The
first film in my Analysis of The Films of Karyn Kusama, is the coming-of-age
drama Girlfight. As with Christopher Nolan and Following,
a
lot of what we see here from Kusama is in its embryonic stages. While Kusama
has always had a decerning eye and a distinct filmmaking style, her shot
compositions, themes, pacing, and narrative structure has a rustic organization
in this debut, which gets refined with each subsequent film. This is mostly due
to the struggles with financing and control of the film, (Something that has
always plagued Kusama) rather than a sharp improvement in quality. In looking
at Kusama’s first feature through a Sociological lens, it is both a product and
representation of the 90’s movie scene. The film also wrestles with third wave
feminism while also embodying the idea of female anger as a path to empowerment.
In this paper, I tackle the intersections of this film with the changing
landscape of feminism at the time it was made; as both a reflection of the
struggles fought, and the foundation for the mainstreaming of feminism, by
turning it into a product.
PLOT
An angsty and angry teen,
Diana (Michelle Rodriquez in her first role), seeks an outlet for her emotional
turmoil and an escape from the aggression and emotional abuse of her father. Finding solace in a local boxing gym, and its
training by its sagely patron (Jaime Tirelli) Diana goes on a journey of self-discovery.
As she grows in skills and confidence with each win, Diana challenges the
masculine gatekeeping and casual sexism in the sport’s culture, going so far as
to sacrifice her burgeoning relationship with a fellow boxer, when he becomes
an obstacle.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Production
Kusama conceived of this
film in 1992 when she was taking boxing classes at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn. Kusama
wanted to circumvent the typical boxing story by placing a woman at its center,
something that was still novel and had resistance against in the late 1990’s
when she was putting the film together. This lack of confidence in a female led
boxing film caused the initial financier to pull out of the project two days
before pre-production was about to begin (Smith 2000). The American Film
Institute contributed $300,000, but most of the funding came from Kusama’s
mentor, John Sales, who believed in the film’s premise and Kusama’s vision.
Production only lasted 24
days because that was how long the financing would last and still allow for
consistency across all aspects of the filmmaking. Kusama scouted locations that
would fit the scene as is; rather than having to dress the set themselves,
thereby saving time and money. The result was that the main gym location had
paint chipping off the walls and poor ventilation which caused some health issues
for the cast and crew. Because they had to shoot on real locations, there was
also a lot of difficulty maintaining sound as they could not afford to block off
whole parts of the city, or even be able to have a track car. Everything was whittled down to be shorter and
simpler than originally conceived, to stretch the small budget as far as it
could go.
Third-Wave
Feminism
According to Jessica Valenti (2014) Feminism can be
defined as:
1) The belief in the social, political,
and economic equality of all the sex and gender identities within the gendered
spectrum, which incorporates an understanding of standpoint differences based
upon age, race, class, disability, sexual orientation, cultural and religious
ideology.
2) An organization and socio-political movement
around such a belief.
Since 1848, the US Feminist movement
has
been organized into “waves”; each with specific goals, achievements,
setbacks, problems, and prominent figures. Currently, there have been four
consecutive waves of feminism, with the possibility of a “Fifth Wave” emerging.
During the development and production of Girlfight, feminism had just
recently entered its “Third wave”.
Coined by Rebecca Walker in 1992, due to the outrange felt by many after the
appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court after the Anita Hill decision,
Third wave feminism (1989-2010) was known for fighting back the
anti-feminist movement that rose out of the hyper conservative corporate
cultural flavor of 1980’s individualism ( Hyde Amendment, Bombing/ defunding of
abortion clinics, murdering of abortion doctors). The Movement saw many successes:
the Sexual Harassment ban by hostile environment 1986, the
most women elected to congress at one single time in 1992, The federal ban
against raping your wife 1993, The Family medical leave Act 1993, Violence
against women Act 1994, FGM being made illegal in US in 1997, No Late term
abortions 2003, and the Liddy Ledbetter Act of 2009.
Even with these successes, third
wave feminism was not without its struggles and detractors. Many in the third
wave were weaned on feminism from their second wave parents, it being like
“fluoride in the water” for some of them (Baumgardner and Richards 2000). Because
of this, many in the Third Wave had their brand of activism compared to their
parents; often by their parents themselves. The former chastising the latter
for not being serious enough and taking the struggles and successes of the second
wave for granted.
Because the feminism of the second
wave was ubiquitous for a lot of third wave activists, that as the third wave
began to take shape, there was an active resistance to the term feminism. The
Second Wave had struggled to shake off the gender stereotypes put upon them as only
wives and mothers by showing that they were more than the societal roles
they were assigned. The public responded with the most vile and misogynistic
feminist stereotypes that were also racist and homophobic. This made sure that
anyone who identified as a feminist, the stereotype would henceforth be applied,
and they would be shunned. This made “Feminism” into “the other F word”. Many
in the public actively rejected it regardless of whether their personal
politics aligned or not. Thus, people could spout feminist rhetoric and still
champion women’s rights, but they would always stop short of calling themselves
a “feminist”, often invoking the racist homophobic stereotype(s) as a reason. Many
(usually white) women would go on to declare that they support women’s rights,
and believe in women’s equality, but they would not call themselves a
“Feminist”. Typical reasons would be: “because they love men”, or “aren’t angry
and like to wear dresses”; believing these things to be mutually exclusive, due
to the second wave stereotype. This criticism continued even among feminists. Many
older Second Wave Feminist pushed back against the cis gender presenting
“girlie feminism” of some members of the third wave who embraced the desire to
express a more feminine presenting identity, including the occasional wearing of
make-up and high heels. An image that Second Wave scholars worked so hard to
dispel. It was this unfortunate rejection of feminism in the public
consciousness that allowed it to become popularized and eventually commodified.
Embodied by the glam girl power of the Spice Girls in the mid 90’s, the popularization of feminism became an unintentional harbinger of what Andi Zeisler (2016) calls “Marketplace Feminism”. A consequence of Marxian commodification and cultural assimilation, Marketplace Feminism is the “celebrity consumer embrace of feminism that positions it as a cool fun accessible identity that anyone can adopt… [becoming] decontextualized [and] depoliticized (Zeisler 2016: xiii). This is a product of the commodification of ideology that allows for the expression of beliefs and identity to be satisfied through consumerism. No longer do you need to provide your activist street cred Bona fides; instead, you can just by a t-shirt, tote bag or water bottle while sharing an Instagram story and retweeting your favorite Feminist you follow. However, it is important to note that digital activism and the online feminist communities are not the problem (we wouldn’t have the fourth wave without it). Even the popularity of feminism is not the problem. The problem, is when that ideology and movement becomes absent of historical and political contexts and a driving force for change ( Zeisler 2016). By combining consumerism and activism into a single action, feminism and other ideologies are ultimately weakened. It minimizes the likelihood of active participation in their respective movement(s). People instead believe that they have done enough through their consumerist action, which now absolves them of the guilt of just being a consumerist (Zizek 2009). Being a consumerist and an activist can now be performed through the same behavior. This causes many people to engage/express their ideologies in extraordinarily mundane ways, making activism just another activity. It is the capitalistic transformation of the sacred into the profane (Durkheim 2001, Weber 2019). We have seen this with a variety of protest participants during the marches of 2016 and 2020, whom either after or before the marches, had brunch, went shopping, or other leisure activities.
This was the feminist climate in
which Kusama’s film was both a product of third wave feminism and a foundation
for its subsequent fourth wave. The term “Girlfight”, as Kusama uses it here, is
an evocative reversal of the public use of the term and its derivatives (“chick
fight” etc.), that is far more pejorative, much like the term feminist itself.
The irony not being lost on Kusama, that in her film about a female boxer, the
first fight that we see Diana in at the start of the film is the stereotypical hair
pulling “girlfight”, which, in addition to the juxtaposition of Diana’s skill
level at the end of the film, provides a reimagining of the term once Diana
sets foot in the ring.
“[Feminists are] just women who don’t want to be treated
like shit. S. U.
SOCIAL ANALYSIS
Gender
Socialization of Emotions: Rage
Through the gender
socialization of the binary system (the false belief that there are only two
genders based on sex assigned categories) emotions get gendered and erroneously
dichotomized. Through a variety of outlets and mechanisms, boys get the message
that the only emotion that they have access to, for public display, is anger.
Not only is this denying the emotional complexity of boys outright, but it has
the added consequence of teaching boys to filter all their intricate emotions
through the lens of anger. Therefore, boys learn to express love through anger,
fear through anger, confusion through anger etc. And, since that expression of
anger is corporealized through violence, violence becomes masculine and exclusive
to men. Any man who expresses another emotion not through their protective
anger amulet, will be sanctioned, cracking their very fragile masculinity, and
having to rebuild it through violence, sexism, or self-medication (fighting,
sexual conquest, and alcohol consumption, respectively). This also makes any violent
sport exclusively masculine; building an exclusionary culture around it that is
difficult to penetrate.
Meanwhile, women are
allowed to publicly feel and express a variety of different emotions with
little sanction, as long as one of those emotions isn’t anger. Public
expression of anger is so illusive to women that when they feel it, they need
to bury it or deflect it. Otherwise, they will be sanctioned by being called
overly emotional, erratic, psychotic or have men suspiciously blame their anger
on menstruation…every day. In this
process, women are excluded from the masculine monopoly of violence especially
any activity that produces it, especially Boxing.
Girlfight is
a film that challenges these fraudulent notions of emotional exclusivity while
displaying the difficulty of having to navigate the system and cultural
behaviors that have made this emotional duplicity endemic in our society. At
every turn, Diana hits the wall of sexism. Whether that be when she tries to
get a trainer, a proper sparring partner or a real legitimate match, she is
constantly told what girls are, and therefore what she should be. This resistance is fueled not only by basic
gender socialization of emotions, but by the symbolic fear of castration.
“The spectacle of women
with power interacting with the spectacle of women deploying guns, filet
knives, lead pipes, and tanks gave the news media chills- and plenty to churn
through, and sell as they both manage and inflamed what, in retrospect, seems
like a national bout of Castration Anxiety” (Douglas 2010:56)
In Girlfight, Adrian is afraid to fight Diana
because of what losing to her would mean, and he tries to back out. Similarly,
Diana’s father is worried how her boxing will negatively affect him.
Power has been defined
and represented through the male body for most of the media’s existence,
defining power in physical strength and emotional stoicism. This has become so
intrinsic to the male identity that it tips the hand of fragile masculinity. It
reveals that Masculinity is not powerful, it is not divine; Instead, it is a
mechanism of social control which teaches cisboys and cismen to deflect,
repress and supplant their fear through violence. Because all Cismen are in a
perpetual state of fear, without the tools to change it, when ciswomen enter a
male space, there is a fear of alienation and usurpation among men. Thus, men
use anger as a destructive force to raze and ruin. This infantile expression illustrates
the perpetual state of arrested development most men find themselves in; using
violence to achieve their selfish desires.
Conversely,
our society does not give women a place for their anger. There is no
institution, faith, or system where they can go to unburden themselves. This is
because anger and rage are so anathematic to the concept of femininity (Lenz
2018). Therefore, women must carve out space for themselves and their anger (as
Diana did with Boxing). When women are able to harness their anger, they, unlike
men, are neither apocryphal nor selfish. Many women have cultivated and channeled their
anger into activism (Traister 2018). Their outrage becomes nightmare fuel for
the patriarchy, using it to smash the oppressive system into powder, while not
being above violence to achieve that dismantling, and having an emotional
catharsis while doing it. Diana embodies
this towards the end of Girlfight when she finally stands up to her
drunken father, beats him and expresses her dominance over him. At the end of
the film, Diana finds both a place for her anger (in boxing) and uses it to smash
the patriarchically oppressive yok of her family.
CONCLUSION
Karyn
Kusama’s Girlfight is not only a treatise on third wave feminism and the
importance of the harnessing of female rage, but it was also the grand
entrance for Karyn Kusama into the film industry. Beloved by the festival
circuit, this film was either nominated or won all the awards. Between Cannes
and Sundance, Kusama became the indie darling. Despite the film underperforming
at the box office (not making even its modest budget back), Kusama got through
the door, but unfortunately with her next film, Aeon Flux, Kusama got too
far ahead of the audience that was going to judge her.
REFERENCES
Baumgardner,
Jennifer and Amy Richards 2000. Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the
Future New York: Farrer, Straus and Giroux
Douglas,
Susan J. 2010. Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism’s Work
is Done. New York: Times Books.
Durkheim,
Emile 2001. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life New York: Oxford
University Press
Lenz,
Lyz 2018. “All the Angry Women” Pp 155-166 In Not That Bad: Dispatches from
Rape Culture edited by Roxane Gay New
York: Harper Perennial
Smith,
Dinitia (October 1, 2000). "FILM; Now It's Women's Turn to Make It in the
Ring". The New York Times.
Traister,
Rebecca 2018. Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of a Woman’s Anger. New
York: Simon and Schuster
Valenti,
Jessica 2014. Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism
Matters 2nd(ed) New York: Seal Press
Weber,
Max 2019. Economy and Society: A New Translation Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press
Zeisler,
Andi 2016. We were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrl to CoverGirl, the Buying
and Selling of a Political Movement
Zizek,
Slavoj 2009. First as Tragedy then as Farce New York: Verso Books
