be smooth downstairs like a Ken doll and never really get any action.

Worst offender? As amazing as the show otherwise is, Hotel Babylon's camp receptionist Ben. How come the show is a constant shagathon for everyone but him?

The sexless competent gay Time to really push that envelope: a gay man over 30 who isn't camp. He's still basically smooth downstairs, mind; he'll be a secondary character as anything more will probably require a relationship at some point. But he'll be quietly competent at getting on with things in a way that the straights can't manage.

Worst offender? On these shores, DC Fraser in Taggart. Although Thad in SJP-led horror the Family Stone gets a special mention for managing to perfectly fit the mould, while also being deaf and having a black boyfriend (who he never even kisses). SO MANY BOXES TO TICK. The token oldie A comparatively new category, having an older gay person is considered truly out there, despite becoming common as muck. They're most likely to be guest characters – ending up in Casualty after being attacked in the street, that sort of thing – or at most, minor characters that are really just there to make the stars more interesting.

Worst offender? Gail's dad in Corrie. It did not prove enough to make her interesting.

John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness in Torchwood

look experimental with.

Even that's better than the representation of older age groups. At a push, a lead character in a thirtysomething drama might have a gay best friend who's actual gay life is lived entirely off-screen. The gay characters there are on telly rarely get to have any relationships, and certainly don't get to have any sex. Crossing the pond briefly as there are so few British examples to work with,

take Modern Family, the critically lauded comedy starring a gay couple – who aren't allowed to kiss. The producers have said they'll make it clear in the next series that one of the couple is uncomfortable with public displays of affection. It's yet to be seen if that will help land him a job as a telly writer.

Coming back to the UK, there's a couple of exceptions to the rule: step forward, John Barrowman and John Partridge, aka Captain 16

Jack and Christian in EastEnders. I'd give full credit to Russell T Davies for finding ways to get characters from the full spectrum of LGBT into the Doctor Who-niverse. Christian is more difficult – the character lived pretty much his entire gay life offscreen, before getting involved in a, erm, coming out storyline. It's better than most, but it sure as heck isn't ideal.

So why is this happening? It's a grimly unfortunate fact that Aids means that there are far fewer older gay men than there should have been. And with the world a more welcoming place for gay men in the last couple of decades, plenty more young people now come out of the closet than before. It's also worth noting that coming out is often one of the most significant life events for a gay man – it's perennially interesting and important to show for those who haven't yet done it.

But there are already plenty of gay men past 30 who aren't being seen on screen, and their ranks are only going to grow. It remains impossible to get away from the notion that there's a lot of squeamishness in tellyland about showing gay men together.

That goes both for physical contact – you can just hear the green ink pens being fetched by Daily Mail readers every time two men kiss on BBC One – but also for the more varied forms of relationships that gay couples are likely to have. Even if (or rather, when) telly puts a committed, exclusive gay couple into a telly drama that are comparable to heterosexual couples, we'd still be a world away from portraying more complex, open relationships.

This is a real shame, particularly for drama, as there's

a rich seam of material that could be worked with. For many gay men, they're basically making it up as they go along: this is the first time they‘ve been able to have civil partnerships, adopt children and be accepted in the mainstream, both as single men or in couples.

No-one has had the opportunity to do this before, and there's no manual for it. This is fascinating stuff. It would be great to see a drama wrestle with the little sticking points of being those people – how do you cope with ageing if you weren't expecting to live an old age? What conventions in civil partnerships are different to just being a gay couple, or a straight married couple? How do you adopt when you know your child is more likely to get stick at school for having two dads? I don't know the answers but it would certainly be great material for a TV show.

More importantly, there are plenty of gay men, not to mention wider society, who could do with seeing characters to reflect what they're thinking, and what they should aspire to. I'm 26 and I can't think of any British characters (America is much better: see box out) that show a possible future.

Unfortunately, the chance of change seems slim. It's been so normal to not see gay people on telly for so long that it's very easy to overlook they're even missing, and there's a large, vocal number of people who don't want to see it.

Plus there's always the risk that a poorly-created character could raise the ire of gay people themselves. There's a lot more to lose than to gain.

But if we don't want to live in a world where telly's older gay men are exclusively used to host Saturday night shiny floor shows, someone's going to have to break some ground.

The Honourable Exceptions Take Russell T Davies out of the equation, and there's really naff all to work with in the UK. So what's been done better in the US? Six Feet Under After the slightly yawnorific period of agonising over whether or not to teeter out of the closet, David and Keith's relationship was examined from the inside out, treating them both as actual human beings. Plus they adopted kids.

The Donald Strachey movies Gay-themed thriller series of movies adapted from Richard Stevenson books, starring former Dr Quinn real-life gayer Chad Allen.

Noah's Arc Short-lived series on America's gay channel Logo about four black gay best friends. Or at least they were until it was axed.

The Sarah Silverman Programme Brian and Steve are Sarah's gay neighbours, but they're no gym bunnies – they're metal heads, complete with beer bellies (the fat kind, not the bear sort). Or at least they were until it was axed.

Brothers and Sisters The visual equivalent of a Danny Elfman soundtrack, B&S (the ampersand is superfluous, if we're entirely honest) does at least have a gay thirtysomething couple that are treated as normals.

Inexplicably not yet axed.

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Body poppin’

What’s more important: a pop star’s talent, or her weight? Nikki Morton isn’t sure she likes the answer to that question...

“got called fat by a paper, makes me worry about other girls reading shit & feeling down, remember, you don’t have to be hungry to be happy!”

- @katenash

Read a certain type of publication nowadays and the scope of interviews with female musicians seems to be limited to (in order of importance) their appearance, their relationships and ... oh yeah, haven‘t you got a new album out or something?

Everything seems to hinge on their appearance - and body size is a massive part of that.

Sadly, the tabloid obsession with weight is nothing new. But recently it‘d started to seem like attitudes were changing, at least in regard to actresses who are ever so slightly bigger than a size zero. Christina Hendricks‘ now infamous curves were initially excused as appropriate for the role she played in historical drama Mad Men - and then praised for their desirability and perceived healthiness.

Another glimmer of body positivity comes in the form of US drama Huge, where plus-sized Nikki Blonsky‘s character is shown as being happy with her weight … but it‘s set at a fat camp, so her weight is still an issue. Any actress deemed to be slightly overweight used to be relegated to a bit part, where her size was her defining feature, but hopefully that‘s starting to change.

Unfortunately, the same can‘t be said for the music industry.

Appearance has always mattered in mainstream media, and while there are female musicians who don‘t conform to the narrow view of beauty demanded, these do tend to be women who have made it themselves (Aretha Franklin and Beth Ditto spring to mind) but these are women with overwhelming talent who have become successful through their music, almost in spite of their image. So much mainstream music now is heavily constructed: the kind of music sung by an artist who has been chosen for that song by a record company because they fit the execs want to portray – and these are still all sample sizes.

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When Amanda Palmer shot the video for her song Leeds United, she was wearing an unbuttoned shirt, which occasionally flashed some midriff. Palmer, who practices yoga regularly and admits that she is vain about her image, was pleased with the result. Roadrunner, her label at the time, wasn‘t. They were unhappy that her stomach was not washboard flat, and wanted to either cut scenes where it was visible, or digitally retouch them to be ‗more flattering‘.

Understandably, Palmer refused to stand for that, and after a blog post about it, her fans were up in arms: and the Rebellyon was born.

Hundreds of people, men and women, sent in pictures of their bellies. Some of these pictures probably would be deemed acceptable and ‗flattering‘ by Roadrunner, but others certainly wouldn‘t. The Rebellyon was a collective middle finger up to the label and its overly restrictive version of attractiveness, and the world‘s media weren‘t slow to pick up on it.

This time, they were on Amanda‘s side, but papers and magazines are rarely so supportive.

Singer-songwriter Kate Nash was criticised for her outfit choice at this year‘s V Festival, with one article saying it clung in ‗all the wrong places.‘ Nash took to Twitter to voice her unhappiness - her concern was less for herself and more for any young girls who might read the article and compare themselves to her, feeling bad about their own bodies as a result.

Nash is not, by any stretch of the imagination, fat. But she‘s apparently not thin enough; she‘s not the de rigueur size 4 (or smaller!) demanded of today‘s female celebrities. We, the media-consuming public, apparently need to have that pointed out to us, in case we mistakenly thought she was attractive.

Adjectives used to describe larger women in the public eye all sound complimentary enough, but it‘s hard not to imagine them being said in a sneering tone. ‗Curvy‘ and ‗voluptuous‘ sound good, but they‘re still used as markers of difference. And describing

someone as a ‗real woman‘ is really problematic - what does that make everyone else, if they‘re not ‗real‘? If you‘re the ‗perfect‘ size, do you somehow transcend reality?

Being a successful musician seems now to be less about the music, and more about the image. There are, after all, sponsorship deals, clothing ranges, perfumes and fashion shoots to think of. The music industry thinks that we want our female musicians to fit the mould, and without an alternative, the popularity of artists who look the part seems to suggest that is what we want.

Obviously, boycotting musicians because they‘re slim doesn‘t help anyone, but it‘s a shame the majority of the music industry seems to ignore artists who aren‘t.

“It’s funny how something so normal and mundane that you see every day - your body - can be controversial.”

- Beth Ditto

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Anna Martin discusses the objectification and feminisation of men in this summer’s action movies...

Gender in action

Jessica Biel as Charissa Sosa in The A-Team

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alt was supposed to be the summer’s female action hero. And to an extent, she was. Cool, resilient, resourceful, and hot, she was a very engaging action hero indeed.

But there was another trailblazing female character in action this summer who seems to have flown entirely under the radar. Jessica Biel played Charissa Sosa in The A-Team, and more than Salt, perhaps even more than Sarah Connor, Charissa Sosa is a new kind of woman in action.

Male action heroes are changing, too. Women have always been able to watch hot men on screen, and hot

men have always been there. But in movies, it‘s always been the female characters who have had to bear the weight of being objectified. And objectification has been a violent thing, reducing the female body to the sum of its parts: T&A. There is no male equivalent of that acronym.

But there is a new kind of male objectification happening. In some movies, the objectification of the male body is not a violent reduction, it‘s something else entirely. It‘s a reconstruction of the meaning of the male body onscreen, and it‘s interesting and contradictory and fun.

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Now that Hollywood is realising more and more that women love action movies too, it seems that gender roles in action movies are beginning to shift. The ATeam was supposed to be the silly, overblown action movie of the summer, but it looks like it didn‘t get that memo. Not only is it fun, tightly-plotted and wellpaced, but it is also doing something really interesting with gender.

can a man who looks at women be the erotic object of a movie?

CAPITALISING ON FEMALE DESIRE For the answer, let‘s go back ninety years in the history of cinema. Rudolph Valentino was one of the first heartthrobs of the silver screen. He starred in silent films in the early twenties, and he became hugely famous. The

PRACTICAL WOMEN & PRETTY MEN Like most action flicks, this movie suffers from One Woman Syndrome. In The A-Team, that woman is Charissa Sosa, a Department of Defence officer who spends most of the film searching for the A-Team. But Sosa is unlike most other One Women in action. She's capable, efficient, she has her own agency, her own storyline, and unlike, for example, Scarlett Johansson in Iron Man II, shots aren't designed around showcasing Sosa's ass. (There were plenty of opportunities to do so, but it doesn‘t happen.) Sosa is a career military officer who dumped Face - the Faceman, the famous ladies' man, Lt. Templeton Peck himself for getting too serious about their relationship. She doesn't just automatically believe the A-Team are innocent of the crime they've been court-martialled for, she has to be convinced. She has her own aims and intentions and takes appropriate action to fulfil them.

She wears her hair in a ponytail and she wears little stud earrings, because that's practical when you're in the military. She doesn't wear a uniform for some reason, but regs seem to be fairly loose on that throughout the movie, and anyway it‘s totally cool for a woman to look hot in a loose-fitting cotton top and a leather vest. Comfortable, practical, sexy. That's the kind of hot that guys are always allowed to be. And it's a great look on Jessica Biel.

So far, so Sarah Connor. But there‘s a difference in The A-Team. And that difference is that Sosa is one woman in a mostly-male ensemble cast, and as such, if this was your run of the mill action flick, she‘d be the one with lots of skin on show.

But not in The A-Team. In this movie, it‘s Bradley Cooper who tends to hang around with shirt off. A lot.

The movie is certainly happy to showcase this very pretty man. Interestingly, he's also the only character we see engaging in any kind of beauty regime. Bradley Cooper is the eye candy of this movie.

And in making him so, The A-Team becomes one of a new kind of action movie that shifts objectification from female characters to the men. And yet, Face is a womaniser. It feels like a contradiction in terms: how

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OBJECTIFICATION Objectification in film happens in specific ways, all of them related to excess: that extra little moment taken to look at a body, that skin uncovered when it is not narratively warranted or excused (or very flimsily excused—so Bruce Wayne having his wounds sewn up doesn't count but randomly having Face sunbathing does).

These moments of excess render the body available to be looked at and desired without reference to the narrative framework of the movie. They happen with female bodies, but when they happen with male bodies, that's when a movie objectifies men. The most obvious example in recent times is Daniel Craig walking out of the sea in Casino Royale. It is purposely reminiscent of Ursula Andress in Dr. No, thus clearly echoing the moment of her objectification, and because it takes a little while to walk out of the sea, we get to take a short time out in the middle of the movie to watch Bond's toned, wet body emerge from the water and up onto the beach. There's so much that's excessive about the shot that it's a perfect example of how a film can objectify the male body.

star known simply as Valentino was the first ‗Latin Lover‘ and he was marketed specifically in terms of female desire. ―The studio telephones could not handle the thousands of calls from women,‖ one biographer tells us. ―They begged for any job that would permit even a momentary glimpse of Valentino. Gladly they offered to work without pay.‖ This kind of hyperbole marked Valentino‘s legend, and became even more

exaggerated after his premature death in 1926 at the age of 31.

Critics have studied Valentino with interest because he is an anomaly in early cinema. Though male, his exotic ―otherness‖ made him different, and that difference made him subject to objectification in ways that white male stars were not. He was also feminised by his clothing and the emphasis they brought to his ―otherness‖. Films such as The Sheik, Son of the Sheik and The Eagle dressed him up in ―feminised‖ garb—the long robes of the Middle East in Son of the Sheik, the toreador‘s satin of Blood and Sand, the dress-like military uniform in The Eagle. Scenes of dressing and undressing are pivotal in Valentino‘s work, as his body is erotically revealed to spectators.

It is this curious conflation of the masculine and the feminine, of subject and object - of identificatory figure and erotic object of desire - that is once more occurring in cinema.

Face in The A-Team is an example of such a figure.

And then there‘s the surprising epitome of the trend so far: Tony Stark, aka Iron Man. OUR BODIES, OUR SELVES The Iron Man movies make a point of excess.

Everything is excessive and flamboyant, most of all Tony Stark. In fact, all the excess of the movies seems to both emanate from him and concentrate back on him. When Tony so dramatically says ―I am Iron Man,‖ he could be referring to the suit, the persona and the entire movie franchise.

The nature of Iron Man - that the arc reactor in his chest powers not only the suit but also an electromagnet that prevents shrapnel from entering Stark‘s heart and killing him - means that there is an intense focus, in these movies, on Tony‘s body. More than Batman, definitely more than Superman, even more than Wolverine, Tony Stark‘s body is the core of the narrative at all times. There are two aspects of the second Iron Man movie which make this especially interesting.

Firstly, there seems to be an anxiety, in Iron Man II, that Tony‘s body is getting too much screentime, so Favreau tries to balance things in favour of the female body as the eroticised object. In a sequence towards the beginning of the movie, Iron Man leaps from a plane to land dramatically centre-stage at the Stark Expo to the booming and very manly sounds of AC/DC, surrounded by a group of sexy female dancers, all dressed in outfits that echo the Iron Man suit but cover a lot less skin. And then, as we watch, the Iron Man 22

armour is removed while Tony stands on a revolving platform, so that both the audience in the scene and we, the audience watching the movie, can look at him.

Though the scene seems to aim to place the burden of erotic desire on the scantily-clad women, by putting Tony front and centre, by undressing him while he is once more the centre of attention in an overtly eroticised context, it is Tony who emerges as the object of erotic interest in this scene. It is Tony who is at the

FEMINISATION Feminisation of a male character in movies doesn‘t mean making him effeminate or making him ―like a woman,‖ but, rather, making it so that some of his primary concerns are those more usually associated with female characters. So if a male character is concerned with clothing or image, that‘s feminisation. If he is dressed and undressed and otherwise objectified, that‘s feminisation. A man subject to his emotions rather than his intellect is feminised. Emotions, in Western culture, are the domain of the female, while the male controls his emotions with his rigorous mind. When a male character is feminised, usually it‘s in any of these ways - think Face from The A-Team, not Mrs Doubtfire.

centre of this erotic vortex, despite all efforts to the contrary. And he remains there throughout the rest of the movie, Scarlett Johansson‘s ass proving just a brief distraction.

The second interesting thing about Tony Stark is the subtle way in which he is a feminine figure. Early in Iron Man II, Tony must take part in a Congressional Hearing in which he is forced to fight for control over his own body, against the Government‘s fear that other such bodies may be produced, and that such reproduction would be beyond their control. When Sen. Stern tries to force Tony into relinquishing control of the Iron Man suit to the Government, Tony compares such an arrangement to indentured servitude or prostitution. Tony must debate the nature and limits of his own body under threat of control of that body being taken away. These are very female concerns. All over the world women fight for control of our own bodies,

Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark, Iron Man

fight for reproductive rights, fight for the right to decide where our bodies begin and end. Tony Stark finds himself fighting very similar battles.

Tony‘s heart is at the very centre of the Iron Man story, since without the requirement to keep it from being torn to pieces by shrapnel, there would be no Iron Man. It‘s no coincidence that Tony is impulsive and emotional.

He lives by the heart. The heart has long been considered the symbol of the feminine, set in opposition to the masculine mind.

like him so fascinating. A narcissistic show-off, Tony Stark should not be attractive, and yet his unspoken qualities, the qualities that underlie his ridiculous, selfinvolved flamboyance, are the factors that potentially make him so appealing to female viewers, as well as making him a quietly revolutionary figure.

Tony Stark may be the first truly massive female superhero in the same way that Bill Clinton was the first black President of the USA - i.e., not really. But nevertheless, there is something interesting happening when male heroes can be quite so female.

This new trend - if a trend can be identified in a mere handful of movies, but we can hold out hope! - is refreshing and exciting. If it catches on, action movies are about to get a whole lot more interesting. Sylvester Stallone tweeted recently that 42% of the audience for The Expendables was composed of women, and commented on how surprised he was at that. Looks like Stallone, along with the rest of Hollywood, is finally learning that women love action too. Hopefully the industry is realising that by playing around with gender roles and constructions, as in The A-Team and Iron Man, they‘re making sure we keep coming back for more.

GENDER FLUIDITY Tony is a cyborg, composed as he is of both organic and technological parts. Poststructuralist social critic Donna Haraway has famously championed the figure of the cyborg as a feminine figure, a mutable figure with no clear parameters, a figure that stands in direct contrast to the humanist concept of the autonomous, immutable, impenetrable male. Tony Stark is such a figure.

Given all of the above, it is arguable that Tony Stark is in some ways discursively female.

This is a curious situation, that a male character may be feminised and objectified all at once. And yet it is this mixture that makes Tony Stark and other heroes 23

So you wanna be a TV writer?

Who hasn‘t watched telly and thought at some point ―I could write something better than that‖, or wished they could write their own episode of their favourite show? Sarah Dobbs talks to two TV writers about what it‘s really like…

W

hen people who don‘t know the industry find out that I write for a long running show like Holby City, they often assume I only write for one character, and not a complete episode,‖ says Abi Bown, a TV writer who‘s written episodes of Casualty, Holby City, EastEnders and Doctors. Bown worked in theatre as a designer for years before getting into writing: going to a PAL Playwriting Lab (www.pallabs.org) in 2000 kick-started her career, and at the end of the 10-day writing getaway she‘d written three-quarters of a stage play. That play, Hey There Boy With The Be Bop Glasses and the Blue Suede Shoes, Come On…, eventually won her the Arts Council Children‘s Award in 2004, and from there she began building a writing career.

Lisa Holdsworth has written for Emmerdale, Robin Hood, New Tricks, and Waterloo Road, and for her, writing was the only logical career choice. ―I‘ve always written, since I was a small child. I was obsessed with make believe, writing stories and putting on plays,‖ she recalls. ―I went to university in London to study Film and Theatre, and whilst there I wrote my first screenplay. When I went home to Leeds, I took a job in factual TV and found myself working with [TV producer and writer] Kay Mellor‘s son-in-law. I finally plucked up the courage to ask him whether Kay would read my screenplay. He sighed and said he‘d add it to the pile, but he must have put it on the top because she did read it and liked it. ―I went to work for her, doing a strange combination of the mundane and creative, and while I was there she decided to do a second series of Fat Friends. I cheekily pitched an episode idea involving a new family for the show, was tentatively given a commission, and the rest is history!‖ Writing for TV is a specific skill, though Holdsworth says she frequently comes across the misconception that it‘s easy compared to other writing forms – that it‘s just like film, or theatre, rather than a different medium with its own structures and requirements.

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―TV audiences are very sophisticated, and increasingly difficult to surprise and delight,‖ says Holdsworth. ―They can spot a baddy or a doubleagent from a mile off. They know a character with a headache is more than likely to have a brain tumour, or someone thowing up in the morning is usually pregnant. They know that if a couple is arguing in the first episode, they will be shagging by the third. If a script patronises them, they‘ll have nothing but contempt for the show.‖ Bown concurs, and her own move from writing for the stage to writing for TV involved making some fairly drastic changes to the way she wrote – mostly down to the sheer number of words used. ―Audiences don‘t watch soliloquies on TV – they‘ll go and make a cup of TV,‖ she says. ―TV is a visual media, and I had to do a huge mind shift in order to write for the box. I had to cut my dialogue by 80%. The sort of TV writing I‘ve done is also fairly instant – in three months it‘s gone from page to screen and millions are watching your stories. That‘s hugely gratifying, and it can be a great incentive to write more.‖

Is writers‘ block ever a problem? ―Writers‘ block is like a petulant toddler,‖ says Bown. ―It wants attention all the time, and every suggestion you make, it rejects.

Using bribes works well.‖ Holdsworth isn‘t sure she believes writers‘ block really exists. ―Personally, I‘ve had blank patches, but that‘s usually been done to being distracted or out of sorts. Or even, when working on someone else‘s project or series, because I think the central idea or storyline is utter crap. But that‘s where the hard work comes in: you have to break the material you‘ve been given and rebuild it.‖ There are, obviously, downsides to working as a TV writer. ―I am often out of work,‖ admits Bown, and Holdsworth adds ―It can be quite solitary, and there are days when I‘m absolutely lashed to my desk. Finding stories and ideas can become something of an obsession, and I can‘t watch any telly, cinema, or theatre without picking it to bits.‖ And it can be harder for women. ―In a meritocracy, where pitching and bear pits still predominate, then you have to have a pretty loud voice to be heard,‖ says Bown. ―In my schooling, 30-odd years ago, girls were encouraged to be note takers rather than debatemakers.‖ Balancing a career that requires you to be creative and focused while working long hours with other parts of your life isn‘t always easy. ―When I‘m pulling an all-nighter, or when I‘m on the 06:40 train to Kings Cross, I do wonder whether I would be able to maintain my career if I was a mother,‖ says Holdsworth. ―Over the last couple of years, thanks to the economy, the schedules have become tighter and the demands on the writer greater. It doesn‘t make for a family friendly industry.‖ Working from home can be convenient, though finding ways to separate home and work is important. Bown says, ―I work from home in an adapted shipping container in the garden. It‘s a real luxury, as my commute is only 30 seconds, but I‘m out of the house, so I‘m less tempted to re-paper the bathroom and attempt all those other displacement activities. I have a great partner – he‘s a freelance worker in the same industry – so we juggled the childcare when our girls were young, and all the home responsibilities have fallen into a natural 50:50 split.‖ The rewards outweigh the disadvantages, though. ―I bloody love what I do,‖ says Holdsworth. ―I‘ve met some brilliant people, and my life is rarely boring or mundane.‖

Find out more about Abi Bown at www.abibown.co.uk, and follow Lisa Holdsworth on Twitter (@WorksWithWords) or read her blog: deadlinesanddiamonds.blogspot.com.

Advice on getting into TV writing

Abi Bown  

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Lisa Holdsworth 

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―Watch a ton of TV and find what it is you like to write.‖ ―Hook into BBC Writersroom and other TV industry ‗interfaces‘ - send in your best work and listen to advice.‖ ―Be patient. Don‘t worry that you‘re getting too old to be discovered as the next bright young thing or that you‘ve missed the latest training initiative/bandwagon. Something else always comes along.‖

―Watch TV – you‘d be surprised how many people who want to work in telly never bloody watch it, or have contempt for it. If you want to write TV drama, you should love it.‖ ―Don‘t do it for the money, do it for love. A lot of people try TV writing because they think it‘s easier to get into than film and more lucrative than theatre. If that‘s your attitude, you can bugger off and leave those of us with square eyes to get on with it.‖ ―Take a chance and get your work out there.

Target people who can be useful to you and get your timing right. And then be patient.‖

Tangled Up: Michael Richardson wonders whether Tangled might be a different kind of Disney movie—and Rapunzel a different kind of princess...

Since the release of Walt Disney‘s first feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, in 1937, animated adaptations of European fairytales have been Disney‘s stock in trade. Dragons and witches, enchanted castles and dark forests, princes and – perhaps most importantly of all – princesses have become synonymous with the Disney brand.

In 2001, as a means of rescuing an ailing Consumer Products Division, Disney plucked a dozen of these princesses from their fantasylands and slapped them together, marketing them under the Disney Princess umbrella. It was to be the first time 26

Princess profile: Snow White that the company had ever marketed characters separately from a film‘s release, not to mention allowing characters from different stories to socialise with each other (shrewdeyed fans will note, however, that – in order to preserve their own mythologies, the Princesses never make eye contact with each other). As Peggy Orenstein puts it in her 2006 article, What‘s Wrong With Cinderella?: ―The first Princess items, released with no marketing plan, no focus groups, no advertising, sold as if blessed by a fairy godmother.‖ She quotes Andy Mooney, Disney Consumer Products Chairman, as saying ―We simply gave the girls what they wanted.‖ The Disney Princess line was quick to provoke feminist ire.

Orenstein herself criticised the brand not only for its stranglehold on children‘s toys – and, therefore, children‘s imaginations – but for its perpetuation of unhelpful stereotypes of femininity. Indeed, it‘s notable that the ‗honorary princesses‘ Mulan and Pocahontas – arguably the most autonomous of the group; and, notably, two of only three non-white Princesses – are often left out of official line-ups.

As the Disney Princess brand grew to become the company‘s fattest cash cow, three new features – and three new Princesses – were announced to join the line up: Enchanted‘s Princess Giselle, Princess Tiana in The Frog Princess and the eponymous Rapunzel. Giselle‘s official induction into the Disney Princess Royal Court – an honestto-God theme park tradition that includes a parade, an official crowning, and the obligatory onslaught of promotional tat that such an esteemed ceremony merits – was nixed when the company was reminded that they would have to pay for the right to use Amy Adams‘s image in any future merchandise.

The Frog Princess had a rocky ride from the start, with black media groups criticising the feature for, amongst other things, the negative connotations of its title, and the poor representation of both black characters and the people of New Orleans. The title was changed to The Princess and the Frog, voice of God Oprah Winfrey was brought onboard as an official advisor – wangling herself a bit part as Tiana‘s mother in the process – and criticisms were largely quelled. Still, the film failed to perform at box offices; whilst it remains the highest-grossing animated feature ever to open in December in the United States and Canada, the film didn‘t make back the $105million dollars Disney spent on production. Perhaps as a result, Princess Tiana has yet to make it onto as many pencil tins, vanity cases and lampshades as her older, whiter counterparts.

After Disney‘s first foray back into the feature length animated fairy tale did not reap the rewards the company was perhaps expecting, Rapunzel, too, was sent into crisis.

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What‘s the story? Snow White‘s beauty enrages her evil stepmother, who sends her out into the woods with a huntsman to be killed. He refuses to kill her, so she escapes into the forest and ends up living with seven dwarf miners. When the evil queen finds out, she disguises herself as a hag and gives Snow White a poisoned apple. A passing prince finds the apparently dead princess and brings her back to life with a kiss.

Lesson: Don‘t take fruit from strangers.

Being pretty is hazardous, but it‘ll be okay in the end. Princes don‘t ask for consent.

Princess profile: The Little Mermaid

What‘s the story? Ariel is a curious princess, dissatisfied with life under the sea. She spots a human prince and becomes infatuated. She sells her voice to an evil sea witch in exchange for three days of human legs (and presumably lungs), during which she needs to make her prince fall in love with her to regain her voice and stay human forever. She doesn‘t manage it, there‘s a big fight, her dad turns her human anyway.

Lesson: You probably need your voice. Your dad probably made rules for good reasons.

Falling in love at first sight totally works out.

Princess profile: Mulan Fans had long been promised a very traditional feature that would make use of new technology to enhance the romanticism of the German fairy tale. Indeed, early concept artwork featured the film‘s protagonist in images based on French Rococo artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard‘s The Swing; a short, animated taster of the technology which would be used in the film – a non-photorealistic rendering which would look more like a painting than computer generated graphics – featured Snow White‘s cottage. So far, so sentimental: this was Disney going all out to create a film which would sit perfectly neatly alongside the features in the Disney Princess line up.

However, when it came to the failings of The Princess and the Frog, Disney was quick to point the finger at its royalty, and keen not to make the same mistake. Boys, it would seem, didn‘t want to see a film with the princess so prominent in its title. And so Rapunzel became Tangled, and Ed Catmull – president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios – made no bones about the reasoning: ―We did not want Rapunzel to be put in a box. Some people might assume it's a fairy tale for girls when it's not.‖ The film has been criticised for pandering to boys, who have proven an important decider in the success of animated titles in the past year or so, DreamWorks‘ How To Train Your Dragon being the surprise children‘s hit of 2010.

And this step away from tradition goes more than skin deep.

A recently released trailed for Tangled puts swash-buckling bandit Flynn Rider in the main frame, highlighting him as a wise-cracking action hero, a postmodern take on the roles popularised by his namesake, Errol Flynn. Rapunzel herself is notable for her relative absence. The star of the film doesn‘t make an appearance until the mid-way point of the two minute teaser, and her one line – ―Best. Day. Ever‖ – hardly characterises her as the sharpest tool in the shed.

Notably, however, the trailer does go some way to cast Rapunzel in contrast to her fellow Princesses. She‘s unconvinced by Flynn‘s advances, for example, and meets his smouldering eyes with a karate-kicking action sequence to the sound of Pink‘s Trouble: Someday My Prince Will Come this is not.

Teaser posters, too, prove interesting in terms of representation, with Flynn and Rapunzel smirking from behind a gap in the heroine‘s hair, more like fellow assassins than the hopelessly devoted princes and princesses of old.

Rather than merely pandering to boys, then, perhaps Tangled will prove more interesting, presenting Rapunzel and Flynn as a dynamic duo – rather than a couple – with a princess that girls can be proud of: a karate-kicking heroine who still gets to go to the ball. Is that too much to hope for?

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What‘s the story? Mulan is the only daughter of an elderly warrior—and when he receives a conscription notice, she disguises herself as a man and heads off to war, along with the traditional Disney animal helpers (a dragon and a cricket, in this case.) Through luck and skill, she manages to win several battles against the invading Hun, and ultimately gains herself a happy ending with her commanding officer.

Lesson: if you want to impress people, pretend to be a boy. Fighting is just about the best skill you can possess.

Princess profile: Tiana

What‘s the story? Tiana is a waitress and aspiring restaurateur who‘s mistaken for a princess by a dozy prince who‘s been transformed into a frog. When she kisses him, she gets turned into a frog too, and the pair of them have to seek out a voodoo practitioner to help lift the spell. Love, as usual, saves the day, and through some sneaky rule bending Tiana and the prince are turned human again when they get married.

Lesson: You could work hard and achieve your dreams yourself, but why bother when you can just marry a rich man?

“Why aren't there more women on the radio?”

Margaret Ward set out to tackle some myths about women on the air—and get more female voices heard, while she was at it. Sarah Dobbs talks to her about her campaign...

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kept hearing over and over again: ‗Listeners prefer men‘.‖ says Margaret Ward. ―When I found out that it simply wasn't true - according to modern research and statistics - I started looking at other potential barriers for women.‖ Ward is no stranger to the airwaves herself, having contributed to RTE Radio One, 4fm, and BBC radio and television. Frustrated with the lack of other female voices in radio, she decided to do something about it.

Digging into the assumption that male voices were generally preferred by listeners, Ward discovered that that realised that bit of received wisdom came from an article in the 1935 book Psychology of Radio. A small sample of the population - 44 men and 44 women - had been interviewed and the general consensus was that they found men‘s voices more authoritative. Even then, though, the study recognised that most of these opinions were based on gender stereotyping ... and you‘d hope things would have moved on since the 1930s.

Ward realised that the two main things stopping women from getting involved with broadcasting and debate were lack of confidence and lack of training.

To start breaking down those barriers, she decided to start a series of seminars offering free media training to women, calling in Helen O‘Rahilly (former

head of RTE TV) and Helen Shaw (former head of RTE Radio) to teach women about their respective industries.

Within a matter of weeks, over 200 women had contacted Ward to express their interest – and she began putting together a list of women, all experts in their fields, who wanted to contribute to radio programmes. The list should leave producers no excuse to keep inviting men to talk instead. ―Women are stopped before they even get into the studio by preconceived notions,‖ Ward says. ―I‘ve heard so many women say their journalism lecturers, and others, tell them that listeners prefer men, so they don‘t bother putting themselves forward.‖ Ward plans to run more seminars in future, and encourages all women to have more confidence in their opinions. ―If you‘re an expert in something, you have an opinion and you can voice it in plain language, then the airwaves need you!‖ she says.

Want more info, or to get involved? Contact Margaret Ward at margaret@clearink.ie.

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Writing girls for games

Kirsten Campbell on the challenge of creating strong female characters in an industry that doesn’t know it has a problem

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first realised I had a problem with women in November 2009. I’d been brought in to co-author an educational game for children. My writing partner and I were celebrating nearing the end of development on the first level. Writing had (largely) gone well – we were satisfied with the scenario, the level of complexity, the interweaving of the educational and the fun into a coherent whole.

I began creating a list of all the characters for the audio team, to enable them to start casting voice talent. As I looked down the list, I registered a jolt of surprise: there were twice as many male characters as female characters. I double checked the list. Yup, 30 males, 15 females. This was a game for boys and girls, set in a world based on Earth, written by a man and woman. How had we managed to get the gender balance so skewed towards the masculine?

Imbalance Nearly a year later and I‘m still butting up against this same question. Shortly after I realised there was a problem I went back and revised the first level, bringing the gender balance to roughly 50/50. The game I‘m writing will be played by just as many girls as boys, and I felt strongly that the world we were creating ought to mirror the gender balance in the classroom. This was fine for minor characters — just make half of them girls and half of them boys — but my co-author and I both struggled to conceive

of the major characters as anything other than male.

When we sat and analysed the situation I began to see the problem. We‘d create the story in broad sweeps first; each level needed a ‗bad guy‘. Just by framing the requirement in those terms we were already tilting towards a male character.

Start to think of classic baddies and you immediately alight on James Bond bad guys, military crackpots, aggressive crooks, bent coppers, wicked headmasters, crazed scientific experimenters – in short a wealth of masculine stereotypes.

We had the same problem for the good guys: our immediate response was to reach into the canon and draw on stereotypes like the all conquering hero, the brave cowboy, the tenacious explorer, the powerful sea boat captain, et cetera.

This got me thinking – if I, as a female writer, struggled to create female characters in my games, how did other writers fare, especially male ones?

Staffing issues James Henry, a comedy writer with sitcoms such as Green Wing under his belt, thinks TV writers have a better starting point than games writers: ―I'd had about ten years of watching really interesting female characters on television (Angela in 'My So Called Life', lots of characters in 'Buffy') which raised the game a bit.‖ I asked him if he thought the gender balance of a writing team had an influence on the final product. ―Sort of,‖ was his answer. ―On Green Wing the women [producers] had more power, hence it ending with a 31

wedding. If there had been a male producer somewhere in the mix, the boys would have got the Blake's Seven shootout we all wanted.‖ I found this last comment telling. So many games companies are staffed by all or mostly males, and the natural outcome is that they‘re going to make the products and create the characters that interest them.

“How had we managed to get the gender balance so skewed towards the masculine?” ―Sorry I haven't really thought about it much before,‖ is how one male producer replied when I asked for his thoughts on the subject of female characters in games. But are male-dominated games companies unconsciously alienating their female audience as they blithely go about their business? Henry certainly thinks so: ―There needs to be more people around who'll say things like 'do we have to have another scantily-clad succubus here?' and 'would someone really wear armour that only covered thirty per cent of the body and left the entire stomach exposed?' If there were more women working at the developmental levels of the [games] industry, people might start noticing those things,

company set up revolves around a team of designers and developers, and these are generally men.

Metroid‘s Samus Aran

which would then have repercussions on deeper matters like, you know, character and motivation.‖ Part of the problem is financial. Graeme Wood*, a producer in an all male games studio told me: ―the budget is always spent on creating the visual assets and then the functionality and interactivity of

the characters within the game.‖ In other words, gender balance and strong female characterisation are pretty low down the list of priorities for your average games company.

In fact, it‘s pretty rare for a games company to employ a writer like me to work on things like characterisation and storyline. The classic games 32

NPCs Of course there are some excellent female characters in games. Despite (or perhaps because of) her overly-enhanced cleavage, who hasn‘t enjoyed playing Lara Croft in Tomb Raider? Sarah Kerrigan in Starcraft is an awe-inspiring bad girl, and Samus Aran is popular enough to have been in all eleven of the Metroid games.

But these names stand out precisely because they are so unusual. Even when women do feature in major blockbuster titles, they are often confined to a secondary, non-playable role.

Disappointingly, none of the female games writers and designers I contacted would agree to be interviewed for this article, and the men asked for their names to be changed.

Conversely, those from the TV and cinema worlds were happy to talk to me about the issues of female characterisation. This leads me to conclude that the games industry is well aware of the problems, but that games companies are anxious not to be perceived as purveyors of outdated stereotypes, even if this is, in fact, the case.

For women working in the industry it‘s a dangerous time to stick your head above the parapet and demand greater parity. It‘s a great deal simpler to play along and pretend you‘re happy with the gender balance in games. Very few female commentators even mention the issue, instead preferring to play as dirty as the guys,

comparing weaponry and stats, rather than kicking ass on the equality issue.

Acknowledging the problem So, what is the answer? For me and my team, simply realising there was an issue helped us get most of the way to the solution.

Once we stopped reaching for the stereotypes, we began to automatically redress the gender balance and subvert the traditional feminine roles: our Princess rescues the player, for example, not the other way round.

Another solution is for allmale studios to stop being scared of developing lead female characters. Andrea Gibb, screenwriter, has worked mainly with all-women production teams, and would prefer more male input: ―I would actually welcome more male input into my writing at times. I have male friends who write fantastically complex female characters.‖ James Henry has always felt comfortable in writing female characters: ―It's something that came fairly naturally to me, I think - I've probably always had more female friends than male, and it helps to have a variety of different voices to draw on.‖ The issue is not that men can‘t write female characters; it‘s that they generally don‘t get a chance to.

And while they‘re working on evening out the gender balance in their product, games companies would do well to spend more time proactively recruiting female developers, designers and story writers to their teams. The statistics at

present are woeful – women make up only 15% of the student body on computing courses, according to sector skills body, e-skills, and just 6% of those working on computer game content, according to a recent report by Skillset. Games companies need to be giving presentations in schools and at universities around the country to encourage young women to see games as a viable career option.

Yet another problem is games companies‘ insistence on chasing the male games consumer exclusively. At one focus group I attended with a large leisure game manufacturer, I asked an executive why his company didn‘t develop games specifically for women. He threw up his hands at me and said, ―because we can‘t work out what it is that you want!‖ As I looked around the room and noted the handful of women amongst the mostly male delegates, I observed that he would have a much better idea of what women wanted from games if he employed more of them.

Most of the men I spoke to about the issue pointed out games like Farmville and Bejewelled to show me that the games industry does cater to women, but it is precisely the gender-neutral aspect of these games that attracts women in the first place. My contention is that these games would be considerably less popular if women had genuine choice of games with strong female protagonists or with narratives and subject matter targeted specifically at them. Similarly, 33

the large numbers of women playing games like World of Warcraft may be related to the ability to choose the gender of their avatar. Interestingly, a good number of my male gamer friends choose to play as women when the opportunity presents itself, indicating that perhaps male consumers are as tired as women of the overwhelmingly masculine world of contemporary games.

“Games companies would have a much better idea of what women wanted if they employed more of them.”

What women want And, indeed, is it really that hard to work out what women want? We buy books by the truckload, not to mention the hours we spend consuming movies and TV. Those industries have clearly been able to work out what it is that we want, and games publishers can too, but first they need to admit there‘s a problem, and then get busy on working out a solution. Until then, the predominant female stereotype attached to computer games will be of the large-breasted Amazon, lugging a gun around in figure hugging body armour.

Isn‘t it time for a change? *Names have been changed.

Kid Sister

Don’t Believe the Hype: women in hip-hop videos

by Kat Stevens

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n a 1997 interview for British television, rapper Ma$e was asked by a female interviewer why his (and many other hip-hop artists') videos contained so much bootywiggling. He replied in a lazy drawl: "Well, if you don't like the song, then at least you've got something to look at."

The song he was promoting at the time, Feel So Good, featured many recognisable hip-hop tropes: a big shiny car, sparkling jewellery, dazzling lights and a large number of scantily-clad women shaking their derrieres in slow motion, for the benefit of a man wearing sunglasses in the dark. Ma$e's comments may have been charmingly self-deprecating in terms of his music, but with one sentence he confirmed a long-suspected view of American hip-hop videos: they are a feminist's nightmare.

making absolutely sure that their heterosexuality was not in doubt. Their fame and wealth could not only buy bottles of Kristal and VIP club access, but the affection of beautiful young women, who were just another a status symbol.

From 1999 onwards Hype dropped the fish eye lens in favour of solid colour backgrounds and widescreen envelopes (see Ja Rule's Holla Holla and Jay-Z's Big Pimpin), but the booty was here to stay, and Hype's female dancers started wearing fewer and fewer clothes in order to outdo his previous efforts. In 1995, Montell Jordan's backing dancers in This Is How We Do It are wearing hoodies and tracksuit bottoms. By the time we get to Kanye West's Gold Digger in 2005, the ladies can barely keep their underwear on.

Other directors seem to feel they have little choice but to follow in Hype's footsteps. It's an unusual hip-hop video these days that doesn't feature at least one of the following: a) an expensive club b) an expensive car c) women's bums. The tropes have spread to dance music videos too, thanks to the success of anonymous producers like Benny Benassi and Eric Prydz, who required a 'strong visual image' to make up for their own lack of visibility.

While American hip-hop was celebrating its newfound success, British rappers were still mostly caught up in the dance, reggae and electronica scenes that had a very different culture. Without major label support, most British hip-hop artists weren't even able to afford to get clearance for their samples, let alone make high-budget videos bragging about non-existent material wealth and status. Instead they used humour and technical tricks to make interesting videos. Mr Scruff produced his own films featuring animated Cornish pasties, while Roots Manuva brilliantly sent himself up in Witness (One Hope) by returning to his primary school sports day and taking great pleasure in winning the egg and spoon race, ahead of a class of eight-year-old kids. It's only in the last few years that UK rappers like Dizzee Rascal, Wiley and Tinchy Stryder have gained enough commercial success and household notoriety that they feel the need to have buxom wenches draped over themselves like their American equivalents.

Hype machine Hip-hop videos weren't always so blinging and bootylicious. In the '80s and early '90s, most hip-hop artists didn't have the budgets or the clout to hire top video directors. Instead the focus was on showing off young talent in an everyday setting: kids spinning around on their backs on pavements, executing tremendous dance routines or bumping their car suspension up and down on the street.

Given the racial tensions in LA and other American cities at the time, artists often had a political message and were keen to show an accurate depiction of ordinary life for poor black people. It was only once hip-hop gained mainstream acceptance in the mid-90s that huge record sales, chart success and major label signings translated into a demand for MTV-friendly videos.

Step forward Harold 'Hype' Williams, director of over a hundred hip-hop and R'n'B videos between 1995 and 1999, including Ma$e's Feel So Good. He has made videos for LL Cool J, Nas, Blackstreet, Notorious B.I.G., Montell Jordan and P Diddy - nearly every big hip-hop artist that crossed over into the pop charts in the '90s had at least one Hype video. A former graffiti artist, Hype's distinctive shooting style used a fish eye lens to focus in on the central rapper and distort the dimensions of any nubile ladies that happened to be passing, and there were plenty of those.

Although Hype was responsible for some memorable videos not entirely focused on bums (such as Dr Dre's Mad Max style epic California Love and Faith Evans' colourful roller disco Love Like This), the vast majority followed the same tried-and-tested formula. Usually set at night, the subject would swig champagne in VIP club or drive around a brightly-lit city, showing off their newly-acquired wealth and power. Male rappers would have several fawning ladies slowly gyrating around them,

Female MCs Compare their mainstream success with that of the female MCs who came from the same grime background in the early 2000s: Stush, Lady Sovereign and Ms Dynamite (to name but a few) have all but disappeared from the UK consciousness.

American female rappers have fared much better. The big exception in Hype's tits-and-ass videography is obviously Missy Elliott. The pair made six videos together, and although most of them still feature a set of 35

good-looking backing dancers jogging around in their pants, they are merely a sideline to Elliott's futuristic bin -liner costumes, day-glo missions to the moon and waterproof cyborg armour. It made a welcome change from boring old nightclubs and flashy cars.

Elliott was also the exception when it came to her female contemporaries. Foxy Brown, Eve and Lil' Kim were more conventionally attractive (read: thinner) and took full advantage of their looks when it came to furthering their careers. It's hard to criticise their choices: if you are rapping about sex, it makes sense to include sex as a theme in your videos. But if sex is the only thing women are rapping about or visually portraying, it becomes increasingly difficult to break the stereotype that women are either obsessed with sex or should be willing to submit to male objectification. Hiphop culture has contributed more than its fair share to the saturation of sexualised imagery in the wider world, and the repercussions of this should not be underestimated - from 'harmless' adverts for beauty products to domestic violence at the other extreme. Is it fair to ask female rappers to take responsibility for this?

Can we really blame them for trying to be successful in a male-dominated industry, by any means that they can?

Should we be more worried about how boring hip-hop videos have become? How did rap manage before the advent of booty?

Before Hype Williams was out of short trousers, Salt N Pepa became the first female rap group to go platinum, selling over 15 million records over their career while maintaining a strong feminist message. Cheryl "Salt" James, Sandra "Pepa" Denton and Deidra "Spinderella" Roper also made a run of excellent music videos.

Everybody Get Up sees James round up a gang of streetwise girls to out-dance some young hoodlums who have dissed her ("on the mic like a pitbull terrier - but I'm scarier!"). It's done in a very confrontational, tense manner, each side sizing each other up before making a move. In Tramp, James and Denton fend off unwanted male attention with a roll of their eyes, unimpressed with being chatted up while they're just trying to have a nice quiet drink. In their cover of Twist & Shout, the band spoof the Beatles and the Supremes while dressed as 60s bobbysockers, dragging the terrified boys onto the prom dancefloor. Ain't Nuthin But A She Thang (1995) was directed by Ellen Von Unwerth, and features James, Denton and Roper dressed as police officers, firefighters and astronauts - as well as PVC-clad dominatrices leading a women's rally (of course). James yells out her feminist call-to-arms: “Now let me break it down to the marrow of the bone I'm a female, and I got it goin' on Don't be fooled by my S-E-X

It ain't that simple, I'm more complex We've come a long way, and baby that's a fact Let's keep moving forward, girls, never look back.�

Has feminist hip-hop moved forward? Salt'N'Pepa have long since disbanded, Foxy Brown is more known for her legal troubles than her music, and both Lil'Kim's and Missy Elliott's last studio albums were released in 2005.

Where have the female rappers gone?

Yo! Majesty photo by simsitem

The next generation Well, they're out there if you know where to look. Yo! Majesty are Shunda K and Jwl B: two foul-mouthed, lesbian, born-again Christian rappers from Florida who have collaborated with Peaches and toured with the Gossip. They may not be the band most suited to mainstream success, but if anyone is going to step into Salt N Pepa's shoes in terms of awesome feminist music videos, Yo! Majesty have already put their socks on. The video for the Booka Shade-sampling Don't Let Go follows the exploits of an ordinary office worker who has nodded off at her desk. Upon waking, she decides to sod work and go out dancing in a bright pink PVC jumpsuit.

At first it looks like just another booty-wiggling session, but our heroine only visits female environments: a beauty salon, a yoga class, a solarium, a wedding dress shop and a life drawing class. She encourages everyone to join in and shake their moneymaker, just for the hell of it.

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Yo! Majesty have gained a small, loyal following in the UK by aiming themselves at a certain subset of indie fans, but as a niche band their ideas aren't going to turn the tide of sexualised imagery in hip-hop. The danceorientated 'jerk' scene is proving more successful in America. Jerk is proving to be a fantastic breeding ground for young female MC groups like The Bangz and Pink Dollaz (it's apparently mandatory for all jerk acts to end their name with a 'Z'). The low-budget jerk videos are eerily similar to the graffiti-and-breakdancing backdrop of 80s hip-hop, letting the talent do the talking. The Baby Dollz (Ana Lou & Bebe, both 16 years old) shot their video for My Cookie in an incredibly expensive chocolate shop in Beverly Hills, but the emphasis remained firmly on assembling as many teenagers as possible for a big dance party, gender being largely irrelevant. The sparse, home-made beats of jerk may be a bit harsh for non-American ears, but these young, smart rappers will be a force to be reckoned with once they're old enough to sign a proper record deal.

Only one woman is really grabbing global hip-hop by the balls in 2010. 26-year-old Trinidadian rapper Nicki Minaj is loud, aggressive and funny, and she has a reputation for running tongue-twisting rings around her male counterparts when guesting on their tracks. Standing 5'4" tall, Minaj's nickname for herself is "Barbie" and she's not afraid to wear tiny dresses with plenty of cleavage showing. She has been criticised for her sexual image by music journalists, despite recently stating that she has tried to tone it down: "I want people - especially young girls - to know that in life, nothing is going to be based on sex appeal."

Earlier this year, for her debut single Massive Attack, Minaj enlisted (guess who!) Hype Williams to direct the video in his usual style. Minaj crawls through jungle undergrowth and shakes her booty as if her career depended on it, but closer inspection reveals a few key differences from Hype‘s previous work. The men in the video are body-popping freaks who are kept well away from Minaj, who is shown as a deadly force with a fierce army of pink-haired women and poisonous animals under her command. Her sexy poses are usually accompanied by exaggerated cartoon face-pulling and silly voices. It's a small step in the right direction: Minaj is attempting to make the balance of sex and female empowerment tip in her favour.

Women don't necessarily need to be aggressive to beat the system, but they'll have a far harder job doing it without aping the swagger of hip-hop's alpha males.

Chicago rapper Kid Sister (aka 30-year-old Melisa Young) has a far less confrontational style than Minaj.

She shies away from sexualised imagery while still remaining feminine (her best single to date is about nail varnish), but not one of her six singles has charted in the

UK Top 40 or the US Hot 100, despite star guests like Kanye West and Cee-Lo Green. Kid Sister's fast-paced material is club-friendly and funny, but her record label seems unsure how to market her to the masses.

From a label's point of view, hip-hop will always be a business, and the point of a music video is to promote and sell records – usually to men. If a political or nonsexual message doesn't fit in with the album's marketing campaign (or purchasing demographic) then it gets rewritten, or the artist gets quietly dropped.

Independent labels are more likely to allow artistic freedom when it comes to videos, but their budgets and ability to acquire high profile directors is limited. So how can mainstream rappers go about changing the established norm to make their videos more femalefriendly?

Edging closer In 2010, more and more rappers are co-operating on each other's tracks. Nearly every big chart hip-hop tune has a 'featured' guest, usually of the opposite gender to the main artist to provide some sonic contrast or some sexual chemistry. Now the women are edging closer to getting equal billing, is their depiction in videos changing?

It's hard to tell from Nicki Minaj's guest spot on Ludacris' My Chick Bad, where she is restrained on a psychiatrist's couch wearing a pink wig and a Freddie Kruger razor blade glove. The female dancers grind around Ludacris in their bras as normal, while Minaj is deemed 'crazy' as she's a strong woman who's not interested in him. On the remix version though, Ludacris steps back and lets Eve, Trina and Diamond dominate his entire song. The three women sneer at the camera, like they're doing the viewer a favour by just turning up.

It's great to watch, until you realise Eve is talking about her boob job, Diamond is worrying about how her arse looks and Trina is so sex-crazed they've had to bleep out half her verse.

There's still a long way to go, and hip-hop's sex culture is still as complex as when Salt N Pepa were rapping about it 20 years ago.

Further watching:       37

Salt-N-Pepa - Ain't Nuthin' But A She Thang Kid Sister - Daydreaming Ludacris ft Nicki Minaj - My Chick Bad Nicki Minaj - Massive Attack Missy Elliott - Sock It 2 Me Yo! Majesty - Don't Let Go

The real problem with Carrie Bradshaw What changed between Sex and the City season 1 and Sex and the City 2, the movie? Kirthana Ramisetti elaborates on the problem...

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ne of the best things about television is that we can follow a character’s arc over the course of several seasons, and take pleasure in how he or she evolves over time. From when we meet them in the pilot to the series finale, they are still recognizably themselves, but have deepened and evolved in some fundamental way.

Carrie Bradshaw is infuriating because she does not evolve over Sex and the City‘s six

seasons; she devolves. The Carrie of the first two seasons is bright, curious, and engagingly honest about her dating life. She‘s a good friend to Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha. She plays poker, wears clothes that seem to be purchased from Macy‘s, and invents a children‘s book character who has magic cigarettes. She‘s funny, fiercely loyal and a little quirky.

The Carrie of seasons 5 and 6 is a spoiled, self -involved prude who is weirdly judgmental about her friends‘ sex lives, considering she‘s a 38

sex columnist. She's a fourteen year old girl in a forty-something woman‘s body. She flirts with men in a cutesy ―I‘m just a girl, aren‘t I adorable‖ sort of way, maxes out her credit cards on Prada and Manolos, and gets bailed out by her friends or boyfriends when she has money problems. Even the tenor of her voice changes: where she once spoke pointedly and with a certain edge, by the later seasons her voice is so girlishly high and breathy that she sounds like Marilyn Monroe.

How can a woman who was once smart and no-nonsense devolve into such a prissy woman -child? It‘s the same thing with the character‘s style. In season 1, Carrie‘s choice of clothing is a reflection of her personality. By season 6, it‘s merely a reflection of Pat Field‘s wardrobe budget.

The two Carrie Bradshaws are worlds apart – it‘s difficult to believe they‘d even be friends.

The disconnect feels almost irresponsible, and it‘s frustrating that it was never addressed by the show‘s writers. (In much the same way that they never address Carrie‘s utter lack of professional goals, or the fact that her successful publishing career was dropped into her lap like the plot point that it is – but that‘s a discussion for another time.) If you want audiences to invest time in the characters you‘ve created enough to buy the DVD sets and eventually watch the movies, you owe them consistency.

There are two fictional Jacks who recently concluded their respective series. Jack Bauer on 24 and Jack Shephard on Lost had a consistent through line from the first episode to the last. They both were very flawed and sometimes completely unlikable, but it felt like the writers for both series had a very sharp and unbending view on who Jack Bauer and Jack Shephard were as people. Despite the insanity surrounding them (terrorists, smoke monsters, etc.), there was rarely a moment when the characters did not seem authentically themselves.

The reason Sex and the City became so popular was that viewers related to the four women, their friendship and their dating dilemmas. As the series became more of a fantasy, the Carrie character was weakened to serve fabulous fashions, celebrity cameos,

product placements and a never-ending love triangle. No one on the show stood up to protect the awesome Carrie who flirted with Big via crossword puzzle, staged a Rabbit intervention for Charlotte, or had a genuine, caring friendship with nerdy Skipper. If you watch the later seasons, it‘s almost as if she never existed.

Maybe this character assassination is part of the reason there‘s so much animosity towards the movie. The artifice of the Carrie Bradshaw character is woefully magnified on the big screen; any semblance of her realness evaporates in the absurdity of watching her ride a camel clad in $50,000 worth of couture.

Why should we care about you? Who are you anyway?

“Carrie Bradshaw is infuriating because she does not evolve over Sex and the City’s six seasons; she devolves.”

Given Sex and the City 2‘s terrible critical reception, there may never be a Sex and the City 3. But that would be a shame, because a third movie could provide the creative team with a chance to show they‘ve still got it in them to right their wrongs, and give all the characters the proper send-off they deserve.

Maybe Carrie‘s true self still lurks beneath the heavily stylized surface. What I‘d like to see is Carrie and Samantha and Miranda and Charlotte in the coffee shop just chatting about their lives for 90 minutes. Think of it as a chatty, glossy version of My Dinner With Andre. Because when it comes down to it, that‘s what everyone loved about this show anyway, the wittiness of the conversations and the closeness between the characters.

For Carrie to become real again, she needs to do what she used to do best: talk, listen and be a friend.

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Scary Girls and Monstrous Mothers

Who‘s afraid of a damp 8-year-old?

Everyone, apparently. Sarah Dobbs examines the recent trend for scary undead girls and their dysfunctional adoptive mothers...

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amara Morgan was a trendsetter. After Gore Verbinski’s remake of The Ring was released in 2002, the silhouette of the standard horror movie villain changed, possibly forever.

Instead of a masked man with a knife, most baddies were now young girls with long dark hair arranged wetly over their faces.

flinching every time you went near a primary school in the rain.

And if you watch subtitled films, you‘ve got the original Ring, Dark Water, One Missed Call, A Tale of Two Sisters and Shutter movies, KM31, and innumerable others to contend with, too. The soggy dead girl had become a lazy kind of cinematic shorthand for evil.

At the same time, the standard horror movie heroine started to change, too. Instead of pretty The Ring was followed by Dark teenage girls, horror movies were Water, The Ring Two, The Dark, presenting us with young (and Silent Hill, The Reaping, One frequently single) mothers.

Missed Call, Shutter, and The What‘s going on here?

Uninvited . There was a familiarWell, the white-clad wet-haired looking girl ghost in the remake evil girl trope is lifted straight out of The Amityville Horror , and of the string of j-horror movies both Case 39 and Orphan stuck that all got remade by Hollywood to the scary-little-girl theme, in the 2000s. She’s the onryō, a though neither of their Japanese spirit who, mistreated antagonists were (un)dead. in life, returns to wreak revenge Despite some slight variations on … well, anyone she can get to. on the theme, if you caught all of Sadako Yamamura from Ring those films, you probably started and Kayako Saeki from Ju-on: 40

The Grudge are perfect examples of this mythical figure, which has its origins in ancient Japanese folklore. But Sadako and Kayako are both older than the version of the ghost that Hollywood latched onto: Sadako is in her late teens or early twenties, while Kayako is about ten years older. Samara Morgan in The Ring is 8 years old; Alessa Gillespie in Silent Hill is about the same age, as is Natasha Rimsky in Dark Water; and Lillith Sullivan in Case 39 is 10 years old. Esther in Orphan is a bizarre case, due to the movie‘s implausible twist ending, but she‘s supposed to be 9 years old.

So these aren‘t women, or even teenagers: they‘re decidedly children.

(Sometimes, the child doesn‘t even need to be of school age – or even be born at all. Paul Solet‘s Grace features a monstrous baby who feeds on her mother‘s blood in preference to her milk.)

Still, there‘s a weird kind of cultural appropriation going on: Hollywood horror movies have borrowed the look of the Asian villains, but they‘re out of context, and have been subtly but crucially altered. Rather than being women wronged by their lovers, they‘re children wronged by adults who are determined to steal something better for themselves, usually by tricking or forcing a woman to become their new mother. That makes them sound like tragic figures, though, which they usually aren‘t: they‘re demonic. As the focus is on the relationship with their substitute mothers, fathers generally don‘t come into the equation: they‘re absent, or clueless, and it usually turns out that the child was fathered by some kind of demonic entity anyway. They‘re anti-Christs: girls fathered by evil spirits.

What results from this displacement, though, is kind of troubling. The movies show beleaguered mothers, often single parents, usually in highpowered and stressful jobs, struggling to care for a demanding child. It‘s a situation that‘s all too real for many women. What‘s strange, though, is that so many of these movies are written and directed by men.

If they were created by women, perhaps they‘d represent an interesting kind of perspective on modern motherhood. But they aren‘t. There‘s clearly a certain amount of anxiety surrounding the relationship between women and children: single mothers, women who continue to have demanding careers after becoming mothers, or even childless career women. Is that guilt, or blame?

And what are we to make of the way we‘re constantly being shown images of justified child abuse? Some of the villains of these films are abused children seeking revenge, or desperate for some kind of love, but increasingly frequently, by the conclusion of the film it‘ll be revealed that whatever nastiness had been done to the child in question, she deserved it. In Case 39, for instance, Lillith‘s foster parents attempt to kill her by putting her in a hot oven – and then we‘re asked to feel that they were right to do so, since she‘s evil. The US remake of The Ring really plays up that angle: there‘s a false conclusion in which Rachel and Noah think that they‘ve saved the day by excavating Samara‘s remains and putting her properly to rest, resolving the curse caused by the mistreatment of a child. But then 41

it turns out that pushing her into the well was the right thing to do, since she was evil and it helped to contain her wickedness, which has now been unleashed on the world. Over and over again, demonic children attempt to replace their desired adopted

“The soggy dead girl had become a lazy kind of cinematic shorthand for evil.” parents‘ real child (or occasionally lover, as in Case 39) in their affections – in The Ring Two, Samara even goes so far as to possess Aidan‘s body, and in the final showdown, Rachel is obliged to forcibly reject her, screaming ―I‘m not your fucking mommy!‖ (a line which is, upsettingly, repeated in Orphan).

That these films present a skewed and potentially damaging view of adopted or foster children is something that hasn‘t escaped notice: politicians and adoption groups in the US boycotted Orphan, and online protests over its release and marketing garnered hundreds of signatures.

But the release went ahead, and the bandwagon trundles on.

There are some films featuring villainous or ghostly boys: Guillermo del Toro‘s The Devil‘s Backbone is about an orphanage in the Spanish civil war, and though its aesthetic isn‘t dissimilar from many of the other

films talked about here, its themes are wildly different; the gay-panic movie Joshua featured a murderous 9-yearold boy. And evil children in horror movies aren‘t anything new. You could probably count a dozen evil child movies from the 1980s and earlier without even thinking too hard about it: The Evil Seed, The Omen, The Exorcist, The Shining, Children of the Corn; the list goes on.

But there‘s something peculiarly post-millennial about this crop of soggy dead girl movies. Partly that‘s because technology often seems to play a crucial role in these movies, whether it‘s in the form of Ring‘s cursed videotape or One Missed Call‘s creepy ringtone.

And maybe it‘s not yet time to look back and figure out what all these ghostly little girls represented; maybe it‘s something that‘ll only seem clear with the benefit of hindsight. It‘s likely that, whatever it is that this anxiety is rooted in, it‘s going to be complicated and multi-layered (with an element of bandwagon jumping thrown in there, too – which may explain why the later movies seem so much less effective than those at the beginning of the trend).

But it seems that anxiety about the future, about the fastpaced modern world, and the ever present fear of the next generation that every generation since the beginning of time has suffered from has all become focused in an unhealthy obsession with demonising little girls—and endless portrayals of women who just can‘t cope.

Scary Little Girls

An at-a-glance guide to which soggy dead girl is which.

The one who started it all: Samara Morgan was an 8-year-old whose mother thought she was possessed, so tried to drown her. Her foster parents thought much the same—her foster mother murdered her and threw her body into a well. Samara then used psychic photography to create a cursed videotape…

Ellie Layton is a particularly nasty piece of work: she abused her younger sister, framing her mother, and after dying of an asthma attack, returned from the dead to ring hapless teenagers and leave them voicemails of their future selves dying horribly. But at least she always gave her victims sweets.

Natasha Rimsky was abandoned by her useless parents and died when she accidentally fell into a water tank.

Her ghost decided it deserved better, and set out to steal itself a new mother in the form of a struggling single parent who‘d just moved in downstairs.

Lillith Sullivan looked like she needed rescuing from her parents when they tried to burn her in an oven, but her new foster mother soon discovers that Lillith is some kind of emotioneating demon who enjoys subjecting people to their worst fears.

Alessa Gillespie was unfortunate enough to be born out of wedlock in Silent Hill, where the townspeople decided she must be a witch and subjected her to a ritualistic burning. Even more unfortunately, the burning went wrong and she survived, horribly burnt. Ouch.

SPOILER ALERT: Esther Coleman isn‘t a little girl at all. The twist in this one is that she‘s a 33-year-old woman with a hormone condition that stunted her growth. And she‘s a serial killer. Obviously. Where‘s Freud when you need him?

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Internet Forever: Christopher Alcxxk, Laura Wolf, Craig Nunn. Photograph by Craig Nunn

“Sorry for not being an internet nerd…”

Internet Forever’s Laura Wolf talks to Sarah Dobbs about piracy, meeting people online, and being really, really busy ―I always preface telling someone the name of my band with ‗it‘s really embarrassing, but we‘re called…‘‖ says Laura Wolf. Internet Forever‘s name is tied up with the way the band got together in the first place – Wolf met guitarist Craig Nunn in the comments section of music blog Drowned in Sound, where drummer Christopher Alcxxk also posted regularly – and while Wolf says she‘s not an internet nerd, the net is still pretty important to her. ―Without it, I definitely wouldn‘t have discovered all the music and other things – politics, theory – that have made me into who I am today,‖ she admits. re/action catches up with her - via email, naturally - to talk music, the internet, and finding time for creativity.

pop project with casio beats and shouted vocals but we added live drums for our set and became a slightly more "rock" band.

Recently we've been desperate to expand our sound, and so the recordings people will be hearing soon are definitely less lo-fi and, in some ways, more complicated, with a more experimental dance pop vibe. Apologies for using the word vibe.

What are your feelings on online music piracy?

In the last few years I‘ve developed a pretty negative view of illegally downloading music. When I was a student my approach was one of being somehow entitled to free stuff, since I was dirt poor. But since I've graduated and got a job I really don't have an excuse any more.

I like buying music because I like buying into the

Talk us through Internet Forever's sound.

We started off as a scrappy lo-fi bedroom noise 44

career of an artist. If I really like someone then I want to support them to continue making music.

There are a few sites that have Internet Forever mp3s on, and some blogs have used our tracks without asking. At this stage I can't really get bothered about it; the more people that hear our music, the better.

Internet Forever has released music on vinyl and tape cassette - what's the appeal of those formats?

I think people have turned to vinyl and cassette because of how disposable CDs seem. Lots of labels put effort into packaging vinyl and cassettes and so they seem like appealing physical formats to certain kinds of people.

Personally I only really buy mp3s, because I'm into owning as little as possible. That makes me sound like a twat, but I'm really just into having less things to dust/pack into boxes when I move house.

What are the best and worst things about being in a band?

I really love getting to travel around to different places I would normally have no reason to go to and I really like the fact that I've met a lot of cool people. Doing BBC sessions, tours and the feeling of holding your own record in your hands are definite highlights.

The worst thing is probably the time it takes to organise things like shows and studio time. We all have full-time jobs and other things on so sometimes it‘s a logistical nightmare!

I've also found it hard to adjust to being in a band that is not overtly DIY or feminist in nature Internet Forever is in no way an ideological thing, which is very different from other things I've been involved in, and sometimes that's a bit weird for me.

Which musicians do you most admire?

I grew up listening to hardcore and so Ian Mackaye is a long time hero, for both his music and politics. I sometimes find it hard to justify my love of hardcore because it sometimes seems quite unfeminist, or at least macho... but I love the pace and aggression. My absolute dream is to be the singer in a Minor Threat style hardcore band. I also love: Tune-Yards, Mt Eerie, all riot grrrl ever, The Blow, Gowns, Nirvana, Sleeping States, most things on Load Records, Why?, Mika Miko, and Micachu.

I have no idea what those artists have in common other than I have been obsessed with them at some point and they are all awesome people and musicians.

What drives you to create?

I think I have always been a person who does stuff. At the moment I have two jobs (teaching and doing youth work), two fairly timeconsuming music projects, and a label. I am also reading a lot because I want to do a MSc next year. I find time to be creative (and have a social life!) in between all these things. I've never seen making music as a romanticized, arty thing like some people do. I don't sit around on my butt all day idly writing music. I snatch an hour here and there and make the most of what time I do have. Being busy makes me happy. Inertia makes me frustrated and unsatisfied!

There's a line on the Internet Forever MySpace page about giving yourself a really short amount of time to do things - how long do you usually take to write and record songs?

That passage comes from a zine I made where all contributions were written or drawn on the same day. It was intended to be a snapshot of a moment (mmm, pretentious). Initially we wrote and recorded all our songs in a day. Now it takes a lot longer... We've recorded some of our songs three times with three different producers, and are still waiting for the perfect versions!

Check out Internet Forever at internetforeverandever.blogspot.com and myspace.com/internetforever, or pick up their EP, Cover The Walls, from iTunes.

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The Runaways Joan Jett is, unequivocably, a rock ‗n‘ roll legend. And she started young – very young – forming The Runaways when she was just 16. This movie charts their formation, their rise and fall; written by singer Cherie Currie, with Jett as a producer, it shows an almost obsessive level of historical accuracy and authenticity. Director Floria Sigismondi submerges the audience in the story, blending gritty, dirty scenes with dreamlike fantasy, yet always retaining momentum. Her instinctive sense of storytelling is matched well with a refusal to glamourise or over-sexualise the girls, which results in the audience feeling that what they are watching is as close to the truth of the time as possible.

As blonde ―jailbait‖ singer Cherie Currie, Dakota Fanning is excellent. She shows the evolution of Currie, from a young girl to a strutting, sexy songstress, parading about the stage in a corset and suspenders. Her onstage persona is as fragile as her newly discovered sexual power, however, and the manipulation of this image, which results in the band splitting up, is foreshadowed by the malleability she displays as manager Kim Fowley moulds her into his frontwoman.

Fowley is really the only male character with any agency in the film, yet his control is something which makes him controversial. While it‘s very clearly Joan who has the idea for the band, and who pushes for its formation, Fowley, played as a libertine and louche by Michael Shannon, is the one who turns it into an image he wants to market. And it‘s made clear that without this influence the band may never have achieved their fame, at least in the way that they do. Still, even if Fowley is supporting them because he thinks they‘ll sell well and make him famous, he nevertheless backs Joan‘s idea and forges a path for some of the sexiest feminist rock ‗n‘ roll that‘s ever been recorded. The film charts a very female triumph, from the dripping period blood in the first scenes to the final shots of Joan picking up her guitar and forging on alone.

Leading star Kristen Stewart well known for her role as Bella Swan in the Twilight movies, but she can be much more commonly found in small indie releases, often with great soundtracks. She‘s seen as difficult by the press, recently comparing her paparazzi shots to photographs of someone being raped, and refuses to succumb to the circus of pretty dresses and bland interview answers. As such, she‘s an inspired choice to play Jett – her fame will bring a lot of attention to the film, but she‘s also an actor who exudes intelligence, self reliance, and a fuck you attitude. Her portrayal of Jett is flawless, largely down to her method-esque study of the musician in the months prior to filming, which resulted in a microscopic level of ―mirror image‖ detail, and that‘s according to Jett herself.

A final thought: in a recent interview, Jett commented that: ―The only part that's painful is that I go, ‗Oh, man, I'd like to do it again and really pay attention.‘ Not that I wasn't paying attention back then, but you don't realize sometimes when you're in moments how special they are until they're gone.‖ It makes you wonder how much of Joan‘s life Kristen‘s living, not just playing. Rachel George

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Skeletons Davis and Bennett are exorcists, though they don‗t deal with ghosts. No, they deal with secrets: they clear out the psychic skeletons from their clients‗ closets (literally, by going into their closets). But no-one‗s free from psychic baggage, and when the duo set out to tackle the closet of a missing person, their own personal demons end up getting in the way.

It‗s funny, but isn‗t really a comedy; it‗s poignant without being sentimental; and it‗s intelligent without slapping you round the head with its cleverness. The cast deliver pitch perfect performances, and the resolution is almost obscenely satisfying. It‗s the film Inception could have been, if it‗d been more concerned with characters than flashiness. SD

The Last Exorcism The Last Exorcism is yet another horror mockumentary: it follows a popular preacher as he sets out to demonstrate that exorcism is fraudulent, and that exorcists do more damage than good to the people they ‗heal‘. Of course, his one last job goes horribly wrong, as these things will, and the preacher and his camera-toting crew find themselves in mortal danger.

The film is careful not to confirm or deny the existence of the supernatural (the possessed girl could just as easily be suffering from post-traumatic psychosis as demonic possession) but it‘s nowhere near so careful to maintain the illusion of verisimilitude, with editing all too frequently apparent. An awkward, fumbled ending caps off the whole woeful mess. SD

F The hooded menace in F could be lifted straight from the pages of the Daily Mail. Young and disaffected, the hoodies attack and murder every authority figure they run into. There‘s no reasoning with these creatures; they‘re thoughtless, heartless, and evil. Yet F is a far more interesting film than any tabloid ranter deserves.

Director Johannes Roberts weaves a taut thriller in which a disgraced teacher must fight to protect his estranged daughter - and his own sense of self worth - in the face of utter brutality. The few characters are skilfully drawn; the performances are strong; and the everpresent threat is enjoyably ambiguous. This could be hoodie horror‘s defining moment. SD

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Prince of Persia You know what‘s funny? Humiliating a powerful woman and selling her into degrading slavery. You know what‘s heroic? Resisting the impulse to kill a woman even though she speaks her mind. You know what‘s romantic? Knowing a woman in ways they haven‘t consented to and don‘t remember. Introducing our hero, Dastan, eponymous Prince of Persia. What a guy.

What a movie. Released on DVD 13 September, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a movie you‘ll probably want to miss.

Because you know what never gets old? The curious interrelationship between racism and misogyny. We in the Western World know it never gets old because we‘re still producing the same tired tropes after nearly three thousand years. It‘s in Herodotus. It‘s in 300.

And now it‘s in Prince of Persia: the more ―oriental‖ a character looks, the more evil and venal he is. Watch the first few minutes of Prince of Persia and rank male characters from good to evil according to their facial hair and eyeliner. Spoiler alert: you‘ll be 100% correct.

The more eyeliner they wear and the more manicured the beard - basically, the more feminised they are - the more evil they are. It‘s that simple.

(You can‘t rank the female characters, by the way, because there is only one.)

Prince of Persia could have been a really enjoyable silly-epic action movie in the style of The Mummy if it had tried. There are some solid action sequences, with Gyllenhaal‘s Dastan combining action moves and lithe gymnastics to recreate the flowing movement of the video game.

The storyline has enough emotional impact to be the basis of a solid piece of cinema. Princess Tamina, too, could have been a far more interesting character. As sole ruler of Alamut, she is intelligent, resourceful, and unafraid. Had she been written as anything more than a ―love interest‖ and expository mouthpiece, she would have been a standout female character in an action movie. But her potential was wasted.

And there is a lot of wasted potential in this film, most obviously the acting potential of the cast. Ben Kingsley‘s turn as Nizam, the evil Grand Vizier type (why does anyone in any movie trust these guys anymore?), is straight out of some kind of book of clichés. If his moustache were only a little longer, he could twirl it. Gemma Arterton is required to flex none of her acting muscles, though critics claim that she has plenty. Alfred Molina is broadly funny as Sheik Amar, but in scenes so uncomfortably sexist that the humour is soured. Jake Gyllenhaal, in the lead role, has moments here and there where he can‘t seem to suppress his talent sufficiently for this vapid piece of whitewashed fluff, tempering his performance with occasional subtleties. Which raises the question, why is he in this ridiculous vehicle in the first place?

With top class movies such as Brothers, Rendition and Brokeback Mountain behind him, we can only hope that he‘ll return to form soon. Anna Martin

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Resident Evil: Afterlife Despite a couple of interesting changes – Paul W. S. Anderson is back in the director‘s chair, it‘s in 3D – Resident Evil: Afterlife delivers pretty much exactly what all three Resident Evil movies before it did: lots of zombies, flashy visuals plucked from the games, and Milla Jovovich kicking ass. There‘s no emotional core, no complex plot, nothing particularly innovative, but it‘s fun and silly, there are monsters, and Jovovich is awesome.

She‘s the star attraction here, tough and no-nonsense and convincingly tough, an action heroine in the mould of Buffy, or Ripley; without her, there wouldn‘t be much worth watching, but there‘s something about her, some star quality that makes her engaging no matter what. SD

Devil Devil is a short story stretched past its breaking point – it‘s only 80 minutes long, but it feels longer because so much of it is superfluous.

The basic premise is brilliant: there are five strangers trapped in a lift, and one of them is the devil. Scenes set inside the lift itself are taut and claustrophobic, but unfortunately most of the action takes place outside, as a detective and janitors fight to free the trapped passengers and save their souls. The religious themes don‘t sit comfortably, the characters are neither engaging nor likeable, and the resolution is kind of nonsensical.

The more you think about it, the less sense it makes. Great poster, though. SD

Bad Lieutenant Under the control of a good director, Nicolas Cage is magnificent, and Werner Herzog is apparently one of the few who really understands him. As the eponymous Bad Lieutenant, Cage rants and raves, contorts his face and body and manages to wring every ounce of pathos out of the role. Anyone else shrieking about hallucinatory iguanas on their coffee table would just be silly, but Cage pulls it off. Underneath all the weirdness, Bad Lieutenant is a straightforward story of debasement and redemption, a hackneyed story of a cop driven to excesses by the evil around him, but Cage‘s performance and Herzog‘s gloriously bizarre direction turns this into a masterpiece. SD

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Glee (season 1) If Glee has managed to achieve one worthwhile thing, it‘s making musical theatre more accessible – and acceptable – to the general public. No programme that could bring us the incomparable Sue Sylvester on a weekly basis could be all bad, and fabulous cameos

by Kristin Chenoweth, Neil Patrick Harris, and Olivia Newton John are the icing on the cake.

Glee season 1 takes us from Mr. Schuester‘s initial decision to reinvent the glee club to the Regionals via issues with teen pregnancy, bullying, homophobia, body image and eternally problematic relationships.

At times it can feel like an after school special – Mr. Schue preaching about how the glee club is a team and shouldn‘t be so quick to let Artie down with their refusal to fundraise for the short bus, for example – but most of the major issues are dealt with sensitively but realistically, which feels rare for an American teen drama.

That said, it‘s not without its faults. Like many of the glee club members, by the end of season one the audience can‘t help wondering why Rachel gets to take the lead in the majority of songs (aside from the heart-wrenching diva-off with Kurt for Defying Gravity) when there are other members who could do it just as well. And why don‘t we ever get to see Rachel‘s oft-mentioned gay dads? Most of the other glee club members‘ parents have been involved in storylines, and if a few episodes can be taken up with Rachel seeking her birth mother and attempting to forge a relationship with her, they should certainly give some screen time to the men who raised her - even if that does secure her extra solos.

But then Glee does have a tendency to side-line anyone that doesn‘t fit the Caucasian heterosexual norm. Kurt isn‘t given the singing opportunities he undoubtedly deserves; instead, he serves as a dramatic foil, suffering numerous jibes about homosexuality as well as being relegated to stereotypes about makeovers and fitting in more with the girls than the boys of the glee club. Mercedes also gets overlooked, although she does feature slightly more than the other nonCaucasian gleeks who only appear as smaller players within main plots focussed on the heterosexual white characters‘ lives and loves.

Even Artie, the token disabled character, is only given his own plotline when the creators can highlight the differences between him and his able-bodied cohorts – taken to the extreme in his fantasy dance sequence, the sole reason they cast a non-disabled actor in the role despite objections from external organisations. And the less said about the misogynist stereotyping the show indulges in whenever Schue‘s wife, Terri, is involved, the better.

When it‘s good, though, Glee provides good old-fashioned singing-and-dancing fun, and is certainly a more enjoyable view of American high school life than 90210 or One Tree Hill. Cathryn Short

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Grandma’s House (season 1) Having enjoyed Simon Amstell‘s stint on Never Mind the Buzzcocks and other television gigs, one could be forgiven for expecting great things of his new sitcom. The premise of Grandma‘s House is that, having quit Buzzcocks, Amstell tries to work out what to do with his life, surrounded by his family and all the problems that entails.

It‘s well-written enough, and there are some brilliant performances, particularly from the ever-wonderful Rebecca Front and Samantha Spiro, but Amstell himself lets the side down.

While it could be argued that if you‘re playing yourself you don‘t really need to act, some sort of variation in line delivery and ability to make the audience empathise with you is generally required. Grandma‘s House is, ultimately, a disappointment. CS

Dollhouse (season 2) After the post-apocalyptic antics at the end of season 1, season 2 of Dollhouse feels anticlimactic –and the incredibly awkward pacing of this season doesn‘t help. In the space of 12 short episodes, an entire mythos had to be wrapped up, and it doesn‘t quite work. In the season‘s early episodes, there‘s time wasted on monster-of-the-week style stories, while complex character histories are smooshed into a handful of brief scenes. The show‘s strength, as always, is the performance of actors like Enver Gjokaj and Fran Kranz, while star Eliza Dushku fails to ever quite convince. It‘s a pity that such a rich concept got so thoroughly wasted. Epitaph Two is an unsatisfying conclusion to an overly ambitious show. SD

The Thick of It (season 3) The third season of Armando Iannucci‘s wonderfully sweary sitcom about Westminster life seemed great when it aired: the addition of Rebecca Front as new minister Nicola Murray worked perfectly, while the election saw Peter Capaldi‘s villainous Malcolm Tucker finally getting something close to his comeuppance. And looking back on it now, from postelection, coalition Britain? It seems downright prescient - David Cameron‘s Big Society is virtually indistinguishable from Murray‘s Fourth Sector Pathfinder Initiative. The Thick of It is simultaneously hilarious and terrifying, intelligent and deeply silly - really, there aren‘t enough superlatives in the world for this show. Fanfuckingtastic. SD

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Sherlock (season 1) Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss‘s modernised take on the Sherlock Holmes stories was widely touted as the television event of the year (well, outside Moffat‘s takeover of Doctor Who) and it certainly didn‘t disappoint. A strong cast, headed by the beautiful Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as a delightfully alternative Holmes and Watson, brought us three tales inspired by Conan Doyle‘s greatest creation - each episode working as a stand-alone story but with ongoing underlying intrigues to connect the trio.

The music was vaguely reminiscent of the Robert Downey Jr. film, but that‘s where any similarities ended – this television series beats the film into a cocked hat (though perhaps a deerstalker would be more appropriate) and thankfully a second series was commissioned hot on the heels of the first. CS

Rev (season 1) Rev follows in the footsteps of previous British ecclesiastical comedies like Father Ted and the Vicar of Dibley—but it‘s gentler, less surreal, and more realistic than either of them.

Having transferred from a sleepy rural parish, Rev. Adam Smallbone has no idea how to deal with the congregation of St. Saviour‘s in Hackney, much less how to appease the ever -present Archdeacon. Vandalism, parents desperate to get their children into the successful parish school and over-zealous ‗modern‘ vicars are just some of the obstacles the hapless Smallbone has to overcome. With a cast full of familiar faces – including the always wonderful Olivia Colman as the Rev‘s wife, Tom Hollander as Adam and Simon McBurney as the Archdeacon – this is a well-rounded and well-written piece offering a different, but highly amusing insight into the life of an inner city vicar. CS

The Great Outdoors (season 1) A sitcom about a walking club might not sound like a laugh-a-minute, but with a cast this jampacked with comedy geniuses, you can be certain of some stunning performances.

When new member Christine (Ruth Jones) joins Bob‘s (Mark Heap) walking club, the tension begins. Add in a couple with a mildly frustrated marriage (Katherine Parkinson and Stephen Wright) and Bob‘s teenage daughter (fabulously played by relative newcomer Gwyneth Keyworth) and her erstwhile suitor Victor (Joe Tracini) … and suddenly life doesn‘t seem like such a walk in the park. CS

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Not Like This - Iron Chic Iron Chic‘s website describes them as ―a decent band‖ who ―play songs that are acceptable.‖ Clearly, they‘re selling themselves short: Not Like This isn‘t just acceptable, it‘s fantastic, crammed with anthemic pop-punk songs that just won‘t get out of your head.

The band rose from the ashes of Latterman, who split in 2007 due to problems with their record label and frustration over being misunderstood by their audience. (Latterman bassist Matt Canino wrote ―I felt like a broken record going on tour and talking about sexism in punk rock every night and then some fucking bro-dudes coming up to me and saying some fucked up shit. I even got to a point where I stopped calling them out on it, and that just felt wrong. I was tired.‖) Iron Chic are maybe more lightweight and poppier than Latterman; their brand of melodic punk rock is instantly catchy, the kind of songs you want to sing along with (and maybe jump around a little bit, too.) The guitars are solid early -2000s emo; singer Phil Douglas‘s vocals sound tuneful but not overly polished; every chorus invites you to shout along.

Geeky pop culture references abound – song titles include Every Town Has An Elm Street and Bustin‘ (Makes Me Feel Good) – but there‘s something darker lurking in their lyrics - a tiredness, an uncertainty. A kind of existential angst runs through the album; it‘s a contemplative album, yearning for something and better, but not quite sure what that might be. (―Rethink, recalibrate/set our sights on something bigger/maybe move on to better things‖ from Timecop.)

Thankfully, the record never lurches into mawkishness or self-indulgence, but there‘s something wistful and homesick about it. It sounds like growing up.

Not Like This was released via Bandcamp - the album therefore costs as much or as little as you‘re willing to pay for it.

Really, though, it doesn‘t seem fair to decide how much an album‘s worth before you‘ve heard it, spent time with it; if I had to put a value on it now, it‘d be way more than the few dollars I initially ponied up. There‘s something peculiarly lifeaffirming about this album. Partly it‘s the perfectly constructed melodies, but partly it‘s the sense of a band growing older, and wiser, and being just this fucking good while they‘re at it.

If anything, Iron Chic might be too good. If audiences could misunderstand Latterman to the point of making them want to split up from exhaustion, then Iron Chic, with their super-catchy riffs and apolitical lyrics, will almost certainly attract all sorts of crowds. Let‘s hope they‘re feeling up to dealing with the attention; it would be a tragedy if this band had to split up, too. SD

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Evolution (8-Bit Girl) - Equinoxe Evolution (8-Bit Girl) is a retro-electro-geek-synthpop album, inspired by early electronic music and computer gaming tunes. Equinoxe programmed and sampled chip-sounds from various 1980s computers, and added analogue and modern digital synthesizers to create the album‘s uniquely cheerful soundscape.

Modern noises such as mobile phone interference blend in beautifully with the beeps of the past (for example, a computer game being loaded from datasette) and the result is surprisingly smooth. Evolution is chockfull of feel-good nostalgia melodic, computer game-like grooves, upbeat dance tunes, and keen percussions - and will please anyone whose heart beats in a retro rhythm. Violette Kungholmen

Anthems - Kerry Ellis Kerry Ellis‘s debut album is an absolute delight for any fan of musical theatre or stonkingly good vocals. As the first person to take over the West End role of Elphaba in Wicked from Idina Menzel, you know Kerry has to be something special. As she was Meat in the original version of We Will Rock You, it should come as no surprise that this rather epic album is produced by Brian May—and you can hear his hand in it from the instantly recognisable guitar.

The highlight of the album is her rendition of No-One But You (Only the Good Die Young) but with a good mix of current musical theatre standards and even a foray into recent pop, this album is definitely worth checking out. Cathryn Short

Earth vs The Pipettes - The Pipettes Yikes. What happened to The Pipettes between the first album and this one? In short: nothing good. All the original members have now left, and the band now consists of Gwenno Saunders, who was at least involved with the first album, and her sister Ani Saunders, who wasn‘t. Two other members have come and gone in the meantime, too. And Earth vs The Pipettes shows how much they really aren‘t the same band any more. It‘s not as catchy, not as well written, and kind of … insipid. Most of the songs blur into one, with only the final few inexplicably spacemen-themed songs managing to stand out, and even then not for entirely good reasons. Hate to say it, but this is pretty awful. SD

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Correspondence

Got something to say? Email reactionblog@gmail.com, comment on our Facebook: facebook.com/reactionblog, or tweet @reactionblog.

BECHDEL TESTS Dear re/action, I'm sure you've heard of the Bechdel Test.

I'd love to see film reviews which include a Bechdel Test rating - perhaps like the one on bechdeltest.com.

Obviously ideally you wouldn't review anything that didn't pass the test, but it would be useful to see the Bechdel rating of some of the big blockbusters!

- SecretRebel, via livejournal re/action says: We plan to include Bechdel test articles in every issue, highlighting movies of a particular genre which do and don’t pass. (See page 7 of this issue.)

We also want to provide alternative viewpoints on popular films of the moment, and highlight smaller films that we think more people should know about.

Building the Bechdel test ratings into every review is a good idea, though - we’ll definitely consider it for future issues.

TOO MUCH TO ASK? It's too much to ask of the movie industry to have main characters that are single, strong, smart and female. (/sarcasm) - @writeforwhiskey, via Twitter re/action says: It does kind of seem that way sometimes. But that’s what we’re asking for, anyway! There must be some single, strong, smart female main characters in movies out there, mustn’t there? Anyone know of any?

HURRAH! Dear re/action, Firstly I would like to thank you for wanting to take a stand against the incredibly male-oriented film magazines and trying to appealing to a wider demographic. Hurrah and huzzah!

I am overjoyed that there‘ll be a film magazine that doesn‘t raise its opinion of terrible films purely based on whether Milla Jovovich or Megan Fox are flashing enough flesh.

I look forward to reading your contributors‘ articles and analyses of films old and new.

- Katy Llewellyn, via email HORROR MUSICALS? Dear re/action, With the continued popularity of horror movies (particularly those featuring zombies) in all their forms and the current vogue for filming successful musicals, I would be very interested to see a piece on how the two genres are meeting.

For example, looking at pieces from the cult classic status of ‗Repo: The Genetic Opera‘ to the relatively unsung (if you‘ll pardon the pun) ‗Evil Dead: The Musical‘, which mostly gained notoriety for its manipulation of posters from current West End shows.

- Cathryn Short, via email re/action says: Great idea - anyone want to write it? Email us at the usual address if so...

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What’s this issue about?

INTERNET VS FILM Dear re/action, Given the global popularity and influence of social media like Twitter and Facebook, do you feel that films and tv still hold the power to manipulate people as journalists liked to claim?

Also, do you think that with Twitter and Facebook, as well as collaborative polling sites like Stephan Shakespeare‘s ‗CoProducer‘, the general public will actually have more of an influence over what is produced for screen? Does this lessen the integrity of entertainment outlets and the need for good writers?

Just a curious little thought I seem to have recently!

- Janette Scott, via email re/action says: We could probably debate for several hours over the various points you’ve raised in your email - so thanks for giving us plenty to think about!

We think film and television still tell us a lot about the values and prejudices of the society we live in—the kinds of stories told onscreen reflect the kinds of things that we’re willing to buy into, so if there’s a lot

(Word cloud via Wordle.net)

of sexist, racist, and homophobic content out there, that’s gotta mean we’ve still got plenty of issues to work through, as a culture. And seeing those messages everywhere does tend to reinforce them in our minds, even if we do have access to other media and other messages through the internet.

We’re actually kind of excited about the ways in which filmmaking and other media are being opened up to more people—this magazine wouldn’t have been possible a couple decades ago, for instance, because we don’t have thousands of pounds to invest in it. So let’s hope we’re going to see lots more exciting new voices coming to prominence now…

And as for the need for good writers and a lack of integrity—we don’t see why! If anything, the more content there is out there, the more we’re going to need decent curators, to filter the noise and find the worthwhile stuff. A move towards greater transparency in all aspects of business, government, and culture surely must mean that integrity is more important than ever—and the lack of it will be all the more obvious.

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Colophon Copyright: Copyright in each contribution is separate from the copyright of the work as a whole and is vested with the author of the contribution. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is strictly prohibited.

The views expressed in the articles in this issue are those of the individuals credited, and not necessarily the publication as a whole.

We may occasionally use material we believe has been placed in the public domain. Sometimes it is not possible to identify and contact the copyright holder. If you claim ownership of something published in re/action, we will be pleased to make proper acknowledgement.

All letters and emails received are assumed to be for publication unless otherwise stated.

This issue would not have been possible without: Plenty of encouragement from Livejournal and Twitter friends; William Control‘s Noir, Emmy the Great‘s First Love, +44‘s When Your Heart Stops Beating (writing music!); coffee; hysterical giggling; not having to change out of our pyjamas to get shit done; cupcakes; lolcats (―if you don‘t like my changes I can always edit your face‖), the thought of an awesome launch party at the end of it all.

Contact information: Email us at editor@reactionmagazine.co.uk.

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Want to give us some cash? That‘s very generous. Donate via PayPal to: sarahtheburninator@gmail.com Next issue: Buy it from www.reactionmagazine.co.uk.

Published by: Words & Monsters Edited by: Sarah Dobbs, Anna Martin Designed by: Sarah Dobbs Sub-editing by: Sarah Dobbs, CJ Lines Contributors: Kirsten Campbell, Sarah Dobbs, Rachel George, Violette Kungholmen, Anna Martin, Andrew Mickel, Nikki Morton, Kirthana Ramisetti, Michael Richardson, Cathryn Short, Kat Stevens Web editors: Anna Martin, Jen Patton Front cover art by: Slodwick Graphics by: Slodwick, Stefi Navarrete Printed by: Fresh DPS Printed on: paper With: ink.

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