Anatomy of the "Prick Flick": TAKING THE MEASURE OF MANLY MOVIES Author(s): J. E. Smyth Source: Cinéaste, Vol. 42, No. 4 (Fall 2017), pp. 20-24 Published by: Cineaste Publishers, Inc. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26356784 Accessed: 01-01-2020 17:55 UTC

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This content downloaded from 2.100.109.214 on Wed, 01 Jan 2020 17:55:55 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms n AnatomyAnatomy of the of "Prick the Flick" "Prick Flick TAKING THE MEASURE OF MANLY MOVIES by J.J. E.E. SmythSmyth know the ideological pill that followed passengers the rioting over having to watch sus "women's pictures." Back then, just sugar: Hollywood in the studio system— pected liberal fare), they all passed the time Seventy-five about every film years could qualifyago, theyas a called them sometimes referred to in pseudoelite circles watching a "blood-and-guts, monosyllabic woman's picture. Hollywood's savvy execu as "the classical Hollywood cinema"—was war movie." Steinem, presumably annoyed, tives, including Sam Goldwyn, readily the product of a repressive patriarchy, thena fac rechristened the film as part of a wider acknowledged that their box-office profits tory of right-wing, misogynist lowbrows genrewho phenomenon: the "prick flick." came from women—the women who chose dreamed up entertainment as one long I was fascinated, delighted, and shocked the family film, the women who spent theirBusby Berkeley leg show. Even the camera (it was the Times, after all, not Bitch maga discretionary income on movie tickets wasand personified as male, so women lost onzine). all My students would be thrilled with magazines, and the women who often wrote counts, on both sides of the lens. Academic their new seminar reading. No more humor their screenplays. feminist critics of the 1970s made careers out less and ahistorical Laura Mulvey—just a We don't call them women's pictures of trashing the studio system and predicting four-column article with no discernable anymore. They're now known as "chick a Second Wave-fueled "renaissance" of Freud that delivered a well-placed kick at the flicks." The other old tenderest part of the sys Hollywood genres are still tem's anatomy. But then I around, even if they At an impasse with "chick flicks," the re-read author it and grew restive. haven't aged particularly turns her critical scalpel on a genre of male The premise and the evi well. Westerns (Hell or dominated movies recently observed by Gloria dence started to bother High Water, 2016), gang me. So, like a surgeon with ster films (Live by Night, Steinem, and cuts the phenomenon down to size. a feminist knife—I know 2016), biopics (Sully, you're all thinking of 2016), and war epics (Hacksaw Ridge, 2016) women's pictures (the more readable Molly Lorena Bobbitt—I'd like to probe just what, still have critics intoning empty superlatives. Haskell1 and Marjorie Rosen2 were rare exactly, a "prick flick" might be. When women get headline films in "liter exceptions). We're still waiting for that According to Steinem, the mainstays of ary" adaptations (and I am using that term renaissance or revolution in Hollywood. The the prick flick are World War II epics and very loosely), they are usually headcases only thing we've gotten is the chick flick. the seemingly endless array of films glorify trapped in a man's world (The Girl on the In one of her all-too-rare pieces of film ing violence, from Vietnam to the war on Train, 2016). Women's biopics? It's pre criticism, recently rejiggered for The New terror. Interestingly, Steinem avoids men dominantly a rich white wives' club (Jackie, York Times3 from a 2007 Huffington Post tioning the nationalism at the heart of these 2016), with the rare exception (Hidden Fig blog, feminist icon Gloria Steinem has films. Perhaps she doesn't want to seem ures, 2016) about the good minorities who defined the chick flick as "one that has more anti-American as well as anti-prick. After all, serve the white patriarchy and the nation. dialogue than car chases, more relationships she ignores Westerns, arguably the crucible There isn't much room for women in any than special effects, and whose suspense of American racial and sexual violence and of the classic genre categories these days, but comes more from how people live than from fantasies of empire. Nothing says "Whose is there was a time when unpatriotic women how they get killed." Steinem first began bigger?" better than a shoot-out. were the protagonists of historical films thinking about this while sitting on a delayed But are Westerns inherently masculine? I (remember rebel Scarlett O'Hara who wasn't flight, when one of her fellow passengers said don't think so—some of the most popular afraid of getting her white hands dirty?). Bar he didn't watch "chick flicks." Instead of Western literature adapted for the screen was bara Stanwyck may have been a head shorter CNN, a documentary, or Sesame Street written by women, from Mari Sandoz than John Wayne, but she shot just as (which would doubtless have had half of (Cheyenne the Autumn, 1964) and Edna Ferber straight (Forty Guns, 1957). Need (Giant, 1956) to Elizabeth Mad to see a biography of Marie dox Roberts (The Great Meadow, Curie? Watch Greer Garson back 1931) and Dorothy Johnson (The in 1943. The British were better Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, at true-story war films starring 1962). True, there were more women and their machine guns films featuring Western women (Virginia McKenna's portrayal of in the big bad studio days than dead-shot Violette Szabo in now, but accounting for this Carve Her Name with Pride, might mean we would have to 1958, is unmissable), but home rethink the trajectory of Western grown glamazon Constance Ben civilization and its gospel of pro nett produced and starred in her gressive history. Not all Westerns own version back in 1945 (Paris glorify the conquest of the fron Underground, adapted from Etta tier, and women wrote many of Shiber's memoir by Gertrude these critical views (Helen Hunt Purcell and Boris Ingster). Jackson's Ramona, about the Those of us who took college extermination of California's film courses or who had to suffer Native Americans, was filmed through their history professor's many times and was the second "treat" of showing a classic Holly Bette Davis opens The Letter (1940) with a bang by most-read novel during the nine wood film in lieu of a lecture shooting a cheating lover, (photo courtesy of Photofest) teenth century).

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This content downloaded from 2.100.109.214 on Wed, 01 Jan 2020 17:55:55 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Top: Russell Crowe in Master and Commander (2003)(2003). Top: Dennis Quaid in The Right Stuff (1983). Bottom: Robert Redford in A Bridge Too Far (1977). Bottom: John Wayne in The Longest Day (1962)(1962). (photos courtesy of Photofest) (photos courtesy of Photofest)

when Gloria Steinem would even uncon Does violence cut across gender lines in lematic issue. I should probably say sciously endorse contemporary Hollywood's ways that Steinem does not wish to acknowl This bringshere that although me toI am ana lifelong even fan more prob "pink is for girls and blue is for boys" ideology. edge? If some women can't stand the endless of Charlton Heston, I am not a member of It's always intrigued me that men romantic like prattle of the contemporary screen, the National Rifle Association. But is it accu Casey Robinson and Sidney Howard are wrote we monosyllabic thugs rather than femi rate to say that a prick flick is one with guns inmany of these early tough women's nists?scripts I once dumped a guy because he said it (historical guns, mostly, since even pricks (often adapted, admittedly, from original he liked Titanic (1997); does that make me a like their violence high-toned)? What novelsis by women), while Frances Marion "prick" rather than a "chick," Ms. Steinem? wrong with women carrying guns on screen wrote the male prison-riot tour de force (Don't The answer that, reader.) Men—whether and using them? What if they like it, Ms. Big House (1930), Mary C. McCall Jr. pennedthey're gay or straight—seem to love a good Steinem? In Gone With the Wind (1939), Scar some of the gangster flick Dr. Socrates weepie, whether it's the equally interminable lett O'Hara shoots a Yankee soldier on the (1935), Doris Malloy handled the warMan inpic the Gray Flannel Suit (1956), Mad steps of her home and doesn't get punished ture Corregidor (1943), and Marguerite Men (2007-2015), or Manchester by the Sea by the Production Code. Gia Scala and Irene Roberts adapted True Grit (1969). Critics (2016). As long as the drama is about them Papas (Guns of Navarone, 1961), Mary Ure such as Bosley Crowther may have decriedand the prison of the suburbs, the vacuous (Where Eagles Dare, 1968), Simone Signoret Jennifer Jones's take-no-shit, "half-breed" Stepford wife with the artificial 36DDs, and {Against the Wind, 1948), Jennifer Jones (Duel heroine in Duel in the Sun as an affront to the clacking heels, they will watch, only stop in the Sun, 1946), and even the future Princess the Western, but the film, David O. ping to open their mouths for another Stella Grace of Monaco (High Noon, 1952) allSelznick's baby, broke all box-office records Artois. I almost feel sorry for them myself. picked up guns and used them effectively. for its gender- and genre-bending narrative. Steinem also hints that films with special The grand dame of the women's genre, Is this just a case of women spectators effects belong to the prick-flick genre. Surely Bette Davis, was arguably the most effective working out their bad days at the office? Charlize Is Theron didn't kick all that ass on with a gun—and she didn't even need to put this why watching Clint Eastwood in Dirty screen without a little CGI help (Mad Max: on a pair of dusty Lucchese boots or ride Harry a (1971) almost makes women feel better Fury Road, 2015, and Atomic Blonde, 2017)? horse when she was doing it (watch her first after they've been denied a pay raise? Despite Admittedly, Pam Grier, who was an even scene in The Letter, 1940, with the boys one what feminist critics have said over the years, better female action-film star back in the evening and see if this chick flick makes them women empathize with both Scarlett O'Hara 1970s, didn't need special effects. Dialogue? flinch). Imagine some enterprising Freudian and Harry Callahan. If this goes against Relationships? How people live? "Peace and trying to convince the Queen of Hollywood Freud, Lacan, and the patriarchal powers thatquiet are for libraries," as Bette Davis once that she was unconsciously trapped in a patri be who write university film syllabi, then said.fem Without special effects, to paraphrase archal masquerade. Bang. Bad dialogue, Sig inist critics should truly embrace special Hitchcock, we have cinema with only the mund. But I never thought I'd see the day effects and airbrush them from what we teach. dull parts.

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This content downloaded from 2.100.109.214 on Wed, 01 Jan 2020 17:55:55 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Patty Jenkins's Jenkins's Wonder Wonder Woman Woman (2017) has(2017) become has the become highest-grossing the highest-grossing film directed byfilm a woman, directed but itsby a woman, but its heroine uses her powers to preserve a society that does not even allow women to vote, (photo courtesy of Photofest)

What Steinem does not address in her misogynists currently opposing their right to 2006), and I prefer my nineteenth-century article is production. She does not say vote. that Or studio executives could have done South with an occasional black person, partic men direct prick flicks and women direct something really radical and hired a woman ularly when she's armed with a cutthroat razor chick flicks. This is a problem. screenwriter. But Jenkins can take home (The her Beguiled, 1971, rather than Coppola's So much discussion lately has focused award, on and the suits can pat her on the head2017 pretty-in-pink remake). There were ordi Patty Jenkins directing Wonder Woman and give her another assignment (written naryby a black people in the South during the Civil (2017). Perhaps this is just another a case man). of Yes, that's right. Wonder Woman's War, right, Ms. Coppola? "If you can't beat the patriarchal comic screenwriter is Allan, not Alice, Heinberg. I'm But what if we turn away from directors and book franchise, then join it—check enclosed all in favor of gender-blind film assignments look at screenwriters for a moment? Women (but much less than Ridley Scott would (withinhave reason), but when a man (gay, made up nearly a quarter of Screen Writers received)." Or this might be the wrong straight, kind or identifying some or all of the Guildtime (SWG) membership during the 1930s of violence at the wrong time. Though as crit a woman) does something like this to andWon 1940s (with even more, less visible women ics cheer Jenkins for directing the highest der Woman in 2017, it's almost as bad as working the outside the guild). After a huge drop in grossing women's action film to date, Wondermore Woman lipstick commercials now the on 1960s, SWG women's membership has only than one cranky historian has pointed television. out slowly begun to climb back up to its founding that Wonder Woman was created by a man Many have argued recently that women's levels. Look sometime at the number of women in 1941, and that the current film is setposition in in Hollywood will improve only hired to write recent blockbusters. J. K. Rowling presuffrage World War I, when women whenwere there are more women directing. If has you only just wrested screenwriting control of secretaries rather than warriors. The sayprob the two words "Sofia Coppola," you her will boy-protagonist fantasy franchise from lem? To paraphrase Virginia Woolf, whatstill not convince me. Putting rich, giggling, Steve Kloves. Women are not natural partners stake do women have in societies that won't blonde ladies at the vanguard of Hollywood in the shoot-'em-up war, Western, and comic even give them the franchise? They are citi feminism is almost as bad as Wonder Woman book blockbusters being produced today, zens of nowhere. Long live anarchy. charging ahead in her iron corset and branded although they did write espionage, war, and Rather than fighting for the Allies in the lipstick waving an ice-cream cone. I like my horse operas with the best of them back in the Great War, Wonder Woman and her histori French Revolutions with lots of heads guillo 1930s and 1940s (Hitchcock owes a lot to his cal peers would have done better to wait while tined (male and female) and politics (A Tale ofoff-screen blonde, screenwriter and film and the howitzers pared down the number of Two Cities, 1935, rather than Marie Antoinette, television producer Joan Harrison).

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This content downloaded from 2.100.109.214 on Wed, 01 Jan 2020 17:55:55 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Prick flicks are about "serious director-based auteurism subjects" (note that I did not use The unquestioningthat gives Patty faith Jenkins in the word "seminal"). These are media attention is built on an often best-selling adaptations by ideological erasure of a collabo men about Important Men Inves rative studio system in which tigating Important Things (All the women worked on major feature President's Men, 1976; The Right films as producers, screenwrit Stuff, 1983; The Firm, 1993; Mas ers, editors, actors, and even ter and Commander, 2003; The Da production designers. Let me say Vinci Code, 2006). Call me a low it outright: since the 1960s, brow, but Ron Howard's drag director-focused auteurism has races (Grand Theft Auto, 1977) legitimized sexism in the Holly were far more engrossing than wood film industry at both an Tom Hanks with a PowerPoint academic and popular level. The presentation. Sometimes, a vari odd Directors Guild poster girl ant is about Important Men does nothing to address the putting up with women who dearth of high-profile women won't let them work because screenwriters in contemporary On the set of Craig's Wife (1936): From left, film editor Viola Lawrence, "bitches be crazy" (remember Hollywood (true, Coppola dou actress Rosalind Russell, screenwriter Mary C. McCall Jr, and director that biopic about T. S. Eliot with bled as her own screenwriter on Dorothy Arzner. (photo courtesy of the Margaret Herrick Library) Willem Dafoe? I don't, either). The Beguiled, but that's as good a There was a time when a histori reason as I can think of to keep cal or period film did not mean the directing and writing professions sepa So, if Steinem's polemic doesn't quite "No Women Allowed." Bette Davis may not rate). If Hollywood's representation of convince, are there other ways of examining have worn trousers in most of her films, but women is going to change, to embrace the this...er...genre? Here are some of my own she usually had a crown and told Errol Flynn history of women's strength and struggle forobservations. where to put his feet or she would chop them freedom and equality, then the blueprints Prick flicks are long, drawn-out affairs that off (The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, for her anatomy are in scripts that don't never seem to reach a satisfactory conclusion. 1939). In an era when many Democrats and render her as a perpetually blonde, blue Now, sneer all you like at Gone With the Republicans in and outside Hollywood con eyed, airbrushed airhead. Wind, but stuff happens. Ever seen A Bridge verted to the Equal Rights Amendment (first Steinem wants to believe in progress, Too Far (1977)? A film too long, as critics adopted as part of the Republican Party plat pointing out that heroine Jyn Erso (Felicity noted, by about four hours. If I don't doze off form in 1940 and in 1944 for the Democrats), Jones) is part of the new Star Wars franchise before Robert Redford appears, I usually play women told the president of Cuba what to do (Rogue One, 2016). But Jyn dies supporting "Spot the Lone Woman," a game invented over the phone—and in Spanish (Katharine the efforts of her dear dead white father for just these occasions. What about Twenti Hepburn, Woman of the Year, 1942)—a girl (Mads Mikkelsen), and the new Star Wars eth Century-Fox's epic World War II testos won the Grand National (Elizabeth Taylor, franchise writers are men. To diehard fans terone fest of Nazi killing: The Longest Day National Velvet, 1944), and Constance Ben with original Millennium Falcon models, (1962)? Sorry, Darryl, but even Richard Bur nett made the world's best-dressed lawyer Leigh Brackett's Empire Strikes Back (1980) ton is doesn't make that one seem shorter. Or {Smart Woman, 1948). still as good as it ever got. Brackett's gift forhow about Oliver Stone's JFK (1991)? See the Lately, academics and mavens have spare dialogue and fatalism was honed back director's cut version and wake me in five turned film noir into a wannabe intellectual in the studio era, with The Big Sleep (1946). hours. Again, it's another very expensive, variant of the prick-flick genre. That works if Steinem doesn't mention the recent Ger auteurist masterwork about the ultimate you ignore producer Joan Harrison (Phan trude Bell biopic (Queen of the Desert, dead, white, American patriarch. tom Lady, 1944), screenwriter Betty Reinhart 2015—think a girls' Lawrence of Arabia, not (Laura, 1944), producer Virginia Van Upp Terence Stamp with feathers and falsies), but (Gilda, 1946), novelist Patricia Highsmith that was written and directed by Werner (Strangers on a Train, 1951, was adapted in Herzog. Battle of the Sexes, the upcoming part by Czenzi Ormonde), novelist Dorothy tennis film about Billie Jean King's defeat of B. Hughes (Ride the Pink Horse, 1947, was over-the-hill Bobby Riggs, was also written adapted and produced by Harrison), and film by a man (Simon Beaufoy). Prerelease press editor Viola Lawrence (In a Lonely Place, on this film has focused on star Emma 1950). In the interests of not starting World Stone's demands for equal pay with her male War III, I will not say that Lawrence's work co-star. Audiences should be more con cutting The Lady from Shanghai (1947) saved cerned about the value of paying to watch Columbia from a grade-A disaster, but... Stone play tennis. Patty Jenkins's only real Nancy Drew solved more mysteries than box-office colleague/competitor, director Sam Spade during the 1930s and '40s, but the Kathryn Bigelow, usually works from scripts only historical noir woman of any interest to by Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker, 2008; Zero contemporary Hollywood is Elizabeth Dark Thirty, 2012; Detroit, 2017). Of course, Short—or should I say, her corpse (The Black Jocelyn Moorehouse has worked with female Dahlia, 2006). Women are so much more screenwriters (Jane Anderson, How to Make picturesque when they are silent and dead. an American Quilt, 1995; Laura Jones, A Prick flicks are biopics. That's catchy; it Thousand Acres, 1997), but these mainstream rhymes—but it might not be true. Women contemporary films directed, written, and have lives (Oh, yes, we do!), but there were even edited by women had precedents in more biopics about women back in the stu Craig's Wife (1936, Dorothy Arzner, Mary C. Leigh Brackett Brackett wrote wrote many many scripts scripts for for dio era than today. I've counted, so perhaps McCall Jr., and Viola Lawrence). Howard Hawks, (photo courtesy of Photofest) you • hould discard the above aside.

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This content downloaded from 2.100.109.214 on Wed, 01 Jan 2020 17:55:55 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Some critics have whom had been in noted that women the business for years tend to follow a and worked together down ward-spiral when they could storyline, but you afford it. There was can't blame all of this also a sense, perhaps on male writers drawn from the (Helen Deutsch, for American Progressive example, worked on Era—a time when Lillian Roth's I'll Cry culture was perceived, Tomorrow, 1955, and and sometimes deni Kate Lanier scripted grated, as feminine— Tina Turner's bad that women were the marriage in What's key arbiters and con Love Got to Do With sumers of culture. It, 1993). Men tend These days, we are to achieve something conditioned to make in biopics (money, value judgments ren sex, and money, to dered unconsciously keep things simple), Sofia Coppola's remake of The Beguiled (2017) suggests that more female directors is not from canonical cul but some achieve the solution to the current problem of women in Hollywood or portrayals of women in film.film tural misogyny and ments are relative worship of the great (in Alexander Korda's The Private Life They're of all yours. Anatomically, if we view male artist; Gone With the Wind is historical Henry VIII, 1933, success is measured Hollywood in as a big, bad, undead cultural trash, but Citizen Kane (1941) is a great clas women's heads) and women get some patriarch, our cinematic vampire started off sic. Duel in the Sun is just "lust in the dust" excitement, too, depending on how you far more liberal, original, and inventive. As and not a real Western. John Ford's The define it (The Warrior's Husband, 1933; Lil Claudette Colbert once said, using one of Pre Searchers (1956) is the best Western ever lian Russell, 1940; Flight for Freedom, 1943; ston Sturges's best lines, "Men don't get made (according to Martin Scorsese). Orson Magnificent Doll, 1946; Diane, 1956; The smarter as they grow older; they just lose their Welles bowed at John Ford's throne, so we all Unsinkable Molly Brown, 1964). Again, there hair." Our Hollywood vampire has become must also genuflect. The American Film Insti are too many exceptions from an androgy more conservative politically, takes fewer risks, tute, the British Film Institute, and all the little nous studio era to make this gender split and hangs onto his equity (staple Marvel or satellite film committees have their critics and work. One could argue, however, that DC genres with movie toy tie-ins and Ama directors voting on the best films of all time. biopics these days are largely about men and zonian red lipsticks rather than standalone, Should we now cheer because the Cannes written by men. Go ahead and count—make prestige projects). If and when feminism and Film Festival has become a vehicle to endorse my day. women's stories can be seen to make a buck, the odd female director and a stage for Now, some might argue that the best they will surely be exploited in a geriatrically actresses to complain about their salaries? prick flick ever is Lawrence of Arabia (1962). safe way, well medicated with political correct In the midst of this gender mayhem, After all, there are hardly any women in it. ness. This is happening now, but only to a Steinem has thrown us a youngish, white, Well, there were arguably more women in small extent, unlike several generations ago, monosyllabic straw-man fan of "prick flicks" the crew than the cast, and by all accounts when there was a solid foundation of women to dismember. She would do well to look at they did not have nonspeaking roles (editor filmmakers, writers, editors, actors, executives, the other end of this cinematic apparatus. Anne Coates, designer Phyllis Dalton, and and journalists in Hollywood—many of Focusing on recent gender/genre binaries continuity girl Barbara identifies only a small Cole). But Peter part of the larger ana O'Toole as a blonde tomical problem that was arguably better remains unseen due to looking than Julie widespread historical Christie (this may also myopia regarding the explain the film's studio system and broad male fan base), director-based auteur so I can well under ism. Feminist film crit stand why over the ics need to resharpen years gay and straight their knives. ■ female spectators have admired and identi End Notes: fied with the educated, 1 From Reverence to Rape: illegitimate, sexually The Treatment of Women in the Movies by Molly ambiguous outsider. Haskell (Penguin Books,Books, Director David Lean 1973). was also that rare 2 Popcorn Venus: Women, combination of an Movies, and the American epic womanizer and a Dream by Marjorie Rosen feminist. (Avon Books, 1974). 3 "Women HaveHave 'Chick'Chick Anything starring Flicks.' What About Men?" Russell Crowe, Mel Gib by Gloria Steinem, The son, or the Afflecks is a New York Times, March 2, prick flick. Okay, fine. Girls I justjust wantwant toto have have fun: fun: Charlize Charlize Theron Theron as askick-ass kick-ass action action hero hero in Atomicin Atomic Blonde Blonde (2017), (2017), 2017, availableavailable at at agree. Take them. which, due to its special FX, Steinem would havehave ruledruled aa "prick"prick flick."flick." (photo(photo courtesycourtesy ofof Photofest)Photofest) www.nytimes.com.

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