Volume 25

Eyecandy Staff
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF PRINT WRITERS
debra bilodeau lior ayalon
debra bilodeau
HEAD CONTENT EDITOR jasmine lee ehrhardt
jasmine lee ehrhardt catie ellwood
larissa sturm gonzalez
diana joves
CONTENT EDITORS
marisol medina-cadenalior ayalon
brian mislang
debra bilodeau
jasmine lee ehrhardt BLOG WRITERS
emily landa nick campolito
BLOG EDITORS
amara channerlarissa sturm gonzalez
diana joves
MAGAZINE DESIGN
lior ayalon
debra bilodeau
ren brownell
larissa sturm gonzalez
diana joves
WEB DESIGN
nick campolito
COPY EDITORS
mollie goldberg
larissa sturm gonzalez
emily landa
FACULTY ADVISOR
l.s. kimmollie goldberg
larissa sturm gonzalez
michelle goodman
erika mejia
brian mislanglaura santoro
stephanie villanueva

FINANCIAL MANAGER
brian deangelis
SOCIAL MEDIA
larissa sturm gonzalez
michelle goodman
melissa weiner
CONTRIBUTORS
seth temple andrews
celia fongannie d.
melanya hamasyanjosh “grassy” knoll
remy dixon
megan needels
jenny panush'EDITORS NOTE
Everyone tells you to write what you love, but nobody tells you how. They (who are
they?) teach you to write in arguments, to state your claim, to confine yourself tothat eight-page essay — but they don’t tell you how to put yourself on the page. And
nobody tells you how difficult, gut-wrenching, and exhausting it will be.
That’s exactly what this whole process has been — difficult, gut-wrenching, exhausting
beyond belief. No one could anticipate how much this extended process of emotional
and theoretical digging would reveal about our identities, how important this catharsis
would be, or how friggin’ hard! We want to put our heads down just writing this.
But we wrote — and drew, and photoshopped, and edited — these pieces because it ishard, because we know that understanding the media is key not only to understanding
society, but to changing it as well. We aren’t going to rattle off a list of themes andideas presented in this year’s issue. Doing so would be a disservice to the stakes every
one of us had in our articles and submissions, to the communities we come fromand write about. We made this for ourselves — and for you. We hope our words andimages make you think, and we hope they make you talk.

Table of Contents

4megan needels

5lior ayalon

untitled (tvs)
we’re here, we’re queer, and we like to be scared!

11 diana joves

from cool girl to sociopath

17 debra bilodeau

them are us too // in their own words

25 jasmine lee ehrhardt with artwork by celia fong#fresh off the bandwagon

31 jenny panush

please like me

32 larissa sturm gonzalez

i get my books from my mother37 marisol medina-cadena

screening mi gente: the watsonville film festival

45 melanya hamasyan
de-historicized

47 catie ellwood

boyhood vs girlhood: gender dynamics in coming of age films

54 annie d.

untitled

55 brian mislang

the cult of michael jordan

61 grassy knoll

the old masters

62 remy dixon

rhetorical devices

63 debra bilodeau

dad hard: reconciling feminism and dad culture... with a vengeance.

70 seth temple andrews
infrared tree veins

4

UNTITLED (TVS), megan needels

5

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Lior Ayalon

Queer Identification, Subtext, and Aspirations Within the Horror Genre
You know, vampires have no reflections in a
mirror? There’s this idea that monsters don’t
have reflections in a mirror. […] If you wantto make a human being into a monster, denythem, at the cultural level, any reflection ofthemselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster
in some ways. I didn’t see myself reflected at all.
		–Junot Diaz [i]Though this speech that Junot Diaz1 gave to agroup of students specifically addresses the lack ofrepresentation of people of color in all forms of media,2
his words instantly spoke to me and my own searchfor cultural representation. The relationship between
cultural absence and feelings of monstrosity is one thatanyone of a marginalized underrepresented identity canunderstand, and one that I understood as I came into myqueer identity. As a kid, I consumed seemingly endlessamounts of film, television and other mainstream media
during my early adolescence, but I always felt likethere was something missing. I never felt like I could
relate to conventional images of heterosexual romanceand domesticity when I was struggling so much tounderstand my own identity, one which was clearly
not a part of the picturesque landscape I had come to
expect from Hollywood. Ironically, it was a genre about

monsters that showed me that I am not a monster.
I am queer, and I want to make horror films. I
don’t really know how it started. I mean, I remember thequeer part pretty vividly. But the horror part? I remember
watching one of the Child’s Play films on late nighttelevision when I was about six or seven, and I guess
the rest is history. It’s possible I always had some sortof predisposition towards all things creepy, crawly andspooky, but it does not seem to be a coincidence that thegenre that I always felt most attracted to is also one that
capitalizes on difference as a form of fear. Could it havebeen that I always felt so weird, so different, so “other”
that I grew to identify with the monster? Could years of
middle school bullies calling me a “dyke” and shunningme at the lunch tables made me begin to see myself
as Frankenstein’s monster, eating lunch all by himself
in the bathroom? Ultimately, the representation of theclassic horror monster as the cultural “other,” the genre’s
preoccupation with the body as a source of fright, andinternalized feelings of alienation and exclusion frommainstream media led many queer filmmakers, including
myself, to turn towards the horror genre.
Identification within the horror genre iscomplicated. We’re not supposed to identify with “themonster;” after all, he (and it’s almost always a “he”)
is the reason the genre is called “horror” instead of

1. A writer whose powerful work focuses on his Dominican ethnicity and immigration experience.
2. In other interviews, Diaz has stated that his love of science fiction and other genre fiction is directly couched in his experiences
immigrating to the United States, and that despite genre’s overwhelming whiteness, he was able to see himself in science fiction andfantasy rather than in realistic fiction.

6

“romantic comedy.” But with whom should audiences ofhorror identify? The angry villagers? The mad scientist
who created the monster? The victims? It feels hard to
identify with the victim when they seem to make thewrong decision at every turn. No, don’t leave the group; no,don’t go down those stairs; no, don’t have sex right now,3
you’re supposed to be running for your life! However, as
Carol J. Clover writes in her seminal essay on thepsychoanalysis of gender, sexuality and sex
in horror films, Her Body, Himself: Genderin the Slasher Film, audiences areencouraged to identify with the “Final
Girl,” the inevitable female character
who survives, eventually either to be
rescued from the monster or killinghim herself.[ii] Clover writes that the
Final Girl is signaled as a main character
through her own subverted femininity, as wellas her intelligence, ruthlessness and will to survive.
In this analysis, Clover assumes, and perhaps rightfully
so, that audiences of horror are “by all accounts largely
young and largely male (Clover 192).”4 Clover’s essay is afascinating analysis of this cross-gendered analysis, but
for me it ultimately begged the question: if straight maleteens can identify with the female victims/heroes of a horror
film, can I identify with the male villains of horror films?
Recently, I stumbled across a website advertising a callfor submissions for “a new multimedia festival of genre
works by queer artists, performers, and filmmakers” inPortland, Oregon, which explained some of the appeal:
Maybe it’s the fact that queer people are sooften relegated to shadows of otherness thatthe horror genre is more immediately relatablefor us. We grew up with boogeymen. We’ve
lived with boogeymen. Goblins and ghosts are awelcome escape from real-life monstrosities.[iii]I have to clarify that identification with a character isdifferent than supporting their actions. I do not root

for the villain. I do not wish him triumph, nor do I wish
death upon the victims. It is, in way, almost a selfhating identification. I see how his difference harms
and endangers the villagers, or the teenagers of thesleepy suburban town, and I want him to be punished
for it. I want the respectable villagers and the pretty,
heterosexual teenaged victims totriumph over the horror that
plagues them. I want thedifference to go away.
Ultimately, despite mypeculiar position asafemme-identified
queer, I still occupy
the male gaze and its
hegemonic virtues andexpectations. In order forthe expectations of a traditional
narrative to be satisfied, deviance must be
punished, and I expect that. However, despite the selfloathing nature of my identification, it was nonethelessidentification, which was more than I could find in any
other genre.
Much of the monstrosity in horror films comesfrom a subversion of gender roles.5 For example, Norman
Bates, Buffalo Bill and Dr. Frank-N-Furter all, in someway, were used as a betrayal of traditional masculinity asa scare tactic. Though these characters are undoubtedly
problematic and rooted in transphobia, queer fans andcreators of horror can appropriate them -- in fact, horror
genre’s preoccupation with subverting gender roles canbe appealing to queer individuals who, despite theirgender orientation, may be grappling with gender rolesin their own lives. One queer horror filmmaker who
played with gender roles and sexuality in his own works
is Don Mancini, the writer of all the Child’s Play movies.
Don Mancini also directed the last two installments of
the Chucky franchise – Seed of Chucky (2004) and CurseC o u l d iddlemyears uollfies callingschool ykbe” and shunningve
me a “dhe lunch tables Hian’sme at teel Like Frankente ch
MAde F er, eating lun
monst y himself in the
all b throom?
ba

3. The horror genre is notorious for its morality lessons for young women -- namely, that if you ever have sex, you will die a horrificdeath. Those that survive until the end of horror films are almost always virgins.
4. It should, however, be noted that later in the essay, Clover does consider the implications of a female audience: The audience, wehave said, is predominantly male; but what about the women in it? […] for while it may be that the audience for slasher films is mainly
male, that does not mean that there are not also many female viewers who actively like such films, and of course there are also women,
however few, who script, direct, and produce them.
5. For this reason, the horror genre has an immense problem with perpetuating transphobia. Just because the genre can be a safe spacefor some queer filmmakers doesn’t mean it can’t also be a problematic cesspool for others.

7

of Chucky (2013). Seed of Chucky was overwhelmingly
disliked for its queer content by the film’s audience of“young straight guys.” Though the stereotypical horror
audience has rejected Seed of Chucky, queer horror fanshave embraced it with open arms. The film has goneon to enjoy cult success, occasionally being shown at
midnight a la The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Mancini
discusses the experience of seeing these shows:It’s been really gratifying to see the film go
on to enjoy the biggest cult audience of anyof the Chucky films […] Imagine watching theblood-and-sperm-soaked trials and tribulationsof Chucky’s gender-confused offspring in atheater full of drag queens in San Francisco.[iv]Of course, “queer horror” films, if such a specific genre
could exist outside the confines of Portlandia, are not
all so outlandishly obvious or obscure as Seed of Chucky.
Often just an association with a queer filmmaker or actor

can cause a film to be read as queer.
From its beginnings in German expressionism
and on the Universal backlots, horror has been a venue
which allowed queer filmmakers to flourish, imbuing the
genre with both intentional and unintentional queer
subtext.6 The classic horror film Frankenstein (1931), andits equally classic but significantly campier sequel Bride ofFrankenstein (1935), were both directed by James Whale,
one of the few openly gay men in early Hollywood.[v] It’s
easy to see that even in the original Mary Shelley novel,Frankenstein’s monster is hated because of his senseof “otherness.”7 While most of Whale’s contemporaries
have denied any intentional queer subtext in Bride ofFrankenstein, it has nonetheless been embraced by many
modern queer film theorists as an early beacon of queer
horror, and the monster’s otherness allowed him to beinterpreted as a gay icon.[vi]There is, of course, a fine line between queer

6. F.W. Murnau, director of the classic Dracula-knockoff Nosferatu (1922) and key figure of the German expressionism movement, wasopenly gay. Nosferatu is the first vampire-themed movie, and currently the second-highest rated horror film on Rotten Tomatoes.
7. This is such a high school English class cliché essay prompt that an internet search for “Frankenstein + other” yields Sparknotes as thefirst hit. I, myself, had to write an essay on the subject in my sophomore year of high school.

8

I thought about the demographics for thesetypes of films (young, heterosexual males) andtried to imagine what kinds of things would truly
frighten them, to the core. And scary dreams thatmake them, even momentarily, question theirown sexuality seemed like a slam dunk to me.[viii]
Though it is undoubtedly problematic that the queer
undertones of this film were actually intended to scarestraight, male viewers, this movie is, nonetheless, gay as
heck. Queer viewers were easily able to appropriate thehomophobic undertones of the script and reappropriatedthem as homoerotic subtext. This reappropriation
would be extratextually strengthened years later when
Mark Patton, who played Jesse, came out as gay. Patton
admitted, in a documentary about the franchise, Never
Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (2010), to having
recognized the queer subtext of Freddy’s Revenge,
perhaps while delivering classic lines such as “He’sinside me, and he wants to take me again!” While a young,closeted Patton chose to deny allegations of intentional
subtext in the years immediately following the film’s
release, after the release of Never Sleep Again, Patton
would become a horror convention regular and cement
the film’s place on the shelves of queer horror fanatics
everywhere.[ix] More than just a place on a shelf though,the film has been canonized as a queer film, and is nearlysubtext used to appeal to queer audiences, and queer universally regarded as such. The same can be said for
identities themselves being used to terrify straight Seed of Chucky and Bride of Frankenstein, both to varying
audiences. Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge degrees. Though I can’t say these and other horror films
was released in 1985, seemingly without any intentional filled the vast void aching within me for queer films, they
gay subtext on behalf of the filmmakers. However, the certainly eased the void a little bit.
film would go on to be hailed as “the gayest horror
As I make my way through film school, more andfilm ever.”[vii] The film contains such seemingly queer- more family friends and distant relatives feel compelled
bait-tastic scenes such as the attractive male teenage to ask me,“So, what do you plan on doing after graduation?”protagonist, Jesse, gratuitously roughhousing with his I’ve grown accustomed to the way their faces twist intomale best friend during baseball practice, and Jesse a concerned grimace at my response. “You want to makerunning into his male gym teacher at a leather bar.8 horror films? Well, that’s a good way to break into the
One of the film’s major subplots is Jesse’s inability to industry until you can make some real films, huh?” they
have sex with his girlfriend because he is too haunted say, before they walk away to ask my sister about her
by images of Freddy. As if that weren’t enough, the film’s graduate school program. They can’t understand that
actual tagline was “The man of your dreams is back.” while “real” films might win awards, horror films have had
Screenwriter David Chaskin has stated that the subtext a lasting impact on me. Shot on extremely low budgets,wasn’t entirely unintentional:
marketed primarily to teenage heterosexual boys and8. Queer bait: (n.) the intentional use of homoerotic or homoromantic subtext (often presented as a source of tension) to attract queer
audiences.

9capitalizing on hormones and cheap thrills, most horror
films are considered quintessential “B-movies.” For most“serious” filmmakers and film scholars, the horror genre
is ultimately as cheap as the budget it’s made on. The
genre as a whole is “drenched in taboo and encroachingvigorously on the pornographic, the slasher film lies
by and large beyond the purview of the respectable(middle-aged, middle-class) audience. It has also lain by
and large beyond the purview of respectable criticism.”[x]However, for myself, and so many other queer filmmakers,
it is a first choice. Last year, I attended a “Queer Horror”
panel of filmmakers at San Diego Comic-Con and met
an incredible array of gay, lesbian and queer filmmakers
who look forward to Halloween just as much as I do. I
met the creator of an enormously successful franchise.9
I met successful screenwriters, actors and directors who,
like me, had spent a good chunk of their adolescence
holed up in their bedroom watching horror films on latenight cable. In fact, a lot of the topics discussed at thepanel were also covered earlier in this essay: queerbaiting, canonization, feeling generally alienated anddisenfranchised. The horror genre showed me a space
where I could exist, and Child’s Play was the first of many
mirrors the horror genre created for me. At this panel, I

looked upon a group of successful filmmakers and, forthe first time, felt like I might someday have a place
among them. At this panel, I felt as if I was looking intoa mirror.
[i] Donohue, Brian. “Pulitzer Prize-winning Author Junot Diaz Tells Students His Story.” The Star Ledger, October 21, 2009. Accessed February 7,
2015. http://www.nj.com/ledgerlive/index.ssf/2009/10/junot_diazs_new_jersey.html.
[ii] ”Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film.” In Misogyny,
Misandry, and Misanthropy, edited by R. Howard Bloch and Frances
Ferguson, by Carol J. Clover. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1989.
[iii] “CALL FOR ENTRIES: “Queer Horror” Film Festival (Portland,OR).” Regional Arts & Culture Council. February 6, 15. Accessed February 14, 2015. http://www.racc.org/resources/call-entries-queer-horrorfilm-festival-portland-or.
[iv] Abley, “Don Mancini” in Out in the Dark.
[v] Juergens, Brian. “What’s So Gay About Horror Movies?” The Backlot.
October 29, 2008. Accessed March 19, 2015.
[vi] Juergens, “What’s So Gay About Horror Movies?”[vii] Coates, Tyler. “’A Nightmare On Elm Street 2’ Is The Gayest Horror
Movie Ever Made.” Decider. October 6, 2014. Accessed March 30, 2015.
[viii] Peeples, Jase. “The Scream King: A Nightmare in Hollywood
Couldn’t Kill Mark Patton.” The Advocate. August 6, 2013. Accessed
March 30, 2015.
[ix] Abley, Sean. Out in the Dark: Interviews with Gay Horror Filmmakers, Actors and Authors. Maple Shade, New Jersey: Lethe Press, 2013.
[x] “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film.” In Misogyny,
Misandry, and Misanthropy, edited by R. Howard Bloch and Frances
Ferguson, by Carol J. Clover. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1989.

9. Jeffrey Reddick, the creator of the Final Destination franchise, gave me a hug and complimented my costume.

10

DIANA JOVES
If someone were to refer to the “CoolGirl” myth in everyday conversation, all the
girls would just kind of nod to each otherwith an unspoken understanding. We know who“Cool Girl” is. She plays Grand Theft Auto 5
with the guys while cramming handfuls of Hot
Cheetos into her mouth. She pretends to beinterested in sports, drinking canned beer,and stuffing her face with hamburgers - allwhile somehow maintaining a size two because,
most importantly, “Cool Girl” must be hot.
In film, “Cool Girl” is hot, white, likes all
the same things the male romantic lead likes,
never gets mad – basically, she is every man’s
dream — a dream and an illusion. We know who
this “Cool Girl” is without having to explain,because at one point or another, we tried tobe the cool girl.
I was with my friend at a video game
tournament during Spring Break. She was kicking everyone’s ass and attracting quite thecrowd when a girl came up to us and told her,“You’re what every guy wants.” I understoodthat what she meant was that my friend waspretty, well-dressed, and also happened to be
extremely good at playing Street Fighter. I
knew the girl meant it as a compliment, but
isn’t it funny that being attractive to a guy
is supposed to be a better compliment thanjust telling someone that they’re talented? Inthat moment, my friend was seen as the “CoolGirl” andI can’t tell if this girl was jealous of myfriend or not. This does not mean that any

girl who likes sports or video games is faking it. It is, of course, possible for girls
to genuinely enjoy these things — my friend
had been a fan of video games since she waslittle, far too young to feel the societalpressures to impress the opposite gender. She
wasn’t pretending for anyone. What makes the“Cool Girl” concept a problem is when she lies
to herself and only does something for thesake of male attention. There is definitely
something wrong within our society when thisis something expected of all girls. Pretending
to be someone you’re not in order to be liked
is something everyone is guilty of at least
once in their life. In the film Gone Girl, Amy
Dunne takes it to a whole other level.
Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn’s novel turnedDavid Fincher-directed-screenplay1 is a commentary on the expectations for women tobe every man’s ideal “Cool Girl.” There arepressures placed upon women that just aren’t
present for men. You have to be skinny, but
not too skinny. You also need curves — but
not too many, otherwise you’re fat (one of theworst things a girl could ever be!). You need
to be pretty, but don’t wear too much makeup!
And you can’t just be pretty, you need to bewell-rounded — smart, talented, able to cook,
good at video games, “one of the guys,” — thelist goes on and on. Women are expected to do
all of this and what can guys (who perpetuate
the the Cool Girl fantasy) do? Add on more
false expectations until a girl decides topretend for them and try to fit that image.

1. It is very interesting to note that the far from admirable character of Amy Dunne has been so highly praised by extreme feminists while on the opposite spectrum,
masculinists worship the movie Fight Club along with its highly flawed male protagonists. The connection between the two is that they are both directed by David
Fincher, who seems to enjoy curating films that serve as warnings from one gender extreme to another.

11Gone Girl works as a feminist film because it
unpacks this type of ideology, this myriad of
expectations for women, and reverses the power dynamics in gender by presenting a battle
for dominance with the woman coming out on
top.
“You think I’d let him destroy me and end up
happier than ever? No fucking way. He doesn’t
get to win.”
Unlike female characters in most Hollywood films who remain in secondary roles
compared to men, Amy Dunne refuses to fit
this stereotype. At the start of the film,
the narrative tricks the audience into a senseof familiarity with a string of clichés: amissing wife and a suspicious husband. WhenI was watching the movie with a friend, his
first reaction was to yell out, “The husband
did it!” However, as the film progresses, every plot point fits together too perfectly. It
becomes too predictable.
“I am so much happier now that I am dead.”Amy, the supposed “missing” wife, isstill alive, spinning the plot in the complete
opposite direction from what is expected.
Amy uses her own cleverness and the societal
expectations of femininity to her advantage,
faking her own death and framing her husband
for the supposed murder. She fools everybody
by playing up the image of the abused wife,
afraid of her husband’s temper problems — thequintessential damsel in distress.
One of the most memorable parts in theentire film is Amy’s iconic “Cool Girl” speech,a seven minute-long voice-over monologue featured right in the center of the film, as
she drives away from the “murder” scene in
the getaway car. This is where Amy lays barethe foundations of her motive behind wanting
to frame her husband for murder. All aspectsof both the film and novel point towards Amy
being a sociopath, from her narcissism, lackof empathy, and extremely manipulative nature,but her concept of the “Cool Girl” is one thateveryone can identify with.[i] In today’s society, the Cool Girl ideology is forced upon us
at every turn. On every magazine cover, billboard, television commercial, it’s “Sex Tips

12

To Please Your Man,” “How To Get Men To Notice
You,” “Top 10 Things Men Hate About Women.”
The fact that women are taught to go so far
out of their way just to please men without
reciprocation is extremely indicative of thepatriarchal society that we live in. This typeof ideology correlates to the concept of the“male gaze,” as formulated by British film
theorist Laura Mulvey. Existing as the foundations for any basic feminist film analysis, thephrase “male gaze” refers to how almost every
film is tailored to suit a male audience. The“male gaze” puts females in a position “tobe looked at,” to be desired, devoured, anddominated.To not have agency within the limited periphery of the camera lens, but to be
objectified by an extension of the male gazethrough modern technology.
This is exactly the type of sexist
perception Amy critiques after spending her
entire life within a framework of objectification. Women are taught to form opinions andvalue others based on their attractivenessto men. What the “Cool Girl” concept has incommon with other tropes - such as the manic
pixie dream girl or the fake geek girl - isthat they are all centered around the malegaze. To help the charmingly awkward male leador to wear fake glasses and pretend to likecomic books to attract a man — everything is

tailored to fit the “male gaze.” As Amy says,
you just don’t see men suddenly becoming experts on Jane Austen, learning how to knit,or adopting any other traditionally feminine,
and thus “undesirable,” interests.
However, in this scene in which she condemns men and their unrealistic expectations,
there are no men at all. Amy may blame menfor possessing this problematic ideology andfoisting it upon women, but at the same time
she harbors quite a bit of internalized misogyny, holding women equally accountable forwillingly trying to fulfill this “Cool Girl”
role.2 As Amy sneers with contempt at theother girls driving past her, she takes what
she sees, these superficial images of women
she doesn’t know, and fills in the blanks. “Ifhe likes Girls Gone Wild, she’s a mall babe whotalks football and endures buffalo wings at
Hooters. Maybe he’s a hipster artist, so CoolGirl is a tattooed bespectacled nerd who loves
comics. There are variations to the window
dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl.”
Amy’s internalized misogyny is further
explicated as we see her treatment of otherfemale characters within the film.3 She neverrefers to Noelle Hawthorne, her neighbor andsupposed best friend, by name, but insteadrefers to her as a “pregnant idiot,” and likewise refers to Andie, the girl Nick is having

2. Something that is not to her own design, but something that she has been conditioned into believing because of what society has forced upon her.
3. Although Amy may be considered a sociopath by most movie-goers and the author, Gillian Flynn herself, it can be argued that she hates everyone equally. However, I don’t believe that this excuses her from being labeled as misogynistic. Within the writing of fiction, every tiny aspect is a decision that is consciously made by theauthor, and in this case, the author herself is a self-proclaimed feminist, leading me to believe that she deliberately chose to characterize Amy in this manner, and it
is to which Amy should be held accountable.

13

an affair with, as a “slut,” never referringto her by her actual name. Amy’s patronizing
tone towards all women, strangers or acquaintances, makes it clear that she holds herself
at a much higher level than everyone else,
which highlights another myth that isn’t explicitly mentioned in the film: the myth of
the “Other Girl.” Most likely recognized within the phrase used by (usually unconsciously)
misogynistic women, “Oh, I’m not like Other
Girls.” Other Girls are the amalgamation of
every traditionally feminine, and therefore“negative,” stereotype about women out there:
air-headed, obsessed with shopping, makeup
and the color pink, gossipy, etc. If the “CoolGirl” is a product of men’s fantasies, the“Other Girl” is a product of women’s fear forthemselves. Subconsciously or not, they view
being a woman as something that is so inherently negative that they needto distance themselves fromit by clarifying that they are
different, they aren’t like
Other Girls.
Amy views herself as
superior to all other womenout there. She is the anomaly, the only one, the chosenone. And in a sense, she is.
Amy would not be able to go
through with her elaborate planif she had not been born into
the circumstances that she
was. How would the story be
different if Amy had been Latina? Black? Poor? The answer isclear. She wouldn’t have beenable to gain national coverage, she’d have been less likely to gather thefunds she needed to fake her own death, have
nice, wealthy parents to organize a fundraiser
and search for her, and even if she did get
far enough to fake her own murder, would she
also have the convenience of a rich, white
ex-boyfriend? The truth is, if Amy had been
anything other than white, upper-middle class,
Ivy League-educated, and conventionally attractive, the story would have been extremely
different. Her privilege is what allows her
the ability and resources to fake her own
murder, the time to carefully organize a color-coded post-it calendar schedule itinerary;it allows her to get the national coverage sheneeds to get the media and the nation’s sympathy on her side, and most importantly, tohate her ex-husband. Amy’s inherent knowledgeof racist media reflects on her ability torecognize the feasibility of her plan. In other words, she knows her plan will work per-fectly, and wouldn’t require too much effort
to create media buzz about a white, blonde,
helpless housewife.
The only time that Amy is ever “calledout” on her privilege and has a kind of “reality check” is when Amy is robbed by Greta
and Jeff; and even after that, when she isstripped of everything she owns, she is still
able to fall back onto her deus ex machina—
the rich, white ex-boyfriend who conveniently
hides her in his spare lake house. Even when
she is called out on her position of self-indulgence and privilege, it isn’t enough, andshe still gets to run away to safety.
Despite the fact that Amy is able to escapeher dilemma relatively unscathed, the scene
in which she is robbed still stands out asa very prominent moment that highlights her
privileged position within society. She doesn’t

actually know true violence and abuse; when
Jeff and Greta come into her apartment, shedoesn’t know what to do at all. Amazing Amy isfinally stumped. She doesn’t scream or fightback, all she has are empty threats — they
have already seen through her disguise andare aware of the fact that she is on the run,which prevents her from going to the cops.
Jeff says, “I bet you’ve never even reallybeen hit before.” He’s right, of course. Amy
flinches right as they make any sort of movement. Greta had gotten her character correct
exactly: “Looks like a spoiled, rich bitch tome.”
Another thing that stands out as extremely problematic is Amy’s repeated false
accusations of rape. This film may be a workof fiction, but it still works to perpetuate
the myth that women often lie about abuse andrape. The reality is that one in four women— 25% — have experienced domestic violence14

in her lifetime. Domestic violence is also
one of the most underreported crimes, and on
average, 92 to 98.5% of rape accusations aretrue.[ii] Amy stands out as every man’s worstnightmare: a woman scorned who fakes her own
murder, abuse, rape, and pregnancy, all to get
revenge against a man. She eventually comesout as victor. In reality, Amy is even worse
than Cool Girl. She’s aware of the myth of theCool Girl and doesn’t do anything to tear it
down, and while she may use men’s fantasies
of Cool Girl against them, she does so in her
own ignorance and dismissal of actual victimsof abuse and domestic violence.
It is easy for spectators to merely
view the film at surface level and proclaim it
as anti-feminist: the crazy, psychotic woman
entraps the innocent, unsuspecting male. However the film is not as simple as that. Amy’s
husband, Nick Dunne, is far from innocent.
Though it is a bit glossed over in the film,in the novel his misogynistic, asshole tendencies are far more pronounced — he is anabusive liar, cheats on his wife, and most importantly, is a product of society programmed

15

to expect women to fit into his every ideal.
He wanted “Cool Girl” from the moment he met
Amy, and just like society had programmed
her, she molded herself to fit the role Nickwanted. Even Desi, her ex-boyfriend, obsessedwith everything Amy Dunne to the point ofstalking her, cannot accept her for who she
is. When the two are reunited, Desi is visibly
shocked by her haggard appearance. When they
get back to his place, he immediately sets out
on transforming her back to being aesthetically pleasing—buying her hair dye, clothes,
makeup, and telling her that he has his own
private gym. He tells her “I just want you tobe you again.” Essentially, he is not in lovewith Amy, but is in love with her portrayalof the Cool Girl. He is just like Nick, nottaking into account the actual woman herself,
but feeling entitled to a woman who fits his
personal ideals. Both of these male characters are not helpless victims, and though they
don’t engage in the same level of violence as
Amy, they are still just as complicit in perpetuating these harmful ways of thinking about
what a woman “should” be.
Amy not only made herself into “CoolGirl,” but also made Nick into a “Cool Guy.”
She did to Nick what so many men do to women, stating that she “forged the man of mydreams.” When they both lose their jobs andare forced to deal with financial debt, Theirlives are suddenly no longer perfect Amy not
only made herself into “Cool Girl,” but also
made Nick into a “Cool Guy.” She did to Nick
what so many men do to women, stating thatshe “forged the man of [her] dreams.” Whenthey both lose their jobs and are forced todeal with financial debt, their lives are suddenly no longer perfect and Nick finally takes
notice of the situation he’s been forced into
— he is no longer happy with the arrangement.
As a coping method he finds himself a “newer, younger, bouncier Cool Girl.” But insteadof passively accepting this, Amy takes action
and sets out for revenge. A revenge thathas been made possible by her upbringing as“Amazing Amy” — she’s completely aware of whatis needed to manipulate someone and that she
is capable of doing so.
The birth of “Amazing Amy” as a character in the children’s book series that real-Amy’s parents created was a result of theirown desires to have the perfect child. Rightfrom the beginning, Amy was in constant comparison to an imaginary twin that she couldn’t
have a healthy competition with — Amazing Amy
was always the better and more perfect one
because she was fictional. From an early age

Amy was conditioned to always have perfection
expected of her, which made her the ideal
victim for the entire “Cool Girl” ideology.
Like Amy’s parents, society conditions girls tofeel as if “perfection” is expected of them,and normalizes all these grandiose expectations.
Just like how Nick Dunne is not the“innocent, unsuspecting husband,” Amy Dunne
is not the “psycho bitch” that ruins his life.
What separates Amy from the “psycho bitch”
trope is that her actions have reason behindthem. She is calculated and logical within her
particular mindset, whereas the “psycho bitch”
is merely irrational and emotional for no goodreason. In an interview.[iii] Author Gillian Flynn clarifies the difference between the psycho
bitch trope and sociopath:“Q: Isn’t there a fine line between thedarkness of women and the stereotypicalpsycho bitch?
A: Well, I don’t write psycho bitches. The
psycho bitch is just crazy, she has no motive, she’s a dismissible person because ofher psycho bitchiness. And to me the whole
point is to write scary women who aren’t
dismissible, who are frightening and calculating but you know the reason why. You
know Amy’s back story. And, to me, she’s
sympathetic. I mean, I wouldn’t go on aroad trip with her or anything.
Q: Yet her response to an unfaithful husband is so extreme—so potentially psycho
bitchy.
A: She’s a functioning sociopath. She’s nota well person. But that’s very different
than the iconic psycho bitch. I’m talking
about the capital P, capital B Psycho Bitch,which to me is [Whispers]: She’s just crazy’cause her lady parts have gone crazy!”
When we think of the psycho bitch trope, we
think of characters like Alex Forrest, played
by Glenn Close, in Fatal Attraction (1987),
the obsessive ex-girlfriend Stacy from Wayne’s
World (1992), or the new temp Lisa (who Beyoncé destroys) in Obsessed (2009). Glenn Close is
widely considered the original pioneer of thepsycho bitch trope in her role of the single
woman who engages in an affair with a marriedman, then launches herself on a home-wrecking
mission at all costs. Her decisions (kidnapping a child, cutting herself, killing a bunny)are considerably desperate and irrational. This
is what separates her from Amy, whose actions
are fueled by her dissatisfaction with theinequality between gender-based expectations.
The psycho bitch trope has now evolved into

a new character type with not only an understandable motive, but agency to be a subject,
not an object.
“You’re what every guy wants.” I’m notblaming that girl for what she said, because
she probably didn’t even realize the implications behind her “compliment,” which is thecore issue of sexism today. Most people don’tknow that they’re being sexist. So what is myreal message? Don’t stereotype, don’t manipulate, don’t try to lump all girls together
in separate categories, and stop trying toproject this idealized “Cool Girl” image onto
every girl. I’m not saying it’s bad for men tohave standards, like wanting a girl who has
the same interests as them, but when thosesame characteristics are projected on every movie and television screen, it has reallife consequences. Life imitates art and soonthese female characters become role models
for young women and dream girls for youngmen. But how can we achieve something that
doesn’t exist? Amy Dunne is important because
she takes that concept of the “Cool Girl” andsmashes it to pieces. Amy Dunne is not a goodrole model for women nor is she the hero thatwomen need. However, I believe that maybe sheis the anti-hero that women need. She exists
within cinema as proof that the “Cool Girl”
doesn’t exist, that it is destructive to live
a pretend existence to please other people,
and in the end, she represents the ability forfemale characters to exist outside of stereotypes, as multi-faceted characters within
film.
If the film focused on the contest of
Amy and Nick’s messed up marriage, the end of
the film opens up a door to the new fucked
up contest of which parent can instill moreof their problematized ideology onto their
new child. Amazing Amy met a perfect guy, got
married, and can now spend the rest of herdays playing house with her own botched creation of the stereotypical nuclear family —the perfect happy ending.
From “Cool Girl” to sociopath, Gone Girl finally ends with Amy Dunne, triumphant.
[i] Kim, Jeanie. “Is That Character From ‘Gone Girl’ Really a Psychopath?”. Health. October 6, 2014. Accessed May 3, 2015. http://news.health.
com/2014/10/06/is-that-gone-girl-character-a-psychopath/[ii] Brent E., Turvey. “Forensic Victimology: Examining Violent Crime Victims in
Investigative and Legal Contexts.” Academic Press, 2013. 265.
[iii] Parsi, Novid. “Gillian Flynn on Gone Girl | Interview.” TimeOut. February 6,
2013. Accessed May 1, 2015. http://www.timeout.com/chicago/books/gillian-flynn-on-gone-girl-interview.

16

17

THEIR OWN WORDS

CASH: For me, music is always visual, so the aesthetic comes really naturally. When I hear the song, myhead is already full of moving colors and forms in a very abstract way, so the task of making a video was more
to find subject matter that could take on the colors and movement that I was already seeing. We’re also bothvery sensitive to the feeling of spaces, and we talked about the approach of imagining a space that could embody/contain the feeling of the song. Then you can just let characters and narrative form naturally within that space. We never approached it with a definite story in mind, it was much looser and more surrealistic.

How did you go about translating your music to a visual style?

THEM ARE US TOO

Debra Bilodeau

Them Are Us Too, Cash Askew and Kennedy Ashlyn
Wenning, are a Bay Area-based duo who met while at
UCSC. Their debut LP Remain immerses the listener inmassive hollows of sinister drum machine, siren-like
vocals, and scintillating guitar, and has been featured
on Press Play, NOISEY, and The FADER. I communicated with them via email to discuss their artistic
process and their first music video, “Eudaemonia.”

18

CASH: I’ve always been a huge fan of music videos - some of my favorite childhood memories are watching music
video collections with my dad on VHS, bands like Depeche Mode, the Cure, Duran Duran. I agree with Kenn thatthey can add a lot of depth to the music and guide the experience of it. Even just having a cohesive visual aesthetic
that complements the music I think adds something. Videos allow you to fully immerse yourself in a piece of musicin a different way, which I love. And to create one was just an exciting challenge to push our creative process further.

KENNEDY: I see music videos as an opportunity to further situation of the song/album/artist aesthetically, emotionally, and ideologically. It’s a challenging task to approach because there is not necessarily a pure isolated meaning
to begin with to even attempt to translate… it’s a lot of vagueness and paradox and tension that the song in someway captures, but becomes finite only through its creation. So the video has an opportunity to clarify, or illustrate inanother way the “meaning” of the song, which is ultimately undefinable and continually being constructed.

Music videos are such an interesting art form that I feel like no one ever really
discusses in depth. Was your video just for practical purposes (publicity) or forsomething... different (for yourselves, for your music / “art,” etc)?

KENNEDY: ...We also want to encourage other artists not to think of physical space as a roadblock to achieving
your vision. A lot can be done to mundane spaces to transform them entirely.

CASH: We specifically tried to work out an aesthetic that would work with the low quality of the camera. I
liked taking advantage of the low resolution to keep things very vague. Letting the images be grainy and unclear really helps get the kind of unsettling atmosphere we wanted, it adds to the sense that something is wrong.

KENNEDY: It was a fun creative challenge to start with a vague aesthetic idea and then look for materials that could lend [themselves] to that world, and then hammer out the details based on what we found. It’s
a way that we are very comfortable working [with] and similar to our songwriting process… trying to achieve
an idea within strict material limits, which forces us to be inventive and industrious. The limits also shapethe direction and ultimately the result… our work is kind of co-created by our ideas and our limitations.
So it wasn’t necessarily like we wanted to make a “lo-fi” video per se, but since we could only finda shitty 10 year-old camera and a few flashlights for lighting, we rolled with it and tried to create thebest effect that is possible with those tools, rather than pretend we were working beyond our means.

CASH: We didn’t really plan ahead for the video, just decided to go for it one night. The camera we had was not evena video camera, just an old 2000s point-and-shoot digital camera that could take a few minutes of video at a time.

What was the process of making your music video? It has a really cool low-res /digital lo-fi look to it. Was that intentional?

19

KENNEDY: I see narrativization of space/time/actions as an internal coping mechanism for dealing with the infinite multiplicities and paradoxes of life and as
a way for our brains to manage chaos. The imagery that we chose is what we are
attracted to visually as people, and it’s interesting (though not that surprising) that themes like femininity, secrets, and vulnerability seem to appear intentionally. These are things that are viscerally present in each of ourlives, so I guess it’s not surprising that they appear in something we make.

CASH: There’s definitely a lot of symbolism going on, but when it comes to symbols
I hate the idea that there is a direct A to B correlation, that everything has
a specific intended meaning that can be translated if you know the code. We both
feel strongly about that - any conceit of absoluteness is totally absurd. So we
wanted to work with images in a symbolic or poetic way, and none of it is very
defined. As I said before, we started by creating a space, or rather two spaces,that would give off the right feeling. We wanted to suggest tension and anxiety as
well as vulnerability and isolation. I think secrets come into play here, there’s
a tension between isolation and intimacy that permeates the video. There’s a lotof unclear connection and communication between the two spaces that are alluded
to through the actions of each person. I think we hoped to create a feeling of abroken closeness. There’s delicacy in every aesthetic choice, but it’s also charged
with violence. But it’s such a complicated thing that I think comes across a lot
better when you can’t actually tell what’s going on, when there’s not a real story.

The use of symbols in your video is really interesting, almost surreal. The flowers, the use of water, and the bloodiness of the plum all make me think of femininity / femme-ness; the use of flash, the disembodied hand withthe cigarette, the sealed envelope make me think about secrets… I am particularly interested in the surreptitiousness of how Cash is filmed: the flashlight, the darkness, the sense of being exposed + vulnerable in the shower shot; the refraction of Kennedy’s hands/legs in the water / what looks like drowning. Can you comment on that?

20

With this video actually I had kind of a hard time when we were about to releaseit, because there was a very insecure part of me that was really worried about people seeing me with a beard and misgendering me. I identify as transfeminine (nonbinary, but on the femme end of the spectrum) and it is very difficult to get people to understand and recognize that I am not male. But when we shot the video,
we were actually in the middle of a tour and I had left my facial hair alone outof total laziness. Then that suddenly becomes the image of me that people will beseeing without any other context for my identity. It is weird having to represent yourself to an unknown public, and not know how they will perceive or react toyou. My gender identity certainly informs the way I make music and art, but I also
don’t want to have to make a big deal about it. It’s something that I always keep
in mind when we put ourselves out in the world, but it’s very difficult to address.

CASH: I think, in the way we present ourselves and our work, we consciously towork outside of expectations that people have based on our genders (or perceived
genders). For me, being queer has a lot to do with fluidity and trying to breakout of the strictly defined logical frameworks that structure every aspect of
our lived experience. Gender is certainly a huge part of that, but I also carry that through into everything I do. I don’t ever want to occupy an easily definable category. When it comes to the band, I like leaving people unsure and leaving space for feelings to guide the experience rather than learned expectations.

KENNEDY: We haven’t yet had the opportunity to discuss publicly our identities asqueer artists, but queerness is a super important part of both of our identities(both as artists and as people). Although what we’ve made so far does not really comeacross as “queer” in stereotypical ways, our queerness(es) come out through what we
make because they are not a separable part of our identities, not an additive thingthat we can decide to turn on or off. Similarly, we both are aware of and are continually thinking about how the patriarchal gaze and its effects manifest in performance (both day-to-day and artistic). I’m not even sure we talked about it specifically while making this video, but since it’s something we normally think about
on the day-to-day, our relationship to that idea appeared in the video as well.

I feel like in your press there hasn’t been much of any mention of queer / non-binary identity. By nomeans do I want to define you by it or think that you need to talk about it at all, and recognize thatthat may be a conscious choice. However, I do think that it is a really powerful thing— and that your peers(and fans?) would appreciate seeing how these identities affect your music (and, by extension, this video).

21

THEM ARE US TOO are touring North America this summer. For tour dates andto buy / listen to their album, please visit
facebook.com/themareustoo !

CASH: Yeah, I don’t think we ever would’ve gotten to where we find ourselves now
without the support of spaces like SubRosa, and I am eternally grateful for being welcomed into that community. The ability to go out and play on our own terms
for people who are open and thoughtful and more interested in art that is honest
than what is trendy has been amazing. And spaces involved in DIY music scenes canalso be entry points to huge networks of support where you can find like-mindedpeople all over the country doing rad shit, whether or not anyone in the “outside” world cares. We wouldn’t be able to tour without the people we’ve met thisway, let alone have access to spaces where we feel understood and relatively safe.

KENNEDY: DIY spaces and artists are super critical to us. It’s the world we came up in andin which we continue to grow into ourselves as artists. It also just represents to me ultimate autonomy (and community autonomy) over your own art and collaborative projects.

What are your thoughts on the digital / DIY / grassroots aesthetic and community (both “local” and “artistic”?)

22

UCSC Alumni

Evan Holmthe river made no soundMay 21 - June 27, 2015

special artist talk tour: saturday,
June 13, 2-3:00PM
https://vimeo.com/106026830

vesselgallery

471 25th Street | Oakland, California| vessel-gallery.com

23

if you can see
yourself in

join us for our
next issue
to find out more about us,
email us ateyecandyfilmjournal@gmail.com
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facebook and follow us on
twitter @eyecandyucsc24

#FRESH OFF
THE BANDWAGON
Jasmine Lee Ehrhardt
Artwork by Celia Fong
ABC’s new sitcom Fresh Off the Boat premiered

February 4th, 2015, and since then I have live-tweeted every episode, read every single thinkpiece about it, and gotten into plenty of heated debates about the show. As thefirst network sitcom to feature an Asian American family intwenty years, the significance of this sitcom has not been
lost on anyone. At first, I felt extremely hopeful and excited
for this step in representing my community; however, thatquickly changed.

Knowing that I wanted to write about Fresh Off theBoat, and its inspiration, celebrity chef and television personality Eddie Huang’s memoir of the same name, meantthat I was constantly writing and rewriting my article as theshow’s first season developed. What began as an exciting
and joyful experience quickly spiraled into one where I
found myself wanting to distance myself from the show
more and more. In addition to slowly realizing that I could
not side with Fresh Off the Boat for its politics, I foundmyself more and more hesitant to truly critique and speakout against the show. It’s been scary voicing my discontent to other members of my community that seemingly
adore the show. The notion of respectability politics - themistaken belief that if a person of color behaves in a quiet,

25

subservient, and unnoticeable way, they can overcome
any racial barrier - has been circling in my head throughout this whole process, ever since it was announced that
Huang’s book would be turned into a pilot for ABC. I havefelt pressured to be respectable and only show love for ashow that has continually disappointed me - and yet, theshow itself, and Huang’s memoir, seem to want to reject
this idea of respectability as well. Part of the appeal of Eddie Huang is that he actively condemns any model minority tropes of subservience that, as an East Asian Americanman, are thrust upon him. His persona and his personalbrand all make an effort to present someone who is brash,
loud, and doesn’t take crap from anyone. I’ll admit that
there was a time where I looked up to Eddie Huang andtried really hard to ignore his problematic actions because
I was feeling so dissatisfied with the politeness of other
Asian American spaces I have been in. Huang’s shittalking, no-fucks-given personality is a welcome breath of
fresh air compared to the more moderate Asian American
voices accepted and amplified by white America. While I
begrudgingly admire his tenacity and his hustle, my experiences seeing Fresh Off the Boat and engaging with theextratextual aspects of the show - including Huang’s recent
conduct - have made me want to reconsider his status, andthe status of this show, as notable or praiseworthy parts of
the larger Asian American
community.
Huang claims in his memoir and in his many
appearances on TEDtalks and on panels that he grew up
on hip-hop and hip-hop culture, and states that he foundsolidarity and support in that music and culture in the faceof being bullied in school and facing physical and mental
abuse from his parents.[i] I do not wish to negate his experience as a survivor of parental abuse (an issue in the Asian
American community that needs to be unpacked in andof itself), but something doesn’t sit right with me. Huang’sposturing, his streetwear, his co-opting of African-American Vernacular English, and his insistence on beingreferred to as “Rich Homie Huang,” “Kim Jong Trill,” andother hip-hop monikers don’t seem to come from a placeof respect to blackness or hip hop.[ii] It seems that Huang
merely basks in the “novelty” of seeing these coders on an
Asian body - I rarely see him engaging in true acts of solidarity with hip hop and black people, and I don’t hear him
verbally acknowledging hip hop’s historical root in black
communities either. Huang ignores the power structuresthat grant him, whether or not he rejects the model minority stereotype, enormous power over black Americans, andseems to feel that because of his difficult childhood, he
can take on the markers of blackness and use them as his
own personal brand. I understand Huang’s desire to not
be seen as the model minority- it is incredibly damaging
not only to Asian Americans but is also used to reinforce
racial hierarchies in America. After all, a “good” minority(Asian Americans) can’t exist without the contrasting “bad”
minority (black and Latin@ people).1 However, treating
another culture that you claim “raised” you as a part ofyour bankable brand - as a chef, as a television and web
personality, as public figure - is not respect.2 Unfortunately,
because Huang’s life and brand are so saturated with thematerial markers of hip hop, the ABC adaptation of hislife shows the same lack of respect for the communities it
claims to engage with.

If most of Huang’s appeal is the novelty of seeing
an Asian man performing blackness as a part of his brand,
ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat capitalizes on the novelty of not
only seeing an Asian family on a primetime network show,
but having that sitcom set to a hip hop soundtrack insteadof the stereotypical gongs and zithers. With a theme
song written by rapper Danny Brown and a soundtrackcomprised of mostly 90’s hip hop (early Snoop Dogg, The
Notorious B.I.G., and plenty of Ice Cube), it’s not hard to
see that the show is catering to hip hop heads of all ages.
However, the show does the same thing that Huang does-- it makes the material and sartorial aesthetics, not thepolitics, of hip hop central to their projects. Our introduction to young Eddie (Hudson Yang) and the first scene
in the pilot episode starts with a rapid-fire montage of
close-ups of Eddie donning gold rings, a huge gold chain,
and a sideways baseball cap.[iii] The camera zooms out and
we see young Eddie - chubby, a little bit awkward, looking clearly ridiculous in this attempt to “get the authentic
look.” Throughout the show, Eddie’s t-shirts only feature
the logos, album art, and faces of other rappers - but wenever see Eddie retreat to hip hop for guidance or someformation of an identity beyond the sartorial. Unfortunately, this attitude of loving the culture but not the people thatit came from (one that is repeated ad infinitum throughout
pop culture in America) is repeated in the show’s narrative
and treatment of black people as well.

1. The model minority myth posits that East Asian Americans “disprove” racist structures in America, citing SAT scores, median household incomes, and graduation rates
to show that if a person of color merely works hard and keeps their heads down, they can succeed. This myth was established after the Civil Rights Movement to divide
people of color and prevent racial solidarity, to pit them against each other across racial lines and try to pull Asian Americans closer to whiteness.
2. I find it incredibly telling that Huang is ready to engage in incredibly problematic and harmful codes of behavior towards anyone who disagrees with him simply tocounteract a stereotype that causes him and other Asian American men harm.

26hierarchies. Delegating the one and only black characterto “The One Who Calls Eddie a Racial Slur” is lazy anduninspired writing, and instead creates a hierarchy of“most racist” (Walter) and therefore “most harmful” (again,
Walter). In the eighth episode, a new student - a Chinese
adoptee - comes to Eddie’s school, Eddie and the transfer
student pass Walter in the hallway. Eddie says, “You’re on
the bottom now. You’re outnumbered.” Eddie and Walter
resorting to petty verbal jabs and mutual animosity tokeep from being stuck “in the bottom” of the racial andsocial hierarchy at school reflects their earlier conflicts
while enforcing these aforementioned hierarchies. This, ofcourse, ignores the fact in that the grand scheme of things,
Walter will always be on the bottom, and no amount of
microaggressions or slurs against Eddie will be the sameas the systemic racism that Walter will face throughout hiswhole life.

The character of Walter, the only black person in
Eddie’s grade, is the most obvious indication of Fresh Off
the Boat’s anti-blackness. Throughout the narrative arc of
the show, the relationship between Walter and Eddie is
one that is incredibly problematic - Walter is alternately apotential friend, an aggressor, and a gimmick. In the pilot
episode, some white kids at the “popular table” get Eddie’s attention, and ask him to join them because of sharedobsession with Notorious B.I.G., who graces Eddie’s t-shirt.
Eddie promptly abandons Walter and joins this othertable.3 This prompts Walter, alone at his lunch table, tocomment: “An Asian dude and a white dude bonding
over a black dude. This cafeteria is ridiculous.”4 It is here we
see that Walter is used as a prop between the two “sides”- Asian versus white - as a way to cheekily and self-effacingly call attention to the complex triangulations of racein Eddie’s school. The power dynamics of this bond aremarked by the fact that the kids continue to exclude Walter but mutually fawn over Biggie, essentially loving thisculture more than the actual people who created it. Laterepisodes featuring Walter use him only in this way, and to
see this repeated every week was incredibly frustrating.

However, Fresh Off the Boat also worked hard to“rectify” their treatment of Walter at the end of the eighth
episode, about two months after the premiere. Both Eddie
and Walter show up at school wearing identical Beastie
Boys “Licensed to Ill” t-shirts, and Eddie and Walter bondover a mutual love for the Beastie Boys. As they walk down
the hallway together, eagerly discussing the concert, theadult Huang’s narration comes in: “An Asian kid and a
black kid bonding over Jewish rappers. America’s crazy.”In this scene and at this point in the narrative, Fresh Off
the Boat has come full circle since our first introduction to
Walter, yet still maintains a triangulation of race relations
instead of working to unpack this tension between blackand Asian people. It’s almost as if there needs to be athird party interloper (in this case, a band of white Jewish
rappers) to bring these two “sparring” minorities together. 5 Though this newfound friendship is indeed a happysight (they aren’t bathed in golden light for nothing), it still
doesn’t erase or make up for the treatment of Walter inearlier episodes. In addition, the issue of using the Beastie
Boys instead of a group of black rappers as the point ofconnection for Walter and Eddie shows that the show
wanted to create a respectable, Kumbaya-esque gateway
to black culture without having to resort to using an actual
black musician. Asian kids and white kids can bond over

Later on in the pilot, Eddie goes to the microwave
to heat up his Lunchable and Walter cuts him in line, telling
Eddie that he’s on “the bottom” now. Eddie responds withthe requisite, “No, you are!” -- and Walter’s response is,“It’s my turn, ch*nk!” The fact that Walter, the only blackkid, is not only used to offer a snappy one-liner but now
plays the role of the verbally abusive aggressor speaks
volumes about the show’s mishandling of real-world racial
3. Of course, Eddie would be rejected from this same table for having “stinky” Chinese food for lunch.
4. In the third episode, Eddie is teased for not owning Air Jordans, and when he points out that Walter doesn’t own any, a white kid points out, “Yeah, but he’s black.
That’s like built-in Jordans.” Walter responds with an exasperated, “This school is ridiculous.” Walter doesn’t need the Jordans to be cool, but he also is still not closefriends with any of his classmates. Relating blackness to a material, consumable good only seems to reinforce this trend of commodification in the show.
5. After the eighth episode, Walter joins becomes one of Eddie’s predominantly white friend group, settled comfortably in the background after he’s done being used as
an antagonist. Walter’s “evolution” through the show doesn’t make up for the previous problems of anti-blackness, even if it demonstrates growth or character development. It’s more of a band-aid than a completed healing process. In fact, Walter becoming a background character for the rest of the season only shows that the writers
of Fresh Off the Boat have not yet undone the anti-blackness they wrote into the show in the first place.

27

mutual adoration of black rappers, but an Asian kid anda black kid can’t bond without a third (white) party. It’s
through this consumption, co-opting, and general misrepresentation of hip-hop that ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat
doesn’t work, and Eddie Huang isn’t immune from thiscriticism either. It’s incredibly frustrating to see this play out
in a show that is seen as a source of progressive representation for only Asian Americans.
In addition, the show - and Huang himself - haveplenty of problems with misogyny as well. In the third
episode, I found myself sitting with my jaw hanging open
watching young Eddie’s fantasy - a mock hip hop video play out onscreen. Eddie perches on the hood of a muscle
car, surrounded by popping and locking women, as abare leg and heeled foot emerge from another fancy car.
The object of Eddie’s fantasy, his adult neighbor, steps out
and the camera tilts up her scantily clad body. To show
his appreciation, Eddie sprays her with his Capri Sun. By
showing only a clichéd re-presentation of an eleven year
old’s fantasy of a hip hop music video - featuring a fancy
car, popping and locking women, cash money, and theauthentic streetwear “look” - Fresh Off the Boat shows thatyoung Eddie is only looking to hip hop for how to pick up
girls. By doing so, this scene ends up conflating blackness
and misogyny.6 By tying Eddie’s growing misogyny to hiphop culture, the show removes any kind of potential for

Eddie to find empowerment or political solidarity in hiphop. This episode “denigrates hip-hop culture by portraying it as a vector for adopting sexist attitudes,” ultimately
condemning an entire subculture to being a hotbed of
misogyny.[iv]Fresh Off the Boat’s unproblematized misogyny is,unfortunately, not merely confined to the show. A recent
Twitter debacle involving Huang and prominent black
feminist blogger/activist Mia McKenzie of Black Girl Dangerous revealed him to be the exact opposite of someone
the community should be looking to for inspiration.[v] Afterappearing on Real Time With Bill Maher and claiming thatblack women and Asian men are equally oppressed because of some dating statistics on OKCupid, a number ofblack and Asian American feminists took to Twitter to callhim out - myself included.[vi] After many Twitter users pointed out that a dating statistic is not the same as structuraland institutional oppression, Huang began to call McKenzie a “bum,” and then silenced her critiques by offering totake her on a date - instead of listening to what she had
to say, or stepping back to realize that his words, had, youknow, caused some harm. Though Huang’s crashing andburning online occurred well after the season finale ofFresh Off the Boat premiered and he had already disavowed himself from the show, I couldn’t help but thinkback to the third episode and that the casual misogyny -6. In addition, Eddie’s misguided or “innocent” misogyny is never corrected in the course of the narrative. Even the interruption of the first fantasy by Eddie’s parents
doesn’t “call out” Eddie’s objectification of his neighbor, and a lawn dart in Eddie’s back at the end of the episode isn’t an adequate punishment for that misguided
misogyny either.

28

played as a part of a joke! - had a specific root somewhere.
After all, it’s Huang who advocates for upskirt shots at an
anime convention in Taiwan in his Vice food travel webseries.7 It’s Huang who named items on his first restaurant
menu “Poontang Potstickers,” “Concubine Cucumbers,”and “Taiwanese Flat Booty Cake.”[vii] Both Huang andABC’s Fresh Off the Boat are rife with anti-blackness andmisogyny - it’s not at all the kind of representation that I
want associated with my community.
As if Fresh Off the Boat’s anti-blackness andmisogyny weren’t enough, the tenth episode, entitled“Blind Spot,” features an Asian character in brownface. The
character in question is Eddie’s mom’s gay ex-boyfriend,
Oscar, who is already rife with homophobic stereotypes. In
the process of auditioning for Aladdin on Ice, Oscar donsDisney’s Aladdin costume and darkens his face to performa rendition of “A Whole New World” for the Huangs. It’s
presented without comment and without retribution forthis character, and is honestly the most confounding andbizarre misstep that Fresh Off the Boat has taken thus
far.8 On the one hand, it shows incredible disregard forhistorical trends of brownface, and on the other it reduces darker-skinned people, Asian or otherwise, into morecomedic tropes. Between decontextualizing hip-hop,treating Walter as a prop, and this latest misstep, the show
seems to be working really hard to lift up only East Asiansor Taiwanese-Americans at the expense of other races. I
do not want my media and representation for me to be
simultaneously kicking down everyone else.
Fresh Off the Boat, needless to say, has been an
experience, and the extratextual experience has been
almost, if not more, interesting than the show itself. My
weekly live-tweets were a part of a larger conversation on
Twitter with other people, Asian and non-Asian alike. It wasamazing to see people agreeing with me when we felt joy
and frustration in watching the show, and amazing to see
the dialogues spring up in short bursts of 140 characters.
Another extratextual discourse I participated in was in theregular viewings of Fresh Off the Show, a talkback show
hosted by stand-up comedian Jenny Yang and blogger
Phil Yu of Angry Asian Man. Every week, they and a guest
would broadcast a conversation between the two on
Google Hangouts, and like a good little fan, I tuned in.
Viewing the sitcom and then the talkback show made me
feel like I was part of a larger community - and retweetingand talking to other people on Twitter also helped me inthat sense. I felt comfortable expressing both my joys andfrustrations in these two spaces - although often I felt guilt
for only wanting to focus on the more difficult or unsavory
aspects of the show. However, the very last episode ofFresh Off the Show gave me hope - and reaffirmed everything that I had been feeling. Oliver Wang, a professor ofsociology at Cal State Long Beach and a guest on this final

episode of Fresh Off the Show, said,
You’re saying that you can’t deal with [racial hierarchies] in a network show or in the time that you
have in this [kind of show], but we’ve been spending this whole time talking about how the show
deals with Asianness and Asian Americanness, so
if they’re capable of doing that, then they can do a
better job with gender, race. I know as a Sociology
professor I sound like a broken record but when
hip hop is created in black culture and it’s treatedas a punchline rather than something taken seriously on its own merits..... It’s really flawed, andevery time I get really cringey when they do it.[viii]
Wang’s words - as well as many other dialogues I had engaged in - resonated with me because they were exactly
how I felt. Nothing gives an excuse for Fresh Off the Boat’s
lack of nuance and concerningly long list of ideological“blind spots.” As awesome as it is to see some faces ofour community on the small screen, I feel like it’s a bit of asham if these other insidious attitudes and maintenance ofwhite supremacist values keep persisting.
ABC just renewed Fresh Off the Boat for a second
season, and while this gives me hope for mainstream
media institutions being open to the idea of having East
Asian faces on screen, it still makes me wary. Will the same
mistakes be repeated? Should we even search for “true”
representation in the space of a television sitcom? I’m noteven sure who to really blame - Who exactly do I holdaccountable for this anti-blackness and appropriation thatis mistakenly being claimed as representation? 		
There’s no simple answer to the questions I ask about

7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUKbK8KFJzo
8. There are several layers of irony and what-the-fuckery to this specific instance in Fresh Off the Boat. In the original Arabian Nights, the character of Aladdin was Chinese. Also, for a writer’s room that claims to be the most diverse in network television, the fact that this did not get caught by any producers or writers is just astounding. It doesn’t help either that the Asian Americans on Fresh Off the Boat are all relatively light-skinned - colorism is an incredibly pervasive issue in the Asian American
community, and seeing a light-skinned East Asian person darken their skin for comic relief is incredibly frustrating. Colorism, or the act of discrimination against darker
skinned peoples, can be found in every single cultural formation group - and East Asian people, in our prizing of pale, clear skin, are absolutely complicit in it. In thisscene, Fresh Off the Boat steps unapologetically into this discourse and turns it into a punch line.

29

Fresh Off the Boat, let alone the questions I ask about representation. I still enjoyed some aspects of the show, andthere are still things that Huang has said specifically about
Chinese-American identity, about food imperialism, that
I vibe with. I’m not denying that there are things on Fresh
Off the Boat that feel “right” - tiny details of the show standout to me as real things that I’ve seen in my own home, in
my own family. The superstition-bordering-on-paranoia
about the number four, the jade Buddha pendant and
24 karat gold chain Louis Huang wears around his neck,the bowls that the Huangs use at the dinner table, andconstant reminders of the “When I came to this country…”
all remind me of my own childhood, or the experiencesof my peers in my community. Visual references to Hong
Kong action cinema and, specifically, Stephen Chow
movies feel like in-jokes that were written for me. However,these seem to be only crumbs of representation, overshadowed by a narrative and visual tropes that perpetuateanti-blackness and misogyny. I know that the phrase “babysteps” is important to keep in mind in regards to the issueof representation, but I’m honestly fed up with baby steps.
I know that this show, and the discourse around it, can bebetter. I’d like to think that Fresh Off the Boat can improvein it’s second season, but I confess I don’t know what thatlooks like. I do know that I’m going to try through thesecond season, phone in hand and ready to live-tweet,
preparing myself to hop off the bandwagon at any time.

[i] Huang, Eddie. Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir. New York, NY: Spiegel & Grau,
2013. Kindle.
[ii] Yang, Wesley. “Eddie Huang Against the World.” New York Times Magazine.
Last modified February 3, 2015. Accessed May 18, 2015. http://www.nytimes.
com/2015/02/08/magazine/eddie-huang-against-the-world.html?ref=magazine&_r=3.
[iii] Fresh Off The Boat. “Pilot.” Episode 1. ABC. February 4, 2015 (originally aired
February 4, 2015). Produced by Edwyn Huang. Written by Nahnatchka Khan.
[iv] Yang, “Eddie Huang Against the World.”[v] Keiteay. “Eddie Huang on ‘Fresh off the Boat’ - Storify.” Storify. Last modified
April 8, 2015. Accessed May 3, 2015. https://storify.com/keiteay/eddie-huang-on.
[vi] Chu, Arthur. “Dear Eddie Huang: You Don’t Get to Tell Black People, or Other
Asian People, How They Should Feel or Who They Should Be.” Alternet. Last
modified May 13, 2015. Accessed May 14, 2015. http://www.alternet.org/media/
dear-eddie-huang-you-dont-get-tell-black-people-or-other-asian-people-how-theyshould-feel-or.
[vii] Fang, Jenn. “There Can Be No Room in This Movement for Misogyny.” Reappropriate. Last modified May 7, 2015. Accessed May 16, 2015. http://reappropriate.
co/2015/05/there-can-be-no-room-in-this-movement-for-misogyny/.
[viii] Wang, Oliver, Phil Yu, and Jenny Yang. “’Fresh Off The Show’ Online PostShow - April 21.” Fresh Off the Show. Podcast video. April 21, 2015. Accessed May
16, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOJSwPhK8SU.

30

PLEASE LIKE ME, jenny panush
31

I Get my Books
from my MotherL a r i s s a

S t u r m

G o n z a l e z
32

YA Adaptations (Re)-Shaping
my Perception of the IndustryI

sat in the folds of her comforter, letting theblanket surround me in its warmth. She sat next to me
and I looked over her shoulder at the sunlit pages I could
not yet read. She spun tales of magic, dragons, and aboy with a lightning-shaped scar. My mother has been
introducing me to stories for as long as I can remember:she read to me before I could read for myself and eventhen we found a way to share books. Every time mymom and I went shopping, we spent at least two hours
in bookstores meandering the shelves. When we foundsomething we both liked we bought one copy and shared
it between us. By share I mean my mom got to read it
first because she paid for it and good daughters wait theirturn. She read it and I waited, usually not very long if it
was a good one. When I got my hands on it, every time I
reached a gasp or a That did not just happen!, I ran to her
and we discussed every detail of that moment.
I devoured every book that my mom bought forme. I spent every free minute reading, because it waseasier to interact with a book than with people. I foundmyself entangled in worlds of magic and I was more than
happy to delve in again and again. At an age when discovering yourself is about as easy as defeating a magicalman without a nose, books were the perfect escape frommy tween troubles. More than that, these books gave mea means to understand the most frightening yet exhilarating experience of life: romantic and sexual relationships.
I was utterly inexperienced and completely inept when it
came to speaking to someone I had feelings for – the first
confession I ever made was filled with a lot of “umms”
and “I don’t knows,” followed by me shutting the door in
his face and burying myself in my moms bed sheets forthe next two hours. Young adult (YA) books gave me a33

way to experience romance without having to actually experience romance – the only problem with this was that
one of my first encounters with a romantic relationshipwas between a human girl and a vampire who desperately wanted to eat her. YA romance, “all-consuming andinvariably necessitat[ing] suffering,” is what I held in mymind as the example of true love.[i] Many girls my age
found this kind of love desirable, because weatheringsomething like a vampire war made the love seem moremeaningful and passionate. I’m sure my mom thought I
was joking when I said I wanted a guy from these books
for a boyfriend, and I was… kinda. Despite having awarped perception of what love was, young adult novels
helped facilitate a healthy outlet for my romantic andbudding sexual desires. When these books started to beadapted as films, I was just as intrigued, as any young
adult novel enthusiast would be.

“ I’m sure my mom thought
I was joking when I said I
wanted a guy from thesebooks for a boyfriend, andI was. . . kinda. ”
Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments: Cityof Bones (2013) was one adaptation I was particularly
adamant about seeing in theatres for multiple reasons. I
was completely in love with The Mortal Instruments series
from middle school to high school. The series had a forbidden romance, supernatural creatures, and a great evil
to fight – everything a girl could ever want in her

“The series had a forbidden romance,
supernatural creatures, and a great
evil to fight - everything a girl could
ever want in her young adult fiction. ”
young adult fiction. When I saw the announcement thatthe series would be adapted into a film, I checked online
all the time to see who they would cast as the three main
characters.The actors chosen to play the heroine, Clary
Fray — Lilly Collins, whose blandness is only offset by
the boldness of her brows and Jace Herondale (Jamie
Campbell Bower), her broody broad-foreheaded savior,
were good-looking enough, but their interpretation leftme feeling like they really were brother and sister.1 The
third actor was Robert Sheehan, an actor I had grown tolove through the UK television series Misfits (2009), andI was ready to love his beautiful face again in this film. I
found myself looking forward to seeing him in the role ofSimon Lewis – oh-so lovable-but tragically-unrequited in
his love of BFF Clary Fray. I even went to an LA panel forthe film in which I saw the splendiferous Sheehan in all
his glory. Sadly, the film flopped harder than Draco Malfoy getting hit with an Expelliarmus Charm, but my mom
and I enjoyed it nonetheless.2 I tend to enjoy any adaptation movie that I see with my mom--and we’ve seen somepretty bad ones.
The first thing that my mom and I say when we’re
about to see a young adult film is, “It won’t be as goodas the book.” Knowing this, we go to just about every
adaptation of a book we’ve read. We buy our midnight
premiere tickets, sneak in our Coke and Reese’s Pieces,
and when the movie starts we become “absorbed in theworld of the fiction, [and] we forget that it is a fiction.”[ii]It doesn’t matter that the plot has been exceedingly minimized or that the acting is subpar, we’ve already beentaken in by these characters and we are already engulfed
by the story. This is often referred to as suspension ofdisbelief, and it is vital for any piece of fiction – film ornovel – if it hopes to captivate an audience. Films adaptedfrom books are given a pass when it comes to this aspectof fiction because even before they start production they
have an invested audience. Studios often assume that thenovel fanbase will do their marketing for them, and they
can skip over the part where they try to cinematographically captivate their audiences - often they’re right.

1. As they were rumored to be in the story.

2. Metaphor courtesy of Harry Potter franchise.

34

Contemporary literary adaptation analyst Simone
Murray talks about this in her book The Adaptation Industry. She says that although films have little luck satisfying
audiences that object to the interpretation of this scene or
the casting of that character, “the readers of a book areeasily and unproblematically convertible into screen audiences.”[iii] I agree that we find the prospect of seeing thefilm too good to pass up, more often than not. This is laidout in the following conversation between my mom and I:

The desire to see these films in theatres also stems
from the search for strong female leads that 11-13 year
olds can identify with. As a tween, reading these books
was an escape where I could read about girls that were
smarter, stronger, and funnier than boys. However, thiswas not my reality – at least in popular media it wasn’t.
Critics such as Kathy Fuller-Seeley “[question] the extent
to which female viewers [can] identify with the main
characters in films produced and consumed within thepatriarchal Hollywood system.”[vi] Popular movies showed
Me: “Agh! Did you see who they cast for [so-and- me that women are always in danger of a tragic fate – like		so]?”
being eaten by a beast, or worse, being single – until a
Mom: “Oh yeah! They really look like how I
man comes to her rescue. YA adaptations have created a		imagined [that one aloof guy in the book new niche of popular films that include something people		
who secretly just wants to be loved.]”have been craving for years: a dynamic, strong, and inMe: “Ugh, he is so cute.”
dependent female lead! As a teenage girl, watching thesefilms was like realizing that books aren’t all a fantasy andThis ogling of characters-as-actors is an example of that women can do amazing things. Although these arewhat Laura Mulvey refers to as “circumstance[s] in which pieces of fiction, it is so much more impactful to see alooking itself is a source of pleasure.”[iv] It’s a special kind woman saving herself from danger than reading aboutof feeling seeing gorgeous actors represent characters that it in the pages of a book. Through my teenage years myhave been crafted by fiction authors. It’s further evidence mother did her best to tell me that I could do anything I
that these people could be real because now
set my mind to, but it’s hard to believe thatyou’ve seen it as a corporeal interpretation
Popular movies when the rest of society says you can’t. YAof scenes you’ve only imagined. The
adaptations were one of the first places
showedmethatfilms’ reduction / condensation of thein popular media that I was able toplot also allows you to reach all ofsee female main characters smart
women are always in
the key plot points within a twoenough to be the brightest witch
danger of a tragic fate - likehour time frame, as opposedin her generation, brave enoughto reading a book for days or
to sacrifice themselves for their
being eaten by a beast, ormaybe even weeks before you
loved ones, and strong enoughworse, being single - until to inspire a nation to rebel against
get to that final emotional releaseor even the climax of the story. Filmsa corrupt government. Even thougha man comes to her thesecut out everything unnecessary and get
adaptations have been slowly deright to the essential plot points and thevolving ever since J. K. Rowling sparked
rescue. ”
juicy bits. By juicy bits, I mean those scenes
the market for them, they have alreadythat “[satisfy] a primordial wish for pleasurable looking,” started to change the expectations of audiences when it
that, according to Laura Mulvey, focus on the desire to comes to female leads.
look at others without the object being aware of our gazeand films satisfy this desire.[v] In YA films this voyeuristic
My interest in the young adult book/film scene
pleasure is demonstrated through shirtless scenes, kiss- lasted up until I left for college, where I no longer founding, and basically any scene in which hot young actors time to read for pleasure or watch too many movies. I
and burning passion is involved. Having handsome young still watched a few adaptations like The Hunger Games
actors like Robert Sheehan playing these teen heartthrob and Divergent because I had read them in high school
characters is a big reason why the YA adaptation industry and I enjoyed them. However, the experience lacked thegrew the way it did in such a short timeframe. That be- same excitement that it had in the past. This summer
ing said, I think the female characters in these adaptations I read the last YA book I would read at my mother’s
give viewers like me a whole other reason for purchasing recommendation, The Fault in Our Stars (2012) by John
their tickets.
Green, finishing it just in time to see the film with my35

“I have grown up
with these young
adult novels andfilms, and I’m readyto see them change
for the better, andnot just change, butevolve. ”

housemate. The book was cliché and filled with too manycigarette metaphors to enjoy – and the film was not muchdifferent. I didn’t notice at the time, but finding the story
unoriginal and contrived marked a shift in my interestsand me.
Rolling my eyes at the screen, I realized that I’ve
read/seen too many of these stories to find the samecontent as compelling as it was when I consumed it thefirst time. The formula for these stories needs to change
or else people, like myself will get bored and move on. I
have grown up with these young adult novels and films,
and I’m ready to see them change for the better, and notjust change, but evolve. The industry that perpetuates thecliché tendencies of YA fiction needs to look at what has
been made and find a way to make it different and makeit new. I want to contribute to this transformation. It
started with my mom reading books to me when I was 5,
but she has done so much more since then to support myambitions. That’s why I’m currently studying to become acreative writer, of both novels and films. I want to makesomething that mothers can give to their daughters.

[i] Erzen, Tanya. Fanpire: The Twilight Saga and the Women Who Love It.
Boston: Beacon, 2012. Print. 21.
[ii] Smith, Murray. “Film Spectatorship and the Institution of Fiction.”
The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 53.2 (1995): 113-27. JSTOR.
Web. 03 May 2015. 113.
[iii] Murray, Simone. The Adaptation Industry: The Cultural Economy ofContemporary Literary Adaptation. New York: Routledge, 2011. Print.157.
[iv] Mulvey, Laura. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. N.p.: n.p.,
1999. Print.
[v] Mulvey, Laura. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. N.p.: n.p., 1999.
Print.
[vi] Fuller-Seeley, Kathy. “INTRODUCTION: Spectatorship in Popular
Film and Television.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 29.3 (2001):
98-99. Web. 98.

36

Screening Mi Gente:
The Watsonville Film Festival
Marisol Medina-Cadena“What is this alternate universe where I can indulge in screenings of independent films and dialogue with directors?” I thought after attending
my first free film festival in Los Angeles. “You mean there is an actual
space beyond the independent theater where people collectively enjoy
and discuss alternative cinema? Why had I not been a part of this community before?” Oh, that’s right — the cost and utter exclusivity of many
film festivals has prevented myself, as well as other underrepresented
folks, from participating and critically intervening in such media spheres.
After experiencing one (free) festival, I needed more open spaces thatwould bring together a multitude of people to connect over films that actually reflect the multiethnic world we live in. I wanted to belong to a film
culture that embraced difference and as a soon-to-be college freshman, I
was also seeking affirmation that I, a Chicana, could pursue filmmaking.
In other words, I wanted (and still do) to see films and festivals that are notso overwhelmingly white, male, and heteronormative–particularly, films
where Latin@s are visible.

371

The (Not) So Bronze Screen
Film has historically been an elitist medium and industry, resulting in what filmmaker Alex Rivera describes as “a struggle for working-class people trying to penetrate the most expensive art
form,” as well as struggle for filmmakers of color to break into mainstream venues.2 Subsequently,
a vibrant U.S. Latino film culture has struggled to thrive despite the fact that Latinos make up thelargest ethnic minority group in the U.S., at 54 million people!3 Hollywood is apparently in denial of
our existence. And compared to other ethnic groups, Latinos make up the largest moviegoer group.4
Considering these numbers, it is frustrating not to see Latin@ actors and filmmakers represented in
the mainstream media industry. ¿Donde está mi gente?
With the proliferation of digital technology, including iPhones and affordable editing applications,filmmaking is now slightly more accessible to those who have been historically disenfranchised inmedia production. In spite of this phenomenon, the problem of showcasing and distributing films still
remains.5 Historically, independent film festivals show alternative films that might not otherwise be
screened in mainstream venues. For this reason I placed my hopes in independent film festivals to
make amends for the diversity gap in mainstream media. However, large American film festivals like
Sundance and Tribeca have reproduced Hollywood’s exclusivity, upholding whiteness at the expenseof filmmakers of color. Perhaps this is due to the fact that these large prominent festivals have become so industry-oriented, leaving no room for up-and-coming filmmakers who do not fit the industry’s traditional mold.

Done with Hollywood’s Homogeneity
Film curators and film institutions have established whiteness as the standard for cinematic “quality,” argues Roya Rastegar, a film festival curator. As a result, films that feature non-white leads are
disregarded as un-relatable for mass audiences.6 I guess mi gente’s Spanglish and Chican@ flair is
so threatening to the silver screen that we are institutionally denied entrance.7 Overall, I am frustrated with the lack of representation for filmmakers of color in prominent festivals, as these forums
are the gateways to reaching wider audiences. Most importantly, Rastegar argues, festivals establish“public notions of quality and taste.”8 The acceptance of cultural differences in mainstream media iscontingent upon the visibility of multi-ethnic stories screened at independent film festivals. Thus, I
believe locally based festivals are the vanguards for changing film culture to include filmmakers andaudiences of color.
As a spectator and woman of color, I am tired of being expected to assume a position of whitenessand identify with onscreen middle-class white male values that in turn silence my lived experiences.
It is time for a paradigm shift in American film culture. Let’s challenge the supremacy of white spec1. I have borrowed the term “Bronze screen” from the documentary, The Bronze Screen: 100 Years of the Latino Image in American Cinema.
2. Andrew S. Vargas. “According To Sundance’s Latino Reel Panel, ‘We’re About To Blow The Fuck Up.” Remezcla, January 26, 2015,
accessed January 27, 2015, http://remezcla.com/features/sundance-latino-reel-2015-recap/
3. Ibid.
4. Nielsen “Popcorn People: Profiles of the U.S. Moviegoer Audience.” Newswire. January 29, 2013, accessed February 20, 2015.
http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2013/popcorn-people-profiles-of-the-u-s-moviegoer-audience.htm
5. Rastegar, Roya. “Difference, Aesthetics and the Curatorial Crisis of Film Festivals.” Screen 53, no. 3 (2012): 310-317.
6. Ibid., 317.
7. Spy Kids (directed by Robert Rodriguez, 2001), is a kick-ass example of a filmic Chicano family crossing over to the mainstream
and receiving box office success. I say this not just because it is one of my favorite movies. Clearly it is possible to have afunny, creative, smart, and beautiful brown family that even white audiences can appreciate. They were so un-stereotypically Latino.
I felt proud to claim them as my own; sadly no other Latino families have since been featured on the big screen in this manner.
8. Ibid.,310-311.

38

tatorship by making all voices heard in cinematic spaces. We can begin doing so by supporting local
festivals that support filmmakers of color. This will not only push film “elites” to recognize the public
existence of communities of color, but also help shift popular culture, setting a precedent for politicalchange: film festivals are critical sites for cultural production, visibility, and re-imagining an equitable
media landscape. These cinematic spaces are cutting-edge forums that should embrace emerging storytellers rather than cater to industry elites.

Our Films, Our Communities
My fantasies of a communal space for film enthusiasts and emerging filmmakers of color to skill-share
were materialized when I attended the 2nd annual Watsonville Film Festival in 2013. The theme, “OurFilms, Our Communities,” spoke exactly to what I had been looking for! It seemed the WFF grew outof necessity from the lack of inclusion in mainstream film culture and fostered a space by and for theLatin@ community. Unlike other festivals in my hometown, Los Angeles, or other prominent festivals in
San Francisco, this festival was free for students, open for submissions, and accepting of audiences andcreators otherwise marginalized in film institutions for their racial, economic, and social differences. Finally! Not being turned away from a film festival for financial reasons meant I could actually be an active
participant in “film culture” outside the classroom.

Seeing Brown

The 2013 festival took place in downtown Watsonville at the MelloCenter For The Performing Arts and the Cabrillo College Center.
The three-day program included a mix of short fiction films anddocumentaries by local middle school, high school, and university
students, as well as professional filmmakers with a retrospective
screening of Luis Valdez’s breakthrough film, La Bamba (1987). Also
screened were feature length films by emerging filmmakers such as
Aurora Guerrero’s Mosquita y Mari (2012), a queer Latina coming-ofage story. For me, the most significant program was “Honoring Local
Women Filmmakers,” particularly the films Maestra (2011), by Catherine Murphy, which tells the history of Cuban girls who taught on
the Cuban literacy campaign in 1961, and Olga Nájera-Ramírez’s La
Charreada! Rodeo a la Mexicana (1996), which highlights the Mexican
rodeo tradition that has been sustained by Mexicanos on both sidesof the U.S. border. The contemporary and historical subject matter
not only paid tribute to the expressions of resiliency brown women have carried out for themselves and their community, but also
inspired me to use my art as a form of truth and power.

The chance to see such films and converse with the directors about their experiences navigating the film
world was the affirmation I so needed to continue pursuing film. Prior to attending WFF, I was disenchanted with my major, as I was not studying films in my courses that reflected black, brown, Asian
American, or indigenous perspectives. I internalized this to mean I wasn’t meant to make films because
my experiences were not considered “universal.” But as I sat among an intergenerational crowd ofbeautiful brown faces, collectively reacting to culturally specific references, it legitimized my desire to
make films. It appeared I was not alone in wanting to see people on screen that resemble my family, myfriends, and myself. More importantly, it was liberating to take pleasure in and identify with diegetic action that connected to my reality. It is a rare experience to feel normal and visible on screen when I havebeen so accustomed to not. Now I am a third-year Film and Digital Media student experimenting withforms and techniques to translate my lived experiences – as a fourth generation young Mexican Ameri39

can woman trying to understand my ancestral history, pay homage to my cultural traditions, and address
my passion for food justice – into films.
In a time when I can still count on my hands the number of Latino characters on current popular television shows and U.S. Latino filmmakers or actors nominated for their works--and still see criminalizing
portrayals of Latinos on news broadcasts--I feel the need for locally controlled media and exhibition
spaces like the WFF.9 Although identity-based film festivals in the U.S. like CAAMFest, San Francisco(Asian American), Pan African Film Festival, Los Angeles, and New Fest, New York City (LGBTQ) festivals
have been discussed in scholarship, there have been few critical studies about small-scale, local festivals that serve working-class people.10 Unlike the excessive celebrity fanfare at Sundance, Tribeca, andSXSW, the WFF celebrates the audience as well as the filmmakers. The setting for the WFF-- a rural,agricultural, working-class, and predominantly Latino city — sets the stage for a very atypical festival.
Moreover, it draws on the undocumented farmworker community as a source of strength and influence.

The goals of the Watsonville Film Festival are as follows
To share films that inspire, entertain, and focus on issues relevant to the local
community, and encourage conversation between filmmakers & audience.
To empower local youth through video production & film culture as a way totransform the world
To promote economic development & culture in Watsonville, CA.11

In Conversation
In preparation for the 4th annual Watsonville Film Festival, I spoke with Consuelo Alba, filmmaker andWFF co-founder, to discuss the festival’s emergence, challenges, accomplishments, and vision for the
future.

On what inspired the creation of the WFF“It has grown very organically. It all started with a conversation about sharing films in our community.
In 2011, my husband and I were in the film festival circuit showing our film El Andalón in Europe andMexico. It was something very special to see films one typically never sees and engage with audiences,
yet we didn’t have a way to share our film in our own town. With a casual conversation with our friend
Jacob Martinez, who was teaching technology to students in the local school district, we agreed we needa space to show Watsonville films made by Watsonvillians.12 What a concept!”
9. The recent academy award wins for Mexican Directors Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman) and Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity), begs thequestion: have Latinos made it? I would argue no. Hollywood tends to fetishize “foreign” filmmakers, yet the industry ignores U.S.born filmmakers of color. Currently, Mexican filmmakers seem to be accepted while U.S.-born Mexicans are awaiting the spotlight.
It seems that non-white filmmakers are accepted if they are foreign or if they make films not culturally specific. This phenomenon
applies to festivals too as an increase in Latino films were recently screened at Tribeca this year but most were internationallymade, not by U.S. born Latinos. Apparently Latino talent has to be imported because there is no U.S. Latino filmmaker in sight?
10. Ruby B. Rich “Collision, Catastrophe, Celebration: The Relationship Between Gay And Lesbian Film Festivals And Their Publics.”
GLQ-A JOURNAL OF LESBIAN AND GAY STUDIES 5.1 (1999): 79-84.
11. “About WFF.” http://watsonvillefilmfestival.org/about-festival/ accessed Feb 10, 2015.
12. Jacob Martinez received the UCSC Tony Hill Award at this year’s MLK convocation for his work creating the organization Digital
Nest, which tackles the digital divide by connecting Latino youth with technology.

40This DIY ethos, hacerlo con ganas, that Consuelo and her team used to actualize the vision is continuing the legacy of Chican@ and other identity-based film festivals. Scholar Yolanda Julia Broyles writes
that since the 1970s, ethnic groups in the U.S. have been organizing their own film festivals “to meetthe needs ignored by Hollywood film festivals.”13 This includes the San Antonio Cinefest and the Chicano Film Festival, Detroit. Broyles maintains that these festivals, unlike profit-oriented festivals such as
Sundance, are not as concerned with awarding films, acquiring distribution gigs, or highlighting actors.
Instead, they are about spotlighting local talent, disseminating films that give visibility to marginalizedvoices, imparting messages of cultural affirmation, and inspiring activism. WFF, a grassroots community based festival, continues this trajectory.

On the festival’s objectives and community reactions to the first festival“The WFF opens doors to showcase works. It creates energy. Before, students in the high school
were [only] showing films to their classes, but now WFF expands the audience. It was a great[first] program. People loved to see themselves on screen and they were inspired. That’s why wedecided to continue and now it keeps expanding but with that same principle about community. One immigrant viewer told me she was glad her children saw my film, El Andalón, because
they were able to see the goodness about her homeland. Many people here come from similarranchos and poor communities shown in the film. It was very important to show a different story
about Mexico, a film that recognizes the many challenges there but also demonstrates the power that one can change their community. In El Andalón they saw themselves in a dignified way.
That’s key.”

13. Julia Broyles, Yolanda. “Chicano Film Festivals: An Examination.” Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingüe (1983): 116-120.

41

WFF organizers are democratizing media production as a non-competitive event by rejecting thecapitalist ethos of competition over community. This methodology resists the hierarchy of film culture, especially in the inclusion of the local working-class and undocumented immigrant community.
In curating relevant films that parallel the experiences of agricultural workers, WFF acts as platform
for undocumented stories to take center stage. Documented (2013), one of this year’s films, features
award-winning Filipino journalist José Antonio Vargas outing himself as undocumented within theDREAMER movement. Many students in Watsonville are DREAMERs themselves. Before the screening and filmmaker’s presentation, one student bravely shared her own story crossing the U.S.-Mexico
border. Outside the theater, art and writings made by high school students gave testament to theirpersonal experiences with the broken immigration system, all of which showcase a variety of storytelling approaches.14 This presentation of diverse narratives is unquestionably powerful and reflects theauthentic spirit of independent cinema. Thus, it has gained credibility in garnering community collaboration with other local businesses, nonprofits, and artist.15
Presumably, this festival is also returning tothe original American film exhibition sensibilities. Between 1905-1915 Nickelodeon theaters,
which were halls and stores converted into
public venues, charged only 5 cents and often
showed movies in international languages.16
These “democracy theaters” catered to many
working-class and immigrant viewers.17 Eventually theater managers refused admittanceto these audiences in favor of middle classpatrons to bring in more revenue and gain
an image that appealed to the upper class.18
Consequently, Nickelodeons no longer played
ethnic and foreign language films. This preference for middle class audiences founded theexclusionary model of media spaces that WFF
challenges, as it only charges adults $10 for a
day pass of screenings and is free for children
and students.

14. DREAMers is a term some undocumented students identify with to bring attention to the need for immigration reform. DREAMers
were brought to the U.S. by their parents without papers, have lived here, studied here, identify as an American, yet are notconsidered American by the law. The term has roots in the DREAM Act, a bill designed to grant a pathway to citizenship for undocumented youth. In California, this bill was passed in 2011. But the fight to stop mass deportations and the criminalization of
immigrants continues. La lucha sigue.
15. Community partners include: Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, Watsonville Springfield Grange, Day Worker Center of Santa
Cruz County, UCSC Dreamweavers.
16. Russell, Merritt. “Nickelodeon Theaters, 1905-1914.” Hollywood: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies 1 (2004): 27.
17. Ibid., 29.
18. Ibid., 29.

42On how the festival has generated community“[After the festival] the school district adopted our film [El Andalón] to show in classrooms. Connecting students and teachers to films is key to the festival because we want to inspire students
to watch and make film. So, we work closely with the school district. For example, students in
the Community Studies course at Watsonville High filmed the recent Peace and Unity March andare now working on a film about it that will eventually be screened at the festival.”19
WFF exemplifies how festivals are morethan physical spaces to screen films but act
as sites for audiences to think critically of
their social context, identity, and self-representation. This community-based festival
seeks to expand activism within U.S. film
culture. According to film curator Roya
Rastegar, identity-based festivals throughout the 80’s and 90’s have contributed to themobilization around social issues.20 Likewise, the 2014 WFF acted a political forum
to raise social consciousness through film.
In accordance with the feature films highlighting undocumented experiences suchas Documented and Food Chains, a post
panel discussion featured community activists and local organizations, who shared
how they are mobilizing around issues
represented in the film.21

On the topic of naming the festival
and whether it is considered a Latino
film festival“We have heavy Latino programming toreflect the community but there have been
many other waves of immigration in Watsonville. In honor of the strong JapaneseAmerican community here we had a program with the library to document oral
stories from the Japanese American community. Many discussed their experiencesin the internment camps. Sadly, many
Latinos don’t know about that history butthat conversation is important too. This year
19. The Watsonville Peace and Unity March is for victims and community members to come together to organize, heal, and speak out
against violence in the streets
20. Rastegar, Roya. “Difference, Aesthetics and the Curatorial Crisis of Film Festivals.” Screen 53, no. 3 (2012): 312
21. Food Chains is about the Coalition of Immokalee Workers organizing a campaign to protest poor wages and working conditions in
the Florida tomato fields. During the post discussion, UCSC student Vicky Pozos linked the film to local food justice issues.

43

we have another film, Eastside Sushi, that connects Latino and Japanese American experiences. We
don’t live in a vacuum, thus, all these intersections and stories that make up our community are what
we want to portray in our festival.”
By presenting a wide spectrum of films varied in length, budget, and genre, the WFF continues to pushboundaries. The variance in expressions of cultural identity resists a singular definition of what a Latino
film festival is. Such multiplicity provides cultural pluralism and reminds viewers that recognition of difference can strengthen community. Moreover, the curatorial choice to pick films and performance artists
from an array of backgrounds, for example, the Watsonville Taiko group before the showing of EastSide
Sushi, demonstrates the power these institutions have in fostering a coalitional identity.

Claiming Voice & Visibility
As festival programer Rastagar so eloquently reminds us, we film enthusiasts, critics, and makers
need to “[value] film through difference… [to] unsettle learned ways of looking, and… to see parts ofhumanity otherwise obscured by the shadows and light of the cinema.”22 WFF does so in a groundbreaking way, setting an example for other festivals to follow. In rejecting the class and racial hierarchy
in mainstream film festivals, WFF gives exposure to marginalized filmmakers and, most importantly, itstrengthens community by bringing together families, organizations, local businesses, and the school
district to celebrate truly diverse ethnic voices. The white-male dominated industry isn’t going to change
without deliberate effort! As moviegoers we need to support local filmmakers and festivals, not the industry that silences us. To quote Consuelo Alba, “true community is contagious. Por eso trabajo aquí en
Watsonville porque había una historia de activismo, es una tierra fértil.”23 I too feel this infectious activist
spirit and look to the future trajectory of WFF in democratizing film culture. WFF has carved out a space
where I- a young brown woman, film lover, and aspiring documentarian– feel I belong.

Afterword
A few months after developing this piece, I had the honor to present my own short film, a work ofhealing in memory of my grandmother who recently passed away, in the program Reel Women – areiteration of the Local Women Filmmakers program I described earlier. I did not anticipate publicly
showcasing my own work anytime soon but attending the WFF for the past two years empowered me
to claim my voice and thus, I submitted my film. I am learning to embrace my insecurities, draw frommy childhood experiences, and use my familial histories I once thought were unsuitable for the silver
screen. After the Q&A section, a high school student thanked me because my film inspired her to explore filmmaking. Her words were profound for me because it reaffirmed the power of documenting
familial stories not just for ourselves, but also for the larger Latino community as a tool of self-expression and empowerment. For this, I am indebted to the WFF not just for having the opportunity to present, but in giving me the confidence that my story is one of many stories that are worth telling. With thisI can move forward in the world and tell other stories that aren’t being told. Thank you Consuelo and the
WFF team.

22. Ibid., 317.
23. Translation: I work here in Watsonville because there has been a history of activism. It is fertile ground.

44Digital Video, 2014.

De-historicized is a result of a discourse among the Armenian diaspora in UCSC, whose
ancestors have immigrated to the United States as a result of the Armenian Genocide.
They weave their elders’ retellings into their imaginations and speak of forgotten
cities, villages, and churches, while seeking refuge in an imaginary landscape.

Hadjin.

De-historicized, Melanya Hamasyan.

45

Whether social, historical, or literary­—research is an integral part of my process as it provides guidance
for the final product. In the past I’ve studied Armenian folklore in photography; the goal here is toachieve in video the sense of time’s suspension that is often so captivating in still images. I also
actively use photographic stills (those that I have taken myself and those taken from archival sources)
in building my animated landscapes, creating dialogue in visual poetry through voice, movement, and spacewithin the medium of digital video. Recently, I’ve become interested in the documentary medium, focusing
on deconstructing ambiguous ‘truth’ and reconstructing it through a multitude of histories. Accordingly,
within the documentary, I’ve begun to explore the multidimensionality of history and its construct outside
a singular or dual framework.

Adapted from the artist’s statement:

Aleppo.

46

Boyhood vs girlhood:
Gender Dynamics incoming-of-age Cinema

Catie Ellwood“If Boyhood had been called Girlhood, no
one would care.” The thought suddenly occurred to me as I was leaving the Nickelodeon, having finally seen Richard Linklater’squiet, meandering epic following a sensitive
child named Mason from kindergarten all theway through to college. Ambitiously shot in
real-time over a period of 12 years, Boyhood
offers viewers the extraordinary opportunity to watch the film’s young protagonist
literally grow up on screen – an opportunity
to which critical and popular response alikehas been overwhelmingly positive. Although I
enjoyed the film and didn’t feel particularly
alienated by its perspective, this soberingrevelation nevertheless irked me. I shared
my concern with my friends during our usual post-movie debrief, and they all sadly
agreed: we knew somehow that there’s no way
Girlhood, even if it were fundamentally thesame concept, would enjoy the same mass appeal that Boyhood has.

47

Having become finely attuned to patternsof reception in popular cinema and television culture (which have a pretty unsurprising tendency toward patriarchy and heteronormativity), I think I have a pretty
good idea of what would happen instead:Girlhood might still garner critical acclaim,
but would most likely be regarded as a niche
concern. That is, it would immediately be
categorized as a feminist film; undoubtedly,
it wouldn’t get to be celebrated simply forbeing a good film. This is due to a tendency
for films that depict the male experience tobe read as gender-neutral, whereas films that
depict the female experience are perceived
as being all about gender. Since a vast
majority of films privilege the male gaze,as Laura Mulvey theorized in her influential
essay, “Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema”, many of the mainstream film industry’s
most highly coveted audience – the young,straight, white male demographic – would bealienated by having their perspective subverted in such a way, confronted with a filmthat is so obviously not for them.[i] Certainly, with this critical chunk of its potential
audience being so disinclined to see it, it
would fail to appeal
to or even reach as
many viewers.
Richard
Linklater apparently disagrees. The director
told Village Voicein an interview that
he believes “Boyhood
is a limited title…
it is very much his
point of view, but it
could be Girlhood orMotherhood or Familyhood.”[ii]It istrue that many critics, male and female alike, have agreed thatBoyhood tells a “universal” story. Richard
Roeper, a reviewer from the Chicago Sun
Times, said about the film: “…this remarkable, unforgettable, elegant epic … is about
one family – and millions of families. It’s apinpoint specific and yet universal story.”[iii]Newsweek critic Paula Mejia agreed, saying,“The story – of parents struggling to raisechildren in a wondrous, conflict-ridden world,
and the young ones grappling with forging

their identity in it – is a universal one.”[iv]The film not only has a perfect score on the
widely relied-upon review site Metacritic,
but has likewise made the Rotten Tomatoes
Top 100 list.[v][vi] Indeed, holding Boyhoodin such high regard
as they do, it would
seem that the film
critics of the internet have presumably
been able to identify with at least oneof the characterswithin. Considering
the point of view,
we can only assume
that character ismost likely Mason.
I still have tofirmly disagree with
Linklater’s
claimthat Boyhood represents girlhood, or evenparenthood, as equally as its namesake. Take
Mason’s older sister Sam, for instance. As
with her younger brother, we watch Sam growup on screen, before our very eyes, but unlike him, we don’t witness her actually growing as a character. Instead Sam’s formative
experiences all take place off-screen, inthe margins of Mason’s story. The same goesfor Mason’s parents, Olivia and Mason Sr.
What we see of their experience of parenting“As with her younger brother,
we watch Sam grow up on screen, before ourvery eyes, but unlike him, we don’t witness
her actually growing as a character. Instead
Sam’s formative experiences all take place
off-screen, in the margins of Mason’s story.”48

is limited by what Mason is able to witness
firsthand. We are unaware of the abuse Olivia
suffers at the hands of her alcoholic second
husband until Mason comes home to find herbeaten on the floor. We never find out how,over the years, she manages to juggle herfamily and work while pursuing a psychology
degree in night school, eventually becoming
a college professor. This is because Mason
takes her struggle for granted, as children
often do with their parents. Similarly, Mason Sr. makes several allusions throughout
the film to his own suffering and pain, thenature of which remains as much of a mystery to the audience as it does to Mason Jr.
We might have a vague idea of the sorts oftrials his father has faced (based mostly on
what we can glean from the sorrowful lullaby he performs for his children), but thatpart of the elder Mason’s experience is not
immediately accessible to us, since Junior
was not around to see it.
Not to mention that Mason is also affluent, straight, and white, which serves toalienate a fair portion of American citizens.
Boyhood is innovative in a lot of ways – in
its laidback, experimental structure, incredibly patient pace of production, and delightfully minimal style – but acknowledgement of identities outside this straight,
white, wealthy male “bracket” is not among
them. The film depicts the same coming-of-age
narrative that has been consistently privileged throughout the history of film andtelevision – three guesses who that is. Manyfilms that we often acknowledge as comingof-age classics, such as Nicholas Ray’s iconic Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Rob Reiner’s acclaimed Stephen King adaptation StandBy Me (1986), or Peter Weir’s unforgettably
haunting Dead Poets Society (1989), conformto this unfortunate narrative and character
trope. Meanwhile, there are just as manyequally exceptional coming-of-age films coded
as distinctly feminine, such as Sofia Coppola’s dark masterpiece The Virgin Suicides(1999), Mark Waters’ astoundingly quotable
Mean Girls (2004), or my personal favorite,

n
e
e
b
d
a
h
d
o
o
h
y
o
B
“If
o
n
,
d
o
o
h
l
r
i
G
d
e
l
l
ca
”
.
e
r
a
c
d
one woul

49Terry Zwigoff’s quirky yet subdued Ghost
World (2001), that are either pigeonholed as
feminist despite their vast acclaim; widely enjoyed but ultimately not taken seriously; or otherwise lost in indie obscurity. Notice that only 1 out of 3 of thesefilms were actually directed by a woman, another unfortunately common phenomenon inmainstream cinema(white guys speaking for everyone
else,
that
is).
Also important tonote is that theseare, arguably, all
2nd wave feminist
films; that is tosay, they are allcentered on white
women,
withoutmuch regard for
issues of race,class, sexuality or
gender and theirintersections. Unfortunately, films
that depict coming-of-age stories from a non-male, and nonwhite perspective in such a way that they
are able to gain mainstream popularity areeven fewer and farther between. The bestand perhaps the only example that comes tomind is Lee Daniels’ Precious: Based on theNovel Push by Sapphire (2009) – yet another
woman’s story being told by a man.
While investigating this phenomenon I
came across Celine Sciamma’s Bande de filles(2014) – also known as the real-life Girlhood– the unconventional coming-of-age story ofa French teen named Marieme.[vii] She joins an
all-girl gang in the suburbs of Paris in an
attempt to escape an abusive home, dead-end
education, and the “boy’s law” of her neighborhood. I haven’t actually been able to see
this film, as it is fresh off the festival
circuit, but it’s reception thus far seems
to conform to my earlier predictions: acclaimed by critics, who describe the film as“powerful” and “beautifully observed,” but
obscure to the general populace – unheard ofby the average filmgoer, absent from theater
marquees, and neglected, for the most part,by cultural critics.[viii][ix] Furthermore, thesparse reviews that do engage with this filmemphasize its social importance; “Girlhood’s
non-patronising and credible representationof class, race and gender is a rare and per-ceptive illustration of the intricacies ofsocial inequality” writes Patrick Gamble for
CineVue.[x] Similarly, Ann Hornaday, a critic
for the Washington Post, hails the film as a“mesmerizing exercise in the enlightenmentthat can happen when a filmmaker shifts themale cinematic gaze ever so slightly and uncovers what looks like a whole new world.”[xi]While this sortof recognition is
not necessarily anegativething,
it serves as aprime example ofthe feminist pigeon-holing that I
mentioned earlier.
Released
within months of
one another, Boyhood and Girlhood
both tell stories
about kids growing up in thetroublesome worldof
today;
bothwere independently produced, took home awards from various
prestigious film festivals, and were highly
praised by critics. Why, then, is one ofthese films being talked about by virtually
everyone, while the other remains unheardof by practically everyone? It is especiallydisappointing, since (if the reviews are to
be trusted) the one being ignored is considerably more ethnically diverse, socially
responsible, and culturally radical?
Admittedly, Bande de filles is problematic in the sense that it too is being told
from a disingenuous perspective – that of an
Afro-European adolescent, as recounted by awhite woman. Sciamma’s other work, however,is notably and actively engaged in discourses of gender and sexuality – the subversive depictions of which tends to dominate
the conversation around her films. But evendespite their controversial appeal, Sciamma’s films have had trouble generating conversation about their social implications.
This is unfortunate, because Sciamma is oneof the few directors out there making socially-conscious coming-of-age films that not
only tell enchanting tales of growing-up,
but also have the potential to promote a
more full and tolerant understanding of sex
and gender fluidity. Take, for example, Sciamma’s most memorable project – another com-

“Released within months of one another,
Boyhood and Girlhood both tell stories
about kids growing up in the troublesome
world of today... Why, then, is one of theseFIlms being talked about by
virtually everyone, while the other remains
unheard of by practically everyone?”50

ing-of-age film called Tomboy (2011), about a
10-year-old trans boy originally named Laure, who, upon moving to a new neighborhood,decides to use the opportunity to take on amore comfortable identity as Mickäel, unbeknownst to his parents.[xii]What Sciamma significantly illustrates
with Mickäel’s story is a concept that is sooften taken for granted in mainstream media– that is, the fact that gender is sociallyconstructed; it has no actual bearing on
our sociopolitical dynamics aside from theimportance we give it. Feminist scholars of
the 1980’s did a lot of work to turn thisinvisible truth into a visible reality. Judith Butler first articulated gender performativity in 1988 – the theory that, rather
than being an expression of something natural or innate, gender is nothing more than aseries of performative acts we carry out every day. “The life-world of gender relations
is constituted, at least partially, throughthe concrete and historically-mediated acts
of individuals,” she writes, “…Regardlessof the pervasive character of patriarchy
and the prevalence of sexual difference as
an operative cultural distinction, there isnothing about the binary gender system thatis given.”[xiii]
What this essentially meansis that, since identity is wholly abstract,human beings must perform their identity
using signifiers which indicate to others
their participation in, or belonging to, a
specific culture. While
it is still a widely-held misconceptionthat gender is somehow
inherently or biologically determined, thistheory implies that it
was pressure from hegemonic forces overthe course of history that have resulted in
the formation of the dominant (yet false)
gender binary. Mikäel’s inclination towardmasculinity negates this binary, and his exploration of his new identity serves as astudy in the ways in which gender is performed.
Acknowledgement of these facts, and ofgender as an issue, is exactly what is lacking in Boyhood. While the film is not overtly
oppressive, it is still full of aggressive
gendering: a curious group of boys crowded
around a laptop, watching pornography; Mason and his father peeing on the campfire ina ritual that would be much tougher for awoman to observe; a 13-year-old Mason bragging to his imploring buddies about trysts
I think it’s safe to assume he never wenton; and who could forget Mason receiving
his first suit and gun on the same birthday?
All of these things code Mason’s experience
as decidedly masculine. What is troubling isthat Richard Linklater, apparently along withthe entire movie-going public, has failed torecognize it since it is so normalized in
our patriarchal society.
While I of course find all of this bothersome, I still can’t deny the excellence ofBoyhood. For one thing, nostalgia operates
as the main emotional currency of the film,
in a way that is particularly poignant to
my generation. In the story’s chronology,
Mason’s high school graduation takes placein 2014, just three years after my own; forearly-90’s babies like myself, this generational coincidence made each moment thatmuch more resonant. It seemed to me thatsomehow, each successive scene unearthed a
new pop-culture relic straight out of my own
childhood – some that I had completely forgotten about (Tamagotchis, the Oregon Trail
videogames, Pearl the baby landlord, Ripstiks), others that I still find myself warmly
reminiscing about from time to time (Britney
Spears, Dragon Ball Z, Harry Potter book release parties, High School Musical) – eachof which I recognized with a rush of wistfulexcitement. For another, there is also an
undeniable, hyper-voyeuristic sort of pleasure in the knowledge
that the film’s narrative was chronicled inreal time; the conscious fact in the audience’s mind that they
are bearing witness tothe characters – and, by extension, theirplayers – actually changing, growing up andliving out their lives enhances the experience on a visceral level. Finally, the narrative is structured as a series of vignettes,
drifting from year to year, most of themapparently inconsequential, with a handfulof tension-filled scenes mixed in that depict
such heart-wrenching highs and lows that I
know I am as unlikely to forget about these
moments as Mason undoubtedly is. However,
it is certainly understandable how someone
could have trouble sitting still for this film.
There is not much concern for plot, as eachsegment simply offers a glimpse of Mason and“Films that depict the male experience [areoften read as gender-neutral, whereas
Films that depict the female experience areperceived as being all about gender”

51his family’s everyday life, whatever that
happens to look like at that specific point
in time. But despite the film’s potential to
be a catastrophic bore, these seemingly arbitrary moments, when strung together, form
a whole that is ultimately greater than thesum of its parts. The result is a stunningly
beautiful portrait of a childhood – albeit a
specifically white, hetero, affluent one – but
one that is satisfyingly simple, introspective, and honest all the same.
Hopefully it goes without saying thatnone of this is meant to vilify Linklaterin any way. After all, he made a film that
happened to resonate with his own point ofview, and he is by no means to be faulted
for the praise he has received. It’s justdisappointing to realize that his perspective
also happens to resonate with the majority of Hollywood films. Although it doesn’tquite represent both genders equally, Boyhood still has some valuable insights tooffer about girlhood, as Dr. Sharon Marcus
and Dr. Ann Skovorosky – professors of humanities at Columbia University – highlightin an article they co-authored for the WallStreet Journal. Among others, they point toan instance in the film where Mason is urged
by his photography teacher to take himself
more seriously when they discuss his art
and future career, providing a stark con-trast to Sam, who is chastised by her motherwhen she fails to pick up Mason from school– the first, and (as far as I’m aware, theonly) inclination she shows toward putting
herself first. By the time he is celebrating
his graduation and getting ready to go off
to college, Mason has grown into a confident,
thoughtful, sensitive young man; Sam, on
the other hand, has become more quiet andwithdrawn, and less sure of herself. When
prompted to make a speech at her younger brother’s graduation party, she recoils,
clearly made uncomfortable by having to talkin front of people. “One of the achievementsof Boyhood is to show how girls are discouraged from putting themselves first.” They
write, “A boy can dream, the film suggests,
but a girl… not so much.”[xiv] Now, whether or
not the film made this critique purposefully
is unclear – perhaps it could have been justa consequence of having characters’ basedon the actors that play them, as Linklater
did with Ellar Coltrane’s Mason and his own
daughter Lorelai Linklater’s Sam.
Perhaps more importantly, Linklater
didn’t set out to create something that reaffirms structures of gender. There is absolutely nothing wrong telling a story fromone point-of-view, even if it creates some
representational limitations. As a matter offact, films are invariably limited by per-52

spective, either literally, within the story, or otherwise by the perspective of thefilmmaker. Deciding to make a coming-of-age
film from the perspective of a boy versus
the perspective of a girl (or vice versa) isinevitably going to make a difference to thestory, because (even though it is for totally arbitrary, socially-constructed reasons)yes, boys and girls experience the world
very differently. But after all, part of thereason we watch movies in the first place isfor the experience of being able to identify with someone other than ourselves. All afilmmaker can do is be aware of these limitations, acknowledge them, and attempt tohandle them in a socially responsible way.
The bottom line is really that in our
media-saturated culture, films are one of themany ways (and arguably primary way) young
people are socialized. For them, these coming-of-age films may potentially form the basis for their understanding of what growing
up is supposed to look like, which is why
it is so important that those who take on
the delicate task of representation understand that false gender stereotypes in media inevitably perpetuate archetypal genderroles. Consider for a moment how many wellknown coming-of-age films (including thosementioned in this article) feature eithera group of boys or a group of girls, but

53

rarely both, and even more rarely do thesegroups actually interact with each other.
When they do, it is usually in the interest of heterosexual romance – hardly anyof these movies feature healthy, sincerely
platonic friendships between opposite sexes.
Of course, there are some notable exceptions to this rule, but very few, at leastin the mainstream. Our collective failure torecognize the representational limits within
is troubling. We as a culture must decideto stop teaching young people to relate totheir opposite sex in such unhealthy ways.
We need to balance the representation.

Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema,” Screen 16(3): 6-18,
1975.
[ii]
Amy Nicholson, “Richard Linklater Explains His Secret Movie Boyhood,
Which He Shot Over 12 Years,” Village Voice, July 19, 2014.
[iii]
Richard Roper, “Boyhood Review,” Chicago Sun Times, July 17, 2014.
[iv]
Paula Mejia, “Review: Richard Linklater’s Boyhood Projects a Spellbinding View of Memory,” Newsweek, July 21, 2014.
[v]“Boyhood,” last modified on February 7, 2014, http://www.metacritic.com/
movie/boyhood.
[vi]“Top 100 Movies of All Time,” last modified on February 16, 2015,
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/top/bestofrt/[vii]
Bande de filles, directed by Celine Sciamma (2014; Pyramide Distribution).
[viii]“Girlhood,” IMDB.com, May 6, 2015.
[ix]
Sheila O’malley, “Girlhood,” RogerEbert.com, January 30, 2015.
[x]
Kenneth Turan, “‘Girlhood’ celebrates the power and passion of sisterhood,” Los Angeles Times, February 5. 2-15.
[xi]
Patrick Gamble, “London 2014: Girlhood Review,” Cinevue, October 16,
2014.
[xii]
Ann Hornaday, “‘Girlhood’ depicts the competition and solidarity of
teenaged friendship,” The Washington Post, February 26, 2015.
[xiii]Tomboy, directed by Celine Sciamma (2011; Pyramide Distribution).
[xiv]
Marcus, Sharon, and Anne Skovorosky, “What ‘Boyhood’ Shows Us About
Girlhood,” Wall Street Journal, February 6, 2015.
[i]

UNTITLED, annie d.
54

55

f
e
o
h
T lt
l
u
e
C icha
M Jordan

SPACE JAM, AIR JORDANS, AND THE COMMODIFICATION OF MASCULINITY
Brian Mislang
Space Jam (1996) is the most underrated movieof all time. I have watched this movie numerous times asa kid. Whether it was on an airplane heading to the Philippines as a five-year-old child, on a charter bus to theMonterey Bay Aquarium during a fourth grade school field
trip, or inserting the video cassette into the VCR while
sitting on a Saran wrap-covered couch, I watched it every
chance I got. Somehow I never got tired of watching it, andI loved every second of the film. While Space Jam initiallydid not receive rave reviews and the plot may leave someless than thrilled, it has evolved into something that will
always endear those who grew up watching it. However,
the appeal of the movie goes beyond the nostalgia - NBAlegend Michael Jordan’s performance as “himself” captivated audiences - especially me - and helped to shape both
pop culture and basketball culture, especially in the sneakerhead cultural phenomenon.
In order to pursue his childhood dream of being aprofessional baseball player like his father, Michael Jordan
retires from the NBA to play minor league baseball for the
Birmingham Barons. During an off-day, Jordan is playing
golf with fellow NBA legend Larry Bird, actor Bill Murray,and his clingy publicist Stan Podolak (played by Wayne

Knight), and happens to hit a hole-in-one with the help ofBugs Bunny. Jordan then finds himself in the realm of Looney Tunes after being sucked down a golf hole by Bugs andDaffy Duck. Jordan has been kidnapped to help the Looney
Tunes play in a basketball game against the Monstars, whohave stolen the basketball talents of several current NBA
players. As if that weren’t enough, they threaten to take theLooney Tunes to their world of Moron Mountain to workas carnival attractions in order to boost excitement at their
theme park. Using computer-generated imagery and a green
screen to capture Jordan’s movements, Space Jam showed
Jordan performing in sync with the cartoon characters inthis 3D, live-action dimension, making the interactions
seem natural between the two. At the time of its creation,
Space Jam was revolutionary for including CGI in a feature-length film. As I re-watch it now, the level of animation is still impressive considering that the progress of CGI
has grown considerably.
Space Jam’s technical brilliance isn’t the only thingthat makes this film great - it also made a huge impact on
my life. Because of Space Jam, I am a sports junkie, andfollow the three major professional sports leagues here in
the United States. I picked up baseball and basketball after56

being introduced to Space Jam’s zany depiction of sports inthe film. While Jordan struggled at baseball in the film (aswell as in real life), his mere presence on the field attracted
me to the game. After watching it for the firsttime, I instantly became a fan of Michael Jordan and his flashy
shoes. Jordan’s
status as acultural icon
has not onlychanged myenamoredviewingexperience withthe film, but
Jordan being
African-American
was also significant
for minorities in theway they are represented
in media and culture. Beinga person of color, I enjoyedseeing an individual so revered
who was also a minority in myfavorite movie. and it left a positive impact on me.
It’s hard to really explain
why Space Jam was and still is such a
joy to watch - as a kid who was a fan ofwatching Saturday morning cartoons andbasketball, this was the dopest movie forme. In the beginning of Space Jam, as a shooting star crosses the screen with the full moon insight, the chorus of R.Kelly’s hit single “I Believe
I Can Fly” begins to play while an adolescent Jordan
is shooting some hoops in his backyard at midnight.
His father, James R. Jordan, Sr. walks out and questions
him being outside so late. The young Jordan begins to talkabout his life aspirations, such as playing basketball for
North Carolina, going to the NBA, and playing professional
baseball while shooting some more hoops. I will always
hold this scene close to my heart since it is filled with somuch optimism that anything in life is possible as Jordan ispredicting what he will do in the future.
After he is told to finally come inside, an adolescent Jordan attempts to “fly,” and the scene juxtaposes
younger Jordan against an image of present-day Jordan
dunking in-game. The film then transitions into the opening credits/montage sequence as more footage of Jordan

57

dunking plays in between the stylized credits. Photographsof Jordan as a young child, all the way to his senior portrait, intertwined with b-roll of basketball fansand basketball footage playing for Laney HighSchool, North Carolina, Chicago Bulls and theDream Team, pop up onto the screen. Then
we are introduced to more of the cast ofSpace Jam, with the iconic “SpaceJam” theme song playing background. This montage shows
us the greatness that isMichael Jordan, and whatmakes him such an idol tomillennials. His artistry on
the court, his mannerisms suchas hugging and kissing the trophy, and of course the insane
dunks he pulls off – all of this iswhat makes him considered to
be arguably the best player to everplay basketball; it is on display as
the movie treats us to his best basketball highlights. Not only are theimages on the screen visually striking, but the fast cuts, blurred motion,
flashing lights, contrasting colors
and fonts on the screen (while an
up-tempo song plays) mesmerizes
me whenever I watch it. In addition
to seeing how awesome Jordan is,
I just enjoy the amount of editing
and time that was put into thismontage. It is well produced, andeven now it is just as impressive
as present day opening credits
montages. It reminds me of ahip 1980s-90s pop or hip-hop
music video that gets theviewer hyped and ready towatch the rest of the film.
Space Jam does a great job
continuing
the glorification of Michael Jordan as a revered character, and there are many scenes
where Jordan becomes the subject of the audience’s adoring gaze. After Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck successfully
retrieve Jordan’s basketball gear from his mansion in ourworld, Jordan is introduced to the rest of the Looney Tunes.
Here we are shown a close up on his iconic Air Jordan IX
shoe, followed by a tilt shot, revealing the rest of Jordan’sbasketball attire. As the camera and the audience takes in
Jordan in all of his six-foot-six glory, we as the audiencebecome awed by not only his impressive physique, but theaura that his presence brings. While Seal’s “Fly Like An Eagle” plays in the background, Jordan begins to dribble thebasketball across the court and performs basketball moves
such as the pull up mid-range jumper and various dunks.
The rest of the Looney Tunes are visibly in awe of his movements, expressing exactly how the audience should be feeling this whole time. Seeing Jordan finally playing basketballin the film and showing no rust in his game is exciting for
all watching him, both the audience and in the film - and,most importantly, me. Watching the basketball simply
roll out of his hand in slow motion and into thebasket, as well as performing double-clutch,
tomahawk, reverse dunks made me want toimitate Jordan’s every move. Even now
it still has an effect on me, as watching
this scene always gets me in the mood toimmediately grab a basketball, go to mylocal court, and just shoot around. Seeing him play so effortlessly – with theadded effect of a hip song - just perfectly
expresses the mystique of Jordan. We aregazing at him with admiration that a basketball legend is going to put on a performancethat he specializes in, and succeeds as Jordan pulls
up for a mid-range jumper or is in flight for a dunk. It is
like watching an artist painting a masterpiece, and Jordan ismaking the sport of basketball look easy and effortless. You
can hardly blame 5-year-old me for being so in love with thisfilm - and that lasting impact hasn’t changed for me at all.

made me feel so embedded in the film that I always had towatch it again, and it has stayed with me all these years.
As Jordan mesmerized audiences with his appearance in Space Jam and his basketball court legacy, he also
revolutionized fashion culture on and off the court. On the
court he wore longer and baggier shorts than everyone else
before the trend caught on, sported a gold chain during
the 1985 and 1987 Slam Dunk Contest (in which very few
players sported jewelry during a sporting event), and lastly,
was one of the first players to revolutionize
the sneaker game of the NBA.[i] In a time
where wearing white shoes was standard, Jordan’s black and red shoes
became another facet of his iconic
image as a basketball player andhero. The NBA often punishedJordan for wearing his signature
shoes, but this trend began to catch
fire and eventually NBA players
started wearing colorful shoes resulting in the NBA’s end to the practice of fining players for on-court dress
code violations.[ii] The highly successful
Nike-owned Jordan brand paved the way forother shoe brands such as Adidas, Reebok, Under
Armour, Peak, And 1, Anta, and Li-Ning to thrive and maketheir way to basketball players’ feet. Colorful and uniqueshoe models began to catch on, and signature player shoes
for the top NBA players in the league began to follow in
Jordan’s footsteps. Off the court, Jordans are just as popularfor streetwear as they are for basketball use. Sneakers andbasketball have been tied together since Jordan changed“the game” by wearing his outrageous sneakers on the
court, and as a result, the basketball sneaker had to be included in Space Jam as well. Shoes first started having this
impact “during the late Victorian period… essentializing
masculinity and the products associated with it” and would
soon snowball into the cultural capital sneakers have today.
“In other words, advertisers constructed an ideal of
who was a true man and produced what it was that
he needed to fulfill this masculine construction…
Since the 1970s basketball has been constructed asboth masculine and black. Todd Boyd maintains
that basketball is ‘the embodiment of blackness incontemporary popular culture.’”[iii]“Itis like watching
an artist painting a masterpiece, and Jordan is making
the sport of basketball look easy
and effortless. You can hardly
blame 5-year-old me for being so in love with thisfilm . . .”Let’s jump ahead. In the penultimate scene when
Jordan returns to the real world and gives the the five NBA
players their talents back, they tease him that he does nothave the skills to play basketball anymore. Since they are
oblivious as to how Jordan was able to get their own talents
back, it felt rewarding as viewers to see that Jordan is able
to prove them wrong and show that he is back, better thanever, by making a comeback. On to the last scene of thefilm (which is real footage of Michael Jordan’s first gameback out of retirement) Larry Bird is shown to once again
hilariously bring down Bill Murray’s belief that he canplay professional basketball. Next, we see live footage of
Jordan taking the ball down the court before completinga one-handed dunk roll - the footage then freezes to a stillshot of Jordan in flight about to dunk while sticking his
tongue out in his iconic expression as the credits begin toroll. This ending has left a lasting imprint, not just because
it was the end of one of the best films to me, but also because it reaffirms Jordan’s greatness and why he is endearing to me. Jordan was able to fulfill his promises and showthat anything in life is again possible. Both of these scenes

The connection of Air Jordans with blackness also
reinforced the relationship between hip-hop culture andbasketball. Hip-hop culture figures have become immersed
into the basketball culture, from Kurtis Blow’s rhythmic

58

and catchy song “Basketball”, Drake’s odes to current NBA
players such as Andrew Wiggins, Stephen Curry and Lou
Williams, to seeing the likes of Jay-Z and Spike Lee sitting
courtside during basketball games.
In the Space Jam, Michael Jordan’s two featured
pairs of Air Jordans also become the object of the audience’s
covetous gaze. Just like the close-up of his Air Jordan IX’s,
his glossy Air Jordan XI’s are seen in a close-up right before
the tip-off, as one of the Monstars looks on at his shoes with
fascination and stating, “Cool shoes!” Jordan’s shoes are supposed to pique the interest of the audience. The film’s editionof Air Jordan XIs (also known as Space Jam 11s) translated
cultural hype into a whole sneakerhead culture and is seen as
one of the holy grails to any sneakerheads collection, setting
the trend of Air Jordans to be worn as casual wear. While I
don’t consider myself a sneakerhead, I am going to say thatwhile Air Jordans did plant the seed of me taking an interestin shoes. The first shoe that did it for me was NBA superstar
LeBron James’ first signature shoe, the Nike Air Zoom Generation. Having a shoe from a big influence such as LeBron
James made me feel really good about myself. It meant a lot
to me as well because my parents could not afford to buy me
Jordans, and these shoes were the most expensive they could
ever afford for me before I could finally pay for my own
shoes. So I can imagine what it was like for those who had
Air Jordans and feel like they are on Cloud Nine.
However, while it may be a good thing to idolize
the seemingly positive influence that is Michael Jordan, it
can also be harmful. In today’s society where many young
individuals feel the need to fit in within a crowd to be considered cool, Air Jordans are a big deal in trying to become
hip. These shoes serve as status symbols and unfortunately,
this can have consequences. Most retro Air Jordans releases
are limited to a smaller amount than most shoes, thus being
hard to buy at a retail price. Every Saturday morning, there
are huge masses of people lining up at malls just to cop
the newest pair of Air Jordans. It is almost impossible tobuy them online at retail price because of consumers using“bots” that allows one to jump into the front of the virtualline. If you wanted to purchase a shoe that wasn’t available
for retail, you would have to buy from resellers who ask forabsurd prices. On eBay, if you search for “deadstock original” or retro Air Jordans, you will see that they are being
resold with prices ranging from $200-1000. Some are evenbeing resold to an absurd $30,000.[iv] You also hear unfortunate stories every year about people getting killed for
the Air Jordans on their feet.[v][vi] People act literally insane
for an expensive shoe made by sweatshop labor.Jordan’s
reputation of being cool and Nike/Jordan Brand releasing
his sought out shoes in limited/expensive quantities has an59

effect. I do not think Michael Jordan should not shoulder allof the blame for this, and Nike should take blame as well.
In the end, it is also a result of underlying issues such as
materialism and screwed up mindset/priorities. The cultural
hype revolving around these shoes is insane and persistent,
and we can see the roots of it in Space Jam.
Writing this piece was very difficult for me. I initially had trouble finding a scope for a kids film that cameout in the 1990s - and I had a hard time really explaining
why I love this film. I came to the conclusion that Space
Jam was and is still very relevant in society because of thepersistence of sneakerhead culture, and Jordan still being
a prominent icon today. The fact that I can look back on
this film and see all of these connections to sneaker/fashion
culture, and the commodification of masculinity goes toshow that stupid kid’s movies do have value to them. SpaceJam is now somewhat of a cult film, as it is considered agreat classic film amongst those who grew up watching it.
In fact, when I pitched this essay to EyeCandy, everyone
was incredibly enthusiastic about it - it’s not just me. Space
Jam, the most underrated movie ever, clearly holds a lot ofsignificance for many people my age. I don’t think we’ll
forget it any time soon.

[i] Powell, Shaun. “Jordan’s fashion move helps basketball grow into new era.”
NBA News. Last modified July 20, 2011. Accessed May 21, 2015. http://www.nba.
com/2011/news/features/shaun_powell/07/20/michael-jordan-long-shorts/.
[ii] Barias, Marvin. “The True Story Behind the Banned Air Jordan.” Sole Collector. Last modified October 18, 2014. Accessed May 21, 2015. http://solecollector.
com/news/the-true-story-behind-the-banned-air-jordan/.
[iii] Miner, Dylan A. T. “Provocations on Sneakers: The Multiple Significations ofAthletic Shoes, Sport, Race, and Masculinity.” CR: The New Centennial Review 9,
no. 2 (Fall 2009): 73-102.
[iv] Griffin, Darren. “Undefeated X Air Jordan IV Available on eBay for $30K.”
Nice Kicks. Last modified January 4, 2015. Accessed May 21, 2015. http://www.
nicekicks.com/2015/01/04/undefeated-x-air-jordan-iv-available-ebay-30k/.
[v] Mutasa, Tammy. “Police: Teen killed at Dayton Mall was trying to rob man ofshoes.” Cincinnati’s WLWT5. Last modified December 22, 2014. Accessed May
21,2015.http://www.wlwt.com/news/police-teen-killed-at-dayton-mall-was-trying-to-rob-man-of-shoes/30352428.
Welty, Matt. “A Recent History of Sneaker Violence.” Complex. Last modified
November 26, 2014. Accessed May 21, 2015. http://www.complex.com/sneakers/2014/11/recent-history-of-sneaker-violence/neakers/2014/11/recent-history-of-sneaker-violence/.

60

THE OLD MASTERS
Grassy Knoll
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; perhaps they never intended
Patrick Swayze to be counted among them,but in times of woe we find the ones we need.
Just about everything from the Dirty Dancing
soundtrack feels like a cry for help, but
none quite as plaintive and desperate as,
Livin’ without her, I’d go insa-ne.
Even invoking the name of Swayze
feels like a cry for help—but it doesn’t change
the fact that he sang the most dead-on accurate
heartbreak song in the last fifty years.
She’s taken my heart,but she doesn’t knowwhat she’s
do-ne!
Something about that saxophone solo
resonates in the key that hearts shatter in.
It leads me through moonlight
only to burn me with the sun.
Feel her breath in my face,her body close to me.
Can’t look in her eyes,
she’s outa my le-ague.
Just a fool to believe I have anything she needs.

How well they understood,
its human position.
She’s like the wind.

61

62

RHETORICAL DEVICES, remy dixon

63

DAD HARDR E C O N C I L I N G F E M I N I S M A N D D A D C U LT U R E . . . W I T H A V E N G E A N C E .
D E B R A B I LO D E A U

Hans: You know my name but who are you? Just
another American who saw too many movies as a child?
Another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks he’s
John Wayne? Rambo? Marshal Dillon?
McClane: Was always kinda partial to Roy Rogers
actually. I really like those sequined shirts.
Hans: Do you really think you have a chance againstus, Mr. Cowboy?
McClane: Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.
’Twas the night before Christmas, and John McClane went
on a kickass “terrorist”-killing rampage all through the
Nakatomi Building in hopes his unruly wife Holly would
still be there. This is my Christmas story: A Visit From
Bruce Willis. I make my family watch it every year—in afamily home with no tree, this is the closest we have to aholiday tradition. Die Hard (1988, dir. John McTiernan),widely considered to be one of the greatest action films of
all time, occupies a special niche in my headspace, existingat the intersections of the personal and the political: of film
form, family, and society. My love for it also started mylove for “dad” media: cheesy, middle-of-the-road, mid-tolate- eighties working class-leaning films (and TV shows);
media that I enjoyed with my parents like Top Gun (1986),
Lethal Weapon (1987), and the original Die Hard (1988)
series.
In 1988, both my father and Bruce Willis were in their
mid-thirties. I imagine him to be a lot like John McClane:slightly balding, estranged from his wife (though divorced
as opposed to separated). H e h a d e v e n a p p l i e d t o b e
a c o p i n O a k l a n d . If he had gotten the job, who is to
say that his life wouldn’t have been as fantastic as John
McClane’s, as impossibly gritty and sweaty and glib? His
dad died Christmas Eve. Every Christmas Eve we watch
Die Hard. My father sees a different version of himself
onscreen, a version of himself in another life. Or, perhaps
more accurately, I do.
In 1988, my father was working as a maintenance personat the now-closed Cinedome 8 in my hometown ofFremont, California. He installed the concrete platforms
for wheelchairs mandated by the recent Americans with
Disabilities Act, then was laid off for a family hire—but not
before he got to see Die Hard for free. I asked my parents

64recently about Die Hard, Vietnam, and Ronald Reagan. I
asked them why they liked John McClane. My mom kept
repeating, in the snappy way she often does, that
“ H e ’s a w o r k i n g s t i ff ! ”
Bruce Willis, they point out helpfully, got his start in
television—that least glamorous of acting jobs—on
Moonlighting and as a guest star on Miami Vice. But
before that, he was a bartender, and his folksy flintinessis so much of his public persona. As a star, Bruce
Willis seems to be the closest thing to working-class in
Hollywood.
But what is stiff about McClane?
In her book Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the
Reagan Era, Susan Jeffords examines the physicality of
the action protagonist/hero as “emblem of the nationalbody”—and McClane is no exception.[i] In comparison with
the impossibly chiseled bodies of contemporaries Stallone
and Schwarzenegger, however, Bruce Willis’s body isremarkably average: though trim and fit, h i s m a c h i s m o
i s o f s w e a t a n d d i r t , b i c e p t a t t o o , w i f e - b e a t e r,
a n d r e c e d i n g h a i r l i n e . His midsection is doughy, but
his arms and legs are strong; I think of my dad’s white-asa-sheet beer belly, but also his almost-orange arms—that
watch tan!— and his red neck. In other words, McClane
is shown as a regular working-class man, his masculinity
connoted by his physical labor— in the sweat and dirt
glistening in every air-shaft closeup and machine-gun-firefalling-sparks tracking shot.
What does it mean that I look at these charactersand imagine who my father was in the last yearsof his pre-Debra life, or see him as he was for them o s t p a r t o f m y c h i l d h o o d ? There are more echoesof my father in Martin Riggs, half of the black-white buddy
cop duo at the head of Richard Donner’s Lethal Weapon
series. The military service, the trailer on the beach, even
the Curly from the Three Stooges impersonation. The
vaguely kooky look in his eyes speaking to trauma andgrief and unknowable pain and rage. The loss he brings
up sometimes, the only times I see him cry. Even withMel Gibson himself: chauvinism and misogyny, sure,occasionally, but alcoholism is what haunts me.
W h a t does it m ea n that my pa re nts and oth er B ab y
Bo o m er s looked at John Wa yne a nd imagi n ed wh ot h e i r f ather w as , their dad and the mythic al fat h er
o f t h e A mer ican West, of Manifest Dest i n y an dt h e o pen r ange? Maybe it’s precisely because imagining65

is all we can do. Maybe I do it because of a fundamental
inability to understand that era in American history, why ageneration turned from Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young totrickle-down economics.
Perhaps my interest stems from the fact that this is whenfilm—classical Hollywood myth—bled into Americansocial reality. What of the whole nation swayed by images of
their mythical forefather? 1988, that magical year, was also
Ronald Reagan’s last full one in office. To quote Robynn
Stilwell:“By 1988, American politics and the movies
had blended into one, rather surreal
ethos. Hollywood in the 1940s, the era of
Ronald Reagan’s heyday there—an eraof Westerns, of World War II movies andof mothers who cared for their children
in patriarchal homes behind white picket
fences—was melded with conservative
Republican concerns of the 1980s.” [ii]The US was global sheriff, President Reagan the Chief
Deputy, his “Reagan Doctrine” funding guerrilla movements
around the world in an attempt to curb the spread ofCommunism while the War on Drugs at home threw thepenal code at non-violent offenders, accelerating the growthof the largest incarceration rate per capita in the world.[iii]In popular culture, there was a longing for their parents’generation, the good fight of World War II and America still
being the white knight of the western world. A simpler time,with Gary Cooper, John Wayne, and Roy Rogers on thescreen.
Roy Rogers, the singing cowboy of the 1950s (the time of
McClane’s birth) is presented in Die Hard as the archetypal
precedent, the wistful singing cowboy long before
McClane’s estrangement from his wife. In other words, heis the symbolic father of John McClane, whose utterance ofRogers’s “Happy Trails, Hans” at the film’s climax signifies
the resolution of the conflict. This resolution, which sends
Hans on a thirty-floor fall after McClane unlatches Holly’s
watch, is both a literal resolution of the good-guy bad-guy
conflict and of the domestic conflict—being a gift from theamorous Ellis, “a symbol both of her business success andof her attractiveness to other men.”[iv] This time John Wayne
does “walk off into the sunset with Grace Kelly,” contrary toHans’ adjunction.
Die Hard echoes this in its domestic and external conflicts
featuring old-fashioned World War II antagonists: theJapanese Nakatomi Corporation antagonist in the domesticstruggle of family vs. feminist careerism, and Hans Gruber,
the West German terrorist-cum-thief with the European
posse. This choice is even referenced in the film when
Joseph Takagi, chairman of the corporation, says, “Pearl
Harbor didn’t work out so we got you with tape decks.”
Though described as being born in America — even internedin Manzanar! — Takagi is allied with the foreign, invasive
other; Holly working for a Japanese corporation “align[s]feminist interests with Japanese takeovers of the U.S.
economy—both trying to destroy the fabric of American
patriarchal capitalism.” [v]But it’s important that the film makes much note of the factthat Hans, being the invasive foreigner, can’t get his movie
trivia down, and, in the final confrontation, he butchers thefilm’s famous “yippee ki-yay motherfucker” (with what
me and my friends aped as “maddafack”). In so doing he“demonstrates that he is unworthy of survival by displaying a
faulty knowledge of Hollywood history” — that is to say, theAmerican myth put forward in the Reagan era.[vi] A throwback
to singing cowboy culture itself, “ yippee ki yay ” i s , i nt h e wor ds of Slate write r Eric Lic htenfel d , t h e
m o m ent w her e “Mc C la ne , an e ve ryma n, as s u m es
t h e m antle of Americ a’s archetypal h ero es , ”
a c t i n g in “collective wish-fulfillment.” [ v i i ]In a sense this is what we all do when we quote thesefilms. I often say, “Hans, bubbe, I’m your white knight”
ironically to my friends, referencing the scene in which

Holly’s lecherous colleague Harry Ellis tries to negotiatewith deadpan terrorist Alan Rickman over Coke, on coke;bubbe, meaning “grandma” in Yiddish, was ad-libbed by theactor — “inspired by his Jewish grandmother”![viii] T h o u g h
t h e fact t h at t h e o n l y g l i m m er o f m y o w n p o p J ewi s h n es s s een i n t h e fi l m i s as s o cia t e d w i t h ag reed y h al f-wi t i s a b i t al arm i n g , t h e f o l k s i n e s s
o f t h e fi l m — i t s s l an g y s wag — al wa y s s t r u c k ach o rd wi t h m y o wn l o wer-cl as s , b ras h s e l f .
I wasn’t alone. In high school, my best friend Katie and I
bonded almost exclusively through ping-ponging quotes
back and forth in Spanish class, escalating to ridiculous
heights of brassy mock-machismo, rejecting much of themedia made for teenage girl consumption and claiming
macho media for ourselves. Katie reclaimed Die Hard
differently from me, though; she had a massive crush on
Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber the way other girls fawn
over anime characters and boy-band singers. He was herphone background and the focal point of all our ribbing ofher. More importantly, though, t h i s b ecam e h e r w a y o frecl ai m i n g an d rep u rp o s i n g t h e t ex t ; unable to finda similarly sophisticated, adult, nuanced man in the media
constructed specifically for her demographic (teenage girls),
Katie found her own—the effeminate villain, no less — in afilm genre traditionally intended for men.
Die Hard was the first film to carry such a cultural cachet with
my friends and I — the second was Anchorman, particularly66important in this sense to us because it makes this cultural
critique explicit — giving lip service to 70s “Women’s Lib”
and making “enlightened” jokes at the expense of maleoafs so laughably chauvinistic one of them wears a cologne
named “Sex Panther” —while also featuring Ben Stiller inbrownface and more of the Frat Pack men = idiots, women= shrews paradigm. It was the first media text in which I
found a community — teenage girls adopting and mocking
machismo — that I saw myself in.
We learned about white supremacist patriarchy not justthrough their old-fashioned, exclusionary chauvinism,
racism, and homophobia, but also through their twisted,clumsy attempts to reconcile (Second Wave) feminism to
big-budget genres generally marketed to men. For example,t h e fir s t time I eve r he ard the word “ misog y n i s t ”
w a s in a J am es B ond movie . Goldeneye (1995), thenineties pseudo-reboot, to be exact.
M : “ I think you’ re a sexist, misogynist di n o s a u r.
A r e l ic of the Co ld War…”
The female M puts Bond in his place in this moment, sure,but the narrative ironically demands that she sponsor his
womanizing, trivializing her feminist stance.
This irony is central to my (and our) relationship to thesefilms. Let me clarify, however, that my love of the films
itself is not ironic. I love them the same way one loves
their parents unconditionally but eviscerates them for theirfaults— my complicated relationship with them is mycomplicated relationship to patriarchy, to my parents, and,by extension, to the Baby Boomer generation. The media I
grew up with affirms a patriarchy whose oppressiveness I
reject—while still reveling in the teensiest amount because
it appeals to my nostalgia to be considered a dinosaur. Notout of a political reactionaryism, but because my personal
feminism allows me to acknowledge that taste is a classmarker.
My family’s income always wavered near the poverty
line. M y f a t h e r w a s a w a r e h o u s e w o r k e r a n ddelivery driver and six-pack-a-day man, andour story is that of the dying—already dead, by
m a n y a c c o u n t s — A m e r i c a n w o r k i n g c l a s s . I’m
the only person I know my age to have lived under suchcircumstances. I still remember latching onto this when
I started to grow up, saying “ I g r e w u p i n a t r a i l e r
p a r k f o r o l d p e o p l e ” and realizing that that explained
something about me that nothing else could capture in thesame way. I guess a Marxist would call that the emergenceof my class consciousness; I’ve always constructed my67

personal narrative in relation to my humble beginnings, andthe humility of their lack of intellectual currency (especiallyin the academic community).
To live in the American working class as a white person
is an interesting thing: as Noel Ignatiev states in an open
letter eventually part of a collection of works called“White Blindspot,” “the greatest ideological barrier to theachievement of proletarian class consciousness, solidarityand political action is now, and has been historically, whitechauvinism.” [ix] That is to say, white supremacy and theprivilege it entails: white exceptionalism prevents theeventual liberation of the people by forcing white workers
to act against their own interests by neglecting possible
solidarity with workers of color. And only recently did I
realize how even my own self-description “working class”(labor! they try!) is so often coded as white while “poor” isthe label applied to people of color.
I think about this in relation to the mobile home my motherfilled with bookshelf upon bookshelf of Clint Eastwood,
John Wayne, Harrison Ford, and James Bond. White men
enforcing the law. My mother: what is the space between aliberal, privileged, Jewish 1960s Massachusetts upbringing
with Ivy League parents, and a shag-carpeted, metal-sided
double-wide? And what does it mean to idolize the lawgiverin these films but to shudder at the sight of a police car?
Writing this, trying to understand the reasons why I study
film, why I like what I like, and why my family watches films
together instead of talking has often been painful. I can’t
think of any stories about either of my parents’ childhoods,
aside from the fact that my dad had an adolescent crush
on Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music (who didn’t?).
But at least the films I know they watched—my mother,for example, saw Jurassic Park while pregnant with me—connect me to who they were at the times they watched
them, what their lives were like.
I keep thinking about how McClane as a hero, in becoming
an updated, wise-cracking version of the ol’ lonesome
cowboy, took up his father’s fight. H o w m y f a m i l y a n d
I identified with the perseverance of characterslike him, cleaving to the American imaginary —to the self-satisfied, swaggering superiority ofAmerican pop culture — when we had nothinge l s e . Escaping the sometimes-traumatic narratives of ourlives by taking pride in ‘Merica, and how we relate to eachother through these archetypal fathers.
It seems that every new generation attempts to understandtheir parents through emulating / recycling the previous

generation’s fashion (and music), from the fedoras andthree-piece suits of the Seventies to the bellbottomshag carpet-van aesthetic of the Boogie Nights/That 70’s
Show era of film and television. My dad had a Seventies
Econoline van. We had shag carpet. “Before it was cool.”
It has become countercultural to embrace the values andaesthetics of one’s parents. Ragtag retro has become hip.
Much has been said by my friends of their and my own
resemblance to the musician Mac DeMarco, a Canadiansinger-songwriter famous as much for his gap-toothed-dirtysnapback-ashtray-smell style as his neon, jangly, crooning“jizz jazz” and his Dionysian onstage antics. He represents,
to me, one manifestation of a cultural phenomenon known
as “dadcore,” which alternately ironically and sincerelycelebrates unglamorous athletic shoes, utilitarian work
jackets, and ball caps.
So what of the New York fashion student and dreaded Santa
Cruz hipster attempt to emulate this threadbareness with
$90 American Apparel Mom jeans, “vintage” snapbacks
and slider hats, and exorbitantly priced Birkenstocks,
Danskos, and New Balances? Their poverty is only that ofpeople used to the good life, to the comfort of not having
to live paycheck-to-paycheck. I had to shop at stores like
St. Vincent de Paul, was forced to. It was not desirable. For
people like my parents, it’s a look that they more or lesscould not afford to change.
This wave in fashion is how the Millennial generation
acknowledges this lost, dying America, “subverting”
mainstream Trump-Kardashian excess as it simultaneously
commodifies abject “poor” culture, as it has with thecommodification of hip-hop culture (but without facing anyof the much-deserved critique associated with appropriating
Afro American resistant practices). It very deeply angers
me to see a caricature of my own lack, which in many ways
is invisible.
But I still wear my dad’s Athletics cap, and the four orfive other ones I own. I still make my parents watch Die
Hard every year — e v e n i f m y d a d i s j u s t g o i n g t o
sit at the dining-room table behind us smoking
a c i g a r i l l o — because the work of my life up to thispoint has been to fit this silent family watching workingclass heroes into the larger narrative American mythology
sells. To reclaim both this heritage and to forge an identity
beholden neither to traditional notions of ciswomanhoodor class hierarchy — one where I acknowledge a macho,
masculine working-class culture that is my birthright while
also critiquing the systems in place that make it the waythat it is.

[i] Jeffords, Susan. Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the
Reagan Era. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University
Press, 1994, 53.
[ii] Stilwell, Robynn J. “‘I Just Put a Drone under Him…’: Collage
and Subversion in the Score of Die Hard.” Music & Letters 78, no.
4 (Nov., 1997): 557. JSTOR.
[iii] The Drug Policy Alliance, “Drug War Statistics.” Accessed
April 23, 2015. http://www.drugpolicy.org/drug-war-statistics.
[iv] Stilwell, “I Just Put A Drone,” 559[v] Ibid.
[vi] Ibid., 558.
[vii] Lichtenfeld, Eric. “Yippee-Ki-Yay… The Greatest One-Linerin Movie History.” Slate, June 26, 2007. http://www.slate.com/
articles/news_and_politics/summer_movies/2007/06/yippeekiyay.
single.html.
[viii] “Die Hard: 25 Years On,” Shortlist.com, accessed March 7,
2015, http://www.shortlist.com/entertainment/films/die-hard-25years-on.
[ix] Ignatiev, Noel. “White Blindspot: The Original Essays on
Combating White Supremacy and White-Skin Privilege.” In
Revolutionary Youth & the New Working Class, ed. Carl Davidson
Pittsburg, PA: Changemaker Publications, 149.

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INFRARED TREE VEINS, seth temple andrews

Mission statement
EyeCandy is an annually-published, student-run media studies collection. Our aim
is to focus on culturally relevant and compelling topics that expand our relationships
with film, television, and new media forms. We hope that our publication will motivate
readers to engage with media in a more in-depth, critical, and complex fashion.
This year, with our 25th volume and the 50th anniversary of the University, EyeCandyis rededicating itself to “questioning authority” with a commitment to social justice
and a specific focus on pieces relating to marginalized communities. We hope to act
as a platform for UCSC community discussion and critique of media and popular
culture.

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sponsors
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special Thanks
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