October 1, 2021

 Alice Fraser posted an entry on her Patreon that I liked. She talked about the discussion over whether or not to have a female James Bond. Her thought being that the behavior and flaws of the character are linked to being a straight white man, i.e. the dominant cultural identity. If Bond were a women, he'd be a different character. So why not create a totally different character? From a business point of view, it's definitely that creating a new character is much more risky. There's security in a known quantity, a guarantee of making at least some of your money back. 

Alice goes on: 

"I don’t think people want a female Bond or a black Bond, they just want the authority and status and legitimacy conferred by the 007 legacy. They want someone who is as famous and beloved as Bond, but isn’t that character. Which is fair enough. The weight of history and the benefit of the doubt that comes with the repeated success of a franchise is a huge deal. Which is an understandable thing to want, but to get it by just … superimposing X on the template is not a big step forward. It’s trickle down cultural economics. You can’t overturn patriarchal mores by insisting on being accepted and applauded by the patriarchy. It feels like a shortcut up the ladder, but is ultimately self defeating, because isn’t the goal to build more ladders, and stairs, and general upward-helping structures?"

And: 

"What happens when people of oppressed groups can’t conceive of a model for success that doesn’t involve cosplaying as the oppressors is the same oppression in a different hat. It doesn’t really matter if it has a new face, or if it is being done unwillingly or ironically or sarcastically."

These are good questions. It reminds me of James Tiptree Jr.'s "Houston, Houston, do you read?" She's come up with a society that's been summarily composed of women for hundreds of years, and it's not just that women are in charge -- the whole society is different. It values different things. Other examples: Herland, The Dispossessed. Notably, all three of these stories are science-fiction, which makes sense as the job of science fiction is to think about societal overhauls. Not just to mimic variations on examples we already have. 

MLog Time! 

**SPOILERS**

MCCABE & MRS. MILLER

1971

Directed by: Robert Altman

Written by: Robert Altman, Brian McKay

Based on: McCabe by Edmund Naughton

Watched: 9/30/21

Set during the American frontier days in Washington state, John McCabe (a rumored gunfighter) is building a saloon in a new mining town. He sets up a makeshift whorehouse – three unsightly woman in their own tents – and gets to work. Mrs. Miller, a formidable woman with a cockney accent, arrives and makes a deal with him: she’ll set up and run a proper brothel if he puts up the money for the building. She’ll pay him back and they’ll split profits 50/50. He agrees, and Mrs. Miller brings women down from Seattle. They build a bathhouse (which the men are required to use before they partake of the brothel’s services) and a nice structure for the girls to live and work in. They’re making plenty of money before long. Too much money. Representatives from a business come down and try to buy McCabe out. (They successfully buy out the other man in town who owns the restaurant and hotel.) McCabe bargains with them, trying to push up the price. He continues to do so even after Mrs. Miller warns him that the company will resort to violence. The men leave and send three hitmen in their stead. McCabe tries to make a deal, but it’s too late. (Upon meeting McCabe, the lead hitman concludes that McCabe has never killed a man in his life, a far cry from the dangerous gunslinger he was rumored to be.) As McCabe tries to kill and not be killed by the hitmen, the church catches on fire and everyone scrambles to put it out. McCabe kills the would-be assassins by hiding in various buildings. The last man he kills by pretending to have gotten shot and then firing at the man at close range. Unfortunately, McCabe had been shot in the stomach, and he dies outside in the snow while Mrs. Miller lies sedated in an opium den. (Thank you Wikipedia for that last phrase.) I should add that McCabe and Mrs. Miller had been sleeping together, but Mrs. Miller always charged him her usual fee. 

This movie is beautiful. It feels real and immersive and like it’s getting at how frontier towns at that time really might have been. The whorehouse looked positively cozy. Warren Beatty played McCabe. He plays him awkward, antsy, almost ADD, bumbling but with plenty of ego and projected confidence. Definitely not your John Wayne type cowboy. I should have liked the performance – I like it on paper. But I felt like Beatty was self-satisfied in the role. Like Look at me act! I’m really acting! I’m sure that’s a projection on my part. I’m reading Miriam Margolyes’ memoir right now, and she describes the first time she met Beatty. First thing he said was, “Do you fuck?” I just really get creepy uncle vibes from him, and it’s distracting. 

I also had trouble paying attention. I would have enjoyed the movie more if I saw it in a theater, I think. Distractions eliminated. The beauty full size. Some of it’s my fault, but I definitely didn’t like this one as much as I would have wanted to. 

Rating: ★★1/2