The Man Who Knew Too Much

Watched this classic Hitchcock film last night and was frustrated by the blatant passive nature of the main female character in the film. The story is of a husband and wife travelling in Morocco with their young son, and through a series of events, the son is kidnapped.

Jimmy Stewart is the husband and Doris Day the wife. He's a doctor, she's a semi-retired singer. At every turn, he gets to make all the decisions and take all the action.


The classic is when Stewart's character, Dr. McKenna, gives his wife Jo a couple of sedatives before telling her their son has been kidnapped. "You know how you get," he says. And sure enough, she goes hysterical in his arms.

Then she's comatose as he does the initial investigation, and he has to drag her out of her stupor to take her from Morocco to London. She gets hysterical again at Scotland Yard.

When Dr. McKenna runs off to look for the boy, Jo is pointed in the right direction by a male guest, but once she arrives at the alternate location, she doesn't actually do anything - she just calls her husband.

Once they're together again, it's the good doctor who again comes up with the plan for her to leave and call the cops. When the cops arrive however, she's locked out of the building, powerless to do anything.

At the turning point of the film, she screams to distract the assassin, but it's Jimmy who gets to fight him. Then, in the final climax where they rescue the boy, it's once again Jimmy with the plan: she gets to sing, while he goes to rescue their son. He knocks down the door, then knocks the bad guy downstairs.

Meanwhile, the female kidnapper is tough for most of the movie, but in the last moments, is given a maternal instinct to protect the boy.

It would be interesting to trace female characters through Hitchcock's work. In To Catch a Thief, for example, the female figures drive the action, and one is the thief in question. I haven't seen Marnie, but it too revolves around a female thief. It's on this week on TCM, so I'll have a chance to check it out and report!

The Week the Women Went

The production company Paperny Films claims their show The Week the Women Went (on CBC Monday nights) "looks at the roles of men and women in the 21st century. We are interested in what each gender does at home, at work and in the community."

But by picking a small town, the show has chosen a place where the career roles for women are more limited than their city-living 21st century sisters. Many of the men work for the oil companies, often gone for days or weeks at a time. The majority of women shown on the series stay home and raise the kids. A few help run family businesses. One works part-time at the post office, one at the library, a couple at the hospital, and two run beauty salons from their homes. One woman wanted to be a veterinarian when she was a teenager, but she got pregnant and has not yet made it back to school, though she works on their sheep farm. The single moms on the show have multiple jobs to raise their kids.

To be fair, the cost of living in cities is such that parents who want the option of staying home with their kids often have to work to pay for the city housing costs and lifestyle. And it would definitely be interesting to see how city-dwelling women would describe their male partners' contribution to child-raising and house-cleaning.

One of the teenage girls we meet says she plans to find out - she wants to get out of town the second she graduates from high school. She's also realized that having sex with the local boys isn't necessarily the best way to spend her time, especially if she wants to make sure she gets out.

What's eye-opening is that the show leaves no doubt that leaving the men home alone with the kids for a few hours, let alone a week, is for many of the women, an unusual occurrence, even in the 21st century. Several remark that this is the first time in years that they've been away from the responsibilities of childcare.

The bonding of the women while away from their daily duties is so-far an underplayed part of the show. One woman is working her way back into the group after gossip left her an outcast. When another woman falls in the water on a rafting trip, the group tries to rescue her, and comforts her when she gets back in. Seeing the men back in town get together to work on a community project brings home the point that the point of living in a small town is that you don't need to arrange bonding to get people to come together to help each other out.

While several of the women complain at levels ranging from of good natured to bitter about the lack of men's interest in child-raising or helping around the house, many of them also describe their strong partnership and mutual devotion.

In the first couple of days of the week, the men have so far projected that "It shouldn't be too hard" to do any any of the challenges they face -- what it will be like without the women, creating a gazebo for the town centre, or planning a wedding in a week. The question hanging in the air is whether their bravado will hold up as the week goes on and they have to put the kids to bed for more than one night.

Participants and viewers of the show have gotten a good discussion going over at the CBC blog. In one thread, a man asks when CBC will air a show on "The Week the Men Went"? A few of the female respondents reply that men always get to leave - for work, fishing trips, or just leaving their families. For many of the women on the show, this is their first, but hopefully not the last, chance to have some time for just themselves. I hope we'll see more of what they talk about and discover in this time on their own and with other women.

Oscar nominations 2008

My friend Movie Moxie has several breakdowns of the Oscar noms. Congrats to the four female screenwriters!

As promised Monday, here is a list of the roles that earned nominations for the men and the women. For my description, I've tried to list their roles in order of dominance in the plot (or as far as I can tell from plot summaries of the films I haven't yet seen).

Performance by an actor in a leading role
(2 heroes, 2 anti-heroes, 2 pseudo-cops, 1 lawyer, 1 businessman, 2 family roles)
George Clooney in Michael Clayton - Attorney, fixer, and avenger
Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood - Miner, business owner
Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd - Murderer, barber, widower, father
Tommy Lee Jones in In the Valley of Elah - Investigator, father, veteran
Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises - Bodyguard, hero

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
(2 criminals, 1 secret agent, 1 lawyer, 1 family figure)
Casey Affleck in The Assassination of Jesse James - Criminal
Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men - Assassin
Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Wilson's War - CIA agent
Hal Holbrook in Into the Wild - Avuncular figure
Tom Wilkinson in Michael Clayton - Attorney


Performance by an actress in a leading role
(1 world leader, 1 pop culture figure, 1 student, 3 family roles)
Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth: The Golden Age - Queen
Julie Christie in Away from Her - Wife, love interest
Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose - Singer
Laura Linney in The Savages - Sister, daughter, writer
Ellen Page in Juno - Pregnant Teen student, daughter, love interest

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
(1 pop culture figure, 1 lawyer, 1 writer, 3 family roles)
Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There - Singer
Ruby Dee in American Gangster - Mother
Saoirse Ronan in Atonement - Writer, sister
Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone - Mother, thief
Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton - Chief Counsel

Strong Female Cyborg

**SPOILERS**

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Fox, Monday nights)

Wow! Fun! The Terminator series has always set the bar high for strong female leads (think Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor doing pull ups and then taking her psychiatrist hostage to kick off T2) She's back, in the title, in a new iteration, with an excellent addition!

Teenage John meets a girl at school, Cameron, and she is unfortunately shot by a terminator sent to kill him. When John is saved a few minutes later by a truck smashing into the terminator, we presume it's his kick-ass mom. But no, it's his kick-ass cyborg protector, Cameron the teenage terminator!

And when she said "Come with me if you want to live," I was all in!

We've seen other female action heroes in the last 2 seasons, but Cameron has one thing they don't: worthy enemies and the ability to fight them. When Cameron beats up some (admittedly obnoxious) teenage boys to get their clothes, it doesn't really seem like a fair fight. And perhaps that's my problem with the Bionic Woman. We know she can beat these guys - she's got a freakin' bionic arm. But when Cameron has to take on the bigger, older male terminators, that's a battle worth rooting for!

Like Claire on Heroes, we know that Cameron can survive being hit or stabbed or shot. But what makes her much more fun to watch is that she fights back. Claire seems relegated to getting beat up or killed, and then healing -- pretty passive for a hero.

Lena Heady as Sarah Connor and Summer Glau as Cameron

Cameron is anything but passive. In fact, Sarah has to reign her in from killing. Yes, Cameron has robot issues. Sarah calls her "the tin man." When Cameron shoots an old friend of Sarah because "He was possibly lying," Sarah asks "Why did you do that?" Cameron replies "Because you wouldn't." So an interesting dynamic is born of Cameron being able to push the envelope in terms of taking actions that even Sarah, with her unique moral universe, will not.

Sarah's ability to draw the line at not killing other humans is part of how she defines herself, and the theme of identity plays large in the show. Sarah and John have to change their identities all the time to stay safe. The second hour starts with Sarah ruminating, "Through it all I knew who I was and why I'm here." But now she feels she's gone too far, taken on one alias too many: "Maybe if you spend your life hiding who you are, you might finally end up fooling yourself."

After going through a lot of trouble, Sarah obtains new identities for the three of them. Again, this is a profound action for her: "A new identity, a chance - you can't put a price on that."

But by the end of hour two, she despairs, "I don't even know what my name is." Cameron doesn't hesitate: "Sarah Connor."

Cameron has no self-doubts wracking her. She says that John taught her the phrase "Know thyself and thou shalt know all the gods of the universe." But her version is this: "Know thyself because what else is there to know?"

But Cameron also knows the future. She knows how strong and brave Sarah and John can be and will be, even when they doubt. And for Cameron, it's clear who Sarah is. Future John has told her: "You're the best fighter he knows." Bring it on!

Brothers & Sisters and babies

A few eps ago, Kitty found out she's pregnant, but then lost the baby. Her fiancee Robert, who is running for President, is relieved, as the timing would have made things tough for him. However, Kitty, seemingly having lost every modicum of common sense and the savvy that makes her his PR manager, decided she wants them to try again to have a baby -- as soon as possible. Really? You couldn't wait say til at least after the primaries to see what your work load it going to be? Robert pretends he thinks this is a Really Good Idea too.

And though Kitty is on paper still Communications Director for a presidential campaign, she spends the entirety of this episode getting dance lessons and picking out a wedding dress -- for like the third time this season. I'd like to see her on the blackberry at least while she's doing all this, taking some interest in the campaign...


Meanwhile, sister Sarah, CEO of the family company, lost a custody fight for her children, apparently because she was the primary bread earner and her partner was the stay-at-home dad.

Brother Tommy does have a baby, but his wife Julia, depressed at losing the baby's twin, went off to convalesce with her parents. Tommy, feeling abandoned and frustrated, decided having an affair with office manager Lena would be a Really Good Idea. His business partner, who had a long-running affair with Tommy's father, told him in no uncertain terms that she wouldn't tolerate it, and he finally breaks it off.

In this ep, Lena decides that dating Tommy's brother Justin, who is in recovery for drug addiction, would be another Really Good Idea. Is it revenge or is she actually attracted to him? Does she have a "top" in mind that she's sleeping her way toward?

Julia returns home this episode, happy again and clueless about the affair. Her role up to this point has been completely tied to emotions around making the baby (through IVF with one of Tommy's brother's sperm!) and the death of her second baby. She is a teacher by training, but so far it looks like she'll be a stay-at-home mom. Which is fine, but I'm hoping that once the affair is inevitably revealed, her reaction to that -- hopefully something more interesting than running back to her parents -- will finally give her character some definition.

And now that Mama Nora has passed the crisis of adult baby Justin's relapse, she can focus her energies on dating Chevy Chase! More happy casting by this show! (and bonus Lyle Lovet moment this ep!)

(We can only hope the AMPTP can pony up to the bargaining table with a reasonable offer so these stories can keep coming.)

Journeyman Ep 7

You might think a show with the word "man" in the title would be no place to find a SFL. And unfortunately you'd be right.

The show revolves around reporter Dan Vassar, who suddenly develops the ability to travel through time, apparently to help other people at important junctures in their lives. And when I say "revolves around" I mean it. It's all about him.

Dan is part of a love quadrangle made possible by his time travel. In the past, his wife Katie, dated his brother Jack, and Dan was engaged to a woman named Livia, who died in a plane crash. When he travels back in time, he often visits scenes from the past of the foursome. It can get a little awkward -- in the best possible way, which makes it the most interesting part of the show, as the actual changing people's lives plots aren't that stunning.

In the pilot episode, the moment I became most intrigued with the show was the moment Livia shows up. I was captivated by her sudden appearance as a fellow time-traveler, and was hoping we'd get to follow her story too, see what she's been up to, time-hopping for the last 6 years, see the bigger picture of what the time travel is all about.

Instead, Livia seems to just hang out waiting for Dan, but she doesn't really help much. Finally in the most recent episode (107 - "Double Down"), she does take the bold action of driving a car to help him get away.

I presume she knows more than she tells Dan, but she remains cryptic about what their role is and how it all works. In the third episode, she reveals that she had been time traveling before she met him, and then when they were together, she stopped for a while, until she traveled before her plane went down. Which leaves lots of questions: Is her only job to help him? What does she do when she's not hanging around waiting for him?

One problem is there's no sexual tension at all between Dan and Livia. And we've never really seen him as someone worth mooning/fighting over. The potential to cheat is purely theoretical. Instead of seeing an emotional struggle, this episode features a ridiculous literal fight between current-Dan and past-Dan. And there's the moment when she finds out that he married Katie. Although she now seems to be glued to Dan as he zips around in the past, apparently she never travelled to a moment in his life when she would observe Dan's current married with child state?

In this episode, we finally get to follow Livia somewhere, but yet again, it's All About Dan. She pops into Dan's current-day house to spy on Katie and get Dan's money. Sigh. But at least she's doing something useful.

Which is more than Katie gets to do. A reporter in her own right, the last 2 eps have focused around her basically asking Dan's PERMISSION to go back to work as an anchorwoman. Talk about time travel!

In this ep, fulfilling the role of these two women to help and save Dan, time-travel Livia helps current-Dan help past-Katie save past-Dan from his self-destructive gambling problem.

The other figure in the love quad, brother Jack badgers Katie to find out what's going on with Dan, as he can see it's taking a toll on her. Though he presumably has a continued emotional tie to her, it comes across as bullying, which is too bad, because he could do it in a gentle way, that would make him more appealing as a character instead of making sure we don't root for him. But you know what, I'm annoyed enough by Dan that I now appreciate Jack turning on him.

Tellingly, the photos of Katie (Gretchen Egolf) and Livia (Moon Bloodgood) on the official website are of them posing and vamping. Note to writers: you've got two great women available - use them.

Friday Night Lights

This show is not about football. This show is about people.

Tami Taylor, the wife of high school football coach Eric Taylor is one of the strongest wives I've seen in a long time. She never hesitates to let Eric know when she's unhappy with him, or when she thinks he's making a bad decision. And she does it without it turning passive-aggressive or weepy.

Tami takes her job as a guidance counselor seriously, and can see the impact she has on the kids. At the end of Season One, she makes the decision to stay in town even though Eric is moving on to a university job several hours away. She stands strong against Eric's objections, even when she discovers she's pregnant. She feels her work is as important as his, and while she knows that he must take the job, she feels its time for her and daughter Julie to stop following him from job to job.

This season, she faces the cost of that decision, raising the baby on her own while dealing with a restless teenage daughter. And in episode one of the new season, we see her break down from the pressure of this. My guess is she'll bounce back, but will soon have to juggle the demands of motherhood on her own, adding back in her job, as I'm guessing her mat leave policy is only a few weeks. And the tension between a married couple divided geographically is sure to build.

Meanwhile daughter Julie is pushing her own boundaries, wanting not to be the Good Girl all the time. She's tired of her Good Boy boyfriend, and wants to know "Isn't there more than this?"

Other women to watch for:

Just realized there are a lot of single moms on this show! Corrina Williams, the widowed mother of one of the star players, Smash, didn't look the other way when she found him using steroids. She is tough on him, but has kept her family together against tough odds and little money.

Tyra Collette and her mother Mindy are the women from the wrong side of the tracks. Last season, when Mindy was dumped by her married boss (Buddy Garrity) with whom she's been having an affair, she walks up to him after church and slaps him. His wife Pam leaves him too, adding another single mom to the show. These Dillon women don't mess around.

That's why I'm disappointed that in the season opener, Tyra is unable to protect herself from a man who attacked her last season and stalks her in this episode. Last season, when her mom's boyfriend hit her mom, Tyra went after him with a poker. In this episode, even after noticing that this guy is following her, and feeling spooked by sounds outside her house, she has not given herself any means of protection in case he confronts her again. This is Texas, and we've seen girls with guns in a previous episode. Or mace at least. But it's her male friend Jesse who fights on her behalf, with disastrous results.

Lyla Garrity, daughter of Buddy and Pam, has been born again over the summer before season two starts. This is a very realistic character in southern America, who I don't think we've seen as anything but a caricature before, so I'll be interested to see where they take her.

Ratings have always been an issue for this show, but for me, it's one of the absolute best shows on the air. So I urge you to watch and help keep it alive!