Sunday, February 11, 2007
Inaugural post- Notes on a Scandal
So, who has seen Notes on a Scandal? The performances by Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, and Bill Nighy are stunning but was anyone else offended by its representation of a lesbian as an off-kilter stalker in the tradition of The Children's Hour and Single White Female? Given that it is the year after Brokeback Mountain, isn't it time that we start granting all people who identify as homosexual sympathetic portrayals or do we resign ourselves to either lipstick lesbians who are eager to "go both ways" (appealing to the visual pleasure of heterosexual men) or misguided "crazies" who are outside of mainstream society?
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9 comments:
I haven't seen Notes, but would ask if Dench's character is portrayed as off-kilter because she is a lesbian, or is she off-kilter because Blanchett does not return her love? And, if my memory of a synopsis serves me, isn't Blanchett also involved with an underage male student? Does this mean heterosexuality is not presented in a sympathetic manner?
Yes, presentations of homosexuals have been odious in years past, but I'm not sure why that means homosexuals cannot be presented as antagonists. If the film suggests that Dench's lesbianism is what makes her wacky, then, yes, the film and filmmaker ought to be criticized for offering such an atavistic, dipshit perspective. But if her wackiness stems from other causes -- like maybe its a response to having been closeted all her life -- then that's something different. But again, I haven't seen the film, so any specific judgment will be reserved until I have.
But congrats on first post, Michele!
I read your post and went out to catch it. I wasn't impressed with much of it.
Judi Dench's performance reminded me too much of Beryl Reid's turn in
The Killing of Sister George, and Dench's efforts didn't come off the better for the comparison.
Aldrich obviously wanted to play the character and story for all its pulpy sensationalism but Reid invests a humanity in the main character that Dench just doesn't muster here.
There's no rationalizing it away: The film brands her a twisted lesbian and Dench never really tries to come to her rescue.
Hell, Blanchett's character fucks a 15 year-old boy, violates her professional ethics and betrays her family but still comes off as a victim. The film displays just the kind of pampered, priviledged solipsism taken as a right by the upper middle class that Dench's character decries at first, until she desperately tries to enter that world herself because, hey, only freaks can't get in.
I also think I'd put Notes near the top of the Anti-Valentine's Day Movie list!
Like Paul, I went to check Notes out last night, but had an entirely different reaction than Paul. I didn't see anything that suggested Dench's character was imbalanced because she was a lesbian -- rather, I saw her as someone who carries an inordinate amount of bitterness in her life, and who fixates on individual persons as her "soulmates" who will get her out of the hell in which she finds herself. She fairly loathes anyone and anything around her, and treats each perceived slight as an unforgivable offense -- until she finds a way to use it to get what she wants. None of this would change were she heterosexual, so far as I can see. I think the clinical diagnosis would probably be borderline personality disorder.
Nor did I see Blanchett's character as a victim -- she is manipulated, no doubt, but she is by and large exactly as Dench pegged her: immature, possessed of a feeling of entitlement, untrustworthy, flighty, the kind of person who promises to stop blowing her fifteen year old student, then a few weeks later tries to push her friend out the door so she can go fuck him in her backyard studio. The 15-year-old engages in far more stalkerish behavior than Dench does -- following Blanchett around town, making inappropriate, sexually charged comments, refusing to not see her until she finds out how much he's been lying to her. Bill Nighy, the husband, seems like a decent enough sort, but he also seems directionless -- his comment towards the end of the film, that even if he wasn't the perfect husband, that at least he was there, probably sums up what is wrong in their relationship to begin with.
So I'd be interested to know what specifically in the film leads them to conclude that Dench's character is unhinged because she is a lesbian -- other than that she is a lesbian. Why do we bracket Blanchett and the boy's sexuality when discussing their characters, but not Dench's? Why, in this analysis, is she foremost a lesbian, when the film only alludes to sexual desire on her part?
As to RD's comment that the film belongs on an Anti-Valentine's Day list, one of the previews I saw last night was for the Drew Barrymore/Hugh Grant romcom Music and Lyrics. Go figure....
I don't think anyone is "bracketing" Blanchett and the boy's sexuality. Indeed, their heterosexuality is crucial to judging their behavior: As Sheba herself explains, she's a woman approaching 40 looking for a last dangerous fling having played the dutiful hetero mother for years while the boy is a "tower of testosterone," as Barabara, Dench's character, comments.
It's the film's own structure, then, that forces the consideration of Barbara's sexuality as the source of her anti-social behavior. Her lesbianisn isn't simply alluded to, it is the great unspoken, repressed force of her life which shapes and determines the nature of all her realtionships.
Oh and RD was me, accidentally logged in under the blog login.
Paul, I still can't agree. Yes, Sheba talks about wanting one last dangerous fling -- she desperately wants to still think of herself as young -- but Barbara also talks about fearing being alone, when she and Sheba sit on the park bench. So why does her lesbianism motivate her aberrant response to this fear of being alone, but Sheba's heterosexuality doesn't fuel her aberrant response to her fear of growing older?
I do understand your point Mookie. There is no reason why a homosexual can't be an antagonist simply because of his/her sexual preference...heterosexuals, of course, play antagonists (even of the slightly disturbing "let's touch arms" variety) all of the time and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whom they like to sleep with.
The point is...how many positive filmic representations of lesbians can you name? Where is the Brokeback Mountain for lesbians? Or the L Word for film?
Michele, I can't think of a Brokeback-like example for lesbians -- in the sense of mainstream film with bankable-but-still-some-indie-cred stars. However, American independent film has a fairly extensive history of sensitive portrayals of lesbianism: John Sayles' Lianna, Donna Deitch's Desert Hearts, Rose Troch's Go Fish, Maria Maggenti's The Incredibly True Adventures of 2 Girls in Love, et al. Maggenti's new film received a write-up in this Sunday's LA Times. It's about a man and a woman who fall in love with the same woman; perhaps that will move mainstream filmmaking closer to Brokeback... which might not be all that positive or human a representation, given the duplicity of the Heath Ledger character.
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