#representationsofwomen

Let’s talk about why B@T does NOT pass the Bechdel test...like, at all.....

So, Lula Mae is Hepburn’s original character name, pre-move to NYC, when she was but a mere farm-girl, married young to an old dude with children and responsibilities and country sensibilities. Lula Mae, married at 14, was but a child herself!! She was never awarded autonomy, whether it be bodily, socially, emotionally. She was stunted in her youth by being involved in something so adult as marriage and child-rearing.

So Lula Mae, controlled by men, existing only in juxtaposition to men, takes it upon herself to up and leave. She moves to NYC, and suddenly is Holly Golightly. The chic party girl with no past, no future, only a glamorous and mysterious present. She’s independent, she’s out of reach. Or is she just guarded...experiencing trauma and protecting herself from experiencing further trauma? I think this is more accurate that her imagined persona.

So Holly meets another man. A writer, a gentleman (?), an NYC transplant like herself, but firstly: her neighbor. Holly’s carefree ways are both confusing and delighting to him. She’s a puzzle he must solve, a trinket he must own. 

When his character, Paul, confronts Holly near the end of the movie, he speaks in a moment of ironic clarity, that I do not believe is supposed to apply so well to my analysis, but rather is a commentary on how Holly SHOULD NOT be chasing this faux-freedom. Paul says, 

“You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.“

While his sentiment is supposed to suggest that “people do belong to one another” (another thing spoken by him right before telling Holly about her true cage), what I see in this statement is a truth lying beneath the film, Even when Holly attempts to define herself BY herself, she defines herself in contrast to men consistently. She is both a figment of men and proof of their lack of respect for women-people. Holly Golightly does not exist in the real world, she can’t. Women don’t run around, from man to man, taking this from that one and that from this one, rent paid by him and emotional wellbeing from the other one. This idea of a woman like a cat, picky choosy and yet ultimately dependent, is so insulting and unreal.

This particular passage resonated with me. The insular nature of a family, the learned mannerisms; couldn’t they be symptoms of a familial spectrum disorder? I often find myself wondering if the quirks exhibited in our family are in fact hinting at something deeper than artists and weirdos. 

This great website explains the Bechdel Test! It also has a comprehensive list, spanning decades, of movies that pass or fail the test. There are comments boards that elaborate on why or why not the films pass the test.

I write a lot of informal poetry.

This poem was written in 2015 after reading an e-mail newsletter that a young local poet sends out at her leisure. This particular poet, Emma Seely-Katz, incorporates a lot of historical, fictional, or pop-culture related figures and people into her work.

                                  .........................................................

I have never seen Thelma & Louise. 

Through our initial opening course material, I had found out THE most crucial and defining plot element of the film which I had been lacking all these years. I always had referenced it as a movie about female empowerment and general bad-ass-ery, but all this time I was unaware of the catalyst, the incendiary for their danger-fueled road trip: the assault of Thelma. My mother conveniently left this out of her description of the film all the many years ago when she divulged the plot and sent me on my merry way. 

Now, of course I plan on watching it. I always have, but now I feel an urgency to do so. 

This burgeoning plot development, unbeknownst to me alone, puts the entire film into perspective. I can now fully grasp the groundbreaking material that Thelma & Louise truly is, was, and will be remembered as. 

What I wanted to highlight is, first, that my glossy and glossed-over version of the film is an example of how often we remove and reframe in film and other media when relaying it to others. The often willfully ignorant analysis of media to fit into categorical boxes of representation is nauseating. While I’m sure my mom meant well when she left out that particular plot development, why shouldn’t I have learned the truth then?