Bad Bitches Snore

My fiance and I love to spend time together watching movies and our “stories”, as we like to call them. We usually make our choices by choosing films and then playing rock, paper, scissors to determine the winner. This time around was a great set list that I thought I'd share.

The first film was the was the most recent Terminator film, Terminator: Dark Fate. After the last few that had come out, we were both pretty skeptical of the film. Terminator 3 had been a huge no, same with the one featuring Christian Bale. This latest Terminator, however, had something missing for nearly half the film-men hogging screen-time. This iteration of Terminator was carried by three women, the main character being a woman of color. It was up to a mother, a sister and an adopted daughter to save the world, not some man with rippling muscles and cool shades.

The main protagonist, Dani, is a mothering character by proxy. From what the movie shows us, she lives in an all-male household with her brother and father. She bears the responsibility of making sure that her father takes care of himself and shoulders big sister mode for her irresponsible brother. The movie makes it a point to remove both of these men from the protagonist’s focal point at the near start of the film. It shows us what women are without men guiding their every move. You begin to see them as just people rather than what women usually become in an action film which is eye candy or the male soundboard. In this film, they give us to replace the cigar-smoking male lead we are given the unfuckwithable avenger Sarah Connor.

The dialogue throughout carried the birth, loss and struggle of acceptance that comes with motherhood. It dealt with the loss of a child through Sarah Connor. Over the course of the film, she had to come to terms with the fact that she would always be a mother because she had been one once. She carried the weight of it with her as she hunted terminators into her old age. When she saw the main protagonist Dani Ramos, she saw someone to mother again, someone that would help her renew her role. In her voice, you could hear her resentment as she recounted that her child was forced to burden something she would have shouldered for him in a heartbeat. Time and time again she proves this as she risks her life for vengeance and retribution for her lost child. When the moment is presented for her vengeance, she realizes that all she really wanted was for the world to understand that she deserved to be a mother in spite of all that had happened.

The other character that plays a central role is Grace, an augmented female soldier from the future. She is sent back into the past to protect Dani. She plays a no-nonsense role in the movie and shoulders the burden of carrying the weight of the future. If she fails her mission, humanity is doomed. I won’t spoil all of it, but watching her femininity unfold within the film is a story unto itself. You watch how many layers a woman has, how many she folds herself into to be strong. At the end of the film you see a woman, naked and feeling and understand how impossible it is to be that in an open world, even now. You see something truly rare, a vulnerable woman.

Another film, that surprisingly enriched women’s roles, was Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It highlighted women’s sexual freedoms without being grossly sexual. It showed that women were not only capable of making their own career but that they were capable of very unladylike traits, such as snoring and being unbeautiful, taking their shoes off and having dirty feet. It showed them sitting with their legs open, being leaders of their household with bold characters like Dakota Fanning. It showed that they could also harbor murderous rage, not over a lover or a child but straight up murderous rage. It was a movie about the grit of women young and old, showing that alongside the beauty we objectify them for, there is intelligence and a world of character to be seen.

My favorite character in the film was a young girl playing Trudi Fraser. This girl, whom most would expect to be simple and without ambition, is actually the most dedicated actor on set aside from Leonardo’s character, Rick Dalton. In fact, her character helps him to see his own worth and to believe in his capabilities. Toward the end, what is seen is another awesome and empowering moment, is the brutal murder of several women.

Now, hear me out. Normally, women are subject to gruesome rape, dying for their lover, some sad sack shit that, for me, screams, objectification. Women are always the sacrificer, the victim, but here we see women with weapons, women with anger, women that do not give ANY flying fucks about the gender roles usually dictated in being a murderer. Not only that, when they died, they were also murdered the same way a man would be, gruesomely. There is no dainty little pause where we feel sorry for them because they’re women, they aren’t gut-punched or having their asses kicked with gentleness. Brad Pitt kicks the living shit out of them the exact same way he would a man and the effect is glorious. What I have always appreciated about Tarantino movies is the fleshing out of his female characters and the fact, that he does not play up their femininity. For some reason, he’s one of the few directors/writers that understands that women are more than beautiful, they’re people. They snort when they laugh, they have ugly feet (thanks Tarantino), they run businesses, they fight, they’re dirty and forget to shower, they kill, they smoke tobacco and spit, they’re tough and they can damn well be mean. It was refreshing to see women in these roles because it showed what is drastically missing from so many women’s roles in films. The extra layer of prettiness was removed from this film. You saw women, not just the idea of them, something more films need to adapt when presenting a script.

The last film that centered around women, or rather the strength of women was Knives Out. The main character is an immigrant of Paraguay who is seen as low in status because of her brown skin and Latinx heritage. She is the most unseen person in the film by all of the other characters. Her status leads them to believe that she is weak, unintelligent and easily manipulated. What she shows them, however, is not only strength but the strength in a woman’s empathy.

Constantly, she is offered the easy way out of a dangerous situation but she considers what it would do to her moral standing. She wants to do right by others despite what they have done or insinuated about her. She did what so many of us women do, which is to make everyone else happy at her own expense. She showed the dutiful nature of a woman’s kindness, showed that in a masculine world women are expected to be kind, even in the face of adversity. However, what she also shows us is that her kindness is more than a matronly role to fill. When she is called out of her name, threatened, followed, she still stays true to her nature. She shows us that her kindness is not dictated by men but from her own nature by displaying how she chooses to wield it. The men around her are threatened by her presence of self and her cool demeanor, while still maintaining a kind disposition. She shows the strength of being soft, showed the amount of patience, and attention to detail that being a good person actually takes.

How many times are mothers, daughters and any woman really, are expected to be a certain kind of accommodating? How many times are we told to make space for men? How many times are we overlooked, talked over and simply left out to make way for men? How many times is our kindness seen as weakness?

Not only did Marta highlight this gross overlooking but so did Jamie Lee Curtis’ character, Linda Drysdale. A self-made businesswoman, the running gag is that all of her accomplishments are downplayed to that of her brother. His company was handed to him by his father, he never creates anything for himself, yet it’s his accomplishments the movie makes a point to drive home. You see how much it hurts her character to have everything she has done minimized because it is in a man’s space. You also notice that at the end of the film, she is the only one not left wanting, because of how hard she has worked to be separate and her own woman. Both Marta and Linda show that in not being noticed, in being ignored, they gained the most power. They showed that every time you underestimate the strength of a woman, you will be found the loser.

Anywho, a very refreshing take on women’s roles in films, with all three films passing the Bechdel Test, it was rewarding to see where women will go in film now that we allow them to actually be whole characters, rather than the usual fetching sidepieces. It was refreshing to see real women on-screen for once with stories to tell all their own. Don't take my word for it though, go ahead and find out!

Reference

Miller, T. (Director). (2019, May 23). Terminator: Dark Fate - Official Teaser Trailer (2019) [Video file]. Retrieved November 26, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCyEX6u-Yhs