The problems of all people: How movies, music and TV shows picked up ideas of equality
Friends today know me as a person who supports Anita Sargsyan, opposes “gamergate”, condemns objectification and does not consider jokes about “chicks” normal, especially in social networks of serious publications - in general, as “social justice warrior” (also known as Social Justice Warrior, or SJW). People like me usually chuckle, or they treat us with caution - jokes, and when someone tells you that you have blundered sexist nonsense, it’s still a shame, so it’s better not to talk to him at all. On the other hand, a couple of years ago I myself laughed at Sargsyan’s rollers and could argue with them for a long time. And I would like, if not to the opposing side, then at least a few years ago to tell myself something.
For me, then, the most banal argument turned out to be the decisive one - that is just right. That's right, when women have the same rights and opportunities as men, when not everything around just about white beautiful men and their white beautiful problems, when people of all sexes, sexual orientations, religions and races can feel equal. And yes, it’s hard to imagine how humanity can come to gender equality if the “virgin in need” trails will dominate pop culture. We have to admit that righteousness in itself is still a terrible argument that can only act on such idiot like me, for an incomprehensible reason seeking justice in everything. It is much more important to understand that social criticism does not lead to prohibitions (as most of its opponents think), but, on the contrary, to improvements. And if a couple of years ago such arguments mostly sounded only in theory, then by the end of 2015, they can be supported by facts.
Time of real heroines
One of the most criticized feminists tropes - "Miss male character." This is when the hero, who was originally conceived by a man, is put on a skirt, makes him handsome and with boobs and does not change anything else. From the point of view of equality, this is not such a sexist move - it literally means that the sexes are equal in everything, but from the point of view of the real state of affairs, this is simply not true. Therefore, films with superhero women always fell through - men still wrote and filmed them, so there were some completely incomprehensible characters from another dimension who couldn’t empathize with either a man or a woman. Film studios considered such failures to be just a sign that the viewers are not interested in watching superheroines, and were in no hurry to repeat the attempts. But the series about Jessica Jones, which was released this year, may well break this vicious circle - this is a story about a woman written by a woman whose representatives of both sexes can empathize with.
Jessica Jones is the complete opposite of Miss Male Character. She does not have the typical machista desire to go and bring justice everywhere; she, unlike her neighbor in the Daredevil district, does not save the offended at night. She first needs to save herself - from Kilgrave, the manipulator in love with her. For Kilgrave's supernatural nature, who literally knows how to control people's minds, ordinary everyday stories about men who confuse obsession with love and who justify violence with difficulties in relationships are easily guessed. The result was a female character who can truly be empathized by female viewers and who can learn something new from the male viewer — the very novelty that the comic-like universe lacked so much.
Jessica Jones is a lot like Maxine Caulfield, the main character in the game "Life Is Strange". Max is also a person with superpowers (she can stop and even wind back time), but she doesn’t have enough strength to be a superhero. In the mood and by the name of the main character, "Life Is Strange" can be compared with the character "The Catcher in the Rye", but Maxine Caulfield is not at all Holden in a skirt: this is also a story of the growing conflict teenager, and here too, the inner feelings of the heroine are reliably transmitted. To do this, "Life Is Strange" makes the most of the main advantage of video games - it makes anyone feel like an 18-year-old girl and feel all the fear and hostility of the world around when you're a modest and reticent student of art college. This turns out to be no less, and perhaps even more valuable, experience than once again being in the shoes of a stern, laconic man who makes a way to save the world with his fists and bullets.
Another notable heroine of 2015 is Susan Cooper, the character of Melissa McCarthy in Spy. A myriad of spy Bond comedies was filmed, but this one is really worthy since Austin Powers. The “spy” was born in response to someone’s sarcastic comment, they say, give free rein to feminists, they will make James Bond a “fat woman”. Directed by Paul Fig with Melissa McCarthy did so, and it turns out that when the superspy is not an elegant man and not a seductive beauty, this at least opens a lot of room for new jokes. The best thing about Spy is that all the jokes really sound the first time, we have not heard them in a million similar films before, simply because this million films do not exist.
What at first seemed a limitation turned out to be a hundred new freedoms for the author and a breath of fresh air for the viewer. Of course, Paul Fig himself is not a woman, so the “Spy” is far from the psychological nuances of “Jessica Jones”, but FIG at least understands Melissa McCarthy’s acting talents and adapts well to them. After “Spy”, it is easy to dispel doubts of all (well, half) people skeptical to restart “Ghostbusters” with a female line-up, also run by Paul Fig, you can be sure that we are really waiting for some kind of movie and not a semi-finished product from the heritage of the eighties.
By the way, even the Bond this year, too, there were noticeable changes in the part of female characters - the term "Bond girl" is gradually beginning to become a thing of the past, and 50-year-old Monica Bellucci and Lea Seydou became partners with Agent 007 in Spectrum. able to stand up for themselves.
Butterfly is not a pimp
Of course, social equality is not only about feminism. And in 2015, perhaps even more important was the topic of combating racism - after the murder of Eric Garner in New York and the situation in Ferguson. An immediate reaction to these events was Kendrick Lamar's album "To Pimp a Butterfly", which can be seen in approximately every second list of the best albums of the year. Kendrick partly continues in "To Pimp a Butterfly" the theme begun by Kanye West in "Yeezus" - that in the 21st century an African American still remains a slave, a hostage of stereotypes. Only if Kanye has these stereotypes - Porsche and Rick Owens (and then it’s somehow difficult to be imbued with sympathy), then Kendrick takes more and condemns the whole modern culture, in which, if you are black, it means you are a gangsta.
Hence the name, which can roughly be translated as “Making a pimp out of a butterfly,” a reference to “Kill a Mockingbird.” The butterfly is, of course, an African American: just a man with inner peace and dreams, he knows how to love and wants to be loved, but culture puts him in a certain place - you are a rapper, you are a gangsta. It is not surprising that in the framework of the same culture a child with a toy gun for a cop is a threat. Here, in general, the case when the album itself turned out to be social agitation and at the same time precisely because of this - a great album. The ideology allowed Kendrick to musically turn around so that any white rock album of the year in comparison turns out to be a second-rate bard song.
One of the producers of "To Pimp a Butterfly" Farrell Williams also in 2015 produced the film "Dope" - a story about an African American teenager who sells ecstasy. The film is funny, briskly filmed and suggests itself in the ranks of the cult classics somewhere between "Risky Business" and Guy Ritchie's early paintings. But it is precisely one of the best this year, and not just a good “Dope” that makes the final - a bit sneaky, but a fair blow to the viewer in the stomach. There is little that can be added without spoilers, but, in general, with Kendrick's album, the film eventually rhymes quite obviously.
Another interesting example in this regard is "Speedin 'Bullet 2 Heaven", a new recording of a rapper (or already an ex-rapper?) Kid Cudi. This is not hip-hop at all, but authentic alternative guitar music of the 90s in the spirit of The Jesus Lizard - in fact, the whitest music in the world. This album is half serious and half conscious provocation; Kid Cudi and behaves appropriately, openly picking up all his critics and (now former) fans. The purpose of the provocation is not just shocking, but just exposing the situation when Kid Cudi is not allowed to be anyone else but the rapper.
In their genre, "Speedin 'Bullet 2 Heaven" is a really great album, and, perhaps, even more interesting than what Californian punks from Wavves to FIDLAR are doing now. The problem here is precisely that the Kid Cudi "got the wrong way." And this problem is not his own - he is only trying to use his right to be a butterfly, but he is openly denied this. In the lists of the best for the year "Speedin 'Bullet 2 Heaven" you can hardly see, but this is at least an interesting and revealing story about racism, which we still have not even fully recognized, but the more there will be cultural statements on this topic, the the more we begin to notice it, and the richer our culture becomes.
Mind games
Another important topic is the de-stigmatization of mental diseases and the struggle for a human attitude towards people suffering from them. It has long been — about fifteen years old — actively using Western television in its plots: brilliant detectives with autism or with Asperger syndrome have become commonplace. The problem remained with how depression was presented on TV - usually frivolous, most often as just some kind of sadness that you can get rid of if there is a "right man" or a "good woman." A radical step in the right direction this year suddenly made the series "You suck", revealing in the second season the fact that his main character suffers from clinical depression.
“You suck” last year was one of the most ridiculous and carefree new shows, in it two completely unbearable people found each other and pretended for a long time that they didn’t like because love was for boring ordinary people. But in the second season to continue the same line was stupid, so the relationship of the characters decided to test the strength of such a cruel way. Jimmy, of course, is trying to “save” and “cure” Gretchen, but he fails because it is impossible in principle - such a story arc for a comedy is not something dangerous but almost deadly, in romcoms it is not impossible. But “You Suck” heroically defends its right to an exception, and so just a good series becomes also very important.
Of course, there were people who were upset that the show was no longer so funny, but judging by the ratings, even if there were a lot of them, they didn’t stop watching. There were those who complained that the desire to be tolerant ditched a good audacious show, but in response to such claims, the creator Stephen Falk wrote a column in which he explained that the mental disorder in the series was not due to his social responsibility, but first of all, as a necessary plot tool, so that the series could grow into something sensible in the second season. And the utterly heartbreaking text about the series was written by the editor of the culture department of the Vox website, who himself was married to a girl suffering from clinical depression, “You suck” was for them the first show in which they could truly recognize themselves, although people like them in the world quite a lot.
In a more entertaining, but equally meaningful way, the creators of “Nutty Former”, the best non-cable sitcom of the year, approached the depression. In the story, a young lawyer, Rebecca, suddenly decides to abandon a brilliant career in a large New York firm and leaves for a small town in California where her first love lives, Josh, whom she met a teenager in a summer camp and no longer saw. The “Freaky Ex” has the most unattractive synopsis that you can think of, but the creators themselves are really concerned about it - they understand this very well. Already by the seventh-eighth episode, it becomes obvious that this story is not a sudden old love, but a great nervous breakdown caused by years of depressed depression.
We see Rebecca in the manic stage, she no longer sits on pills, is overwhelmed with different feelings and has not understood very well how much she has changed her life and the real reasons for it. This view of the situation makes the series a breath of fresh air in comparison with the rest of the sitcoms. Well and, of course, do not forget about the "Puzzle", which explains the depression for the smallest and by many, called the best Pixar cartoon from the time of the third "Toy Story".
Do not prohibit, but inspire
The amusing status of SJW is still frustrating - at least because you are considered the advocate of censorship and compared to Mizulina and Milonov, although in fact you don’t want to forbid anything. You are just tired. From superheroes with the complex of God, playing the antique tragedies. From rappers who count grandmas and heifers in each song. From brilliant detectives and their faithful companions. From the courageous muscular uncles, who are saving the buxom beauties. From boring white whiners with their boring white problems. The modern world is much bigger and wider, millions of things occur in it, which pop culture ignores because of its incomprehensible conservatism - that’s what SJW usually opposes.
This year we looked not at clever special agents - masters in hand-to-hand fighting, but at the hunted girl, whose superpowers are still not enough to escape from the insane stalker, the Egyptian hacker-social phobia and the fat and clumsy employee of the special services. It all sounds like a terrible dream of the conservative opponent Anita Sargsyan, but as it turned out, it does not look like that at all. The point is not that Charlie's angels need to be banned, it's just great when there is Susan Cooper besides them. No need to try to delete the Black Widow from the Avengers, just more interesting are characters like Jessica Jones. And social justice is only a bonus to the fact that both creators and viewers have dozens of new and not yet beaten plots, and more people have a chance to recognize themselves in the characters of films, TV series and video clips and feel themselves a part of this world. . It seems that for this pop culture was invented.
Photo: 20th Century Fox, Netfix, USA Network, FX Network