OBVIOUS CHILD, GINGER SNAPS and Your Reproductive Lunar Cycle

Even in our modern age of 'chick-flicks' there are some issues which never get treated 'openly' unless it's during a Very Serious Episode, usually involving both parties deciding to keep the child, despite all the odds, and or give it up for adoption, and/or the father is a religious nutjob trying every means at his disposal to save the 'receptacle' of his holy gift from destroying her chance at salvation even if it means her death. If there's an abortion there must be a great deal of shaming, of tears and anguish over this decision that will haunt the woman the rest of her life. If she doesn't kill herself over i then she's a no-good hussy who deserves what she gets (she's either murdered or ODs). If she has a child out of wedlock and its the pre-code era she deserves to suffer, in fact she insists, but if she suffers long enough she can finally get her child back, and if she tries to make the man own up and do the right thing he might, as was done in the unjustly iconic OFFICER AND A GENTLEMEN, hang himself in his hotel room. If, like in STEEL MAGNOLIAS, the woman is told she will die if she gives birth, it's fine if she dies, as long as the baby lives. There's seldom a doubt if the woman is fallen in some respect that she'll gladly die so her child may live --as in the horrible ending of Blake Edwards' SWITCH or a host of pre-code films like LIFE BEGINS. Even GODFATHER 2 has an abortion used like a weapon, Diane Keaton sneering like she's in the wrong movie about "this Italian thing" and how it all must stop, like she's angry about some fantasy football league instead of a billion dollar empire.

Slate at Cross's.

All of which is to say that like everyone else on the planet I feel strongly on the way the abortion issue is addressed in cinema, and so was overjoyed that the new and great comedy, OBVIOUS CHILD (2014) commits no last minute patriarchal womb co-opting or sudden influx of barbaric fundamentalist patriarchal 'Christian' or 'Muslim' values. At Planned Parenthood-ish office, up and coming comedienne Donna (Jenny Slate) says, "I would like an abortion, please," and respectfully declines the attendant's attempt to encourage her to consider all her options, which is more sympathetic than it sounds, for Slate's delivery is not strident; she doesn't want to seem like she's not taking the situation seriously but neither does she want to wait for some extenuating rom-com circumstance to enter, tumbling, and ruin her figure by 'saving her soul' as so often happens in similar films. Credit the writing and direction of first-time feature filmmaker Gillian Robespierre that we never doubt Donna's sensitivity but her mind is made up and that she's smart and has considered her options and is neither martyr nor lost soul, checking her own tendency to crack jokes to leaven her inner tension, while never presuming that tension is somehow 'valid' because of the surrounding controversy.



Thanks to the red-blue fight-baiting popular media, we know the pitfalls movies like this usually present, as if fate itself restructures reality to allow for some grand sacrificial gesture, so we're totally with her at every moment to break the century-of-cinema-long trend, as when she's about to tell Max (Jake Lacy) the father--a dude she barely knows, who is suspiciously perfect--attentive, nice, witty, good-looking, able to keep right up with her, single --and he mentions he wants to be a grandfather one day and that we was raised a Christian, which she registers with a sudden masterful eyebrow raise and sudden decision to hold off on asking him to chip in for the cost of the procedure. Written and directed by newcomer Gillian Robespierre from an original short, there's such a perfect flow between Slate and the material it's hard to believe it's all not happening in the moment with special attention to the way people actually talk --not 'normal' people, the kind of banal life-affirming doltishness Hollywood jadedly associates with the 'true America'--but real young Williamsburg-dweller college-educated witty individuals. Mining everything for great comedy right down to the drunken fumblings with a condom that are so often jettisoned in nights of drunken abandon, it's the kind of keenly-observed, brilliantly played interaction I've seen only in the best 'ensemble' comedy work, by for example Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph in BRIDESMAIDS (2007) or Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer in BROAD CITY (Comedy Central). In short, by people who've done the work to make their characters come alive, rather than by some clueless male or self-hating female screenwriter whose low opinion of young women masks a real cluelessness about how people clever enough to eke out a life on their own but still struggling with self-sabotage issues actually talk and think (as opposed to the godawful dialogue of JUNO and FRANCES HA for example).

Broad City

Slate's ably escorted by a solid batch of actors including: Polly Draper as her business school professor mother; Richard Kind as her puppeteer dad; David Cross as a skeevy comedian chum; Gabe Liedman as the bitchy gay emcee buddy, and Gaby Hoffmann (see: The Little Mescalito that Couldn't) as the roommate.
Great hilarious and brave scenes abound, transcending all the usual chick flick malarkey. Sure, as is the problem seen on everything from the IFC shows GARFUNKEL AND OATES, MARON, and Mike Birbiglia's SLEEPWALK WITH ME, lovers tend to break up with you once you discuss the minutiae of your shared sex life in intimate detail onstage. But how else are you going to prick up audience ears in a crowded bar or wake up sleepy college students? When Donna busts the tale of her abortion out on stage we cringe and hold tight to the arm rests, teeth gritted, expecting yet another long, sad bombing like her previous performance, a drunken monologue of the kind of bitterness and borderline stalking. I won't spoil the endings but I wouldn't even be writing this post were any of the trite pitfalls to be true. The title, incidentally is a Paul Simon song from his percussion-drenched South American follow-up to the South African-centric GRACELAND, and it offers a great primal pumping soundtrack to late night drunken dancing by Donna and Max on their first-night hookup.


Max is perhaps the film's only misstep, casting-wise. I don't mind that he's at least two hotness points over Slate (who gets to keep her sharp ethnic features, hair up in unflattering ways, letting it all hang out) so that it's almost a reversal of the usual comedy with shlubby losers marrying hotties as a matter of course-- just that he's a bit too perfect, one of those second chance no-negative-traits dreamboats that the heroine can't help but be mean to. It would be great if he had, say, an ex-girlfriend booty call girl on the side, or was in the midst of a break-up like she was and also on the rebound, or a drunk, or some other such thing other than a smart career path lawyer and all the other ideal things that might make life easy one day for a snarky downtown bohemian comedienne with no real job skills.

Robespierre and Slate...

It's a sad, strange process, abortion, but what OBVIOUS does is far more daring than just that, it actually gamely takes the first shot at turning that process into legitimate material for a stand-up routine, its honesty translated right across the two usual extremes and long-held vow of silence, denial, and the drabness so many filmmakers confuse with 'importance'. I can see this becoming the film women watch while on the couch recovering from their Planned Parenthood journeys, something that won't make them feel bad about their decision while never making light of it either, seeing it just as a process, something you go through, with no need for self-hatred or permanent emotional scarring. May this be the beginning of a beautiful friendship and collaboration: Slate and Robespierre, the Tina Fey and Amy Poehler of a new generation!

Speak of menstrual cyclists and female teams against the Broseph Patriarchy, GINGER SNAPS (2000) arrives on a stunning blu-ray/DVD combo from Shout Factory this week and as usual they've stepped up to the plate with a fan's loving attention. A classic piece in the history of feminine hygiene horror, it has a justly deserved cult, and a genuine badass attitude. The story is of two sisters, the older Ginger (Katherine Isabelle) and younger introvert Brigitte (Emily Perkins) who hate everyone in their nowhere Canadian high school and live in their own world, taking pictures of themselves in various death scenarios for a badly-received art project. When a popular girl overhears their bitter remarks about her during field hockey practice, an escalating series of fights leads to her death, and Ginger's being attacked by a werewolf. It works because Ginger is not an either/or creation, as in wolf or human. For most of the movie she's more half-and-half: becoming a woman, getting her first period and tufts of fur, is equated with wild animals (like bears after menstruating campers), in ways that are both fantastical and literal, sexuality and monstrous lupine, carnal and charnel. Younger Brigitte, meanwhile, has to begin the scary task of trying not only to help her sister by finding a cure and then cooking it up and injecting it, but by pulling away from their sacred death pact and passing judgment against the 'right' of might, i.e. killing humans is not a moral problem for werewolves, anymore than steak for most 'normal' eaters. There's a few boys and meals to the side, including a helpful chemist/horticulturist/pot dealer who seems partially inspired Josh Hartnett's character in THE FACULTY (1998), but more than anything, this is a girl's horror movie, bloody like the menses-minded wolf.


I didn't really dig this film the first time around (renting it from Blockbuster, on VHS - talk about patriarchal oppression), but now on blu-ray and in full anamorphic glory the autumnal colors glow and the framing and lighting of director John Fawcett can be better appreciated, the echoes of fellow Canadian horror filmmaker Cronenberg better discerned. Its seductive comic book rhythm rushes past all the usual crap that bogs down most high school horror films, focusing instead on the two sisters and their gradual transformation from all-talk to genuine murder and too-late-to-turn-back-now violence escalations.

There's still a few problems like the less-than-stellar werewolf effects (there's no real transformation money shot ala HOWLING or AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON- and the little poodle nose on Ginger is fairly campy), the kinds of problems which could have been covered by CGI, but digital effects were still, as we learn in the extras, in their expensive infancy, and now that CGI is so pervasive, GINGER's reliance on analog latex is retro-cool and adorable. Credit is due in huge part to Emily Perkins, who makes scenes with the transformed Ginger come alive in ways the monster on its own could not. She makes it work. Like Slate in OBVIOUS CHILD we can read all sorts of inferences in her eyes--her understanding of the impassive rubber wolf mask's little gestures makes the mask come alive for us as well. She brings home the real sadness of being stalked by your own sister, the only one in the world you trusted, who know wants you to kill your new and only other friend to prove your devotion. With her sullen long face hidden in a deep foxhole of long protective hair, Perkins is so great and her rapport with Isabelle so solid, the minor problems all melt away.


The wealth of extras include a somewhat rambling making-of documentary, deleted scenes, previews, two separate commentary tracks. The director John Fawcett makes sure we know he's the feminist behind this, not all the women who worked on it, like co-writer Karen Walton (though she does get her own commentary track). They're currently working on the hit BBC show ORPHAN BLACK so they must still be tight -- but I thought that kind of credit-grabbing insecurity existed only in Hollywood. (He does have some slyly deprecating things to say about the final monster, and how they had to keep it in shadow a lot to keep up the scariness --a nice way of saying it sucked - though he was the one who insisted it be hairless and albino). There's some insight into the tax-funded Canadian film industry (there was a backlash when the script was sent around to casting agencies because Columbine had just occurred), audition tapes from the early part of the process, and what the actors look like now (or Emily Perkins anyway, who seems like a completely different person, below)

But the real juicy extra is a panel of female horror writers and filmmakers discussing menstrual horror films that deal with women's sexuality and how drastically apart films like GINGER SNAPS are from the bulk of slasher films and expressions of man's horror of gynecology and the female orgasm, the scariness and pain for the girl of her first period, and the way females can only achieve orgasm in movies if they also kill their lover immediately. They give some love to the underrated JENNIFER'S BODY (a woman-directed film written by Diablo Cody that I like way better than JUNO, obviously), CARRIE (of course), and VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS, a film that could really use a blu-ray treatment. And they seem to agree with me that TEETH is a nice idea that totally fails as a film, its makers second-guessing and sewing members back on right up to the time I turned it off.


The sum of their discussion is never voiced, but you can read it here: GINGER SNAPS is badass, it dares to never even approach the idea of a 'normal' life being worth a shit. We don't end the film with Brigitte cutting her hair and finding a nice boy her own age and all that garbage usually force-fed audiences by an out-of-touch Hollywood. It and OBVIOUS CHILD are worth anyone's time, and repeat viewings. GINGER has gone on to have quite a cult for itself, and even two pretty good sequels. I hope OBVIOUS CHILD does the same, and that it blows Zach Braff's facile WISH I WAS HERE (which includes "Obvious Child" on its golden indie oldies soundtrack - as if snooping over Gillian Robespierre's shoulder) out of the water, and that more female writers and directors and actors have the balls, if you'll forgive the expression, to take the reigns of conveying the bizarre terrors of their menstrual and reproductive cycles, rather than leaving it to men for whom the vagina is still a disturbing thing, a lack -- a void ever ready to swallow them up, but over which they presume control once they have successfully entered and planted their flag, so to speak. Fuck them and their flags, so to speak. If every abused suffering wife and daughter in a fundamentalist or abusive home just slit her husband's, father's or oldest son's throat in the dead of night, we'd wake up to a world free of violence. Am I the only one who thinks like this? Fuck the irony! Wake the Venusian Flytrap kraken, a screaming jock or frat boy bleeding from its every anemone tendril orifice!