Category: Women

HULU’s The Handmaid’s Tale Season 1 Analysis and Commentary

~ Metacrone

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They Should Never Have Given Us Uniforms If They Didn’t Want Us to Be an Army.

After watching the 2017 Emmy Awards, Metamaiden and I finally got around to our long-planned rewatch of HULU’s The Handmaid’s Tale. We watched it when it aired weekly in the spring, along with everyone else, and loved it. I didn’t write weekly recaps because I know the book, having read it in the 80s, and I haven’t figured out how to write about ongoing series based on a book that I already know.

So, after binge rewatching the entire season, we present to you the compromise post: our typical season ending discussion.

 

Review

I’m not going to bother with much of a review. This series has won 8 Primetime Emmy Awards, and every one of the winners for Handmaid’s Tale deserved it. There could have been multiple winners in the various outstanding actress categories. The acting, cinematography, production design, and direction all deserve the many accolades they’ve received.

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Role Models for Girls: The Good, the Evil, and the Frozen

~ Metamaiden ~ 1 Comment

 

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Or, Why Do Little Girls have to Choose Between Being Good and Being Powerful?

I was never much for Disney princesses growing up. None of them ever spoke to me. I was more into characters like Simba from Lion King. I suppose, for whatever reason, I was more concerned with the personality and journey of the character than their gender. Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine, Ariel…none of them did anything for me. I don’t even remember thinking they were particularly pretty. I liked Megara from Hercules a little, but I was more about Pegasus, Hercules, and Hades in that movie. The complex characters with clear goals and inner journeys were always the ones who appealed to me. (And animals. Being an animal makes a big difference to me.)

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Forget Hugh Hefner: Helen Gurley Brown and Erica Jong Were the Real Feminist Sexual Revolutionaries

~ Metacrone

Or, Whatever Happened to the Cosmo Girl and the Zipless F*ck?

I’ve been sickened by the response to Playboy Hugh Hefner’s death this week. He’s been hailed as a feminist, a liberator of women, a liberal icon. The man was none of those things. He exploited, drugged, abused, raped, manipulated, degraded, and publicly humiliated women, and much more. If anything, the embrace of Hefner’s “philosophy” of treating women as objects and prostitutes set the women’s movement back. He was anything but sex positive for women. Hefner controlled the women in his orbit with little concern for their health or well-being, much less their sexual pleasure…

…Helen Gurley Brown gave young women permission to put themselves, their careers, and their own sexual desires first, and to put off marriage and caregiving for as long as they wanted. What is the role of women in Hugh Hefner’s world, if not another form of caregiver, this time as the ever-enthusiastic and willing sexual partner who fulfills the man’s every need with no thought to her own? That’s not Helen Gurley Brown’s Cosmo Girl, who takes care of herself and doesn’t depend on men. She loves to date men and look great when she goes out, but they don’t control or own her. This subtle difference gets missed a lot.

Read the rest of Metacrone’s post on our sister site, WitchyRamblings.com.

 

Girls Only: The Secret Comedy of Women (Denver) Review

~ Metacrone

 

“Warning: This show contains feminine subject matter including teenage diaries, breast feeding, tampons, shadow puppets, pantyhose, menstrual cycles, slumber parties, menopause and maxi pads.”

Yep, this show comes with a warning label. Metamaiden and I can’t seem to escape daring female theater this fall, though Girls Only is only edgy if you get squeamish during random conversations about the topics in the warning label. Since the lone guy in the audience, who was sitting next to Metamaiden, left during intermission, I guess the label is warranted. I saw the house manager whispering in his ear before he left, probably warning him about the ramped up female content in the second half.

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More on GYNX the Play

~ Metacrone ~ 3 Comments

 

 

GYNXthePlayscreencap

A homeless teen lesbian, a prostituted girl, an underground
abortionist, and a child porn survivor are recruited into
a rapist castration plot by a mysterious woman named
Gynx. Men go into hiding, and their operation makes global
headlines. But when Gynx’s true motives are revealed,
the group is forced to question whether
they are truly on the side of justice.

We had notes that we didn’t have room for in our review of GYNX by Alicen Grey, so, in the spirit of an “outtakes” post, here are some more thoughts on the play:

In some ways, the play reminds me of Disgraced, the 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play by Ayad Akhtar about the dehumanization of Muslim men in America. Disgraced showed us that stereotyping and racism can lead to the exact dangers that the dominant culture is afraid of. Its characters were realistic people, but they were also stereotypes and symbols. GYNX uses the same method with its characters and story.

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GYNX the Play the Review

~ Metacrone ~ 2 Comments

GYNXTheTeam

Last week, Metamaiden and I traveled to Denver to see the new Disney musical adaptation of the animated movie Frozen. It was, shall we say, a less than completely positive experience. But, I’ve written thousands of words about that already. In my last post about it, I wrote that I was going to support a feminist off-Broadway play to offset my inadvertent support of what Disney had done to Frozen. GYNX is that play.

Alicen Grey, playwright and producer of GYNX, saw my post, and offered us a recording of their opening night performance. So, Metamaiden and I sat down in Albuquerque on the afternoon of Sunday, 8/27/17, and watched this radical feminist theatre revelation while the final performance of its current run was happening in NYC. It was playing at the Hudson Guild Theater as part of the 2017 NY Summerfest. GYNX is also a Semi-Finalist in the MultiStages 2017 New Works Contest, and it’s not hard to see why.

GYNX was everything I hoped it would be, and more. I felt like Alicen had lived my life, and was seeking my revenge. The play is powerful, haunting and cathartic all at once. It’s impossible to be unaffected by it. It ends with a question that you’ll think about for a long time, if you aren’t already thinking about it.

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Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Why, What Have You Heard?

~ Metacrone
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Look! A photo of Elizabeth Cady Stanton when she was young and hot. Now modern people, used to judging people based on their dress size, will be able to take her seriously.

This week’s episode of the Washington Post series Constitutional is titled Gender.* It’s hosted by Lillian Cunningham, with guests Library of Congress historian Julie Miller and Feminist Majority Foundation president Ellie Smeal.  This episode traces the fight to have women recognized by the US Constitution, allowed to vote, and then to be recognized as equal to men. It’s an excellent episode, informative and interesting, with some very early history that I had no idea existed. I encourage you all to listen to the podcast or read the transcript.

But the commenters also feel the need to critique the early suffragettes’ looks and fashion choices, which, to be fair, is a standard part of the discussion when the suffragettes come up. But, really? Do we mock Abraham Lincoln’s and Ulysses S. Grant’s looks and weight every time they come up? As female professionals, couldn’t these podcasters have taken a different approach?

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The Defenders Season 1 Episode 1: The H Word Recap

~ Metacrone

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There might be slight spoilers for episodes 2-4 here.

How funny is it that I had to come back to the MCU to find fantastic female characters who are being treated well by their show? Given the MCU’s dismal reputation and track record with female characters, pretty d*mn funny, I can tell you that. The Defenders themselves may be 75% male, but they are surrounded by women in every shape, size, age and color*, who go about their business like the normal human beings that they are. Well, normal for a superhero comic book show.

Madame Gao, please never leave me. Please get a spin-off buddy comedy with Alexandra. With Black Sky as the disapproving young apprentice. I beg of you, Netflix, make it happen. You can market it as the next Grace and Frankie. But this one will be about how they never get old, and never try to do the right thing, and have never cared about ex-husbands or boyfriends.

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Frozen the Musical vs Radical Feminist Theatre

~ Metacrone ~ 12 Comments

I thought I was done writing about the Frozen live musical adaptation, but I guess I’m not. The thing is, both Metamaiden and I aren’t done thinking about it. The new song Monster, written by Oscar, h*ell, EGOT-winning songwriters, is stuck in our heads, telling us over and over that being a powerful woman is dangerous, that we should either leave and go live in solitude or, even better, kill ourselves, so that we don’t destroy our country and everything we hold dear.

And that’s only the beginning. I, personally, like most adult women, am a sexual assault survivor, which I have rarely, if ever, talked about. (Probably also like most women.) The scene where Kristoff rips Anna’s dress off and forcefully throws it off stage, while telling her how stupid she is, was very triggering for me, especially after seeing it twice.*

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Joss Whedon’s Ex-Wife Reveals That He Is a Hypocrite Who Gaslighted Her for 15 Years

~ Metacrone

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I Am Not Shocked at All

On Sunday, while I was traveling and wasting my life explaining my issues with the Frozen adaptation, Kai Cole, Joss Whedon’s ex-wife and partner of almost 20 years, published an open essay explaining the reasons for their divorce. Turns out Whedon cheated on his wife for most of their marriage and lied to his wife about it for the entire time. He had affairs with the actresses he worked with, other co-workers, fans, and friends. Never mind the dubious nature of Whedon sleeping with fans who worshiped him and actresses who worked for him. All the while, he was also presenting himself to the world as a champion of women, as someone who was fighting for women’s rights. A woman’s right to be used by a powerful man was what he meant, apparently.

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