cinema

Labyrinth As Feminist Myth

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Despite its potential, feature movie fantasy hasn’t traditionally been the go-to genre for feminist fiction.

Enter Labyrinth, in 1986.

Jennifer Connelly is an absolute joy as teenage protagonist Sarah Williams, discovering her power – not just the power to solve the labyrinth of the title, but the power to resist the coercion of David Bowie’s illusionist Goblin King, Jareth. Sarah solves puzzles, makes friends, and navigates her way through a series of illusions and temptations, culminating in her rejection of the King’s power in a maze of Escher staircases.

Sunday Hoyden: Vale Bea Arthur

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I only just caught her fabulous turn as Vera Charles a couple of days ago in the movie Mame! and thought to myself “what a great hoyden”, and today I heard the news that she has died, aged 86.

Friday Hoydens: the Redgrave women

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There’s a lot of attention given to this particular death, partly because of the fame of her family, and partly because her death seems bizarre to those who don’t know much about head injuries. There’s plenty to read about both those aspects in the various MSM reports.

Quickhit: How Hollywood made its heroines weight-obsessed and man mad

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From the Guardian/Observer:

Hollywood heroines are being increasingly portrayed as neurotic, idiotic and obsessed by men, weight and weddings, a professor at Oxford University has claimed.

Dr Diane Purkiss, who is a fellow at Keble College, argued that over the past five decades the film industry has made its female characters “dumber and dumber”. The latest slew of chick-flicks, including He’s Just Not That Into You and Confessions of a Shopaholic, fall prey to the “worst kind of regressive, pre-feminist stereotype of misogynistic cliche,” she added.

Life on the Riverbank: “Edwardian Gay”

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John Sutherland, Eremitus Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College, London, discusses his latest book Magic Moments on ABC Radio National:

a kind of Biographia Literaria as he takes a look back to the magic of 25 experiences of books, films, plays, songs, paintings, sounds and smells which took him by surprise, sank into his memory and changed his life