Producer Aline Brosh McKenna wants to upend genre stereotypes on her new CW network comedy. (Cue the band!) ; several films hitting theaters this fall are tackling stories of women striving for equality on screen; Kurt Vile has a new album of chilled-out folk music.
Can these movies start a conversation around women's rights?
With growing momentum to investigate — and perhaps change — Hollywood’s male-dominated hiring and compensation practices, industry leaders can no longer say with a straight face that women receive equal opportunity and equal pay.
But this fall, several films arriving in theaters tell stories of women and girls striving for equality on screen. And it’s not just for the sake of statistics: filmmaker Todd Haynes says women’s stories actually speak to universal truths.
In these movies, women and girls — some real, some fictional — try to be their true selves and fight for dignity and fairness.
The movie “Suffragette,” which opens Oct. 23, is a drama about the often violent struggle for women’s voting rights in early 20th century England. The film stars Carey Mulligan and Meryl Streep as activists who are targeted by British authorities for demanding access to the voting booth. And for that some women are beaten, one loses her son, and one loses her life. “Suffragette” director Sarah Gavron talks about what the filmmakers found in their research:
There’s this whole shocking material you can unearth about women who went to prison, who were force fed, who sacrificed so much in their fight for equality, who lost families, jobs, homes and faced incredible brutality from the police and state. And that is what wanted to tell — that untold story that’s never been seen on our cinema screens.
The feature-length documentary, “He Named Me Malala” (in theaters now), tells the story of Malala Yousafzai.
She’s the teenager from Pakistan who was shot in the head and nearly killed by the Taliban for saying that girls and women have a right to be educated in her country. The film’s director is Davis Guggenheim:
Malala and her father started telling their story in Pakistan out of a need — their schools were being blown up, their livelihood was being taken away, they were under threat and they need to tell their story. And it's part of what they do. And so they completely let me in.
Oddly enough, it was the story of Malala and the actions of others fighting for women’s rights that inspired "Suffragette" director Sarah Gavron and helped her see the modern-day suffragettes in our midst:
When we were researching the film we were looking at the new activism in the U.K. We were looking at Malala and Pussy Riot and all those people challenging repression in their own states.
“Carol,” which opens Nov. 20, is another period film that has modern resonance. Same-sex marriage is legal today, but in this fictionalized story set in 1950s New York, it absolutely wasn’t. Two women fall in love, and are punished for expressing their true feelings.
The movie is directed by Todd Haynes and it stars Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett. It’s based on the novel, “The Price of Salt,” by Patricia Highsmith. Haynes recognizes that, as society evolves, there is still a need to remember the past:
There’s no way that contemporary audiences would be able to watch a film like "Carol" and not think about where we are today. That said, it’s about a very specific time that we can’t forget about.
The movies that Haynes makes typically feature a female lead, but he says that’s not a political act on his part:
I’ve always been attracted to stories about women. The conditions that women deal with in their lives are often domestic constraints and, really, the realities of life that we all struggle with. And they’re not by definition as much about escapism.
Haynes refers to the fact that big movie studios increasingly make films that cater to an escapist cinematic experience — usually with male leads and almost always with male directors. So it's not surprising that it took more than a decade for the “Suffragette” filmmakers to find the backers for their movie. Still, director Gavron says these stories are tapping into a cultural conversation that finally enabled her film to get made:
Had we tried to make it four or five, or maybe even two or three years ago, I’m not sure we would’ve gotten it financed. There was something about the fact that this is the conversation now, that there is this emerging new activism, that there’s an awareness that there are so few women in the film industry. There’s an awareness that people want these stories. Women are half of the population, they buy over half of the cinema tickets. There’s an appetite for these stories.
Movies can have a tremendous impact in the way that people see the world around them. And that’s increasingly important when so many people rely on pop culture as a news source. Perhaps Meryl Streep said it best when she described the obligation that filmmakers have in "a non-reading world":
Increasingly what's on our screens is our history ... so it's important that women's stories and the things that interest them, concern them [and] confound them are on our screens.
This fall in theaters, these stories may very well have the power to start a conversation among audiences, just as they're starting to fuel conversations for filmmakers such as Davis Guggenheim, director of "He Named Me Malala":
And so I think, What kind of father am I? Do I see my daughters as equal to my son? And sometimes I don’t answer that question very well. When I read something interesting I say, Hey Miles, did you hear about this? I don’t say it to my daughter.
So even as the film business continues to hire far more men than women, and pay those men more, it can still take a far more egalitarian stand when it comes to the stories on screen.
And, quite ironically, this Fall that issue is women’s rights.
Don't judge CW's musical comedy series 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend' by its clichéd title
What on earth could compel young lawyer Rebecca Bunch to turn down partner status — and a $500,000 salary — at her New York law firm for an impulsive move to West Covina?
The answer is Josh Chan, her ex-boyfriend from high school — the "one that got away."
At least that's how the CW's new musical comedy series, "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," sounds on paper. (The show was originally developed for Showtime, but the network passed.) If you were to judge the show solely by the ads and the title, you might think it's just another cliché romantic comedy-style TV show about volatile female emotionality, but it's much funnier and way more meta than that.
Through the crazy ex-girlfriend trope, creators Rachel Bloom (who's also the series star) and screenwriter/show runner Aline Brosh McKenna poke fun at how pop culture shapes our perception of women's roles in obsessive romantic love stories and rom-coms.
"Definitely for women, the idea that romantic love has been sold as a sort of panacea ... is something that is constantly marketed to women," said Brosh McKenna on The Frame. "One of the things that we explore is the fact that women often end up in these hopeless romantic pursuits. I think that men do too. It's just often when men do, it's not funny."
This is familiar territory for Brosh McKenna. Her feature film credits include screenwriting for rom-coms such as "Three To Tango" and "Laws of Attraction," and what she likes to call "dramas with jokes," like "The Devil Wears Prada" and "We Bought A Zoo." However, she found herself moving away from writing those kinds of films due to what she noticed as a trend of female characters that had to be likable above all else.
"The sense of having a character who was unlikable or does something that is irreverent was kind of off the table for movies that featured women," Brosh McKenna said. "You're always being asked to make them more palatable to an audience and more sympathetic.
"There was this really stark divergence where you could see where female characters in movies were becoming what people think of as likable or what executives think of as likable, and on television, the female characters were becoming much more naughty and flawed."
Think Tina Fey's Liz Lemon in "30 Rock" or Amy Poehler's Lesley Knope in "Parks and Recreation." Rebecca Bunch is a lot like them — smart, educated, successful, funny, but with a myriad of flaws that make her relatable to real people.
In this series, the term/title "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," is meant more as a catchall term for obsessive pursuits, rather than the cliché (or the overly obsessed girlfriend meme), where a woman becomes unhinged after an innocent boyfriend breaks it off.
"You can go 'crazy ex-girlfriend' on a work thing, trying to get a job, or trying to get an apartment or trying to buy a house," Brosh McKenna said. "The nature of an obsessive pursuit of something is a huge part of what is interesting for us."
Satirizing genre and turning clichés against themselves is also something Bloom has been working on for years. In fact, it was through Bloom's YouTube videos that Brosh McKenna first discovered the singer/writer/actress.
During a period of procrastination in which Brosh McKenna was reading blogs and watching YouTube, she stumbled onto one of Bloom's popular videos. Like this one, a satire of Disney princess songs:
"I don't know a lot of writers who can sing like that," Brosh McKenna said. "It sounds like such a classic Disney Princess voice, I just assumed it was an actor that they hired. I was expecting this very glamorous girl based on the videos, but she walked in and she was just wearing jeans and flip-flops and she was one of us, she's just a writer in her soul. I mean, she's all of those things too, but in her soul she's really a writer chick."
The show also shows off Bloom's musical theater chops. Each episode will feature three or so musical numbers, and uncensored versions of the songs will go online. In episode one, take note of "Sexy Getting Ready Song" for a clear idea of the comedic tone of the show.
Kurt Vile wants the music to speak for itself on his new album of chilled-out folk
Kurt Vile has become known for his dream-like folk sound, and with his sixth studio album, 'b'lieve i'm goin down...,' he used his environment to amplify it.
Kurt Vile - b'lieve i'm goin down...
Vile recorded some of his album at the famous California desert studio, Rancho de la Luna. It's where artists such as Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age have recorded, and where the isolated desert setting made Vile feel "possessed by the music."
The Frame's James Kim talks with Kurt Vile about his love for the banjo, how recording some of this album late at night affected his songwriting, and why he doesn't want to reveal the meaning behind his music this time around:
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
Do you remember how you got into music?
I think I was attracted to music because [of] my earliest memories. My dad would be playing records and they'd make me feel crazy, in a good way. By the time I was 14, my dad bought me a banjo and then I pretty much knew I wanted to [play music] right away. I think a couple years earlier I was going to get a guitar, but I was particularly a bad kid that year, at least to my parents' standards. They told me, "We were going to get you an acoustic guitar, but you've been a nightmare."
At first I didn't think [banjo] was as cool, obviously, as a guitar. But anybody in my house — my wife included — they like when I [play] the banjo because it's a really meditative, hypnotic, ethereal, Appalachian, zoned-out folk thing. You could just space out and be playing it and not think about anything.
Was there a certain approach or theme you centered on for your new album?
One of the heads at my label, Chris Lombardi, he [said], "What's the story on this record? The record's gotta have a story." I was like, "It's a life record, man." He's like, "What does that even mean?" I was like, "It's a life record! You'll have to hear it!"
You seem cryptic about explaining your album and what your songs are about. Why is that?
This time around, I don't exactly like to point things out too much and dissect. For instance, my song, "That's Life, tho (almost hate to say)," talks about somebody who everybody loved that died. It's about a specific person, but I've decided I don't wanna say who it is, you know? I just want to leave it a little bit open, but just know that all my friends and family and my surroundings influence my music.
How did the desert environment affect how you wrote songs this time around?
We were recording a lot of this record at night. There's a certain time when it's been dark and quiet for a while that — just from being up and being possessed by the music — you could find a chord that's more than playing a hot lick. Just some kind of dreamy chord, a little bit sad but a little bit poppy. Those kind of songs, those kind of riffs, you could play forever. It's easier for you to do something like that at night, for sure.
Kurt Vile is currently on tour to support his new album, "b'lieve i'm goin down..."