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| Mia Wasikowska in Stoker |
There is definitely an odd trend developing early on in 2013 cinema. It seems like this will be the year when you are most likely to see a woman kill you. Not as some perverse psychopath, but almost like a punchline at the end of a story that works as an origin. This anti-heroine story structure may have existed in small portions before, but in the past few months, three films have notably stood out as the precursor to a year of violent women in society: Side Effects, Stoker, and Spring Breakers. While all appear different on the surface, there is a haunting similarity. Women are going wild, and is that necessarily a good thing?
As I was walking out of Spring Breakers this past week, I was in awe of the direction that the film went. However, with tampons floating in a pool and bikini-clad gunmen running from a crime scene, I felt like turning to myself and saying "That's just how Stoker ended!" True, Mia Wasikowska didn't have to don a bikini and kill rabid mobsters, but the point was the same. While these films have been considered to have ambiguous, highly interpreted endings, I argue that they all are coming of age, loss of innocence stories. Both use blood metaphorically for menstruation, one literally, and one through stabbing a random police officer.
While Side Effects ends on a different note, I initially felt that Stoker was a continuation of that tale. In it, Rooney Mara is just as ambiguous as Wasikowska on whether or not prescription pills caused her to kill her beloved husband. In a sense, it feels like the aftermath of Stoker if presented in a real world context. Whereas the other two films rely on ending with these characters turning evil, Side Effects sees Mara cheat the system until she can do it no longer. I am convinced that Spring Breakers is about the new rise of mobsters in Florida, and it will only be time until their cheating the system bites back.
Did I enjoy all of these? Most definitely. This is an exciting year for dark, female protagonist. However, it seems odd that in almost a month's span, we have seen three cases of violent female outbreaks through drama. I am willing to accept coincidence, but this feels like the start of a year where maybe Bruce Willis and The Rock aren't the only ones causing a fuss. Women have finally entered the game full force, and maybe they're doing it a lot smarter than men.
True, all three cases involve anti-heroines, which would imply that the only way for women to be accepted as violent people is to end up the enemy. By killing men, they are somehow the dominant sex. This may be a broad statistic, but it is a common one. Last year's Haywire contradicts these facts and shows how a woman was wrongfully accused attacks men in order to justify a cause. Here, it seems like the women are doing it because they are either bored or just developing a psychopathic tendency.
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| Emma Watson in The Bling Ring |
But it is wrong to just think that women are going to screw you over with death. There are numerous other ways that I predict a hostile year for women. While it is great to see them in control, we're also looking at a slate of releases ranging in quality that depict women doing terrible things in bizarre narrative choices. We just saw in Oz: The Great and Powerful how James Franco uses technology to overpower two witches. While it can be justified by having an additional good witch, it doesn't help but continue the belief that women are the ultimate antagonist this year.
On a lighter note, let's move on to less violent crimes. One of the big releases this year is the Bling Ring starring Emma Watson. While little is known about it, the story focuses around theft. The trailer shows what is assumed to be people breaking into houses and stealing jewelry in order to maintain a luxurious, happy lifestyle. This may be my personally misconstrued view of the teaser, but it almost feels like a high class version of Spring Breakers.
Other examples include the East in which Brit Marling breaks into a cult in order to bring it down. Ellen Page is also in it, presumably as one of the villains. Little is known about it, but a quick trip to their website will convince you that there is something deeply bizarre that is going to happen. There is also the Heat, which may star Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy as cops in a comedy, but as the M.I.A. song in the trailer suggests, "Good girls go bad." This is suggested when in the trailer Bullock passes a grenade towards a group of felons and blows them up. Also, the Host comes out this weekend and appears to be about an alien on the lam, or it is just a very light version of Hanna.
There are numerous other films as the year goes on, including the Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire, which if true to the book, follows Jennifer Lawrence as she rebels against the government. Kick-Ass 2 will star Chloe Moretz as the trash talking killer Hit Girl. Moretz also appears in the remake of Carrie, which will probably have a similar demise as the original Stephen King source material. In a sense, Moretz will bookend the trilogy of killer women that have made March a very bizarre month for cinema.
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| Rooney Mara in Side Effects |
It is too early to really determine if my assumptions are right, especially since none of these films have been nearly as financially successful as their male counterpoints, save for Identity Thief, another Melissa McCarthy vehicle in which she screws over Jason Bateman. It became the first film of 2013 to cross the $100 million mark. Will any of these other films be a hit, especially since none are big franchise names and mostly small independent movies in which general audiences will be torn that their protagonist isn't dealt a punishment in the final act?
I am not sure, and I am kind of excited to see this wave of women in the middle of a breakdown cinema to get a rise. While anti-hero cinema is generally not as respected as the tried and true tough guy hero, it does produce vastly more interesting results. Conventional cinema may sell, but their legacies are rarely those of memorable moments. Maybe Catching Fire stands the best shot of grossing the highest of these films. While the novel initially is something I did not enjoy, this franchise at least attempts to give women a strong, independent, sometimes politically minded role model. That is something that has been missing in cinema.
Of course, that is a tough contradiction to everything that I have just written about. By my logic, women have to be bad to be recognized. However, the bigger praise that I will give is that these bad women are often portrayed smarter than the males in G.I. Joe movies. They may be flawed and just as emotionally confused as those in Twilight, but there is a sense of independence to them. I am not condoning these actions, more that I am enthused by the amount of interesting female protagonists that already have filled up screen time this year.
I suppose that this trend will not be long lasting. I doubt by 2015, we will see big blockbusters in which women rule the world, though I would love to push for more recognized equality. We have already established characters like Rambo who kill left and right without a single red flag on moral judgment. In fact, maybe women behaving badly is the final taboo in cinema sexual equality. All I know is that cinema is meant for escapism, and the Expendables doesn't really cut it. Women seem almost more predatory, and make for interesting protagonists. There's a whole realm of cinema out there we haven't seen as a result. I can just hope that this little burst of stabbing and shooting will lead to more interesting projects and more well rounded selections of cinema.
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